Wyatt: The Unchained Omegaverse: M/F Alpha Omega Romance Page 3

  And it wasn't as if she was asking for thousands of square miles of land and a single-family home, either. All she wanted was to not get kicked out of her crappy one-bedroom apartment as punishment for helping a friend.

  But life wasn't fair, and it never had been.

  Take Sarah, for instance. She had to fight her family for years to claim the house she'd inherited from her grandparents, only to discover an alpha squatting in it. Then she'd lost all rights of ownership to the house when the government designated the new boundaryland.

  Yet unlike Darlene, Sarah had somehow made her peace with the situation. She never complained. She didn't seem to miss the career she'd fought so hard for.

  She seemed happy.

  If there was some potion Darlene could drink to achieve Sarah's peace of mind, she might consider it—if it didn't risk her ending up as an alpha's mate.

  Darlene shuddered at the thought, then vowed to put it out of her mind.

  Her time with Sarah was so limited these days—Sarah was even busier than when she'd been cramming for the bar exam just a few months ago—and Darlene didn't want anything to distract from the visit.

  She decided not to say anything about the setbacks of the last two weeks. Sarah had enough to worry about already; between setting up her own home, clearing out others to welcome new alphas, and dealing with that maddening mate of hers, the last thing she needed was to hear about Darlene's woes.

  Besides, Darlene was used to dealing with her own shit. She'd been doing it for years, all by herself—because there hadn't been any other alternative.

  As the miles of empty road passed, Darlene felt herself relax and rolled down the windows of her truck. The fresh air and beautiful countryside, the smell of wildflowers and sun-warmed earth, calmed her in a way that nothing else could.

  Cranking the speakers, she belted out song after song until she was within a few miles of the boundaryland border—when she abruptly turned off the speakers and clamped her mouth shut.

  That was either a close call…or a mistake.

  Her heart sank at the memory of Wyatt's smart-ass remark. Was it really possible that he'd heard her singing for weeks, as he claimed? What was the range of an alphas' hearing, anyway? Five miles? Ten? Twenty?

  And did that mean that other alphas had heard her, too? Oh, God, every last one of them had probably been making fun of her the same way that Wyatt did.

  Darlene knew she shouldn't care. Ordinarily, she didn't give a shit about other people's opinions. After what she'd been through, it was hard to get too excited about the judgment of strangers.

  But for some reason, some goddamn elusive nonsensical reason, she did care what Wyatt thought—so much that she drove in silence for the last leg of the trip, replaying their ridiculous conversation in her head.

  Wyatt had gotten to her, and Darlene didn't know why. All it had taken was one offhand remark, and he'd been living in her head rent-free all week.

  It would have been nice to blame his incredible body. His ugly shirt and too-long hair aside, Wyatt was one goddamn gorgeous beast with those massive biceps and tree-trunk thighs, that chest you could drive a truck into, that tight, sculpted ass.

  Not that Darlene was into alphas. She most definitely was not. But there was no arguing with that kind of hot. He might even have made a decent fantasy, something to dream about to keep her mind off her problems…

  …if it wasn't for that little jab at her lack of musical talent. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Darlene had shut down.

  She was tempted to blame the stress she was under. She'd suffered through enough court-ordered therapy to know that it was sometimes easier to focus on a perceived slight than on the very real problems that plagued her.

  But even if that was true…there was still something very confusing and even alarming about that particular alpha.

  For instance, why was she so certain that he would be waiting for her at Sarah's when she arrived? Even though she'd explicitly told him not to, Darlene stake her last cent on the fact that he was already there.

  She had no idea where her certainty came from.

  Or, more disturbingly, why she wasn't upset by it. She couldn't actually be looking forward to seeing Wyatt again, could she?

  No, that was ridiculous. Just like this silly idea that she knew where he was.

  But sure enough, when she pulled into Sarah's drive, there he was, talking with Archer by the side of the house.

  Darlene's gaze locked with his for a long second before she came to her senses and moved her attention to the porch, where Sarah was waiting. Her friend broke into a big smile and came running down the steps, carrying a foil-covered dish.

  "Oh my God, Darlene, I am so sorry about last week," she said as Darlene got out of the truck. She set the dish on the hood and threw her arms around Darlene, squeezing her tightly. "Things have been so busy around here, and I lost track of time, and—"

  "Sarah," Darlene laughed, "it's all right, I promise."

  Sarah pulled back and gave her a scrutinizing look. Darlene froze, afraid she'd spotted the bruise under her makeup, but Sarah's shoulders sagged with relief.

  "I was so afraid you were mad. Thank you for being so understanding. I made you an apple pie to make up for it."

  "Pie?" Darlene was sure she'd heard wrong. "In all the years I've known you, you've never made anything more complicated than a Lean Cuisine."

  Sarah blushed, but her eyes sparkled. "Gram taught me her pie recipe years ago. I just never had time to make it. But we've got more apples in the orchard than we know what to do with."

  The surprises just kept coming. Darlene hadn't noticed an orchard. Then again, she had no idea how much land Archer had…or what other talents Sarah was hiding. Next, her friend would be churning butter and sewing her own underwear. "Well, thanks, but you didn't need to."

  "I wanted to, though."

  Darlene didn't miss the glance Sarah snuck toward the side of the house. Archer's back was turned, but Wyatt was looking directly at Darlene, and somehow they got stuck in a brief staring contest. She literally could not tear her eyes away, even as he took his time unleashing a slow-motion grin.

  He sees too much.

  The thought rocketed through her mind, followed by a sensation like warm silk on her skin, as though even the air had changed when he looked her way.

  Darlene dragged her attention back to Sarah, her smile feeling brittle. Wyatt could hear everything they said, and she decided to get ahead of whatever conclusions he'd already drawn.

  "You sure have a lot of visitors these days."

  "Actually, Wyatt came to make amends."

  "He…what?"

  "Don't ask me," Sarah said, shrugging. "I don't get half the things these guys do. Other than Archer, anyway."

  Wyatt was walking toward them, looking like a cross between a Norse god and a mafia bruiser. Darlene stiffened, a pulsing, electric awareness arcing between them. Though she refused to meet his gaze again, she was exquisitely aware of his graceful gait, his single-focused determination, even the vibrations in the ground under her feet with every step he took.

  The tension inside Darlene crept upward, but still, she didn't turn toward him. It wasn't pride that stopped her. She hadn't forgotten that dig about her singing, but more dangerous than wounded pride was the other, more primal effect Wyatt had on her.

  If the simple act of delivering essential supplies to the alphas earned Darlene death threats, eviction notices, and bodily injury, she didn't want to think about the kind of punishment she'd be in for if she was stupid enough to develop a crush on one of them.

  "I think I might have offended you last week," Wyatt announced. For the first time, he sounded completely serious.

  "Oh?" Darlene pretended to have just noticed him, forcing an awkward little smile as she finally faced him.

  "I'd like to apologize by unloading your truck."

  Don't look. Whatever you do don't look—

  Darlene look
ed up into his shimmery blue-green eyes, and the electric thing happened again, like fireworks going off under her skin. The fake little smile slid off her face.

  "You don't have to do that," she rasped in a voice that sounded nothing like her own. "I'm fine."

  "I know." Wyatt nodded as though he'd expected her to say that. But if it was true, that would make him the only man Darlene had ever met who actually believed her when she preferred to do something herself. "But I'd still like to."

  Darlene looked to Sarah for help, but her friend looked thoroughly confused. "I thought alphas didn't apologize," she hedged.

  "Some don't." Wyatt kept talking as if they were having a proper conversation. "But I do."

  "Seriously, Darlene, this never happens," Sarah said, not bothering to hide her astonishment. "Take him up on the offer. If you do, we'll have time to make up for last week."

  Darlene wanted to refuse, but she couldn't come up with a good reason. Apparently, when she was around Wyatt, her brain had a way of careening way off course.

  She dug her keys out of her pocket and reluctantly held them out to Wyatt.

  "Just—be careful. Please."

  When it came down to it, the truck was the only thing of value she had left.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sounds reached Wyatt more quickly than smells, which made sense to him.

  Sound was a quantifiable thing. Pitch, tone, and volume were all things you could measure. Vision, too. Wyatt remembered learning that every color could be defined by a hexadecimal number back in high school, a fact that intrigued him so much he toyed with the idea of becoming an artist just so he could mix paints all day.

  Unfortunately, when it came to artistic endeavors, he had far more enthusiasm than talent.

  But scent—that he knew all about.

  He'd watched the scientists in the Basement try to tease it apart and analyze it. They'd been obsessed with omega pheromones, doing unspeakable things to female subjects in an effort to duplicate them.

  The fact that even those top scientists, with all the resources of the beta government at their disposal, had failed proved something that Wyatt already knew by instinct: a woman's scent was much, much more than the sum of its parts.

  That was why, when he heard the unmistakable rattle of Darlene's rust-bucket coming in hot, he experienced a delicious fraction of a second of anticipation before her scent reached him. That tiny bit of time was so full of potential, of promise, allowing him to imagine that this time she would open up to him. This time he would say all the right things.

  But his first breath of her scent told Wyatt that something was wrong. Beneath the improbable, heady mixture of juniper and rum were sharp veins of anxiety and suffering. And not the long-standing, well-worn kind either.

  This pain was fresh. New. Jagged. And growing stronger as Darlene came nearer.

  Wyatt experienced these dark emotions almost as if they were his own, even though they weren’t caused by him. And when she pulled up and got out of the truck, it was obvious from her stormy expression that she didn’t care who could read her mood.

  Though if Archer noticed, he didn't show it. His lack of curiosity about the woman who was their only lifeline to the outside world perplexed Wyatt, but maybe it stemmed from their rocky history.

  Or maybe it was just because Darlene was a beta and Archer was couldn't see past his own prejudices. Or it could simply be a reflection of his if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it philosophy.

  But unlike Archer, Wyatt couldn’t ignored the dark cloud that pursued Darlene. The problem was that he didn’t have any idea how to fight it.

  He tried to come up with a conversation starter as he brought her truck around to the side of the house, but as he and Archer started to unload it, he had to focus on the task, checking each item off the list. There weren't any surprises this week, just the usual mix of canned and dry goods, tools and building materials.

  "I still don't get why we need to waste our afternoon doing this," Archer grumbled.

  "You don't have to." Wyatt hadn't asked for the other alpha's help, after all—but Archer wasn’t one to stand around when anyone else was working.

  "Darlene's never complained about unloading everything on her own,” Archer continued. “She probably likes doing it herself."

  "That's possible." Not a lie, but despite how little time Wyatt had spent around Darlene, he knew that she hated to ask for help.

  A week ago, before she became aware of his presence, there had been a tension threading through Darlene’s scent that reminded him of the air before a thunderstorm, vibrating and crackling with electric energy. When he'd offered his help, her refusal was as sharp and fast as a shock from touching a live wire.

  Archer looked up sharply from the framing lumber he was stacking on the ground. There would need to be a lot more where that came from since an alpha named Xander was building a small house on his land for his mother-in-law.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Just that I believe you're telling the truth," Wyatt said flatly, handing down another two-by-four to add to the pile. He didn't even need to breathe to detect the irritation in the other alpha.

  "No, Wyatt. I'm thinking you might mean something else. You've been acting weird since you ran into Darlene a week ago."

  Wyatt reminded himself that Archer was young, that experience and maturity would wear down that hair-trigger over time, and gave him an easy grin. "Weirder than usual, you mean?"

  Archer stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. "If the shoe fits, brother."

  Wyatt knew that his alpha brothers didn't know what to make of him. For the most part, he didn't mind, especially since they were smart enough to keep their opinions to themselves. Besides, he was different—didn't dress like a renegade lumberjack, was friends with one of the mated omegas, liked to walk along the road instead of on his new property.

  Alphas generally accepted their brothers' quirks with equanimity as long as they respected the few rules of the Boundarylands. But Wyatt had the unpleasant feeling that Archer equated his difference with weakness. And he couldn't let that stand.

  "That a problem for you?" he said, putting some iron in his voice.

  "You apologized to her, goddamnit!" Archer burst out, his face red. "To a goddamn beta. We don't do that."

  Oh. Now it made sense. Wyatt could even understand where his younger brother was coming from—but he didn't know what he was talking about in this situation.

  Besides, it was none of his business.

  "I guess I must have skipped that chapter in the alpha manual," Wyatt said mildly, starting to unload heavy bags of oats and cornmeal.

  "Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," Archer said testily.

  "I'm not pretending anything, brother." Wyatt handed Archer a box of machine screws, and when he made no move to take it, tossed it onto the hardware pile. "I know you're no fan of betas, but every week Darlene drives seven hours round trip to bring us the supplies we need to keep this community going. And that's not even counting all the time she puts in shopping for all this shit."

  "And she's paid for that out of the account that Xander and Lili set up," Archer said stubbornly.

  Wyatt nodded. It was true that Darlene got a cut, but it was more complicated than that, and Archer knew it. Still, he spelled out as clearly as he could. "Darlene is paid for the one day a week she comes here. She spends the other six days in the beta world. Now, knowing her kind as you and I both do, how do you think her fellow citizens feel about the help she gives us?"

  Archer's rigid scowl faltered as he thought about this. After a moment, he sighed and ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. "You think they're giving her trouble?"

  Wyatt had half a mind to sock him in the jaw. Stupid like that didn't come naturally to alphas; a brother had to want to believe something pretty badly to stoop to denial.

  On the other hand, he'd fallen prey to stupidity a time or two himself, especially early in his
captivity. Back then, he'd raged against everything from the confines of his cage. Now he knew better.

  Which was why he took the time to take a deep breath and let it out slowly before looking Archer in the eye.

  "Tell me something. Did you notice how much makeup Darlene was wearing today?"

  Wyatt snorted. "That girl's always got a shit ton of makeup on. Looks like a damn Barbie doll."

  Wyatt felt the corner of his eye twitch and took another slow breath. "Well, she's put on about twice as much as last week, and most of it's around her left eye."

  "You think…someone hurt her? On purpose?" Archer unconsciously tightened his hands into fists. "It might not have anything to do with us. With her helping us."

  "And that would make it okay?" Wyatt shot back, too angry to take a calming breath.

  "Of course not!"

  The air echoed with the alphas' raised voices as they automatically began to circle each other.

  But then Archer relaxed and took a step back, shaking his head. "This is messed up."

  "It is." Most of Wyatt's anger subsided the minute Archer backed down, but he still had a point to make. He smacked the side of the truck. "What do you see here?"

  "That ain't bodywork—that's a freakin' crime. Looks like a third-grader did it."

  "I mean these huge scratches," Wyatt said patiently. "How do you think they got there?"

  Archer said nothing, but the wheels in his head were obviously spinning.

  "Take a good look, brother. She painted over it, but you can still make out the words."

  Archer squinted. "Alpha whore." After a moment, he growled. "Fuck."

  "There's more on the other side. And the tires are new."

  Archer's eyebrows shot up. "New, my ass!"

  Wyatt raised a placating hand. "I mean new from last week. She probably picked them up at a junkyard."

  "You think…someone slashed them?"

  "I'd be surprised if it was just one person."

  "Oh, hell!" Without warning, Archer punched a tree trunk, leaving a splintered cavity. "If it’s true, why hasn't she said anything?"