Page 23 of Scapegoat

Chapter 15

“Fuck,” Xavier said from the driver’s seat of the car as he drove us back home. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Calm your tits,” Jayden told him from the passenger seat before looking back at the two of us. We were huddled in close on the backseat, neither Atlas nor I able to take our hands off each other. We were tied together tightly now, the newly formed bond pulsing between us like it was a living, physical thing. “This was always going to happen.”

“But not now. Not yet.” Xavier glanced at us in the rearview mirror with a frown. “We’ve gotta tell the dads.”

“We’re not telling the dads,” Atlas growled. “We’re announcing it. Kai belongs to us. You know it and I know it and if the dads or the alphas or any other fucking idiot in the pack doesn’t like it…” I snuggled in tighter to Atlas, that feeling of wellbeing that came the moment I did washing over me, driving out the concern. “Then we leave.”

“Damn straight,” Jayden said with a nod to us, before looking at Xavier. “We talked about this—”

“As a last resort.” Xavier’s gaze when he stared back at us was filled with worry, I realised, not condemnation. “The life of a lone wolf…” We all knew what that entailed. We’d been given enough lectures about it at school. Lonely, unprotected, shunned, even hunted by humans, and then there were other packs. “It’s not the life I want for Kai.”

“So we won’t have it,” I replied. “It’s less than a week now to the choosing. I can hide the mating mark…” Atlas let out a low growl, making clear his disinterest in that plan. “Until the day of the challenge. But… maybe we can bring the challenge forward?”

“I’ll ask the dads,” Xavier said and when we got home, he did just that.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Greg said as he stared at the bite mark on my neck. I was wearing Atlas’s shirt over Jenny’s dress, so I tugged the collar closer to cover it, but Jenny put a hand on his arm.

“This isn’t the end of the world, so stop over-reacting.” She smiled as she turned to me. “We all knew this was going to happen.”

“After the challenge,” Jackson said, shooting his sons a meaningful look, Xavier especially. “Not before.”

“As if people haven’t found their mates before the choosing,” Jenny replied and that’s when she said something that surprised me. “Look at us. I was pregnant with Xavier the day of the choosing.”

“Only just…” Greg mumbled before flushing bright red.

“So we’ll talk to the alphas and let them know what’s happened,” Jackson said. “Hiding shit just breeds mistrust. The alphas are reasonable men. They’ll remember what it was like when they mated their omega.”

“Omega…” Jenny blinked then. “So Kaia, you’ve revealed—”

“No.” I blurted that out, my hands wringing the hem of the shirt. “Not yet.”

“Not yet,” she agreed. “But come the choosing—”

“So Kaia is sleeping in the spare room, alone,” Greg said firmly, pointing a finger at each one of us. “One mating bite we can explain as an oops, but three?”

“Agreed,” Jackson said with a firm nod. “Is that clear, boys?”

“C’mon.” Jenny moved closer and steered me towards the spare room. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. The men are just scared and they can’t express that in any other way than puffing out their chests and talking big.”

“I’m not.” I paused then in the doorway, then looked back over her shoulder, where Atlas and the others were getting a dressing down from their dads. His eyes found mine within seconds and I felt like we were connected beyond just the physical, as if our souls reached for each other when our bodies couldn’t. “I’m not ashamed of anything,” I told Jenny.

“Well, good.” She nodded then, as if convincing herself, not me, but I let her lead me into the room and sit me down on the edge of the bed. “Now, are you OK? Do you need some pain meds or anything?”

Atlas, was my first thought, then Xavier and Jayden, but I just shook my head.

“No, I’m fine, but…” I looked up at Jenny and she frowned slightly, as if not quite sure what I would say. “Thank you for this. I don’t know what Mum would’ve done if I came back with a bite on my neck.”

“I do.” Jenny spoke with such confidence, with a strange kind of vehemence I didn’t really understand and she stared at the wall for some time, seeing something I didn’t, before she snorted. “But you don’t need to worry about that. You’re safe here.”

Jenny fussed over me, finding me some pyjamas to put on and getting me a glass of water, then tucking me into bed as if I was much younger.

“Get some sleep,” she said. “It won’t be long before the choosing happens and then you’ll be able to walk amongst the pack with my sons’ marks on your neck with pride.”

I felt weird when I settled down in the bed. Because it wasn’t my bed, the same one I’d spent most of my years sleeping in, was my initial thought. Because I wasn’t sleeping in the same room as my sister, hearing her gentle sighs and breaths, then mumbled replies to her dreams. That was the only way I could explain the… disquiet I felt, my body feeling both restless and beyond exhausted in the same breath. But when I nestled down under the thick covers, I experienced a loss.

The ache inside me reminded me of what I’d had in that moment, the swell of Atlas’ knot driving me beyond pleasure and into delirium, a high I never wanted to come down from, but as my fingers trailed over the healed bite mark, I felt an echo of that pleasure. It washed through me, forcing a bittersweet pleasure to rise, rise, until finally it ebbed away and I dropped off to sleep.

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