SYDNEY

After deciding on a plan for Saturday, Jaycen and Sydney made their way back to his car and he drove her back home. He told her to check the windows in her room, and that he and his father had some of their packmates roaming the perimeter of her home, and to text him if she needed anything.

From the doorway, Sydney waved him goodbye and Rachel joined her waving over her shoulder, whispering about how handsome and well spoken Jay was. Flustered, she tried shoeing her sister away and as Rachael continued to try and say something as Sydney bound up the stairs to her room.

On the second floor she pulled out her phone finally getting a chance to check it thoroughly after having missed it for a few days and it needing to charge. Sydney mentally noted that she needed to think up a new password since Jay had memorized it.

Entering her room, Sydney wasn't surprised to see a few texts from Mat, but his most recent text 'I'm coming to see you,' combined with the male form sitting in her window nook, a window that overlooked the driveway, completely threw her.

"Mat! What are you doing here?" Sydney asked, startled holding her hand close to her chest.

Turning his attention away from the window and his warm brown eyes fell on Sydney. "Yeah, it seems you were busy. I volunteered to help watch over you and your family. Figured you and them could use a friendly face." He looked unconvienced in his own words as he turned back towards the window.

Shame rose in her, knowing that he had seen Sydney and Jay pull up together at almost ten o'clock at night. She concluded it was because of their argument earlier combined with avoiding him yet spending free time with someone she'd barely talked to before yesterday.

"I appreciate it Mat, it's been a crazy past few days."

He nodded wordlessly, and Sydney wasn't sure quite what to do in her own room. Normally her and him would be joking and laughing, talking about journalism, critiquing Rachael' newest baked creation, or making plans to hang out with Meg and Emmery.

"Hey, listen," she summoned, "I know things have been off between us ever since the night you and Jay save me, but I don't want things to change between us. You've been my best friend forever, and despite not really having a say in coming into this world, I want you to know you can talk to me, and that I want you by my side through all of this."

It was then that Mat finally gave her a small smile, his eyes not as dull and upset as they had been recently, but something else brewed in them.

Hope and despair.

"I think it's time I tell you why I wanted you to stay away from him."

Despite her nervousness at whatever it was Mat was about to reveal, Sydney relished that her best friend was finally going to confide in her. Crossing her room, she went and crawled onto her bed. She pulled her legs close and tucked her feet underneath the blanket.

"Of course," She said, settled.

His eyes ghosted over her form before resting on her face, "I am sure either he's told you or you've heard from him before, but I'm one of the packs omega." Sydney nodded but he seemed to know she had questions as to what that meant, "It means in the grand scheme of the werewolf hierarchy, I'm at the bottom of the bottom. I'm not sure what all he told you but werewolves came to be as punishment by God."

Sydney spoke up in a soft voice, "He mentioned that it was Nature deciding a way to correct humans by pairing them with a wolf, he said Nature selected a group of families to punish specifically."

Mat huffed humorlessly simultatiously rolling his eyes, "Yeah, Nature, God, a powerful witch, I don't give a fucking damn, but something decided our families were the worst of the worst, and wanted them to be made into monsters...even so, some of us have it rougher than the others."

Sydney still wasn't sure how to take that. She wasn't a believer in a higher power, despite her deceased father's attempts. If she was to believe popular culture though, if humans or a group of beings were committing atrocities then they needed to be corrected, and what better way than a curse to make themselves better? Inside a war waged through knowing her friends were affected by actions that weren't, but maybe there was a good reason it was done.

"Nature slowly became more forgiving, allowing for some of the werewolves to be granted with children. It decided that people would only be able to ever have children with their mate. It was a form of population control and a determined destiny for every werewolf. But It wasn't completely merciful because it deemed omegas were not allowed a mate, and therefore children."

Sydney was flustered. "No that doesn't make any sense. I've met your parents before! I thought like Jaycen that his title was passed down by his dad."

While they never hung out at Mat's house, they were often over here at her place, or out a a public venu, any time she had dropped in off, or on the rare occasion of a school function throughout their middle school years into their earlier high school days, she had seen his father or mother.

"The people I'm living with are not my parents. They were chosen to be my guardians till I turn eighteen."

"How long have you been with them? And where and who are your parents?"

A silence fell between them and Sydney was worried Mat wouldn't continue on with this mind boggling story.

"I was kind of hoping you would be able to connect the dots. Like you said, usually a parents' status falls to their first born. The omega is different though. In order to keep the alpha bloodline from getting too power thirsty as Nature selected the leaders of a pack, the second born is and will always be an omega of the pack."

His usually warm heath and honey colored eyes were becoming tinged with watery emotion that Sydney had rarely seen from Mat in all of her years of knowing him.

"You mean to say..." Sydney drifted off.

"That Jaycen is my brother, yes."

Sydney was at a loss. In her entire time of knowing that she knew that him and his parents never got along terribly well, but never did occur to her that the two people he lived with didn't really have very many commonalities with Mat other than their shared dark brown hair.

Hair similar to Jay's dark brown, almost black locks.

"I don't understand! You mean to tell me that you don't live with your family and that you not only have a brother, but a sister as well, that you publicly despise!"

Mat rose from his place seated in the window in a flash and came towards Sydney with a somewhat chaotic look in his eyes.

"Sydney I am the second child of the alpha werewolf's of a pack you had no clue existed till yesterday and you mean to tell me that somehow could be slipped into conversation that I was living with people that aren't my family because of some bullshit pack politics! Do you realize all of 10 months separate Jay and I, and had I been born first, Jay and I'd be in completely opposite situations! And he gets to run around acting like a fool like it isn't an honor to take over the pack, living well off, taking his family for granted, and acting like having the gift a mate is part of the damning of the curse!"

A response was escaping her at the moment with too much flooding her mind. Her whole life is turning upside down within the past 24 hours and while werewolves were on the spectrum of unbelievable, the idea that Mat had been struggling with so many secrets, unable to share his pain and anger with anyone was even more unfathomable.

Mat's face was inches away from hers, his palms had been thrust into the bedding in front of her as he leaned over her bed towards her. Pushing away from her bed, he paced back towards the window. Instead of sitting back down he just leaned against the wall and continued to look out the window towards the warmly lit driveway and inky forms of the trees in the night.

"Do they know?" Sydney asked, "Jaycen and Jaci?"

Mat snorted "Jaycen knows, as for Jacinda, I don't believe she was ever made aware. No reason to tell her that she has another older brother."

"But shouldn't she know then? If she thinks she was the second child of an alpha pairing that she should be an omega?"

"Not necessarily, it's rumored that it'll only be the second born baby of which ever sex the born first was. For instance if a female had been the first born from the alpha pairing, then I would still be with them, and then Jacinda would be the omega being the second born female."

"So Jay just doesn't want anything to do with you because you're an omega and his brother?" She cringed at herself realizing she could have artfully crafted words to make the question more sympathetic.

Mat let out a sigh for the uptenth time that evening, "Well there's additionally the fact that because I'm the omega, I have basically been discarded from the pack and will never have a mate either, so I don't necessarily need to consider my future."

The words triggered a fear and ache in her core. She sprung from her position in the center of her bed and practically lunged across the room, quickly grabbing his arm, "Mat! Wait what do you even mean by that?" Syndey's thoughts immediately went to a darker place one of self harm and suicide. Her left hand curled around his bicep as if physically trying to anchor him here, with her, away from any harm.

Mat, realized what she was implying, knowing all too well of Sydney's concern and fear for Aaron after their father's death. His larger hand gently covered hers, "No no, that's not at all what I meant Syd. Don't ever think I would do that to you." He looked away from her, but she caught a glimpse of red blooming his cheeks. "I meant that all werewolves know that they have a mate and whether they can decide if they want to wait on them or not is a werewolf's choice, but despite what they choose they know that Nature has deemed them and the other a perfect match and has a future laid out for them both. As for me I have nothing to lose and I can give my heart freely which I guess is something Jay is envious of but also fearful of."

Sydney was shocked by this revelation of how undermined he was in the pack and a feeling twisted in the pit of her stomach, the idea of knowing Mat couldn't have children of his own. She couldn't help but wish that this was a cruel joke being played on her.

"Mathew...I..." Not knowing what else to do, and believing actions speak louder than words, she twined her slender arms around his waist, resting into his larger form. He let her rest her ear against his collarbone before wrapping his arms around her shoulders, the other hand tangling itself in her messy ponytail of blonde hair. Beneath her ear, she could feel the pulsing of his heart in the cartilage of her ear, and it was when his spicy warm body wash or deodorant hit her nose, that she registered how much more intimate this hug was now knowing so much more to the man she called her best friend.

Despite wanting to close her eyes to better reign in her swirl of emotions, it didn't feel right to be that vulnerable with him, whether it was the guilt of not being able to let him be vulnerable till now, or the whisper of Jay's name in the back of her mind, she couldn't tell. Here with her best friend and she couldn't help but shame coating her. Slowly, Sydney pulled back letting her off hand slide from his back around his ribs, then pulled them back to cross against her chest in an attempt to steady herself.

"Like you said, there is a silver lining in all of this," Sydney smiled slightly, not quite really feeling the happiness in the lining she was about to suggest. "You don't have to be tied down to a community that has treated you so poorly. After you turn eighteen then you can leave and travel and explore the world until you meet a wonderful girl to be happy with and it doesn't have to be dictated by all of Nature's limitations."

"I don't know if that'll happen."

"What do you mean?"

Not answering, his brown eyes met hers and he took one small step forward. His hand cupped her neck. Then his warm but firm lips were pressed softly against hers.

Heat filled her cheeks and the feeling of Mat invaded all of her senses. His warm hand cupped her inflamed cheek, his nose brushed gingerly against hers, the warm spice swirled around her again, his body was as close as it could be with her arms crossed between them.

Unresponsive, Mat took that as an indicator and stepped back looking sheepish. Seeming at a loss with what to do with the hand he had been cupping her face with, he ruffled the back of his head, uncomfortable. Sydney's own fingers flew to her mouth and covered her shock expression.

He cleared his throat, "I don't know if you've ever looked at me this way, but I've always had feelings for you and Sydney since the first moment I laid eyes on you. Your radiant passion for anything and everything you come into contact with and just how much you wear your heart on your sleeve combined with how deeply you care for for people, it's hard for me to deny such light in my life especially when there's been so little of it. I never thought there would come a time where you'd find out about my secret, and while I'm almost glad that you know, it hurts me equally as badly knowing that I thought you and I could've had a future together and I never said anything to you because I thought I had all the time in the world but last night when I saw you there bleeding in the forest I don't know what to do with myself. I just want you to know you have options and you shouldn't be forced into anything you don't want."

With that, he squeezed her elbow before exiting her room leaving, Sydney her whirlwind of thoughts, while her lips still tingled.