Page 11 of Follow Your Instincts (Fairview City Omegaverse)

Lachlan

T he email from the National Omega Network popped up in the middle of a work call. My stomach lurched, but I kept my face calm. Don’t open it now, I thought futilely; I was already double-clicking the notification.

For the first time in three years, an Omega was requesting to meet us. I scowled, but I doubted anyone on the call noticed anything. Scowling was apparently my resting expression according to Ben.

I considered just deleting the email, but of course, Ben, Lucas, and Soren were all copied on it. Well, fuck.

Right on cue, my phone lit up with a notification from the pack group chat.

Check your email! Lucas wrote. I turned my phone over to hide the screen and tried to focus on the meeting again, but it was a lost cause.

I had meant what I said to Soren a few nights previously about it being too late for us to find our Omega.

He’d come home smelling like pure temptation, and I’d been shocked at my reaction.

Even without knowing who the Omega was, I’d felt a surge of rage that anyone had dared to lay a finger on her.

It had been years since I’d felt something that strongly, and it was terrifying.

It solidified that I was better off without such a complication, that I should turn my attention to finding companionship outside the pack like Ben and Soren were.

And then, of course, life had to complicate things. My packmates would get their hopes up and be disappointed, yet again.

We’d seriously tried for the first couple of years after becoming a pack, registering with the NON and attending mixers and parties up and down the East Coast. But, unsurprisingly, none of the Omegas we’d met had chosen us.

My reputation always preceded me, the scarred Alpha with the fucked up past.

The interminable meeting finally ended, and I knew I couldn’t ignore my phone any longer. Rather than reading through the text chain, I sent one of my own. Pack meeting tonight for dinner , I wrote, then tried to get back to work.

I trudged into the kitchen at 6pm from my home office. Ben and Lucas were already there, Ben almost bouncing with excitement. Despite myself, I smiled. His positivity was inspiring, if not annoying at times.

“Get in here and help us cook, you grumpy bastard,” Ben said and tugged me into the kitchen by my arm. “Lucas is making risotto to celebrate.”

“There’s no celebrating,” I said, warningly. “It’s a meeting, that’s it. We’ve had meetings before.”

“Can you please not be such a downer tonight?” Ben asked. “You’re making Lucas sad.”

Lucas laughed, not taking his eyes off the pan he was continuously stirring on the stove.

“How can I help with dinner?” I asked.

“It’s all handled,” Lucas said. “Ben isn’t doing anything other than distracting me. It should be ready in about ten minutes.”

Soren entered from the garage stairs. “Smells good,” he said and hung his overcoat up on the rack by the door.

Ben opened a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. “Can we toast now, or do I have to wait until we’re sitting? ”

“I don’t have hands for toasting!” Lucas said. “I’m at a very delicate stage in the process.”

“Sit down,” I said to Ben and corralled him towards the table.

“How can you not be excited?” He asked and grabbed my hand. “It’s obviously her.”

“Her who?”

“The Omega that Soren helped, the one from the station. The beautiful one that smells like peaches and ginger and got all of our dicks hard just from secondhand scent on Soren’s clothes.”

Soren rolled his eyes. “No way,” he said.

“I’m telling you it is,” Ben insisted. I just shook my head, and he pushed a glass of wine into my hand.

Lucas brought the food to the table; a large bowl of mushroom risotto and a plate of seared scallops with a lemon butter sauce. After selling his company off two years ago, he’d thrown himself into cooking to take up his spare time and we were all benefitting from his new skills.

“That would be an insane coincidence,” Lucas said as we all served ourselves.

“No, it’s fate,” Ben said and took a bite and hummed appreciatively. “Once again, you’ve proven yourself to be a culinary genius. This is so good!”

“It doesn’t matter who it is,” I said. “I don’t think we should go.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Of course you don’t. Good thing we can outvote you, so it doesn’t even matter.”

“Nothing is going to come of it, so what’s the point?” I replied.

“If you’re so sure nothing is going to come of it, then what’s the harm?” Ben challenged.

“You getting your hopes up and then getting hurt again,” I said.

Ben didn’t reply for a moment and looked down at the table. “I’m sorry that I get… enthusiastic like this. I just want what’s best for the pack, and I don’t think that’s giving up,” he said ea rnestly.

I sighed. “You do deserve better,” I said. ‘All of you.”

“You deserve good things, too,” Ben said and grabbed my hand again, squeezing my fingers. I just shook my head.

“Guys, please back me up here,” Ben pleaded, letting me go.

“He’s right, Lach. We have to go,” Soren said. “But Ben shouldn’t get his hopes up too high. Expect the best and plan for the worst, right?”

“God, you’re so boring,” Ben complained.

Lucas laughed. “I vote that we go. It would be rude not to show up. But mostly, I just want to see if Ben’s right about it being the Omega from Soren’s precinct.”

“What is the point of being pack leader if none of you listen to me?” I growled.