Chapter 2
Look At What We Did to Her
My heart is thundering as I speed to the hospital, my alpha roaring at me to go faster, move quicker. Tires squeal as I pull into the parking space, throwing the door open before I’ve even turned off the car.
I don’t bother locking it. If someone wants to steal it, I don’t give a fuck. The only thing that matters at this moment is Haven. Finding her, making sure she’s okay. At least now we know where she is, but I won’t be able to rest until I can see her with my own fucking eyes.
I take off at a run, drawing up to let the automatic doors open for me, and then sprinting down the hall, following the signs for the omega ward. People look at me like I’m fucking nuts, but I don’t care. No one approaches me or tells me to slow down. They know better than to get in the way of an alpha looking for his mate. I’m too fucking anxious to wait for the elevator, so I take the stairs up three flights and then burst into the hall.
Creed’s already in the waiting room, slumped in his chair like he’s been here for a while. But that can’t be right. He would have called us, let us know where she was. He wouldn’t have kept this to himself. But then he looks up at me, and I swear I see disappointment in his gaze, resignation. Like he was hoping I wouldn’t show up here, his prime alpha.
I slow to a quick walk, and then stop all together in front of him, taking in the empty coffee cup next to him and the empty chip bag. Evidence that he has been here longer than a few minutes. Which means he was already here when Jude texted that he’d found a record of Haven Bell being admitted here.
I stare down at him, and I know he can see the accusation in my gaze. He stares impassively back at me, unbothered.
Thundering footsteps behind me let me know the rest of my pack has arrived. “You didn’t think to let us know you found her?” I grit out harshly.
He blinks and then turns his attention to the set of double doors that keep omegas separate from the rest of the hospital. Keeps them safe.
Jude and Tic slide to a stop next to us, and if they notice the absolute rage seething off me, my fisted hands, they don’t waste time thinking about it.
“Have you heard anything?” Tic asks Creed, sliding into the chair next to him, chest heaving like mine is. Creed, for his part, looks entirely unperturbed. Devoid of emotion. And I know that means that whatever he’s found out is really fucking bad. He’s shutting down on us, even more than he was before we met Haven.
“I saw Florence. She came out to grab a cup of coffee.”
I almost don’t want to ask. But we need to know what happened to our omega. Need to know the extent of the damage, so we can figure out how to fix her, make her better. “What did she say?”
“At first she said I shouldn’t be here. Haven doesn’t want me here. But I shut that shit down real fast.” I wonder what he’d done to Ren to ‘shut that shit down.’ But he keeps on talking. “Eventually, she told me what happened. How she found her. My girl. My omega.”
“Fucking tell us, man,” Jude demands, agitated, panicking.
Creed lifts his eyes to look at each of us and I stumble back from the pure fucking hatred in his expression. For us. His pack. But also for himself. The bonds connecting us groan under the weight of this new emotion and my hand presses into my chest like I’ve seen people who have heart attacks do. “She went into heat.”
No.
No.
Oh, fuck no.
Jude staggers and falls into the chair across from Creed. “Did she… were there alphas?”
He can’t bring himself to say it. Not fully. Did someone take advantage of our girl when she was vulnerable? When she would be incapable of saying no, the demands of her body, of her designation forcing her to beg and plead for someone, anyone, to fuck her?
The idea of that makes me both violently angry, wanting to rip apart anyone who would dare to touch her without explicit non heat consent, and violently nauseous. It only grows when Creed stares blankly at us, dragging it out. Not giving us the answer we both dread and need to hear.
It happened. Alphas found her.
I spin and heave into a nearby garbage can. Bile and liquor climbing up my throat to splatter the plastic liner. I keep heaving until there’s nothing left, before straightening and swiping the back of my hand over my mouth. “Tell us,” I demand.
“You sure you want to fucking know?” Creed eyes me and then the garbage can. “Think you can handle it?”
I give a jerky nod, even though I’m not sure I can handle it. This feels like Janie all over again. And I barely survived the first time around. There’s no way I’ll survive this.
“She’s currently in a medically induced coma, drugged to get her through the rest of her heat with as little pain as possible.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Tic says hoarsely.
“I know.”
I growl and take a step toward him, done with his bullshit. He may have known from the start who Haven would be to us, but that doesn’t mean he loves her more than the rest of us. We deserve to know what the fuck happened to her. Deserve to know just how much we have to make up to her, what we’ll need to beg her forgiveness for.
He lifts his eyes to meet mine again, and I stop dead. Dread filling my stomach. Just fucking knowing whatever he says next is going to destroy me. Destroy us.
“Florence found her in a freezer,” Creed says, voice devoid of any emotion. I don’t know how that’s the case, how he can be so detached as he tells us this. “It didn’t have any electricity, thank fuck. But she was all alone, locked in a fucking walk-in freezer and going through her first fucking heat. A heat we forced her into.”
Nausea rolls through my stomach. Fuck. She must have been in so much pain. My omega. I did that to her. Creed swipes open his phone and then shoves it at me. I look down at the picture. It’s Haven. Her skin flushed with fever, hair sweaty and lank, eyes glassy with lust and need, but her mouth is twisted into a grimace of pain. And there are scratch marks all over her body, mostly on her stomach, like she tried to claw out her womb, the part of her that was causing her so much pain.
“Look at her,” Creed says in that same monotone voice. “Look at what we fucking did to her.”
Tic snatches the phone out of my hand, a low growl coming from him that turns into a whine when he sees the photo. Creed’s right. We did this to her. We touched her, coaxed her into her sexuality. We started feeding her tiny amounts of medication to counteract the suppressants she was taking, to make her more eager, more pliable in our games. Nevermind that it stopped being a game a long time ago, that being with Haven changed from revenge to… a necessity. She’s here, in this hospital, because of us.
Our fault.
Every scratch on her perfect skin.
Every ounce of pain she’s felt.
Every tear on her cheek.
All of it is our fault.
Jude collapses into the chair next to Creed. “I didn’t mean for her to find the pictures, the videos. They-I kept them because they’re so goddamn hot. My personal spank bank filled with my omega. It wasn’t… It wasn’t to keep score anymore.”
Creed scoffs. “I’m fucking done.”
A chill shivers down my spine. I don’t think he means he’s done with the game. He was technically never a part of it. He never reported any of the things he did with Haven, never recorded it. The only points he has on that spreadsheet are because we added them for him.
“What do you mean?” Tic voices the question I can’t.
Creed raises his eyes to meet mine. “I’m done with all of it. With revenge. With this fucked up pack.”
I know what he’s going to do before he does it. “Creed, no.”
But it’s already happening. Shredding his connection between himself and the rest of us, pulling the already frayed bond, snapping the strands one by one. I cry out, hand going to my chest as Tic and Jude do the same.
“Creed, man, please don’t,” Atticus gasps, tears in his eyes. “We need you.”
Creed stares at him, then me, face impassive. “Haven and I want nothing to do with you. You will not see or speak to my omega. You will never look at her again. You will not contact her for any reason.”
Creed’s dominance rolls over me, taking root. Fuck. I knew he was strong, that the main reason he isn’t our prime is because he just isn’t interested, but I didn’t know he was this fucking strong.
Tears spill down my cheeks. Not just from the pain in my chest from the shattering bond, but because I know without a doubt that this command he’s giving is going to stick. That the three of us will not break its hold. “Creed please, don’t. We need her, same as you.”
Jude drops to his knees in front of our pack mate, not above begging. “She’s ours too. We fucking love her.”
Creed stares down at him, lip curled in a snarl. “You love her so much you couldn’t delete a score card from your computer.” He looks at Tic. “You love her so much you drugged her.” His eyes fall on me. “You love her so fucking much you wouldn’t even consider giving up your revenge for her.”
I swallow and look away from him. He’s not wrong. We did all of those things and worse. So much fucking worse.
“We stopped,” Tic says, tears streaming from his face. “We fucking stopped. You know we did.”
“Doesn’t matter. I told you from the very fucking beginning we shouldn’t do this to her. Not one of you listened, and this is the consequence. No more pack. No more omega. No more Haven. Get your asses out of this hospital and don’t you fucking dare come back. ”
I grit my teeth against it, against the urge to rise to my feet and stride out of the hospital. Battle against it, but it does no good. Creed’s too dominant and too fucking angry right now. In a few days, I might be able to break through and I won’t be bound to this command, but for right now? I can’t do anything to stop my body from rising, from moving backward, away from Creed. Away from Haven.
Tic and Jude are right there with me, agonized expressions on their faces, tears on their cheeks, pleas on their lips. Creed ignores them, ignores me, gaze focusing on the locked double doors that have our omega behind them. She’s safe for now, in this hospital, with Ren at her side. She’s safe, but how long will that last?
As soon as we set foot outside, the three of us stop moving. We huddle together under the awning, shocked at what just happened. Tic rubs his chest and shakes his head. “I knew he was unhappy with us, with our pack, has been for a while now, but I never thought he’d…” he trails off and my hand lifts to mimic the movement of his.
I know exactly what he means. Never in a million years would I have thought that Creed would leave us, would break our pack bonds. We’re family and family doesn’t do that shit. We stick together.
But we fucked up one too many times, and now we’ve lost our pack mate and our omega.
Jude looks as haggard as I feel. I can’t verify that though, because I can’t feel him anymore. For the first time in twelve years, I’m not bonded to anyone. I can’t feel anyone else. My emotions are strictly my own. It’s disconcerting as hell and lonely. So lonely.
He slides his hands into his hair and grips it, tugging on the blonde strands hard. “This is my fucking fault. Everything. I should have just deleted it. Should have just fucking gotten rid of everything.”
He should have. We told him to do it, and if he’d listened, Haven never would have found the scoresheet, never would have seen the videos and she would be tucked up in the nest of our pack house right now, safe and sound. We’d be with her, readying her for heat or helping her through it. Maybe we would have bonded her, maybe not. But either way, it is Jude’s fault that Haven ran from us.
Tic must feel the same, because he hauls back and punches Jude right on the cheekbone. Jude doesn’t dodge or counterattack, just stands there, arms hanging at his side, when Tic draws back and hits him again. Blood spouts from Jude’s nostrils, spilling over his lips and chin.
When Tic looks like he’s going to hit him again, I step in, looping my fingers around his wrist to stall the punch. Both of them snarl at me, but for different reasons. Tic because his alpha is close to the surface, and he needs to tear something apart, and Jude because he wants to get beaten to a bloody pulp. He thinks he deserves it.
I growl right back at them. “This won’t help anything. It will not make Haven better or erase our major fuck up.”
“It’ll make me feel better,” Tic says, but I can see the fight leaving him. Jude’s already staring off across the parking lot, shoulders slumped, blood dripping down his face.
“We need a new plan,” I tell them.
That has Jude whipping his head in my direction. “You can’t be serious. Haven is in a coma because of us and you want to talk about planning? You want to go forward with revenge on Bell?”
I shake my head and tsk at him. “Come on, man, surely you know me better than that, right? I mean a plan for Haven. For getting her back.”
“And Creed,” Tic says rubbing that spot on his chest again.
Jude shakes his head, moisture lining his lower lashes. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s going to come back to us. And we won’t be able to force him.”
“We’re not gonna force him. In a few days, we’ll be able to break through the command he put on us. We’ll be able to see Haven. We just have to fucking wait it out, and in the meantime, make a plan for how we’re going to get her back, keep her with us.”
I clap a hand on Jude’s shoulder. He still looks dazed as hell, but he nods. I don’t know if he really understands what he’s agreeing to, but it doesn’t matter. Right now, the three of us are all that’s left of the Calloway pack, even if we don’t have the bonds to prove it. I’m still their prime alpha. I’ll make sure we get through this. Make sure we get Haven back. Make sure Creed comes back, too.
Frederick Bell will have to wait. The three of us have a new mission now.