Chapter 20
LIV
YOU DON’T KNOW HOW IT FEELS - TOM PETTY
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Niko nods, silently annoyed that I keep asking him that, but he’s not going to say as much.
Or anything at all.
He’s been worried, and irritated with me, and with the way I’ve been behaving for so long that he probably thinks saying anything is pointless. I know he still feels the distance I’m forcing between us, and I know he got hopeful when I lost my shit over his panic attack.
I felt it in our bond.
I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was happening but I knew it was something negative, and I practically mowed Styx down in order to find my omega.
Since then, I’ve been all over him in a way that is driving both of us nuts; a helicopter mate to the nth degree.
After all the space I’ve been putting between us, no one is enjoying this, especially while I’m making a mess by trying to reestablish that distance as I simultaneously lose the fight against my instincts to permanently insert myself directly up Niko’s ass.
Talk about mixed signals.
Things are not going very well, to say the least, and I think my omega wants to strangle me as much as I’d like to strangle myself.
“You know you don’t have to–”
“I’m fine,” he grunts as we weave through tables toward the stock room. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”
I hate it when he lies to me.
Niko is not fine, he hasn’t been for a week now, and his anxiety has spiked just since pulling into the parking lot. I know him too well to think it’s first day jitters, but he hasn’t explained the panic attack, or his increased anxiety, so he’s not helping his cause by keeping me in the dark.
Not that I think knowing what triggered all of that would help me.
If anything, it might make me completely abandon any and all plans I have in favor of making Niko feel safe again, and I know that’s exactly why he’s been tight lipped about this.
He knows what finding the ones responsible for my chosen pack’s deaths means to me, he knows I’m not going to be able to completely move on until I do, and he’s not going to throw a wrench in things because of that. Even at his own expense.
Do I like that he thinks that way? No. Do I love him for it anyway? Yes. Does it make me feel like a needy, clingy, stupid omega for the millionth time since finding him and Rune? Also, yes.
A pack you share real, natural bonds with is so different from a pack you choose.
I never really settled into my designation with my first one because of it.
I did omega things but they were different, more unorthodox from how I am with these two, I guess, and slipping into the role I was born to fill as easily as breathing because I found a soul bond and scent match has me all kinds of fucked up.
It also probably doesn’t help that I’m actively fighting my natural instincts harder than I’ve fought anything, all the while I keep finding myself in situations where I’m basically dissolving into them by collecting fucking mates and expanding my true pack at the same time.
“Hey,” Styx says with a beautiful smile as we enter the stock room.
Point proven, live and in person, by the third piece I want to add to my human collection.
Well, that sounds pretty fucking creepy.
Ugh.
“Hi,” I say with a stupid amount of joy, all considered.
Styx smirks at me, like he knows how giddy I am, and how hard I’m trying not to be, then turns to Niko. “How are you feeling?”
I watch my omega blush a little, which we should talk about but won’t, as he pushes his hair behind his ears and clears his throat. “Better.”
The last time Styx saw Niko, he was barely coherent and Rune was carrying him out of the bathroom before loading him into our RV, post panic attack.
My beta, because I might as well own it, drove us to his place without even asking.
He recently bought an old farmhouse on a pretty decent size piece of property but Styx lives in the barn, in an apartment in the converted loft.
He’s restoring the house so it works for him, but instead of hiding us in the woods like I thought he was going to, Styx parked us right in the space underneath his temporary place.
Since then, Niko has spent all of his time in the RV trying to bounce back from his panic attack and get a handle on whatever is going on with him, but Rune and I started working at Knotted Obsessions per our omega’s request, so this isn’t the first time I’ve seen my beta.
No, I’ve been seeing a lot of Styx while working and worrying endlessly about Niko, and thankfully my new boss is okay with the way I’ve been obsessively texting my omega during any lulls while I’m behind the bar.
He’s been worried, too, just like Rune, who almost didn’t start work because of it, so the texts have helped all of us. Just like having three super obedient and dangerous dogs in the RV with Niko while we’re gone helped us.
Styx also implied that he had some sort of security at his place that would make sure my omega was protected, but I didn’t see anything to support that statement.
Unfortunately, collecting mates seems to have made me blindly trust them, too, officially together and bonded or not.
But Niko really was safe while he was out there, we’ve settled into staying there rather nicely, and I’m making everyone’s life hell by both wanting them with every fiber of my being, and pushing them so far away I’m going to lose all of them.
Needless to say, I’m crushing it at this omega who found her true pack shit.
God, I hate myself.
“You’re sure you’re good?” Styx asks Niko as he steps toward the timeclock. “You don’t have to start down there tonight if you aren’t ready.”
My omega nods, punches in, then turns to face us with a soft smile. “I’m fine. I might even feel more comfortable starting down there since I’ll be surrounded by my people.”
By people, he means anyone who speaks Russian.
Apparently, when Styx told his brother about Niko, the two of them went back and forth a bit then decided it might be a good idea for my omega to bartend down where they let that Alexei guy hold his auctions.
It’s the first time they’ve had anyone on their payroll that was able to work both floors of Knotted Obsessions, and I can tell they’re hoping it works out in whatever way they want it to.
Was I real excited to find out they are holding omega auctions in the basement of this club? No, but Styx told me on my first day and explained how they’re separate organizations working parallel for mutual benefit and nothing more. And honestly, I feel like it’s going to be helpful for me.
Drugs, guns, and human trafficking means I might be on the right track to getting some long awaited answers.
“Rune is already down there,” Styx says with a smile as he opens the hidden door to the basement. “He insisted on being the one posted there when he realized it’s between both bars.”
Niko and I look at each other then both turn to our beta with arched brows.
“Okay.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “So, he didn’t say any of that but he looked toward Row’s bar, then back at this door” —he motions toward the stairs– “pointed, then grunted there at me.”
“That’s more on brand for him.”
Styx nods. “I can’t say I don’t appreciate a man of few words but the big guy’s face speaks volumes even if he decides to stay silent.”
“Also true.” I smile and hand Niko his mask. “I’m just a text message away.”
“I know. I’ll be fine.” He lifts the soft faux leather covered in studs to his face but hesitates briefly as his eyes bounce between mine. “I promise.”
Niko dips his chin and gives me a sweet kiss, one that makes my heart flip in my chest, and I can’t help but feel a little at ease because of it.
Plus, Styx knows we’re a pack.
Well, he knows we’re together. We still haven’t exchanged bites, and we haven’t done anything with Rune that would indicate to anyone else that he’s more than an overprotective alpha who will fuck up literally anything that looks in our direction, but Styx knows we’re something more to each other than friends.
This is the first time there’s been real confirmation, though, and the small wave of happiness that rolls off of him as he watches me press one more quick kiss to my omega’s lips before he masks up and heads down the stairs makes me blush.
And not just because he watched that happen.
“He’s going to be okay, Row.”
I nod as I watch the door close before looking up at my beta. “I know. I know he will, I just, I can’t help but worry about him.”
“I get it.” When I look at him skeptically, Styx laughs. “Indirectly. I feel your worry the same way I felt how much you love him, and that is something I do understand.”
“You have a… Do you have someone you love that you worry about until you’re crazy, too?”
“I do,” he says, his expression turning a touch dreamy as he pushes a hand back through his red hair. “He probably makes me more crazy than anything else in my life right now.”
The fact that he has someone like that, that the male I view as my beta could be in love with someone else has me feeling unjustly annoyed.
It makes me a huge hypocrite.
He just said he knows I’m in love with Niko because it’s obvious I am.
I’m sure he assumes I’m in love with Rune, too, because I go all clingy omega when he’s around, and he wouldn’t be wrong for thinking that.
That gigantic alpha’s actions have been more than enough for me to fall for him whether we’ve acted on those feelings or not.
So, being annoyed with Styx for having a mate or whatever he has is total bullshit on my part. I can’t stop it, though, and he is clearly reading that on my face right now.
“So adorable,” he says as he reaches out and takes my chin between his thumb and index finger. “Jealousy looks good on you, but I can assure you, it’s not necessary.”
I free myself from his grasp with a huff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”