We had two beds and another room attached with a sleeper sofa. Preston was on that bed in the main living room for safety. If someone tried to get through that door, they’d get to him first. Outside, someone played jazz music on a saxophone, a low, almost sad sound. I didn’t know music that well, but I was pretty sure this one was called Walkin’ In New Orleans. Only this musician had slowed it down, so rather than being upbeat, it almost sounded pained. The tone matched my mood.
The fan over my head whooshed, making the air in the room pass over my head in a circular motion. Jarret slept in the other bed next to Rainer, who lay on his back. I was pretty sure our Alpha was awake, but Jarret snored lightly. He’d shifted and run after a middle-aged woman for hours. I didn’t blame him for needing his rest.
I wished I could have some. I’d used my powers, but adrenaline had me wide the fuck awake. Anton was awake next to me. He rolled over, placing his head on the spot on my shoulder where his mark was. I loved the feeling. That was where he belonged. I rubbed his back. The pain would be mine, but the worry was theirs. I wondered which one was worse.
Or if that even mattered.
“Why would someone pick it? Choose to be an Omega?”
Anton lifted his head. He didn’t have his tablet and that was a question that went beyond my ability to infer what he thought. He looked over at Rainer.
“Let’s assume that’s a little hoo-ha mumbo jumbo, shall we?” He got up and walked over to the window. “Although, if anyone was going to volunteer for that sort of hell, it would be you. With your big heart? You’d want to do it just because someone should.”
I shook my head. “Don’t make me better than I am just because you love me.”
I sucked in my breath almost as soon as I’d uttered the word. Love. We weren’t really all saying that to each other. Well, maybe they did to each other. They were brothers after all. But I had just spoken it like it was a given.
He turned around, and I spoke fast. “Sorry. I mean… we’re mated. Love eventually is supposed to come. This is early. I’m tired but I can’t sleep. That was presumptuous and…”
Anton took my hand, placing it over his heart. He tapped it there, once, then twice. His meaning was clear. He loved me. Rainer walked from the window and over to me. He knelt down next to the bed. “We’re all completely in love with you. You got that right, and we know it freaks you out because you were raised to think like a human, but you love us, too. We know that.” He tapped his nose. “You know it, too. You can smell it, little, brave Omega. Our Omega. You love us and you know we’re in love with you. Yes, I can speak for all of us.” He kissed both my cheeks. “Use that nose. You can smell it. Anytime you get nervous about it, take a deep breath. It’ll be right there. As for the rest of it, what you said, I’m not making you better than you are. I can feel your heart pressed right up against mine. Even now, there is a part of you wishing you could spare us from this, from the pain that might be coming. I’ll say this as many times as you need to hear it. Okay? We were in a different kind of pain before you. Not one of us would go back. We’d pick you—and this—every time. Scoot over, Anton. We’re both going to cuddle her.” They moved fast, and I was pressed in between both of them. The queen-sized bed wasn’t really big enough for this, but I wasn’t going to complain. I did love the feeling of being smooshed in between my guys, like I couldn’t move, couldn’t adjust. I just had to be, because I was with them.
“Thank you,” I whispered to them. “I’m going to do my best to see to it that it’s not too hard.”
“Stop it.” Rainer answered while Anton pressed my head down on his chest. I could hear his heart beating strongly. I wasn’t going to sleep but for now it was enough just to listen to it and to know that we were in this together.
* * *
I ran after the older woman. She moved very fast for a woman of her age. “Hey,” I finally shouted. “If you want me to understand what we’re doing here, you’re going to have to slow down. I’m not able to keep up with you.”
She turned around, her old wrinkled face scowling at me. “You have to keep up. And I don’t know how you expect to ever understand anything if you don’t open yourself up to do so.”
Open myself up? “What does that mean?”
She pointed her finger at me. “I don’t know how you can do this with two hands tied behind your back. You have to open up to the power, open up to the pain, take in the love. Be your wolf, MacKenzie Harper. It’s a beautiful thing to be. You are the Omega. For now, the only one. And baby stepping it and talking to people who can’t understand despite their best intentions about it won’t solve anything. Be the Omega, MacKenzie or don’t be. Open yourself up or shut it away forever.”
* * *
I must have dozed off because I woke up when Jarret got out of his bed to go to the bathroom. The sun had risen in the sky, and the slow drift of jazz had been replaced with the sound of someone shouting at the top of his lungs and a car horn blaring. I was still pressed against Anton’s chest. He had his hands tangled in my hair. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Rainer’s head was on my back.
Jarret exited the bathroom and stopped next to the bed. I smiled at him, and he grinned at me. “You okay?” he asked me in a whisper.
I nodded. I felt great. I breathed in the scents in the room. I could even find Preston’s in the other room. There it was … that scent Rainer told me I’d always be able to find. They loved me. All four of them did.
Jarret tilted his head slightly. “Kenzie?”
“I’m okay.” Even as I answered him, I could feel the knowledge those smells brought rushing through me. All I had to do was open up and take them… all that meant was that I had to let go of all of the years of trying to be something else. I was never human; I was never going to have that life.
And what was more was that my parents—hell, the entire werewolf community—were wrong to try to make me. Maybe they had the best intentions but, damn it, I was the fucking Omega. I’d always been. What kind of people denied the youth in their community any chance at happiness for fear of what? The kind of discovery that had always been a possibility but hadn’t happened, not really, since the dawn of time.
It was like a train hit me. My whole body jolted, and I couldn’t have stopped my eyes from going wolf if I’d wanted to. She was there, looking out my eyes at me.
Rainer lifted his head. “What just happened?”
Jarret crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s going wolf. Sort of. In the eyes.”
His own canine appeared, staring back at me. Jarret took two steps back, hitting the bed. He hadn’t known that was going to happen. Anton lifted his head, his gaze sleepy like he’d just woken up. His wolf didn’t take long to show himself. We stared at each other, practically breathing the same gasps of air, wolf-to-wolf, in our human bodies.
Preston charged in the room. His eyes were purely canine, and his smile was wickedly happy. I grinned back at him before turning to see Rainer waiting for his turn. Unlike the others, he hadn’t turned his eyes wolf. Why not? He needed to understand the same way the rest of us had; he had to grasp what was happening here. We didn’t have to be one or the other, we didn’t have to hide, not from ourselves.
No, we had to be comfortable being all of it. I touched his cheek, my human hands on his human skin. He needed to shave. Or maybe not. I liked the five o’clock shadow at seven in the morning. It was sexy. I waited for him to catch up. He’d held on for so long. That long time in prison when he’d had to let the wolf go and not let any of the humans there know what had happened to him. He could shift, and he could lead but there was part of him that was always going to be afraid to lose control.
“You never could have been a Loup. I don’t know much of anything but that I understand one hundred percent. You never lost control of yourself. I know it. They know it. Stop being afraid of him.”
He sucked in his breath. “MacKenzie, if I lose control, you have to bring me back, okay? You can’
t let me be a monster.”
“Rainer, you never were, and I’ll never let it happen. I promise. We trust you, and you can trust us. I promise. You’re mine.”
He nodded, and his wolf rushed forward, staring at me. My own wolf wanted to howl, but we were in a hotel room. She understood the rules, she always had. There was a time and place when she got to be free. This wasn’t that time. Even knowing that, none of us had ever been freer than we were right then. We could finally be what we always were—both beings—and something so beautifully unique that the humans who did know couldn’t fathom our existence. That was why they wanted to destroy us, but they never would.
We were werewolves, and so help me, we would exist. We would be.
* * *
Preston had walked with his head down to one of the tourist places to buy us all sunglasses. I could have shifted my eyes back if I wanted to, but the problem was that I absolutely did not want to shift them back. Maybe wearing sunglasses everywhere I went, even inside, would be a new trend. Or perhaps people would think we were nuts. Or stoned. Or hung over. Whatever, I really didn’t care.
My in-laws had a beautiful home. It was the kind of place I should have been afraid to touch anything for fear of breaking things, but I was too elated to really concern myself with that at the moment. I sat on Jarret’s lap while his mother glared at all five of us like we’d just brought in a terminal disease from outside into her inner sanctum.
“You’re all going to do that. Just sit there like that, eyes shifted, like you don’t care at all that we are in the middle of a major city and anyone could see?” She shifted in her seat.
Anton nodded, and she groaned. He smirked at me. Maybe he never spoke back before or bothered to communicate with her at all.
“You can’t see it. We’re wearing the sunglasses for your comfort.” Preston stretched out his legs so that his feet were on her coffee table. I had a feeling that was a big no-no. Partially shifted or not, Pres did love to push her buttons. He took off his glasses. “If you’re not going to care about the effort we made, I’m happy to uncover them. There, is that better?”
A muscle ticked in her jaw. Kevin laughed, throwing back his head. “Oh, Preston, ever since you were a baby you’ve just charged into arguments. Like there is no softer touch. I would be deeply sorry if you ever tempered that. Put them on, take them off, I don’t care and truthfully neither will your mother. But the Council? The ones on their way over here to see you based on the fact that you asked for them, they’re going to care. Want a war? You can have one, and we’ll fight for you, always have, always will, but just be sure you know exactly what that entails. Maybe try proceeding with caution.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Rainer?”
“Dad’s right. Turn them back.”
Anton made a grunting noise. He didn’t like that and neither did I. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to obey. I leaned back on Jarret, and he squeezed my waist. I turned my eyes back human. Immediately, I missed the wolf.
With no need for them, I took the sunglasses off. “What will the Council want to know from me?”
My mother-in-law sighed. “Everything. They’re very intrusive people. Be prepared to be probed about all aspects of your life. I do miss the swamp. It was so nice being there the other day.”
That had been quite a shift from one topic to another. The woman dressed in silk missed the swamp? “Really?”
“Yes.” She got to her feet. “We were so happy there. How were the James ladies? I haven’t seen Mercy, Justice, or Raven in a long time. They used to visit us when we were first mated, on pack days. It was a big deal because they each had their own cars.”
Rainer caught Kevin’s gaze, and their Alpha father nodded. “Mom’s been very nostalgic since she got back. I’m thinking our Omega daughter here may have done more than we realized. Any second we may all be moving back.”
Aurora smiled. “I think I would love that idea.”
“Really?” Horror enveloped Preston’s face before he covered it. “You would go back to the swamp? After all these years of fancy.”
She smirked at him. “Maybe. Who do you think raised you there?”
We didn’t get to continue this conversation because the doorbell rang. Aurora steeled her features. I knew that they all had issues with their mother, but I would never make the mistake of underestimating her. She was tough. Her child had been brutally attacked, permanently injured, and she’d lost one of her mates. Even after all of that, she could pull herself together well enough to greet what had to be a little bit like the enemy at the door with a pleasant—even if it was fake—look on her face. That actually took a shit-ton of ability I wasn’t sure that I had.
We all rose. Rainer stepped partially in front of me. All of the guys moved until I was all but surrounded in a circle of them. Their message was clear. The Council wasn’t getting close.
Kevin nodded. “That’s exactly right. I can’t tell you how proud Joe would be right now. Out of all of us, he always had the most faith that the four of you were bound for greatness. I might have preferred safety and security. Although he would have choice words about those blond tips you keep dying in your hair, Pres.”
“What?” Preston startled just as Aurora opened the door. A smirk caught Kevin’s face. Talk about making a moment less tense. Next to him, Brian shook his head and rolled his eyes. Actually, what he’d done had been brilliant. Now when the Council came through the door, they wouldn’t scent anything but amusement and disbelief in the room. That was assuming they had any wolf abilities left at all. Maybe they wouldn’t know the difference between terror and laughter anymore when it came to the aromas. I side-eyed Kevin. Unless he knew something we didn’t.
The Council of Seven was famous. In the same way that my mom used to tell stories about the Lejeunes, she told tales about them. I knew their names, and I’d never met them. They were all about the ages of my mates’ parents. That whole generation had been responsible for everything that had happened. Well, not the Omegas vanishing. They hadn’t done that. But what had happened since? Yes, that was on them.
Cory Alaniz. Guy Boyce. Kayla Deelstra. Brennan Dew. Campbell Ealy. Ernest Juarez. The Council of Six. I didn’t know who anyone was but Kayla since she was the only woman present, but there they all were.
They dressed like they’d all come from business meetings. Expensive suits, pristine ties, and their shoes polished.
We hadn’t brought clothes to wear when we’d gone to the sisters so I now wore what I’d had on all day yesterday. It hadn’t occurred to me to worry. My jean shorts and a white t-shirt were what I met the Council of Seven in.
“Is it true then? You’re an Omega?” One of the men spoke.
It was Brian who answered him. “MacKenzie Harper, this is Brennan Dew. He’s in charge of the Council. Apparently, he’s forgotten it’s polite to introduce himself to people who don’t know him.
“My apologies. We’ve done so much research on you in the last hours that we feel like we know you. It doesn’t follow that you automatically know us.”
I should have had a lot of questions about that. The only problem was I couldn’t think at all. The smells of the wolves who had entered the room overwhelmed me. My hands burned. These werewolves were cold, lost, empty inside. Dying from their souls outward. I caught my breath as my eyes turned wolf.
Anton grabbed my arm, steadying me. I lifted my gaze to face all of them. “How long have you all felt this… dead inside?”
Chapter 15
The silence that followed my question froze the room. Preston grinned at me. Leave it to him to like discomfort. I leaned on Anton. My knees threatened to give out. I’d had Loups appear in the middle of the night and not do what being in the presence of these seven were doing.
Rainer jumped into action. “Sit her down. Not sure what’s happening. You okay?”
I shook my head. “I don’t need to sit. I’m okay. Thanks, Anton.”
Kayla stared at m
e, her eyes wide. “You really are an Omega.”
She didn’t have a bad taste to her, speaking to her didn’t make my tongue feel like I’d just eaten metal. “I am.”
She rushed forward, grabbing onto me. “It’s like a miracle.”
“Kayla, stop.” Brennan snarled. For not having his wolf active, he could certainly do a great impression.
I didn’t let the woman go. I could feel how she suffered, the same way my mother-in-law did. But there was something wrong. Not with her.
The air caught in my lungs. “Rainer, something in here… it’s evil.”
Kayla let me go. “What?”
“Not you. You’re lovely. You’ll be fine. No…” The world tilted. I wasn’t going to survive the malice in here, not if I didn’t protect myself.
“Sweetheart?” Rainer put his hand on my back. “Talk to me.”
“Can’t. Hurts.” I had to get out of this form. It was the only way I could make this stop. My wolf couldn’t be destroyed just from hatred; she wouldn’t be brought down that way. I was too vulnerable as a human, too open to this kind of assault.
I shifted. There were gasps, but I didn’t care. I needed this form.
“She’s shifting.” One of the men I hadn’t met hollered. “This is an utter violation.”
“Oh shove it, Guy,” Aurora hollered. “My daughter-in-law never signed any Accords. She is entitled to shift, like it or not, and my sons, too, in order to protect her. The fact that we have an Omega all but negates the Accords.”
Everyone shouted. I growled, getting low. I was going to kill Brennan. He shouldn’t exist to cause the kind of pain someone like him would create. He had ill intentions for the world. I needed to save my pack from his existence.
“Rainer.” Brennan backed up fast. “Call off your mate. I think she’s going to kill me.”
Hidden: The Swamp Page 17