Romance Omega Style [Resistant Omegas 9] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour ManLove) (7 page)

“Then I’m done with being upset about it,” Jared said after a minute as he stared up into the sky, watching the sun set. “I don’t know about the rest of everything but I can move on past your being taken in for questioning.”

“Me too,” Cameron and Rhyce agreed.

“This is so not what I had planned when I thought Valentine’s weekend island getaway,” I grumbled as I saw half the Betas and Alphas arguing and venting, knowing the Omegas downstairs were doing the same. “I bet Brody’s going to want to kick us all off his boat.”

“Nope, no being depressed,” Rhyce growled. “We just made up and we’re going to be fine.” I had just enough time to look at him before I got shoved in the pool. Asshole. He was lucky my phone was still downstairs. I laughed as I saw Jared and Cameron coming in right after me. We shared a look and went for Rhyce. Oh yeah, we dunked his ass big-time.

* * * *

Wesley

“There you are,” Bay said quietly as he, Levey, and Harkin walked up behind me. I was sitting on the bench at the back of the main level all by myself. When the trip started going to hell and Ian and Galvin came down to talk to their mates, I grabbed a bottle of something very strong and not that great tasting and left. I couldn’t be there anymore.

“It’s all my fault,” I whispered, tears still falling down my cheeks. “All my friends’ matings are going to shit and it’s my fault. I started all of this.”

“From what we’ve been hearing it seems some of it started before you even came into the picture, Wes,” Harkin said gently as he sat next to me. “A lot of these guys didn’t get into leading a pack for the right reasons. Well, not to say that it wasn’t the right reason to them, but from an outside perspective, you don’t become Alpha of a pack to get the guy. Leaders should want to lead. So I’m not really surprised they’re not happy with their jobs.”

“It’s more than that, you know it,” I chastised even as I leaned against him. He was trying so hard to make it those inner circles’ fault and not mine. “I can hear everything down here. Most of their issues are stemming from fear that the shit is going to hit the fan after what I did.”

“No, fuck that, I’m tired of you saying it that way,” Bay growled and got in my face. “You didn’t instigate
any
of this. The Council did. You responded to their threat. A threat against Tristan and all of you basically. You did not start this and I’m tired of you blaming yourself.”

I blinked at him several times, my drunkenness probably showing. “Okay then. I didn’t start this, but I did escalate it.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But it was the only play you had. If they had killed Tristan or whatnot, it would have escalated too. I’ve thought about this a hundred times and I can’t come up with another way to have played it. If you freed Tristan and we all ran, half the Council would still be corrupt and in power. You did the right thing.”

“As opposed to when I overreacted about the fight we had after Levey claimed me,” I mumbled, still worried they never forgave me for that. I hadn’t meant to let it go on so long or punish them worse than they had hurt me, but it just snowballed out of control and I never could figure out how to hit the brakes.

“We screwed up and hurt you,” Levey sighed, plopping down in the chair across from me and tapping my legs so I turned around fully and looked at him. “Yes, maybe things got out of hand because both sides didn’t handle things in the best way but we’ve let it go, Wes. You should too.”

“I think I have,” I admitted, but then shook my head. “I hoped you guys had but I keep thinking in the back of my head that if I overreacted once I could easily do that again. And is that what I did with the Council? Did I blow an A-bomb up, take charge, and now we’re going to all suffer picking up the pieces instead of having maybe used a Tomahawk missile?”

“It’s hot when you make weapon analogies that go boom,” Harkin chuckled. I rolled my head and gave him a dirty look. “Okay, serious talk only for our drunken mate.”

“No, we don’t have to talk serious,” I replied quickly, thinking about what Carson told us his mate said. “I’m okay.”

“No you’re not and don’t lie to us,” Bay snapped, his eyes filling with anger. “Don’t you dare lie to us.”

“I didn’t mean to lie,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I just don’t want my needing to be coddled and comforted to become an issue like with Carson and Declan.”

“It won’t as long as we’re all honest. And I think Declan’s getting a bad rap on this one,” Harkin admitted. “It’s not easy being mated to a powerful Omega. There’s a lot of shit to deal with and he never wanted to be in an inner circle so I’m sure it weighs extra on him. Just like you have that little voice in the back of your head questioning if what you did was right, he had one that needed to be shot, questioning what was really going on with his mate.”

“But shouldn’t he know Carson better than to have even thought that?” I asked.

“They’re having issues with Taylor too and it’s just a bad time for all of them. Doubts creep up. It’s just a fact of any relationship. I was worried you were going to run after what happened with the Council,” Bay said quietly.

I wasn’t going to pretend or play stupid on something so big and tell the white lie to assure them everything was okay. “I’ve been thinking about it. All the Omegas have. I wouldn’t run without you guys though so it’s a moot point. You guys love your lake and your pack. You’d never want to leave.”

“Our pack really does run like a family,” Bay replied carefully as if not sure which words to choose. “We don’t have the traditional pack structure or infrastructure like it seems the Chicago or Denver packs do. We’re much smaller and people only come to us if they need advice or help. They would be just fine without us.”

“What Bay is saying is we’ve talked about it and we would run with you if it came time,” Levey said with a smile. “Personally, I could give up the lake and cold winters for a tropical island.” He gave me a teasing wink. “It might be hard to convince me of it, but yeah, I’m sure my wolf can run in the sand. Plus, I saw that Russia doesn’t have extradition laws so we could go there if we miss snow.”

“You guys just think of everything, don’t you?” I chuckled as I wiped my eyes. I hugged my men tightly and felt worlds better just as Asher started bringing out food.

We got up to help him, hoping that it would soak up some of the alcohol and help our upset friends. It worked to some point but it still seemed to be Alphas and Betas upstairs while the Omegas were on the other level. Except for my inner circle, Ian, and Galvin, of course, and Tristan’s inner circle, who seemed to be doing their own thing at the pool. But the tension in the air and the distance growing between some people on the boat was almost stifling. I really didn’t know what I could do to help but we had to come up with a plan, fast.

* * * *

“I guess they decided not to drive through the night on unfamiliar oceans,” I chuckled as I got up the next morning and realized the engines were quiet.

“Yeah, they shut it down while you were dancing drunkenly singing that you had some coconuts for us to eat,” Bay drawled in his just-waking-up scruffy voice. It was sexy as hell.

“That’s not how any song I know goes,” I said as I got out of bed, trying to remember that part.

“We know,” Harkin snickered as he pinched my ass when I moved by him. “You said you were combining ‘I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts’ and ‘If You Like Piña Coladas’ in some way.”

“Yeah, wow, go me in the crazy drunk talk.” I giggled as I got to the bathroom, doing my morning business and heading outside in only my boy shorts. I was shocked I even had them on so apparently I’d been too drunk for sex. Or I was so drunk I got dressed again after the sex?

Either way, I felt much better this morning after tying one off and getting a lot of things off my chest last night. Even if it was crazy drunken dancing. I hiked up the stairs to the main level and realized there were already a bunch of people up. So why weren’t we moving?

I got my answer when I reached the back of the boat. There were several of our friends fishing off one side of the yacht and a few others swimming on the other side. I liked that idea better. Without even worrying about sharks or what else could be this deep out into the ocean, I got a running start and jumped over the side.

“Cannonball!” I screamed before landing in the water, tucking my knees and arms in tightly. I made a hell of a splash for someone so small and smiled as I swam back up to the surface.

“Feel better now?” Carson drawled as I wiped the water and my hair out of my eyes.

“Apparently I needed to get that out of my system. How are you doing?”

“Ian and I talked and I think we’re going to stay at the island. I asked Slate, Ollie, and the other guards this morning if they’d want to come with us so we could bring the other Omegas too. They agreed and Brody said we can use the yacht anytime we want. Ollie knows how to drive it too. I just had a few more questions on the island itself.”

“Well, it’s called Lilleulv. I guess
lille ulv
is small wolf in Danish,” I explained, giving him what Lord Ellys had told me. “It’s part of a five-island chain that is its own country. I guess there were wolves, vamps, and other paranormal beings who claimed the islands long ago and have done whatever it takes to keep those islands off record and to the outside world the country doesn’t even exist.”

“I don’t understand how that can happen nowadays,” Tristan mumbled as he swam closer to us.

“How do we hear other people’s thoughts?” I snickered. “Who the fuck knows but I’m grateful for it now. The wolf island we can buy because the last owner died. The only rule is it always has to be owned by a wolf, just like the vamp island, and no matter who owns it, any wolf can seek sanctuary there. That’s the point of the islands themselves. So even if I buy it, a random wolf from Bolivia can come and live there as long as they follow our rules.

“Lord Ellys is the keeper of the islands as they change hands from generation to generation. Also, there’s a fee that vampires require to keep it off the grid and off Google Maps. So we can check it out and see what the shape of the island and the house on it is in. But it’s ours to buy from the previous owner’s estate or something. I didn’t understand all the legal speak and I didn’t want to discuss our details if we weren’t even going to be interested.”

“We can’t afford an island,” Carson said sadly.

“If we like it, Brody and I will buy it,” I assured him. “You can live on it as caretakers. I want to build an Omega sanctuary even if we have to leave it open for other wolves.”

“Let’s go, everyone!” Slate called out from the top level. “We’re only an hour or so away from the island. Let’s get moving and you can swim there all day if you want.”

“Why do I have to be invisible to him?” Sampson muttered from in front of us as we swam over to the ladder to climb back up.

“Well, I guess we have to play matchmaker this Valentine’s Day,” I chuckled, shaking my head.

“Yeah, other people’s love lives are so off my fucking agenda right now,” Carson practically snarled as he grabbed the first rung. I shot Tristan a glance and saw we were in complete agreement. We were very,
very
worried about him.

Colin

“Are you sure you Navy boys looked at the map right? That can’t be the little island we’re heading to,” I drawled as we got closer to the massive place. Well, I guess massive was a relative term. “How big is it supposed to be?”

“Wesley said like thirty square miles but forty from end to end or something,” Bay muttered as he moved closer to the window. “That place looks huge.” He smirked and glanced back at Slate. “Want to stop and ask for directions, sailor?”

“Fuck you both,” the man snarled at us. “I’m not reading a fucking map. Wesley handed us the coordinates Lord Ellys gave him. As long as everything on the ship’s GPS is working right and the displays aren’t broken, which they seem fine, this is the place.”

Everyone had been giving him a hard time about why he didn’t go for the little Omega who liked him, Sampson. He took it all last night and even a few hours this morning. Nice to know he couldn’t hold out forever without breaking.

“And we’re fucking Marines,” Carter bitched. He’d taken the late shift of driving and with all the drunken men around acting like idiots or bawling their eyes out I didn’t blame him for being cranky.

“Well dock us in. I want to let my wolf out. Apparently the myth about wolves on water is true,” I snickered.

“We could have told you that,” Lief drawled. “Try a three-month tour. We had to douse ourselves with tranqs at the full moon if we couldn’t get to land. It was horrible.”

I shivered. “Better you than me.”

I left the control/steering room or whatever it was called and went in search of my mate. He’d been quiet last night when I’d checked up on him and I was starting to worry. Half the group was having mating issues and half seemed to be fine. I thought we were on the fine side but I didn’t want to risk being wrong and have it blow up in my face.

“Don’t,” Blaine warned me with a shake of my head as I made my way down the stairs. I glanced at him in confusion before having to quickly dodge a flying suitcase. “I apparently pestered him until he broke and told me what his comment meant yesterday. You made a joke about having to track him down in Florida again and he’s not happy about it.”