Chapter 8 - Mara
My initial reaction was to deny it.
Absolutely not. No way.
I accused him of fabricating the results, faking the report. It’s bullshit. I know enough to know you can’t be an omega if you don’t have a wolf; they must think I’m stupid.
Cade doesn’t force the issue. He just says I obviously needed some thinking time—I hate the way he’s so unnervingly calm when I feel anything but.
I thought my biggest obstacle was figuring out how to get out of here and back to the hunters' compound, try to pick up where I left off, or even leverage the situation to get them to trust me more.
Not Cade and the way his presence keeps affecting me, and certainly not all this.
The house is silent except for the faint tick of the wall clock, the splutter of the heater coming in, and the way the deck groans as the temperature drops outside.
I’m curled in Cade’s library, a corner room lined in rough wood and crowded with shelves that smell like cedar and old books, pretending to read a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.
The truth is, I’m just staring at the printout of the lab report, eyes tracing the same underlined sentences over and over until the letters begin to blur.
Omega DNA detected. No sign of active lycanthropic sequence. Dormant, possibly recessive. Subject does not present with classic omega phenotype but demonstrates biochemical markers consistent with the genotype…
I don’t want to believe it. I am not one of them. I know exactly who my parents were, and they weren’t shifters. I’m not a shifter; I have no wolf. I’m human.
But the evidence is right there, in black and white.
It’s the same kind of report you’d expect to see from a high-end lab, and there’s another corresponding one from a university I recognize.
It makes me think about all the mandatory blood draws at the compound.
I didn’t even question it when they started, because everyone did them.
But then they started calling me back, telling me I was a universal donor.
At first, I thought it was a good thing, because it got me access to more of the Order, people who weren’t usually at the bar, but now I’m starting to wonder…
I let the report drop into my lap; it’s impossible to focus on the words. My head is a hive of anxiety; the more I try to make sense of it, the crazier it all seems.
Rowan’s mate, Willow, wrote a cover letter for the report. She tried to soften it with phrases like “it’s not a curse or a disease.” I keep telling myself I’ll burn the whole report in the log fire, but I keep coming back and reading it again, hoping the words will change.
I think about the blood tests at the compound again.
About the vitamins. About the way they started watching me after every appointment, how they kept checking on me, how Trish began making a point of reminding me about the pills, about hydration, about my “unique health needs.” Looking at this report, the same thought keeps coming back to me: did they know?
Not the idiots in the bar, but the higher-ups.
Trish had a mainline on the situation with her husband, Stan, running the compound. If he knew, then she knew.
But if they did, why keep me around only to hand me over so easily?
Was I defective? Or were they just waiting for the right buyer, the right moment to cash in?
Wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen them sell a hostage or shifter, but they knew who they were.
As far as they were concerned, I was just working the bar.
I haven’t taken any of the vitamins since I arrived, but they’re still in my pocket. Are they even really vitamins? Maybe I was just an experiment, and the real plan was to see what happened when they threw me to the wolves. Literally.
And how much does all this change what I do next?
Heat crawls up my neck as I replay the last three days with Cade.
I hate that I notice everything about him.
The way his voice drops half an octave when I think I’ve finally cracked his stoic exterior and he’s irritated by my banter.
I notice the way he never lets his guard down, not even in his own home—not around me, anyway.
The way he moves through the house, as if he could attack at any moment, should scare me, but instead it makes me feel something else entirely.
Intrigue.
I try to think back to everything I’ve ever heard about omegas, which isn’t much, because I’ve lived my whole life as a human, and anything I did hear was always wrapped up in rumor or the kind of barroom mythology that makes shifters sound like monsters.
The hunters are obsessed with the idea that shifters need omegas to breed, and there’s a lack of them, meaning their numbers have been dropping.
They’d say that omegas are so rare that if shifters find one, the packs would go crazy for her, fight and kill for her, and then chain her in a cellar to breed her like livestock.
It was always said with the kind of disgust that told you the speaker got a thrill just thinking about it, but I never believed all of it.
Some of the stories were just too stupid, too out there, that I didn’t think they could be real.
But now I’m sitting in this cabin, reading a medical report that says I’m one of them, and suddenly it’s not so far-fetched.
I don’t feel any different, but the evidence is there, gnawing at the edge of my brain.
The way Cade looks at me sometimes…I have no experience with men, but I know when they’re interested, and I see flickers of it now and then.
Is it because of what this report says I am?
What if the rumors are true? What if they do need omegas, and now he has one living under his roof?
Or worse, what if I need him? What if, like the stories said, it would eventually drive me crazy if nobody…
bred me? The word itself makes me want to die of embarrassment, but it also sets off a prickle of heat in my chest that I can’t explain.
I want to blame the “biochemical markers” in the report, but I know better.
This is me, and I’m the one who can’t stop thinking about the way Cade looked at me last night, the way I feel whenever he’s near.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to push the feeling away.
It doesn’t work. I’ve always been good at compartmentalizing desire, stuffing it down because ever since I decided to start tracking the hunters, I knew I’d never be able to let my guard down.
I was only ever around hunters—and they’re the ones responsible for killing my parents and ruining my life, so why would I ever feel desire for one of them, anyway—but this is different.
It crackles inside me, a low, electrical urge that renews itself every time I hear his voice or catch the edge of his scent in a hallway.
I want to resent it, to push it away, but instead I catch myself wanting to see what would happen if I just…
let it take over. Would it feel good, or would I lose myself?
Would I find something I didn’t know was missing?
Would it confirm that this report is true?
For a split second, I let myself imagine it: Cade, hands big enough to crush a skull, holding me down, but not to kill me or stop me escaping, but to pin me in place while he fucked me, hard and rough.
I imagine the way his breath would rasp in my ear, the way he’d bite my shoulder, mark me, claim me so there would be no question about whom I belonged to.
The thought is so intoxicating, I’m so caught up in the fantasy, that I don’t hear the door until it’s already swinging open.
I lurch upright, the biography slipping off my knees, and snatch at the lab report, but Cade sees anyway.
He looks almost too big for his own doorframe, and he seems to fill the room with the same silent, implacable energy as always.
He doesn’t come in, not at first. His eyes flick from me to the scattered pages, and I see a shadow of amusement on his mouth, like he knows exactly what I was thinking.
My cheeks flame red; I hate that I can’t control it.
I want to say something, a joke maybe, but the words are stuck behind my tongue, too thick to move.
He cocks his head and nods at the report. “You get through it?”
I let the pages curl in my fist. “I read it again. For what it’s worth, I still think your friends are wrong.” I make myself meet his eyes. “I know who my parents were. They weren’t shifters, and they weren’t anything special. I’m not some…missing link.”
Cade steps into the room, and I immediately feel the heat rising. The library seems to swallow sound, and I hold my breath as he approaches. He crosses his arms, leans against the nearest shelf, and regards me with that unreadable expression. “Parents were,” he says, “not ‘are.’ So, they’re gone?”
I nod, not trusting my voice yet. “Dead. Both of them. Years ago.” The words come out flat. I will myself to stop talking, but my mouth won’t listen. “I was eleven. After that, it was just me.”
Something shifts in Cade’s face, a tightening around the eyes. He uncrosses his arms. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s not bullshit, not pity. He says it like he means it, like it’s a loss that means something to him.
I shrug, but the gesture is mostly for myself. “It was a long time ago. People lose parents all the time. I’m not a child anymore.” I try to keep the rest of the story locked down: the warehouse, the hunters, and the fire, but it still flashes through my mind.
He’s quiet for a second, then says, “Family is everything, where I come from.” There’s a strange softness in his voice, a kind of ache. “Even if you’re not close. Even if you hate half of them, you’d still die for them. That’s what it means to be a pack.”
I make a face, half smile, half sneer. “Lucky for you.”
He shakes his head, comes closer, and sits on the arm of the chair across from me.
His knees brush the edge of my ottoman, and I’m suddenly aware, in a visceral, skin-thin way, of how close he is.
“Not luck,” he says. “It’s just how we’re built.
Maybe you didn’t get the wolf, but you got the part that wants a place to belong.
You wouldn’t be so pissed off if you didn’t have it. ”
“I’m not pissed off,” I say quietly, but I’m not sure that’s true. The rage I feel, my pursuit of the hunters, the way I felt no remorse when I set the shifters on the last group up north to take their own revenge… Maybe I am pissed off. Maybe it’s justified.
Cade says nothing for a moment, and it’s clear he sees straight through me in a way I’m not sure anyone ever has before. I hate that. But as the moment drags on, I feel myself not wanting it to end.
Eventually, he clears his throat. “You want coffee?” His words are soft, but I know he’s not making a casual offer. I think it’s supposed to be some kind of truce or peace offering, or as close as he’d ever get to one.
I nod, and the moment is gone, replaced by the usual awkwardness that fills the air every time I realize I’m alone with him.
I gather the pages and tuck them under my arm, following him out of the library and into the kitchen.
The windows are bright, and his entire house is so shiny and clean, so meticulous, that I feel completely out of place.
The luxury here is a far cry from my accommodation with the hunters.
He moves around the kitchen like he owns the world, and I guess in a way he does, at least in these mountains.
Instead of the machine, he grinds the beans by hand this time, pours water into a glass carafe, and turns on the stove.
I stand near the counter, pretending to do anything but watch his every movement.
I’m so hyper-aware of him; it’s embarrassing, the way every movement draws my eye.
He’s not even doing anything interesting; he’s just making coffee with deliberate, slow gestures, and I still can’t look away.
I hate that I’m so attracted to him. I hate that I can’t stop thinking about his hands, or his arms, or the way his eyes look when he’s angry, or the way he stands too close when he talks to me.
He should be the last man I want to look at, but instead, he’s the only one I think I’ve ever really let myself notice.
He slides a mug across the counter. “They’ll be here in fifteen,” he says, meaning his betas, and that means I have fifteen minutes to figure out what the hell I’m going to do.
“They” means Grey, his second, and two or three of the others. They’re all huge shifters and seem to fill the entire house. He’s noticed that I like to hide in the library when they come, and for some reason, it matters to him that I’m not caught off-guard.
I say, “You always keep this place so tidy?” and immediately regret it, but Cade just shrugs and pours his own coffee.
“There’s something to be said for order,” he says, but he lets the word hang, like he’s thinking about the Order of Reclamation and not just the condition of his own kitchen. He leans back on the counter, arms folded, watching me over his mug.
I can’t meet his eyes, so I focus on the coffee instead, drinking it black even though I usually dump in at least four sugars. I feel like if I try to make small talk, I’ll scream, so I just sip, pretending I’m not vibrating out of my skin. Does he notice? Does he care?
I refill my coffee as the first truck pulls up, and Cade can’t keep the smirk from his face as I grab the cup and papers before escaping back toward the library. I don’t miss the way he pauses before getting the door, allowing for my escape.
In the library, I shut the door and lean against it.
I clutch the coffee, but the papers slip from my hands.
I didn’t even realize I was shaking until I stopped moving.
I hear the main door open and the sound of men greeting each other; I hear Cade’s voice above all, and the sound does something to me I can’t explain. It should be fear, but it’s not.
All I know for certain is that I can’t stay here.
I’m not safe. From him, or myself, because I want him in a way that feels completely overwhelming.