Chapter Four – Nic
What other answer could I give her? I smelled her at the door outside, when she was trying to get in, and sitting across from her now… I know exactly what I want. I’d be a liar if I say anything else, and I am not a liar.
No, Nic Alabaster is an honest man.
Beside me, Warren’s back straightens when I tell Mercedes I want her. His nostrils flare; being in a suit is torture for him. Being in a suit and forced to play nice is an even worse torture. His history with alpha-omega relationships isn’t the best; he doesn’t think our pack needs one, but I know differently.
We need an omega, and Mercedes is our missing link. I can feel it in my soul.
The look she gives me tells me she wasn’t expecting me to say anything remotely close to that, and she’s so cute when she stammers out, “Uh, that’s not… that’s not exactly what I meant—”
“It is,” I say with a grin. “You asked me what I want, and I want you. Shall I write an official offer right now? Where’s your sponsor?” I glance around, already knowing. She was alone as she tried to get in, so I doubt she has a sponsor. I’d like to hear her explanation why.
“I don’t have one,” she says. “It’s just me.”
“Just you? Why?”
She shifts on her chair, coughing and turning her face away from me. With the way her long brown hair is pulled to one shoulder, the action gives me a nice, long view of her neck, and I’m hit with her scent, the strongest wave yet.
And what does she smell like? Sweet. Like sugar. Cotton candy in the shape of a person. I do have a mighty big sweet tooth.
“Um,” she starts, “my last name is Solus. Technically I’m not supposed to be here. I kind of crashed the ceremony. It’s why I was trying to get in through the front—I didn’t know.” Her light brown eyes meet mine, and in their depths I see a strong, feisty omega who’s willing to step on some toes if it means getting what she wants.
And she wants freedom?
She can have that in my pack, I’m sure of it.
“Solus,” I repeat. “Isn’t that the omega school on Solus Street?” I want to smack myself right after I say it. Of course that’s what she meant. The old hoodie she was wearing when trying to get in, the fact she was alone; it’s all evidence of the fact that she doesn’t have a family to take care of her.
A bad position to be in, if you’re an omega.
All Mercedes does is nod, looking a bit uncomfortable, like she doesn’t enjoy talking about it. I suppose I can’t blame her.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We could take care of you—” She looks at me sharply at that, and I instantly know I said the wrong thing. “Or let you do your own thing. You want freedom? We can give that to you. If you become a part of our pack, no one will bother you. You can do whatever you want.”
She glances between me and Warren. “So, your pack is just the two of you?”
I look at Warren, and all he does is shrug. A barely imperceptible gesture I only notice because I grew up with Warren, and once we got old enough, we worked together. We may not be brothers by blood, but we are brothers nonetheless.
“Actually,” I say, turning my attention back to Mercedes, “there’s another. A third alpha.”
That makes her frown. “A third alpha, and he’s not here tonight? What kind of alpha doesn’t come when his pack is trying to find an omega?”
The easy answer to that is an alpha who doesn’t think we need an omega, but I don’t want to tell her that. Darius is the head of our pack, the eldest by five years, and seven years older than me. He didn’t forbid me coming here, but he did force Warren to come watch over me. He’s of the same mind as Warren when it comes to omegas: that we don’t need one, that our pack is just fine without an omega to round us out.
“He’s… he can be a bit standoffish, but he’s harmless,” I say, though I don’t add: to you . Darius would never harm the omega across from me, but he would, without hesitation, hurt someone who tried to hurt us.
“And he approves of you being here? Don’t you all have to be on the same page?” She looks between me and Warren. “It looks and sounds to me that you’re the only one who wants an omega, Nic.”
“Don’t worry about them,” I tell her. “They’ll both come around, I’m sure of it.”
I can tell I’m losing her. She was interested when she first recognized me, and I know my scent appeals to her—I saw her pupils dilate ever so slightly when she first breathed me in. I have to make her believe this can work.
I want her. I need her. If I don’t leave this ceremony with an accepted offer from Mercedes Solus, I’ll be devastated.
“Mercedes.” I lean an arm on the table, leaning forward as I say, “Give my pack a chance. Don’t write us off. You smell so good I want to bury my nose in the crook of your neck and never come up for air again.” She blushes at that, but I don’t stop. I plow onward: “You’re meant to be ours, I know it.”
She looks away from me, her cheeks still flushed an adorable pink color. “Excuse me.” She doesn’t say anything else as she abruptly stands and hurries away. I’m pretty sure she rushes to the door that separates the ballroom to the omegas-only section.
And just like that, the air in my lungs leaves with her, and I let out a hard breath once she’s gone—and then I quickly inhale again, catching the last whiff of her before it fades, swallowed up by all the other scents in the wide-open room.
I turn my head toward Warren and give him a look. “What’s wrong with you? How can you sit there and act like you don’t care at all?”
All he does is frown at me—a typical Darius look, not a Warren one. “I care. I’m here, aren’t I? More than you can say for Darius.” He groans as he loosens his tie and acts like the fabric is choking him. “I feel itchy. I need to get out of this suit. I don’t know how you’re sitting there, not wanting to rip all your skin off—”
“I don’t want to rip all my skin off because a suit isn’t a torture device,” I whisper. “It’s a suit. Clothes. Nothing more. Get a grip, please. You’re acting psycho.”
“No,” he quickly says. “If I was acting psycho, I would be standing on top of this table, stripping down—which I am clearly not doing.”
“Thank goodness for that,” I say dryly. “That’d be an easy way to scare everyone off.”
“Hmm. Then maybe I should—” He stops when I give him a glare.
I love Warren like a brother, I do, but sometimes he can be a little… let’s just say, too much. There are occasions when he needs to be reminded to act like a human and not an alien.
Scratching around the collar of the shirt beneath his suit jacket, he whispers, “She did smell good, I’ll give you that. Were you serious about putting in an offer for her? Just like that?” The way he says it makes it sound ridiculous, when matches have been made in the span of seconds before.
We’re animals, deep down. When we know, we know. There’s no point in hedging around the subject, tiptoeing around while trying to seem sane. Alphas are hardwired to crave omegas, and when we find the one that sets off everything right inside us, there should be nothing to keep us apart.
“Just like that,” I say with a nod. Although, I’m not sure how an offer to an omega without a sponsor would work. It’s an old-fashioned setup, especially for today’s day and age. An omega’s family typically sponsors her, and the pack who wants her to join them basically pays the family a fee.
Yeah, it’s kind of like high-profile auctions, in a way. I don’t necessarily agree with it. Hell, if anything, the offer should go directly to the omega herself; if anyone should make a profit, it should be the omegas themselves.
I guess, in this way, since Mercedes doesn’t have a sponsor, I’ll be writing the offer directly to her.
“Darius doesn’t want you to come home with an omega,” he reminds me.
“I know, but Darius can go suck an egg.”
That makes Warren laugh, an evil glee in his tone as he says, “I wish we could make him suck an egg. I’d tape the whole thing and keep it for future blackmail.” Quieter, he adds, “You never know when blackmail will come in handy.”
“No blackmailing packmates,” I say with a shake of my head. “Come on, man, you know this.”
He grunts and sinks lower in his chair. “You and Darius are no fun. Always cramping my style, harshing my groove, making me act normal. Yuck.” Based on the way he says it, the complete, utter disdain, it really is obvious Warren prefers to dance to the beat of his own drum.
“Why don’t you go call Darius and tell him about Mercedes while I put in an offer?”
“Oh, so Darius can bite my head off instead? How’s that fair?”
“Do you want to put in the offer while I make the call?”
“I’d rather cut my hand and go skinny dipping with piranhas than do either of those things.”
“Well, there aren’t any pools of piranhas around, so just call Darius, please?”
The look Warren gives me makes me think he’s imagining making me suck an egg, but he thankfully doesn’t put up any more of a fight. He pulls out his phone and gets up, wandering off as he dutifully goes to call Darius.
Though we’re all alphas, Darius is our leader. What he says goes. Technically he could’ve forbade this entire thing, but I think he only let me come with Warren because he feels bad about what happened a few years back. The steely, stony alpha has a soft spot for his brothers, especially when said brother almost died.
Yeah, a lot has happened. A lot I’d rather not think about. Right now, all I want to do is put an offer in for Mercedes and pray to whatever god that will listen she’ll accept.