Chapter 25
ESPER
“What was the question you wanted me to ask again?”
“Penny, please,” I groan at my friend who only shrugs through my phone screen, continuing to paint her nails. “This is important.”
“You have a Pack now. What could be more important than that?”
“Having dreams and a life of my own,” I grumble for like the twentieth time since I called her to help me prepare for my interview with an interior design firm.
My advisor sent out a mass list of firms looking for interns, and I immediately applied. Over a hundred of us got the list, so I tried to temper my expectations. But this morning I got an email to schedule an interview for tomorrow.
Tomorrow! Oh my god, I could vomit.
“Ask me one of the generic questions, ‘Tell me about yourself,’” I say and she hums, finally looking up at me through the screen.
“Tell me about yourself,” she asks and immediately goes back to focusing on her nails. Which is fine, I just need to run through my answers to ensure I remember them.
Not that she’d help much more than that anyways. Maybe I should’ve called Neven or Soren.
“I’m Esper Malent, I’m a second-year student in the design program at White Pine Crest University—”
A knock cuts off my speech, and I turn towards my door. The guys said they had a meeting with another MC, and Penny was clearly engrossed in her nails and not eager to come over to help me in person.
A dose of panic shoots down my spine. What if something happened? What if someone is hurt?
Maybe it’s not them. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe it’s someone who needs a tube of toothpaste or maybe they have the wrong door. Passing out flyers for a party or play or petition.
“Well, are you gonna answer?” Her sharp voice cuts through my daze, and I stumble up from my desk chair. Tucking my hair behind my ears, I slowly open the door. Four familiar delicious scents hit me, and I open the door wider to greet my Pack.
Reed is front and center, his white hair is pulled up in a ponytail and his brown eyes latch onto mine like a magnet.
He sighs into a smile like just the sight of me brought him comfort.
I almost move to jump into his arms…until I notice the bruise forming on his cheek.
My smile instantly drops as my gaze travels among my other packmates.
Neven’s normal crewneck and collared shirt is absent, replaced with a rumpled, dirt-covered t-shirt. Asher isn’t much better, disheveled and hunched, a worn look on his face.
Soren… Soren is the worst of them all. He leans against my door frame, his head tilted as his eyes close. A gash across his cheek lightly bleeds.
My heart sprints with some combination of panic and fury. I rush back toward my phone. “I’ll call you back, Penny—”
“Don’t bother,” is all I hear as the phone clicks off. I turn back to my Pack—my bloody, bruised-up Pack.
“What happened?” I asked, grabbing Soren’s hand and leading them inside. I pause though. Looking them over again.
Dirty.
Outside clothes.
In my room.
I gulp, willing myself to direct them onto my bed, but Reed stops in the middle of my room.
He pulls his shirt up and off over his head, and his pants next. I blush, as if I hadn’t got a great fucking view of the omega yesterday.
The guys instantly follow suit, stripping down to their boxers. Neven neatly folds each of their clothes in stacks by my door, and I can breathe easier as their outside clothes are far from my bed.
They each grab the cleaning wipes I keep by my door and wipe their hands, arms and faces too, and I blush realizing how well they know me.
“Thank you.”
Reed plants a kiss to my forehead before passing me, jumping on my bed. Asher follows suit. His eyes catch mine, waiting for my confirmation.
I nod, happily, as my consent-driven alpha sits.
Neven leans against my desk, arms crossed over his sculpted chest, and as if a bulb lit in a pitch-black room, my omega realizes we’re in a room filled with naked, muscular men.
She begs me to shed all my clothes too. Shaking my head, I try to focus on the cut on Soren’s face…
and definitely not about how hot he looks right now.
Gosh, what is my problem?
“Accomplice, you getting into trouble without me?” I ask as I direct Soren to sit in my desk chair.
He sits, shrugging as I pull out my first aid kit.
“What happened?” I say, turning serious as an explanation was seemingly not on its way.
Reed shrugs, leaning on one bent elbow on my bed. “Just MC stuff.”
I roll my eyes, turning to Neven who laughs at me. “Alpha, what happened?” I ask again and Neven tells me how they were at a rival MC bar and how they got smart-lipped and needed to be taught a lesson.
“So the truce isn’t fixed?”
“No, Omega, it’s not,” Neven says, and I nod, turning back to Soren. His hands rest on my hips as I lean forward with an alcohol wipe.
“It’ll sting,” I whisper.
“I can take it.”
I gently wipe his face. He doesn’t even flinch when the wipe makes contact with his cut.
This must happen often…
“How… dangerous is this kind of thing normally?” My eyes are stuck on the redness around the sliced skin, the faint stain of blood he couldn’t quite get rid of on the way here. The cut’s not deep enough for stitches, but… it's pretty damn close.
“Weapons aren't normally involved.”
“This was your brother?”
I can’t… I could never raise my hand, let alone a weapon to my sister's face. No matter how mad I was.
“Not my brother anymore,” Soren says, nodding his head toward the men in the room. “These are my brothers now.”
“Damn straight,” Asher says.
“MC life isn’t always like this. It’s actually rarely pretty, though, Esper.” Neven’s use of my name, instead of Omega, raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
“I just didn’t know. I’m not saying—”
“It’s okay if you were, though.”
The air grows sullen. My eyes sweep over the men scattered around my room.
He’s giving me an out. An out from being with them, from being a part of their lives.
Reed breaks the silence to confirm my suspicion. “It’s not safe for you, Princess.”
Panic and fury again.
No. Not an option. It’s too late. I’m theirs as they are mine. Forever.
I force my hands to move with gentle care as I place a bandage over Soren’s cheek, even though he probably doesn’t need it now that the bleeding has stopped.
Then I turn to Reed. Crawl my way onto the bed, practically in his lap.
I look over his face too. The wildness in his eyes, the small cut on his eyebrow. My eyes trace down to the busted knuckles on his hands. I grab Asher’s too, pulling his heavy hand into my lap.
“You don’t get to decide what I do,” I say.
Determination lights in Reed’s eyes. “Keeping you safe is my number one priority, even if it means not getting to have you.”
“Absolutey not. Reed, I’m serious. I won’t let you push me away. Not again.” I bring his hand up to the side of my face. It’s warm and rough against my face, but his scent—gosh, his scent—warm pancakes fills my senses. I lean into him more, and he purrs as I cuddle my face into his chest.
“Please, Red, don’t make me handcuff you to my bed forever.”
“I think he’d like that, Trouble,” Soren chuckles behind me. Asher pats my hair, and I’m grateful to have his touch too.
“It’s up to Esper whether she wants to live this life or not,” Neven says, voice still steady and somber. I purr at the sound of my lead alpha agreeing with me.
Thank goodness.
If it was up to Reed, they’d all walk away from me all in the name of “protecting me,” but when has that ever worked? It doesn’t in classic vampire movies, or in my fantasy novels.
And it won’t work here, in real life, either.
“That’s settled then,” I say, reaching my hand back and waving my beta and lead alpha over. “Now how are we all gonna fit on this bed?”