Page 37 of Hidden

Chapter Twelve

Calai

Having your hair washed shouldnotfeel this good. Hadn’t Eln done this for me? I remember enjoying it greatly, but James’ fingers seem to be caressing all over my body as he carefully smooths some conditioning cream through my hair.

I’ve never experienced a bath quite like this- one where the water gets this hot and the tub is this comfortable, or with a door that closes to anyone I wish to keep out. I still feel a little embarrassed about lashing out earlier towards all of them, but at the same time, it all needed to be said.

I haven’t had any of those strange cravings to be bundled up tightly since I’ve been with the alphas, but I’ve also been near them around the clock.

Before when it set in, it seemed to be set off by merely being around James for that brief encounter, and then being removed from him. I felt hollow then; hollow and achy and not quite right.

It’s been sort of the same but opposite too since coming here- I’m completely emotionally detached from everything because they haven’t given me the freedom to find anything to attach to. My body has been attaching to them, but I resent it for needing them when everything they do just makes me so angry.

I am still shocked that they seemed to actually listen to what I said. For the first time in days, I have space. Well, James is already breaking in on that space, but one of them I can handle. Especially this one. He seems softer than the others, and I don’t think I simply feel more attached to him because I experienced him first.

Kit scares me sometimes with his intensity. When he decides something he’s like an immoveable mountain, never to be swayed from it until he’s satisfied with the outcome. If I hadn’t said anything and just kept denying my heart’s needs, I have no doubt he’d continue to barrel through this sham of a relationship while convincing himself I was happy.

It seemed to genuinely catch him off guard when I told him I wasn’t happy. Did he delude himself so much that he thought strong-arming his way with me would work? Did he think this was goingwell?

James scoops some water over my head, and I relax further against the side of the tub. I’m still trying to figure out Colter. He seems to be a mix between James’ cinnamon bun personality and Kit’s stone one. He’s sweet, yet, not as funny as James; but maybe his strengths lie in his ability to be honest. I can always tell when he disagrees with one of Kit’s decrees because his eyes tighten up and he looks for a way to make it better for me without outright disobeying.

And that’s another thing; they’re adults. So what is it about this pack dynamic that says they have to follow Kit’s lead?

“Can I ask you something?”

James’ hands go down to my shoulders and begins massaging them. It feels heavenly.

“Of course you can,” he says with a smile in his voice.

“You told me you are all alphas, that I’m an omega, but why do you also call Kit ‘alpha’ as if it is a title as well as a designation?”

“I was wondering if you’d figured that out yet. Yes, our designation is alpha, which makes us pretty dominant. But even in a pack of alphas, someone has to be the most dominant, the one everyone agrees on that will make the decisions for the pack. That’s Kit’s job. Without that assignment, we’d be all trying to follow our own instincts, possibly working against each other instead of working together as a unit.”

“So…Kit is more dominant than you and Colter?”

“Basically. He’s also our alpha because he formed the pack; he sought me out first, and then found Colter, and in both instances courted us until we agreed to join him and bond with him.”

“What did that entail? Have you always…been bed partners as well as pack partners?”

“It’s more common now that omegas are so rare, to find alphas banding together and becoming mates as well as mating a female. When I met Kit, we were so young. Eighteen I think? We were barely adults, but we thought we knew everything.

“We have all known our alpha designations since the onset of puberty. Kit was travelling through my town, and I had a part-time job at a gas station, working at the shop attached to it. He came in to buy a soda after he filled up his car, but ended up staying in there for hours, just talking to me.

“Every time a customer would approach the counter he’d step aside, and I’d have to carry out the transaction and interact with them while Kit watched my every move, evaluating me. I could feel the way his eyes roamed over me, and I remember being nervous.

“Dating when you’re young is fun, hooking up is fun, but at eighteen, you start to imagine finding someone to settle down with. Someone that could be a part of your future, and not just your now.”

“And you saw that in Kit?”

“Well, I wanted what any other alpha male wanted- an omega to protect and love. It was a pipe dream because there are so few of you out there. I had sort of convinced myself I’d be happy with a beta, even knowing that would never satisfy my body’s most basal desires.”

“Your knot? Someone mentioned it only inflates for an omega…” My cheeks heat up. How did they keep getting me to discuss sex so freely?

James leans forward and brushes a kiss onto the side of my neck, his fingers skimming over his bite mark and down the front of my throat. They slide along my collarbone, and I find I want to arch into his hands so they’ll slip lower and caress my breasts. I don’t, but it takes a lot of determination to hold still.

“My knot is definitely one of my strongest basal desires, and yes, it only inflates for an omega; but also, omegas ignite every single alpha instinct. Think of betas as being sort of a middle of the road option- they don’t overly excite, and they don’t make you want to leave either. Some of them are dead set on mating alphas, and I’ve met plenty of alpha-beta pairings where they were very happy, but I knew if I agreed to such an arrangement I’d be settling.”

“Why are we so rare? You say that as if there used to be more omegas around.”

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