“We can’t do that to Nik, Mags. It’s not right, and it’s not fair to Kaden and me, either.”
She shakes her head and waves her hands excitedly. “No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong. This will work. You see, we’ll all bond, and then we can still run our jobs like always.” Kaden and I stare blankly at her, and she huffs in frustration. “No one’s going to let an unbonded omega in their house when they need a heat helper crew,butif I’ve got a full pack bond, they’ll have to trust us! It’s genius.”
“What about Nik? He can’t do his part now that he’s bonded to you.”
Kaden has a point. The bond won’t let him mate with another omega unless she’s in the pack, too. If we try to run our usual game, it’s just going to get convoluted beyond belief. We’ll be in a never-ending cycle of bonding and mating.
Mags ignores his logic. “So, we won’t pimp him out anymore. That’s fine. We can still work with this. Nik can … He can act as security. Plenty of wealthy families hire alpha guards to watch over their omegas during heats.”
“Mags …”
“It’ll work! You guys just have to bite me, too.”
Without another word, I get up and walk out of the living room, down the hall, and out the front door. Mags shouts my name, but for sanity’s sake, I don’t go back.
How can she be so callous? Is she that oblivious to the people around her? Even if Kaden didn’t have feelings for her—and I’m pretty sure he does—for her to just demand this of us is bordering on abuse.
I refuse to bond with Mags if she doesn’t care about me. I’ll go solo if that’s what it takes.
I’m not subjecting myself to this anymore.
Chapter 15
Mags
“What crawled up his butt and died?”
Kaden rolls his eyes at me. “Are you dense, Mags? Kip is totally in love with you, and you just suggested bonding for the sake of a fucking scam.”
Kip isn’t in love with me. Kaden’s twin bond must be on the fritz. “Kip’s my best friend.”
“And he loves you.”
That doesn’t make any sense. I’ve been grifting other packs for years. I know how to read people, and I think I’d know if my best friend was in love with me. “He loves me like he loves you, Kaden. Like a sibling.”
“If Kip loved me like he loves you, there would be banjos playing right about now.”
I give up. “You guys are impossible!”
He stands up and stretches. “On that note, I’m going back to bed.”
“You’re not going to bond with me, either?”
“Nope.”
Alone again, I sit on the couch and fume. It’s like nobody cares about putting food on the table or keeping the roof overour heads anymore. Everything is all “love” this and “feelings” that. Everyone but me has lost their fucking minds.
A few minutes later, Nik comes in. I tense, waiting for the bond to tell me what kind of mood he’s in.
“I’m just as pissed off as you, though for different reasons,” he says. “Breakfast?”
I kind of miss needing to ask a question before it got answered. “I’d love some.”
I wince in sync with Nik as the word pops out of my mouth and hits him like a knife to the heart.
While he fries up some eggs, I sit at the dining table and scroll through my phone. Kip and Kaden fouled my mood, and I double-fouled it by mentioning love in front of Nik. Now I hate myself as well as my best friends, only I don’t hate myself because Nik loves me too damn much for that.
The plate clatters on the table in front of me as Nik sits down with our food. I take a few quick bites, then slow down once I realize what my hunger is doing to him. He’s watching my mouth, watching me lick my lips and devour the food. Normally, I wouldn’t think anything of it, but with the bond … God, how do I make scrambled eggs so fucking sexy?
