“It was no fucking surprise, not really.” Lucien’s hands raked across his scalp. “It wasn’t right, but fuck, I wanted it to be. We were creating a family to make up for the one we never got. We’d set ourselves up, created a life, a pack house any omega would love, but…” His wolf stared at me, not the man. “When I heard her bitchy little voice tear strips out of my fucking brother, that’s when it all came crashing down. I couldn’t maintain the delusion, not in the face of that.”
“This should be the moment when everything ended between Chloe and our pack,” Tobias said, standing there, perfectly still. “To my shame, it isn’t.” He let out a long sigh, seeming to deflate then. “It’s not all of it by a long shot, but if I’m going to tell sad stories, can we go upstairs and lie down on the bed. Please, omega?”
Would I ever be able to resist that mournful tone? I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to find out, but right now…? I nodded, feeling Max clutch at me tighter then. I was tired, so fucking tired, and I think they were too.
38
“Our parents sent us to boarding school at a young age,” Tobias said as we stepped into the grey gloom of the bedroom, the reflected light of the moon, stars, and streetlights streaming in, diffused by those gauzy curtains. I moved to my suitcase and pulled out an old T-shirt washed smooth and broken in, along with a pair of track pants. “Our parents had the money to create a family, but not the emotional resources. For them, we were an investment, a continuation of their legacy. Our fathers assumed that by sending us to a fancy school, they might be able to use the beta skills we developed to climb their way up the ladder of the town hierarchy, because Lockwoods were always at the bottom.”
When I went to strip the damn dress off, stepping out of my heels, they all moved closer, but I shook my head. I wrenched the dress up and off me in a well-practised move, dispensing with the bra, stockings, and underwear, then pulled the comfy clothes on like they were armour. Max nodded, tossing his jacket and shoes aside, then he collected me up and placed me on the bed before mounding pillows and blankets around me.
“I’m not even sure our mother was our fathers’ true mate.” Tobias stood there in a pool of moonlight, turning him into a silhouette not a man. “The way our hometown worked, the alphas in control of it chose first from the available omegas, then the next, then there were our fathers, right down the bottom. It wasn’t until we got out of school that we discovered other alphas and omegas roam more widely, looking for their true mates.”
He thrust his hands in his pockets as he stepped forward.
“I guess this goes to context. We didn’t really know how to forge a relationship with anyone, because we hadn’t seen any successful ones outside of the betas ones that our classmates engaged in. So maybe that’s why I…”
Tobias’ voice failed, something that had me frowning, then moving restively before Max hauled me closer and settled me against his chest.
“You can’t claim all of the blame. I’m the one who brought her into our pack,” Beau said, all traces of his usual good humour gone. Instead, there was a hollow-eyed man who stared at me, begging for something, but I wasn’t ready to take that on, not yet. “She was pretty and everyone loved her. She laughed all the time, and people were drawn closer, just wanting to be near her.”
I stiffened at that, something he noted, but he forged on.
“I don’t spend a helluva lot of time thinking this shit through. I’d met plenty of girls like her, ones who fell all over me when they saw my face or my bank balance, ones I could spend long, lazy days just chasing pleasure with.”
I remembered then everything he did back in the office, pleasing me over and over.
“That’s my thing—I want everything to be fun, feel good, and when I brought her home, I thought that’s how it would work. She was an omega, we were alphas. We go together like peas and corn, so it’d just be one long laugh. Lucien would stop being so fucking obsessive.”
The man snorted at that.
“Tobias wouldn’t be so damn serious, and Max…”
“What would I be?” The man himself shifted beneath me. “What did you hope for me?”
“You wouldn’t be so miserable. She’d see you, want you, love you, and we’d be happy—really happy for once.”
“Instead, she damn near tore us all apart.” Lucien seemed to come at everything like a bull at the gate, slamming on through and fuck the consequences. “I told Tobias and Beau about what Chloe said. In my mind, it was a foregone conclusion that she needed to go.”
I looked away then, turning to face Max, needing to see how he was taking this. He yanked off his glasses, tossing them aside, and then drew me closer.
“Only it wasn’t. Beau dismissed my concerns, saying I must’ve misheard her, because that’s what she said happened.”
Fuck, Lucien’s words slammed into us, and I saw Max’s brows draw down then into a severe frown.
“And Tobias?”
“Let me confess to my own sins,” the man himself said, trying to stall Lucien, but nothing would, I quickly realised. He was blunt to a fault, and right now, it was all coming out, no matter what anyone said.
“He was always the unofficial leader. We were content to follow his lead because he hadn’t steered us wrong yet. Dacian had come from a little side hustle we ran from our garage to a highly successful company,” Lucien continued. “That was largely due to his decisions, so why would we question him now?”
“I’d gotten used to pushing them along, dragging them if that’s what it required,” Tobias said. “Surely the same tactics would work here. It’s why I was cautious when we met you, wanting to take things slower, make sure you were onboard with this and so were we. I wanted to make sure I didn’t hurt you or them.”
His voice was coming faster and faster now.
“Back then, I heard everything everyone had to say, and I made a decision—I’d talk to Chloe, make it clear that if she became our mate, she would be binding herself to each one of us equally.”
“Tobias, stop,” I said in a low voice, watching Max’s face and the way he responded to every word.