“Not the same,” he growls.
“Left Alpha?” Ariana looks at me for clarification. “Why do you call him Left Alpha?”
Ivan tries to answer on his own, but I talk over him. “Because he’s never right!”
Ariana rolls her lips inward, trying to hold back laughter. It does no good. She has to brace her hands on his shoulders as her giggles take over.
“You better not start calling me that, Omega, or I’ll have to put you over my knee.”
She untangles herself from him and takes a few steps toward the door. “Promises, promises, Alpha.”
Ivan lunges for her, but she runs out, laughing. He looks at me with narrowed eyes that hold no malice. “If this becomes a thing, just remember I have two knees.”
His words light a fire in me, but I do my best to maintain my cool. “Promises, promises, Left Alpha.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I’ve just putthe last pancake on the serving tray when Grant and Ivan come into the kitchen, both freshly showered and dressed nicer than they have all week. Ivan looks delicious in a cream linen shirt that highlights his broad shoulders, and Grant is beauty incarnate in a silken black button-up.
“Those smell good.” Grant kisses my cheek as he reaches around me for plates. “What’s in the pot?”
“Blueberry syrup. Since we’re leaving today, I didn’t want to let the berries go to waste.” Something innate inside of me said I had to impress my pack this morning. I want them to see that I’ll be worth having as their Omega. I recognize that it’s my Omega instincts waking up from wherever I shoved them, and it makes me a little uncomfortable.
Putting yourself out there means opening yourself up for rejection. For ridicule.
Not that I think the guys will ridicule me. No way in hell. But they may not like the syrup. And if they don’t like the syrup, doesn’t that tell me that I’m not a good Omega?
It’s a lot of pressure to put on syrup.
I grab a mesh strainer and pour the blueberry maple syrup mixture through it, making sure no berry pulp gets through. Luckily, this house has a gravy boat, even though I cannot fathom why, and that’s a good enough vessel to put it in.
Grant made drinks while I was finishing, so by the time I make it to the table with the syrup, a mimosa is beside my plate of two pancakes.
Ivan pours so much syrup onto his pancakes that I fear his plate will turn into pancake soup. Grant is much more conservative with his. I can’t tear my eyes away from them as they take their first bite, soft sounds of satisfaction escaping around their food.
“Brilliant. Can this be my special occasion breakfast? My birthday is in two months.” Ivan pours even more syrup on his plate as he shovels it into his mouth.
The Beast may have turned into a man, but he still doesn’t have table manners.
The line from Calvin’s letter floats across my mind, and I don’t cry. Since he died, every time I so much as thought his name, I tended to tear up. But this time, they make me laugh. I can think about him and see him through a different lens. He’s not the Omega who died. He’s the Omega who loved his Alphas so much he followed them into another life. The one who thought one of his Alphas was like the Beast, just as mine is.
“Whatever you want, Alpha.”
My eyes burn, and I can’t understand why now it feels like tears are going to spill down my cheeks at any moment. I thought about Calvin and the letter and didn’t cry, but calling Ivan Alpha and making a plan for the future has me tearing up.
The future.
That’s what it is. The thought of a future with them, where I make special occasion meals. Where I wake up next to them in the nest and sneak out to make breakfast after a long heat.
Ivan rubs his chest with his free hand and speaks around a bite of food. “Why are you sad and yet also happy? What’s that called?”
“Bittersweet.” My voice is scarcely above a whisper.
He’s nearly cleared his plate before I even put syrup on my pancakes, and didn’t even stop eating to talk to me, but that doesn’t bother me. It’s who he is.
“Why bittersweet?” Grant leans across the table where he sits opposite me and grabs my hand. “What’s wrong?
“I thought about how soon all of us will be able to sleep in the nest, and then I realized I don’t have one.” My throat catches, and I have to take a sip of my mimosa before I can continue. “Calvin helped me build my first nest, and I destroyed it after he died. I never thought I’d need to build another because I wasn’t going to have a pack. I had my heats in my bedroom. And now I have a pack, and I don’t have a nest to take you home to.”
