Page 120 of The Packaged Deal

His lips thin, and he puts his wallet in his pockets. “Because there are reasons.”

“Your reasons are only valid if they don’t hurt the people you love and are understood.”

“Jade, leave it.”

“Not a chance in hell, Alpha. You’re my alpha. You belong to me. I’m not letting you escape me after all this.”

I throw myself in front of the doorway and fold my arms over my chest.

“Jade, I need to go.”

“Yeah, and when exactly are you coming back?” I snarl at him.

“I don’t know!” Sven shouts.

“Exactly! You’re not coming back. Adrian and Kandi might be content to let you be a douche canoe, but I fucking well am not. You are mine. MINE!” I roar at him.

“You sound like a child!” Sven barks at me.

Oh! This sonofabitch! I draw myself up to my full height.

“That’s not what you were saying last night when you buried your knot in me,” I snap. “So, this is what it is? I’m good enough to fuck, good enough to knot, but not good enough to keep? You think there’s something wrong with me, too? Was my mother right about this?”

“NO!” Sven roars back and swipes his hand over his head. “Fuck sake. No, of course, I don’t think like that.”

“Then why won’t you stay? Why won’t you bond me?”

“Because I’m broken!” Sven roars. “I had an episode years ago, and I lost the plot. I hurt people. They gave me the option of prison or service. I served as best I could.”

I stare at him. The silence, the shock, it isn’t just coming from me. “That’s not who you are now, and that still doesn’t explain why you won’t take me.”

“Because my pack all died, Jade. I had a pack. And they’re all dead, and that feeling of them dying? That’s not something I want to do ever again. I went insane. I can’t risk that happening again. Now, get out of my way. I’m not going to lose anyone else I love, and I’m not going to hurt anyone else. I made promises.”

His pack died? I step to the side, stunned, and turn to watch him leave. He doesn’t look back.

“Fuck this shit,” I whisper.

I grab Adrian’s phone and hold it to my ear. Watching as Kandi sits down heavily in the kitchen chair while Adrian slides to the floor, staring at the doorway in agony.

“Missy? My name is Jade. I know we don’t like each other very much, but I love Kandi, Sven, and Adrian.” I’d do anything to make them happy. Even beg the omega who wants me gone. “I need your help, no, that’s not true. Sven needs your help.”

Missy and her alpha Seb sit at my kitchen table. The huge blonde giant has kept a paw on Missy’s hand for most of my stilted explanation. Missy in turn, has gone from glaring and being almost incandescent with fury to thoughtful. I have to admit, the pair of them make a nice couple and Seb’s calm energy has made this a much more pleasant experience.

Kandi sits next to her while Adrian has pulled me possessively onto his lap. Just us five sitting around a table discussing things we should leave well enough alone.

Seb spreads the papers across the table.

“Did you find it?” I ask anxiously.

Seb looks up, his eyes dark and concerned. “I did. If you were anyone else but his pack, I’d pretend I never found this.”

I exhale roughly. “Tell us.” I hesitate. “Please.”

“Sven Mortenson was born Ivan Sven Mortenson. He grew up with a bunch of alphas, and they formed a pack when they were fourteen, which is ridiculously young, they should have been warned about that. They were all neighbours and grew up together.”

I blink rapidly.

“At eighteen, a car accident killed all the members of Sven’s pack. All four alphas and a beta. Sven wasn’t in the car. At the loss of the bonds, he went crazy. He was diagnosed as having a traumatic breakdown, from the shock but also from the bonds suddenly being cut.” Seb pauses and closes his eyes. “I can’t even imagine how painful that would have been.” The big alpha opens his eyes, stares at his tablet, and then goes on in a raspier voice. “He almost killed the man responsible for the crash, well, child, the guy was seventeen, Sven was an adult. Only the intervention of the families of the deceased pack could talk him down. It was big news back then.”

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