Chapter 8
Sebastian
I’m staying at home one more night; that was the deal I made before I agreed to their madness. I can hear all my family moving quietly throughout the house. Mum has been crying. She doesn’t want me to leave. It took meeting Katsu before she finally listened and agreed to let me go without fighting.
I hate that I made her cry; the only thing worse was my dads when they were looking at me with fear.
Even my sisters have been avoiding my temper.
I lay on my bed with my arm under my head, staring at the ceiling.
My room is large for a kids bedroom but most of the room is taken up by my art stuff.
There’s a poster on the roof of a band I liked when I was thirteen, and I keep figurines of movies on my bookcase.
My favourites are the dinosaurs, but as I turn my head to stare at them, I can almost feel their accusations.
I shouldn’t have shouted at her again. I huff and get up and load the laptop.
I read her reply and smile.
“Now, that is going to cost you extra.” This saucy minx is my absolute only escape. Becoming friends with her has been an absolute highlight and maybe the only reason I’m managing to hang on.
I type back, speaking my answer out loud as if I were talking right to her. “Starting work on the cover tonight. Are you sure you want to go with a safe version? I can use myself as a model? Curious?”
I glance up and see her window. The light turns on, and my heart thuds hard in my chest as I reach down and pull out my copies of Lynn Marino’s books.
She never looks at me with fear.
Cordelia Lake doesn’t see me as a threat, and she never has, not when I’m yelling, breaking things, not when my rut is riding me, and not when I’m showing her all the parts of me she should run from.
Why haven’t I told her who I am? Why hasn’t she revealed who she is?
This stupid flirting game. I thought a few years ago that our friendship might break from the tension between us, but these emails have been a release.
We can keep fighting and pretending to the rest of the world, but at night, when no one else knows who we are, I see her.
And she sees me.
I don’t have to be strong or into fishing.
I don’t have to go drinking.
I can sit with my glasses on and a drawing pad and create erotic artwork and tease an omega via email.
She disappears to where she writes, and I focus on the drawing. Letting the art consume me until I hear that notification ping, then I can’t get my concentration back.
With a grumble, I reach for the laptop and open my emails.
She’s sent five laughing face emojis. I stare at them, perplexed. Then glance at her window. What’s going on in her brain? How often do I ask myself that? A few times a day, I swear.
I send a winking emoji and then close everything and go downstairs, where I find Mum sitting at the counter looking older than I have ever seen her.
“Mum?”
She looks up at me, and her eyes fill with tears. I walk over, putting my tablet down so I can hug her. I don’t know when she transformed from this giant in my world to this flawed omega, but I know that I have tried my best to do what I could for her.
“It feels too soon,” she wails.
I chuckle. “Sofia left years ago.”
“But she wasn’t my baby. I knew she’d be fine.”
“I’m only going across the road, and I promise you I can look after myself.”
“I know you stayed here for me,” she whispers. “After Sofia left, I know you were going to go, and you saw how upset I was, and you stayed. Thank you.”
I shift uncomfortably. I figured she knew, but it’s been a subject we’ve been avoiding up till now.
“Mum, I love you. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I think it’s past time, don’t you?”
She sniffles and wipes her eyes. “Everything is changing.”
“You signed me up for this dating event,” I remind her.
“I know, but I thought-”
“Please don’t tell me you thought they would all move in here,” Dad says as he puts two bags of shopping on the massive granite-topped kitchen island.
“Well, yes?”
Dad laughs. “Sweetheart, you are the cutest omega ever.” He looks at me. “Please don’t move your pack into my home.”
I snort a laugh. “Not a chance that’s going to happen.”
Mum bursts into tears again.
“You need the omega timeout, darling,” Dad says with a laugh.
“I can’t!” she wails. “Franco is in there, sulking.”
For a second, I’m shocked, but then I choke on a laugh before really losing it.
“Why?” Dad asks, perplexed.
“He said his eldest son going into a rut is giving him a midlife crisis and not to bother him. He locked the door!” Mum snarls, her eyes flinty. “It’s my nest, and he locked me out!”
“Easy, babe. We can go pick the lock, but how about we try to have a nice cup of secret recipe cocoa first?”
I open my tablet and start sketching again, working my way through shaping how I want the bodies to look until I’m happy.
Dad slides a cup in front of me. At some point, Mum has left, and it’s just me and Dad in the familiar kitchen. Even the renovations can’t take the pure Sol vibe out of the kitchen. It just amplified it.
“I didn’t mean to cause drama or anything. I just couldn’t help it,” I mutter at Dad. The guilt that has been low-key destroying my focus finally spills out.
“Oh, Son, we all know that. Your pack seems nice, though.”
That thought jolts me. I’d been so jealous of Devon. Some part of me wished we would end up together, not because I liked him but because we were best friends, and he was familiar. When he met Mack and Elijah, I was a jealous idiot, and I put distance between us that didn’t need to be there.
Meeting Katsu and Fox has changed everything.
The connection is instantaneous. It’s like having someone who has been missing all this time suddenly appear.
Like I’ve been waiting for them. They make things clearer, calmer; they dial up my senses and bring the world to crystal clarity.
I am attracted to them, and I want to know them and have them know me.
I have only felt that with my Cordelia, so finding it now has hit hard, but seeing her feel the same has brought some hope that we can break this stalemate. And I can bridge the distance between us. We’ve been sitting on opposite sides for so long, I don’t even know how.
And their reaction to her…it doesn’t bother me.
I’ve had to chase off some alphas who have come sniffing around Cordelia.
Inferior, unacceptable alphas. But these two, I don’t have any issues with.
In fact, I approve of it. Flashes of erotic fantasies with Fox, Katsu, and Cordie have been flaring all day.
But their reaction validates and confirms what I thought. All my thoughts. She is mine. But there’s something else.
I think she’s my scent match. I think they are my scent matches. All this time, no wonder I couldn’t look at anyone else. It’s always her.
“How did you approach Mum to court her?”
“Carefully,” Dad says without thinking and then flinches. He holds a whisk in my direction. “I did not say that.”
“Yeah, fine. But seriously. You all said Mum didn’t want alphas, so how did you do it?”
“One date at a time. Learn to read the room and when she needs space. You’re going at her speed. Cordelia has been alone for a long time, and her mother is not a fan of alphas.”
“She likes me.”
“That is true, but you haven’t tried to date her daughter yet.”
I freeze, my eyes widening. “I didn’t say….”
“I don’t think you need to, Son, I think everyone in town has been waiting for this moment for years. You will be the biggest source of entertainment for the decade.”
I growl, but dad just smiles, grabs three mugs full of chocolate, and disappears.
I grab my cup and go out onto the porch, staring at her house. I pull out my phone and check my email. There’s nothing there.
Disappointment fills me, but I don’t push it or her.
I just go back to working. I’ve got five projects at the moment that all have deadlines, and I need to pack up my room.
There’s so much we need to figure out, so much I need to do. I rush inside, fill a thermos, and then find myself walking back to Cordelia’s before I can think it through. I use my key and call into the house.
Nothing.
I creep up the stairs, knowing I should not be doing this. Cordelia is singing, off-key and horribly, and I find it adorable.
I push open her door and see her sitting at the computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
She has no idea I’m here. I should turn and go away. But she’s shifting in the computer chair, and her scent is stronger, thick like I’ve never smelled it. I try to shake it out of my head, but I can’t.
I step closer. She spins, her eyes go completely wide and massive, fear but something else, something more delectable.
“What are you doing here?” She shrieks and slams her laptop shut.
I glance around her room, looking at her bed; it’s messy like she was lying on it. I want to lay on it with her. My throat aches, and I hold out the flask.
“Peace offering.”
She comes closer, and a rumble explodes out of my chest. She jumps back, but it continues until I feel it in my soul.
“Bas, are you purring?” Her mouth opens and closes, but her cheeks turn pink, and she leans towards me.
“Fuck, just take the chocolate, already,” I grit out.
She takes it gingerly, watching me with wide eyes as I step back, slowly forcing myself away from her room. Step by painful step. She perches on the chair but stands up again, looking adorable in that too-big T-shirt, that…
“Is that my shirt?”
She turns a bright and adorable red colour.
“No, of course not.”
Except I know it’s mine. It went missing a year ago; I searched for it everywhere. My whole body relaxes, and I grin, which gets her back up. She stole my T-shirt and wears it.
I grab my jumper and tug it off. I step towards her, ignoring the almost desperate need to push this situation into another one of our fights. My hands shake a little as I tug the hoodie down over her head.
“Arms,” I murmur.
Her cheeks are still red, but those dark brown, bitter chocolate eyes of hers are watching me as she puts her arms through. Now she is dwarfed in my jumper. In my scent.
I grab the front of my hoodie and tug her closer to me. My gaze locks on her lips, staring, trying to control myself. I want to taste her so bad.
She’s breathing hard, and that scent is turning molten. I reach behind her, grab the thermos, and put it in her hands.
“Drink it up.”
I haven’t looked away from her, and she hasn’t looked away from me. Using every single bit of inner strength that I have, I uncurl my fingers and let go.
“Goodnight, Cordie.”
She licks her bottom lip and swallows hard.
“Goodnight, ian.”
I leave before I do something really stupid. Leaving feels stupid. Every step is in the wrong direction. I walk into my childhood home and snarl.
“Oh, there you are,” Pops pauses, looking me up and down. “Why are you walking around in a T-shirt? Aren’t you freezing?”
“I’m fine.”
He cocks his head to the side and eyes me up and down. “Seb?”
I shudder at his voice. Everything in me wants to go back to her or start a fight.
I force myself to calm down, remembering the deep, husky whisper of the alpha as he explained what was happening to me.
“I just dropped something off to Cordelia, but I need to work now, so I’m going to go to bed.”
Pops bobs his head. “Sure. Okay. Goodnight.”
I collect my tablet from the kitchen and go back up to my room, where I find an email waiting for me.
I hesitate over opening it. I feel far too close to the edge.
Flinging myself into my chair, I blow out my cheeks, trying and struggling to calm the throbbing arousal that has turned my body into a weapon.
I click open the email, needing to know.
There are four words, and I have no idea how to answer them.
Four words that could change everything or leave it exactly the same.
I get up and pace my room before I stop, leaning on my windowsill, staring at the square of bright light coming from her room.
“What did you see?” I repeat the question to myself.
I can tell her, or I can feign ignorance, and we can continue in denial.
Except seeing her in my T-shirt and my jumper…I don’t want to live in denial anymore.
I go to my computer and send an email back with a single word.
Everything.