Pack Deception: Part Two, page 16
I turn to Maverick and raise an eyebrow at him. “Really?”
“Sorry, can’t help it sometimes.” He manages to look chagrined and somehow completely unrepentant at the same time as he shrugs.
“So what are you getting?” I ask him, moving away from the satisfied smile he’s wearing.
“Me? Oh, I’m not getting anything. We’re here for you.”
“Me?” I hiss at him in a whispered voice. “I’m not getting a tattoo.”
That smile he was wearing turns into a patient and unbothered soft smile. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can turn around right now, grab some dinner, and go home. But I thought maybe you’d want to cover your scars this way. With something beautiful. Of your choosing.”
The way he says scars with gritted teeth, I know he’s doing his best to avoid saying mate marks. Of all of them, he gets the most upset thinking about my having a different pack before them. Not only having a different pack but forging bonds with people who aren’t them. My fated mates.
And I get it. If the roles were reversed, I’d want to hunt down the omega that tricked them and kill her with my bare hands.
I must be quiet too long or have a murderous look on my face thinking about any of them being in my position because Maverick’s smile drops, and he starts looking a little nervous. “Did I overstep? I’m sorry. I just wanted to give you the choice. I saw you crying the other morning, looking at the one on your hip. But we don’t have to do this. We can look into other ways to cover them. Or maybe we could find someone to do laser scar removal. Or you can keep th–”
I tug him down by the front of his shirt so I can shut up his word vomit with a kiss.
“This is…perfect. Thank you,” I whisper, after I pull back. His eyes shine full of love, and he takes my face gently with both hands, kissing me chastely once more before whispering, “You’re welcome,” back to me.
A throat clears from behind me. “B is ready when you are,” Jesse grins.
Eighteen
Summer
Jesse escorts us down the hall, not even waiting for us to follow him. Buzzing sounds as we pass by three different rooms before reaching our own at the very end. The three before this one all had tattoo artists who were hulking alpha males. Covered head to toe in tattoos and bent over some body part or another, tattooing their canvas. Which is why I startle a little at my tattoo artist. Still covered in tattoos but much, much smaller than the other three. And female. And stunning. She’s got silvery-colored hair with lavender and pink streaks throughout.
“Hey, I’m Bailee. But all my friends call me B,” she says, walking up to me and extending a hand to shake. Her scent is sweet, with a spicy undertone that compliments the fruity tones perfectly. Based on the layers of additional scents hidden beneath her own, she’s a mated omega, too.
“Summer,” I tell her, shaking her hand.
Her head swivels toward Maverick’s, and he gives his name, too. But she doesn’t approach him to shake his hand. Which makes my omega purr in approval. Sometimes, I really hate biology.
“So… Summer, from the notes, it looks like you’re the one I’m tattooing. I wasn’t told what, though. Do you have any inspo pictures, or would you like to take a look at my work?” B takes a seat on a swivel rolling chair and rolls herself back to the countertop, snags a thick binder, and rolls to me, handing it over.
“Truthfully, I haven’t even thought about it.” My smile is apologetic. It makes Maverick jump to my defense.
“I kind of sprung this on her. As a surprise.” This makes B’s eyes raise up to her hairline.
“Do you want a tattoo?” Her eyes rake over my completely tattoo-less body with a semi-disbelieving look.
“Three, actually. I just don’t know what I want yet. Can I have a minute to think about it?”
“Three?” The shock is clear both in her voice and on her face. But then she laughs. “Go big or go home, I like it. Yeah, take your time. I’ll just go hang out with my mate. Holler when you’re ready.”
So she’s mated to Jesse, then. That would be nice, working with your mate. I wonder if the three alphas that work here are also her mates.
“Thank you,” I smile at her as she leaves and then open the heavy binder. I’m immediately blown away. Her work is impeccable. Not that I know anything about tattooing, but I’d know if something was ugly. These are not that. Her work ranges in the binder from simple, small black and white tattoos to the larger, colorful pieces in the back. I’m definitely not brave enough for those, so I stay within the first couple of pages, looking at her small work. Any one of these would cover my marks.
Within the first minute, I already know what I want one of them to be. Then that snowballs into an idea for the second, and within five minutes, I know what I want for all of them. I also know I want one of them to be a surprise.
“Will you go grab B, please?” I bat my lashes at Maverick. Before he leaves, I speak again. “And stay out there? I want it to be a surprise.” He pauses at that, looking a little disappointed, but then sighs and agrees. Part of me hates disappointing him–my omega side is whining a little at not pleasing her alpha–but the bigger part is excited to see his face when the tattoos are done.
It isn’t a long wait before I hear the echoing of footsteps coming from the hallway. B pops her head in first, like a doctor would at an omega clinic, before coming the rest of the way in. “All set then?” she asks, heading over to the counter to prepare. I’ve never gotten a tattoo before, so I’m not sure exactly what she’s doing, but she’s ripping open packages and using a lot of wipes to clean things, so that part, at least, is reassuring.
Once everything is set up, she turns to me. “So, what are we doing?”
Just as I’m about to tell her, my phone rings. “Sorry, let me just…” I pull my phone out of my pocket to hit ignore when I see it’s the clinic.
The clinic… Why would–?
My heart sinks.
In all the hoopla of moving in with the pack, getting Nala, and settling in, I forgot all about my last run-in with Doctor Tanner, when she took my blood to run more tests.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to B, “I have to take this.”
“Take your time,” she says, and then, mercifully, steps out into the hallway. I still see her, so she hasn’t gone far, but she’s giving me some privacy.
“Hello?” My voice shakes a little when I pick up.
“Summer. It’s Doctor Tanner.” Her voice gives nothing away, and I hate it. I wish I could tell if she’s about to deliver bad news. That way, I could hang up before she has the chance to.
“Yes, hi. How are you?” I ask, falling back on pleasantries automatically.
“I’m good. Thank you. Do you have time to talk for a minute?”
“Yes.” I hesitate. “Is this about the tests you ran?”
There’s a short pause on her end. “It is.”
“Just say it.” For some reason, I already feel the tears welling. Like, I know that it’s bad. Intrinsically, in my soul, I can feel it.
“Well, the good news is, I confirmed all traces of the drug have left your system. There aren’t even small amounts in it anymore. So it would be safe for you to start any suppressants you wanted again.”
“But,” I prompt.
A little sigh on the other end of the line and then a deep breath. “But… I also ran your FSH levels. Those are what would tell us about your ability to conceive. The tests indicate what I feared. You likely…you most likely will not be able to conceive anymore. Certainly not outside of a heat. But even during a heat, when your levels would typically spike…the odds of you getting pregnant are very low.” I can hear the regret in her voice, but it doesn’t soothe the way her words are slicing me open. Carving pieces from my heart.
“How low?” My voice cracks a little.
“It’s hard to say exact–”
“How. Low?” I growl this time. “Give me a number. Ballpark.”
She sighs again. “Maybe five percent.”
“Five…” Five percent. There is only a five percent chance I’ll ever have a family. Ever feel that joy again. “Thank you,” I say abruptly, and then hang up before she can get another word in.
The tears that had started to well at the beginning of the call are long gone. Instead, there’s a dull, lifeless feeling spreading through me. Everything feels numb.
“Are you ready?” B asks, poking her head in and frowning at the look in my eyes. Still, I nod.
“You sure? I can go get your mate if you need–”
“I’m ready,” I mutter in a quiet but strong voice.
Her eyes roam over me once before giving me one curt nod.
I open the binder back up. What I want isn’t exactly in here, but I figure she can work with it since it’s all similar. B comes over on her rolling chair to get a better look at the binder and which ones I’m indicating. “I want this one on my ear,” I say, pointing to the spot where my first mate mark is. It must not be super noticeable because she simply nods and looks back at the book for my second. “This one to cover this on my hip if I can.” Then I unbutton my work slacks and pull them down just low enough to show the very clear bite mark just above the waistline of my panties. Her eyes dart up to mine when she sees it, then back up to my ear, scrutinizing it a little harder.
“May I?” she asks, lifting her hand to indicate she wants to touch them. I nod. The room is quiet, except for her chair rolling back a little as she stands to prod at my ear first. “Lay back a little for me,” she says. The tattoo chair I’m in is adjustable, and it’s currently at an incline, making it easy and comfortable to relax into it while exposing my hip to her. Cool fingers prod at the spot, making my stomach clench a little at the first touch. “You’ve got one more mate mark to cover, right? You said three tattoos.”
I’m wearing my most used heels, so it makes kicking one off hassle-free. B drops into a squat to look at the mark on my foot. The one I hate the most because I have a thing about feet. Which Connor knew before he bit me there.
Prick.
“Okay. The good news is I cover scars a lot. So it shouldn’t be a problem. What were you thinking about for this one?” I show her one of her other drawings and explain the minor changes I want made. “That should be doable. But because the one on your hip is the biggest and the deepest scar, I think we should switch these two and make this bigger,” she explains, pointing to the first and second ones I chose.
After her consultation, she draws up some sketches quickly to show me. They’re stunning. Exactly what I want, and I tell her so. A few minutes later, she’s got them on this paper that has the first drawing on it in purple. The one that will go on my hip. Each of her movements are swift and sure, telling me she’s done this a million times. It has become second nature for her.
I’m lying back on the chair again after she placed what she called the stencil when a constant buzzing fires up. “Okay, here we go. If you need to stop at any point, let me know.”
My body locks up in anticipation of the pain. The needle hits my skin, and I clench my eyes shut, bracing for it.
But I’m already numb. The gun feels like little more than small pinpricks by a pointy pencil.
“That actually doesn’t really hurt. Kind of tickles,” I say, but my voice is as dead as I feel.
“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d have an issue. Honestly, none of the omegas ever do. Too used to heat pains; a little needlework is nothing. Jackson and Marcus are the worst I’ve ever tattooed. Giant, muscled-up babies.” I know she’s trying to make light, to avoid talking about whatever happened on the call to make my mood change so quickly. She’s trying, so I will, too.
I give her a confused look, and she explains. “They’re my other mates. You probably saw them on the way back.”
“Your whole pack works here?” My brows draw down as a little pain registers.
Nothing I can’t handle, though.
“Going over the scarring will hurt a little more than the rest of the skin,” she answers my flinch. “But no. Not my whole pack. Jackson and Marcus are two of my alphas. They tattoo here. Jesse is my beta. But I have another alpha, James, who works for the Omega Protection Services.”
OPS for short. I’ve never had to work with them, though I probably could have reached out for help when I left Pack Monroe. But I was scared and distrustful of anyone at the time.
“That’s actually how I met my pack, through James.” The admission makes me pause. She doesn’t expand on it any further, and from my own experience with traumatizing pasts, I don’t ask her to explain.
“So you have four packmates?” I ask, noting the way her shoulders loosen ever so slightly at my brushing right past her confession.
B nods. “James and Jackson are twins, Jesse is their younger brother, and Marcus is their childhood best friend.”
“That worked out really well for them, finding their mate together,” I smile at her. It feels fake on my face. “Are you all fated mates?”
The buzzing stops for one heartbeat, and her eyes shudder before starting back up again. “No, we’re not.” I barely hear the whispered words over the tattoo gun.
“I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to pry.” She looks so sad for a second that, despite my own maelstrom of despair swirling in me right now, I want to reach out and squeeze one of her hands.
“It’s fine. It’s the obvious next question.” Then we fall into a strained silence while she continues to work at my hip. It’s quiet so long, I think we’re going to continue the rest of the session in silence. When she starts to speak again, I almost startle. “We all found our fated mates already. They had one before me, and I had one before them.”
“Really, you don’t have to explain. I’m sorry I pried.” Her voice is haunted in a way that I’m almost afraid for her to keep talking.
“I didn’t want you to think we were too impatient to wait for the Goddess’s match.”
“It’s not uncommon for packs to mate with other people. I wouldn’t judge you.” She nods.
“Their mate wasn’t a good match for them,” she continues when I don’t push. I start to get the notion that she needs to talk about it. So I listen. “She was horrible. Abusive. Manipulative. They saw it all before they mated, thank the Goddess, and rejected the bond. It took them a long time to get past the pain of the rejection, even though they’re the ones that cut it.”
I can’t even imagine that type of pain. Infinitely worse than going through a heat alone. You’re essentially cutting off a limb and suffering a heart attack at the same time.
“And you?” I ask, clenching my stomach a little as she tattoos over another thick part of the scar. For a second, the only sound is the buzzing of the machine as I watch her swallow a lump in her throat.
“He died.” Her words are hollow, haunted, and the spice in her scent starts to overpower the floral. It makes my heart hurt for her. Arguably, it’s an even worse pain than rejecting a bond, I’d imagine. Her pack chose their fate; she didn’t.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, wishing I were an alpha and could soothe her pain with my purr. But an omega’s purr doesn’t work on another omega. Especially when they aren’t mated.
“Thank you.” Her head jerks in a little nod. Silence once again. Then, for some reason, probably because she laid her bleeding heart out for me, I choose to share a little of my story. Two omegas suffering together.
“A little over two years ago, I found a pack I thought were my fated mates.” Her eyes dart to mine briefly before going back to her work. So, I continue. “They were perfect in the beginning. Dragged me out from a deep depression, whispered sweet nothings in my ear, and I mated them almost immediately.” My mind plays a motion picture of those first few months with them as I talk. “But they weren’t actually my mates. Not the ones the Goddess intended for me, at least.”
The buzzing stops completely, and she meets my eyes. “They drugged you, didn’t they?” My head jerks down to stare at her, shocked that she got there so fast. I nod. “James has relocated several omegas with a similar story recently. Passion Pack, right?” Another nod. The hollow look she had is replaced by one of pure rage. But she doesn’t say anything. Simply stews in anger, starts the machine back up, and I continue.
“I wasn’t exactly happy. I get that now, but looking back, I thought I was. Until I miscarried.” Her spicy scent invades every orifice of her studio the more I talk. “That’s actually what this tattoo is for. She, or maybe he, would have been born in October.” My voice cracks on the last word, and I feel myself start to tear up as she finishes up the marigold bouquet on my hip. “I left after that. Even the drugs couldn’t stop me from realizing how dangerous staying with them would be. I landed in Chicago, met my pack, and I guess you could say the rest is history.”
What I don’t say, what I just learned, is that the tattoo brings on a whole other meaning now. The one and likely only child I’ll ever have is being memorialized on my body as we speak.
I feel something wet land on my hip. Only to realize B is crying. Maybe for me, or her, or perhaps both of us. So we sit there while she works, crying in a way that feels cleansing, in complete silence for the rest of the night.
Nineteen
Summer
With only a few finishing touches on my foot left, I look at the clock. It’s been hours since we started. For the size of the tattoos, I suppose I was expecting it to go a lot quicker. The grumbling from my stomach that started about an hour ago is happening every couple of minutes now.
Jesse poked his head in a little bit ago to check on how long we had. So I’m sure Maverick is bouncing off the walls up front. Maybe he went back to the car to wait until I was done. He’s not the most social alpha in the pack.
“Done,” she says with one last wipe at the tattoo. “Take a look.” B rolls in her chair to give me space.
