Page 14 of A Twist of Luck (Shifter City Fated Mates #2)

CHAPTER 14

EMME

W hen we reached the dining room, the table was already set, and I was relieved to see a glass of wine in my usual place. If there was ever a night for wine, it was this one. Thankfully, I’d burn it off long before I returned to Kellan—I wanted to be as alert and coherent as possible in case anything went wrong through the night.

As I headed for my usual seat, Hunter all but lifted me and whirled me around until I sat in the chair right beside his, at the head of the table. By the time my head stopped whirling too, he’d retrieved my wine. “I need you close tonight,” he said with that same quiet intensity he’d been wearing like a cloak all evening.

Before he sat, Hunter poured a generous shot of Glenfiddich forty-year-old single malt into a whiskey glass, sinking into his chair as he sipped his drink. I joined him by sampling the deliciously crisp white wine.

During my second sip of wine, the door swung open, and Florence rushed into the room, her face ashen. “Emme,” she burst out, wringing her hands together. “We’ve been so worried since you were taken. And now Alpha Kellan is hurt.” Her voice broke and I remembered the day she told me how much she enjoyed working with these alphas, moving from the South just to be with them. I’d seen her love for them that day, and I wished that she didn’t suffer with us now.

I stood to give her a hug, her devastation bringing my own strongly to the surface once more. “Thank you for caring,” I rasped, my throat aching until I almost couldn’t get the words out. “We’re going to bring him back. I don’t care what it takes.”

She sniffled roughly before her professionalism kicked in and she pulled away. “I have all the faith. He’s a fighter, our Alpha Kellan. I know he won’t give up if that means leaving you behind. He loves you, Emme. Don’t forget that.”

I was sniffling now, but determined not to cry in front of Hunter again. Kellan had never said those words to me, but his actions spoke much louder than three little words ever could. “Thank you.” It was a whisper and a sigh in one sentence.

Florence nodded, and then scurried from the room, returning a beat later with a full tray that she set in the middle of the table. Hunter watched me closely as I settled into my chair, swirling the golden liquid around his glass. “It’s time to eat, little omega,” he said, nudging the silver tray toward me. “You won’t be leaving this table until I’m satisfied that you’ve had enough.”

It was such a Hunter line, and since Kellan wasn’t here, I had to be the one to say, “Is that an order, Daddy Alpha? Because I don’t remember asking for a keeper.”

He dropped his glass with a thud, and a choked gasp escaped me when he wrapped his claim around my throat, capturing me in his way . He leaned in closer, his voice a purr of dominance. “You have a keeper, Babygirl. You are kept. Owned. Claimed. Mine .” His voice lowered even more, and as I melted into my chair, he released me just as suddenly, retrieving his drink once more. “And don’t you ever forget it.”

There was literally no way, outside of a lobotomy, to forget Hunter Reeves and his claim.

The intensity eased up at the clomp of boots, and I wasn’t surprised when Slade entered the room, but he also had… Finley… right behind him.

This was the first time I’d had dinner with either of these alphas, and Hunter ignored them completely, his attention burning into the side of my face. He’d issued an order to eat, and despite my thoughts earlier that I would choke it down no matter what, Florence’s sorrow fueling mine had me sick to my stomach again.

“Why haven’t you eaten anything, Emmeline?” Slade asked, looking between Hunter and me. “You’ve been sitting here for a few minutes drinking wine, but no food was touched.”

My brow furrowed as I glanced up to the ceiling again, searching for cameras. How did these alphas keep stalking me so thoroughly when I never saw a single camera. “It’s Reeves technology,” Hunter told me, and when I met his gaze this time, the burn deep in those stormy depths almost undid me. “You’re never going to find the hardware.”

These stalking assholes would have been pushing on my last nerve, but Kellan had me fully occupied worrying about him. I’d deal with the rest of my pack another time.

The alphas watched me closely, even Finley, expression closed off but not angry. I was well aware that they’d wait forever to make sure I ate first, and as frustrating as they were, this was the part of being with a pack I loved the most. The care and consideration.

The little gestures meant the most to me; I’d never had anyone care before. Living or dying, hungry or full, as long as I stayed out of the way, no one gave a shit.

These alphas gave a shit, and it was disconcerting.

Leaning closer to the tray, I breathed in the delicious scents, touched that Florence and Gerry had included all the starters that I’d ever shown an interest in: bacon-wrapped chicken, turkey meatballs, beef skewers, prawn cocktails, and an array of cheeses. Not a single fruit or vegetable touched the delicious meat selection, and I tried very hard not to cry again at the thoughtfulness.

No one cried over cheese, and this was about way more than that, but the cheese was nice too.

Grasping one of the serving tools, I took a selection and then shoved the tray toward the boys. None of them touched the food until I lifted a chicken scroll and took a bite. My stomach cramped immediately, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to eat, until the salt and juice of the meat hit my tongue, and my stomach eased up.

I closed my eyes to savor that taste, having learned not to make any sort of appreciative sounds while in the room with these alphas. Food would be enjoyed in silence, lest I caused their beasts to go a touch feral. It was a scented-mate quirk, and nothing to do with me personally.

At least not for two of the four alphas in my pack.

When I finished the scroll, I opened my eyes to hunt out my next selection, pausing at three sets of blazing gazes locked on me. “I didn’t moan,” I blurted out, looking between them. “I didn’t make a single sound.”

Finley averted his eyes fast, taking a gulp of his beer, while the other two didn’t even attempt to look away. “We can feel your enjoyment,” Slade told me, and there was an intensity in his voice that he rarely let himself reveal. I had no idea where my coldly contained dragon was, but this alpha was all fire. “Your emotions are potent. I can’t imagine the strength of it when a bond is completed.”

My mouth fell open; I was thankful I’d already swallowed my food. “Even unbonded you can feel me ?”

I couldn’t sense their emotions, outside of dominance and scent. Okay, and that slight tugging in my chest as our beasts attempted to drag us together, but again, that wasn’t akin to feeling their emotions.

Hunter nodded, and as he tilted his glass, I was stuck on the strong lines of his throat as he swallowed the last of his whiskey. Goddess be damned . “Yes, alphas can feel their scent-matches’ beasts. That’s how the four of us knew we were meant to form a quintet. It’s a draw that supersedes everything else. The four of us bonded through a magical connection ceremony, because we’re brothers and decided that the bite wouldn’t join us. Not until we found our fifth. We all sensed the final of our quintet would be a female we’d share. So, you’ll be the only one we bite, which will make you the core of our quintet. The… heart, if you will. As an omega, once you bond with all of us, you’ll feel us more intimately.”

Fighting the urge to fidget on my seat, my body heavy and throbbing, I considered what this truly meant for me. And my future.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought of sharing the four alphas sexually—it was the only real quintet experience I’d grown up with, so while my mom’s had been a toxic setup, it didn’t feel odd. But I didn’t know about them being able to feel my emotional upheavals. “My mom was bonded with a full pack of alphas, and they never acted like they could feel her emotions. Or at least they didn’t care about them if they did. She was there to serve them and their needs.”

Actually... I’d never even seen them offer her food, let alone wait for her to eat first.

No wonder my pack continually took me by surprise. They were smashing every one of my preconceived notions of an omega with four alphas right out of the water.

They observed me in silence, and I realized I’d just spilled a fairly private detail about my mom and her pack dynamics. Information I didn’t usually freely offer.

“If what you say is true, then your mom’s pack could not be true alphas,” Finley said finally, shaking his head and taking another swig of his beer. “They’re a pathetic example of our designation, and shouldn’t have been blessed with a quintet, let alone an omega.”

I blinked at him. “You… you think an omega is a blessing? I mean, you’ve hidden it really well.”

He hadn’t done anything tonight to deserve my sarcastic response, but parts of me were still bruised and battered from his previous attitude.

He ran a hand over his short beard, and I swore I caught a brief glimpse of a brittle smile before he wiped it away. “You rejected us, Icy the Ice Queen. Or did you forget the part where you refused us like we were nothing. I don’t see why you’d think I’d welcome you with open arms. Honestly, I kind of wish you’d never come into our lives and brought all of this… pain… with you. But it would destroy Kellan if you left him now, so I won’t drive you away. Even if I can’t imagine us ever being more than simply pack mates.”

Pack mates was better than enemies, but if I was also being honest , it bothered me to hear his dismissiveness of anything more between us in the future. Even though I didn’t want anything more . Or more accurately, I couldn’t want more.

“You need to tell us everything you know about your mother’s pack,” Slade said, steepling his hands in front of him and peering over the tips. “We need all the information at our disposal to effectively deal with them.”

None of the guys were eating yet, so I kept picking at my food in the hopes they’d take the hint and eat their share. “I was young when my mom met them. I had no idea who my father was, and I don’t remember much about my years before the pack, only that we moved a lot. Like… every few months we’d be in a new place. Mom was always cold with me, almost like she hated or resented me, and it only got worse when she met the Rogers pack.”

“They were already formed?” Hunter asked, and I nodded, chewing through a turkey meatball I’d generously dipped in red sauce.

“Yep, fully formed, and at least twenty years older than her. She wasn’t the first to be part of their quintet. They’d had an omega female lion shifter who’d died from lupine flu many years before they met us. Another omega death under their care.”

At least that was their story. Lupine flu was a legitimate disease, and one of the few that affected all shifters. While it originated in wolves, it didn’t discriminate as it evolved to be able to infect all of our kind. But I had my doubts that was the truth for the Rogers pack.

“How did your mom meet them?” Slade continued. “I could not find much of a history within the shifter cities for you and your mom, but the pack has an old record, then a gap when I assume they were with you, and then back to the cities over the past twelve years. It was as if they knew to keep you and your mom hidden… but why?”

“I have no idea how she met them,” I said, having eaten through most of my plate by now. Thankfully, the alphas were eating now too. “She left me home alone all the time, even when I was a toddler. We lived in this dingy little basement room, and one day she left, and when she returned she told me to pack up my shit because we were moving. The next thing I knew we were in a dingy apartment.” I met Slade’s gaze. “That one I told you about with the mechanic’s workshop below. We lived there with the pack for years, without even moving once.”

“Your mom lived with them for years, and yet you still blame them for her death?”

The harsh statement slammed me in the gut, and I almost lost the food I’d just eaten. Keeping my gaze firmly locked on the white tablecloth, I took a few fortifying breaths before I faced Finley. “Not that I owe you any explanation, but I’m going to give you one so you can have a rest from being angsty and broken. After Mom bonded with them, the abuse started. It was subtle at first, but as with everything, it escalated. As an omega, she could ignore the commands of dominance, but as a bonded omega, she didn’t want to. She gave every part of herself to those assholes, until eventually it killed her.”

Finley shot to his feet, his food all but untouched. “We’re nothing like them. We’ve never shown one ounce of violence or abuse toward you.”

Debatable, depending on how you looked at it, since I wasn’t exactly free to leave. But I understood his sentiment—the Reeves pack was vastly different to the Rogers pack.

The two weren’t even comparable.

“They didn’t show any violence or abuse toward her at first either,” I bit out, knowing that wasn’t completely true. They’d never showed the caring my pack had either, even in the early days. “Their alpha sides were corrupted by the omega energy—” I skirted as close as I could to the truth “—and I might do the same to you. I refuse to take her life path. I refuse this fate’s design. I refuse to be a victim.”

Finley examined me for many long seconds, and I couldn’t manage to calm the heaving of my chest. “My mom was truly evil,” he told me in a soft, shattered voice. His dark lashes lowered to briefly hide whiskey depths of pain and fury. “She killed my father right in front of me, and then my brother.” With each revelation, I felt as frozen as the Ice Queen he called me. “She kept me trapped for days, torturing me within an inch of my life. Over and over, until I prayed to die.” The bitter laughter that escaped him had me thawing, but only to feel the jolts of pain in my chest. “That week ended years of physical and psychological abuse. Of being abandoned by those who were supposed to unconditionally love me. While I survived, I made sure she didn’t.”

I didn’t believe his expression could get any stonier, but he proved me wrong as he stepped away from the table. “I also made myself a promise, just as you did when your mom died. I promised to never let anyone else into my life who was so careless with the emotions of others. Who had everything and destroyed it without thought or care. You’re tarring us with the same brush as your mom’s alpha pack, and now I’m returning the favor. You mean the same to me as my mom did. Nothing.”

When he left the room, I stared at the empty spot as if his energy lingered long after he was gone. I’d been well aware that Finley disliked me, that much was apparent, but the depths of his hatred went far beyond the usual. It went far beyond my reach.