“Why then?”
Did it matter? No, I guess it didn’t. In the end, she was leaving. It shouldn’t matter to me where. My job was to alert others to the existence of a possible omega and get her in the database. If she refused her pack? It wasn’t my problem. I’d be the first to defend her choice if anyone decided to contest it.
“I want to be closer to Dad,” she said, surprising me. “I don’t want to give our house away. Is that stupid?”
“No,” I said at once. I knew what it meant to cling to the past, afraid to let it go. “But you’re in his house too.”
She gasped, and her lips parted in wonder. I watched her beautiful face as her eyes traced every wall like she was seeing it for the first time. For a second, I felt self-conscious, afraid that she would see the flaws of our house, and maybe the reason her dad left was the reason she would too. I shook that away when she spoke next.
“He lived here too?”
“This has always been our pack house.” I nodded and looked away from her. “We thought about moving when he left. To shred the memories away, but we realized it didn’t matter where we were, his absence was loud.”
She had his eyes, but where Karl was easygoing and kind, she was full of determination. Any time I looked at her, it seemed like she was ready to start a fight. Yet this time, her tone changed, her voice softened, and she breathed out slowly.
“Do you really blame him, or do you just miss him?” she asked.
It wasn’t a well-kept secret, so I snorted. “That’s what you think?”
Isadora lifted a shoulder. “You all hate my dad so much. Maybe there’s something behind all this hate.”
This time, I actually chuckled. “That’s not a discovery. We were packmates, and he left.”
She bit down on her bottom lip, resting her back to the couch and bringing her hands to her face. She looked tired like this. More than the heat, it was something else, and I found myself wanting to fix whatever it was that made her feel that way.
“Maybe that’s a cultural thing,” she said, finally interrupting my white knight thoughts. “I don’t get it, and sometimes you say half of a sentence as if I should understand the whole thing.”
There wasn't a bite in her words, not the usual I expected from her. There was too much vulnerability in those words because she knew as much as I did that this culture should be hers. It was Karl’s fault. He denied the girl knowledge about her own biology, but I didn’t point it out. Not when she so painfully knew that. Instead, I nodded, trying to connect with the person inside me who would also hate being lied to. I kept pushing her away as if she was the reason Karl left, as if she had anything to do with it. She didn’t.
She was lost and alone, and I made her feel unwelcome and confused. She was an omega who wasn’t raised with our people and didn’t understand the depth of the brotherhood. To her, we only disliked her dad because he left our village, yet that wasn’t it. The feelings churned in the pit of my stomach. If she stayed, she could see. She could meet our people and see how pack life worked. She would understand us better if she gave us a chance.
I opened my mouth to tell her so. To say she should stay longer and try on this life before turning her back, but before the words made it into my mouth, she got up.
“Good night.”
And she left with all her questions unanswered.
Chapter Fourteen
Isadora
“Are you leaving?”
The following morning, the heat wasn’t much better. My clothes were clinging to my skin. I chose a simple white tee and denim shorts combo, and I braided my hair in two sections over my shoulders. I could barely think, with my flushed cheeks and all that emptiness between my legs.I couldn’t stay a second longer in this house with them three without jumping their bones, so I decided to leave. Just leave.
That was until Per and Sven caught me right on the way.
“Hmm, for a walk,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
It could have worked if it weren’t for the fact that I spoke. I raised the collar of my T-shirt, letting air in, as if we were in the desert and not Sweden.
Per looked so good in the light of the morning. His good boy clothes made me want to eat him whole, and those bright eyes pinning me on the spot was the opposite of what I needed.
“Are you sure you’re well for that?” he asked.
“Mmm.” I nodded quickly.
His eyes locked on my lips as I blew inside my T-shirt, and I watched as he swallowed a lump in his throat. His neck looked so good from here. I stood there thinking about how delicious his skin must taste when the door across the hall opened, drawing my attention away from Per to Sven coming out of his bedroom.
