Page 31 of Bliss & Her Idols (Pack Bonds Omegaverse #10)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dragon Suite, Pack Bonds Island

“ T here’s only one bed.” I stare at the huge circular bed with silk sheets, which is piled with cushions in the center of the room.

At the end of the opening ceremony, Cricket, Torin, and I were led along with the other newly formed packs to the luxury lodge, which hunkered on the clifftop.

Each pack was shown to a bedroom with an en suite bathroom for the night and granted the first privacy from the cameras since we’d stepped foot on the island.

“Shocking, since you just agreed to match with me in front of millions. Or are we only fake matching to save Jin?” Torin raises his brow, challengingly.

I grab a pillow and throw it at Torin’s head. “You’re sleeping on the couch.”

Torin dodges the pillow frustratingly easily. “Haven’t I told you about my bad back?”

“I didn’t notice a problem with your back when you turned it on us…and Jin,” I growl.

Torin winces. “It comes and goes.”

Cricket wanders around the room, touching the soft, tartan blanket that’s thrown over the back of the ivory couch. A high backed armchair stands next to the couch.

Cricket’s boots clatter over the oak floorboards.

He stares around in amazement at the abstract art paintings of dragons on the walls and carved into the oak wardrobe and chest of drawers.

The silver drapes are drawn against the night. Golden lanterns puddle light from the corners of the room.

A range of guitars from acoustic to electric in icy blue rest against the far wall.

Torin fake yawns.

He throws himself down on the bed, bouncing. He gives a satisfied wriggle, as if the mattress is the softest thing that he’s ever felt.

Annoyingly, it looks like it is.

When Torin pillows his head behind his hands, I want to slap myself that I want another round of hatesex with him.

He stares up at the ceiling. “What a bed. What a view. Hello, handsome.”

I blink, before following the direction of his gaze.

A mirror hangs directly above the bed.

I roll my eyes. “You would like that.”

Torin winks at me. “Imagine what a heat would be like in this room. You could have watched me rutting you from every angle.”

“You just want to watch yourself fucking,” I mutter.

To my surprise, Torin’s expression gentles. “Why would I choose to look at myself, when I have the two most beautiful Omegas in the world to look at? I could watch you for the rest of my life.”

“Then why did you abandon us?” Cricket snarls.

To my shock, Cricket stalks to the bed in full feral Omega mode.

I slam my hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing at the way that the powerful Alpha scrambles to sit up and tries to back away from the tiny Omega.

“I can explain…” Torin attempts, staring at Cricket in surprise.

Too late.

Cricket launches himself onto the bed. “You let them take our Beta.”

He straddles Torin, pinning him down.

Torin could push Cricket off with ease.

I stiffen in fear because no Alpha would allow himself to be dominated or challenged like this.

Definitely not a billionaire CEO from a Traditional pack like Torin.

Cricket is breathing hard. His chest is rapidly rising and falling.

He bravely meets Torin’s eye.

So, this is what it looks like when my sweet Omega snaps and becomes feral.

I rush to the bed in Cricket’s defense.

Over the last week, Chase started to give Cricket self-defense lessons, but Cricket is still only an amateur.

I can at least kick Torin’s ass — a little bit — to defend my Omega.

I grab Torin by his unraveled bow tie.

When I sniff, however, Torin’s vanilla tea scent hasn’t soured with anger.

He’s looking amused.

“I’ve had fantasies about being climbed by two dominant Omegas.” Torin throws his head back dramatically like he’s an Omega on a romance book cover, watching me out of the corner of his eye. “ Ravish me .”

Cricket appears bewildered.

I growl.

Torin laughs. “Wow, sexy.”

I yank him closer by his bow tie. “Talk.”

“Interrogation play. I’m down with it.”

“Good, then tell me: What’s going on?”

“You liked the invites then?”

Torin is watching me with an intensity that makes my stomach flip.

“ You sent us the invitations that got us onto the island?” Cricket’s face instantly brightens. “You are here to try and help us save our Beta. You didn’t abandon us. I knew that you wouldn’t. It felt like I was dying when you left. Don’t abandon us again.”

Cricket drops his head to Torin’s neck, nuzzling him. Torin raises his arm to rub his back.

My gaze meets Torin’s.

Strangely, I can tell that we’re both thinking the same thing: Cricket is too trusting.

We need to protect him and also protect him from himself.

Torin kisses the top of Cricket’s head. But I don’t let go of Torin’s bow tie.

“I’ve worked out which of you is the good cop and which the bad.” Torin smiles at me. “Did you like the roses?”

In shock, I finally let go and sit back. “They were from you…?”

“Of course.”

He sent me roses…?

Torin’s brow furrows. “Wait, who did you think was sending you roses and getting you into this contest? I couldn’t give you more clues than that.

You are a journalist, aren’t you? I didn’t think that you were the type who got your information from wire taps and searching through celebrities’ garbage—”

“And I didn’t think that you were the type of CEO to treat Idols like property who could be forced into bonds as TV entertainment.”

“I’m not.” Torin’s jaw clenches. “It’s why I’m here now. After all, I need to keep you out of trouble. We’re going to do this together. Aren’t we pack?”

There’s something sincere about the way he asks that, which catches at me.

He can’t be lying, right?

I’m desperate to trust him. But I’ve seen too many bad pack bonds.

I’m already trusting him with not only my life but Cricket and Jin’s as well.

If I never lower my walls and give Torin a second chance, however, then how can I look at myself in the mirror?

I’ve been judged myself too many times not to understand that packs have secrets and that this man is struggling with his troubled past.

Cricket doesn’t have my doubts.

He kisses Torin like he’s been starving for his touch.

Torin slides his hand to the Omega’s hair, drawing him in for a deeper kiss.

“You’re our Alpha,” Cricket murmurs against Torin’s lips. “We’ll save our Dragon together.”

Torin’s cool gaze slides to me, however, like he can’t bear that I’m not kissing him as well.

I give a sharp nod. “If Tor tells us why he didn’t contact us directly. Roses aren’t a well-known code.”

Torin hesitates.

For a moment, I think that he’s not going to be honest. I have a feeling that he’s become too used to hiding the truth.

My shoulders slump with resignation, turning away my head.

This isn’t going to work.

At last, Torin replies, “My Head Alpha ordered me to be grounded to my room for a week without access to electronics because of my loss of Alpha self-control with you at the concert. They’re playing it off in the press as my simply being a virile Alpha who was caught up in the moment.

It’s actually worked well for my image. My sister has never had so many offers from elite packs wanting to make a match with me.

Rory did me a favor by sending the roses to you, as part of the invites.

I also convinced him to include me as the secret twist.”

I turn back to study him.

Torin’s expression is exposed and open.

He’s telling the truth.

How oppressive is his Head Alpha?

“Why?” I wrinkle my nose. “Why would Rory do anything to help you, after how heartless you were to him?”

Torin strokes his fingers through Cricket’s hair but more as if to soothe himself.

“That’s funny. Let me be clear. When you only have Alpha siblings, status is everything.

I’m the youngest, forgotten son. The only one with lower status is Rory.

Weakness is the worst crime in my family, just above love.

I’ve had to witness Rory’s mistreatment of Jin and the other Idols and yet be unable to stop it.

If I can… fucking finally …do something to stand up against Rory and my other brothers and sisters, then I will. I won’t be invisible anymore.”

Torin is shaking.

I reach out and cup his cheek. “I see you. Obviously, so does Rory if you could persuade him to go against your Head Alpha.”

Torin’s eyes become icy. “Mena will kill both of us, of course, when she finds out. But Rory is a coward. I handwrote a letter detailing every failing and rule that he’s ever broken, including the mess of the concert.

Ones that he’s got away with because I didn’t report him.

I threatened to hand it to Mena. His terror of her in that moment was larger than his future fear of her. ”

“You blackmailed him,” I say, half in admiration and half in shock.

“Aren’t I romantic?” Torin reaches up, dragging me to lie sprawling next to his side. “See, I never forgot any of you for a moment.”

“Hmm, romantic…”

I have another word for it.

But then, we do fit as a pack: blackmailer, hacker, and criminal resistance member.

The one thing that unites us is our determination to do anything to save the people we love.

Cricket purrs. “We’ll save our Alpha too.”

Torin looks thrown, before he clasps Cricket even tighter to him.

“Only my childhood friends, Jin and Zero, have noticed that I need saving,” Torin says, softly. “All my life, I have focused on saving others, while being alone.”

I kiss him then.

I kiss the sadness away.

The shadows of his past.

I kiss him to bring my Alpha into the present with us in this bed with the mirror reflecting us back, which is big enough for our entire pack.

To tell him that he’s not alone anymore.

Torin moans, wrapping one strong arm around me, and his other more firmly around Cricket.

Then I’m startled by a whistle from the doorway.

“Fast work, Charming. Getting kinky without me,” a voice like caramel says.

“Ice Dragon,” I breathe.

All three of us on the bed struggle to sit up in a flail of limbs and tangled hair.