Chapter 91

Ollie’s POV

With my disguise in place, I ask Ella to drop me off in the long term parking lot, where I take a shuttle to the airport to meet with the brothers. I can’t risk someone seeing her drop me off.

I’m nervous as I approach, knowing security won’t like me wearing my mask, or the fact that I don’t have any real ID, but the brothers must have already thought of this.

Wes is waiting for me in the airport lobby. When he spots me, he takes me under his arm and leads me past security. As an Alpha King, he has special privileges, and this seems to be one of them.

While we walk, he takes my suitcase from me and sneaks a kiss onto my cheek. “I’m so glad you are here.”

It’s a total 180 from how he acted towards me in the living room only an hour ago, but I won’t argue with it. While it hurts to have been treated so indifferently as Ollie, being treated kindly now as Wes’s fated mate still feels me with warmth.

Maybe Ella’s right. Maybe we will have a good time after all.

The other brothers are waiting for us out on the tarmac, standing just out front of their private jet. Declan and Conrad are wearing their usual clothes, as is Wes, but Hugh is already dressed for the beach.

“Ready, lovely?” he asks as I walk toward them. He plucks me away from Wes’s arm and kisses me quickly on the mouth, while leaving Wes with only the suitcase.

“I’m ready,” I say, smiling, though some nervousness fills me again as he leads me to the plane. I look up at it with growing weariness. “I’ve never been on a plane before.”

“It will be okay,” Declan says firmly, and since he talks so little, when he does choose to speak, it’s usually to say something important. He wouldn’t give me false niceties. He isn’t just trying to make me feel better. He is saying it will be okay because he means it will be okay.

“Okay,” I say, reassured by him. Conrad goes up the steps to the airplane first, then looks back and holds out his hand for me. I place my hand in his and let him lead me up into the inside.

I’ve never been in an airplane myself before, but I’ve seen them in movies and television before. The inside of this one seems nothing like that. There are no lines of seats all facing forward. Instead, there’s a few seats here and there, but there’s also a bar, and a desk, and several different televisions.

“This isn’t like the movies,” I say, in awe.

“This is our own private jet,” Hugh says, boarding the plane behind me. “We prefer to travel in luxury.”

Wes joins us next. “Come on,” he tells me, after setting my luggage aside. “Let’s get you a window seat.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that…” I tell him.

“You’ll want to see the view,” Wes says. “It’s as close as you can get to flying yourself.”

I am curious what the world looks like from all the way up there where the plans fly, but I’m also nervous about that view. Will I be able to enjoy it? Or will I feel like I’m about to crash back down to earth?

For now, I agree to sit there, but with the cover slid down over the window.

Wes and Hugh argue about who should sit in the seat beside me. While they are arguing, Declan slides right down onto that seat. Wes and Hugh look at Declan, and then at each other, but none of them speak up.

Conrad heads to the bar. “Who wants a drink?”

“Please,” Hugh says, joining him.

Thirty minutes later, the plane is up in the air. There’s a fruit drink with a lot of umbrellas on the tray table in front of me, but I’m gripping the armrest so hard that I haven’t unlatched to touch it yet.

Declan is a steadying presence beside me, but even his calm strength doesn’t take my nerves all the way down.

Why does turbulence make the plane shake so much? What was that noise? Is that normal?

None of the quadruplets seem particularly alarmed, all of them but Declan around the bar now. Everyone seems to be in a jovial mood, perhaps because we are going on a vacation.

I haven’t been able to relax in a long time. I’m not even sure I know that that looks like anymore.

“Want to try the view?” Declan asks me lightly, while the others are distracted.

“I don’t know…” I’m scared.

“I’ll open the blind,” he says. “If you are still frightened, I will close it again.”

“Okay.”

He leans over me, using the arm farthest from me to reach for the blind. This turns most of his upper body toward me, shielding me somewhat from the rest of the plane. With this closeness, I feel safe and protected, like Declan would find a way to keep me safe from even a fall of this distance.

That’s impossible certainly, yet that’s what he does to me. He’s always so in control, I feel like there’s nothing he can’t take charge of.

He lifts the blind but keeps his arm there, ready to close it at a moment’s notice, just like he promised.

Emboldened by his closeness, I glance out the window. We are so high up that the world almost doesn’t look real. Everything is hazy and distant, and so, so small. And the clouds look like cotton candy up here, shaped like mountains.

Seeing the world like this is like experiencing it for the first time. I feel as if I stepped into a different universe.

Declan keeps his eyes on my face, studying me, perhaps for any sense of discomfort. When he sees none, some of the tension eases from his body, though he continues to stay in the same position.

“If you decide not to leave us,” he says, “you could have this all the time.”

Does he think I am only leaving because I don’t think they could provide me a luxurious lifestyle? That’s ridiculous. They are Alpha Kings of a prosperous pack.

But the luxuries don’t matter to me. I don’t care about things.

What I want is to be loved and respected. They can treat me with kindness now, while I’m disguised, but the minute they learn the truth, I know everything will change.

No, I am leaving them someday soon to protect myself and nothing else. Else they discover the real me and make me some kind of prisoner for life.

As Ollie, a lowly Omega, they will never respect me as their mate. The only chance for me is to escape and start over. To hide away and never let them find me.

I wish things could be different but they aren’t. This is just the way they are.

Declan must see that in my face. Even if he doesn’t understand my reasoning, he must know now that the luxuries are not enough to keep me.

Slowly, he withdraws his arm from the window and turns to sit forward in his seat once more.

He doesn’t move away, thank goodness, but I still feel a growing distance between us.

I hope I haven’t ruined everything…

He’s quite for another hour, before he turns to look out the window. “There,” he says.

I follow his gaze. We’ve been over the ocean for some time, but I see it now, off in the distance, a glimmer among the waves.

There’s an island. A tropical paradise.

“That’s where we’re going,” he says.