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Benji

“Any luck?” I asked, leaning against the greenhouse frame. My packmate, Roan, was trying so damned hard to grow things. He envisioned a life for us that included self-sufficiency like other packs, but we had a steep learning curve.

I gripped my coffee cup like the lifeline it was. I worked nights not because I liked it but because that was when life was quiet.

I got more work done in two hours then than eight hours of the day.

“There are yellow flowers. Flowers mean tomatoes. I’m reading up on picking off the suckers. It’s supposed to make the fruit produce faster.”

“Suckers on tomato plants?” Now this I had to see.

“Look here where this new stem is starting between the two others? We have to pick those so the nutrients are filtered straight to the existing flowers.”

“Got it.” I didn’t mind helping Roan. He had a wistful way of hoping for the best for our pack, and it was light through the cracks of my dark cynical nature. I called it acceptance as a balm.

In truth, there wasn’t much hope for us as a pack.

We were bastards. Born out of the promise of mating bonds and vows, never meant to exist, to thrive. Shouldn’t wish for happiness.

Roan did. I envied him for it.

We picked suckers and then I listened as he went on about what he wanted to plant for the fall.

“How is Harlan coming along with his projects?” I asked. My coffee had gone cold, but there was a fresh pot on. One of my packmates always made one about eleven when I woke up. Dawn was my dusk. When the world awakened, I sent myself to bed.

“I don’t know, but I smell lunch. Have you eaten?”

I shook my head. “Let’s go see what he’s cooking today.”

We walked back toward the cabin, and I took a moment to soak in what we had instead of damning what we never would.

We’d invested in land away from other packs and built our cabin here.

It was a far cry from my father’s castle-like alpha house, but to him and to shifter society and ranks, he wasn’t my father despite my physical characteristics painting me as his clone.

Inside, I had to fight to not be like him, a mean and stern leader.

His pack members feared instead of loved and respected him.

He banished anyone who didn’t agree with his antics.

Screamed. Raged. Scared his mate. I’d heard she was a shell of herself as my mother was.

Rasputin didn’t want a mate, instead demanding submission and obedience.

When he offered me and my mother an obscene amount of money to go away quietly, I mourned the loss. My mother was overjoyed. She was finally free.

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?’” I asked Harlan as we walked into the cabin.

“Stop saying that. It’s weird. And I’m making some BLTs with leftover sides from last night.”

“Sounds good. How can I help?”

We all pitched in and, in no time, lunch was served. I missed breakfast foods, so we often had them for dinner as well.

“How are your tomatoes growing, Roan?” Harlan asked. We were all we had and, as a pack should, we wanted the best for each other. Roan’s garden was important to him.

“We will have a harvest this time. I hope. I picked a few cucumbers this morning and put them in the fridge.”

“Progress is progress.”

Harlan teetered on the line between positivity and realism. He was more balanced of the three of us.

I asked Harlan about his projects. He smiled and told us they would all be ready for the farmer’s market.

We fell into a silence as we gobbled up the delicious lunch.

“Nothing from the app?” Roan asked.

I shook my head. “There are tons of matches, but none my wolf calls out to. I’m thinking it was a mistake. Packs like ours can’t find our omega in the usual way.”

Harlan sighed. He pretended to be unbothered by our lack of a mate, but I knew better.

He and I were already a pack when we met Roan in his wolf form.

He startled us as we were looking at this very piece of land.

Then he shifted, and we knew all three of us were a pack.

All that was missing was the pivot to glue us together. Our omega.

We already had a room for her.

We’d built it in the early days when we were still excited about finding her, but hadn’t touched it in ages. The door was not only closed but locked, the bed stripped, the windows dirty. Dust coated the furniture.

We parted after lunch. Harlan had more projects to finish and cleared the lunch dishes then planned to take a nap.

Roan, with slumped shoulders, made his way back outside.

Said he was researching getting chickens.

“Chickens are easy,” he mumbled. While everyone was out of the house, I walked up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom reserved for our fated mate.

It was meant to be her space—her nest. The soft blankets and sweet decorations sat on closet shelves, still in their original packaging.

I fumbled above the door for the key and unlocked the room.

It scented like it always had. Of lingering cleaning products and the paint on the walls. We’d put a scent in the paint so as to not offend our future omega, but that floral bouquet had long faded. This place once filled our heads with promise. Now, it was a reminder of the what-if-never.