Page 135 of Pack Rivals: Part Two
No more asshole behavior. My priorities are with this pack now, this pack and my family.
I grab Nate by the scruff of the collar and drag him off the omega, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her, “thank you.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and looks me hard in the eye. “Don’t let me live to regret it.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I say.
“If he does, I’ll kill him,” Nate says chirpily and I don’t doubt it for a minute. We’re going to have to keep Nate on a chain, because if anyone so much as looks at our omega the wrong way he’s going to garrote them.
“I’ll do it myself,” she grins, “I’m good with a knife, remember?”
“Damn right.”
She drags me in closer and I kiss her mouth, kiss those sweet lips of hers, and taste mint on her tongue. Then I pull back.
“Do you mind if I go tell my mom the news?”
A little wrinkle forms between her brows. “I said give it a try, I’m not agreeing to marry you or–”
“I know, sweetheart, but we’re dating, right? You’re dating this pack?” She nods her head eagerly. “Then let me go tell her that. She’ll be pleased. I think she’s shaping up to like you more than me!”
“She’s met me once!”
I laugh, but I’m only half joking. My mom views the repair of our family as some kind of miracle, one Bea alone is responsible for. She’ll probably be nominating the omega for sainthood.
I climb off the bed, making room for Silver, and walk to the door. There I pause and glance back to the massive group hug now taking place in the nest we built. My heart feels so full it might burst.
I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to make these people this happy. But somehow, somehow, despite my fuck ups, they are.
I pad down the stairs to the floor below and stop outside my mom’s room. Light slips underneath the door and I suspect she’s reading. She’s finding it more and more difficult to sleep, the pain keeping her awake.
I tap lightly on the door and as if by magic Molly appears behind me.
“What’s going on?” she asks eagerly, bouncing on her toes, and I bet she’s been lying in wait for an update.
I raise my eyebrow at her in a way I know will infuriate her.
“Come in,” my mom calls out weakly as Molly scowls at me and I turn the door handle and slip inside, Molly following me in.
My mom’s dressed in a nightgown and sits up in her bed, a wall of cushions supporting her frame, a magazine open at her lap. She removes her reading glasses and peers up at me and my sister.
“Is anything wrong?”
“No,” I say as Molly pinches the seat by my mom’s bedside, curling her feet up under her, and I’m left standing. “Just thought you might want to hear how the date with Bea went today.”
“Well, duh!” Molly says, rolling her eyes at me.
I really do not envy the pack that ends up with my sister.
My mom ignores her, folding closed her magazine. “I thought I heard Bea’s voice earlier.”
I nod unable to help a wide grin from spreading across my lips.
“She wanted to see the nest.”
Molly claps her hands together and squeaks. “Did she love it? She did, didn’t she? She must have, it’s a work of genius. If my pack design me a nest half as good as that one–”
