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“That—that doesn’t mean I have to eat first,” she stutters out, clutching the hem of the t-shirt she’s wearing, still unable to meet my eyes.

Fuck, I need to tone it down.

“Hey, don’t worry about it Moonlight, I’m good,” Chase reassures her. “You cooked, you should get the first serving!”

I fill her plate full of eggs, bacon, and pancakes, nudging the plate of butter and bottle of maple syrup closer to her.

“Thank you,” she says softly. When she meets my eyes, hers are full of uncertainty, as if she’s expecting me to blow up and get mad at her.

Shit.

I know I was a fucking dick last night, but that was because I expected her to be just like every other omega that throws themself at our pack. And by the time I realized she wasn’t, the damage was done.

“You’re welcome,” I say. It’s all I feel I can say. I don’t think there’re any magic words that would make her instantly feel at ease around me. But I’ll earn her trust.

She’s our omega.

Everyone immediately starts digging in, piling food high on each of their plates.

Groans sound from around the table. When I first take a bite of the fluffy pancakes, I understand why. There’s just something about homemade pancakes.

“These are fucking delicious,” Chase groans through a full mouth.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” I chastise.

“They—they’re just pancakes from a box of pancake mix,” she says, uncomfortable with the praise.

“They are very good,” Kane says. “We don’t usually have warm food to come home to like this.”

“Thank you for cooking for us,” I say.

I’m scanning through all those classes I took in college about omega etiquette. Fucking hell I haven’t had to use any of this shit in years.

I do know praise is good.

She doesn’t react the way I thought she would to my attempt at a compliment.

She flinches, sinking into her seat. “You—you don’t have to thank me,” she says softly. “I—I just want to prove that I can be useful, especially if, especially if I’m not?—”

Not on her back. Or bent over. Or whatever twisted way she’s been taught she’s supposed to be for a pack of alphas.

“You don’t have to cook for us to be useful,” I grunt, my voice a bit more gruff than I want it to be.

“I—I want to make myself useful,” she insists, her eyes still stuck on her lap. “I’m grateful for the opportunity you’ve given me and I want to show you all I’m not taking it for granted.”

“And we appreciate it,” Madden says, shooting me a look.

“Yes,” I say, nodding. “We do appreciate it.”

She nods firmly. “I promise I’ll prove myself to youall.”

I want to throttle whoever filled her head with the nonsense that her only place in life is serving alphas.

Omegas deserve to be worshipped. That’s why I’ve never felt comfortable accepting an omega into our pack before. Because they always had unreasonable demands about our pack’s structure.

I’m not going to worship someone who wants my fucking family torn apart.

But this small omega sitting beside me, poking at her food more than she is eating it? She deserves to be worshipped. Every single alpha cell in my body is yelling at me to give her everything she could ever want in the universe and destroy all those who have hurt her.