I don’t say a word more as I turn away from the über and head for the door. Every step I take feels… wrong, like I shouldn’t leave him. Like my instincts are screaming out at me to stop, turn around, and go back to him. Sit down on the bed next to him and hold onto him.
Whoa. That’s a desire I can’t say I ever had before. It’s totally weird I have it now, when the alpha in question is Mason Thompson.
Though a very large part of me wants to stop and do just that, I manage to keep going all the way into the hall, and I only let myself relax once I’m downstairs, with Asher again.
He’s waiting for me in the living room, his laptop resting on the coffee table in front of the sectional couch. When he sees me approach, he stands and asks, “How is he? Are you okay?” He fires off the two questions together, so I don’t have time to answer.
I can tell Asher is concerned about not only me, but his brother. It’s that genuine concern I see that makes me ask, “Is your brother doing okay? I mean, life-wise, in a general sense. You know, taking everything into consideration—”
Okay, now I sound like I’m rambling. Am I really that worried about that über? How ridiculous.
He isn’t expecting that question, because his blond brows raise on his forehead and he stares at me like I just spoke another language. “Um, yeah? I mean, I think so. To be honest, we don’t really see each other much anymore. I’m always so busy with classes and learning the ropes at our dads’ company, and he’s…”
There it is. The way he trails off, like he can’t describe what his brother does with his life. I notice it. Surely he does, too?
After a moment, he says, “I don’t really know what Mason does, now that I’m thinking about it.”
“Did he say how long he was here before we showed up?”
“No. He just said he’s been here a little while—”
“Could he be living here?”
The possibility is one he clearly hasn’t thought of, because he’s immediately taken aback. “Living here? Why would he want to live here in the middle of nowhere?” Based on how he says it, he evidently doesn’t understand how nice getting away from the city actually is.
I could live here, easy-peasy. I don’t tell that to him, though. Instead, I ask, “But it’s possible, right?”
Asher folds his arms over his chest and glances around, as if he’s afraid his brother is going to pop up out of nowhere. “I guess, yeah, it’s possible. I don’t know why he would be, though. If he wants another chance at our parents’ company, I know our dads would love that.”
I meander around him and plop down on the corner of the couch, and he’s slow in sitting nearby. “Sure, but what if that’s not what he wants? What if… what if he doesn’t really know what he wants?”
It’s something I can understand. Everyone always assumes an omega knows what she wants, and sure, sometimes it’s true. An omega meets an alpha, or a pack of them, and falls for them instantly. There’s hardly a courtship or dating. Things spiral and happen quickly, move fast. But not for me. That’s not what I want.
I never thought about it before, but I suppose the same pressure is applied to alphas, too. They’re expected to know what they want to do in life, to chase after the money and the power and whatever position would set them up for life, and then, once they have everything figured out, they’re supposed to find an omega and settle down if they hadn’t already done so while climbing that corporate ladder.
But if an alpha rejects the status quo… what then? I’ve heard of more omegas rebelling than alphas, to tell you the truth.
“I just got a vibe off him. I don’t know,” I whisper. “He seemed sad, beneath all that anger.”
“Sad?” Based on the way he echoes the word, I can tell he doesn’t quite believe me. Maybe all that anger and rage Mason exhibits is his way of masking his true feelings, feelings he doesn’t want anyone else to know about.
Like being sad, or maybe even depressed.
A depressed alpha. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those.
Not that I’m judging. I’m not. I know better than to judge anyone for what they feel or how they think. If I was a normal girl who lived a normal childhood, if my parents were around and succeeded in raising me to be a typical omega heiress, I’d probably be judging him hard. Heck, I wouldn’t even be here right now to witness any of this.
Though Asher is skeptical, I know what this means: we’ll have to keep an eye on Mason while we’re here. The last thing I want is to do, as the über said, is ruin everything for him, but at the same time, I don’t know that I can sit back and let things be.
I might be a bitch sometimes, but not all the time. I can be nice. I have it in me. And, beyond all that, for some reason it simply bothers me that Mason might have issues of his own he’s wrestling with.
No, while I’m here, I’ll get to the bottom of Mason’s attitude. At the very least, it’ll give me something to do, something else to focus on other than my impending heat.
Chapter Eleven – Jess
It’s hours before Mason comes out of his room to scrounge for something in the kitchen. Asher is cooking lasagna after looking up the recipe and finding out we have everything he’ll need to make it from scratch; he just put it in the oven when the über pads his bare feet out of the hallway.
I toss Asher a look. Him and I are sitting on the couch together, having started a movie on a streaming service—an action movie where the omega love interest gets kidnapped by an evil gang and the main lead has to go balls to the wall to get her back.
