Chapter 11
Sofia
We don’t win, but I don’t think any of us were trying; we were simply enjoying the day together.
Which was surprising because I didn’t expect to feel so comfortable with all of them.
By the time we wander back, the rest of the matched pairs are gone, and my mum just watches from where she’s sitting at the café with a small smirk on her face.
I wave at her.
She smiles and salutes me with her coffee.
We head back to the house, where I collapse on the porch, watching the birds darting around eating the bugs in the late afternoon light.
Devon crouches in front of me and puts his hands on my knees. “I’m glad you had fun, and I look forward to the-”
The door to the house slams open, banging hard against the porch swing. Sebastian stomps out and glares.
I tilt my head back to watch him.
“By the way, this is not happening,” he snarls, giving me a dirty look. “Where is it, Sofia?”
“Where is what?” I ask in annoyance.
“Where’s the letter? The one on my desk. I want it back.”
I roll my eyes. Older brothers are a pain in the butt. “I don’t know, Sebastian. I didn’t touch it.”
“I know you took it!”
My cheeks get hot as my temper rises, and I twist around so I can glare up at him without feeling like he’s upside down. “I didn’t take your letter, Sebastian.”
“Well, someone did, and you’re the only one who would have done something like that.”
I flinch. “Well, I’m not like that now!”
“Sure,” he growls, but then his eyes take in Devon’s hand on my knee. Sebastian’s face turns red, and his eyes bulge. “This is absolutely not happening. Get your hands off my sister, Hart!”
Devon stands up and gives him a flat and cold look I’ve never seen him use before.
He actually looks somewhat scary when he wants to.
I stand and step between them. Sebastian reaches for me, but Devon sweeps me behind him.
My brother’s nostrils flare, and his temper surges, making the air crackle around us.
He bunches his hands, and anger turns his muscles tense.
“We’re dating, Seb. You’re going to have to deal with it.” I’ll give it to him; Devon sounds completely calm and confident. He doesn’t appear worried about Sebastian at all.
“No. I forbid it.”
My brother’s arrogance falls into the air like a king announcing a new decree. I think we’re all supposed to just do as he says, but I never once did before.
“Sebastian, you sound insane.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him this is all fake anyway, but I think of my dads and close my mouth. They would tell Mum, and I’d get in trouble, and I’m doing exactly what I hate most in the world; hurting people I care about.
I just need time to figure out what to do.
My thoughts bounce around, and I step around Devon, but he grabs my wrist, stopping me from approaching Sebastian.
“Why?” Devon asks. “What possible reason could you have for not accepting this?”
Sebastian draws himself up. “You aren’t good enough for her.”
I whip my head around, staring at my brother, silently willing him to take those evil words back.
“Sebastian,” I say slowly. “What the hell?”
He presses his lips together and glares.
“Get in the house, Sofia.”
My eyebrows raise. “You remember I lived alone for four years, right? I’m not going to-”
“In the house!” he thunders, and the bark slams into me.
I cry out, fighting it with everything in me.
Mack grabs my face, turning me to him. “You listen only to your alphas. His bark has no power over you.” His soothing bark strips my brother’s command of power, but it takes a moment.
I shudder, sweating and fighting until the last remnants of it vanish, then I swing around and hit my brother with a glare that would strip flesh from bones.
“How dare you?”
He snarls.
I snarl back.
He reaches for my arm, but I move quickly, stepping into him, tripping him and dropping him to the ground in a move Asher taught us all when we were sixteen years old.
“Do that again, Brother, and I’ll give your balls to this rogue seagull.”
“You’re not allowed to date them. I said no.”
I sneer at him as he gets up. “You can’t stop me.
And right now, you have bigger issues than who I date.
What you just said to your best friend isn’t something people can easily forgive, and especially not Devon,” I hiss.
“He has always been better than me, and he deserves an omega a million times what I am.”
Clarity slowly bleeds across his face. He winces.
“What do you mean, better than you?” Sebastian asks, but I evade his reaching hand and step back.
“What’s going on here?” Mum says in a tone of voice that sends chills racing up my spine.
My dads both stare at Sebastian. He’s in trouble, but neither he nor Devon wants to tell Mum. I turn to leave, disgusted with all of them.
“Sofia, what happened?” my mum snaps.
“I’m not allowed to date Pack Hart because Seb has it in his head that Devon isn’t good enough for me,” I say bitterly.
I expect my mother to go for Sebastian, but she turns and grabs Devon’s arm, dragging him up into the house and slamming the front door, leaving all of us out here.
“Secret, what did you mean?”
I duck my head, avoiding Mack, but I can’t avoid my dads.
“Right, you three sit here. Franco, take Sebastian and get him ready for the reaming that Lorelei is going to give him.”
My brother turns white.
I sit where Dad indicates.
“Right. First off, I want you three to know that we consider you all family, regardless of whether you date or not. You are part of this pack. Secondly, we trust Sofia’s decision to enter into a dating match with you.
If she didn’t want to do something, she wouldn’t.
So, no one is forbidding this, but Sebastian and I strongly think he’s more upset about something else than you four. ”
I wrap my arms around my knees. Danger crawls up into my lap, putting his nose in my neck.
“Third, what you said was wrong. Devon is not better than you, and you are not better than him. You are both amazing individuals whom we all love very much. That goes for you, too, Elijah and Mack. This family has enough room for all of you.”
“If it’s going to upset-”
My dad chuckles and presses his glasses up higher on his face. “None of us are worried about what Sebastian is upset over.”
“Why?” I ask bluntly.
“Where is he?” a female growl snarls.
My dad looks up with a smile. “Round the back, Cordelia.”
“Thanks, Milton.”
I watch as she stomps straight past us, her face dark and full of thunderclouds. I almost feel sorry for Sebastian, but then I remember what he said about Devon.
“Cordie has her scary face on,” I say with a sneer. “Kick his butt.”
“Mmm,” my dad says quietly, and then he stands up. “Go to the beach and get that pup away from all the anger. I’ll send Devon out when he’s done.”
Dad slips into the house.
I stand up and glance back at Elijah and Mack. “Are you coming?”
The door slams open, crashing against the wall. “Sebastian Louis Sol, did you bark at your sister?”
My father comes out, his hair messy, his eyes flashing lightning, his face red as he stalks straight past us and out the back. I hear raised voices that just get louder.
Imogen sees us and stops walking towards the house.
“So, the beach?”
I nod. “Yeah, let’s go to the beach.”
She sighs and puts an arm on Daphne’s shoulders and starts asking Elijah about the restaurant. Ivy skips along, talking animatedly with Mack.
I missed a lot when I was gone, and that hurts.
I remember why I left, and part of it was that I didn’t feel like I was enough. I was floundering here. The town was choking me with its happiness, with the expectations that I couldn’t fit into.
All the things that annoyed me don’t feel the same. The cute isn’t too oppressive; the network of people who know me and everything about my family is comforting instead of constrictive. The sameness that was driving me out of my mind is now an adventure.
Have I grown into Sunshine Cove? Was it just a phase that I needed to go away, feel the world, and come back here in order to fit again?
“But do I fit?”
Elijah takes my free hand. “You fit me.”
I do a double take, melting as he steps closer. I bite my lower lip and feel a surge of heat between my legs when he looks at the spot. There’s this hunger in his eyes, a look I remember, that I’ve dreamed about for years.
Even when I had my heats and explored other alphas, that night was a standout, and nothing could match it.
We wander to the beach and down to the water’s edge. Mack chases my sisters around, while Danger chases him, but Elijah stays right by my side.
“Your parents are scary.”
I look up at the white clouds. “Oh, they are terrifying, but they will be there for you now, no matter what happens between us. They mean it; you are part of the family now.”
“Does that bother you?”
I scrunch up my nose. “No, why would it? Sunshine Cove has always been like this. Everyone is family.”
“Is that why you left?”
I sigh and stop to pick up a shell. It reminds me of the abalone I found yesterday.
“Partly. Sometimes I felt that if I stayed here, I was going to repeat the same day over and over, and nothing would change. That I would just stay the same and never be anyone other than the Sol’s eldest daughter, the wild child, the rebel. Sebastian’s sister.”
“You weren’t those things to me.”
“No, you made me feel alive and free. That night with you made me realise I could be someone else.”
“I felt the same about my life with my parents. They had it mapped out, the whole thing, and I hated law. I don’t like anything about it.
I felt like if I stayed, they would have picked out an omega, picked the ring, my clothes, the venue, and I would be bonded and under their lock and key forever. ”
“But you got out.”
“I did and ran straight back here.”
“Which is going to amuse me forever.”
“There was this omega, you see. She was wild and sexy, and everyone at the party wanted her, but she chose me.” He brushes his hair back, his blue eyes dancing.
I shake my head, amused. “You are a flirt.”
“Only with you.”
“Why are you doing this? Why agree to fake date me?”
He’s silent for a long moment. “You said you needed help. Is that still true?”
I wince. “Yes,” I breathe.
“Then, that’s why. For all the reasons, but, most especially, as the omega who saved my life and set me free, I would do anything for you.”
I hum softly. “You don’t even know what I need help with. What if I robbed a bank?”
“I’ll be your alibi.”
A small smile creeps across my face. He’s impossible.
“Hurt someone.”
“You wouldn’t. You’re Sofia Sol, the girl who walked home from the next town over with no shoes on because you didn’t want your parents to come get you when they were sick.”
I gape at him.
“How do you even know that?”
“This town likes to talk.”
“What about if I killed someone or stole something really important?”
“If you did that, I would ask you why and, knowing you, the reason would be a good one, in which case, I would be on your side, even if it meant going to law school to get you off.” He grins, and I see a future with this alpha.
“Eli,” I whisper.
“When I think of Sunshine Cove, I think of auburn hair, long tanned legs, a smile that’s a little crooked but the most genuine I’ve ever seen, huge brown eyes with flecks of green, and the scent of ginger, mango, and coconut.”
“I wasn’t here, though.”
“And it never felt right, but I waited for you to come back. I would have waited forever.”
“Eli, this is just…a lot to take in. What you’re saying…I mean, this is fake dating. We’re supposed to be fake dating, but what you’re saying isn’t.”
“We are,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t feel some kind of way about you, too.”
I exhale roughly. “I guess so.”
“Devon’s here.”
I whip around, watching as he comes down the sand towards us. I can’t wait, so I walk to meet him. When he gets close, he wraps one arm around my waist and tows me into his chest.
“I am sorry.”
“You?” I shriek. “What do you have to be sorry for? It was his fault.”
“For ruining our date.”
“It wasn’t ruined because of you, Devon. If you even, for one second, believe anything my idiot brother says, I will paint pink daisies all over your boat.”
He slowly grins and tows me back in so we’re standing pressed from thigh to chest. “You will?”
“I absolutely will. Big, gaudy pink flowers.”
“Sebastian loves you.”
“I know he does. He loves you, too. That doesn’t give him the right to hurt both of us because he’s feeling left out.”
Devon picks me up and spins, round and round, until I’m screaming, and he falls down in the sand with me on his chest.
“I think you are the most perfect omega in the whole world, Rebel.”
“You haven’t been out of Sunshine.”
“I don’t need to; no one will ever be you.”
I think this will be the moment I tell my grandchildren that I fell for Pack Hart, even if I refuse to admit it to myself.