Chapter 44
I had stayed up half the night in tears.
They hadn’t shown.
They hadn't messaged.
They hadn't done anything.
Lavender had stayed up with me, and at my request, she hadn't even messaged my brother about what happened. Because if Kane knew how upset I was, he was probably going to track down Carter, Dylan, and Asher and murder them in their sleep.
Even though I was heartbroken that they didn't come for me, I wasn't going to set an angry alpha on them. This was a kind of pain I wasn't used to. I felt like my heart had been ripped open and stomped on right in front of me. I didn’t know what time we finally fell asleep, but the incessant chirping of my phone woke me up.
Blindly, I batted around my nest, trying to find my phone, lifting it to my eyes and glaring blearily at it. Squinting, so I could read the notification, it showed that I had a meeting. Now. It’s five in the morning. Who the hell wants to talk to me at this ungodly hour?
“ Who is it? ” Lavender groaned next to me as she rolled over. “Tell them to go away. We need sleep.”
“Apparently, I've got a meeting now,” I said, showing her my phone.
Her eyes flicked open and she sat up, taking the phone off me. “That's weird. Did you have anything booked?”
I glared at her. “At five in the morning?” I asked incredulously.
She shook her head. “No, of course, you don't. Usually, the keepers wouldn't even bother us with this at this hour. I'm curious, do you think one of the packs turned up together to see you?”
“When would they ever let in a pack in the middle of the night to see one of us?” I asked.
Lavender cocked her head to the side. “You're right there. Okay, I think I want to explore this. We can go stop by the twenty-four-hour cafeteria, grab some snacks, maybe some breakfast, maybe some late-night boozy snacks, and just poke our head in and see who it is. 'Cause, I don't know about you, but the curiosity is going to kill me if I don't find out who that is.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “Fine, but I am not getting dressed,” I said, looking down at my body. I was wearing a small pajama set that consisted of a teeny tiny pair of shorts covered in miniature Donuts and a T-shirt that said I was do-nought adorable . It was corny and I loved it. And, usually, I would have changed before meeting anyone, but at five in the morning, I was beyond caring.
“I happen to like what you're wearing,” Lavender said with a smirk. She was wearing an almost identical set of pajamas, except hers had little baby unicorns all over them and the saying on her T-shirt was I'm Horny .
I sighed, crawling out of my nest. “Come on, then, let's go get some food.”
Lavender had joined me in my room after the debacle of the day. She stayed with me while I cried, held my hand, fed me snacks, and we had eventually fallen asleep together in a little omega cuddle puddle.
Now, we padded down the hallway, waving down one of the keepers who was standing in the hallway. It was one of the night keepers that I didn't know quite as well. I thought his name was Lucas.
“Hi,” I said, showing him my phone. “Apparently, we've got a meeting we need to go to, but we're going to stop by the cafeteria first. Who's running the meeting rooms right now?” I asked. “Are they even open?”
The keeper looked down at my phone. “That is highly unusual. Urm, go to the main desk and find Gregory. He'll tell you if you should even go to that meeting, or if this is just a computer glitch. Honestly, I think it's a computer glitch. There's no way in hell we’d have meetings at this time.”
“That's what I thought, but it woke me up, anyway, so we're gonna get snacks,” I said. “Do you want us to bring anything back for you?”
The keeper smiled. “I won't say no to cookies.”
I nodded with a smile before linking arms with Lavender, and we made our way down the corridor toward the cafeteria and meeting rooms.
Ten minutes later, our arms were full of several bags of snacks as we made our way towards the meeting rooms. They were an offshoot from the main building, linked by the main reception. Keeper Gregory was one of the head keepers, and apparently, he was working, so we made our way to the desk. “Is Keeper Gregory around?” I asked the receptionist who beamed at me.
“He is. I'll go get him right now, miss.” She disappeared behind the desk, and a minute later, Keeper Gregory came striding out.
“Juniper, I'm so sorry if we woke you.” He looked exhausted, like he'd run his hands through his hair several times that morning. The poor man put up with a lot. He had dealt with kidnapped omegas, he had dealt with omegas who’d run away. He dealt with a lot of problems, and I was surprised he wasn't permanently gray at this point.
“Was it just a computer glitch?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “That doesn't matter, if it was. We managed to stop and get some snacks, so it wasn't a wasted trip.” I grinned.
Keeper Gregory shook his head. “Nope, it's a real meeting. Urm, I don't even know how to explain it, but maybe go to meeting room three, and you’ll see what I mean?”
I stared at him questioningly. “That's not ominous.”
“Trust me, it's nothing bad, but… I don't really know how to explain the chaos that just came upon my Haven at five this morning. I need more coffee,” he said, and next to me, Lavender giggled.
“Go get yourself a coffee. We're gonna go take a look, though if anyone's mean to us, I reserve the right to have a keeper shoot them,” Lavender said pointedly. Gregory merely waved in agreement as he wandered back behind the desk, undoubtedly to go find the coffee machine. Lavender turned to me with a grin. “This is fascinating, let's go.” She dragged me in the direction of meeting room three.
The meeting room was empty. Lavender and I sat in a pair of armchairs, pulling out our snacks. I opened up a chocolate bar and took a big bite. “This is so weird,” I said, and Lavender nodded as she munched on a cookie.
“Yeah, it’s bizarre. I wanna know who thinks it's okay to disturb you this early.”
I nodded and opened my mouth to reply when the door on the other side of the room opened, and from behind the glass, I saw several people tumble into the room. It took a second for their presence to register, but as soon as it did, I was standing up. My guys. They were the exact same, although they were a bit cleaner cut, and they had a bit less hair, but they were my guys. Asher, Dylan, and Carter. What the hell are they doing here? Why weren't they here hours ago? Did they come just to mess with me?
“ What are you doing here?” I asked as they all rushed to the glass.
“Holy shit, I am so sorry we are late,” Carter said. I looked him up and down, noticing the cast on his arm.
“Why are you guys here?” I asked again.
“One year,” Asher said. “We promised we would be here a year to the day.”
I shook my head. “A year ago was yesterday. If you're here for me, you're a bit late,” I said, crossing my arms, and behind me, Lavender let out a squeak.
“Are these your pack? Are these the guys that made you cry yesterday because they didn't turn up?” she asked angrily, standing up. “If that's the case, I'm going to have one of the keepers shoot them.”
The guys looked at her with genuine fear in their expression. Lavender was angry. I would not put it past her.
“No. Well, yes, that is us. But something happened, and we couldn’t make it and then we begged the Haven to let us in to talk to you because we wanted to explain what happened, and we didn't want to think that we abandoned you. Dr. Sarah agreed to let us in. We left a voicemail with the Haven, but it must have gotten lost in the shuffle.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Why would Dr. Sarah let you in?”
“Because she knows that you wanted to see us, and we explained to her that we fucked up and got waylaid,” Asher said bashfully.
“Will someone please explain before I call the keeper?“ Lavender said.
Dylan nodded. “So, we've recently bought an apartment in the city in a building that is safe for omegas, you know, for when this happened.” He gestured to the area around him before swallowing. Is Dylan nervous? It was kind of refreshing to see. “We made friends with the pack that lives on our floor. There are two packs per floor in this building, and the omega of the pack next door is a sweet girl called Emma, and she…” He broke off as I growled.
“Are you really coming here and talking about another omega?” I asked as Lavender made a sound of shock behind me.
Dylan's eyes widened. “No, no, no, no, I'm not doing that. It's all part of the story, I promise.”
“It's true,” Asher said. “Emma is a happily bonded omega with a pack of guys, and she wouldn’t look twice at us, and we didn't want to look twice at her, 'cause we love you, but we should probably explain why we're late,” he rambled.
Carter nodded. “Eeerrrr, that's mostly due to me. I was the idiot. Essentially, our neighbors knew that Asher is a former army medic. One of the alphas fell and hit their head. So, we went to go help them, and this was right as we were about to get out the door to come see you because we all dressed nicely and we were excited. And then I may have slipped on a puddle of grease in their apartment. So, while Asher was bandaging up one of her alpha’s heads, I went flying across the kitchen and broke my arm.” He held up his bright-red-casted arm with a smile.
Dylan pinched his nose. “He didn't just break it, he pretty much shattered the bone. He's potentially going to need surgery on it later because the idiot didn't look where he was running and made us late.”
I glanced between all the guys. They all looked so disheveled, and I couldn't help but giggle.
“Wait, so you guys didn't mean to not turn up? You guys planned to be here yesterday?”
They all nodded.
“Fucking hell, of course we did. We wouldn't miss it for the world. We just ended up missing it because of a fractured, shattered bone,” Dylan said with a grimace.
“But are you still interested?” Asher asked, his face worried. “I know we fucked up, but we're going to fuck up again. This is us. We’re a bunch of idiots, but we want to be your bunch of idiots. We don't want to mess up, and we will do whatever it takes to make it up for you.”
As they spoke, my smile had slowly gotten bigger and bigger. They still wanted me. They still cared about me. And by fuck, I was ready to give this a shot.
“I mean, if you’re willing to get me a pony. I have become accustomed to a life of luxury, after all.” I smirked.
Their faces went through a few emotions, confusion and shock to laughter.
Behind me, Lavender cackled. “Oh, the groveling is going to be so beautiful,” she declared.