“Lukas did so well, Vaughn.”
I grinned, hearing the upswing in Owen’s voice. I couldn’t imagine what that must be like — to be drunk on love for your family. “Yeah?”
“He was amazing. I mean — wow, I just couldn’t-” He cut himself off, words sliding into each other. I heard him grasping for the next words, and held off from teasing him. This wasn’t the time. Any other moment? Sure. Right now, I wanted him to have this, sincere and unsullied. “I… I can’t believe it. We’re so lucky.”
“You deserve it,” I told him. “Both of you. How about I come and visit this weekend? Is that too soon?”
“No, of course not. We’d love to see you.”
“Are you sure? ‘Cos I’m guessing Lukas is going to want to sleep for about seven years.”
He laughed, breath light as air. “Maybe, yeah. I don’t know. Uh… yes? Come. Please. I’ll check with Lukas later and let you know if I’m wrong, but… I can’t wait for you to see her. She’s beautiful.”
“I’m sure she is.” My smile softened, finally weighed down by the knowledge that I’d never get to make this dizzy, joyful call. “I’ll come along. I look forward to it. You get some rest, Papa.”
I hung up, hoping Owen couldn’t hear the sink in my tone of voice. I gave myself a moment to regroup, paying attention to the birdsong outside and the leaves swaying in the breeze outside the large, smooth pane of my office window.
At least I had an omega to distract me in Blackwater this time.
A smile crept across my face again, and I picked my phone up again to text him.
Hope you’re not busy this entire weekend. I’m gonna be in town and it’d be good to see you.
Before my phone even reached the desk, my screen was already lighting up again with his excitable reply.
!!!
I grinned, watching his second message come in.
Yay! I’d love to. I promise I’ll try and actually talk to you this time xx
I chuckled, turning back to the plans in front of me, but my mind was still on Fin. I could picture him on the other end of the phone, all rosy-cheeked and beaming down at the screen. He was so hard on himself. With a face like that, he could have an ego the size of Blackwater itself and still catch my eye, but his own ethereal beauty was totally lost on him.
Would this turn into a relationship? Probably not. It had never happened for me before, in twenty-eight years on this earth. I didn’t see why it should now — but he’d be fun to play with until he inevitably moved on to an alpha with actual prospects.
You might say I was hard on myself, too, but I knew I was attractive. I knew I caught the eyes of plenty of omegas. I enjoyed that attention. I just also happened to know that shallow attraction wasn’t enough. That commitment never really shook out right. That an omega’s biological desires would always win out in the end. Whether I wanted to hold onto him or not, I couldn’t take back that crash.
Still. I’d gained a friend in Finley at the very least. You could never have too many of those.
///
When Friday evening arrived, I was more than ready to be back in Blackwater. In fact, with the full moon fast approaching, I’d decided to stay for a little longer — to really absorb the feeling of home, and to make sure I could run with my pack. I tried to make it back for as many as possible, but work sometimes kept me away.
I’d spent the last few days working diligently to finish my project in time to take the weekend off. In fact, I’d been able to finish early and start driving — and the next project on my roster wasn’t due for a while now. Really, the timing was perfect.
Fin would just be the tasty blond cherry on the cake.
Even so, it was his pretty, shy smile that I focused on as I saw Blackwater signposted at last, taking the turning with a tired sigh. Of course I’d be seeing Kylie and her daddies first. That was what I’d come home for — but sometime this weekend I’d get to see that smile in person again. Maybe do a whole lot more than see it.
Knowing that he was close by, and that this meet-up was in my future, had my mood light and airy even as I pulled up outside Owen’s place. A few hours ago, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to hide the jealousy and longing, but this was lifting me up enough to dismiss that problem entirely.
Maybe I was kind of a whore alpha after all.
I barely made it to the front door, gift bag in hand, before a very tired-looking Owen Moore pulled the door open. Despite the bags under his eyes, however, there was a smile on his face like sunshine and magic, and there was a storyteller’s cadence to his voice.
“Come in,” he said. “Perfect timing. She just woke up from her nap.”
“In that case, I’m surprised you weren’t also napping.”
“Who says I wasn’t?”
I grinned, giving him a one-armed hug as I stepped inside his home. I could already smell the difference — all the baby products and new-plastic smells, and a third little wolf in the mix to boot. We headed through the house to see Lukas cradling a tiny, dark-haired baby in his hands.
“Hi,” said Lukas, voice cracking with emotion. “You want to say hello?”
“Do I ever,” I said, taking a seat on the couch beside him. I leaned over, looking down into her tiny quizzical face. “Hey, beautiful. I’m your pretend uncle.”
I held my arms out as Lukas passed her to me. “You washed your hands, right?”
“Yup. No germs for Kylie.” I nodded to the bag at my feet. “That’s for her, by the way, but I guess you can open it. If we wait until she has the dexterity, I figure it’ll be too late.”
I cradled her carefully, smiling down on her. Hello, little pack member. It was surreal to think that I was staring into the future of the Blackwater pack — that after our generation faded out, hers would be taking the torch. I wondered what the world had in store for her, and what she had in store for us.
“Oh, gorgeous!”
By the faltering in Lukas’s voice, those pregnancy hormones hadn’t quite left him yet. I had picked out two onesies — one said ‘Future Teacher’s Pet’, the other ‘My Dad’s a Cop (So Watch It)’. More importantly, I’d also picked out a lavender-colored blanket with soft arms and legs, and a cuddly wolf’s head attached too.
“She’s going to love it,” said Lukas, teary again.
I grinned, turning to look at him. There was Owen by his side, one hand rubbing his shoulder in a comforting circle. The intimacy was so unfamiliar to me that it took me out of the moment, and I looked back down into Kylie’s baby-blue eyes instead.
“She’s going to be a lucky girl,” I said. “Aren’t you, kiddo? What a beautiful family.”
I passed her back to Lukas as she began to wriggle, and watched her quiet down at his gentle, bristly kiss.
“Don’t be fussy for Vaughn,” he said. “You’re going to love him, I promise. He’s trouble.”
I realized after a beat that Lukas seemed to be directing this at me. He averted his eyes from mine, smiling down at Kylie instead. It was a quick and subtle moment, but I got the impression that he felt sorry for me. Maybe I was being a little too obvious with my envy.
“You know,” said Lukas, halting, “you and Owen should go out for a drink.”
Owen’s brow creased. “And leave you by yourself?”
“You were up all night with her,” said Lukas. “I think you’ve earned your rest. You can catch up with Ryker too, while you’re at it.”
I rubbed at a loose thread on my jeans, deliberately looking down to get away from the look that passed between Owen and Lukas. There was definitely some pity going on, and I couldn’t deal with seeing it — especially not as they communicated it between them, silent and still, as only two mates could.
“You’re right,” said Owen, after a pause. “That would be nice, actually. You want to head out, V?”
“Sure.”
There was little point in trying to fight it. They had clearly already made up their minds, and I knew that their
concern came from a good place. It sucked to think that I was even a consideration for them. Clearly, they had better — and cuter — things to be worrying about. The best thing I could do now was to make them think they’d fixed me.
Then, at least, they wouldn’t worry any more.
It wasn’t like the problem was so serious anyway. I’d seen friends find mates before, and have babies before. Even as they kissed one another goodbye like the happiest couple alive, lingering and full of love, I could keep hold of myself. I knew how this went.
Still, I’d be lying if I claimed not to feel a little relieved once we got out of the house and headed to Tuck It, and grateful for the few moments of silence as Owen called Ryker to invite him along. Maybe this was starting to feel a little worse. It was easy when I was twenty, and barely grown into my paws. Seeing the odd baby spring up was nothing; that wasn’t the path I was on, and that was okay. Now that even Owen was all set up like this, it was a little harder to pretend I was doing this alone by choice.
As he hung up the phone, he gave a heavy sigh.
I cut in before he could say anything. “You’re not going to make me talk about my feelings, are you?”
“Sure am.”
I groaned, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. “Today is really not about all that. We’re celebrating.”
“Days are always about more than one thing.”
“You’re sleep deprived,” I muttered, feeling boxed into a corner by his kindness and thoughtfulness. Stupid friendship. “We really don’t need to talk about this.”
“I am sleep deprived,” he agreed. “Absolutely. Feeding schedules are hell. But I’m also very protective over everyone I care about recently, for some reason.”
Like that was new.
“We’ll talk about other shit as well,” he continued. “You can make fun of me for my taste in music. You can remind me of something embarrassing I did when I was eleven years old, and deliberately blocked out. It will not all be sentimental. But we are going to talk about it. It’s not going to ruin our night unless we let it.”
“Unless I let it, you mean.”
“I said what I said.” He waved a hand. “Pull up there, maybe? We can walk from here.”
The evening was still young, but this was January, and the light had long since faded from the sky. I knew the river was only a short drive away, reliably stygian in the dark. That made the cold a little more bearable as we left my car behind us and made the final steps up to Tuck It.
“Ryker won’t be far behind,” said Owen, raising his voice a little over the hubbub as we made our way to the bar. “So I guess I’ll get him one too. First round’s on me.”
“I’m not drinking and driving,” I said. “Especially in front of a cop.”
He scoffed, shaking his head. “Like you weren’t just going to walk to the motel from here anyway.”
“I-”
“Have been my friend for way too long. You think I don’t know you by now? And yes, that’s fine by me. I can walk too, or get a cab. Relax.”
A smile crept up on me. Even with the threat of this serious conversation hanging over my head, it did feel good to know that I had Owen at my back — that even fatherhood wouldn’t change that. I let him slap me on the back and order for us, keeping my eye on the door for when Ryker turned up. True to Owen’s word, it didn’t take him long. By the time we were being served, my cousin was just joining us at the bar.
“Hey, new Daddy,” he said, nudging Owen with his elbow. “One of those for me?”
“You bet.”
“Good answer. Good to see you, cousin.”
“Is it?” he said. “Because I’m pretty much your boss now, so…”
I snorted, bowing my head his way. “True enough, but… man, the clients I deal with on a daily basis? You’d have to be a whole lot more obnoxious than you are to bother me these days.”
“What he means is, he spends a lot of time looking in the mirror,” said Owen, straight-faced. “So he’s built up a resistance.”
“All right, asshole. I see how it is…”
Just like that, I forgot all about everything on my mind. For fifteen minutes, we were just the same three friends we had always been, making fond fun of each other and laughing at the hilariously mischievous kids Owen ran into on his rounds. Only when Ryker came back with the second round did I see Owen gesture at me with a serious hand, and remembered what I was in for.
“Ah, shit,” I said to the lip of my beer. “Here it comes.”
“Ryker,” said Owen, his eyes fixed firmly on me. “Look at your cousin and tell me he’s not a little… down.”
“No doubt,” said Ryker, quick enough that it felt like I was being ganged up on. They hadn’t had time to talk about this, but… it sure felt like they had. “Don’t get me wrong, V. You’re good at holding up. You’re obviously not dying, but there’s something going on.”
“Well,” I ventured, “I heard they might not be renewing The Bachelor, so…”
“Great defense mechanism,” said Owen, brows raised. “Where can I get one of those?”
“Try Target.”
Ryker shook his head at Owen. “Man, I don’t know who’s more dysfunctional. Him, ‘cos he won’t talk about it, or us ‘cos we can’t get it out of him.”
“Definitely me,” I insisted, as Owen pointed at me. “See? It’s me. Glad we could clear that up. How’s fatherhood?”
“Vaughn…”
I relented a little, seeing the concern on Owen’s face as he scrubbed at his forehead.
“I know it’s tough,” he continued, after a beat. “I’ve seen… you know, at our place. When you were holding Kylie, or when you look at Lukas and me together. It obviously… you know. Brings a couple of things to the surface.”
“That’s nothing you need to be concerned about,” I said. “You worry about raising your family.”
“You are family,” he pressed.
Ryker gestured at me with his beer. “Literally, in my case.”
“I just thought maybe this would be a good time to start looking,” Owen continued. “If it’s starting to gnaw at you. You could have the pick of all the omegas in this town; I know you know that.”
“To screw,” I added. “Maybe. You’re exaggerating, but sure. I’ve got options, for a night. Maybe a couple of weeks. Then they start to build up a picture of what they’re actually signing up for. What they’re not signing up for.”
I relaxed my hands, realizing that I’d started to grip the beer bottle too tightly. When I looked up, I saw concern written over my friends’ faces. It was uncomfortable, but not unexpected.
“The accident was a long time ago now,” I said, lowering my voice a little. “I’ve come to terms with it.”
“I don’t think you have.” Ryker’s voice wasn’t pointed or confrontational — just matter-of-fact. “I think you’ve stalled. You’ve accepted that it happened,” he said. “I believe that. But what it did to you…”
“You can say ‘infertile’,” I said, tone blank. “I won’t cry.”
Owen took over, approaching the same point. “It seems like you think about it a lot more than any omega would.”
“Have you ever heard an omega talk about having babies?” I said — then realized what a stupid question it was, and scoffed at myself. “Right. Never mind. Just think back to that… excitement. The way it washes all over their faces. You think they’re going to want to give up on that just ‘cos I’m… what, tall? Because I take decent care of myself?”
“There isn’t only one way to start a family,” said Ryker. “You know that.”
“Finley was adopted,” Owen pointed out.
The namedrop didn’t sound as casual as he seemed to want it to. I gave him a playful look, brows raised and smile lopsided. “I know,” I said. It was something we had already talked about — how he came to be in the Blackwater pack after his childhood had already passed. How he’d been raised by human parents, and still someti
mes felt a little out of place. Hearing Owen talk about it didn’t surprise me. The fact he’d known to bring it up, however, was a different story. “I guess I forgot how small this town can be sometimes.”
“Lukas said you were talking,” he said, a little sheepish. “And that he’s had a very smiley-faced TA this week, particularly when his phone is out of his pocket.”
I shook my head, smiling down at the table. “We’re just texting. It’s not all that.”
“It could be,” said Ryker. “He’s a good person. He’d suit you, I think.”
“You’re both ten steps ahead of yourselves — and you’re walking in the wrong direction, too. I know you and your omegas are all ready for another happy ending, but… you should probably go talk to Decker Savage or Dr. Quintero. It’ll scratch the itch much quicker.”
Owen drummed his fingertips on the table. “We care for your sake, you know. Not for ours.”
I sighed, feeling a little guilty. They were right, after all. I really did struggle talking about this stuff; I had these walls built up way too high. I knew both Ryker and Owen were coming at this from a good place. I should probably start to act like it.
“I know adoption is a thing,” I said at last, halting and hesitant, and unable to meet their eyes now. “But it’s not the same as getting to hold your own flesh and blood. It can’t be.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Someone’s going to say it. Might as well be me.” I wrinkled my nose, turning even further away from Ryker — because in truth, I knew that he was right. It was a terrible thing to say. Deep down, I didn’t even believe it, but I could still imagine the disappointment in any omega’s eyes when they realized I couldn’t deliver on their one basic, natural desire.
Finley King included.
“I’m not wallowing in misery, you know,” I told them. “I’m okay; I’m fine. If it doesn’t happen, I’m okay. I’ve got friends. I’ve got family. I’ve got the whole pack.”
“Of course,” said Ryker.
“I just think you’re cutting the conversation off before it happens,” said Owen. “I get it. Rejection sucks. But you’re more of a catch than you think you are, and I think you’ll be surprised how little it’s going to matter to the right guy.”
Claiming My Omega: Blackwater Pack Book Two Page 3