Six

For the first time, he talks directly to me, like I’m stupid, but he talks to me. Which I guess is something. “I don’t understand why. In your pack doesn’t your al—”

“What Bennett means,” Mack interrupts, making my eyes widen with shock because a beta interrupting an alpha like that is practically unheard of, “is that there are different dynamics in all packs. His role doesn’t mean he’s always the only one giving orders.”

I stare at him in confusion. “But that’s what an alpha does. Give orders.”

Penny has a coughing fit and Mack turns to clap her on the back. Once she’s stopped, he continues speaking. “Things are a little more fluid here.”

Since I’ve never heard, or seen any pack dynamic like this—where the beta can order the alpha to do something and there’s no pushback, I shift my focus back to Bennett to see what he’s making of all this.

Bennett’s expression is completely blank. “Alpha,” he murmurs.

“Alpha,” Mack repeats with a wide smile. “Now, did you want more bacon, Aerin?”

I lower my gaze to the pile of bacon on my plate. The towering pile. It’s far more than I can ever hope to finish, and I wonder if Mack didn’t get distracted and keep adding more to my plate than he realized.

“No, uh, thanks but I think I’m good.”

I go back to eating, but I can’t help but notice there’s some weird tension in the air I can’t quite figure out. While Mack is the only one who doesn’t seem the slightest bit aware of it, the others keep shifting their glances between me, Mack, and Bennett, only I don’t understand why.

When I peek up at Bennett, he’s busy shoveling food into his mouth and chewing mechanically, like he’s just going through the motions. Looking at him, I’m getting the impression he’s not even tasting the food. Like he’s just trying to clear his plate as quickly as possible so he can leave.

Maybe this is all perfectly normal for this pack, but my instincts are telling me that there’s more going on than I’m seeing, or that I understand.

My doubts about Mack’s role in the pack resurface, and I steal a peek at him out of the corner of my eye. Out of anyone at the table, Mack looks the most relaxed as he eats his breakfast at an easy pace, making me wonder if I’m just imagining things.

As if he feels my attention, he turns his head in my direction and I jerk my head back to my plate.

Then, at the sound of the front door being pushed open, there’s an almost palpable easing of the strange tension, as if in relief. And I start to get a bad feeling, only I can’t figure out why.

Mack turns to grin at someone entering the kitchen behind me.

“Adela, pleased you could come.

Let me help."

“Don’t be silly. I’m old but not that old yet. I’ll just sit here next to our guest.” Hearing the warm and soothing voice of an older woman, I lower my fork and turn to her with a smile.

But then I catch sight of the woman with white hair and a long, lavender floral dress with probing blue eyes as she sinks into the seat beside me. My fork slips out of my hand and clashes loudly against my plate before falling to the ground.

Before anyone can offer to get it, I twist as much as I’m able to without falling off my chair and ducking my head down beside the table.

Mostly hidden, I close my eyes and silently curse the universe because it’s proving that it not only hates me, but it’s also determined to make me suffer in every single way it can.

Crap. This is bad. This is so, so bad.

“Aerin, you need to be careful with your leg. Here, let me.” Mack grabs the fork with one hand and helps me back up again with a firmness that I’m not expecting.

Smiling weakly, I take the fork gratefully from him. “Thanks, I…uh, I just didn’t think.” “Well, you should be more careful,” he says.

“Not to worry, I can take a look at her leg after breakfast,” Adela offers.

I turn with an even weaker smile, hoping her old age means she’s blind to what I am.

“Yeah, this is Adela. As our resident fixer-upper, she wrapped your leg for you after the accident.” There’s no hiding the genuine warmth in Mack’s voice, and it’s clear that he not only respects her but regards her as a friend.

“Former nurse is what I am,” Adela corrects with a smile that she aims at Mack. “But that’s not all she is. She’s also our omega.”

Which is the problem. Because if anyone is going to be able to penetrate the hasty shields that I’ve thrown up around myself to hide what I am, it will be this woman. This omega. And if she reveals it to Bennett, no matter what Mack promised me, there’s no way they won’t try to keep me.

How does it feel when you put any weight on it?”

As I lie stretched out on a cozy couch in the lounge, I stare at Adela’s full head of gray hair bent over my leg. Although I’m still close to panic about the possibility of her discovering I’m an omega at any moment, I steady my breath as she runs a hand down my leg.

“It hurts too much. Every time I try it just feels like I’m going to fall.”

When she probes at a tender spot near my ankle, I suck in a sharp breath. To my relief, she doesn’t do it again.

Adela snags a fresh bandage from beside her before she gets to work re-bandaging my leg. “Well, it’s still a little swollen around the ankle, but I’m not feeling a fresh break.”

“And the others, Adela?” Mack speaks up from where he’s crouched on the floor beside her.

While I’d have liked nothing more than to have Mack carry me upstairs after breakfast, the need for information trumped the need to hide.

I need to know how bad the breaks in my leg are, and how long it’s going to take me to recover, so there was no way I could afford to turn down Adela’s offer to look at my leg.

After a tense breakfast where I spent most of it with my gaze fixed on my scrambled eggs and bacon that I barely remember eating, Mack carried me into the lounge and Adela followed.

To learn that I broke my leg in four places and had several other smaller fractures around my ankle wasn’t easy to hear.

When Mack said my leg looked worse than it was after I first woke, I can only imagine he was trying to be kind. That or it was a lot worse after my accident. He tried to apologize for knocking me out of the way, and I told him my life was worth more to me than a few broken bones. Still, my words did nothing to smooth away the guilt I saw stirring in his eyes.

“They’re healing well enough. The bigger ones, at least. Still, I’d give it a couple of days of healing before you put any pressure on it. You’re lucky you didn’t do more damage by taking a spill like that in the bathroom.”

I sigh in relief.

The sooner I get better, the sooner I can leave. I imagine I’ll be back on my feet even sooner than that since pack healers are always fond of overestimating injuries, at least all the healers I’ve ever met.

With the number of fights, both big and small, that happened in both my father and Shane’s pack, there’s always been a need for a healer and they’re always kept busy.

The healer, Lucy, who was mated to the beta in my father’s pack, would always joke that the best way to stop more injuries was to convince everyone they were too badly hurt to fight. Mostly, it didn’t work because we shifters are too aggressive to stay sitting for long, but Lucy never stopped trying.

“I’ve got some crutches at home. I’ll bring them when I come back to check how you’re healing again in a couple of days,” Adela says.

My heart sinks. So much for a quick exit.

Adela lifts her head to flash me a quick grin as her nimble fingers continue to wind the bandage around my leg. “I don’t bring the crutches sooner because you’ll be walking sooner than you should be. Everyone always does. Now’s the time for resting.”

“But I…” When she raises an eyebrow, I stop talking because it’s clear she doesn’t believe me, so there’s no point in trying to convince her.

She’s wearing a familiar expression on her face that I recognize from Lucy. It’s the, I’ve heard everything you’re about to tell me a million times before, look.

Instead, I lay back on the pillow as she finishes wrapping my leg.

If I weren’t trying to hold on to my cash for as long as possible, I’d find some other way of leaving, maybe getting a cab if they even have a service in this small town.

But it seems wasteful to throw away what would be a lot of money on an expensive cab ride when I don’t have a job and have no idea when I’ll get one.

Now my decision to find some out-of-the-way hiding place is proving not to be such a good idea after all.

If being trapped here with a badly broken leg wasn’t bad enough, I’m having to rely on an omega who could turn my temporary entrapment into a permanent one at any moment.

Just because I haven’t felt her reach out with her gift yet doesn’t mean she can’t or won’t. This need to heal is instinctive, something I know all too well. Just as I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to Mack, at some point she’s going to pick up on my many hurts and traumas and feel compelled to do the same. This time to me.

There’s no way I can keep my emotions buried so deep for long. As it is, I’m surprised it’s working. But it takes too much concentration, and sooner rather than later Adela is going to wonder why I’m so closed off from her, and she’s going to want to investigate why that is.

“Aerin?”

Mack’s hand on my arm startles me, drawing me back to the present.

I turn to find him studying me with his eyes creased with concern.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

I force a smile I don’t feel on my face. “Sure, fine.”