Page 7 of Christmas Heat
"Hi," Eden responds with a small, forced smile. The other one waves at her over Luke's shoulder. Just like a toddler, she thinks, even though the other omega is a fully grown adult. But they've been protected and coddled their whole lives, like most omegas are. Most omegas who weren't Eden.
The girls are both beautiful with dark hair and eyes, clear complexions a few shades lighter than Tenor's, perfectly applied makeup, and curled hair. They're even wearing matching outfits, one in a cropped red top with black jeans and the other one in a flowy black peasant top with a red mini skirt. They show off the girls' perfectly slim omega silhouettes and she suddenly feels incredibly frumpy and huge in her long wool skirt and Tenor's knit sweater that she's tucked into the front.
She'd reached for it without thought when she'd dressed that morning, instinctually gravitating towards his scent for comfort. Usually wearing oversized clothes made her feel safer. As much as her mates' love for her body had grown her confidence and she no longer felt shy when they touched her belly or thighs or bra roll, she still didn't like the thought of beingseenby others outside her pack.
"You must be Eden," the other girl says. She extricates herself from Luke and Eden can't help tracking every spot where their skin touches her alpha. "I'm Cadence!"
When they approach her, they smell like earthy cedarwood mixed with sweet roses and citrus.Her alphas. They smell like her alphas.She holds back a growl and tries to force her face into a pleasant smile, but she fears it probably comes off as a grimace.
"Hi, yes! That's me. It's so nice to meet y–" They throw themselves around her just like they'd done to her alphas, and Edendoesnearly scream then, but just barely holds it in.
Her mates must feel whatever panic she's projecting into the bond, because they quickly pull the girls off her and Eden makes a strangled noise when she sees them throw themselves at Julius next. Her mate quickly shrugs them off, which gives the girls the opportunity to retake one of Eden's arms each and frog march her to the house.
The one on her left pats Eden's arm where it's looped through hers as if they've known each other for years.
"You're even prettier than Tenor said you were," she declares. Her tone is sincere, like she thinks this is a real compliment.
???
The day doesn't get any better after that.
The inside of the house is as pristine as the outside was. A massive Christmas tree that rivals the one Luke dragged in yesterday sits in the front window, twinkling with soft white lights and perfectly decorated in blue and silver ornaments. Evergreen garlands and ceramic Christmas decor tastefully sit on every mantle, table, and banister and the whole house smells like cranberries and cinnamon, which she realizes is the scent of Tenor's alpha fathers.
As she watches the girls clamber all over her alphas' laps, hanging off them and squealing at every joke, Eden can feelher blood pressure rising.
It's notsexual,and it's not so bad when it's just Tenor they're crawling on, but it's more intimate than she's ever seen any of them be with anyone except their pack before and shedoesn't like it.She wants to drag them away, to bite her alphas and leavemarks where everyone can see, to growl at the girls and place herself between them and her mates so they don't even think about getting near them again.
She doesn't do it. She resists the urge every time it rears its head, keeping herself planted in her seat. But it sits hot and heavy beneath her ribs all the same.
It must be because of how secluded they were in the cottage, she thinks. They didn't really regularly go anywhere except to one of the nearby towns to go to a restaurant for dinner sometimes, or to the grocery store. And occasionally they would go on weekend trips; once to a nearby lake resort and once to a bed and breakfast in a quaint little tourist trap near the coast. But they hadn't really been socializing with other people with any regularity, and certainly not like this.
Thankfully, her mates persistently and gently pry the girls off their laps and put them back on the couches beside them, and that was probably the only thing that kept Eden from snarling or bolting out of the house and back to the safety of her cottage.
Tenor's mother–Mrs. Acosta, as she'd told Eden to call her–sits on a couch with her own alphas. The males don't say much, apparently content for their mate to do the talking. She's tall for an omega, with a typically omega thin build and beautiful dark hair twisted into a perfect shiny bun that doesn't have a single strand out of place. Her red lips are pressed so tightly together that they're almost invisible.
"So," Mrs. Acosta says, her gaze raking over Eden where she's sitting on the couch between Tenor and Julius. She takes Eden in from her car-tousled blonde hair to her pink socked feet, one of them anxiously jostling where it's tucked behind her othercalf and the couch. "You're the omega who my son's pack has bonded."
Weird way to refer to her son's mate. Her own daughter-in-law. But okay.
The air in the room thickens and Eden's throat goes dry. "Yes, ma'am, I–" she begins, but Mrs. Acosta waves a hand dismissively, cutting her off.
"My son has not visited me inyears," she says, voice clipped. "And he has waited a long time to introduce you to me."
She pauses for a minute, as if to let that sink in. "Well. I guess it's good that you're here now. When will you be having a bonding ceremony? I'm sure my son has told you that we have many important friends in the community who you will need to become acquainted with."
"Mama," Tenor says warningly. "You know I'm not interested in impressing your friends. And it's not my mate's fault that we haven't visited. You knowwhere I was–"
But Mrs. Acosta cuts even him off. "And babies? When are you going to give me grandbabies? How regular are your heats?"
"I– well, we–" Eden stammers out, a blush staining her cheeks. The need to appease this woman wells inside her as much as the need to run. Any dreams she might have been harbouring of finally having a mother in Tenor's family are thoroughly dashed away, and that's a strangely mournful thing.
"We're trying, mom, don't worry," Luke says smoothly. "We'll give you a grandbaby in no time."
Mrs. Acosta coughs out a laugh at that, looking at Luke warmly, and it's like she's a whole different woman. She can't help butnotice what an intense contrast it is to how she had been looking at Eden, like she was a grub that crawled into her perfect house from the dirt outside.
"Oh, Luke, sweetheart, you're too much. Well, that's enough of this. Let's eat dinner."
Twenty Days Until Christmas
