Page 99 of The Pack Next Door
“Us,” I replied, unable to stop grinning as Briar’s cheeks flushed bright pink.
“You?” Her focus shifted back to Emma. “We need to have a chat about releasing my address to strangers.”
“With me.” Seb set the box he was carrying down on the nearby table heavily, then put his hands on his hips. “I’m the one that told them. They said you were their mate and I know they weren’t getting into your building without you buzzing them up, so I gave them the address. They said they’d help and you’ve been promising us more hands for a while now.”
“You need us.” I felt my brothers come and stand on either side of me. “So we’re here.”
“In my office.” Everyone went to follow her, forcing Briar to stop. “The Whitlock pack first, and Seb, I apologise. You’re right. I should’ve hired more people before now.” She looked us up and down warily. “Still might need to.”
I glanced at my brothers, seeing their tense expressions as we followed Briar into her office. She did duck behind her desk, for some reason needing something between us and her. Didn’t they smell that sweet rose and vanilla scent? She wasn’t as pissed as she was making out.
“So you turn up to my apartment uninvited and now you’re here at my workplace.” She sat down abruptly. “Can I expect to see you at my spin class this afternoon? I have to warn against it, as it’s in a women’s only gym.”
“You don’t need us at the gym,” I said.
Jace shrugged. “I mean, if you want some help stretching.” He winked at her. “Pretty sure we’ve helped you get into some weird positions already, so…”
The way her lips pressed together, her dimples popping, I was pretty sure she was smothering a smile, but she rallied quickly. With a serious look, she scanned the lot of us.
“I’m not going to stop you from helping out here, if only because I think Seb is just about to start sending resumes out, looking for other jobs, but…” She shook her head. “You’ve been very… helpful, but if you’re doing this to try and get in my good books.”
“We have one last alpha trial.” Everyone stared at Gideon, and for the first time since we left home, he smiled just a little. “We passed one, failed the other one utterly. The last one is the decider.”
“To become the ruling pack of Moon River?”
He was doing this wrong. Briar stiffened, her scent soured, but my brother forged on.
“To become your alphas.” His arms crossed his chest, and look at that. She followed every movement, noticing the way his muscles popped. I did the same, because I wanted Briar staring at me the same way. “This is the only trial that matters.”
Jace and I stared at each one of them, trying to work out how the fuck that was going over. Briar settled back against the chair, her fingers forming a steeple, but when she nodded, I let a long breath out.
“I didn’t go to Mum’s place looking for alphas. As far as I knew, there were no fated mates for me. But finding out I did have mates? I didn’t know how to process that initially, then I didn’t need to. I’m not sure what happened.” I sucked in a breath to tell her, but she continued on, silencing me. “And in a lot of ways, it doesn’t matter. Your first instinct wasn’t to come to the city, learn about my life. and find a way we could be together. It was to fulfil whatever destiny your family set out for you.”
There was a terrible finality about her voice that was like a hand wrapping around my heart and squeezing.
“It didn’t cost me anything to help you out with that. Well…” Seeing pain in my omega’s eyes, it was ten times worse than anything else we’d gone through. I’d let every single alpha pack run over my repeatedly, gladly accept their cleats digging into my flesh. Anything other than this. “Apart from being forced to accept that the three men fated to be with me weren’t going to put me first.”
Chapter 49
Briar
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. When I woke up this morning, I intended to send them all a group text, thanking them for getting me through my heat and then making clear nothing more than that could happen.
Only to find all three of them in my warehouse.
It was only Seb’s harried expression that had me my mouth shutting, right as I was about to order them out of my workplace. It felt like the different parts of my world were colliding and I didn’t know what the hell to do the minute they climbed out of the neat little boxes inside my head.
Except I did.
April’s cruel words? They were just the icing on a shitty cake. There was a reason why they say you can never go home. and that’s because there was a version of you that lived on in people’s heads and that’s all they could see. Back in the city, the person I chose to be, the life I wanted to live, was waiting for me, feeling like cotton sheets worn soft by frequent washings.
Like home.
And they had to come wandering into it, ruining all that calm.
I watched the guys file out of my office and felt like shit, which just pissed me off more. Was any of it a lie? I shook my head, firing up my computer. I didn’t have time for relationship drama…
I didn’t have time for relationships.
