Chapter ten #3
“How many babies do you think she can have?” Kyle asks, tossing the question at Garrett and Cyrus, like they’re the sellers in this deal.
“James wants a big family. Four at least. Of course, if her system really is damaged we’ll have to look into other options.
But that’s okay. I think she’s worth it. ”
“She’s not livestock,” Garrett says, offended for me.
“Nobody said she was.” Kyle lifts his hands in surrender. “We’re just excited. It’s been a long time since we found an omega that fits. And this one’s not likely to turn us down since her options are… limited.”
Ren’s fingers trace my collarbone. I grab his wrist and move his hand away, firm and final. He gives me this look, all wide-eyed, like a puppy that’s just been scolded.
“She’s feisty, too,” Ren tells the room, and he sounds pleased. “I like that.”
In the kitchen doorway, Miles makes a sound. Not a word, just a short, disgusted exhale.
Gabriel’s study door opens. James comes out first, beaming, with Gabriel behind him, face unreadable as usual.
“Thank you for a wonderful evening,” James says, making a beeline for me. He takes my hand, kisses my knuckles. “I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”
I try not to shudder. Fail.
Gabriel walks them out. The front door closes behind them, the lock clicks, and the house settles into silence.
Gabriel comes back into the living room. He stands just inside the doorway, looking at me.
“James was very impressed,” he says. “He’d like to formally offer to take you into their pack.”
My stomach drops. “After one meeting?”
“He says his whole pack is in agreement. They liked you.” Gabriel’s face is careful, measured. “They’d like to proceed quickly. He wants to file the paperwork tomorrow and have you moved in by next week.”
“No.” Garrett stands up. “She’s not going with them.”
“No way is she going with that handsy asshole,” Cyrus says, and I think that’s the most I’ve heard him say all week.
Gabriel rounds on them, growling low—a real alpha warning, not the mild kind he uses on Miles. “Keep your voices down.”
They shut up, but the air is tight. Garrett’s jaw is clenched; Cyrus looks like he wants to punch a wall.
Gabriel turns back to me. “What did you think about them?”
“I didn’t like them.”
He exhales, slow. “Lily, I need you to give me actual reasons. Not feelings. Reasons.”
“You want reasons?” I have to force it out.
“They talked about me like I was a broodmare. James spent the whole dinner telling me how many children he wants. He touched my neck, traced where he’d put his claiming mark—on a first meet.
And Ren couldn’t keep his hands off me. I told him to stop several times.
He didn’t listen. Not once. If an alpha won’t respect a simple ‘no’ at dinner, he’s not going to respect it behind closed doors. ”
Gabriel’s expression changes. He tries to hide it, but I see it anyway: real anger, not at me.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No. He just didn’t stop.”
Gabriel is quiet for a long beat.
“Or is this about them not being the alphas you really want?” he asks softy, almost apologetic, like he knows he shouldn’t ask but has to. “Are you making excuses because you want to stay, Lily?”
There it is. The part where I become the problem. The part where I’m reminded that I’m an omega and omegas are supposed to accept what they’re given, not reach for more.
It hurts. Because there’s a piece of truth in what he said, and we both know it. But it’s not the whole truth.
“I know what I felt,” I say. “I know the difference between not clicking with someone and being uncomfortable. These alphas made me uncomfortable. I don’t want to see them again.”
Gabriel studies me, searching for something.
“Fine,” he says, and the word comes out tired. “We’ll move on to the next. But Lily—you understand that you’ll need to keep meeting packs. This process doesn’t stop because one didn’t work out.”
“I get it.”
“Good.”
He’s about to keep going, but Miles finally steps out of the kitchen, looking like he’s been holding back for ages.
“Of course she’s turning them down.” His voice is acid. “She’s going to turn down every pack you send her to. Don’t you see what she’s doing?”
Gabriel turns. “Miles—“
“She doesn’t want another pack. She wants mine. She’s going to drag this out, say no to every option, run out the clock until she’s so sick you feel guilty and you let her stay. It’s manipulation, Gabriel. She’s an omega and she wants my fucking alphas.”
“That’s not what this is,” I say, even if a small, ugly part of me wishes it was. But Miles isn’t looking at me. He’s locked on Gabriel.
“She’s already got Garrett making her breakfast. She’s got Cyrus checking her wounds every five minutes. She’s got you looking at her like—like—“ His words crack. “You need to send her away. You need to pick a pack and just send her. You shouldn’t care that she’s happy as long as she’s gone!”
“Miles, that’s enough.”
“It’s not enough! It’s never going to be enough because she’s still here and you still want her and I can smell it on you every second of every day—“
“I SAID ENOUGH.”
Gabriel’s alpha tone rolls through the room. Miles flinches, his whole body folding in. It wasn’t an alpha bark but it was enough to remind everyone who’s in charge. For a second, Miles looks just like I did that day in the kitchen, small and hurt, submitting because there’s nothing else to do.
Gabriel crosses to him. “Come with me. Now.”
He leads Miles out. I hear them on the stairs: Miles’s voice, breaking; Gabriel’s, deep and authoritative.
Garrett sinks back onto the couch, scrubbing his face with both hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “About all of it. The date, the pack, Miles. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not yours either.” He looks at me, and there’s so much in his eyes it makes my throat ache. “You don’t have to go with a pack that makes you feel like that. No matter what Gabriel says. I don’t care about the deadline either. You deserve better than that.”
I nod, because if I try to talk, I’ll fall apart.
Cyrus is standing by the doorway. He doesn’t say anything, but as I walk past him, his hand closes gently on my shoulder—the good one. It’s warm, solid, and then he lets go and slips away.
I make it to my room and close the door. Then sit on the edge of the bed.
The bed is just a mattress with a quilt and a pillow that smells like generic detergent. No nest. Other omegas would have built one by now, dragging in blankets, hoarding shirts, making a cocoon of scent and safety. That’s what we do. That’s instinct.
But what’s the point? Why build a nest in a place I’ll have to leave? Why bother creating a home when at any moment someone will come and take me away, and everything I built will be stripped and washed and folded like I was never even here?
Miles has a nest. It’s so big it takes up half the pack bed, wrapped in his alphas’ scents, built up over years. Miles belongs.
I have a quilt. That’s the difference.
I pull it up to my chin and lie back. The ceiling is blank and white and doesn’t care.
I distantly hear thumping coming from the pack room. Gabriel is taking care of his omega.
Three weeks left. Less, if Gabriel finds someone I can’t say no to.
I try not to think about Ren’s hand on my thigh, or James’s hungry stare at my neck, or Gabriel asking if I was just making excuses.
I’ve never built a nest before. Nests are supposed to be safe—supposed to wrap around you, keep the bad stuff out.
I presented the same night I learned my father died.
Mom says the stress did it, flipped some switch.
For five minutes I wanted nothing but to burrow into something soft.
It was there and gone before I could act on it.
I looked at Mom’s nest after. The blankets, the careful little corners. All that care, and it still didn’t keep her safe. She had one and still lost her mate. The bad stuff still seeped in somehow.
I still get the urge sometimes. Sometimes I almost give in.
But then I picture her, curled up alone in her perfect little space.
Or I remember all the packs I met at the registry that never gave me a second chance.
They just moved on to the next omega. Now I think about the Santos pack, how easily Gabriel tells me no.
A nest won’t save me from any of that.