Page 52 of Follow Your Instincts (Fairview City Omegaverse)

Maggie

T he first stop on the “move all Maggie’s shit into the pack house” tour was the Omega Center. When we arrived, Steffi squealed incoherently through the intercom as she buzzed us in.

She came running out to meet us and gave us all a warm hug.

“We’re so happy to see you, dear,” Steffi said, clasping my hands tightly and tugging me inside. I glanced over my shoulder at Lucas and Soren, who trailed behind, both grinning at my discomfort.

Steffi ushered us into the reception room where I’d first met my Alphas, and my heart gave a little squeeze of happiness. I’d come such a long way since then.

Andreas was waiting for us, looking as gorgeous as ever. “Well, you clearly had a good heat,” he said. “You look like a whole different woman.”

I grinned despite myself. “I’m feeling a lot better than when I first came here,” I admitted.

We settled into the couch, Lucas and Soren flanking me.

“And have these two been treating you as well as they should?” Steffi asked, glancing playfully at the guys.

“Much better than I deserve,” I answered solemnly, and Lucas tsked in disapproval. “I do have a question, though.”

“What’s up? More questions about magic dicks?” Andreas asked.

I groaned while Lucas and Soren chuckled.

“No, I think I have that part under control,” I said. “But I do have a question about bonds. Why didn’t anyone tell me I could bond with Soren?” I knocked into him gently with my shoulder, and I felt a flare of pride in our bond.

“What do you mean, chicken?” Steffi asked. “Soren is a Beta, you can’t bond with him in the same way as your Alphas, unfortunately.”

I rolled my eyes and yanked down Soren’s shirt to show her the bite mark on the side of his neck. “Well, yes, actually, I can and have bonded with him. So, what the fuck? Shouldn’t this be part of the… orientation?”

Andreas and Steffi exchanged a look.

“I’ve never heard of an Omega bonding a Beta,” Andreas said, looking dumbfounded. “But you’d better believe I’m going to be trying it tonight.”

“Oh, dear, I’m so happy for you,” Steffi said, her eyes welling with tears. “I’m not sure if this is something unique to your pack or not, but it’s clear you’re where you’re meant to be.”

“Oh goddamnit,” I said as my own eyes welled up and my throat clogged with emotion. “I am so sick of these hormones.”

Steffi had brought my bags into the reception room, but I wanted to see Bridget, Jess, and Austin, all for different reasons. So I grabbed the bag of goodies and entered the secured area of the Center to say my goodbyes.

I found Austin in the kitchen.

“Maggie,” they exclaimed and enfolded me in a hug that smelled like freshly baked bread. They gave me a little sniff. “You’re all packed up now, huh? I can smell the Alpha stink on you.”

I swatted their arm. “Yeah, yeah, I am a filthy hypocrite Omega. I just wanted to say goodbye and thank you for the cooking lessons and making my time here less shitty in general.”

Austin smiled. “You’re very welcome. But also, this doesn’t have to be goodbye forever. Text me if you ever want to hang out outside of a kitchen.”

I promised to do so, then went in search of Bridget. I found her in her room, curled up in bed with her computer in her lap. She looked up, her blue eyes wide, then hopped up with a squeal to hug me. I’d texted her a few times since I started staying at the pack house, but I had missed seeing her.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s really good to see you, too.”

“Pack life looks good on you,” she said with a soft smile, then wrinkled her nose. “You do kind of stink, though.”

I laughed. “Thanks. I wasn’t expecting it to work out this way, but I think Steffi and Andreas might kind of know what they’re doing after all.”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “Don’t encourage them, they’re already being insufferable about your match process. They’ve started pushing me to start the matching process again. But I don’t think I’m there yet.”

“You’ll get there. Or maybe you can just evolve into a komodo dragon and skip men altogether,” I said, giving her another hug. “But this isn’t goodbye, you’re gonna come hang out at the pack house with me soon!”

Bridget laughed as she gave me an extra squeeze. “Deal.”

I left to go find Jess, but she found me first. She stepped out into the hallway from her room with her usual scowl.

“Come back to gloat?” she asked.

“No, actually I came back to say goodbye to Austin and Bridget. And to ask you some questions.”

Jess’s eyes widened as I stepped into her space to push her back into her room and closed the door. She was so tiny that I towered over her, but she crossed her arms defiantly. “Um, what the fuck? What questions could you possibly have?”

“Look, I don’t know exactly why you hate me, but did you tell anyone about me being here? Not that it matters anymore, but someone hurt me, and they knew where I was staying. So someone had to tell them,” I said.

Jess scoffed. “Why the hell would I tell someone about you being here? I literally do not care about you. And I don’t talk to anyone outside here anyway.”

I met her eyes, looking for any hint of guilt. All I saw was disdain, and my heart sank a little. If Jess was the one who had told Todd about where I was, things would’ve been wrapped up nicely and I could move on without that little doubt still niggling in my head.

I sighed. “Alright, sorry.”

Jess glared at me. “Okay, great, now please get the fuck out.”

“I hope you figure out how to stop being such a miserable asshole all the time,” I said and left. If I ever had to see Jess again, it would be too soon.

Our next stop was my old apartment where Kira was already waiting to help us box everything up.

“Please, just don’t make fun of how poor I am,” I said as Lucas drove us back into the city from Brookwood.

“Not your fault they pay officers like shit,” Soren said from the backseat.

“And you’re not poor now, sugar,” Lucas said, squeezing my hand. “What’s ours is yours.”

I huffed a laugh. “Pack life is so weird,” I said, looking out the window.

We were passing over the bridge back into the city, and the skyline looked beautiful against a clear, late autumn sky.

Soon it would be gray and cold, but the sun was shining.

It felt like the perfect day for a new beginning.

I begged to stop for coffee on our way, so Kira would be a little bit nicer while being forced to do manual labor.

“It’s your turn to go in,” Lucas said to Soren, meeting his grumpy gaze in the rearview mirror. He was not happy at all about being stuck in the backseat.

Soren sighed and muttered under his breath, but he did get out of the car to go grab the coffee order, glowering.

I laughed at his expression and Soren’s face cleared immediately. Contentment flowed down our bond.

“Be right back,” he said.

I squeezed Lucas’s hand where it rested on my thigh, our fingers intertwined. I hadn’t planned on having this conversation with Lucas yet, but one-on-one time was proving to be a little hard to come by with Pack Murray.

“So… can we talk about what happened?” I asked and peeked at him.

Lucas paused. “Yeah, we probably should.”

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

“This shouldn’t be this awkward,” I mumbled. “I had your dick in my mouth like 24 hours ago.”

“It’s not awkward, sugar,” Lucas protested, then paused. “Okay, maybe a little awkward.”

“I just want to make sure you aren’t uncomfortable about anything that happened,” I said, turning in my seat to face him fully.

Lucas laughed, startled. “You’re asking if I was uncomfortable?”

“Well, yeah, that whole situation was probably as opposite to asexual as humanly possible,” I said and felt a blush creeping up my cheeks.

Lucas released my hand and gently stroked my flushed skin. “I did not have a good handle on my instincts during your heat,” he said sadly. “I think it’s because I’ve never really felt them like I feel them with you. I was barely in control. I thought I’d scared you.”

My mind flashed back to Lucas during my heat, his pupils blown wide, a predator.

My perfume started, and I mentally clamped down on my inner Omega.

Now was not the time. “You definitely did not scare me. I like out-of-control Lucas just as much as this more rational version. And I’m not like…

expecting anything different now. I like this, too,” I said, leaning my face into his hand.

Lucas looked deeply into my eyes, flicking between them as if to catch a lie somewhere.

Then he leaned down and pressed one of his sweet kisses to my lips.

I wished more than anything in that moment that we had bonded already so I could feel what he was feeling.

Because I was fully head-over-heels for him.

“Sugar, whatever you want or need, I am here for you,” Lucas said when he broke the kiss. “We've got all the time in the world to figure things out. Just… know that I have you. Always.”

I smiled up at me, then felt a slight tug on the bond as Soren made his way out of the coffee shop with a drink carrier and a bulging paper bag.

“What the hell did you order?” he said when he got back to the car.

“You’ve clearly never dealt with Kira when she’s doing something she doesn’t want to do,” I said. “These are bribery muffins.”

Of course, we couldn’t find parking outside my building, so I told the guys I’d head up first while they circled the block.

Lucas wanted to come with me, but I convinced him not to.

I didn’t remember leaving my apartment very clean, and the last thing I wanted them to see was a pile of moldy dishes or something else disgusting.

My building looked so dingy now in comparison to the pack house, but I refused to be ashamed. I was proud of being independent before I’d met the pack, and I was going to remember that even while being confronted with my sad little studio apartment.

I made my way up the stairs, balancing the drink carrier in one hand to fish out my keys. I wrinkled my nose. The staircase smelled worse than usual. Independent or no, it would be very nice to not have to haul my ass up these stairs ever again.

“Honey, I’m home,” I called to Kira as I unlocked the door.

As the door swung open, a rush of sweet orange smell hit me, and my stomach dropped in panic.

Todd Phillips was sitting on my couch.

There was a moment when my brain tried to make sense of what was happening because surely this had to be a hallucination. Todd Phillips couldn’t be sitting on my couch.

“Hi, honey,” he sneered and brought the gun he had been holding loosely in his lap to point at my face. “We’re going to go for a little walk.”

I took a deep breath, fighting the panic. “My alphas are coming. You can’t do this.”

Todd crossed the room quickly and grabbed my ponytail to yank my head to the side. “What Alphas? You don’t smell bonded to me,” he said. He pressed the gun to my stomach and pushed me back out into the hall.

“Where’s my sister?” I asked.

“How the fuck should I know?” he said and shoved me backwards again. “Now fucking MOVE.”

Relief shot through me even as terror cut deep.

I tried to pretend it wasn’t me in this situation.

I knew I couldn’t let him take me somewhere, he couldn’t be in control of the situation.

I just needed to stall somehow until the guys could make it upstairs.

I just couldn’t think , couldn’t get my brain to move past the gun shoved into my ribs.

“Fuck this,” Todd growled and I felt a sharp crack against my head before everything went black.