Chapter 26 In which it becomes clear I don’t belong… yet again.

I step into the living room, hair still wet around my shoulders, soaking into my shirt. They don’t notice me. I’m not sure there has been a single move I’ve made in this apartment that they haven’t known about. They can always scent me. Always.

Only now my cherry pie scent blends with an almost identical one, but somehow richer. No, not somehow. I know how. All the information is there, all the clues. We’ve dug into this already. My mother said Dr. Schwab altered me, likely turned me into an omega. I know who she is.

They do too.

They just don’t want to admit it yet.

I move farther into the room, teeth gritted against the omega pheromones she is putting out that have my instincts and hackles rising. She might as well have a sign that says, ‘fuck me, please’ flashing over her head. I swallow back a growl of jealousy, tuning into their conversation.

“Look,” the omega is saying, not cowering or terrified. She looks certain this is going to turn out in her favor. Her gorgeous blue eyes flick over to me, assess me in a mere moment and then dismiss me. Not worth her time. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. It’s the truth. I’m-”

“Your pack scent match,” I say, folding my arms across my chest, as the three men spin to face me. Ethan reaches out like he wants to touch me, but there’s still six feet between us, so his hand just hangs in the distance. “Your real scent match.”

Logan shifts on his feet like he’s not sure where he should go. To me or to her. And Maddox just stares at me, eyes dark and impenetrable. I turn my attention to the omega in the room. The other omega. The real omega. Force a smile to my lips that I know looks fake, but I can’t bring myself to actually be happy about this.

I’d thought this pack was mine. But they aren’t.

“Hi, I’m Sadie. Pierce. Sadie Pierce.”

She flicks her gaze over me again, lingers on Luca’s bite on my neck. “Oh, yes. The woman who stole my pack.”

My pack , the omega in me immediately snarls. Mine.

I frown as I push the thought away. They aren’t mine. They never were. My fingers drift up to brush against the bite and Luca floods our bond with reassurance. He doesn’t know what’s happening here, but he can sense my worry, my sadness and is trying to make me feel better.

The woman turns her attention back to Maddox and Logan. “Which of you bit her?” Pure accusation drips from her tone.

Maddox shifts to look at her, arms crossing over his chest in the same way mine are. “Neither. Our pack mate, Luca, did. He’s on a job with our other mate, Swift.” Another throb in my chest at the mention of Swift. That little psycho has weaseled his way under my skin, into my heart.

I can’t imagine not having him. But I can’t exactly keep him now either, can I?

I can’t keep any of them.

This woman is their real omega, and I’ll be alone again. Just like I always knew I would be.

My heart cracks right down the center at that realization.

But I force away the pain. I have so much to be thankful for. And while it might feel like I’m alone, I’m not. I have Sylvie and Sorrel. I have… well, not a career that I love. But I’ll find one. I’ll figure it out and… Vee, she’ll be able to help me through the sickness—the RMD—I can practically feel slipping through my veins. She’s lived with it for years. I can do the same.

I’m not sure if Logan can feel my pain through my bond with Luca or not, but he finally moves toward me. Ethan is right on his heels. Maddox stays where he is, standing midway between me and their omega.

The woman eyes me as Logan cups my cheek, slides his hand down until he’s collaring my throat, light green eyes blazing as he stares at me, like he’s willing me to understand something without words.

Ethan untangles my arms and pulls my hand to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss into my palm, before he laces our fingers together.

A whine hits the air. An omega whine and it definitely didn’t come from me. Logan tenses in front of me, fingers flexing against my skin reflexively. His lip pulls back in a half snarl, and I don’t know if it’s because of me or her. I can see him battling against his alpha urge to go to the other omega, to soothe her. It’s in their freaking makeup.

My gaze flicks to Maddox. He’s still in the same spot he was before, but he’s visibly leaning toward Claudia.

When she whines again, he cracks, eating up the space between them in two long strides and gathering her in his arms. His purr rumbles out of him as she nestles into his chest like she was born to be there. Like that’s where she belongs. My cracked heart splinters further.

Maddox never wanted me.

Not really. He was willing to make the best of it because of the bond with Luca and the scent match. He reluctantly agreed to keep me. But I know he didn’t want to.

Sure, he said it was for my safety, but it was probably more that he could sense on some deeper level that I am a fake omega and not theirs.

My throat goes tight, and tears fill my eyes. Logan’s fingers tighten, just slightly, keeping me in place when what I want to do is flee, hide. I don’t want them to witness my broken heart. “No, mo chuisle ,” he murmurs, fingers stroking over my pulse. “No running.”

I swallow against his palm as Ethan pushes closer to me, caging me into Logan’s body. “He’s an alpha, Sadie,” my doctor mate says softly. “It’s nearly impossible for us to resist an omega when she’s upset. It’s our makeup to comfort them.”

My gaze narrows even as a tear slips from my eye. “I know that.”

He gives me a soft smile. “Good.” Then he raises his voice and, keeping me pinned with his hand and his gaze, he calls out, “Maddox, our omega needs you.”

There’s a pained sort of gasp from Claudia and a second later, Maddox has joined us, nudging Logan out of the way to wrap me up in his arms. “I’m sorry, trouble,” he murmurs against my hair. “I’m so fucking sorry. Won’t happen again. I promise.”

More tears press out of my eyes, soak into his shirt. His shirt that smells like her, which is so damn close to smelling like me. I want to believe him, but I don’t think I can. Like Logan said, it’s just his instincts, his makeup. Unless we bond-

I cut that thought off before it blooms. The last thing I want to do is trap Maddox into a bond he doesn’t actually want just because I can’t handle his alpha need to comfort an omega in distress.

But I do want him to bond with me. I want all of them to bond with me. I just don’t want it to feel rushed or forced. Fuck, I wish we’d been able to take our time, get to know each other, go through the actual courting process.

But we don’t have that luxury. We never have.

I swallow thickly and lean back, sliding my palm so it rests over his heart. “It’s okay, Dox. I understand.”

His brow furrows as his dark gaze scans over my face. “Trouble.”

I give him a shaky smile and rub a small circle over his heart. “Its fine. I get it.”

“You’re such a little liar, heartbreaker,” Ethan murmurs.

“Don’t shut us out,” Logan pleads, hand sliding under my damp hair to cup the back of my neck.

“Um, excuse me?” Claudia gives a tiny little omega growl. It’s adorable and I hate her for it. “Did you forget about me? Your actual omega?”

Maddox turns to face her, but doesn’t move away from me. “I told you before, we already have an omega. And it isn’t you.”

She whines again, stomping her foot in frustration. Her scent is full of hurt and anger. “How can you say that to me?”

My mouth drops open so I can breathe through it rather than my nose. Having her here in this space, that I was starting to think of as mine, is making my omega all itchy. Even with a scent that is near identical, I hate that there’s another omega here.

Why did they bring her?

Do they… Are they thinking of keeping her? Maybe having two omegas? Or maybe they’re going to try us both out, see which one is a better fit?

All those thoughts and insecurities swirl through my head, making my stomach cramp with nausea. I should have known this was too fucking good to be true. Sadie Pierce is not the girl who gets the pack and the happily ever after. I’m the girl you fuck for a short amount of time and then you settle down with someone else.

I am the girl who moves from one one-night stand to another.

I am not the girl who gets picked.

Swallowing down a swell of saliva and nausea. I mutter, “I- um- I’m going to… Excuse me.” Logan tries to hold me as I turn on my heel and flee. I slam the door to my tiny shoebox of a room, and lean against it, fighting back tears I have no right to spill.

They aren’t mine. They were never mine. They’re hers. Can’t cry over something that never belonged to you when you lose it, Sadie.

I swipe at my cheeks angrily and with a huff, grab my bag and toss it on the bed. Then I collect all of my belongings. Not that there are a lot..

I don’t stop when the door opens. Or when a swell of juniper gin hits my nose.

“I’m sorry,” I say, not looking at him, fingers curling into the sweater I’m holding.

He tilts his head at me, like that will help him see me better. “What are you sorry for, trouble?”

I try not to wince at the endearment. The one that had started out as an insult but started to feel like something else. Now it’s just a reminder that it’s exactly what I am: more trouble than I’m worth.

I turn back to the bag on the bed. “You didn’t even want an omega. And now you have two.”

I hear him push away from the wall, move toward me. “I don’t see how that’s your fault, Sadie.”

I glance over at him, not really sure what I can say to that, but he’s watching me with all the intensity of a hunter stalking his prey as he gets closer. I whip my head back around. “It is my fault. I never should have let Luca bite me.”

Maddox is right behind me now. I can feel his body heat radiating out to brush my skin. It takes every ounce of willpower not to lean back into him, to let him comfort me. I don’t deserve it. Claudia was right. I stole her pack. I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t malicious. But it happened.

They belong to her, not to me.

“You planning on going somewhere, trouble?”

I glance back at him before shoving a pair of leggings into my luggage. “I thought I’d go home. Give you a chance to get to know Claudia without me muddying the waters.”

Big hands slide onto my hips, one moves to press into my lower belly, urging me back against him. I resist at first, but he doesn’t relent, and eventually I give in, letting my body sink against his. He lets out a low purr of approval. My eyes slip closed as my head tips back to rest on his shoulder. He nuzzles into my neck, taking a deep inhale, before murmuring, “You aren’t muddying the waters, Sadie. You are the clearest, most important thing to happen to this pack. Claudia might be our scent match.” I stiffen and try to pull away. He nips at my neck, gently, doesn’t let me go anywhere. “But so the fuck are you. We get to choose, trouble. And I can tell you right now, we’re going to choose you.”

Relief hits hard and fast, so much so that my knees almost give out. But… “It’s not right. They stole her pheromones, her hormones. They took that from her. Took you from her. You were supposed to be with her. I shouldn’t even exist as an omega.”

He growls, and I’m sure he has some thoughts on that, but the door opens and Ethan and Logan slip into the room before closing the door behind them.

“She’s settled in the nest,” Logan says, green eyes flicking from me and Maddox to the half packed bag on the bed. My legs almost give out again at his pronouncement. The nest. My nest. How dare she set foot in there?

“We tried to talk her out of it,” Ethan says, coming to sit on the edge of the bed in front of me, his thighs on either side of my knees, fingertips touching my legs. “But she could tell it hasn’t been used.”

The implication is clear. If I was a real omega, the nest would already be scent marked to high heaven. The pillows and blankets would be arranged just so, to my liking. But I’m not a real omega, and I’ve been in denial about my situation, so I never set foot in the room.

Maddox nips at my neck again. “Stop it.”

“I can’t. I don’t belong with you.”

Three growls rumble through the room. I ignore them and try to move away from Maddox and Ethan, but they don’t let me. “I don’t,” I insist. Why can’t they understand? “I’m a fake fucking omega, synthetic. She’s your real mate. You know that.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The four of us spin to find Luca in the doorway, a scowl on his face. He strides right over to me, extracts me from between the three of them, and wraps me up in his arms. “What did you assholes do to upset our omega?”

The bond between us sings at the claim, but I shut it down. The entire thing. I shouldn’t even have it. “Vixen,” Luca says, sounding hurt. He pulls back and cups my face, making me meet his eyes. “What happened?”

The door slams open again and this time Swift barrels through. “Why is there a random woman who smells like Cherrybomb in the nest?” He moves right over to me and Luca, cuddling into us, nuzzling against my neck with a little sigh of contentment.

“What woman?” Luca says, still staring at me like he can read everything on my face. Maybe he can. I used to pride myself on being relatively hard to read, but these men have broken down my mask.

“Your scent match,” I whisper, losing the fight against the tears that have been hovering since I realized who she is. A sob rips out of me, and all of them move at once to surround me. It should feel soothing, calming, but it only makes me cry harder. Because I don’t deserve it.

“Will someone please explain what the fuck is going on?” Luca growls, hands cupping my shoulders as I press my forehead into his chest, soaking the fabric of his shirt, while Swift places gentle kisses against my neck.

Ethan and Maddox take turns explaining about Claudia, about how she found them in the park while they were waiting for their contact to show up. How they brought her back here so Logan could check her out and they can figure out what the hell is going on. Maddox makes a point of saying the only reason she’s here is to help understand what’s going on with me, with the things my mother told us.

He may say that, but I saw him with her. Saw him helpless against the pull of her omega whine, saw him wrap her in his arms in a way that he never did to me when I first met him. No, he was all growly and distant and demanding. And not in how omegas like.

He made it clear he didn’t want me around them, and within the first hour of being around Claudia, he was hugging her, soothing her.

How can I not think that means something?

“You saw her,” I croak out, drawing their attention to me. “She looks just how everyone imagines an omega to look. She smells like an omega. She’s older than me.” I’ve always been subpar, is what I don’t say. “I don’t act like an omega. It took meeting scent matches for me to present. Its… Doesn’t it make sense that she’s the real omega? She’s older than me. I’m just the beta they tested on.”

“You’re assuming that you were injected with omega hormones because of what your mother said. But she didn’t really know,” Logan says, lacing his fingers through mine. “It could be the other way around.”

I blink at him. “What?”

He tugs on my hand, urging me to sit on the edge of the bed while they all surround me. “Its rare, but there are instances of the genetic markers of an omega or alpha to manifest in children as young as eight. You started seeing Dr. Schwab around then, right?” I nod. “Typically, children who have those markers in their blood at such a young age end up being the strongest alphas or omegas. Maybe, he saw those genetic markers and thought you’d be the perfect candidate. Maybe they used your blood to create the formula that they gave Claudia. Maybe she’s the beta, and you’re the omega.”

I think about it. Its possible. I remember them taking a lot of blood from me for testing. But they also injected me with a lot of ‘medicine’.

“My mother…” I trail off, and Ethan snorts and shakes his head.

“Your mother doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. You told us she would take you there and drop you off. She didn’t stay with you. She hardly talked to Dr. Schwab. As long as she was receiving her money, she didn’t care.”

I wince at the harsh words, even if they’re true. No one likes to think of their mother doing what my mother did to me.

“Nice, Ethan,” Maddox growls at him. But then he sighs. “He’s not wrong, trouble. She only knows what they told her. And it’s pretty fucking obvious they weren’t the most honest people. For all we know, they could have lied about everything they did to you, to her.”

I shake my head. “I don’t look like an omega.” Swift lets out a sound of denial, but I continue forward. “I don’t. I’m too tall and not curvy like an omega. She looks like what you think of when someone says ‘omega’.” I fucking hate it too. If you looked up omega in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Claudia next to it.

Definitely not me.

Fuck.

“Well,” Swift says stubbornly. “You look like what I think of when I think of my omega. We’re yours, cherrybomb. Stop trying to give us to someone else.”

“I’m not trying-”

“Yeah, you kind of are, baby,” Ethan says, gently though. “You’ve been worried about this situation from the beginning. Resistant to it.”

I frown. “Excuse me for being weirded out by suddenly being a mated omega, Ethan.” His mouth quirks into half a smile. “I never thought I’d have a pack. I spent twenty-five years being a beta that no one-” I cut off what I was going to say.

But they already know. I spent twenty-five years being the beta that no one fought to keep. First because I was ‘sick’, and I didn’t want to date while dealing with monthly blood transfusions. Besides, no teenage boy wants to date a chronically ill girl who felt so shitty she couldn’t entertain the idea of sex or even a make out session.

When they declared I was healthy, I jumped from man to man, never lingering too long. That’s on me, but also, not one of the men I slept with wanted to keep me. Not one of them tried to get me to stay. It was usually a ‘thanks for the fuck, see you never situation.’

“We’re fighting for you, Cherrybomb,” Swift reassures me. “We’ll always fight for you.”

Maddox presses into my back. “Let us claim you, trouble. Let us show you that you’re ours.” He murmurs the request, just loud enough for the occupants of the room to hear, and even then I’m not sure Logan catches all of it.

I shake my head. “No.” When he opens his mouth to press the issue. I repeat. “No. No. I don’t want you to claim me right now. I don’t… I don’t want you to regret it later.”

All of them tense, bristling at the implication. They all start talking at once, reassuring me they wouldn’t. Even Luca, who’s already tied to me, is trying to convince me they won’t regret it. I want to believe them, but I’m haunted by the image of Maddox hugging Claudia, purring for her, by the hesitation painted on Logan’s face before he came to me. Ethan standing between the two of us, looking torn.

“I want you to get to know her. To see…” I take a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. “To see if you want her more than me. I need you to do this. If you don’t, I’ll always wonder if you made the right choice, if someday in the future you’re going to resent me for letting you bond with me.”

“If you bond with us, you’ll know we won’t regret it,” Swift says stubbornly. “We’ll be able to show you. You’ll feel it, Cherrybomb.”

On some level, I know he’s right, but on another level, the level that holds all of my insecurities and self loathing, I can’t believe it. My brain just won’t let me.

“You say that now, Swift, but you don’t know how you’ll feel in the future,” I whisper. He wants to argue, but he must sense the same stubbornness in me that I see in him. “Besides, I don’t want to be bonded like this. Just because there may be a threat to our pack. I don’t want to feel forced or rushed because she’s here. If we decide to go through with this to actually bond and be together forever, I want it to be because we’re sure.”

“We are sure,” Logan says.

“So fucking sure,” Maddox adds.

“I think we should listen to what Sadie wants,” Luca says quietly. He hasn’t said much during this conversation, likely because he can feel my emotions and how fucking hard this is for me.

“Of course you’d say that,” Swift snarls at him, a knife appearing in his hands out of freaking nowhere. He brandishes it in Luca’s direction, his gaze going a little feral. “You’re already bonded to her. You can feel her whenever you fucking want. The rest of us want to feel her too!”

Luca arches a brow at him, unimpressed with the implied threat at the arrival of a weapon. “I can feel her,” he says evenly. “Which is why I know how much this means to her. Beyond that, she’s starting to feel you’re pressuring her into something she’s not sure she wants.” He runs a weary hand down his face. “Believe me, you don’t want to feel her anger or uncertainty because you bonded her without her fucking consent. I know what that feels like.”

“Luca,” I whisper. I’d never realized he can feel all of that. All of my anger at him for this situation he put me in. But of course he can. It’s not like I had a grasp on shutting down the bond right away.

He gives me a shaky smile. “It’s okay, Vixen. I deserved it.”

I shake my head. “No, you don’t. You don’t deserve it. Never.”

His smile turns more genuine, brighter. Likely because he can feel how much I mean the words since I’ve opened our bond completely. I move over to him and press onto my toes to kiss that smile. When I pull back, I look at the other men. My men. My pack.

“I just want you to be sure, and I want to be sure too.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Cherrybomb? I want you. Only you.” Swifts brandishing the knife in my face now. Pointing the knife at my eye like he’s so frustrated with me he’s thinking about stabbing me there.

He won’t do it. I know it in my bones. He may be a psycho who had no problem hurting my mother, but Swift would never do anything to hurt me.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I believe his statement. That I believe him. My omega is pleading with me to make this right, to let my pack claim me, but the beta that I’ve been for fucking years, the sad little girl whose own mother couldn’t abandon me to the arms of Dr. Schwab fast enough, who spent her time getting pampered while I was in pain, she’s terrified of actually believing this. Of going along with it. Of giving them everything and then having them decide ‘actually, you’re not what we want for the pack.’

“Let’s give it a week,” I say, not meeting Swift’s eyes and the hurt I know I’ll see there. “A week for you to get to know Claudia, and then we’ll have this conversation again.”

Luca tugs my back into his chest, sliding his chin on the top of my head. “I’m sure nothing is going to change in a week for us, vixen. But if you need time…”

Again, I bite back the words that I don’t need time, that we should all fuck and knot and bite right this second.

“I do. We do.” I reach out and curl my fingers around Swift’s wrist and Logan’s shirt, tugging them closer. Maddox and Ethan follow suit until I’m at the center of all their hot, hard bodies, surrounded by their scents. “I don’t want you to think this means that I don’t want you. I do want you. But I don’t want you to regret-”

“ Never ,” Maddox snarls at me with so much vehemence that it stalls everything in my chest. He cups my jaw tenderly. “We’d never regret you, Sadie.”

“Luca did,” I say quietly. “After we bonded, Luca regretted it.”

My bonded alpha tugs me tighter. “Not that I bonded you, vixen. Never that. I regretted…. How it happened. That we didn’t go through the courting process. I regretted rutting you and biting you while we were both… a little out of it. I regret we didn’t do it right.” He nuzzles into my neck. “But never you.”

Logan runs a knuckle down my cheek. “Take as much time as you need, mo chuisle . We’ll wait.”