Pack Hodges

Cashel -Chapter 3

I review the mission one more time. An easy in an out. Get into position with Sim for recon and Easton at my back. Take out the target. Simple. Or it should have been. How could it have gone so f$cking wrong? My jaw aches from clenching it for the last 12 hours straight. Sim just went off script like I’ve never seen before. He saw Khalid Mossad hit that woman and snapped, blowing his cover and we all had to scramble or watch him get killed. Like we’d ever let our pack brother down like that. We’ve been one team, one pack since we found each other in foster care and have never let each other down. We started off stealing cars and selling them to the sketchiest dealers we could find for cash in order to get ourselves out. Stealing turned into a way of life and it turned out we all had a talent for getting in and out without being seen. It’s what we’re known for. Until now. Hoka is going to lose his sh$t. He’s our only brother who can’t do what we do but then again we can’t look at lines of code and decipher f$ck all.

I stretch my neck from side to side and loosen my jaw trying to relieve some tension before I see Hoka. But he will know something is wrong. He always does. We’ve been together since I was 22 and I couldn’t give two f$cks that he’s a beta. He’s mine and I’m his and I can’t let him see me fall apart. I have to be the strongest of all of us. As the oldest and most dominant, I’m the pack leader and they all need me to hold my s**t together. Though I don’t know how I’ll explain this to Eamon.

As if I conjured him, Eamon enters my office. He might be in his 60s but his dominance rolls over me the same way it did when he adopted me when I was 15 and the other guys were 13. At 32, my own dominance rivals his but my respect and devotion for him is boundless and I incline my neck in submission.

“Are you here to kick my ass?”

“I’m your father. I’m here to see what’s wrong.”

He wasn’t there when we were kids but he raised us and showed us how to be alphas. As that person, he will always be our father and he’s always taken that role seriously even if my paystubs say he’s also my boss.

I slump in my chair. “I don’t know what the f$ck happened. Simeon just lost it.”

Sitting down in front of me, Eamon lets out a quiet, “hmmm.”

“What?” Because a “hmm” from Eamon speaks volumes.

“It’s time for an omega, Cash.”

My whole body tenses and revolts. Eamon knows about Hoka and I and has always supported it. But he’s also been quietly insistent on the need for an omega asserting that a pack is never complete without one.

Without thinking I say, “you don’t have an omega.”

His face shutters and my heart clenches.

“Eamon..I didn’t mean..I’m sorry.”

“When Celeste died she took everything color in this world with her.” My mouth goes dry. He never talks about her. Never.

“Until I found you boys. I knew you were my second chance at loving again. We always wanted a family..but somethings just don’t go to plan.”

I’m frozen, unsure of what to say. It’s not that Eamon isn’t an emotional guy. He is. He’s shown me and my brothers that a good alpha knows how to care about other people, but he’s never spoken to me like this.

“This is one of the reasons you need an omega. Finding your scent match changes your life. You may think you know completion but until you find her you’ll be missing integral parts of yourself. You just don’t feel like it because you don’t even know they’re there.”

I want to fight now. I want to say Hoka is all I want.

But he continues, “also, you are still registered as a reform pack and I can’t hold the Board back any longer. They’re insisting you complete the process and after this last mission…you don’t have a leg to stand on.”

When Eamon adopted us we got caught on a job hacking into Hodges International’s security (Hoka’s doing) and entering the headquarters on a job worth enough to set us up for life. We were caught in Eamon’s office by the man himself and for whatever reason, he was able to talk us down. And get us into the reform program. That was over 17 years ago, the longest any pack has been in the reform program. All because of our refusal to take an omega. Me, because Hoka is all I want and need. For Simeon and Easton, who the f$ck knows. They f$ck more betas a week than I have fingers and toes but I never press them on their real reasons because it never mattered. Now, it seems our feelings don’t matter either. Time is up.

Feeling barely tethered to my temper, I grit out, “how long do we have?”

Eamon looks at me with sorrow on his face. “This is a gift, Cash. Please don’t throw it away. Please give this girl a chance.”

I repeat, “how long?”

He sighs, “none. She’ll be at your apartment tomorrow morning.”