Knot All That Glitters, Part 2 (FatedVerse #5)

Chapter 4

A Great Deal of Embarrassment

I wake up the next morning to blond hair strewn over my face, blocking my nostrils, strands in my mouth.

I splutter to dislodge them, and next to me Ren groans, stretching and then snuggling into me again. I scrape her hair out of my face and nudge her probably harder than I should, but my arm is going numb from her laying on it.

“Florence, babe, you gotta get up.”

She groans. “I don’t wanna.”

“Well, if you don’t, they’ll have to amputate my arm.”

She jerks up into a sitting position, kaleidoscope eyes wide with concern. “What? Why? What happened?”

My fingers wiggle as blood flows back into them, making them tingle unpleasantly. “You were cutting off circulation.”

She harrumphs and flops the other way on the bed, so her head is by my feet as I push into a sitting position. “What time is it?” She asks, one of her arms draped over her eyes dramatically.

“I have no idea.” I nudge her with my foot and she lifts her arm enough to peek at me. “You should go home.”

That has her sitting up again. “What?”

I laugh at her indignation. “Go home, shower, grab me some clothes and then come back. I really don’t want to leave the hospital in a gown with my ass hanging out.”

“Oh, right.” She rubs a hand over her face, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “Yeah, that makes sense.” Her hand flops to the mattress. “You sure you want me to go?”

I nod. “Yeah, the sooner the better.”

“Sick of me already?”

“Sick of the hospital. I want to leave as soon as they give the okay.” Feeling unsettled, I glance around the room. “I can’t help thinking that the longer I’m here, the more likely it is that my dad will find me or the Calloway pack is going to kidnap me or something.”

Ren’s already too big eyes widen further and her lips form an ‘o’ of surprise. Then she wipes that look away and drops her gaze from mine. “Do you really think they’d do that?”

“I think they didn’t finish whatever they were planning. It seems unlikely that they’d just let me go until they get what they want.”

“What do you think they want?”

I sink my teeth into my bottom lip to keep it from wobbling. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “You don’t think they would hurt you, right? Physically, I mean.”

“No.” My answer is immediate. “If that had been the goal, they had plenty of opportunity in the last month to torture or kill me.” They hadn’t. Instead, they introduced me to my body and pleasure and gave me more orgasms than I could stand. They made me think we were going somewhere that we could be something. That they were my forever.

And every second was a lie.

Which I guess is a sort or torture in its own right. Knowing they never loved me, never really wanted me. It fucking hurts. But I’ve survived worse than the Calloway pack, and I’ll survive this, too. I just have to figure out how.

Ren reaches out and threads her fingers through mine, squeezing. “Are you ready to talk about it yet?”

My lips tighten, and I drop my gave to where she’s holding my hand, feeling… ashamed. Yes, I feel ashamed that I fell for them, for their lies, for their fake touches and soft looks. I’m fucking ashamed that I followed my instincts as an omega and they led me, not to the happy every after I’d been hoping for, but this: hospitalized after my first heat. Heartbroken. And ashamed. How could I let them do this to me?

“Haven?”

“I found a scorecard,” I say, my voice surprisingly level, given the emotions bubbling up inside me. But I don’t look at her. “On Jude’s computer. Each of them had a sheet. They were tallying up points for each sexual act they got me to do. Got extra points if it was in public and if they made me come.”

“What?”

I shake my head. “There were videos or pictures of each sex act. Apparently, they have cameras in every room in their house. And in public, they’d record each other.”

Ren’s fingers tighten. “I noticed that,” she says, sounding fucking disgusted. “I noticed when we went to The Market and you were with Jude on the dance floor. Hale was recording you. I should have known something was wrong.”

She sounds apologetic, and I glance at her. “Not your fault. That was one example of many, many times they did things like that, and I didn’t realize…” tears flood my eyes and I have to take a deep breath to keep from bawling like a baby. “It wasn’t just sex,” I say quietly. “They had a column for ‘I love yous’ and for me biting them. It was… their goal was to use the physical stuff to soften me up to get me to fall in love with them.”

That’s what fucking hurts so bad. I could deal if it was just sex. It would hurt. It would hurt a lot. But I’d get it. We all have instincts, we all have urges that our bodies want us to satisfy, and as alphas and omegas, sometimes we just have to do it.

But they weren’t stopping with that. They wanted me to fall in love with them. They wanted me to be emotionally invested, to care about them. Probably to ensure the most heartbreak when I found out what they did.

“I’m going to fucking kill them,” Ren mutters under her breath, her body trembling with the force of her rage. “I will. I’ll make it hurt too. Real bad. My mom and Ginny will help me bury the bodies.”

A choked laugh escapes me. “I’m… I don’t think I want them dead. I just want to never see them again.” Lies. Lies. Lies. Even knowing what they did, a part of me is desperate to see them, desperate to have them hold me and explain this away. To tell me this is all a big misunderstanding and that they do want me.

I tell that part of me to sit down and shut the fuck up.

I will not let the Calloway pack treat me like a doormat. I’m worth more than that.

“You won’t have to,” she reassures me. Then she glances over her shoulder like she’s checking to make sure we’re alone. We very much are. “Creed’s the only one still here. I don’t know where the others are, but when we get you out of here, we can pretty easily bypass him. There has to be more than one entrance to the omega ward, right?”

I nod. “Right. We can ask.”

I’m trying really hard not to let my disappointment show. Even after I’ve been hospitalized, Jude, Tic and Hale can’t be bothered to stick around? To make sure I’m okay? Why the hell is Creed still here? He can’t possibly think they’ll be able to continue, not after this. Right?

Ren sighs and pulls me into a hug. “I’m gonna go get you some clothes and get the guest room ready for you. I’ll also check with the nurses and see if we can sneak you out. And then once you’re home and have recovered, we’ll figure out where to go from here. Okay?”

“Okay.” I agree, gratitude swelling in my chest. “Florence?” She pauses in the act of pulling on her jacket, pinning me with a look. I never call her Florence. Ever. She hates it and I respect that, respect her.

“Than-”

“No,” she cuts me off, voice harsh. “No. Do not thank me for this, Haves. Do not thank me for taking care of you. You’re my best fucking friend and if our situations were reversed, you’d move heaven and earth for me. So don’t thank me for this, please.”

I smile at her. “You like me.”

She rolls her eyes and finishes shrugging into her coat. “You’re just about the only person I like besides my family. But you already knew that.” I did know that.

Florence is a sunshine girl. She’s fun and bubbly and everyone likes her, gravitates toward her, wants to soak up some of that light. She can start a conversation with anyone, and leave them feeling like they’re her best friend, but rarely does Ren feel the same. The result is that she has a lot of acquaintances, but not a lot of friends. Just me.

It’s part of why we bonded at the academy. We both need a lot to feel like we can truly trust someone, like we can be friends for life.

She comes to the side of the bed and presses a kiss on my forehead. “Love you, Haven babe.”

“Love you too.”

As the door clicks shut behind her, I settle against the pillows, feeling wrung out all over again. I don’t want to think about the Calloway pack and what they’ve done to me, don’t want to figure out why. Chances are they don’t have a good reason. Some alphas are just bad. They treat omegas and betas like toys, like possessions and objects to be used and discarded.

They probably thought up the game before they picked the omega they would play with. And then when they found me, realized I would be so fucking willing to let them do this to me. Starved for alpha attention. Na?ve to a fault. Mouselike, quiet, small, easily manipulated. But also my omega instincts were buried under a mountain of suppressants and my father gleefully told anyone who would listen that I was more beta than omega.

They took one look at me and decided I would be the perfect toy, a challenge in some respects, but still easily led astray in others. Yeah, where would the fun be in doing this with a normal omega who embraced all her instincts, who had no shame in her sexual desires or her need for an alpha? Most omegas would happily climb on an alpha knot and ride, but not me. Or at least they had to think I wouldn’t, that I would make it more of a competition.

I wonder if they were disappointed or happy when I gave into them so easily.

I mean, I let them finger me in public within a few days of being with them.

I push the thought aside and make myself stop thinking about them. Make myself instead focus on what I’m going to do moving forward. I can’t stay here in this city. I’ll need to move, find somewhere safe for me, away from my father, away from the Calloway pack.

Away from Florence.

That makes my heart pang. But it’ll be safer for her if I disappear, too.

Which means I won’t have time to rest up at the Karlin house. I’ll need to move as soon as I can. If I had my phone, I’d start now, reaching out to the omega crisis centers in town. But I left my phone and all of my worldly possessions with the Calloway pack.

That’s okay.

I can start over, build a new life for myself from scratch.

My exhausted body keeps me from making any solid plans, dragging me down to a light doze. Or maybe not so light since I dream about the Calloway pack, about them holding me, loving me. About them wanting to keep me forever.

I jerk awake with tears on my cheeks when the door opens and I have a moment of blurry, anxious hope that they’re here. That the men I thought would be my pack have come to check on me, to see me. That hope withers and dies the moment his suit covered body slides through the door.

The unpleasant metallic tang of his scent makes my nose wrinkle. I’m even more sensitive to it now. Now that I’ve been away from him for so long. Now that I’ve been free of him for more than a month.

Nausea rolls my stomach, makes my mouth water unpleasantly, and the water I sipped before dozing threatens to come up. My scent burns bitter in the air, and I’m unable to stop the whine from spilling from my chest. Panic. That’s what I’m feeling. Panic. Because he shouldn’t be here. I told them not to let him in.

But then when have the rules ever applied to Frederick Bell?

My hand twitches toward the call button, but his voice swipes out, his dominance pressing down on me. “ Do not move. ”

I feel it, feel the weight of his command, and then it slides off. I let out a breath when Hale’s command stays firmly in place, allowing me freedom from my father’s bark. Still, I don’t move. No need to let him know he can’t control me anymore. Not when I’m here alone with him. Not when there are plenty of other things he can do to hurt me.

It’s better he thinks I’m still an easily controlled little mouse until I can get away from him.

The door closes with an ominous click, and I can’t stop the shudder that runs through me as he approaches the bed slowly. “You have caused me a great deal of embarrassment and trouble recently, Haven.”

I don’t bother to say anything. I know he doesn’t expect or want a response. If I was braver, I’d scoff, shake my head, tell him to go fuck himself. But I am not brave. Not right now. Right now I’m broken, I’m exhausted, I’m too messed up in my head and my heart to be brave. So I just stay still and silent as he sits on the edge of my hospital bed and runs a hand down his face.

“Thankfully, I’ve been able to keep the story from breaking. How would it look if it got out that my daughter went into heat in public?” He tsks, shaking his head and pinning me with a disappointed, angry look. “I thought you had better control of your instincts.” My eyes widen in alarm when he reaches into his inner coat pocket and extracts a syringe full of something that I know, down to my very bones, will not be good for me.

“Don’t-” I say, jerking away from him, fully intending to throw myself off the bed and onto the floor to escape him. But he’s fast, so fucking fast and in an instant he has me pinned to the bed, one big hand wrapped around my throat, cutting off my air, cutting off my voice.

“ Do not fight me ,” he grits out and I don’t, but only because the idea of him choking me until I pass out is too horrible to comprehend. I need to know what’s happening, what he’s doing, what his plans are. I won’t know any of that if I’m unconscious.

My hands curl into fists in the blankets, gripping them to keep from fighting back. “Good,” he grunts even though he shouldn’t realize I didn’t comply of my own accord. He should think his bark worked.

Just do it , I think. Just inject me and then back away to give me room . If he does that, I can make a run for the door. Shrug off his barks and make it to the nurses’ station or the waiting room where Creed might still be waiting. He’ll help me. I know he will.

The door opens and Ren slips in, wearing fresh clothes and looking better for the rest I forced her to get. But she pauses just on the other side of the door, wide eyes taking in the scene, my father holding me down with his hand around my throat, the needle hovering over my arm.

Her lips part and for a moment, I think she’s going to get out a scream, something to let people know that something is wrong. But my father is fast with his commands, he always has been.

“ Quiet, ” he barks at her, and Ren’s mouth snaps shut as her entire body shudders and her face pales. “ Do not say a word. Do not move unless I tell you.”

Ren goes unnaturally still. Her eyes focused on me with anger and fear and hatred. I feel that too. Hatred for my father. I thought I hated him before for what he’s done to me but having him bark at Ren is so much worse. I’d rather he command me a million times over than see my best friend like this.

I hold her gaze as the needle pierces my arm. She whines softly; the command keeping it from being too loud. I try to tell her with my eyes I’ll be okay, that I’ve handled everything he’s ever dished out to me, before I can handle this now too.

Only, I’m not so sure I can.

Not now that I know what life out from under his thumb is like. Still, it’s not like I’m going to risk Ren to defy him.

So I sit quietly while he injects me with god knows what. I don’t fight or cry or scream. I just lay there.

His hand slides from my mouth when the plunger is fully depressed and pats my cheek. “Good girl. Now you’re going to come home with me with no argument, aren’t you?” Ren whines again, making him snarl. “If you argue, I’ll take my displeasure out on Florence. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

I shake my head jerkily, fear making my muscles tense, making my chest constrict.

He straightens and glares down at me. “I should have used her to keep you in line before. You’re much more willing to do as I say if it’s your friend who will bear the consequences, aren’t you?”

Another jerky nod. Absolutely, I am. I can’t bear the thought of Florence being hurt because of me. I can’t bear the thought of her being his puppet, but that is exactly what will happen if I don’t do as he says.

My best friend mouths my name soundlessly, tears streaking her pale golden cheeks. I think she’d shake her head at me if she could, but he told her not to move.

“Good.” My father turns his attention to Ren. “ Go get a wheelchair. She won’t be able to stay awake soon, let alone walk.” She turns to do as he says, and he seems to realize he needs to give her more to keep her in line. “ Do not speak to anyone about anything else beyond getting a wheelchair. Do not show in any way that there is anything wrong. Do not warn anyone that I am taking her.”

I watch as Ren’s shoulders slump under the weight of his commands. Watch as she shrinks in on herself. When he’s satisfied, he lets her go, turning his attention back to me. I grit my teeth and make myself follow his commands, not wanting him to know that I don’t have to. Not when Ren is coming back any minute and he can take his anger out on her.

Thanks to Hale, I’m protected from his dominance. Ren is not.

My body feels heavy again. My head is woozy. That should concern me. When I’m fully dressed and standing, he barks, “ take these ,” and holds four white pills to my mouth. Pills I recognize as suppressants. But I’ve only ever taken the recommended two pill dosage.

I don’t think doubling up is a good idea, but again, I don’t have the luxury of denying him.

“Now, then,” my father says when I’ve swallowed dutifully. “Tell me how you were able to ignore my command.”

I blink up at him, feeling the weight of the drugs he gave me on all of my limbs, on my chest, on my mind. “What?”

“I ordered you not to move, and you did. You were going to throw yourself off the bed to get away from me. How were you able to do that? You’ve never managed it before.”

I don’t want to tell him the truth. I won’t tell him the truth. That will end badly for me, for Ren. I’m sure of it. He’d hate knowing he can’t control me any longer, hate knowing his commands slip over my skin like water off a duck’s back. But I have to tell him something, something he’ll believe because if I don’t he’ll just ask Ren when she gets back, and she won’t be able to lie to him, not if he barks at her for the truth.

I have to come up with a good reason. Think, Haven, think!

I lick my lips and try to infuse as much of the truth as I can into my voice. “The Calloway pack,” I start, and his lip curls back at the mere mention of them. “They ordered me to stop taking the suppressants. I-I thought maybe you’d found a new type. Their alpha barks made me react instinctually.”

That sounds plausible, right? He’ll believe that they would want me to stop taking suppressants around them, that they would order me to like he’s ordered me every day since I presented as an omega to take them.

He glares at me. “So then, why didn’t you fight when I gave you actual suppressants?” He scoffs. “Do you take me for a fool, Haven?”

Yes. A foolish, horrible, evil man.

“You barked at me to take them,” I remind him. “It superseded their order.”

That seems to satisfy him, and he nods after a moment. “Yes, of course.” He’s probably thinking that I’m more likely to submit to his barks than anyone else’s. Seeing as he’s had years to wear down my resistance. He’s thinking I’m a rock, and he’s a sculptor. Each one of his commands slowly chisels away at me until I’m in the shape he wants.

But really his commands are a knife, and I’m skin. Each one of his barks makes a shallow cut, and I heal over it, the new tissues tougher than what was there before. I’m all scars, and he has to press hard to cut me now.

Thank god he doesn’t know that.

The door opens and Ren enters, pushing a wheelchair, chin tipped down in submission. I hate seeing her this way, hate seeing my sunshine friend so dimmed.

But I’d rather have her dimmed than snuffed out completely.

She stops the chair right next to us, and I drop into it without prompting. The sooner we’re out of here, and away from Ren, the better. I’ll go with him willingly and figure out a way to escape on my own, once I know she’s safe from him.

I tense when my father eyes her like he’s considering whether he should bring her with us. If he does, I will fight him. I will scream bloody murder and make sure that Ren never has to suffer by his hand ever again.

But eventually he sighs, eyes flicking over to me. “I know where she lives, Haven. I know where she works. Where her little sister goes to school. I know where her mother works. Believe me when I tell you I will not hesitate to harm her and her entire family to keep you under control. Am I clear?”

I nod, keeping my gaze lowered like he prefers. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Good.” He moves over to Ren and pinches her chin between his fingers, making her meet his eyes. “I know a place for omegas who act out, who need a firm hand. I will not hesitate to send you there if you cause any trouble. Is that clear?” My hands fist at my sides as Ren nods, a look of terror on her face. “Good. You will sit in this room for the next three hours. You will tell no one Haven is gone. You will not tell them I took her. You will not warn the Calloway pack. You will not reach out to the police or any omega assistance groups on Haven’s behalf. You will do nothing for the next three hours but sit here.”

Satisfied, he turns his attention back to me as Ren shuffles over to the bed and settles on the edge, staring blankly at the wall. I keep my eyes focused on her for as long as I can, bending over in the chair to watch as my father wheels me away from her.

I might not be influenced by his commands any longer. He might not be able to use an alpha bark on me, but I’m under his control all the same.

Frederick Bell doesn’t realize it, but he just found a better way to assure my compliance. I won’t risk going against him, sneaking out, working around his commands. Not when he’s made it so blatantly clear that if I do, Florence will be the one to suffer the consequences.