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Theo’s green eyes glow as he gazes down at our omega. “I really don’t want to play that fucking game tomorrow,” he mutters.
Ronan snorts. “If I could have told Past-Theo that, in the future, you’d be complaining about starting as a tight end against a division rival, you would have punched me.”
Theo grumbles, “I’m complaining about the fact that we can’t take our girl with us.” He looks me, ever the optimist. “Or… can we?”
I grimace. “She could be in a box with Ronan and I, maybe. If she feels one-hundred-percent up to it.” I turn to our leader. “I don’t think I should wander far from Meg. You and I can keep her in a skybox. With security.”
Ronan agrees with a gruff nod. I picture the conversation explaining this plan, wincing. “And when Meg asks why we’re suddenly not working and just hanging around her like we’re waiting for a bomb to go off?”
He shrugs, the motion hindered by the beautiful girl in his arms. “We tell her home games are fucking miserable in September, and we’re the bosses, so we get an air-conditioned box that happens to cater her favorite foods.”
She’ll see right through that.
Ronan’s purr deepens, a crease forming between his brows while he stares at our omega. “Is it normal for her to sleep this long?” he asks. “I know she’s never taken a knot before but I didn’t mean to take this much out of her.”
I settle closer to Meg’s back. She seems so tiny. Delicate and precious. I nuzzle into her hair, breathing the scent of all four of us to keep myself calm while I admit, “I don’t think she’s sleeping well. Without…”
“Declan.”
Theo says his name in a tight, guilty voice. Ronan and I glance at each other, feeling his pain. If either of us were the one jeopardizing all of this, I know it would be a lot harder to take. We were friends before we were a pack, just like Dec and Theo.
“She wants him,” I observe, doing my best to keep my feelings out of my voice. “Despite all his actions, I believe he has feelings for her, too. I don’t understand why he won’t let himself.”
Theo’s whole body cringes. He ducks down behind Ronan, obviously ashamed to speak up. “…I think I might know why.”
Ronan fights back a bark. “Tell us.”
“I shouldn’t,” Theo mumbles. “It’s, like, some deep vault shit. He blacked out once after a game and told me while I was trying to get him into our dorm and hoist him into his bed. Then he puked all over my shoes. I don’t think he even remembers that I know.”
I sigh.
This is the tough part of being in a pack. Loyalties to each other versus the group as a whole. In a perfect world, the pack would come first for all of us. But it never feels good to betray your family, even if you’re speaking to other members of that family.
“If you can’t tell us, we understand,” I hedge. “I just don’t know how to help him. Or her. She needs his scent in this bed, Theo. She needs him in her nest. All of us, together. And when her heat starts, if he rejects her…”
There’s no way she’ll be in the right headspace to bond. Ideally, we would do it at the end of her heat, when she’s lucid enough to enjoy it, but can still enjoy the health benefits that come from completing a bond while she’s at her peak.
We have to fix this.
“Peaches,” Theo whispers, looking at her over Ronan’s shoulder again. His eyes go soft while he traces her cheekbone. Then they turn to solid green stone, swinging back to me with blazing determination.
“Dec’s mother was an omega,” he says, the quietest I’ve ever heard him. “She was into some fucked up shit. Drugs and stuff. His dad was a random alpha-hole who bonded her accidentally during a rut. They hated each other, I guess, but she got pregnant. She wanted money to… you know. But his dad barked her into submission, forced her to carry Dec to term and stay clean while she did.”
Blood slowly drains out of my face. I knew Declan didn’t have any relationship with his parents and always spent holidays with Theo’s pack growing up. I had no idea his mother didn’t want him.
“I don’t know what happened when he was little, but he told me his dad left when he was five. Couldn’t handle his mom’s constant partying, issues, and drama. But they were bonded, right? So even though they were apart, she could feel everything he did. And whenever he’d sleep around, she would fly into, like, rages. Beat the shit out of Declan. Lock him in his room for hours.”
My stomach churns. “His father didn’t come back for him?”
Theo blows out a deep breath. “Never. I met Dec in second grade and I never heard a word about his dad coming around. By then, his mom was living on welfare. She wouldn’t give him up because she needed the money she got for him. Not that she ever used it on him. He would come to school dirty, hungry, and mad as hell. He got in trouble for fighting all the damn time.”
Theo’s eyes glaze while he stares at the wall, remembering. “My mom was a chaperone on one of our field trips. She saw him, and it broke her heart. I remember her crying on my dads’ shoulders about it later that night. The next day, one of my dads showed up for dinner with Dec in tow. Said he found him sitting in a park next to our school and asked if he had anywhere to go for supper.” A sad smile curves his mouth. “I’ve never seen a kid eat so much.”
He blows out another breath. “When you guys met him, he was a cocky, talented quarterback. But you didn’t meet that angry, lonely kid. I watched him take all of his anger and make something of himself. He used all that shit he went through to fuel him. It made him the best there is. But…”
It also broke him.
“You think he hates Meg because of all this?” Ronan asks, frustration and dismay thick in his voice.
