Chapter Twenty-Eight – Mercedes
Darius oversees everything taking place at the house. Nic and Warren go back to work. Daniel does the same, and that leaves me with Laurie during the day. At first, I try to stay in the bedroom, mostly because I don’t really know how to talk to their mom alone—don’t have much experience dealing with betas who are actually kind.
Or, you know, anyone who’s nice. Maybe that’s why Nic throws me for such a loop sometimes.
But I can only stay in the room for so long before I grow impossibly bored. There’s no TV in there, so it isn’t like I can put something mindless on and zone out for hours on end. Plus I get hungry around lunch time, so I venture downstairs, not knowing what to expect.
Laurie said she’d be home with me all week—I didn’t know if that meant she would take off work for me or if she doesn’t work anymore. I didn’t ask; I’m clearly not much of a conversationalist.
When I make it to the kitchen, I find Laurie humming along to a song playing from her phone in her back pocket as she makes two sandwiches. She must hear me over the music, because without turning around she asks me, “You like turkey, don’t you? If not, I think we still have some sliced ham—but Daniel likes to snack on that when he thinks I’m not paying attention, so I try to leave it for him.”
“Turkey is fine,” I say. “Do you need help?”
“No, no. Just take a seat, honey.”
It’s a strange thing to me, sitting back and letting someone else take care of me. It’s what omegas are good at: letting others fawn over them, but I’ve never been one of them. Probablybecause I always had to fend for myself thanks to Jay.
I sit at the table on the other side of the kitchen and watch as she grabs a knife and cuts the sandwiches diagonally. She then grabs a bag of chips from the cabinet and gives each plate a generous heaping. She brings both plates to the table, setting the one with more chips in front of me, and then retrieves two cans of pop from the refrigerator.
As she sits across from me, she pushes one of the cans toward me and says, “If there’s any food in particular you’d like to have this week, just let me know. I’ll tell Daniel to stop by the grocery store on his way home from work.”
Forcing out a smile, I say, “I’m fine with whatever you have.” I pick up the sandwich—wheat bread, turkey, lettuce, and a thin layer of tomato, it looks like—and take a bite. The turkey at the academy was always dry, but this? Oh, this stuff’s good.
My face must say it all, because Laurie chuckles. “I hope the guys are feeding you properly? You seem skinny.”
“I don’t eat much.” An old habit from being at Solus, I guess. It isn’t like we were given nine course meals every day. Faculty there did the bare minimum to keep us going, to keep us fed and in good health until we became someone else’s problem.
“Which may work now, but when your heat comes, dear, you’ll be ravenous. Your body needs a lot of calories to keep it going without crashing.” She pauses as she sips from her can of pop. “When is your heat due?”
My cheeks flush at her bluntness. Heck, I’m not even sure I’m supposed to talk to her about this; the guys and I have avoided the subject entirely. It takes me a while to say, “Less than three weeks.”
“Do you have a room in the house for you to nest in? I assume Darius handled everything, but after finding out he didn’t go with Nic and Warren to the ceremony, I’m having some serious doubts.” When I don’t answer her right away, she says, “I’m only trying to make sure my sons are taking care of you.”
“It’s fine.” I grab a chip. It is the perfect amount of crispy saltiness. Nothing beats name-brand chips. “I just… I’m not used to talking about it.”
“I see none of them have given you a mate mark yet,” she rattles off while staring at my neck, making me instinctively reach up and rub the crook of my neck. “Officially bonding with you like that should make the pain in your heat lessen, but it’s not necessary if you’re not ready for it yet. I’m certain my boys will follow your lead on that. You’ll need an enclosed space, preferably with no windows—do you have enough blankets and pillows? I can send you home with some when you’re ready to go.”
Talking with the guys’ mom about my upcoming heat is not a conversation I thought I would have today. At Solus, I learned all about heats and what they entail, along with every trick in the book to make those few days more bearable.
All I can say is thank God heats only happen twice a year. Happy birthday to me.
“I think they have everything,” I say, although I guess I don’t really know. Again, I never planned on sticking around long enough to go through my heat with this pack. The more days that pass, though, the less likely my fleeing before it hits is possible.
I might be stuck, and the thought of being so lost in my cravings for alpha knots that I beg them for it makes me feel some kind of way.
“Are you okay, dear?” Laurie asks. “You seem… far off.”
Crap, I need to be better at hiding my thoughts. This woman can read me too well. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just… I don’t know. I’m not really looking forward to it.” To explain that, I have to add, “I’ve never liked being an omega.”
“Being at Solus with how they treat you, I don’t blame you one bit, but it’s not supposed to be like that. That academy needs a complete re-haul, if you ask me.”
Staring hard at the bite I took out of the sandwich, I whisper, “What if they decide they don’t want me anymore? What if I’m too… damaged?” I’m mainly thinking about the bite mark on my hip, but Laurie doesn’t know anything about that—and if I have my way, she’ll never know.
“Oh, Mercedes, I’m sure that’ll never happen.” She sounds comforting, like she means it, but I don’t know if I believe her.
I mean, she doesn’t know the extent of things. All she knows is that someone came to the house and threw a rock in a window. She doesn’t know that someone came there for me, and that same someone made sure to control me ever since his alpha nature presented itself.Heck, even before he officially became an alpha.
“Has Nic told you what happened to him a few years ago?”
Her question pulls me out of my thoughts, and I gently shake my head and say, “No.”
“Well, I don’t want to get too much into it, but I can say, as a mother, it’s a mother’s worst fear. To be faced with your children’s mortality, it’s not something I enjoy remembering.” Her mouth pulls into a smile, but it’s half-hearted thanks to the subject matter. “I only bring it up because you think you’re damaged, and I’m sure you went through terrible things at Solus—but nobody is perfect. We all have scars, whether they’re on the surface or below. My sons are good boys, but they have issues, baggage, and scars just like everyone else.”
The way she’s talking makes it sound like something happened. Not a good thought for me.
Laurie goes on, “I can see why they picked you, and I can see why you picked them in return. Maybe you’re not quite there yet—and that’s more than okay, dear, everyone moves at their own pace—but I think, if you all open yourselves up to it, you four can have a wonderful, life-lasting bond.”
Everything she’s saying is comforting, and it sounds as though she means every word. Still, I just… don’t know. I’m so unsure of everything that I just don’t know if I believe her. I want to, though. I really, really want to.
Because, yes, it would be nice to open my arms and fall in to what this could be. To have found my forever with pack Alabaster and its alphas. But that’s fairytale stuff, and I’m no princess.
I’m thankful we eat the rest of lunch in silence. My thoughts race too much to have any sort of conversation right now. I’m torn between wanting to be hopeful and knowing it would be better for all of us if I just left.