Whenever my family had rolled into a new town, we’d gotten them. Like villagers waiting on us with pitchforks and disgust at who we were. What we represented.

I tugged at my bottom lip, studying the disquiet in people’s faces, the concern at the change of the status quo, and murmured, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Eli tensed. He hadn’t spoken since Austin had dominated the council. Ethan had smoothed things over, using more diplomacy than I expected of him, and had invited them to partake of the refreshments.

Ever since, we’d been standing in silence.

Awkward?

Yup.

Still.

Better than having to talk to the bunch of asswipes who’d wanted to fawn over me, even though the second I’d walked through the door, I’d known I was different than them.

With my golden, tawny coloring, the rich black hair that my ancestors were renowned for, the Creole earrings swaying about my neck, and the colorful clothes I wore—gotta love one-day shipping, especially when you had a millionaire’s credit card to buy stuff with—I was as unlike them as night was day.

In their designer slimline tailoring, and their stuffed shirts and trim forms, I was round and curvy and everything the other females weren’t.

Did that matter?

I wasn’t alpha female, after all. I was the omega. A power in my own right.

Eli squeezed my hand. “Not much longer now.”

He found it the hardest to speak telepathically, but he was getting better at listening to us all talk, so that was something.

Poor Eli, he hadn’t anticipated any of this.

As far as I knew, his mother had killed herself in a ritual sacrifice the same night I’d been transformed, and even as he dealt with her death, the overwhelming grief that sometimes made him stonily silent and had pain radiating out of him with such force I wished I knew how to work my powers, he had everything else to deal with.

And here I was, being selfish. Wanting reality to beat fiction.

I nestled into him, grateful that I was his mate, grateful that, if I had to be a part of this strange new world, he was at my side, with Austin and Ethan all around me.

A tight-knit little circle.

Four of us against the world.

My lips curved as I thought about my father. How he’d hated me for dating a gadji, how that hatred had turned into loathing when I’d married him and gotten pregnant. When loathing had turned, twisted, morphed into poison, I’d paid for that in blood.

What would he think of me now? Strangely content, even after my conservative upbringing, to be with three men. Three non-Roma.

I sighed, oddly pleased by how disgusted he’d be. In a weird way, totally childish of me, I knew, but I appreciated the rebellion.

More than that, I appreciated the nascent links that were spreading from me to the three men who looked at me like I’d dug my heel into the ground and had discovered water.

That was powerful.

So powerful.

Sure, they hadn’t ravished me, but they gave me that.

I needed to stop being greedy.

“Be as greedy as you want,” Austin rasped, deep in my mind.

I shivered at the tone of his voice and cut him a look. There was fire in his eyes, more so than before—had he heard me?

“Yes,” Ethan rumbled.

I gulped, my pussy turning molten at the heat they radiated. I wanted them. Fuck, I did.

I’d never wanted any man since Kian. Had never wanted to experience the ties that bound a woman to a man ever again.

Yet here I was, overwhelmed by three of them.

Only, they weren’t just men, were they?

Eli squeezed my arm. “Later,” he growled.

At first, I thought it was a promise, then I realized Brandon Wright, the beta, had approached.

He was staring at us all with anxiety radiating from him, and I murmured, “All is well, Mr. Wright?”

“Brandon, please,” came the immediate reply with a bow, deep at that.

My brows rose, because I hadn’t anticipated that, and when he straightened up, I muttered, “I thank you for the greeting.”

He blinked at me, then stated, “It is an honor to have met you, Omega, but, Alpha, I think I must leave. I have to prepare for tomorrow.” His chin tipped up, and he cast a dark glance at Ethan. “Tomorrow, at the totem.”

Ethan nodded. “See you there.”

He sounded like he was agreeing to meet up for a workout at the gym, not a challenge that could mean life or death.

I blew out a breath as Brandon wafted past, and, slowly but surely, over the next thirty minutes, everyone followed Brandon’s path, leaving the packhouse with the promise of a gathering at the totem.

I’d yet to see this totem, but it had been explained to me.

Ethan and Austin weren’t that great at explaining, however, so I wasn’t really sure what the totem was.

I mean, totems were Native American, weren’t they? All these folks were whiter than sheep.

With Conrad and Larissa, the soon to be ex-leaders of the council, the last ones to leave, Eli moved with them, not stopping until he shut the door behind them.

When he stepped away, I arched a brow. “Don’t you lock the doors here?”

“Sign of his strength,” Ethan instructed. “He needs no locks to protect him.”

“Or his mate,” Austin tacked on.

“Plus,” Eli inserted, “the theory is that my door is always open to any wolf who wishes to speak with me.”

I frowned at that. “Doesn’t sound like you get much of a break.”

Austin snorted. “He doesn’t. But mostly, everyone is too scared of him to approach him.”

“That’s the difference between having a pack with an alpha who is mated to the omega, and an alpha who is only related to her,” Eli concurred with a sigh, reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck, like the tension was too much to bear.

I blinked. “What’s the difference?”

“They work as a unit, a team. You can’t do that so well when you’re not boning each other.”

My lips twitched at Austin’s response. “Really?”

“Really.” His tone was cheerful, and I had to laugh at his irreverence.

Ethan rolled his eyes, but I knew he was pleased by my amusement.

He was an odd man. Cut off from even Austin, even though he was close as could be to his twin. It was like he kept a barrier up between them, which, to be honest, saddened me.

No one should be alone, and as far as I could see, those two had been alone for a good long while.

I fiddled with my earring, trying to assimilate everything I knew, but to be honest, it was topsy-turvy.

In the hallway to the grand house, a house that I could never have anticipated living in, I asked, “Do you guys have a minute?”

“For you? We have hours,” Eli told me, and he wasn’t joking.

I wasn’t sure he ever joked.

He was worse than Ethan for being somber, but I figured that had to do with his mom too.

I reached for his hand, threaded my fingers through it, and whispered, “Thank you.”

His earnestness deserved an earnest reply.

“Can we go somewhere more comfortable? Somewhere that’s not your office?”

Austin’s lips twitched. “You mean, you want to see more of the big house? How adventurous of you, Sabina. I don’t think we’ve seen more than a couple of rooms ourselves.”