Chapter 16 #2
Anamaria squats before me, taking hold of both my hands again.
“He didn’t want you to know partly because he worried that it would infect you in some way when you’d already made sacrifices to be with him, and for a dozen other reasons.
” She twists at an odd, surely uncomfortable angle to catch my eye.
“Was he right? Doesn’t matter. He can’t change what he did and didn’t do.
You can’t change it, either. It’s over and done. ”
“I wish—”
“Wishes are like hot air, they rise and go, and make no difference.”
Harsh words, yet they settle something in me. Not much, just enough that I take a deep breath and sit back. She’s right. I can’t change anything, just understand more, though all that she’s shared raises more questions about what I missed, and why Max kept it from me.
“How did we even get to this in the first place?” The words slip out without my bidding, and I only realize it when Anamaria smiles.
“I’m getting to that.” She plops down to sit on the ground in front of me.
“Max’s fear eased some as time passed and alphas didn’t attack him.
As he got therapy and realized how much damage he took from his family of origin.
And as he got more control over neutralizing his scent, especially in the weeks leading up to his heat. ”
“No wonder he was particularly invested in scent experiments those first years.” I touch one of the mint-colored balls dangling from Anamaria’s ears, which I’m so used to seeing her wear that I rarely pay much attention.
They’re one of many ways omegas—and to a lesser degree alphas—can reduce or shift their scents to be less noticeable.
Ironically, one of the few innovations to which Max made no contribution.
“Also, as Max’s terror ebbed, he was able to better appreciate what his fear had cost you.”
“Me?”
“He didn’t want a pack like his parents, though he admired Dad’s family, my grandparents’ pack, so he knew about good models alongside bad.
But while he was still pretty young and unsure of himself as an omega, someone or something convinced him that, no matter that he didn’t like sex, if he bonded an alpha his scent might throw the alpha into rut when he wasn’t in heat. ”
She draws in a hissing breath, voice lowering as she glances at the kitchen where Corin waits on us. “I might not have believed him at first, but you know how much Caity struggled to control her alpha when she presented.”
Only a year past, the memories are still so fresh we both shudder.
Caity had slammed at least one door a day, some so hard they cracked.
We had to move most fragile things out of reach or tuck them away after too many accidents.
By the end of the first month, everyone walked on tiptoes around her, careful to go slow and easy, because any little thing might set her off.
All that, without the complication of an unrelated omega’s scent in the mix.
I don’t know if it’s real, or new knowledge rewriting memories, but thinking back on it, Max had stayed especially far away from Caity until she got herself under control.
“But he was getting over his anxiety, I promise. For your sake.” Anamaria grabs my hands and squeezes.
“You say that, but how? Why?”
“Some time last year, he realized how much you wanted a pack. That having us around helped for a while, but once Bebe, Caity, and I moved out, it was just the three of you—and you weren’t really a pack, just an approximation of one.
” Rising, Anamaria pulls one rose of each color from the vase and holds them out.
“He’s not here to open his heart and keep facing his dread, but he’d be delighted others appreciate you. ”
Such surety in her voice, though I’m not quite so convinced. Not this fast, one fell swoop and poof.
I’d lived through the end of Max’s last heat, when he lashed out at the mere hint that I might be interested in Nathan. Or was Max’s omega behind the challenge?
“You’ve given me much to think about.” I tuck the roses back into the arrangement, leaving it almost as it was.
Rather than pushing, Anamaria ushers me back into the kitchen where we drink reheated coffee and eat slightly cold toast over the counters. She and Corin carry the conversation, discussing her progress toward licensure and joining an established practice or setting up her own.
Just as well, for amid all the new information, all the revelations circling my brain, one core question stands out.
Max’s fear of alphas had long trails back to his childhood, but he’d been willing to explore packing up when we first met.
He hadn’t seemed particularly nervy around alphas when we’d first started dating in college.
He even went on several casual group dates involving alphas.
When Dan and I started getting serious, I asked him and Max to go out together, hoping to be part of a pack of four or five.
To me, they seemed to me to have a lot in common, both facing difficulties adapting to their designations.
The first date went okay enough that they arranged a second.
There was no third.
By the time Max and I graduated, he talked only about what the two of us might do together. He wasn’t interested in alphas except for his heats—and he worried about losing me.
What changed things?
Easy to spot the likely cause. After that second date with Max, Dan demanded I choose between them. Although Max laid down no ultimatums, he made it clear he would never pack up with Dan.
Neither ever explained why.
Dan is due at the midday meeting with Corin and Anamaria and whoever else.
But before I meet him in their company, I want to get him alone and extract some straight answers. He owes me—and Max—that much.