Page 3 of The Alpha: Part One
"No," is the tight-lipped response. "Keep trying." We both send text after text until Amber calls me instead of Desie.
"Can't you just leave her alone? This is already hard enough on her!" Amber barks into my ear. I can hear another girl murmuring in the background. "Stop texting her. There's nothing you can do now."
"We're here to get her. We're going to take her away from here. She shouldn't be forced to be with a pack she doesn't want. We can take care of her."
"You think running away and hiding is taking care of her? You think that's how a good pack treats their omega? By stealing her from the family who loves her and running away? You really think Desie would be happy living that life?" Amber starts shushing and softly purring when Desie's sob chokes across the line. "Stop texting. It's bad enough already. And now her face is going to be puffy and raw and it's your fault, just like this whole thing is your fault. You should have stayed away years ago when Mateo told you to stop coming around. If you weren't going to complete your pack, you should have just stayed the hell away."
"It shouldn't matter that we haven't found a third yet. We will. We just need more time, Amber. Sneak her out. We'll just take her for a little road trip and bring her back after we find our third. Maybe we'll find another pack, like she said."
"It's too late, Ben. Too late. You've already had four extra years while she finished school, and it was hard enough to get the council to agree to that. Just go. You're just doing more damage." Then the line goes dead.
"Goddammit," Michael hisses. "Her phone stopped receiving. She must have turned it off. What did Amber say?"
"That it's too late." I think I'm going to cry. I'm a grown ass man, and I'm about to cry. It is too late.
Michael slams his hands on the steering wheel. "The fuck it is. Come on."
We get out of the car, and I follow him when he runs through three lawns, jumping fences and flower gardens. When we run around the corner of Mateo's house to get to Desie's tree, we run right into a wall of Romero. All four of Desie's brothers meet us head-on. Sebastian grabs me around the waist and swings me around mid-stride, effectively stopping me in my tracks, and Lucas takes Michael to the ground.
After a short, violent struggle, Mateo kneels down to look straight into Michael's eyes. "You shouldn't have come. Can't you understand how much you're hurting her? The two of you have done so much harm. You wouldn't leave her alone, and you wouldn’t do what you needed to do to keep her. And now you've forced my hand."
Michael spits on the ground between them. "We haven't forced shit, Mateo. She belongs with us."
Mateo puts his hand on Michael's shoulder. "I'm not going to argue with you. My sister does belong with you. But you aren't a full pack. And the council won't register her with anything but a full pack of at least three."
"We've looked," I choke out. This is all so desperate. So wretched. I still might cry.
Mateo's dark eyes turn toward me, and he gives me a sad little smile. "I know you have, Benny. I know it can't be just anybody. I know that. Rafe was my friend. He was one of my best friends. I was so glad Desie was going to be with him. I knew the four of you were going to be a perfect, strong pack. But he's gone, and you haven't found someone to take his place. I bargained for extra time so Desie could finish school, but more importantly to give you two more time to complete your pack. Time's up, Benny. I'm sorry. I can't do anything else, and I can't let you keep hurting my sister. The only power she has in this situation is the power to choose one of the packs at these things. You don't want to jeopardize that for her. If you do, she could be passed over by all the good packs and then she'll just go with someone the council picks. That pack might not give a shit about what she wants for her future. That pack could take her away from us. Do you want her miserable for the rest of her life?"
Michael's shoulders slump and he leans into Lucas, changing the hold from an aggressive one to one designed to provide a little comfort. "She's going to be miserable, anyway, Mateo. You know she is."
"But if she chooses the right pack, she might not have everything she wants taken from her. She could still have her career. She could still have her family the way she wants it, instead of how some pack of strangers wants it to be. Do you want to take everything from her? Isn't it already going to be bad enough?"
The tears come then, and I can't stop them. I just dig my fingers into Sebastian's arms like it will help anything. Mateo reaches over and grips my shoulder. "I know. It's fucked up. Everything about it is wrong. But we're all stuck right now."
Gabriel, in his optimistic, nineteen-year-old wisdom, makes a suggestion. "The meets aren't just for omegas, Benny. You and Michael should come. Maybe there will be another alpha that you mesh with. You could find your third at a meet, maybe before D picks a pack. Maybe you can try to find a way to be less picky, too."
I look into Michael’s angry eyes. Why didn't we think about going to the meets ourselves? In all these years, we've never been to a single one. "We could go. It's worth a shot, right? Michael?"
"Not tonight," Michael clips. "She's too upset to have us there tonight, and we're too upset to be there. Mateo, I'm sorry to ask you for more favors, but will you keep her from picking a pack tonight? Encourage her to drag it out? Baby Gabe is right, the meets aren't just for omegas. Me and Benny might be a little older than the other un-attached alphas that will be there, but that might end up helping us."
Mateo blows out a breath and stands back up. He offers Michael his hand to pull him to his feet. "Yeah. I can do that. She wouldn't pick a pack the first time out, anyway. Just try to get something figured out quickly. I can only slow things down so far at this point. I want her to be happy. Now get out of here before Amber walks her out. She's already a mess, she doesn't need to see you right now."
"Yeah, alright. I know. Come on, Benny." Michael pulls me away from Sebastian. "Thank you, Mateo. We'll figure something out."
Walking away from Mateo's house back to the car was one of the hardest things I've had to do, but I did it. Now, two hours later, we're sitting on our couch nursing beers and sulking. Desie would already be surrounded by interested packs by now. I can imagine her in that dress, sitting at her table with her hair all curled, looking gorgeous while she tries not to notice all the attention on her. Desie doesn't think she's as beautiful as she is. She's self-conscious about her height, about her shape, about her big, pouty mouth. She hyper-fixates on all my favorite things about her like they're bad. It makes no sense to me. She's the most fuckable thing in the universe and she's shy about it. And she's sitting at a table right now that might as well be a stage, on display for men who have no business looking at her while me and my idiot brother sit here studying the event schedule the WCC puts out every month.
"Stop thinking about where she's at and help me figure out where we're going to be." I don't know how he does it, but Michael always knows what I'm stressing over. People say it's a twin thing, but I think it's just us. I can tell when he's rolling into a bad train of thought as well as he can read me. It was like that with Rafe, too, and we weren't related to him. I think it's more of a pack thing than a twin thing.
"I'm trying, but it's so messed up. I keep seeing her at a table talking to a bunch of assholes that shouldn't be near her."
Michael cuts me with a look. "Mateo is there. He'll take care of her." And that makes me feel like shit. I don't doubt Mateo for a second, I'm just having a hard time letting the image of Desie being courted by strangers dig into me too deeply.
"I know he is. I'm trying to get my shit together." I lean back against the back of the couch and rub my eyes. "So, we're going to all of them?"
"Every single one. We're bound to find someone who will work well enough. Maybe from a different town. It's Spring now, and there's always a bunch of departmental banquets and lunches in addition to pack builders and mixers. We'll actually go to them this year; the chief will be happy about that since he is always hounding us to participate. Even if we found someone from another station, we'd have something in common and they'd understand the life."
I hadn't considered that. On purpose. "I don't want another airtanker in our pack. I want at least one of us home with her when the fires start. If we all get called out to a job, then that leaves Desie alone. If the fires get all the way over here and we were all somewhere else on containment…no. I don't want another fireman. Not a cop or an EMT either. Maybe we can find a cook, or something."
