Chapter Forty – Mercedes
Me, Nic, and Darius sit in an office in a hospital, waiting on a doctor their family trusts with their lives. Warren would’ve come with us, but he went to meet up with Pax to make sure Jay is ready for me. Two important stops today: this office and wherever they’re holding Jay. Both make me anxious, for different reasons.
When we got here, the doctor asked me questions, and I did my best to answer them. A nurse took samples of my blood. We’re awaiting the results now.
Darius stands off to the side, while Nic took the chair beside mine. He holds my hand, never once taking those dark black eyes off me. “You don’t like doctor offices, do you?” he asks.
My gaze falls to my lap. “It’s not that. It’s… we didn’t go to the doctors at Solus. The academy had its own doctor, so… if I really needed a doctor, I snuck out and went to the omega clinic.”
His hand squeezes mine. “Every time you bring that place up, I can’t believe that’s how they treated you. Don’t worry. You’ll never have to sneak out to go to the doctor again.”
All I do is give him a smile, but I don’t say a word more. Time crawls on, seemingly stretching to infinity, and right when I’m about to ask Darius how much longer this is going to take, the door to the office opens and the doctor walks in, holding onto a clipboard.
The doctor is an elderly gentleman, with wrinkles everywhere you look on his skin. An old alpha, based on his stature, one that commands respect without so much as saying a word. He flips through the papers on his clipboard and goes to sit down on his rolling stool next to me.
When he doesn’t say a word, Darius asks, “Well?”
“I’m afraid the results might not be what you want to hear.” That part he says to me, and then he looks to Darius. “The hormonal stimulant that was injected seems to have dissipated fully in the bloodstream.”
“Explain it to me like I’m ten,” Nic says.
The doctor tries to explain, “I’ve seen stimulants before, but none that have actually worked as quickly as you say this one did. I know the black market is full of mad scientists wanting to create pills or injections that can alter the way someone presents themselves, but I had no clue something like this was out there. There’s no remaining stimulant left in Mercedes.”
“Oh,” Nic says, squeezing my hand. “That’s good then, right?” When the doctor only gives him a look, he sighs and adds, “Explain it to me like I’m five, then. Why is it a bad thing?”
“From what you said, it sounded like this stimulant was meant to kickstart an omega’s heat, push up the natural hormones and set them off. Like pushing them off a bridge, whereas a natural heat, you’d suit up with a bungee cord and a harness first. It did induce a heat, however… the stimulant did not affect the natural hormones. Its effects are completely gone now.”
Even Darius doesn’t understand why this is a bad thing. “I’m failing to see what’s so bad about this, doc.”
The doctor looks at me, a pitiful expression on his face as he says, “Your hormone levels are right where I would expect an omega’s to be before their first heat.” That’s when it hits me, what he’s saying, but the guys need to hear more while I sit there with a sinking feeling in my gut. “That injection didn’t kickstart anything. It induced an artificial heat. Mercedes is still on track to have her first natural heat in about a week and a half, if her levels are averaged against other omegas’.”
“You mean, she’s going to have another heat soon?” Nic’s voice is laced with alarm, and the next time he squeezes my hand, he holds onto me so hard not even a hurricane could pull my hand from his.
Heats are twice a year thanks to how draining they are on the body. I can’t imagine having two heats so close together is healthy. Plus, with how out of my mind I get, how can I feel anything other than dejection?
“Yes,” the doctor says. “Since she just had one, you’ll need to take extra care of her. She’ll probably get worn out faster, spend a lot of the time sleeping. Make sure she eats plenty until the heat starts—with the other having no warning, she’ll need all the extra calories she can ingest.”
I’m sure the guys and the doctor talk a bit more, but I don’t listen to them. I’m too lost in my own head, dreading what’s coming. So Jay’s stupid little shot didn’t induce a natural heat, only an artificial one, and I’m still on-track to have one. It sucks. It totally, completely sucks. The only bright side is that I’ll have more lead-up to it, more time to prepare, unlike before.
I don’t want to have another heat so soon. I want to relax, enjoy my newfound life with the guys now that I’ve officially accepted being a member of their pack. It’s not fair. It’s not. I don’t care how childish that makes me sound. Heats are the opposite of glamorous, regardless of how the media makes them sound.
Darius and Nic must finish up with the doctor, because after that we’re walking out of the office while I still hold onto Nic’s hand. We leave the building and head into the parking garage. Darius drives, while Nic sits in the backseat with me.
“It’s okay,” he tells me. “We’ll handle it together. This one should be easier since we know what’s coming and what you’ll need.” He tucks some of my hair behind my ear. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I just… it just sucks. I hate that Jay did this.”
“You still want to see him?”
I nod. “Yes. One last time.” I want to face him, to stare into his eyes while my guys stand behind me, backing me up, providing me with strength I wouldn’t normally have. I want to tell him that I’m still alive, that his countless attempts at control and domination didn’t work, and that I’m going to live a long, happy life with pack Alabaster while he rots away in prison.
Am I scared to face Jay? Yes and no. Yes, because a part of me will always be the omega who cowered in fear of him, who let him bite her on the hip. But also no, because I’m not that same omega anymore. I’ve moved on, and I want him to know that as the days go by, as weeks turn into months and then years, that I won’t spend a single second thinking about him, wherever he ends up.
Jay is apparently being held in some warehouse on the far edge of the city before Alabaster Security hands him over. We meet Warren just outside the main door to the warehouse, and Warren scoops me up in a bear hug and twirls me around while he asks, “How did the doctor’s appointment go?”
Only when my feet are both flat on the ground do I say, “Great. I’m going to have my first real heat soon.”
“What?” Warren glances at Nic and Darius, the latter of which explains it all to him. “Shit. That fucking sucks. Remind me, once we’re ready to leave here, to kick Jay in the nuts extra hard.” To me, he says, “Well, after that shitty news, are you ready to see your shitty wannabe alpha?”
Shitty wannabe alpha. If that isn’t the perfect way to describe Jay, I don’t know what is. A: he’s shitty. And B: he’s nothing more than a wannabe über alpha who tries too hard to be a bogeyman to me.
And would you look at that? Now that the smoke has cleared, Jay’s absolutely nothing to me.
“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s see him.”
Warren leads the way inside. I follow him, tailed closely by Nic and Darius. We walk into a wide-open space, where a group of men are training in hand-to-hand combat, overseen by a tall, intimidating alpha with light blond hair. He wears a scowl, but when he spots us, that scowl lessens, and he dismisses the group for a water break before coming over to greet us. When he gets closer, I see he has the same green eyes as Darius—in fact, they look remarkably similar, and I vaguely recall him being in the basement, when I was found.
“Pax,” Darius says.
All Pax does is give the guys a nod, and then settle those green eyes on me. “Feeling better, I hope?” Though his voice is curt, I think he’s genuine in caring. Hard to tell; I can totally see why Darius was so off-putting in the beginning. He and his older brother are way too alike.
I nod once. “Yes, thank you. And thank you and your team for saving me.”
“Don’t thank us. Besides, I didn’t even know you might be there until we were on our way and Darius here finally spoke up.” That’s a dig at Darius, accompanied with a dour glance his way. He’s basically a slightly-older mirror to our pack leader, from his height to his muscles, even to his scent.
Of course, he might smell good, but his scent doesn’t drive me crazy.
“All right, we’ve held you up enough. We’re only here to pay Jay a quick visit,” Darius says. “You can get back to your team.”
“Uh-huh,” Pax says with a frown. “Right. Because unlike you three, some of us have work to do.” Whether or not that jab was meant to make fun of them or was serious, I can’t say, but the guys don’t seem to mind, so I shrug it off, too.
Maybe that’s just Pax: kind of rude. Wouldn’t surprise me, given how Darius initially treated me.
Warren brings us through the warehouse, to a hallway with a bunch of doors. No windows, only artificial lighting. We stop at the third door on the left, and Warren is the first to go in. He holds the door open for us.
The room is no larger than ten feet by ten feet, so small it reminds me of the bedroom I had at Solus Academy. The only piece of furniture in the room lies in the center of it, a lone chair with a body tied to it: Jay. I have no clue if he’s been sitting there this whole time, or if they keep their prisoners somewhere else.
Doesn’t matter. I don’t even question whether or not this is legal. I only care about the bruises on Jay’s face and how happy seeing him tied up makes me feel.
“Wakey, wakey,” Warren says, skipping over to where Jay is and knocking him with an open fist on the side of the head, kind of like a slap, only harder.
Jay groans and opens his eyes, and then those eyes of his focus on me. “What…” It’s all he can say. His normally domineering voice is raspy and faint, like he’s been dehydrated. And honestly? He’s looked better. In addition to the bruises on his face, I can tell he’s been wearing the same clothes this whole time—clothes he’s sweat in, probably pissed in, and maybe even shit in.
And then he finally realizes it’s me and not someone else, and he regains an ounce of strength and tugs at his restraints, at the chains keeping his arms held back behind the chair. They don’t give—and even if they did, there are three alphas in the room who would gladly put themselves between him and I.
As the metal clinks and stretches as taut as it can go, I don’t flinch. I don’t even blink. All I do is stare at him with a growing frown on my face, wondering why I let him be the monster in my life for so long.
“Hello, Jay,” I say, taking a single step forward. “I wanted to see you one last time before you… well, before you’re locked up forever.” Locked up, never seen again, whatever. Same thing to me. I never bothered to ask the guys what’ll happen to him; I didn’t care to, and they never brought him up. It might be morally wrong, but I honestly don’t care what happens to him. He could die in front of me and I don’t think I’d feel a thing besides happiness that he doesn’t stain the world anymore.
I’m no saint. I’ve only ever just wanted to get by. If anything, he was a demon, a ghost, haunting and terrorizing me damn near my whole life. He shaped me. He almost broke me.
The key word there is almost .
He bares his teeth at me, and for a moment, his sour, putrid stench fills the room—but my guys are near, and within a few seconds, their scents overpower his to the point where I can’t smell him any longer. “Come here to gloat?”
“Pretty much,” I say.
Jay snickers, his blue eyes appearing more washed-out than they used to be. His brown hair is so slick with grease it looks black. He studies me, his gaze dropping to my neck. “I see your new alphas didn’t claim you during your heat. They must not want you that much—”
Warren grabs something from one of his many belts, and with a flick of the wrist, I see what it is: a switchblade. Another second passes, and he presses that switchblade against Jay’s cheek hard enough to draw blood, directly beneath his right eye. “No,” he hisses out, “we just have some respect for our omega, unlike you, you piece of shit.”
Darius growls out, “Warren.” I’m not sure if he warns him because I’m in the room, watching, or if they’re not supposed to cut into Jay. Either way, Warren backs off—but he does not put away his switchblade.
“They’d never claim me like that without permission,” I finally say. “They’re better than you in every way… and unlike you, who I would never, ever choose, I choose them.” I glance at each of my alphas, at Darius, at Nic, at Warren. My soul, my heart, and my wolf. As different as they are, they each complete me in ways I never knew possible.
When I look back at Jay, I see him frowning up at me, and I allow myself a smile. “While you’re rotting away somewhere, I’m going to be out in the world, living my life with these three men at my side. We’re a pack, a true pack. And I want you to know that while I’m out there, happy and moving on, as the years go by, hell, as soon as I walk out that door—” I point to the door behind my men. “—I’m never going to waste another second thinking about you. Everything you did to me, all of the fear, the anxiety, the terror, it doesn’t matter anymore. You’re nothing. You’ve always been nothing, and I wish it didn’t take me so long to see it.”
I take a step back. “Goodbye, Jay. Hope you rot in hell.” I turn away from him, ignoring the fact that he’s now baring his teeth at me and trying to growl and posture—his alpha dominance doesn’t affect me anymore. I have three alphas behind me, both figuratively and literally. I’m stronger now than I used to be.
And Jay? Jay really is nothing.
I’m the first to leave the room, and my men funnel out behind me. Once the door is shut and we’re alone in the long hall, Darius asks me, “Do you feel better?” Beside me, Nic rubs circles in the small of my back while Warren finally puts away his switchblade.
They crowd around me, blocking out my view of the hall. The old me would’ve been uncomfortable at their closeness, and she would’ve done everything in her power to get out of the middle of them. The middle of a pack of alphas was, at one point in time, my worst nightmare.
Now…
I let out a long, heavy breath, feeling the invisible weight that had always pushed down on my shoulders has finally lifted, and I say, “Yes. Thank you. Seriously, thank you guys.”
Nic smiles at me. “You don’t have to thank us for anything. You’re ours, and we protect what’s ours.” The way he smiles at me makes me want to stand on my tiptoes and reach for his neck, pull him down to my level and kiss him hard—but now isn’t the best place to get into any of that.
Darius checks his watch. “Speaking of, we should get going if we want to make it back downtown before rush hour.”
“Downtown again? For what?” I can’t help but sound curious. Do we have another stop? As far as I knew, we only had the appointment with the doctor and my final fuck you to Jay today. Where else do we have to go?
All I get from the guys are cryptic smiles and smirks, and no amount of questioning on my part gets them to bend and tell me just where we have to go. I’m left wondering, a bubble of curiosity, as we drive away from the warehouse.
I keep quiet during the drive, and though I watch as the scenery around us changes, I can’t discern where we’re going. I don’t know the city like the back of my hand. Honestly, it was a miracle I made it to the Omega Garden the night of the choosing ceremony to begin with.
Our destination is a high rise, one of the tallest skyscrapers downtown, with a freaking valet. Darius pulls up to the front of the building, and a valet practically jumps out of nowhere to take the keys and park the car for us. I stick close to my alphas as we enter the building through the revolving glass door, and it’s like I step into a whole different world.
Similar to the Omega Garden, but different. Less elegant, but just as regal. Everything is new and fancy, and when we pass the receptionist at the front desk, I finally see a sign behind her and find out what this building is: one giant law firm.
What… why would we come here? What kind of business would we have at a place like this?
We go to the elevator, and we head up to the fifty-second floor. Darius leads the way. Soon enough we’re sitting in a private room of someone with a corner office with a killer view of the city around her: a beta wearing a dark blue suit, her long hair pulled back into a tight pony, not a single wisp of hair out of place.
When we enter, she stands and walks around her desk, offering me her hand. “And you must be Mercedes. It’s good to meet you. I’m Nora. I work for the Alabaster family. This whole floor does, actually.”
“Hi,” I say, tentatively taking her hand and shaking it, though I’m still not sure why. The guys sit around me, but I have the front and center seat.
Nora turns around and picks up a manila folder. “As soon as you called, I got to work. Everything is ready and filled out. All we need is some signatures, and of course a notary and a witness. Let me call Stephanie in here.” She snaps the folder shut and walks around her desk, picking up her desk phone and hitting a single button. A few seconds later, she says, “Steph, hey, pack Alabaster is here. Yep. Bring your stamp.”
After she sets her phone down, she looks at me and smiles. “While we wait, do you have any questions for me?”
“Uh, yeah. I mean… what is this?” I glance at the guys.
Nora chuckles. “Does this mean they didn’t tell you? Well, I’ll let them handle it, then.”
I look to Darius, who holds my stare unflinchingly. “We wanted to surprise you. I… got the ball rolling a while ago, before everything happened at the house. I wanted to prove to you, and to the others, that I was taking this seriously, but now—”
Warren smirks. “Now the big guy actually wants it is what I think he’s trying to say.”
I squirm on my seat. “I still don’t get it.”
Nic scoots his chair closer to mine. “You’re already one of us, but this… it’ll make it official.”
“Official?” I echo, right as Stephanie comes into the room—another beta, with what must be a notary seal in her hand. I thought we were already official, unless…
Nora smiles at Darius and says, “You want to go first?” Darius stands as she hands him a pen, and he signs everywhere she points, paper after paper, while Stephanie watches from the side of the desk.
Then it’s Warren’s turn, and then Nic’s. Lastly, it’s me, and I’m still a bit confused as I sign my name everywhere she tells me to.
This isn’t what I think it is, is it?
Nora has a few places to sign, and then it’s Stephanie’s turn to sign as the witness and notarize the final page. “Congratulations,” Nora says with a sincere smile in my direction. “You’re now Mercedes Alabaster.”
When I hear her say it, it’s like all of the air is knocked out of my lungs, but in a good way. The room around me spins, and she chuckles as she stands. “I’ll let you guys have the room for a few minutes to celebrate. I’ll have an official copy sent to your house.” She and Stephanie exit the office.
Nic leans into me and whispers, “Are you okay? Crap. We should’ve told you—”
“No,” I say quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “It’s not that. I don’t want you to think it’s that. I’m just so…” How can I even describe what I’m feeling? How can I explain to these guys just how overwhelmingly happy I am?
I can’t. There’s no way. It’s just not possible. There aren’t enough words in the dictionary.
In the end, I finish, “Happy. It doesn’t feel real.”
“It is,” Darius says. “You’re an Alabaster in name now. If you want, we can have a ceremony and a reception. I’m sure the extended family is dying to meet you. First, though, we need to deal with your upcoming heat.”
Crap. Right. We’re not out of the woods yet.
Nic must like grabbing my hand, because that’s what he does before he says, “Don’t worry. We’ll get through it together… Mercedes Alabaster.” My new name hums from his chest, and he goes in for a quick kiss.
“No fair. I want to kiss her, too,” Warren whines, and Nic chuckles as he lunges off his chair, grabs me by the chin, and forces my face to turn toward his, which he then kisses with wild abandon. The kiss is hard and fast, enough to curl my toes in my boots.
When Warren finally pulls his mouth off mine, I crane my head back to look at Darius, who now stands directly before me. The alpha is slow to sink to his knees—and I’d be lying if I say I don’t like the look of him on his knees. The only thing sexier than a man in a suit is apparently a man in a suit at your mercy, on his knees.
“You are ours, Mercedes Alabaster,” Darius whispers, the words a command I feel in my very soul. “Now and forever.” He leans between my knees and presses his mouth upon mine, finishing his declaration with a heated kiss.
These three… how much we’ve grown in such a short time. I genuinely can’t wait to see what life will be like for us.
But for now, well, let’s just say there’s something else I need to tell these alphas.
“When my heat comes,” I start, pausing as the weight of what I’m about to say really hits me, “I want your marks. I want the world to know, with just one look, that I’m yours.” The scariest declaration I’ve ever spoken aloud, and that includes when I told these guys that I loved them. With the way a bonding bite had been lorded over me for years, admitting to myself and to these three guys that I want them to sink their teeth into my neck and mark me is tough—but I’ve never wanted anything more badly before in my life.
And the guys? They react exactly the way I anticipate: with heavy-lidded looks and growls from their chest as they lick their lips.
Oh, and the thought might make them walk out of that office with bulges in their pants. Oops.