We’d known that finding an omega would be a long stretch back when our pack was whole, and now...well, it was evenlesslikely. I wasn’t even sure if bonding with an omega was something Iwanted, let alone if it was what was best for the pack.

Fuck. I couldn’t think about that right now. I had a pack to wrangle and a woman to apologize to.

The kettle on the stove whistled, and secure in my course of action, I grabbed the box of tea from its shelf and poured boiling water into four mugs. The familiar process calmed me even more than having a plan did, and I set them on a tray before carrying everything into the dining room.

When I walked in, Lilah was sitting at the head of the table, with Killian and Emmett sitting on either side of her. Emmett was a respectful distance away, still staring at Lilah like she was an oasis in the desert. On the other hand, Killian was pressed right up against her, as close as he could possibly be without her sitting directly in his lap. My instincts hummed in satisfaction at seeing the two of them together like that, and I scowled, setting the tray of mugs down a little harder than necessary.

“I didn’t know how you like your tea, Lilah,” I said gruffly. I opened the box and retrieved chamomile tea for Emmett and myself and lemon tea for Killian, then looked up at Lilah expectantly.

She was looking at me with her brow furrowed, and after a moment, she shook her head. “Pick one for me?”

My cockthrobbed, and I stifled a groan as I nodded my head in a short jerk and pulled out another bag of chamomile for her as well.

Calm the fuck down. She is not yours. She isnot. She can’t be. It would be fucking wrong.

Once the tea was done steeping, I carried the cups over and sat next to Emmett. I lifted my cup and took a burning sip. Ordinarily, I waited for tea to cool a little before I drank it, but this time, I wanted the scalding sensation. It helped to clear my head of the mixture of arousal and confusion that flooded me every time I looked at Lilah.

I cleared my throat as I set down the cup and focused on the woman in question. “What happened tonight, Lilah?”

My voice was harsher than I wanted it to be, and Lilah flinched a little, her hands tightening on her cup. Killian immediately reached for her, putting his hand on top of her knee—I presumed—under the table, and she relaxed a little before she let out a shaky breath.

“I just turned twenty-one today,” she explained. Killian looked a little surprised at her admission, which made me want to sigh in exasperation all over again. Hadn’t he asked her even the simplest details about herself?

“I...” Her voice trembled a little, and her throat bobbed with a swallow before she continued. “I presented as an omega. It was an enormous surprise, of course, so my friend Eddie and I decided to go out and celebrate.”

Three identical growls ripped from myself and my packmates at the mention of the male name, and Lilah looked between the three of us for a moment, her brow furrowed in confusion.

After a second, though, her face relaxed, and she offered each of us a small, sweet smile in turn. “Eddie is a woman—Edina. We’ve known each other for years,” she said. There was a hint of amusement in her voice, and I hated myself for how I relaxed atthe knowledge that she hadn’t been out with a man when Killian had stumbled on her.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I wasn’t drinking—I wanted to have fun, but I’m not stupid. I went onto the floor to dance and lost Eddie somewhere in the crowd. I...” Her cheeks pinked slightly, and her sweet scent soured a little—was she embarrassed? “I knew it was probably a little stupid to be surrounded by alphas when my scent was coming on, and I was getting ready to go find Eddie when...”

She glanced at Killian, and I guessed what had happened. He had seen a beautiful woman and gone to dance with her, and then her scent had hit him like a freight train.

“And then?” I prompted.

Lilah’s color deepened, and she looked at Killian, her knuckles whiting as her expression softened a little. A glint entered her pretty eyes, and a smirk spread across Killian’s face. His forearm flexed slightly, and his voice was low and husky when he spoke to her. “Go on, baby girl. Tell Ollie what happened.”

Baby girl?

They had known each other all of an hour, and he already had a pet name for her?

This could be bad. Thiswasbad. I had never seen Killian get so attached to a woman so quickly.

I swallowed, and Lilah’s cheeks flushed further as she turned her attention back to me. Her scent bloomed, and I swallowed hard against the growl that wanted to escape as it reached me. Herscent was deeper and richer than it had been before, warm with arousal, and my cock twitched, begging for me to touch it—forherto touch it. With her hands, those pretty tits of hers, those gorgeous lips...

God,no. We couldn’t do this. Wecouldn’t.

“We...ah, fooled around a little bit,” Lilah continued in a whisper, pulling me out of my increasingly anxious and aroused thoughts. “Um. Killian said that he wanted me to meet you. That it was important. So...here I am.”

She lifted her cup and took a sip, and I sat back in my chair as I worked through her story again. It was simple—too simple. There had to be something that she was leaving out. Why on Earth would she willingly agree to come to a strange place with an alpha she had never met before, especially if she was as new of an omega as she claimed?

“Happy birthday,” Emmett blurted out, breaking the heavy silence.

I looked over at my normally stoic packmate, surprised that he had spoken up at all. He looked dazed, his cheeks flushed as Lilah looked at him.

She smiled and patted him on the back of his hand. “Thank you. I don’t really celebrate my birthday, so today was...nice.”

“Are you sure that’s all that happened?” I managed, my voice tight.