Surrender to the Alphas (Waxing Crescent Book 5)

by Jasmine Mills

  “Not really,” I said. “I knew they’d release that information eventually. I figured they’d let people know when they were ready.”

  “And what about your duty to your workplace?” he demanded. “Didn’t you care about doing a good job?”

  All right, he sounded worse than not happy. He sounded furious.

  “I cared, I just preferred not to rush it. I knew they’d get around to telling people.”

  “Look, I don’t care who you date, but as a reporter, your job needs to come first. You should have come to me and let me make that call. This was a conflict of interest, and clearly you chose the wrong interest.”

  I was just about sick of people telling me I should go to them and listen to what they said. When was somebody going to respect me and what I thought? When was my judgment going to be the most important part?

  “I’m not even dating them anymore – not that it matters. I don’t think I can work for somebody who wants me to put my job before anything else in my life.”

  “That’s how jobs work,” Warden said. “And if you think you can quit, you’re dead wrong. I was just about to fire you.”

  “Too late. I’m already sending my resignation letter.” I grabbed my laptop.

  “Great, don’t bother coming in tomorrow. Whatever is in your your desk, I’ll have packed up for you. You can grab it from the front door.”

  “There’s nothing that I need. You can keep it.” Or shove it, I added silently as I hung up the phone.

  I took a deep breath. I hadn’t planned on being jobless. I had enough savings in the bank to keep me going while I looked for another job. What I was going to do with myself, now, that was the problem.

  I spent the next few days browsing through job sites, daydreaming about the kind of life I wanted to lead. The problem was, I wasn’t qualified for anything I’d actually want to do. All my life, I’d been desperate to be a journalist. But I’d failed.

  There was always the human media, but I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for getting involved. If journalism was what Warden wanted, I had no taste for it. I was sick of the stupid articles, and even sicker of trying to get scandals out of the people I loved.

  I could see myself as a barista, or a baker, or an independent filmmaker. None of the options made me particularly happy or sad. The only thing I consistently saw when I pictured my future was the four alphas. When I imagined myself ten or twenty years older and still surrounded by the four of them, an inexplicable happiness went through me.

  I closed yet another job site and shut my laptop. Had I fucked up? The alphas had been so rude, so paternalistic... But the more I thought about it, the more I could see where they were coming from.

  I missed them so badly. It had been nearly two weeks since I’d seen or heard from them. What were they doing now? What was going on in their lives?

  It seemed insane that so short a time ago, they’d been my whole world, and now they were nothing at all. I couldn’t cut off my feelings for them just like that.

  It had been so recently that I had everything, and now I had nothing. No partners, no job. What else could I lose? How could my life get even worse?

  A knock came at my door, and my heart lit up. Could it be them? Did I want it to be? I had to admit, even if only to myself, that I was dying to see them. If I’d taken a deep breath, stopped and thought like they’d asked me to, surely we could’ve worked through our problems.

  Yes, we’d said awful things to each other, but it was all in the heat of the moment. With a little patience and understanding, I could forgive them. Would they be able to forgive me?

  I was so caught up in the fantasy of getting back together with them that I didn’t even check the peephole to confirm who was at my door. I opened the door, ready to jump into the alphas’ arms. But instead of them, it was a woman. I blinked, confused. I was so out of it that it took me a moment to recognize my landlady, Sharon.

  “Cassidy, you’re home,” she said, arching her eyebrows. “It’s ten in the morning. Are you on vacation?”

  “No,” I said. “Not exactly.”

  “I’ve noticed you haven’t been going out at all these past few days,” she said. “I assumed you had some time off. Or are you working from home?”

  “Nope. Actually, I was let go.” I shrugged, not really caring how bad that made me sound. I had bigger worries in my life.

  “Oh, you lost your job? You’re not employed anymore?”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I can’t have unemployed people living here. I need to know you’ll be able to pay your rent.”

  I took a step back, my hands moving to my hips. “Of course I’ll be able to pay my rent. I only lost my job a couple days ago. Give me a week or two to get back on my feet.”

  “Sure, that’s what they all say.” She gave me a hard look. “I can’t be waiting around for you to find employment. You’re going to have to find a new place.”

  “You can’t do this. This is illegal.”

  “You have until the end of the month, of course. After that, you’ll be on your own.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So there was a way for me to sink lower, after all.

  “I don’t know why you’re looking so shocked,” Sharon told me curtly. “You’re barely here, anyway. Why don’t you just go wherever you’ve been going all this time?”

  I couldn’t. Or could I?

  “Maybe I will.”

  ∞∞∞

  If I was going to do this, it couldn’t be because I lost my job or my place. I needed to make the alphas understand that I wanted them for them, and that I was going to do my best to be the omega they deserved. And I needed to know they’d be open and honest with me, too.

  I took a day to plan out my approach. I needed to make them see how sorry I was, and how much I missed them. The only question was how.

  If I was a musician, I’d write them a song about how much I loved them. If I was a poet, I’d write them a poem about how much I cared.

  But I was only me, a failed journalist with no other talents to speak of. I could hardly put an article about them on the front page of the newspaper.

  Unless… I made my own newspaper.

  The idea took hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. I stayed up all night researching how to format a newspaper on the computer. It was more complicated than I’d expected, and I considered just making a pamphlet, but I didn’t want to half-ass this. If I was going to do this, I was going to be all-in.

  In the end, I chose an eight-page format. It didn’t sound like much, but the pages were regular newspaper size. There was going to be a lot to fill in.

  I started with the front-page article. I spent the whole day writing and rewriting about how things had gone wrong between us, and how badly I wanted to make them right.

  Next, I wrote an article about each one of them, explaining the specific things I liked about him and the special parts of our personal relationship. I wanted them to understand that I loved them as individuals as well as a group.

  Then I wrote a long article about my hopes and dreams for our future together. I wrote about how I wanted to have eight kids with them. I gave each imaginary child a name - Cole, Carmen, Lewis, Leanne, Porter, Paris, Manny, Megan – and a personality. I even wrote about how well they did at school.

  I talked about sending them off on their first day of school, and disciplining them when they were rebellious teenagers. Then came the empty nest syndrome that we’d have once we sent each one off to start their own lives. Finally, we had our peaceful retirement together, where we were too old and grey to do much, but we still took comfort in each other’s arms.

  This was the future that I wanted. I would never be happy on my own, or with some other guy. These alphas had carved their names into my heart, and whether that was fate or not, I wouldn’t be able to erase them.

  A funny thing happened as I worked. I got mor
e caught up in my writing than I ever had before. The hours flew by faster than my fingers tapped on the keyboard.

  The things I was typing about became almost tangible before me. I could practically see and touch my future kids. It felt like they were real. If they weren’t now, they were going to be. All I had to do was let fate work its magic.

  When the newspaper was done and formatted, I fell into bed. It was past noon, which meant that more than twenty-four hours had gone by since I had started. I slept deeply, and if I had any dreams, I didn’t remember them.

  When I woke up, the four alphas were sitting on the edge of my bed.

  I jumped up, my heart pounding. How had they gotten in? Did I even have to ask? They were alphas, and alphas had their ways.

  Once my shock had subsided, I put my hand over my heart. It was so good to see them again. They looked more glorious than ever, their features even more handsome than I had remembered them. As my eyes slid over their bodies, I remembered the feel of every ripple of muscle and how it felt to pull those sculpted bodies over mine. A pulse of desire went through my core. They were so perfect, and they had once been mine. Was it possible that they could be again?

  They must have come here for a reason, but as I looked at their inscrutable expressions, I couldn’t tell what it might be. I wanted to think they’d come here to make up with me, but for all I knew, they’d figured out I wanted them back and they’d come to tell me to fuck off.

  “You guys,” I said slowly. “You... you’re here.”

  “We are,” Oakley said. “And we can’t believe you’ve still been living in this shoebox. How do you deal with this place? It’s terrible.”

  “Well, I’m a little smaller than you guys.” My heart calmed under my fingertips, and I let my hand drop to my side as I gave them a weak smile. “It’s not the best place, but I’m leaving here anyway. I’m getting evicted.”

  They looked at each other, fury coming over their faces. “You what?”

  “Apparently my landlady doesn’t want an unemployed person living here. Oh yeah, I lost my job.”

  Richmond raised his eyebrows and gave a dark chuckle. “I’m not actually surprised. These things tend to happen when you interfere with fate.”

  I blinked, letting his words sink in. Maybe that was the reason for all of my misfortune lately. Maybe because I’d been bold enough to leave the alphas, the universe had decided to take everything else that mattered away from me.

  “So you still think this relationship was fate?” I asked. “Even after everything that happened... all the things I said to you...”

  “If it’s fate, then nothing can change that,” Richmond said. “But if you interfere with fate’s plans, you’ll only hurt yourself.”

  That almost made sense. That certainly seemed to be what had happened over the past few weeks.

  “And yes, we still care about you,” Trey said. “Tell us where to find your landlady, and we’ll make sure she never pulls anything like this again.”

  “She won’t be able to evict anyone from six feet under,” Jacob added.

  “That’s not necessary,” I said. “She was only looking out for herself. She’s human, she doesn’t know what I am. She doesn’t deserve to be harmed for it.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Although… maybe you could give her a talking-to about the illegal eviction.”

  “If you say so,” Trey growled, looking disappointed.

  The fact that they wanted to defend me like that gave me hope – but I still wasn’t quite sure what they were thinking. “Why did you guys come here?” I asked softly.

  Moving as one, they threw back their shoulders. “We want you back,” they said in unison.

  They looked at each other and laughed. “Jinx,” Jacob said. Apparently they hadn’t telepathically planned to say that.

  “Wait… but…” I shook my head. “Why? I was so awful to you.”

  “Things haven’t been going so well for us since you broke up with us,” Richmond said, sounding almost self-conscious. “Oakley’s been angry and irritable. Jacob can’t talk about anything but you. Trey’s been listening to break-up songs on repeat and moping around the house.”

  “You have?” I asked, looking from one man to the next. “Wait, you’ve still been over at Richmond’s house all the time?”

  “I’ve been missing you, too,” Richmond said gruffly. “I asked them to come over and keep me company.”

  My heart swelled. I couldn’t believe these strong, powerful alphas cared about me to that extent. They were so rough and tough on the exterior – and yet somehow I’d gotten under their skin just like they’d gotten under mine.

  “The thing that sent us over the edge was when we tried to celebrate Jacob’s birthday without you,” Richmond said. “I don’t know if it was the most depressing celebration in the history of parties, but it certainly came close.”

  “I didn’t even know it was your birthday,” I said to Jacob, my eyes filling. “I should’ve been there.”

  “We ended up sitting around and talking about you for about two hours,” Trey said. “We didn’t even touch the cake.”

  “But enough about us,” Jacob said gently. “All of that is in the past. Tell us how you feel, Cassidy.”

  I wiped my eyes. “I’ll do you one better. I made a little project to show you that.”

  My pulse raced faster and faster as I handed the alphas the pages I’d printed. What if they didn’t like it? What if they thought it was stupid? Surely they wouldn’t, considering they’d come over here... But what if they saw my silly little newspaper and changed their mind?

  “What is this?” Richmond asked, paging through it. “This is about... us?”

  The others peered over his shoulders. “There’s an article about me,” Jacob said wonderingly.

  “There’s one about me, too,” Trey said, nudging him in the ribs. “Don’t get too cocky about it.”

  “That was the point,” I said nervously. “I wanted to write about each of you, and about all of you, too.”

  Oakley read quickly, mouthing the words as he drew his fingertip down the page. “These are the nicest things anyone’s ever said about me.”

  “I tried.”

  Trey reached for another page, flipping it over to find the article about our future. “This is amazing, Cassidy.”

  “I wanted to show you how much you mean to me.”

  They didn’t say anything more for a minute, and I gave them the time to read everything silently. They passed the papers back and forth between them, occasionally gasping or smiling. My silly little project seemed to have succeeded.

  “We have something for you, too,” Richmond said, finally looking up. “We also wanted to show you how much you mean to us.”

  “Really? I hadn’t expected anything.” It was me who was an asshole. They didn’t have anything to make up to me.

  “We want you to know that we value and respect you,” he said. “Even if you’re an omega, we understand that we should keep you in the loop. We need you to be submissive with us, to surrender to us in every way… but the counterpoint to that is that you need to understand that you’re a prize to us. We treasure you above all else, and we won’t let you go for anything.”

  Trey nodded. “Even if we weren’t with you – and that would only happen if you decided to break up with us, because we’re way too crazy about you to ever leave you – we’d still care about you more than anyone in the world, and we’d never let any harm come to you.”

  “We want you to know that we trust and respect you,” Oakley said. “So we decided to tell you about the informant who told you we’d be meeting at the barn that night.”

  My throat went dry. “Who was he?”

  “Justin Walker,” Oakley said. “A vulture beta in my pack. He had aspirations to become the alpha, and he kept trying to smear my good name so that people would support him when he formally challenged me.”

  “We should’ve told you earlier,” Trey said softly
. “We didn’t want you to jump into the middle of things again and get yourself in trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” I said.

  Trey nodded. “We should’ve trusted that you’d know better than that.”

  I was already feeling a million times better – and the surprises weren’t over.

  Richmond reached into his pocket and set a keyring with four keys in front of me. “To prove our trust, we decided to give you the key to each of our homes.”

  My eyes widened, and I took a deep breath. “Are you sure? This is a huge step.”

  “We’re more than sure,” Oakley said.

  “And considering your living situation, I hope it wouldn’t be too premature for us to suggest that you move in with me,” Richmond added. “I know we haven’t been dating all that long, but we’re in this for the long run, and if you’re ready, I would be honored to have you permanently in my home.”

  “The rest of us would move in over the next few months,” Jacob added. “The idea is that we would all live together sooner rather than later.”

  My throat was tight. This was everything I had ever dreamed of. The future plans I had written about on the last page of my newspaper had all started with us moving into Richmond’s home.

  “We’d like to make it clear that you can ask us about anything,” Trey said. “We don’t want you to feel like it’s four against one. If we’re partners, we should be on the same team. Always.”

  “If you ever feel like we’re not being open and honest with you, we’d like you to tell us,” Oakley said. “We can’t promise to be perfect, but we’ll do a lot better than what we did last time.”

  “We’ve realized that we need you in our lives,” Richmond said. “We don’t want to be without you. Everything felt wrong when you were gone.”

  “If being together is fate, there’s no use in fighting it,” Trey said. “But even if it wasn’t, we would still want to be with you.”

  “If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t want to share my partner,” Jacob said. “But you… you’re worth it.”