Pack of Lies, page 27
“Why?” I asked, hugging my pillow.
Before I could make a judgment, I had to know why.
Yes, it was another secret they’d kept from me, but I could understand their hesitancy to tell me this one.
How fucked up was it, that Jubilee’s scent-matched mate had been irreparably harmed by a formula he created? By the people he sold it to?
“I didn’t know what they were going to do with it,” he said in a rush. “I’d created the formula and was looking around for someone who had the resources to do proper testing. Key word being ‘proper’. With willing subjects and scientifically-backed processes. The Centre for Omega Enhancement reached out.”
“Didn’t you research them?” I asked.
He cringed. “Yes, but not as well as I should have. Outwardly, they seemed above-board. There’s a charitable arm of the organization and they promised they would make the injection available to gold pack omegas for free if it passed the testing phase. They showed me a facility they owned downtown, which they said they would be using for initial tests. Dr. Hellwood made promises about giving me updates, and they did. For years I got fake, doctored updates and I didn’t suspect anything until they fucked up.”
Dr. Hellwood could be charming when he wanted to be. I’d experienced that when I’d first arrived at the Centre. He had seemed nice, but it was a farce. I wasn’t shocked he’d been able to con innocent Jubilee.
“Why didn’t you insist on helping with the experiments? You created the formula.”
Shrugging helplessly, he grimaced. “I was nineteen when I created it, only twenty when I sold the formula to them, and didn’t have my PhD yet. They claimed the work wouldn’t be as well-respected if I worked on it. I didn’t realize how fucking stupid that was at the time. It helped that there was a large dollar amount attached to their offer to take the formula off my hands, and at the time… we hadn’t met Marlowe yet. We were flat broke. Quentin and Denzel were barely keeping us fed and with a roof over our heads.”
I pulled my feet up onto the couch, trying to picture that. Jubilee, desperate to help out his best friend and lover. From what little I knew about their childhoods, I imagined they had nothing to help them start their adult lives. How had Jubilee even been able to get his first degree? Scholarships?
“I can’t fault you for needing the money,” I said slowly. “But why create a formula like that in the first place? Do you hate gold pack omegas that much?”
Jubilee collapsed on the armchair beside the front bay window, shaking his head vigorously. “No. I don’t hate gold packs at all. I could never.”
He stopped there, his legs bouncing as he collected his thoughts. I tried to collect mine, too. What was I supposed to think? Was this a bigger secret than what Denzel had kept? Maybe in some ways, but not in others. This didn’t affect us here and now.
But it had affected my life up to this point.
I was desperate to know why he’d created it, because that would ultimately determine whether it was a forgivable offense.
“Her name was Ava,” he said quietly.
Jealousy immediately tightened my stomach, but I kept my lips closed.
“She lived at the same orphanage as Denzel and Quentin. We were like family, the closest thing we all had to it. When she revealed as an omega, she was terrified to go to the Institute to get the sanctioned injection. There were some things in her past… she didn’t trust medical professionals.”
I could relate to that. If everything had happened to me before I’d gone gold pack, I may have been too scared to go too.
“The orphanage didn’t care one way or the other. The only ones pushing her to get it were us, because we knew how dangerous it would be to live in our part of town with no protection. She wasn’t able to get up the courage to go before her eyes went gold.”
Jubilee was avoiding eye contact as he told the story, all the signs of his anxiety glaringly obvious. The tics, the tremor in his voice. I swallowed, waiting for where this story inevitably went south. For most gold pack omegas, things went south eventually.
“We kept her safe for a while. People knew better than to fuck with us, because Denzel knew people. He’d made friends and paid for our safety and Ava’s. But that didn’t last. There was nothing we could do about the rich pricks who came into the Gritch district, trying to find a pretty gold pack omega to dark bond. Their teeth were in her neck before Denzel even realized her and Quentin were late coming home from work. They left Quentin beaten and bloodied in an alley and took Ava.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, thinking that was it. She was dark bonded and stolen, which was the story for so many omegas.
It didn’t end there.
“Illegal or not, we planned to get her back. We found where they lived and where they were keeping her. Denzel went on a rampage, demanding people come with us. There were plenty of delinquents who were on board with raiding a rich pack’s house and robbing them blind. We didn’t tell them we planned to kill the pack and release Ava from the bond.”
Tears were building in his eyes, and he got up to pace again.
There was no way I could be angry with him. Not with this origin story, and I hadn’t even heard the tragic end yet.
“It took months to get enough people together, though. She was with them for months, and we had no idea what they were doing to her.”
It was horrifically easy to imagine.
You didn’t pick up a gold pack omega to dark bond unless you wanted to do heinous things.
If a pack created a dark bond, they lost their chance to have a scent-matched mate, or any other mate at all. Not to mention society would look down on them. It was legal to dark bond a gold pack omega, but it wasn’t acceptable. Most people considered it barbaric, because it was.
Forcing an omega to be your slave couldn’t possibly be considered anything else.
Jubilee took his time continuing. He rubbed his eyes and paced across the floor, his body trembling. I didn’t take my eyes off him.
“She was…”
He choked out two words before abruptly stopping all movement. His chest rose and fell rapidly. He kept his eyes on the ground, his hands clenched into fists.
Cautiously, I rose from the couch and stepped around the coffee table. My hand on his arm made him flinch, but he came along with me when I pulled him to the couch. He sat and I sat beside him, trying to give off soothing vibes. Omega auras were supposed to be able to soothe alphas. I’d never tried it. Maybe they’d taken that ability away from me too.
It seemed to work, his hyperventilating slowing.
They hadn’t overtly said it, but he seemed like he had anxiety attacks. I didn’t want him to fall into one.
“You’re OK,” I murmured. My chest pressed against his arm and I wrapped myself around him. “Quentin can tell me the rest.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m going to tell you.”
“I believe you don’t hate gold pack omegas. There’s no need to stress yourself.”
Once again, I wasn’t being cautious enough with this pack. I should be furious they hadn’t told me about Jubilee’s involvement the second they met me, but I wasn’t. This secret I could understand keeping, despite everything.
How would I have reacted when I was still up in arms and hesitant to believe they were my scent match?
It didn’t excuse them, but I saw the reasoning. Especially for an anxious personality like Jubilee. He’d been under the most stress, with the lying Denzel forced him to do.
Taking a shaky breath, he continued with the story anyway. I swung a leg over his lap when his legs began to bounce again, and he clung to me with his delicate fingers.
“She was living in their basement. The room was freezing and all cement. Nothing for her to nest in. No comforts. When we went into the house, most of the pack was upstairs, but one was with her. Quentin and Denzel went on a rampage while the rest of the guys we got together looted the place, but they didn’t make it to the basement soon enough.”
He shuddered.
“Denzel found her as she slit her wrists. Her mate had given her the knife and lifted his order that she not kill herself, freeing her from the order a second too soon for Denzel to stop her. The look in her eyes… she was happy about it. She didn’t want to live in a world that could do that to her with no legal recourse, and I couldn’t blame her.”
I teared up.
Somehow, it was worse than I’d imagined. Knowing she’d killed herself, that she’d been happy to die shone a spotlight on how fucked up everything was. Of course Jubilee had wanted to find a way to reverse the decision that had ultimately led to her death.
And of course Denzel was protective.
Everything about the asshole pack lead made a lot more sense. It didn’t make him forgivable, but it gave me insight.
“I locked myself in the university’s lab for the next couple of years, chipping away at the formula. I barely ate or slept, and I only left when the professors told me I was a hazard to their work with my fumbling, exhausted clumsiness. When I had something workable, it was first time I’d really felt joy. But I didn’t do the research I should have done on the Centre, and instead of helping people all I managed to do is harm more. You wouldn’t even be gold pack if not for me.”
He tried to pull away, but I kept my grip.
“You had nothing to do with me getting kidnapped before I had my injection,” I said firmly. “Whoever bought me probably would have waited for me to be gold pack, anyway. We’re easier to control.”
“But the side effects—”
“They are responsible for the misuse of what you gave them. Make a better choice with whatever new formula you’re trying to create to improve the world. That’s all you’re responsible for.”
“Thorn…”
“I’m not mad at you for what happened. I’m a little mad you didn’t tell me sooner,” I added.
“I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it right away. Along with everything else, no matter what Denzel told me to do.”
I sighed.
How different would things be if there had never been a secret or lie between us?
I would still be at the damn Centre, blissfully unaware of their plans to use me as a breeding mare.
This was better than that, so there was something to be said for the lies in the end.
I didn’t have to like it, though.
“Apology accepted,” I murmured.
Then I unwound myself from the alpha, confident he was no longer on the verge of an attack. We’d gotten through everything. Standing to stretch, I went over to the curtains and flicked them to catch a glimpse of the suburban street.
It was coming alive, now.
Elderly people walked their ugly little dogs. A car drove by with a yawning man at the wheel, likely heading to work in the city. Birds came to land on the feeder Marlowe had in the front yard.
Jubilee stayed on the couch as I watched the world come to life, but I felt his eyes on me.
“Is this going to impact your decision about staying?” he asked hesitantly.
I let the curtains close completely and sighed. “No.”
“I could cleave.”
Cleaving would remove him from the pack bond completely. It wasn’t often done because of how dangerous it was.
Snorting, I shook my head. “You’re not going to cleave. You might die. And what would Marlowe do without you?”
“He would have you.”
“I’m not you, Jubilee.”
I could almost hear the denial on the tip of Jubilee’s tongue. How he wasn’t needed. Luckily, I was saved from awkward comforting by the man we were talking about.
“Honeybun, I’m going to need you to stop being self-sacrificing. Thorn is free to leave or not, but I expressly forbid you from trying to cleave. It’s too dangerous.”
Jubilee’s expression went sheepish, and he opened his mouth, probably to apologize. Marlowe was on him too fast, their lips connecting in a searing kiss.
The sounds the omega released were X-rated. A sharp contrast to the fluffy pet name he’d just called his alpha. Cotton candy and licorice vodka mixed into a heady cocktail, the scents close enough they got me hot and bothered. I turned to flee upstairs, not because I didn’t want to join in on the sexy shenanigans, but because I needed just a minute to process what I’d been told.
Jubilee wasn’t at fault… but he was the reason for years of pain I’d been put through. I didn’t think I could comfort him while I was coming to terms with that, as much as my omega side wanted to curl up and purr for him.
Marlowe would give him what he needed because I couldn’t right now.
I did hesitate on my way upstairs when I heard Marlowe whimper and Jubilee groan.
An omega shouldn’t be so tempting considering I was also an omega, but I reacted to him as strongly as if he were one of my alphas. And Jubilee… he was too sweet to resist for long.
Taking the steps two at a time, I fled to the nest.
Where I could imagine, alone, what Marlowe’s heats must have looked like in the cozy space.
THIRTY-SIX
THORN
I wasn’t often left alone in this house, not unless I was barricaded away in whichever room I was sleeping in. The men were desperate to make me comfortable, to make me fall in love with them, so I wouldn’t leave.
It was working, one affectionate touch at a time.
But there was an issue that had yet to be addressed, and that issue was Denzel.
He spent all his time in the shed. I didn’t know what he did back there. Hadn’t asked. He was avoiding me successfully, though, and I was curious about why. Did he not want to show me his guilt? That was wishful thinking. The asshole wasn’t guilty about what he’d done. No way.
More likely, he was avoiding me to avoid straining their pack bonds more.
The more frequently they got into arguments, the frailer the bonds got. That’s what the others had admitted. Denzel wouldn’t want them to break before he had a chance to get rid of me.
“I’m just going to go sit on the back porch,” I said to Reese.
He was trailing me through the house, alternating between protectively crossing his arms and doing soft things like opening doors or pulling out chairs. It was suffocating, but sweet. The missing person bulletin had shaken him almost as much as it shook me.
“I’ll sit with you.”
I shook my head. “I’d prefer to be alone. It’ll help me process Jubilee’s involvement in what happened.”
The excuse worked. I didn’t need time alone to process. I’d worked through my emotions on that in about ten minutes earlier that morning, but I’d milk it for as long as I could. It was odd to go from being alone most of the time to being surrounded by people who cared.
It was also odd being defended by an absolute Pomeranian of an omega, and if I tried to talk to Denzel while Marlowe was present I knew he would continue to bark.
All the guys would bark, actually, though Reese struck me as more of a German Shepard.
Reese glanced at the back door with his eyebrows furrowed.
“Check the backyard first, if you have to.”
“I’ll be right back,” he grunted.
I watched through the screen door as he circled the yard three times, peering around both sides of the shed. He didn’t stick his head inside, only because we all knew Denzel was in there. No one wanted to poke that bear. None of the neighbours were out. The air was a little chilly still, the scent of rain on the breeze after the pristine sunny morning. I put a hat on anyway, trying to obscure myself just in case.
“It should be safe,” Reese said when he came back inside. “But I’m checking on you every thirty minutes.”
“I think I’ll survive the backyard,” I said flatly.
The look he gave me said he definitely didn’t think it was funny.
Going up on my toes, I planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Seriously,” I said. “Check if you need to, but I just want some air. I’m not going to wander or get kidnapped.”
His fingers reached up to graze the spot where my lips had touched him. He was so stunned, you’d think he’d never been kissed before. With a man that looked like him, all hard lines and dark masculinity, I knew that wasn’t the case.
Before he’d figured out what to do with the unexpected gesture, I’d pushed past him and closed the door behind me. Thankfully, he didn’t follow. For five minutes I sat on the plush outdoor couch watching the sun set in the distance.
When I was confident I wasn’t going to be followed — at least, not immediately — I got up and wandered over to the shed. The door creaked when I opened it, drawing Denzel’s attention. He stiffened when he saw me.
“Go back inside, Thorn,” he muttered.
I stepped into the shed and shut the door behind me. The lighting was dim, the only bulbs focused on the worktable in front of Denzel. It was full of gun parts. I’d heard passing mention of how he was obsessed with guns, but I hadn’t realized it was such a big thing for him. Had he been doing nothing but taking apart guns every day since I’d gotten here?
“We need to talk,” I said.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I want to know why you did it.”
He turned back to his table, ignoring me in favour of fiddling.
“Because I was right,” he said under his breath.
“What about what you did was right?” I demanded.
I received no response. I stared at his back until irritation overwhelmed me and I crossed the space, grabbing a hold of his forearm.
His growl made me freeze.
It also made me wet with slick, which I wasn’t expecting. Something about ‘asshole’ did it for me.
I willed him not to notice, and he didn’t seem to. Denzel only tore his arm away and spun around. His six feet of bulk loomed over me, and fuck if there wasn’t something sexy about that too.
