Page 18 of The Pack Next Door
She hobbled over and clasped my hands with hers, and that’s when I knew what I had to do.
Discussing bringing this up with my mother in a therapy session wasn’t the same as actually doing it. In the soothing consulting rooms I could practise having the conversation with my therapist, but she just sat there quietly, listening carefully. Mum was nowhere near as passive.
“You—”
“Mum!” I didn’t raise my voice to my mother ever. Having to fulfil the role of both parents made Maggie Reynolds tough. She was never cruel, but there was no mistaking who ruled the roost. I wasn’t a little chick anymore, hiding under her wings. I was a grown woman, for gods’ sake. There was never a good time to have this conversation, but I was going to have it now. “I need you to listen to me.”
Her mulish look made clear what I was asking of her, but she stayed blessedly silent.
“I may be an omega, but there are no alphas in my future.”
“Oh, Briar…”
I couldn’t do this if she was feeling sorry for me, I just couldn’t.
“Mum.” I placed my hands on her shoulders. “It’s not gonna happen.”
“So why did we travel halfway across the state then?” she said. “Briar.” Her hand circled my wrist, her thumb brushing back and forth in comforting sweeps. “I know you’re scared of getting hurt again.”
“Gods, is that what you think this is?” I jerked myself away from her, walking back and forth, back and forth across the worn lino. “I’m not scared of Gideon or Mads or any other alpha. It’s just…”
I stared at the ceiling, wondering how I got here. The whole point of coming down to Moon River was to try to sort her problems, not drop mine on Mum. My apartment, the brightly coloured geraniums I grew in pots with cute little faces sculpted into the sides, my nest… I conjured every single comforting thought I could think of before turning around to face my mother.
“I went to the city to find out what was wrong with me,” I said.
“And that was a waste of time. Sweetheart, there has never been anything wrong with you.”
“To discover why I never found my mates then.” I was forced to walk over to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water, drinking it down in long gulps. “The staff there ran a bunch of tests.”
“What tests?” Mum sounded snappy, but I knew what this was. When she got scared, she was like a cornered animal, snarling at anything that threatened her. “What tests could they possibly run to help you find your mates?
I closed my eyes and then shook my head, knowing somehow this news was hard for everyone else to accept but me.Just breathe, I told myself.Whatever happens next, it will be fine. With a square of my shoulders, I turned to face her.
“I can’t have children, Mum.” It felt like I was the parent and she was the child, right as I was telling her something that would break her heart. Her mouth sagged open, her brows knotting as she tried to take in what I was saying. “Omegas produce alpha sons.”
Suddenly, I felt sorry for my mother. She’d never lost hope, waiting for something I’d never want.
And that hope wasn’t about to die now.
“Damien didn’t.” My mother rallied quickly. “He was never going to bear his alpha’s sons, and he found his mates. There was that lovely man in the place near the desert, and the rude fellow at...” She clicked her fingers, trying to remember the name of the town. “The place near the border.”
“Bordertown?” I said with a snort.
“Yes, Bordertown.” She declared that as if it was the key piece of evidence in her case. “None of the male omegas are going to bear their mates’ children. Some adopt or pass the mantle to another pack, like the Harts are doing.”
“But I don’t want to.” I shook my head, hating the fact that my eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to do that. Not adopt or pick some young alphas and make them my heirs.” She sucked in a breath to argue, but there was no way of stopping this. “Not run a town or live in Moon River.”
“There are other towns.”
“Yeah, like the city.”
I was biting off my words, and that was a warning. Every time I rehearsed this moment in my head, I’d made my case calmly and concisely, but reality isn’t the same as fantasy. Suddenly, I was so damn tired.
Especially of having this conversation.
“In the city, no one cares if I’m an alpha, beta, or omega,” I said. “Your designation doesn’t matter. What you can do, does. Finding out I can’t have children, living in the city, it gave me the freedom to work out what the hell I wanted to do with my life, not what this town expected. And I did, Mum. I did. I built up a business from nothing.”
“Any pack worth its salt would let you have your little business as a side project,” she said.
