“No, it’s not.” I had been about to get up and out of my chair, but at Haze’s clipped reply, I found myself sitting back down again. “She would do best with her fathers and a mess of sisters, but if that doesn’t work for you, we have other clients in similar situations. All boys, I’ll have to say, but each one is missing key family members in their lives. Some were abandoned, some orphaned, but we run a social group through Crowe Corp for kids that are affected. My pack and some others, who have been very carefully vetted, work with the kids for a few hours a week. We provide structure, healthy competition, boundaries and the kind of care a young alpha needs.”
I was about to protest, something instinctively rising inside me at the implication someone else could provide my daughter with what she needed, the feeling lying uncomfortably beside the knowledge that I wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t true.
“It doesn’t replace a mother’s love. Some of the boys don’t have that, or have had to replace that with the beta caregivers who’ve stepped up to look after them,” Haze continued. “I think that meeting the other carers would be very helpful for you. You’d meet other mothers going through the same thing. God knows some of the boys are a bloody handful,” he muttered.
“And what will all of this cost?” I asked. The bookshop was doing OK. Well, enough that I could keep a roof over our head and food on the table, but I had to put in long hours to do so. Carmen tended to pay for Evie’s additional needs, something I wanted to put an end to sooner rather than later.
“Nothing,” Riley replied brightly. “Crowe Corp benefits from the program, so it’s offered to people for free. We’ve become one of the premier research facilities when it comes to alpha and omega studies, and while we help the kids, our psychologists can observe them, building our understanding of alpha psychology and their responses to trauma.”
“My daughter won’t be a guinea pig for anyone.” My voice came out in a growl and Haze’s face split into a wide grin. “I mean it. I’ve had hordes of doctors come wandering through a consult, wanting to poke and prod at the girl alpha…”
“No one will do that to your daughter.” The smile was wiped away so completely it was as if it was never there. Haze’s voice sounded like granite grinding against diamonds, hard and unyielding. “I’ll see to that personally.”
“Literally no one can,” Riley said, pulling out some paperwork and pushing it my way. “If you decide to join our group, these documents outline what you give permission for, and what you don’t. We did some fairly extensive consultation to put the forms together, but if there’s anything special you want to add or make sure doesn’t happen, you add it down the bottom here.”
She pointed to an empty box on the form.
“Take them home, give them a read and come back to us when you’re ready. Are we very interested in working with you? Yes, god, yes. But we’re also willing to do so on your terms.”
Haze chuckled at that.
“My mate is a massive nerd when it comes to these things, and nothing gets her more excited than someone like your daughter. If you want someone who’ll go the extra yards to try and work out exactly what’s happening with Evie, Riley’s your girl. She’d never ever leave a child in need unseen or uncared for.”
I watched bright red spots flare in Riley’s cheeks, and when she shot her mate a sidelong look, my heart wrenched in my chest. That, that stolen moment of sweetness, of intimacy. Right then I could’ve clawed her eyes out with jealousy, but not over Haze. Rather it was that she’d managed to find that man, those alphas that were the other part of her soul and, now, they were mated for life, welded together by a love I’d never know.
Because I was just a beta, and even if she had been a latent, Riley was an omega.
“Thank you for this,” I said, getting to my feet and collecting up the forms. “I admit, you’ve given me more hope than any of the specialists I’ve seen before.”
“I hope we’ll see more of young Evie around here,” Haze said with a long look. “I think we can really help her.”
And at that, I was walked out, the details for the clinic and Riley’s personal phone and email passed onto me as we stood in the reception area, Haze having gone to go and retrieve Evie.
But as we were making small talk, just talking about innocuous things about how hot this summer had been, the door opened and my life changed.
A man walkedin the door with a faint scowl on his face. He raked his hand through his black hair, then scrubbed it through his beard before he scoured the small waiting room with dark flashing eyes. Another man came behind him, his reddish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and the kind of high cheekboned face one saw on the fae paranormal romance books I sold so many of. His lips were twisted in what looked like a permanent smile, something that only widened when he saw us. Both Riley and I were surveyed with cool grey eyes that seemed to twinkle as they took us in.
They were alphas, I could tell that straight away. It wasn’t just in their build or their cocky air. Something inside me just knew as soon as I saw them, but it was the last man who walked in that stopped me cold.
I felt like someone had decided to get me to do the ice bucket challenge, filming as I was surely doused in a fall of frigid water, every nerve prickling at once as he came in the door. Just as big, just as tall. No, god dammit, bigger, taller, heavier, muscle having been packed on his massive frame by lots of hard work if his worn clothes and boots were anything to go by. He rubbed his hands on his jeans, a strangely nervous gesture and then he turned my way.
I stared at Ben and Ben stared at me and time stood still.
No, far worse, it evaporated. I wasn’t twenty-eight anymore, I was eighteen and walking into my first university party with Sophie by my side, thinking the whole world was my oyster and he was my first taste of it. Just like before, his eyes widened, his pupils blowing wide. Just like before, he took an involuntary step towards me and it was only my grip on the receptionist’s desk hutch that stopped me from doing the same.
“Ben?” the dark-haired man growled. “Ben?”
The one with the reddish hair narrowed his focus on me, his eyes darting between me and who I bet was his brother.
“Lily…?”
Ben breathed my name like a long forgotten prayer, invoking something. What, I was about to find out.
“This is Lily?” the reddish haired one said, then took a step forward, his head tilting sideways, his nostrils working.
“Mum!” an imperious little voice cried out. “Do we have to go? I was playing on the Twitch and I was beating Colton!”
“Evie…” I called out her name in a wavering voice. “Evie, come on. We need to go. Cake shakes, remember?”