Pack of Lies, page 32
When we’d eventually wandered downstairs again, covered in each other’s scents, the other omega had been on the couch pouting. There had been a prominent bulge in his pants, and the second he’d seen us he’d stolen me away from Quentin and not let me leave his side since.
He didn’t pressure me, though. There was a concentrated effort to hide his pouting. It was a failed attempt, but the attempt existed.
We ended up wound together on the couch, a movie playing on the TV. Marlowe was rubbing his scent all over me and I didn’t mind one bit.
“I’m going to meet up with my older sister tomorrow,” he said.
The omega used the fact that he was talking as an excuse to press closer to me. There wasn’t much closer we could get at this point.
“You have a sister?” I asked.
“Yeah. She’s an alpha. Leighton and I don’t talk much because I don’t agree with her line of work.”
“What does she do for work?”
Marlowe wrinkled his nose as he tended to do when he was displeased by something. “She’s a corporate fixer. She makes problems go away for rich people like our parents and politicians. She knows a lot of people, though, so I’m going to ask her about the Centre. There might be some contacts she can reach out to.”
“This isn’t meant to be judgmental,” I said, “but why haven’t you already asked her? Jessica could be at the Centre right now. All my friends are there.”
The word ‘friends’ felt incorrect, but they weren’t enemies, and I wanted them to be safe almost as much as I wanted to be safe myself.
“We’re pretty sure our family listens to all her phone conversations,” he said. “It was better if I didn’t call an emergency meeting or ask her anything where they could overhear.”
His family was the opposite of mine, then. My parents had been so disinterested in my life, I wasn’t sure if they even reported me missing when I was kidnapped. They might have thought I ran away or was hiding in the house somewhere when they didn’t see me for a while.
In the past he’d mentioned there wasn’t much love between him and his parents, but I hadn’t imagined there would be anything covert like this going on.
“That’s a little…”
“Ridiculous?” he finished. “Yeah. There’s a reason I don’t have contact with them anymore. There’s a reason…”
He trailed off, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.
The movie played on the screen, some romcom about a woman finding love abroad. I’d never gone abroad, and likely never would. Gold pack omegas weren’t permitted to travel internationally except under very specific circumstances.
Being away from the Centre’s grasp, it was increasingly clear how much they’d taken from me by forcing me into these gold eyes. There were no exceptions to the gold pack rules, whether you chose to become gold pack or were forced. If exceptions were made, it was only for the elite, some of whom had chosen it, even.
“Anyway, I’m excited to see Leighton.”
Marlowe reeled the conversation back to his sister. While I was curious about what he’d hesitated to say, I wasn’t going to push. Out of everyone, Marlowe would be the last one to hide something important from me. He was probably only pausing because it was personal.
“What’s she like?” I asked.
“Kind of a badass, honestly. Total opposite of me. Our parents were furious they got a female alpha and a male omega when they wanted the opposite to help with their social climbing. Leighton can handle them. I couldn’t.”
I tried to picture her. The female version of Marlowe. Probably taller than him, with an alpha aura. Though, I’d heard female alphas had auras that were different than male alphas. I’d never met one, so I wouldn’t know. They were pretty uncommon.
“She has freckles just like me, which she claims to hate. I’m pretty sure she secretly loves them. They soften her features.”
That description brought up an image. I bet she would be nice.
“I’d love to meet her one day,” I said offhandedly.
Marlowe’s grip on me tightened, but he moved his head away so he could stare at me. It took me a second to realize what he was surprised about.
I’d spoken like I was staying.
Probably because in my head, there was no longer an option to leave. The only way I was leaving this pack was if I was dragged screaming back to the Centre.
“You will,” he said. A grin slowly spread across his face. “You’ll definitely meet her. She’s great. We meet up every month. Next month you can come if everything is wrapped up by then. There’s this wonderful little cafe that we go to. It’s so sweet, and it’s downtown, and…”
I let him continue, tuning out from his words.
If the Centre was shut down for good, this could just be… my life. Cuddling with Marlowe on the couch. Listening to him ramble about things he liked, and there were plenty of those. I would be able to choose what I wanted to do with my life.
And what did I want?
As much as I went on about craving freedom, I’d never let myself dream about what I would do with it. I wasn’t as friendly as Marlowe. Making friends with all the neighbours and half the town wasn’t me, and I didn’t plan on staying in this house all the time.
So, what would I do?
“Could I go to university?” I blurted out abruptly, cutting off Marlowe. My cheeks pinkened. “Sorry. But… could I?”
Cocking his head to the side like the puppy I often compared him to, he shrugged. “If you want to. Omegas don’t go to university much, because there are so many jobs only an omega can do. They usually go right into training for one of those, if they want a job at all.”
“What jobs can only omegas do?”
In my hometown, omegas had usually left as soon as they were old enough to live on their own. They fled to greener pastures, bigger cities with a higher alpha and omega population. The town where I grew up was mostly betas, which was why we hadn’t had a hospital capable of giving the injections.
“Well, a lot of places that cater to omegas only want to hire omegas or betas. For comfort, you know? Like salons and certain branches of the Alpha-Omega Institute. There are omega-only medical clinics where no other designations are allowed, not even on staff. They’re always hiring, and they’ll train you. They have special licenses so they can run most of the courses you need for a nursing degree. The big ones, anyway.”
He paused, thinking. I was wowed by the list already, but apparently there were more.
“Oh, and rut helpers. Not that you would be doing that.”
His eyes flashed with possessiveness.
“A lot of omegas help with children, too. Betas can do that, obviously, but some omegas prefer to leave their kids with other omegas if they need childcare. I’ve heard omegas have a natural instinct for child-rearing. I don’t really like kids, though.”
Both my eyebrows rose.
“You don’t like kids?”
Marlowe’s nose crinkled.
“They’re loud and ruin things. Can you imagine having a child in this house? With all the breakable things we own? And they would wreck my garden, probably. We would have to have ugly plastic children’s toys in the backyard.”
I stifled a laugh. That was a shock, for some reason. Of course, the omega himself couldn’t bear children, but I’d assumed adoption was on his radar. He was so sunny and cared about people so much.
He caught my short laugh and grinned. “What, did you think I wanted them?”
“Kind of,” I sheepishly admitted.
“Do you want them?”
I shook my head but didn’t give an explanation for why. I would have to go into detail about my less-than-stellar childhood, and how I was raised wasn’t even the only reason I didn’t want kids. What if my child revealed as an omega? With how my early years as an omega had gone, I would have too much anxiety about their designation.
“I bet there’s a bunch more you wouldn’t guess about me.” Marlowe grinned. “Have you heard of a Prince Albert piercing?”
“No?”
He had his phone out in a second, hiding the screen from me until he pulled up a diagram of what looked like… a penis. With a piece of metal in it. I stared at it, not quite registering what I was seeing on the screen.
“What… is that?” I asked.
“It’s a cock piercing.”
“And you… have one?”
I’d seen his cock. I didn’t remember one, but the fitting room had been a little frantic.
His bottom lip turned out in a pout. “Denzel said I couldn’t do it. We couldn’t find an omega piercer, and he refused to let an alpha or beta do it for me. Not that he liked the idea in the first place. Asshole.”
I reached my finger out to tap the screen, as if I could experience what it would feel like by touching the graphic. It clicked on the image result, bringing us to a webpage featuring a whole list of different dick piercings.
People at my school had pierced ears, and one girl pierced her own bellybutton, but I hadn’t been aware people willingly stuck metal into their genitals.
Or that Marlowe wanted to do it.
He was right that I never would have guessed.
“Does it do anything?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Some people say it makes you more sensitive, and if you fuck people it can be fun for them. Jubilee was on board with me doing it after he found that out, even though he had the same reaction as you at first. Mainly, I think it looks neat.”
Marlowe wanted a cock piercing because he thought it would look neat.
Huh.
“Would you get a piercing?” he asked.
“Not anywhere near my vagina,” I said quickly.
He burst into laughter. His full belly-laughs had him leaning back away from me, and I readjusted my position. Most of my body was falling asleep from him lying on me. My limbs tingled.
“I was thinking more like your ears, or maybe a nose piercing,” he said between laughs.
“Well, you were just talking about cock piercings. You can’t blame me for being a little wary!” I exclaimed.
“Fine, fine. But would you get one?”
He was still snickering.
“Maybe,” I huffed. “I might like a tattoo.”
“We could get matching ones!”
“I’m not sure I trust your taste in tattoos,” I said.
“You can choose it.”
“And you’ll get whatever I choose?”
“I won’t even have to see it,” he said. “They can brand me with it forever, and I’ll see it when it’s done.”
Marlowe was proving to be far wilder than he looked. You would never guess any of this from his pastel, fashionable clothes and his pristinely kept two story home and his near obsession with baking. I was used to judging books by their covers — if they were dressed like a doctor, they were probably a doctor who didn’t care about my well-being. In the real world, I’d forgotten how inaccurate first impressions could be.
“You’d better hope I don’t have them tattoo something stupid on you.”
“I’ll always think of you when I look at it, so if you want to have a dick tattooed on me, those are the memories I’ll pull up. So be it.”
We were both howling with laughter on the couch when Reese wandered down from upstairs to see what the racket was all about. Neither of us were willing to get into it, but he settled on the couch with us. Far away from Marlowe, I noticed.
I spent the rest of the evening sliding Marlowe and I closer and closer to Reese, because if I was staying, I didn’t know how I was going to handle watching those two tiptoe around each other.
And I was staying.
There was no other option for me because I was falling in love with them.
FORTY-TWO
MARLOWE
After days of being cooped up at home, I got a thrill from being out and about.
Bright sunlight streamed down through the gaps between buildings, warming my skin as I strode through the streets to the cafe. Meeting up with Leighton was a monthly standing date, and I hadn’t been willing to give it up. Denzel had tried to ban me from leaving the house when I’d gone to him about accompanying me, but contrary to popular belief I did have a driver’s license and knew how to use it.
So, I took the SUV.
He could fuck right off with his protectiveness.
I did, admittedly, feel guilty about not telling the pack about my plans to ignore Denzel’s orders. Plus, Thorn was stuck in the house constantly because of the missing person reports, so it felt like a betrayal to go out when she couldn’t.
But Leighton and I weren’t the type of siblings to talk on a regular basis, considering what she did with her life and how heavily it conflicted with what I did. This cafe date was the only time I got to see her. I wasn’t about to miss it.
What could possibly happen in the middle of the day, downtown?
I’d parked on the street, even avoiding those parking garages Denzel always got extra paranoid in.
Reaching the entrance to the cute little cafe, I pushed at the glass door and spotted my sister waiting at a table in the far corner. There were two mugs sitting in front of her, along with two plates — hers with a croissant sandwich, mine with a pastry.
Leighton and I were about as opposite as two siblings could get.
I dressed in pastels and held fashion above function. She wore black. Exclusively. Usually every item of clothing had at least four pockets. My short stature and squishy bits made me look about as intimidating as a puppy, while she was lean and muscular, her intimidation factor making her seem taller.
A couple people in the cafe gave her wary looks, like she was about to pull out a knife and gut someone. Or beat someone up. Her alpha aura wasn’t oppressive like a male alpha’s would be, but it permeated everything, expanding outward to fill most of the room and pose a gentle challenge.
Male alphas tended to puff up or glare at her, while omegas hopped nervously from foot to foot. Even to betas, her aura could be unnerving. We’d grown up together, so I was used to it.
Grinning, I walked up to the table and gave her a casual one-armed hug before sitting down in front of my pastry. She was utterly unimpressed, but there was a hint of affection in her green eyes. The shade matched mine. Same with her dark hair and the light smattering of freckles across her cheeks. It was obvious we were related if you ignored the vastly different vibes we gave off.
“You smell like another omega, and you don’t have the usual entourage,” Leighton said. “Does that mean you finally ditched that asshole Denzel?”
I laughed. She’d never liked my pack lead. She didn’t like many people, admittedly. It was typical for her to be pleased at the prospect of me leaving my pack for someone else, despite it being pretty much impossible to break a bond like that. My pack was for life, but she held out hope I would abandon them, bond be damned, and let them pine over me.
She’d get the chance to laugh in Denzel’s face if I did.
Reaching for my pack bond, I felt a hint of sorrow at how weak it was.
I could barely feel them. All of us ignoring the pack lead’s orders had caused so much strain on the bonds they were in danger of tearing apart. We needed to fix it soon, but I wasn’t sure how. I didn’t truly want infighting.
“Nope,” I said, continuing to smile. It was shaky. “We’re still together, but I wanted to come alone today. The pack found its scent match omega.”
Leighton raised a thin black eyebrow.
“You’ve wanted that for years, yet you don’t seem happy.”
She was a master of reading emotions. I bit my lip.
“The situation is complicated.”
“Do they like this new omega more than you?”
“No.”
“Do you hate the new omega?”
Eyes wide, I shook my head. “Oh gosh, no. Thorn is wonderful.”
“I’m going to need some more details if you’d like my sage advice,” Leighton said dryly.
“She’s gold pack and was kidnapped and experimented on.” The words left me in a rush, tone hopefully quiet enough none of the other patrons could hear me. They were all betas, thank goodness. “Denzel kept her hidden for a week before she got kidnapped again, and ever since she was saved and brought to our house, he’s insisting he was right to keep secrets.”
Her eyes narrowed, aura pulsing with anger. She was protective of me — not in the suffocating way Denzel was, but in a very big sister way. When someone made fun of me for wearing pink when I was younger, she’d punched them in the face. They’d bled all over the playground and ended up with a broken nose.
Our parents had, of course, been furious and paid off the family of the kid so they would never breathe a word to anyone.
“I told you something like this was going to happen eventually, Lowe,” she said. “He’s unhinged. A situation like the one with Ava would fuck anyone up, but he’s dealt with the trauma in about the worst way possible.”
Biting my lip hard enough it bled, I fought the urge to defend him. He didn’t deserve it. Not this time. I’d been defending Denzel’s actions to Leighton for years, and on some level I’d always known he was controlling. But I’d liked it. I’d trusted him to not hide the important things.
Part of this was my failure, too. Enabling him had stopped him from confronting his trauma.
“We need to help him,” I said. “I don’t know how. He’s spiralling. The pack bonds are tearing apart because he’s refusing to acknowledge his orders are bullshit. Thorn is never going to stay with our pack like this, and then they’ll lose out on their one shot to have their scent match. I can’t take that from another person.”
I reached for my drink, knowing it would be the cinnamon latte I always ordered. By now it was cool enough to take a big swig, trying to fight back the tears welling in my eyes. I ripped into my pastry next, Leighton watching keenly as she took a casual bite of her croissant.
“You didn’t take anything from the Loranger pack, Lowe,” she said.
