Lucas #2
“This is the pack that you lost your Omega with?” She reaches for me, a small purring starting up as she instinctively tries to comfort me. The first true smile in some time crosses my face, and I enclose her palm between mine and nod.
“Yes.” My nose is tickling, my eyes sting…
Just the onions that Atlas had cut, that’s all.
Just the onions. “I lost both my previous Omegas with them. Prue reminds me very much of Fury. Full of nonsense when she thinks she can get away with it. Bex is pretty serious, but he’s a good man and a good friend too.
Fury loves him, Bex… Does not return it. ”
Our illustrious leader takes that moment to enter, and for the first time in a very long time, my cat doesn’t bristle at him, doesn’t rise in challenge.
He lays there, his silken golden fur rising with each breath in the back of my mind.
This is a novelty, fighting myself constantly around the presence of our Cardinal is half the reason I’m always so tired and snarky.
Interesting that our Omega seems to have settled the men as well as the beasts.
“Did I hear that the wonderful, fantastic Beckett Hawksridge is coming to visit meeeee?” The last is said with a melodramatic upturn in his voice, splaying his fingers across his chest and sending Skye and Atlas into fits of giggles, “Oh, Lukey, you do just get me the best treats. Think he’ll finally come sit in the pool with the rest of us? ”
“Not in your dreams, and stop calling me Lukey.” I snap back, but there’s no heat in it, Fury turning his amused grin on me, blue eyes glittering with mischief as he hugs Skye from the back, planting a kiss in her hair that has her elbowing him away with a growl, “and they’re bringing some new packmates I believe, so make sure there’s plenty of food. ”
Fury waves me off, opening the fridge with a flourish, “You think Teddy would let any of us starve? The man’s bought enough food to feed a football team, he’s gonna lose it if we don’t eat it all.
Atty, you’re on cleanup, yeah?” There is no waste in this house with the giant wolf around.
Between his work at the activity center, helping around the ranch when he can, and spending the most time in fur out of any of us—Atlas could eat for a football team.
I turn before I hear Atlas' pouty reply, sliding open the doors at the back of the kitchen, through to the sun room, and then out the back.
The pool was dug out and built by us a few summers ago, with some help from a local company, the terracotta tiling giving the water a warm orange glow.
Late in the year like this, the heavy woodland at the back of the barn and paddocks is turning those brilliant shades of umber, the peaks in the far distance looming over us.
Humming drifts over from the barbecue off to the side, with Teddy standing there, his cane hooked on the utensil bar of the massive grill and a colorful apron that has some sort of naked woman print on the front of it.
That screams a gift from Fury if I’ve ever seen one, but it does make the corner of my lip twitch a little, and I ease myself onto one of the deck chairs next to him.
No words pass between us. We’ve always been close, Theo and I.
I think he saw another charity case when Fury brought me home for the first time, and he’s been like a mother hen ever since.
Can’t say I hate it. My own parents were very much like the cats we are; my father abandoned us when I was young, and my mother never really cared enough to remember her kid for the most part.
Prue’s family practically adopted me as a young teenager, and that was that.
Another breeze blows, and despite being later in the year, it’s still surprisingly warm.
Theo’s horses plod around the pastures near us, and we watch Bella drift closer to the fence line, knowing that once the food’s going, she’ll be begging for some.
Never met a horse that enjoyed sausages like that one, but then, I haven’t been around many horses before I came here.
“You and Skye seem to be getting on better,” Theo’s voice breaks me from watching the mare grazing.
“She’s alright,” I say, turning to watch as Fury lifts her onto a kitchen counter, arguing animatedly with a spoon in his hand whilst Atlas eats through another breakfast roll, “No, that’s unfair…
I think she’s pretty perfect for this pack.
It’s funny, my cat didn’t even so much as bristle when Fury came into the kitchen; it’s peaceful. I should probably apolo--”
“Don’t you dare, Lucas Carter,” He points the tongs at me, currently holding a sponge that he’s scrubbing the thing with.
See, mother hen. “We all know exactly why you acted the way you did, and none of us blames you. Do we wish you had pulled your head out of your ass a little sooner instead of skulking around your own house? Sure.”
“It’s not my--”
The sponge hits me with a wet whap, and the spattering of grease across my clean shirt makes me wrinkle my nose even as the fucking Beta scolds me some more, “You damn well know that house is yours too. You’ve put in the hard work to it, you’ve got your own bedroom, you’re as much part of the furniture as me and Clay, or the rest of the pack, so stop acting like you ain’t.
” His accent thickens like honey when he’s mad, “Mama Amberwood would pitch a fit if she thought a member of my pack felt like a guest in his own damn home. Now, let’s get ready for that old pack of yours to arrive, huh? I need a drink.”
Surprising both of us, I offer him a smile, “Thanks, Theo. I don’t deserve you, none of the pack does.”
Lighting up his face, he hangs up the tongs and grabs his cane, leaning heavily on it and tilting his head, “Too damn right, kitty-cat.”
Whistling catches my attention from the side of the house, and Prue storms around, her grin widening at Theo as she drags him into her, almost suffocating him against her breasts.
He has to tap out long before I think she’ll actually let him go.
Beckett comes around next, his arm tucked around a much slighter man with hair like spun golden silk and eyes the same shade.
Against his pale skin, they’re as stark as mine are against my own tanned face, and we immediately recognize the other beast inside.
Cat, lion… Omega. Ah, that would explain the voices in the background of the call, then.
The other Alpha follows behind, another serious-looking man with the palest blond curls and blue eyes, his shirt clinging to the thick muscle underneath, and something about him makes my hackles rise as he approaches.
Prue breaks the tension as she always does, spreading her arms wide and giving me the same treatment as Theo.
Tucking me under her chin for a hug so fierce that the breath is squeezed from my lungs with a wheeze.
Raspberry and vanilla fill my lungs when I finally catch a breath, lifting her around the waist and spinning her in a circle before pulling Beckett in.
It’s so easy to forget sometimes, when I’m surrounded by my current pack full of people I love, how much I truly miss my old friends.
“Lukey, you’re looking good, sweetie, that Omega must be doing ya wonders. I know you’re doing wonders for her,” A saucy wink has me shaking my head and peering around Beckett’s broad shoulders to greet the two newcomers, “Ah, this is Oberon, our new Alpha and-”
“Natty?!” A sharp squeal pierces the air as our own Omega comes flying through the air like a rocket, caught at the last moment by the big Alpha—Oberon—who spins and slows her momentum before releasing her again just as the other Omega grabs her, sobbing and burying his face in her hair.
The rest of my pack joins us out in the garden and watches with growing confusion and concern as the two embrace and cry together.
Que porra está acontecendo?