Chapter 23 Mac #2
“Even at the beginning, even at stage one it changes everything. Then stage two hits and you’d do anything to feel better, to feel like yourself again.
If you’re like me," I offered a wry, self-effacing smile, “you sign up for brutal scent-stripping treatments and suffer in silence. And it helps, but it’s killing you. You don’t want to tell anyone.
You don’t want to be seen as weak when you’ve always had your shit together. ”
“What are you talking about,” Dixon raised an eyebrow. “What fucking treatments?”
“My piano lessons were probably a little different than you imagined,” I shrugged.
“Dammit, Mac. Why would you keep that to yourself?” Ryder asked the million-dollar question.
“Pride, maybe?” I didn’t know what else to say. Did I lie to protect them? Or did I lie to protect their opinions of me?
“Pride,” Ryder murmured. “I know pride better than anyone. I pushed our pack to the goddamn brink because of my pride. I just knew Tessa had to be out there. She had to want me as badly as I wanted her. There were nights I couldn't even remember her face clearly, just the feeling of her lips against my mouth. The way her body molded against mine as if we’d been carved from the same piece of stone. For those few seconds, she’d completed me.
She had to have felt it too, right? Then she was gone.
She vanished, like smoke when a fire’s gone cold and not a single fucking ember is still warm.
” His fists clenched. His face was drawn with pain.
“You both had it as bad as me,” Dixon murmured, his expression softening in a way that erased all memory of the rage-fueled guy we’d dealt with over the last year or longer.
"I thought I was losing my mind half the time. Couldn’t remember my goddamn name when everything went red.
Every time I lost it, the aftermath was like I had fucking amnesia.
All I saw was the damage I’d caused. I didn’t remember doing it half the time.
But the evidence was there. I couldn’t deny that the bull in the China shop was me.
” He shoved his thumb hard into his chest. Still though, Dixon was in control of himself right now, not riding the cliff’s edge.
He gazed at me, and then Ryder. I saw how lonely he’d been while fighting his primal Alpha. That fact was burned into his tired, sad eyes. When he continued, his words hit like arrows through my heart.
“You guys should have been honest. I was losing my shit, letting all the darkness bleed into our pack, and you guys were suffering in fucking silence. We could have helped each other. We didn’t have to feel alone.” He dropped both hands into his lap, knitting fingers together tightly.
I watched Ryder wrestle with something internal before he responded to Dixon’s confession. “I was drowning, Dix. The only thing keeping me slightly sane was the memory of her.”
“And for my part,” I started to blame my past, the way I was raised, but I stopped myself. I was a grown man. It was time I stopped letting my parents’ cruel teachings define me. “I should have told you guys. You’re right, Dixon.”
That seemed to be what he needed to hear. He nodded, chin jutting out for a heartbeat. He blinked back moisture that was building in his eyes. And then he gave himself a shake and flipped the switch back to embracing happiness. He smiled. Beamed really. And it was sunshine. Dixon brand sunshine.
“We really have an Omega,” he breathed out.
“We really have Tessa,” Ryder agreed.
The bathroom door slammed, and Tray's footsteps echoed back toward us. When he plodded down the steps into the living room, his face had lost some of its forced lightness.
“So, I really look like a pile of shit.” He touched his face gingerly and grimaced. “When are the face fixing magicians supposed to be here?”
As if we were all acting out a pre-written script and his question was her cue, Catalina pushed through the garage door seconds later. She was in a hurry.
“The beauticians are running early. Let’s set up in the garage. We’ll open the overhead doors for natural light and,” she looked around the living room, “that way they don’t have to enter the house. If I saw this, I’d leave as soon as I arrived.”
By the time we’d moved into the garage, organized the tool chests and shop stools to create a makeshift salon, raised two of the overhead doors, and flipped on the mounted television to pass the time with a Scentless in the City rerun, a blacked-out sedan sporting a sleek logo pulled into the drive.
I hoped they were better than their slogan—If you’re bruised and feeling blue, Beta call the best. Beauty Mark Beta beauticians seemed to flood from every part of the sedan a few moments after the engine died.
I’d seen stage makeup, and I’d seen stage makeup. These Beta guys and gals were confidently donning the latter.
“These guys are going to make us look good again?” Ryder asked incredulously.
“They’re the best in LA,” Catalina said sharply. “They’re also the only ones available on short notice, so you better cross your damn fingers and hope they’re as good as their website claimed.”
The rain had stopped a while ago, though the world was still damp. Cat strode forward, greeted the Beta in charge, and then lead the team into the garage. It was funny to watch every pair of Beta eyes widen in surprise as they took in the gauntlet they were about to navigate.
The lead Beta, her lapel’s golden name tag reading Candice, cleared her throat. “I’m afraid the severity of the necessary corrections was not fully communicated to my team.”
“Does that mean you cannot do as advertised?” Catalina took a step nearer to the Beta, tone professionally firm, but body language bordering on anxious.
“Certainly not,” the Beta lifted her chin proudly. “It will, however, take longer than the quoted hour and will need a more involved treatment. I'm afraid this will incur an additional fee.”
“Another fee?” Our PR momma bear sounded annoyed. “A rush fee. A fee for guaranteed discretion with a V.I.P. vetted team. And now a separate fee for it taking longer? Does the original price for the job not cover more than an hour of time?”
“It does,” the Beta nodded, “What it does not cover is the specialty creams and equipment this job needs. I’ll have to send one of my associates back to headquarters before we begin.”
When Cat didn’t say anything, the Beta nodded. “Wonderful. Jody, head back to the office and grab a Level IV correction kit. While she’s gone,” the Beta clapped her hands together, “We can fully assess the damage. I do love a challenge.”
I had to steel myself as they began to crowd.
It was too familiar a situation, and I found myself suddenly at the clinic preparing for yet another brutal treatment.
Panic flooded in, but I fought it back. I wasn’t being sliced and diced while Doctor Moorehead lectured students.
I wasn’t heading into the tank that always felt on the verge of drowning me.
I was at home. I was with my pack brothers.
We were getting ourselves presentable for our mate. Our scent match.
Our Omega Tessa.