Lights, Camera, Omega - Page 102

Daphne curls into the space next to me on the outdoor couch, kicking her heels off and tucking her long tanned legs under herself as she snuggles underneath my outstretched arm.

“I’m sorry you had to hear through the rumor mill instead of me,” she sighs, laying one of her hands over Cosmo’s on my thigh.

I give a little shrug, jouncing her head slightly.

“It’s Hollywood, it happens.” I keep the thin smile plastered to my face, but it’s clear Daphne isn’t buying it.

“I know it’s not optimal…” She begins, her voice wobbly with unspent tears.

“But I have to think about my career,” Daphne’s voice takes on a pleading edge—and I hate that I am simultaneously driven to comfort her, and to break down in tears myself, bemoaning my own predicament.

“I don’t want to end up totally bungling my new career as an omega. I don’t want to just be a financial burden with nothing to spend my time on other than shopping and lazing around the house or beach eating bonbons,” she sniffles, a few tears rolling free down her cheeks.

“I know, Sunshine, I know,” I comfort her weakly—the best I can manage right now.

“Ah-hem,” Cosmo clears his throat loudly on the other side of us.

At first, I think he’s trying to prod me to drop the act and share my feelings like we talked about earlier—then I hear the muffled sounds of voices coming from the other side of the sliding glass door, followed quickly by the swishing noise the doors make in their long tracks whenever someone pulls them open.

Magnus appears, Julian hot on his heels, and he looks incredibly angry.

The news that Daphne had been cast in a major motion picture—helmed by one of my oldest friends on location in motherfucking Fiji—while I myself am, in theory, slated to be tied to Los Angeles for the better part of the next year and a half was bad enough news on it’s own; having to find out about it by overhearing my secretary whispering about it to Ed Mammut’s PA, only added insult to injury.

I contemplated calling Winnie and Martine and asking them what the hell the big idea was—before I remembered that I hadn’t even told them about the bond yet. Everything’s moved so fast and almost entirely out of the public eye, so there’s no way they could have possibly known.

Julian intercepted me in the kitchen on my way to where Daphne, Sol, and Cosmo sat on the deck—his hands open—palms out.

“Gus, slow your roll—you need to cool off before you head out there and say some things you’ll regret.” Julian does his best to try and shield the trio sitting just on the other side of the wall of glass before me, but I will not be deterred.

I stop only for a moment to gently place my hands on Julian and move him aside, continuing my direct line to the deck.

“Magnus,” Cosmo stretches an open hand toward me, just like Julian. As if he can stop me, save me from myself. From the stupid words that will tumble from my lips while my temper gets the best of me.

“What happened to open and honest communication as a pack?” I growl, using all the powers in my posession not to look at the bonding bite I placed on her only the night before. It’s a slippery slope of affection, sentimentality, and overwhelming desire that my righteous anger refuses to slide down.

To my surprise, Daphne springs out of her seat—her eyes glittering at me with her own effervescent rage, just like the morning we crashed into each other outside the craft services tent.

“Are you really going to act like I was keeping the news from you because the Hollywood gossip network got to you before I could?” she snaps back, incredulous.

Already, she’s backing me toward a corner I can’t seem to stop painting myself into.

“Agreeing to hop on a plane and take up on the other side of the goddamn world in the next few weeks for almost half a year!?” I exclaim, not quite changing the subject, but still pressing my point.

To this, Daphne doesn’t have a quick retort. I can tell from the look on Sol’s face and the slump of Julian’s shoulders that the news has weighed particularly heavily on them too.

“We haven’t even gotten the results from your blood panel at the Omega Center yet, we’re not even sure what your hormone levels look like—when your next heat will end up falling,” I barrel on, voicing all of my fears aloud.

“Once we get my results back, I can figure out a new medication regimen with my team. If I need to schedule heats around visits from—”Daphne tries to reason with me, but I hear none of it. I’m in that desperate place—like a wolf with its leg caught in a trap; ready to gnaw its own limb off to escape, or to lash out and hurt anything that passes within the wolf’s reach, the way he has been hurt by all those pointed metal teeth.

“We haven’t even gone on our mystery confessional field trip with Cosmo yet. Who knows what painful truths we may yet uncover, and yet here you are committing to plans to be halfway around the world for months,” I spit venomously.

Daphne glares at me, hands on her hips.

“Did you think about asking me if it was alright that you continue work on your latest film instead of dropping everything to put this pack first?” she laughs at me.

“Of course not, I have a job to do—a career at stake, I—” I scoff, but Daphne cuts me off, jabbing a finger squarely into the middle of my chest.

“And I don’t!?” she shouts, her face red with anger.