I elbow him. Hard. “I can figure out how to mash meat, thanks.”
He backs off, grinning. “Just trying to help.”
“You’re trying to cop a feel.”
“Can’t it be both?”
Silas catches my eye from across the counter and rolls his. I snort, but my hands are still tingling where his were, and I hate that. I hate it so much that I season the beef twice.
“I always thought omegas were supposed to be good at this domestic stuff,” Archer says, watching me wrestle the ground beef. No judgment in his voice, just curiosity.
“Yeah,” Elias adds. “Aren’t you supposed to be all about the homemaker thing?”
I point a raw-beef-covered finger at him. “I’m sorry, did my designation come with an apron and a recipe book? Must’ve missed that memo.”
Elias holds up his hands. “Didn’t mean anything by it. Just surprised, that’s all.”
“I’m not your average omega.”
“Don’t we know it,” Archer says with a smile.
We work for a while in comfortable quiet, the occasional insult lobbed between Elias and me. It’s domestic in a way that should make my skin crawl, but it doesn’t. This is the kind of normal I didn’t know I was missing until now.
Then I say something I hadn’t planned on saying.
“My sister was the perfect example of an omega.”
My hands go still in the bowl. The words hang in the air, and I can feel all three of them pause.
“Cooking, cleaning, keeping the head alpha happy. She could do all of it without breaking a sweat. Made it look natural, like she was born for it.” I stare at the raw meat between my fingers. “Me? I was always the fuck-up. Too wild, too loud, couldn’t keep my mouth shut if my life depended on it. Sophie used to say I’d argue with my own shadow and lose.”
My throat tightens at the mention of her name. The first time I’ve said it out loud to them.
The head alpha wanted us both. Sophie knew what would happen to me if she didn’t give him a reason to wait. She told me once, and I didn’t understand it then. She’d be everything he wanted. Obedient. Willing. Available during her heats, for him and whoever he chose to share her with. She’d be the perfect, compliant omega, and in exchange, he wouldn’t touch me until I turned eighteen.
She bought me time with her own body.
“She sounds amazing,” Elias says.
“She was,” I say.
“The pack you came from—” Archer’s voice is careful, but I cut him off.
“I ran. I was in the woods because I ran. That’s all.”
“Those wires…” Elias starts.
“They were sewn in when I was sixteen. Then I was sold at eighteen after my sister died. I escaped into the woods.”
I don’t elaborate. I can’t. But even those few sentences feel like I’ve peeled off a layer of skin and shown them what’s underneath, and the exposure makes me want to grab a hoodie and disappear into it.
They drop it. No follow-up questions. No sympathetic head tilts. No, “I’m sorry that happened to you,” that would make me want to throw raw meat at them. They just go back to chopping and mixing and being here, and I’m grateful for that.
Silas puts a hand on my shoulder. Just for a second. A single squeeze and then gone. A month ago, I would have bitten his fingers off. Now I find myself leaning into it.
We finish cooking and sit down to eat the meal together, and it’s good. Really good, even the parts I made. The beef is seasoned more heavily on one side than the other, but Elias eats three helpings, and Silas gives me a thumbs-up that makes me laugh.
After we eat, Elias hums to himself while he washes the dishes, and Archer dries. Silas puts things away, and I sit at the table with my feet up, eating the last bread roll and watching them move around the kitchen. Ten years of feeding each other, taking care of each other, surviving together. And now I’m sitting at their table with my feet up and stains on my t-shirt, and nobody is telling me to leave, clean up, or whatever other bullshit Sophie put up with while keeping a smile on her face.