Page 28 of The Omega’s Nest

“What? No! You just said he’s got the night off. Wait.” I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re lying to me.”

“I’m not lying,” he says, but he looks over my shoulder. “He does have the night off.”

He’s studiously avoiding my gaze. It’s like he wants me to ask him something. I don’t know why he won’t just tell me. He doesn’t seem like the type of omega who respects dynamics protocol.

“What do you mean by roadblock? A night off isn’t a roadblock,” I say, a thin line of anger threading through my voice.

Instead of being intimidated, he returns his gaze to mine, and a ghost of a smile touches his lips. He’s attractive, nothing on my Addie, but still handsome with his olive skin, dark brown eyes, and thick black hair. He’s way too fucking young—eighteen at most, and a young looking eighteen at that—but he’s got more attitude than half the alphas in my squadron.

“Not just a pretty face. Good,” he says. “Adrian deserves more than good looks and a nice ass.”

My eyebrows fly up. I don’t think anyone, never mind an omega, has ever commented on my ass. As if it were a part of me that was up for action. I’ve heard alphas talking about omega’s asses and kept my disgust to myself—an omega should be cherished as the calm centre of an alpha’s universe, not be talked about like a piece of meat to be used. But an alpha’s ass was firmly off limits.

“I’m going to tell you exactly what’s going on,” the omega says. “And I hope …” He looks away again, his voice softer when he continues. “I hope you have the balls to do something about it.”

I straighten, and clench my fists at my sides, the alpha in me roaring to the surface with the challenge. If it involves my Addie, I’ll have the balls to burn this whole fucking place to the ground if that’s what it takes.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Chapter 11

Adrian

I’ve been curled up in my nest for twenty-four hours, soothing myself in Leo’s scent. But it’s only made it worse. Knowing his scent will fade from the nest with time, my chest tears open with an ache I fear will rend me in two. I rub my tear-stained face up and down the soft material of one of his hoodies anyway. He smells so fucking good. Why did he have to smell this good? His smell reminds me of seawater and neoprene—the best goddamn smell in the world.

I remember ditching school one day to surf—the swell had been incredible, fourteen to fifteen second intervals, consistently pumping overhead, sometimes double overhead. The sharp drop off about fifty kilometres out from Hollow Point gives those wave trains a final surge of power, pushing the water up against the headland so it peels into this perfect long wave. I’d been surfing for hours when I spotted Leo in his school uniform on the beach. I’d paddled, dropped in, sped along the face before launching out the end of it and riding the whitewash into shore.

Leo’s grin was unmistakable, even from a distance. I ran up to him, breathless and beaming.

“It’s been pumping all day. Can’t believe you went to school,” I said to him as I tried to catch my breath.

His cheeks tinged with red as he ducked his head and mumbled, “I had that English test.”

Oh, right, which meant I had an English test too. “Whoops,” I said, and sucked in more air around a sheepish smile.

He laughed and met my eyes again, sending butterflies hammering in my stomach. I’d wondered if that was ever going to stop or if I was destined to feel this giddy amazing-awful feeling around my best friend forever now.

“Here,” Leo said and swung his backpack over his shoulder. He rifled around and produced two cafeteria-wrapped muffins—blueberry and chocolate chip—and a chocolate milk.

“Oh, man,” I said and took them immediately. “You’re my hero. Thank you!”

Leo shrugged. His, “You’re welcome,” was mumbled, and yet I could smell how happy he was.

“Seriously, I could legit kiss you right now,” I said, amped on adrenaline from the surf, from his presence. I meant it, but shit, did I have to go and be that forward?

Leo’s scent intensified—the saltiness of sea spray hitting me in the face—and his blush deepened, lips parting.

“Umm,” he said and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that’s, umm—”

“How was the test?” I asked quickly, hoping to save us both from me.

Leo frowned and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I focused on unwrapping a muffin. His voice, when he started telling me about it, was hesitant and distracted at first, but gained steam as he recited all the ways he was pretty sure he’d correctly comprehended the meaning behind a passage from The Catcher in the Rye they’d had to analyse. I knew he’d get it right and told him as much. His answering smile had been so grateful, I remember I had to look away, or I would’ve kissed him for sure.

We sat on the beach, regarding the lineup, the wave, and got into a running commentary on all the surfers who were out. We knew most of them—all adults and regulars. At sixteen, I was the youngest out that day, but the old boys were used to me. They liked to razz me as I took on monsters that were honestly testing my size and skill set, but I hadn’t wiped out that day, so I got a lot of approving nods and smiles too.

“When I saw it when I got up, I couldn’t believe it,” I said to Leo as I washed down the last of the blueberry muffin with a swig of choc milk. The winter air was crisp, and I was starting to shiver in my wetsuit. Leo produced a towel from his bag and wrapped me up without a word. It’d been a rote gesture. I’d barely even noticed it at the time, just had the usual warmth fill me, something I’d loved but had also come to expect. Leo had nodded for me to keep going, also a gesture I’d gotten used to.

“Like, you know how waves form from those massive storms out there, right?” I gestured with the choc chip muffin at the water, the ocean stretching until it disappeared over the horizon. “This must’ve been a ripper. Wave trains are just like, escaped energy from the heavy seas of a storm, and to think, they travel thousands of miles to get to us and then this—” I gestured again at the wave still breaking consistently, beautifully, in front of us.