Page 16 of Claiming the Pack’s Omega (Riverwell Omegaverse #2)

Reyna

I don’t listen to him. Neither does mom. We both scramble out of the house fast enough to see Killian and Theo stepping out from the van to face my father.

My dad is a couple of inches shorter than them, but he’s wider. Theo and Killian seem to have the lean, aesthetic muscles that come from the gym. My dad has the kind of bulk that comes from working a manual labor job.

“Dad! Stop!” I call out, tripping over a crack in the path through our lawn.

I don’t miss the way Theo and Killian’s gazes hone in on me and my panicked cry. Their shoulders tense at the same time, like if there weren’t an angry alpha that happened to be my dad between me and them, they’d come rushing over here.

“Stay back, Rey-Rey,” Dad calls back. “Let me deal with these fuckers.”

I feel Mom gripping my hand in the kind of death grip only moms can do. Maybe she can see how I’m practically itching to jump between them.

But for the life of me, I don’t know whether that’s because I want to protect my dad or because I don’t want to see my alphas hurt.

Wait.

My alphas?

When the fuck did they become my alphas?

“So, my daughter tells me you’re the Northside pack who’s going to buy my family a fucking Northside house in exchange for her?

” My dad growls. His hands are loose at his sides, but that doesn’t fool me one bit.

One wrong answer or one bad move from Theo and Killian, and my dad is slamming his fists into their faces.

“Not in exchange for her,” Killian says slowly, sounding surprisingly, stupidly calm, considering the situation. “In exchange for her cooperation in a case we’re building against the players involved in the Southside omega trafficking rings.”

“In exchange for her cooperation my fucking ass,” Dad growls. “I see the fucking way you’re looking at her. And one of you was her ‘client’ too?”

“Dad! Please! Theo didn’t touch me, I promise!” I yell. “Stop it, they’re our only chance of getting out of here alive!”

“Which one of you is Theo?” Dad asks, letting out a menacing-sounding chuckle.

I curse under my breath. Fuck, I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Sure, I’m fucking pissed at Theo for lying to me, but I also don’t want to see his gorgeous face scraped across the sidewalk.

“I’m Theo,” Theo says stupidly, giving my Dad a nod. “And I know you have no reason to trust us, but we’re truly just trying to help. I was going in as an undercover client at the club Reyna was working at on Saturdays, but I never touched her. We were just trying to gather information on her.”

“What kind of fucking information were you trying to gather about my daughter?” Dad makes a show of cracking his knuckles.

“We’d identified her as a possible key witness in our case,” Killian said. “But it turns out, she’s an even bigger asset than we originally thought. Without Reyna, we never would’ve been able to save one of our pack members, and that’s a debt we can never repay.”

“Asset, huh?” Dad growls. “So you’re gonna go after the Southside omega trafficking rings and take her to the Northside where she’ll be registered and basically trafficked there?”

“No,” Killian says, quickly. “I know you must have plenty of reason to lack faith in the Northside, but we recently voted on a bill that relaxes the stringent requirements for omega registration. It will be made public on Monday. Your daughter won’t have to register until she decides to bond with a pack. ”

Surprise washes over me. I’ve heard whispers of changes to the omega registration process, but I didn’t realize they were happening already.

“So, if you guys are buying my family a house, can Reyna stay with us?” Dad narrows his eyes.

“No,” Killian sighs.

“I don’t fuckin’ like the sound of that,” Dad warns.

“I can understand why you don’t, Mr. Carver, but since Reyna will be a key witness, she will need round-the-clock protection,” Killian says.

“It would be easier for you and the rest of your family to live on a separate property, that way your younger children can still continue to live their normal lives with minimal disruptions.”

“Sounds awful convenient considering you guys wanna ‘court’ her,” Dad huffs.

“We do.” Theo nods. “Your daughter is special. We want to be able to see where things go, but we promise we’ll be respectful.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes at Theo’s words. Respectful, my ass. Respectful would’ve been not lying to me and pretending like we had something in the club and turning around and blowing my fucking life up.

I turn back and give my mom a tight-lipped smile, pulling my hand away from hers.

I make my way over to the posturing alphas, getting between them and holding my hands up.

“We don’t have time for this, Dad. This is what has to happen.”

His brows draw down in concern. “But are you okay with it?”

“Yes.”

As okay with it as I can be, considering the circumstances.

“We’ll take care of her, Mr. Carver, I assure you. She’ll want for nothing,” Killian says.

“Fine,” Dad huffs. “But if I hear a fucking peep about you guys messing with my daughter, I don’t care that you guys are rich Northside assholes, I’ll come for you all. Got that?”

“Yes sir,” Theo nods, seeming to take my dad’s words seriously.

“So what happens now?” Dad scrubs a hand down his face.

“Now, we’ve gotta go wake up the kiddos and get as much shit as we can packed,” I answer. “That right?”

“Yeah, spitfire,” Theo answers, his eyes going all soft when he looks at me.

I flash him a quick smile that I quickly turn into a scowl. No. Bad Reyna. No smiles for Theo until he earns them.

Milo rolls down the window and peeks his head out, his eyes going wide when he sees my dad.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt,” he says. “But the Ward pack’s got Stone. They’re getting him up to Riverwell General Hospital right now.”

“Dammit,” Killian curses under his breath before turning to my Dad. “Change of plans. You guys have twenty minutes to be in the van. We can’t risk any of you being here when they find out he’s gone.”

Dad nods gravely, and Mom is already hurrying back into the house, probably to wake up the kids.

“Fine,” Dad growls before following Mom back inside.

“Is he okay?” I ask before I realize what I’m doing. “The last time I saw him, he was in pretty nasty shape.”

“From the sounds of things, he’s stable, but he definitely needs medical attention,” Milo answers.

“O—okay,” I nod, slowly.

“Apparently, he asked for you,” Milo says softly, leaning out of the window, now that my dad is gone.

“He did?”

My heart flutters at the thought of him asking for me. But then it drops. It tore me up inside to leave him down in that torture chamber alone, knowing he’d probably be killed in some horribly painful way soon.

I left him there. To die.

I don’t know why he’d be asking for someone who’d basically abandoned him.

Milo snaps me out of my downward spiral. “Your dad is…”

“Scary?” I laugh. “Yeah, he can be a bit intense sometimes, sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize for something like that,” Killian says, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag. “We’re glad you have people that love you.”

“Smoking is bad for you,” I huff, leaning away from the car.

Killian is off-putting. I don’t know what to say in conversation with him. Everything about him, from the way that he carries himself to his expensive black tea scent screams he lives in a completely different universe than I do.

I feel cheap, even standing next to him. Why the hell would he want to deal with a Southside omega like me?

Wait. Pause.

Why the hell do I want him to be interested in me?

I shake my head and jog back into the house. I have other things to deal with than my strange, growing obsession with this pack.

“Rey? What’s going on?” Daisy asks rubbing her eyes as she steps out of her room with her school backpack slung across her shoulder.

I kneel down in front of her, noting how her thin pajamas will do jack shit against the cold outside.

“We’re going on a little adventure, Daisy,” I say to her. I pat the top of her head, trying to tame some of the crazy bed-head.

“Yeah, Mommy told me to pack my school stuff, but also my home stuff too.”

“Yeah, you should also change into something warmer, okay? Here, how about you get dressed while I pack your stuff.”

I head inside her and Savannah’s room to see Savannah frantically throwing as much stuff as she can into her duffel bag.

“Do you need help?” I ask her.

She whirls around, her eyes wide with fear.

“What’s going on?” She hisses under her breath, trying to keep her voice down so Daisy doesn’t hear.

Hard to do, in such a small room.

“I’m changed now,” Daisy says. “I’m going to go pack my art supplies now, can you guys help me pack my clothes?”

“Sure, peanut,” I tell her before turning back to Savannah, who’s practically buzzing with anxious energy.

“Mom said we had to leave, but it’s two in the fucking morning! Where’re we all going at two in the morning?”

Savannah blinks quickly, tears starting to well in her eyes.

“Are we—are the landlords going to kick us out of the house? Are we that behind on rent? I—I can go and work too, we—we shouldn’t have to move?—”

I press my lips together and pull Savannah into my arms. She clutches onto the hem of my hoodie, trembling as she tries to pull herself together.

“Shhhh, it’s going to be okay. You don’t have to work a job, I promise. We—we are moving though.”

Her brows are drawn down and her lower lip wobbles as she looks up at me.

“We are?”

“Yeah, but we’re moving to the Northside. You’re going to get to go to a Northside school, too.”

Savannah’s jaw falls slack. “What the hell? How the hell are we going to afford that?”

I wince. “Well, we’re not going to afford it. A Northside alpha pack is gonna pay for it in exchange for my cooperation in a big legal case they’re doing.”

“What the hell?” She repeats, shaking her head like she doesn’t believe what she’s hearing.

“Yeah.” I don’t blame her for her reaction. I’d react the exact same way in her position. “I’ll explain more later, but we’ve literally got ten minutes to get out of here, so you should hurry.”

She gives a sharp jerky nod before turning back to her duffle bag.

“Does—does this have to do with the extra money you’ve been making recently?” She whispers softly.

I freeze, my hands clenching into the fabric of one of Daisy’s shirts, hovering over the clean trash bag I’m shoving it into. Sav’s smart. Too smart for her to have missed that, I guess.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Are—are you gonna be okay? I know I’m just a kid, but I’ve heard horror stories of Northside alpha packs and what they do to omegas,” she says.

“I’ll be fine. And so will you. I promise.”

I’ve spent years sacrificing everything I can for my family. I know I’ll continue to do the same.