Page 39 of For What It's Worth

Behind me, Jen growled a warning to the other males, who quickly looked away and returned to whatever they were talking about before.

I couldn’t lie and say my heart didn’t hurt at being ignored by the other males, but the display of jealousy was enough of a comfort. My beta side wanted the attention of all three alphas and my omega side wanted Jen to assert his claim of me over his pack. He mentioned trusting me with his alphas, but now he was all growls and irritation. The last thing I wanted to do was create a rift between packmates—how had Hannah bonded with four alphas? Maybe I could schedule a meet up with her and get some advice.

“Here, little bear.” Jen pulled me along to the kitchen, filling up a cup of coffee with the caramel syrup I liked.

“Thanks.”

There was only enough for a single cup, so Jen started another pot for himself. I sat on the counter, not caring about the numerous health code violations, and stared toward the living room while Jen occasionally touched my knee, shoulder, or hair in a reassuring gesture. It felt slightly obsessive, as if he wasn’t consciously doing it.

I enjoyed the clarity that came with drinking coffee, taking the time to officially wake up. By the time the pot was done for Jen, I was ready for my second cup, which he quickly filled up for me before starting his own. With an adequate amount of caffeine in my system, I could finally think through all my emotions. Of course, being this close to Jen, my number one emotion was an abundance of happiness. Which wasn’t a bad thing but didn’t help with making decisions. Space might’ve helped—even if the idea of being away from Jen made me want to dig my nails into his chest until I drew blood to ensure he didn’t step too far away.

Aggressive? Yes.

But I was civilized, so I didn’t do that.

Enzo was the first to break the silence of the morning with a strong declaration. “I think we should talk. All of us. Things were done last night in the heat of the moment—” Jen growled but Enzo continued talking like he hadn’t heard him. “But more big decisions still need to be made.”

Aidan nodded along in agreement.

I had plenty I needed to say, answers to their questions only I had, so I agreed.

Jen shrugged, still glaring at Enzo for his remark about the claiming but not disagreeing with his packmate.

Instead of sitting in the nice living room in the comfy chairs, Aidan and Enzo came to Jen and me in the kitchen. They sat on the bar stools we had dinner on last night, while I sat on the counter near the coffee pot. Jen stood next me, not so casually touching me.

My finger tapped anxiously along my coffee cup. I’d never done anything but deny my omega side before, which meant actually acknowledging it felt … not wrong but taboo. Like if I admitted the truth out loud, the males would laugh and admit this whole thing was a hoax and I had to leave the academy. But my beta side had always been more logical whereas my omega ran on instinct. A claiming bite, for example, told my omega that the alpha was to be trusted. And since that decision had already been made—by me—I was going to have to trust that instinct. Trust my omega side.

“What first?” I asked.

“Might as well get the hard stuff out of the way,” Aidan said. “You’re an omega.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded.

“You don’t smell like one. In fact, you smell like a beta unless you’re turned on. Then you smell like … like burnt marshmallows.”

I took a long sip of my coffee, wondering how I was going to explain this to them since I didn’t really know how to describe it myself. The best I could do was give them the limited information I had.

“I don’t know much about my parents. But I do know when I was old enough to go to school, they shipped me off to a year-round academy, and I haven’t seen them since.”

Jen squeezed my thigh, no doubt feeling my pain at being abandoned through our bond.

“The school accepts all students and then once their designation is known, they either continue their education there or get sent to the Omega Compound. It’s very standard procedure. I know some get tested when they’re younger if they present some characteristics of a designation early on, but the test at the academy was basically, ‘if you perfume you get removed’. But I only perfume when I’m turned on, and by the time I figured that out, all the other omegas had been removed. I did my best to stay under the notice of others. And on the off chance I came to school smelling like a sexually active omega, everyone assumed I was just sleeping with the one.”

“When you figured out you could perfume, why didn’t you tell anyone?” Aidan asked. “It must have been scary going through omega changes by yourself.”

“It was,” I said in agreement. “But my parents didn’t want any contact with me. And even if I didn’t have a lot of friends, I knew almost everyone in my school. I had my own room, I knew the teachers, I liked the classwork. It was familiar. Safe. And I also knew I hadn’t seen a single omega since they disappeared to the center. For all I knew, omegas were dying there.”

The males laughed at my imagination, but it had been a real fear of mine when I was younger—that hadn’t really gone away. Omegas simply disappeared, and everyone said they went to a center, but where was the center? I didn’t have any parents or siblings to get in contact with, and my friends were nice in the sense we work on school projects together, but we never hung out outside of the classroom setting. “I chose to keep going as I was. Everyone assumed I was a beta, and I didn’t see a reason to contradict them.”

“What about a pack?” Enzo asked.

“When it came time to decide between outing myself to the Compound or going to college…” I shrugged. “You can all see which path I took. I figured I could always go the Compound after I got my degree, but there was no guarantee whatever pack I found myself in would let me continue my education.”

“Your education is that important to you?” Jen asked.

I made sure to stare directly into Jen’s eyes when I said, “Yes.”

My alpha nodded, but no one said anything about the fact that I was still a student. Still attending an academy that would’ve happily kicked me out and sent me to the Compound if they learned the truth. Or maybe they would’ve sent me to my alpha now that I was bonded. Unless they fired him too because they thought he helped hide my designation.