Page 39 of The Pack Next Door
“What?” My voice was all high and warbly, making me sound like a blushing teen. Hands went to my cheeks and Candy smirked, obviously noting they were bright red. But I wasn’t a kid anymore, and that had me dropping them back into my lap as I frowned slightly. “That’s not possible, remember?” Candy was in the room when Riley delivered the news, handing me tissues when tears welled in my eyes. “I can’t have kids.”
“Plenty of betas can’t.” She shrugged. “I yeeted my own uterus ages ago because can you imagine me solely responsible for small people? At work is one thing. Riley stops me from letting our child clients run with scissors and shit, but left to my own devices.” With a shake of her head, she focussed back on me. “That thing about not having a fated mate? It was just a hypothesis. There was no way to prove it…”
Because they hadn’t come across another omega with the same issue. I shifted restlessly, the relentless beat of my heat pushed to one side for a second.
“So…”
It felt like the foundations I built my life upon were creaking ominously, ready to crack and disintegrate, and where would that leave me? Falling through the air, arms flailing, with no idea what to do.
But what if there was someone to catch me?
I saw it then, Mads’ wild grin, or Jace’s cheeky one as they reached out. It was Gideon, with that intense stare, who wrapped his arms around me, stopping me from breaking every damn bone, just like he had in the town square.
“Occam’s razor, babes,” Candy said. “The simplest explanation is the one closest to the truth.”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. The need to reply, to tear her logic apart, built inside me, but the wolf shouldered forward.
Just before I revealed as an omega, I dreamed of her. A slender, grey wolf, she stared me down, and I stared right back. The same thing happened here, her impatient whine, then a shark bark, making clear that she knew exactly what was happening and was just waiting for me to catch up. That’s what had me ending the call, rising from my bed and running downstairs.
“Everything alright, love?” Mum was ladling some of her world-famous Irish stew into a casserole dish, but she stopped when she saw me. “Trouble at work?”
At work, in my life, everything, I wanted to say, but I wasn’t a little girl complaining to my mother anymore.
“There’s a lot going on.” Another buzz in my pocket made clear more messages were coming through, and as it was after hours, it meant Emma wasn’t having much luck with the freightcompany. I resisted the urge to check it. “That smells nice, though.”
“Stew and mashed potatoes,” she said with a proud smile. “But this lot is going next door.”
I watched her try to pick up the dish once the lid was on but was forced to sweep in and take it from her.
“It might be,” I said, “but you’re not.” And that’s when I paused. Looking through the windows, across the darkened lawn at the Whitlock pack’s place, I knew there was one way I’d get a definite answer. Alphas had rejected me before. I could handle these ones doing it too. “I’ll take the stew over.”
“With the mashed potatoes.”
I expected a fight, but instead Mum piled a bunch of the pillowy soft mash into a plastic container and then piled that on top of the casserole dish, leaving me to carry this precarious burden out of the house and across to theirs. Probably a good thing, because I was too focussed on not dropping the lot to worry about my reception.
Those concerns came rushing back once I reached their front porch. The ring of illumination from the outside light picked out all the details of their front door. I followed the lazy spiral of several moths as they got closer and closer to the bulb, when the wolf stepped in. She moved my legs, taking me right up to the front door, then while I was trying to juggle the containers, it was jerked open.
“Briar…”
Jace stood there, the artificial light creating a halo around his head, and that just made him harder to look at. My eyes searched his face, looking for clues as to why he’d say my name in such a reverent hush. Where was the cheeky chicken thief of before? A twitch of his lips made clear he’d come forward with little provocation. His brows twitched as he took a step closer, his hands reaching out. I just stared at them, unable to decipherhis motivations, when they plucked the casserole dish from my fingers.
“Mum made you dinner.”
That came out in a rush, and I stepped backwards as a result. Gods, I couldn’t do this. I just couldn’t. I didn’t even know if I wanted alphas outside of my heat.
“Smells amazing,” he said with an appreciative sniff. “You should come and eat with us.”
That. My brain grabbed at the idea. We could sit down, scarf down a bowl of stew, and he could?—
“Jace…?” There were a lot of things I expected to hear inside the alphas’ house, but another woman’s voice wasn’t one of them. My back went ramrod straight. The wolf snarled, her hackles going up, somewhat gratified by Jace’s stricken expression. “What are you doing, standing there with the front door…? Oh.”
Oh, indeed.
She was an omega, that was clear. The short stature, the curves broadcasted her breedability, but the sensible haircut streaked with grey inferred those days might be over. Her chin lifted slightly, her brows creased as she peered at me.
“Mum.” Jace gestured to the woman with a meaningful look my way. “This is Briar. Briar, this is?—”
“You’re that girl…” Her lips thinned. “The woman next door. The one that Miranda woman said my boys needed to look after.”
