Chapter Ten
Felix
“Are you up for shopping, or do we need to get a snack first?” I asked her. Her hair looked so pretty. Before, it looked like someone cut it without a care for her face shape, blown out like some kind of Housewife from somewhere.
She ate a burger while the salon fixed her hair so she wouldn’t be embarrassed, but I could smell her hunger above all the other scents.
Her omega scent was faint. It was all daisies and carnations, but it took some work for my bear to pick it up. She was dosed with suppressants and, from what I could tell, they had her on scent blockers by the dozen. I was surprised we could scent her at all.
“I don’t know. Something not messy?” She pointed to my sweatshirt where the tiniest of ketchup stains marred the otherwise clean garment.
“Sure. And don’t worry about the sweatshirt. We can throw it in the wash when we get home.”
I had a feeling little things were made giant in an oppressive home with her father. I’d only had an interaction with him once and I knew he was a grade A bastard. One could only imagine what he did behind closed doors.
“Thank you. Are we not going home now? I mean, to your home?” Her body was racked with tremors.
“Not quite yet. You didn’t bring a lot, so we thought we would pick you up what you need while we’re here.
Our small town has limited clothing stores, and we’re a good distance even from those.
Are you up for it?” Tyrone asked her. His eyes softened when he spoke to her, I’d noticed.
That was good. We were going to have to handle her with gentle hands until she grew her spine again.
“Not too much. I don’t want you to spend a lot of money on me.”
Cannon took her hand in a bold move. “We want to. Let’s go to this store. It looks like they have some nice things.”
Since the three of us knew zero about women’s clothing and all she needed, we handed our new omega off to the sales clerk. We asked her to ring up everything the omega touched and, in addition, anything she thought our female needed. The clerk, clearly on commission, went right to work.
It was over two hours until they were done, but she still didn’t have what she needed. Turned out, our omega didn’t touch many things and rejected most of what the disappointed clerk tried to get her to take.
We tried three more stores until we all were weighed down with bags and even Millie carried one with new underwear and bras. We stayed outside for that part, thinking she would be more comfortable with a woman, but I saw her glance out the front window more than once.
Perhaps checking if we were still there.
Our poor omega. It might take a while, but she would learn to trust us. We’d never let her down.
“I’ve never had this many clothes in my life,” she murmured. Cute as a bug, she tried to help us put things in the back of the truck. Nope. Not with her three alphas around.
“You do now,” Tyrone said.
She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know how I’m going to pay you back for this. I’ll work hard. I promise.”
I took her hand in mine. I needed to get my point across and hoped my alpha could reach out to her and soothe her, calm her.
Anything would help. She shook with fear.
No one could blame her, but that was the last thing we wanted, for her to fear us.
“Millie, listen. We came to find you because you are our omega. We wanted you to join our pack. We’re not like the alphas you’ve clearly been around.
We want to buy anything we can for you. Provide for your needs.
Care for you. There’s nothing to pay back to us. Ever. You owe us nothing.”
She released a breath. Maybe it was our connected hands. Maybe she finally realized we were okay. She stopped shaking, that was all I knew. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
“That’s okay. We have all the time in the world. Now, it’s a few hours before we reach our home. Is there anything you need for the drive? Food? Drink?”
She looked back at the shopping center. “Can I go in there and change into some of my new, warmer clothes? I’m really cold.”
Goodness. I almost slapped myself in the forehead. All that shopping and none of us thought to ask her to change into something warmer. “Of course you can. I’m so sorry we didn’t think of that. We’ll get better. I promise.”
She picked out a sweatshirt and matching pants, along with fluffy winter sock/slipper things. Tyrone escorted her inside where she emerged later, dressed for the season instead of the thin dress she was given.
“I’m all ready,” she said, smiling and even though the sun was bright in the sky, the whole world lit up instantly.
“That’s quite a smile,” I said, touching the soft cheek someone had dared to touch in anger. “We’ll have to do more things to make that happen.”
We piled into the truck, and she buckled her seat belt. Cannon settled into the back seat next to her, the lucky devil. “Um, how long exactly until home?”
I practically melted on the seat hearing her call our home, home. “About three more hours.”
She looked out the window. “Far, far away from him. Finally.”
I hoped that was the last time she ever thought of the monster. But I knew better.