Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

NOW PLAYING: WELCOME Home- Coheed & Cambria

Watching Lex carry my omega away when I knew something was wrong pissed me off. Catching her scent in the air and realizing she was in heat? I nearly went on an alpha rampage to get to her. Our head of security and several other members of our team had to physically restrain me.

Something I’ve apologized deeply for. Losing control of myself like that… I put my team, my mates, and my omega in unnecessary danger.

Even if we had managed to catch up to Lex, there wasn’t anything we could do to help our girl. Not without having a conversation with Omen beforehand. No one would ever forgive us if we approached an omega in heat without prior coherent consent. Rightly so, too. Verbal consent is key in a society driven by instincts. It’s all too easy for lines to be crossed and choices taken away when your primal self takes control.

Our apartment is silent with my mates still sleeping. They’re exhausted from our late-night return. I am too, but my insomnia has decided to strike once more. I doubt I will settle until I hear her sweet voice reassuring us she’s okay.

While I respect her decision to handle them alone, heats can be brutal for an omega to handle without help. If she was forced to survive five days with no help and no suppressants to dull the worst of the symptoms? I refuse to imagine how much damage could be done to her body.

Fuck. I have to focus on the positive, otherwise I might lose what little control I have left.

A knock at our apartment door startles me from where I stand peering out over Starburgh. Building security wouldn’t let anyone pass who we don’t know, meaning my girl may be on the other side. I cross the space and open the door to find myself face-to-face with Omen’s best friend, Bea.

“Hello,” I greet as I open the door wider to allow her inside. I glance out into the hallway hoping to find Omen with her, but there isn’t anyone else in sight.

“She isn’t here, Nebula.” Bea draws my attention to where she’s standing awkwardly by the windows. Her coconut lime scent is subtle this morning but tinged with unease. Worry pulses heavily through me at the thought something may be wrong with Omen and her next words make my stomach sink.

“Can you gather the rest of your pack, please? We need to talk.”

I slip into the large bedroom and wake my pack. They all grumble but are quick to join us after hearing Bea is waiting in the other room. They’re as desperate for news about our girl as I am. “Okay Bea, what’s going on? Is Omen okay?”

Titan heads into the kitchen to make everyone coffee while Callisto and Nexus curl up together on the couch. I can’t sit still. I’m barely holding myself back from pacing. Or barking at this omega to tell me what’s going on already. I won’t subject Bea to my bark though. I won’t use her instincts against her to appease my own anxiety.

“At the festival in Boston, someone in the crowd drugged Omen with a heat inducer.” Bea’s statement shocks us all. Any type of heat drug is heavily regulated nationwide. Only morally corrupt groups use them, and even then it is highly frowned upon. My fears rush to the surface. I have to squeeze my hands into fists to hide the tremble running through them.

A normal heat is dangerous enough alone. Facing a chemically induced heat without help? That could be a death sentence.

“Do you think they targeted Omen to get to us?” Titan asks as he joins us with a cup of coffee for each of us on a small tray. He passes them out before turning to face Bea once more. He offers her a cup too, but she declines.

She sounds resigned as she speaks, her eyes focused on some distant point outside. “I didn’t want to be the one to share her story with you. I shouldn’t be, but she insisted I tell you before… Just please promise me you won’t share this with anyone else? No matter your feelings about Omen after this, keep her secrets the same way she keeps yours.”

“Of course.” I frown wondering what Bea could have to tell us that would cause her to fear we’d retaliate against her friend. We love our omega, and bond or no bond that’s exactly what Omen is.

“I don’t know if Nexus shared this with you, but Omen is part of the DAU’s designation protection program. She presented as an omega in an anti-designation community and had to be rescued not even hours later. She takes extreme measures to keep her birth identity a secret out of fear her birth family would find her and distribute their brand of punishment for her ‘immorality’. Scent weakeners, hair dye, colored contacts–she’s disguised herself as much as possible to remain hidden. The DAU also helped her create a completely new identity at 18 when she became Omen and was adopted into my family pack.”

Bea pauses, taking a deep breath before squaring her shoulders and turning on one heel to look at us–focusing on me. “Omen’s birth name is Sarah Montgomery. The youngest daughter of Pastor Grant Montgomery.”

Her words land like rapid, solid blows to my temple. The room spins, my world tilting on its axis as I try to process what she said. Nausea churns violently in my stomach. I feel moments away from throwing up all over our hardwood floors.

There’s no way this can be true.

This has to be some sick joke–

Little snippets of conversations we’ve had with Omen filter through my mind becoming the damning evidence against her. The story about her brother and the way her joy faded when she mentioned him being punished afterward. Her telling Nexus she grew up in an area full of judgment and violence. The way she seems to freeze whenever we encounter anti-designation protesters.

“No,” I choke out the word, still trying to refuse the truth my mind had already accepted. Tears stream down Bea’s cheeks as she watches all four of us try to find some inch of falsity in her claim. There’s nothing to be found. No hope that this is some fucked up prank. Omen–the woman we’ve welcomed into our family, the one we’ve all fallen for–is one of them. A Montgomery. The daughter and sister of the men responsible for my sister’s death.

I briefly remember sharing the story with her on the beach in Norfolk. She’s known at least since then, yet she continued to lie to us.

“She also shares a Fated connection with you,” Bea weeps. She stumbles back against the window as my out-of-control rage pheromones flood the room.

My heart is trying to claw its way out of my chest to escape this pain, but my mind has already settled on seething disgust. She lied to us and now she’s trying to claim Fate led her to us? I won’t let these omegas con us into believing a single fucking word out of their mouths.

“That can’t be true,” Callisto whispers. He jumps to his feet and steps to my side in an attempt to soothe me. I’m beyond even his aid right now.

“The warmth of your scent feels like coming home, the threads woven between us reminds me I’m no longer alone. Those are the words she wrote on her arm when you replied last year. She was–” Bea pauses, closing her eyes and blowing out a shaky breath. “Omen is terrified her family will find her. She would never allow herself to put you in danger. After she realized Nebula’s sister was her birth brother’s scent match–” She startles when a menacing growl slips through my teeth, but shakes it off quickly. “Omen believed you would reject her if she told you who she was.”

I’ve never felt so broken. Cut so deeply by someone I trusted. My heart feels as if it's been run through a meat grinder. The pack bonds hum with all the chaos of our jumbled emotions. I can barely make sense of my feelings with the pressure of my packmates in the mix.

“If she didn’t want us to know, why are you telling us now?” Nexus asks. His head is hung, his eyes focused on the floor between his feet. His light auburn hair is clenched tightly between his fingers as he tugs at the strands in an effort to ground himself. His insecurities are rushing to the surface in light of her secrecy. One more reason for me to hate Omen.

“She was going to tell you. In Philadelphia first, but then she found out who your sister’s mate was. Then she had plans to tell you after the show in Boston, but the heat…” Bea trails off. She’s shifting on her feet like she’s nervous to say anything more.

“What else? Why are you here instead of her?” I snarl.

“The heat inducer,” Bea whispers before clearing her throat. “The mini-heats she’s had over the past month were a side effect of meeting the four of you. It’s her body’s way of trying to force a bonding. With the heat drug still in her system… We didn’t realize how bad it would be. It’s been eight days and she isn’t easing. She needs her mates to end the pain. She needs you.”

“She’s been alone and in heat for over a week?!” Nexus asks, his voice filled with the fresh wave of pain this news brings. Heats this extensive are unheard of.

My inner alpha protests the thought of her experiencing so much pain without us there to help her ease it, but I bury my instincts more deeply than I ever imagined possible. No matter how miserable she is or how long her heat lasts, I will never accept an omega who supported my sister’s killer. Omen will have to find another way out of the mess she and her family created.

“So, she sent you here to spill her dirty little secrets hoping what? Hearing she’s Fated to be with us will be enough to forgive her for lying? Did she think I’d catch a hint of her scent and forget who her family is? Who she really is?” My fury rises with each biting word. Bea’s complexion pales as she fights against her own instincts. I should feel bad, maybe I will later, but right now I can’t see past the hurt flooding me. “Tell her we said good luck and make sure she knows she won’t be joining us for the rest of the tour. Or ever again for that matter.”

Bea looks to each of my mates, searching for someone who will take her side. Nexus and Callisto both avoid meeting her eyes, and Titan’s face is alarmingly blank. Her shoulders collapse when she realizes they won’t be coming to Omen’s rescue either.

Her hand is on the door handle when she pauses. “I didn’t believe Omen when she said you were going to reject her for her birth family’s actions. Apparently, she was right. You are so caught up in your anger at Grant and Benjamin Montgomery you’re going to leave an innocent omega to suffer through a life-threatening heat alone. A heat only the four of you can ease.”

The door opens and she steps out, glancing back at us with disgust lining her features. “For a group of men who spend so much of their free time advocating for equal rights and omega justice, you are acting exactly like every other piece of shit person in this world. You don’t deserve to have an omega like Omen. When you realize how wrong you are for this bullshit you’re pulling, you won’t get another chance with her. Ever. I’ll make sure of that.” The door slams shut behind her, leaving my pack broken in the wake of the bombs she dropped on us.

“Fuck Omen, and fuck Bea too. They both knew who she was and hid it from us. They can go to hell for all I care. I won’t have anything to do with those conniving omegas ever again.” My fist slams into the back of the couch. Hitting the soft material doesn’t alleviate my anger, it only incites it further. “How dare she keep something like this a secret!? I never would have agreed to the label hiring her if I knew who she is. I’m going to make sure she can never blindside anyone else ever again. Expose her lies for the world to see.”

I shove away from Cal and stomp across the room to grab my phone. “NO!” Nexus slams into me, knocking the device from my hand and sending it skidding across the floor. I watch him with wide eyes as he uses his weight to pin me to the wall. My mate has never used his bark before. On anyone, but especially not on his mates.

“You need to get your head on straight, Neb. Right now, what you were about to do, goes against everything we believe in. Bea is right. This shit right here-” He motions to my phone. “It makes you no better than every other asshole out there. Are you really going to unmask an omega you know is on the run from what is rumored to be one of the most malicious anti-designation families in the country?”

Anger vibrates in every cell of my body. I push him away, towering over him with a sneer on my face. “She lied to us! She’s one of them!”

“She ran from them!” Nexus roars. His breathing is ragged. “Probably for good reason! We all know what happens to omegas discovered in New Hampshire. Imagine how much worse it would be to present as an omega in the Montgomery family!”

I’m barely holding myself back from starting a physical altercation to release the feelings crashing through me. The last thing I want to do is hurt one of my mates.

“Are you willing to sign Omen’s death warrant? Because that is what exposing her identity will do. The Montgomerys will use every connection they have to track her down. There is no way she will get to walk away from whatever punishment they decide upon for her.”

“Shit,” Titan growls from behind us. He’s running a hand through his long brown hair as he watches. “He’s right, Nebula. She’s still an omega, even if she’s also a Montgomery.”

“Fine,” I bite out, deflating slightly when Nexus takes several steps backward. “You’re right. I won’t be the one to tell her family where she is. That doesn’t mean she’s welcome here. She isn’t our omega and she never will be.”