Chapter Seven – Raeka
My sister is waiting for me in my bedroom, on my bed, sprawled out, scrawling in some ridiculously fluffy pink journal with a feathered pen.
She wears her equally fluffy pink pajamas, totally at home in my room.
She sits up the moment she sees me, snapping her journal closed.
“Well? How was it? Did you get any offers?”
I shut my door and head straight for my closet—a walk-in closet, obviously, where I hurriedly change into my own pajamas, although mine are a precious silk.
I left the dresses and makeup and everything else in the car; the family butler, Ron, will grab them in the morning.
I’m much too exhausted after trying to be perfectly bitchy all night to lift a finger to help.
My spoiled nature peeking through.
It’s only after I’m fully changed and after I went into my bathroom to wipe my makeup off and run a brush through my hair that I join my sister on my bed.
All the while, she sits there, expectant, her eyes, more of a bluish color than mine, shine bright with eagerness.
Her hair is a dirty blond color, pulled back in a messy bun.
She has that wide-eyed, overzealous expression down pat—a perfect omega in the making.
Me? Not so much.
“Well?” she says. “Don’t keep me waiting! How did it go?”
“Shh,” I tell her, giving her a gentle shove on the shoulder.
“Don’t wake Mom and Dad.” Our parents’ room isn’t exactly next door, but my sister’s loudness is legendary in this household.
We don’t live downtown; we have a place in a nice suburb, where everyone’s property is gated and most are manned by a security guard all day and night.
She quiets, “Sorry. I’m just excited for you.”
I give her a smile. “I know. To answer your question, no, I didn’t get any offers tonight.” As I say it, my mind goes back to my ever so stoic bodyguard, and then that curious alpha in the restroom.
What does it say about me that the only two alphas I’m stuck thinking about are the only two in that whole place that didn’t act interested in me at all?
Her mouth falls open, and she stares at me like I suddenly grew a third eye. “You… you didn’t get any offers? Again? No way. I don’t believe that.” Then, my fourteen-year-old sister thinks about it, and her tactics change. “Raeka, what did you do to scare everybody off?”
I chuckle, but that chuckle falls flat, so I say, “I didn’t do anything, and you know, I’m a little offended you think I’d do something to scare everybody off—”
She lifts her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed. She’s my sister; if anybody can see right through me, it’s her. “There’s no way. We’re Whittenhalls. Every alpha pack would love to have us.” She repeats what our parents have told us since we presented as omegas.
Oh, for us? There’ll be a long line of alphas knocking down our door when it comes time to settle down and find ourselves a mate or two, or however many fit our fancy. Every parent probably says something similar to their omega children.
Nicole pouts at me, like I personally disappointed her by not receiving any offers tonight. “So what did you do?”
Again, I act offended. “I didn’t do anything.” When my sister continues to stare at me, the skepticism written across her every feature, I add, “Maybe I wasn’t that nice. Maybe I didn’t play into the bullshit—”
My sister groans. “Why? Mom and Dad are going to be so mad at you for messing it up on purpose.”
“Not if they don’t find out.”
Her blue eyes widen. “You want me to lie to them? I can’t!”
“Trust me, you’ll go farther in life if you’re not always a goodie little two shoes.
Don’t tell them I did anything. Just don’t talk to them about it at all, if it makes it easier for you.
” Honestly, I don’t care how uncomfortable it makes her; she should know by now that matching with any alpha isn’t something I’m interested in.
Nicole visibly pouts at me. “Why are you so… so against getting a match? It’s what we’re supposed to do—”
“Sometimes what we’re supposed to do and what we want to do are two different things.”
She seems to think on this. After a few quiet moments, she asks, “What do you do if what you want is too hard to get?” She comes off as genuine as she asks this, and it makes me wonder if, perhaps, my little sister might want a little something else for herself, not just to be the perfect omega.
I’m not a good role model. Never try to be, never pretend to be. I know I’m not someone she should model herself after, which is why I try to be a little delicate when I answer her. “We do all we can, give it everything we’ve got. Sometimes life isn’t about succeeding. It’s about failure, too.”
Damn, listen to me get deep.
She purses her lips in thought until she sighs at me. “I just want you to be happy. There really were no alphas there tonight who caught your eye?”
Involuntarily, my mind is assaulted by images of two particular alphas, but I don’t let them get to me. I force a smile and tell her, “Nope.” And I’m ninety-nine percent sure she believes me.
Nicole grabs her journal and her pen and gets up. “Goodnight. Good luck with Mom and Dad in the morning.” She starts for the door.
“Thanks. And remember: no tattling on me.”
She gives me a roll of her eyes then slips out of my room, and I wait a few seconds before getting up and flicking off the light. I crawl under the covers and stare at the darkened ceiling above me. Thanks to my eyes not having adjusted yet, everything is pitch-black.
No alpha really matters. Deep down, they’re all jerks anyway—except for the ones Mercedes landed. And my Dad. All the others? Screw them. I sure as shit don’t need them, and I sure as hell don’t want them.
It’s strange. I used to tell myself that all the time, and I believed it without a second thought. Tonight? Tonight that statement rings hollow, and what’s worse: it kind of sounds like a lie.
“No offers?” My mom’s voice is high-pitched and shrill, even for her frumpy self.
Her blond hair is curled this morning, in a pretty updo.
She wears a matching floral blouse and skirt, pearls strung around her neck.
Her gaze glances to my dad, who sits at the other end of the dining room table, quietly sipping his coffee and reading something on his phone.
“Honey, did you hear that? Raeka got no offers. Again.”
My dad finally glances up. For an alpha, he’s pretty laid back. It’s probably why his pack consists of him and my mom—and, by extension, me and my siblings. He takes another sip from his mug as he waits for breakfast to be brought to us.
Nicole is still in bed; they let her sleep in since she’s still growing and developing and whatever. I’m not so lucky. I’m forced to sit and have meals with them.
“I heard,” my dad says. “A pity, but she can try again.”
“How many times are we going to sign her up to that ceremony? Maybe she needs a sponsor. Maybe you should go there with her next time—”
“Mom, I don’t need—”
“Hush. Like you know what you need. When I was your age, I was completely lost until I found your father.”
I look at my dad down the table. “Why can’t we petition the court—” As I say it, my mom rolls her eyes and shakes her head once. “—I’ve already proved I can handle my heats on my own. If I’m emancipated, I’ll be able to have my own bank account, start up my own business, do whatever I want.”
My dad, the fifty-some-year-old alpha, is tired of hearing this conversation. He sighs and says, “She does have a point, dear.”
My mom, ironically enough, is the stickler out of the two of them, and what she says next is what I feared she’d say all along: “Nonsense. She needs a match, or a pack. I’ll start asking around the country club to see if anyone knows of any suitable alphas that don’t frequent the Omega Garden.”
I bury my face in my hands. Having my mom try to make a match for me? Talk about embarrassing. “Mom.”
“Don’t. You were given some freedom, but obviously you aren’t taking it seriously. You aren’t getting any younger. I want grandchildren before I’m sixty—”
“Zane and Brent already gave you grandchildren,” I remind her of my brothers, of her sons, who had immediately gotten busy once they and their packs bonded with their omegas. “You have grandchildren. You don’t need me to pop them out.”
“Yes, but you’re an omega. It’s your—”
“Job?” I cut in. “Duty? My only purpose?”
My mom closes her eyes for a moment, then is slow to open them. “Raeka, your life won’t feel complete until you’re bonded. It might not feel like it now, but it will. Omegas who don’t bond don’t live happy lives—is that what you want? To be miserable and alone?”
I’m about to mutter under my breath something along the lines of it’d be better than being miserable with a pack of alphas , but right then breakfast is served, so my acidic retort is cut short.
We are served our breakfast, and thus the quiet meal begins. Somehow, some way, I know this isn’t the end of it.
And it’s not. Within three days, my mom tries to set me up with not one, not two, but three of her friends’ alpha children.
I can only dodge it for so long.
Damn it. What am I going to do?