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

Chapter 13

This is How I Die

I wake up feeling more myself than I have in a long time… probably since the last time I woke up in this bed, if I’m honest.

The problem is that with feeling like me also comes feeling every ounce of hurt, betrayal, and anger at the realization of what the Calloway pack was doing to me. Using me in some sick game, I can’t even comprehend the point of. Only that it means they never really wanted me. They never intended to keep me. How could they if they had a scoresheet of every time I fucked them right up until the morning I found out?

I take a moment, curled into a tight ball in the middle of the bed, surrounded by the scents of the Calloway pack. Even though this was my room, their smells always linger in the air. Then again, it could also be the t-shirt I’m wearing that smells like Creed. Or the sweatpants that smell like Hale. The pillow under my head that undoubtedly came from Tic’s room.

My brow furrows when I don’t find anything from Jude, but then… I force myself not to care. Jude is the one who fucked me, urged me to bite him, promised we’d bond and then scurried off to add his points and the video evidence to the scoresheet.

Fuck him.

And fuck them too.

In a flurry of movement, I push the blankets off me and scramble off the bed, yanking Tic’s pillow along with me. I strip off the clothes, stride to the door and toss everything out in the hall. Then, naked as the day I was born, I scan the room for any other offensive items. The clothes I stole and tucked away, the trinkets they gave me, the books and that stupid, ugly necklace from Hale for my birthday.

God, that should have been my first fucking clue. Hale getting me something so outside of what I would pick for myself. I should have known he never actually knew me, never took the time to figure out what I like, who I am.

I bundle everything onto a towel and then toss all of that out in the hall, too. Before slamming the door shut and locking it.

I’ll have to face them eventually, have to confront them about what they were doing, why they hurt me.

But then, do I even really want to know? Is that going to make it hurt less? And worse, what if the only reason they have is because they could? Because they wanted to see who could corrupt the senator’s daughter the most. Who could get me to do the most outlandish omega instinct driven things?

Shaking myself and pushing my hurt to the side, I head into the bathroom to wash away the last bits of their scent clinging to me.

My omega wails as they swirl down the drain, but my omega is a hussy who just wants the Calloway pack for their cocks. And because, for the time I was with them, they made me feel safe. If I hadn’t felt safe with them, I never would have gone into heat.

Which is probably why they went to such lengths. I wonder if I hadn’t found out what they were doing, if they’d come home that night and instead of finding me catatonic in their yard, they’d found me in a heat spike, would they have recorded it all, watched back the tape and passed out points for each sexual act that occurred while I was out of my mind on hormones?

Probably.

Assholes.

By the time I’m clean, my skin is bright red and I’m seething. So fucking angry. I dry off in sharp jerks and braid my still wet hair while glaring at myself in the mirror, giving myself a pep talk to really let them have it.

I’m going to eviscerate them.

Nodding satisfactorily to myself in the mirror, I stride to the closet and yank on a pair of jeans and a sweater. I want to be dressed, completely covered from head to toe, while I do this. Fully armored. If I go out in pajamas clothes, I’ll look… I don’t know, weaker, softer.

I almost change into one of my Frederick Bell approved outfits—gray slacks, white button up, pale pink cardigan—but decide not to because fuck him too. Asshole.

The things I tossed out of my room are still in the hall. Though they are neatly arranged, stacked and tucked against the wall by my door like someone thinks I’ll be bringing them back in, I won’t. In fact, I kick the stack over as I pass by it. Petulant and childish, but I don’t care. These assholes broke me. No. They nearly broke me. But I’m not that brittle, that weak.

The scent of something savory floats up to me from the lower level of the house, and my stomach gives a loud grumble. For the first time, I realize that it’s dark outside, and since I sincerely doubt it’s the same night as my engagement party, I must have slept the entire day away. Maybe even two.

Which means I haven’t eaten in at least twenty-four hours, if not longer.

The low murmur of voices reaches me as I descend, still holding on to my fury, letting it bubble in my stomach, only for it to wither and die at the first sight of them, replaced by hurt.

They’re all in the kitchen, sitting at the island together. Tic is undoubtedly in the processes of making dinner, standing at the stove with his back to me. Jude has a cutting board and a knife in front of him, the steady thunk of the blade against the wood somewhat soothing. Hale is typing something on his laptop, perched on the marble in front of him, and Creed is muttering something to him in a voice too low for me to make out.

I hover there, right on the precipice of joining them, of making them aware of my presence. If I was still holding onto my anger, I would have. Hell, I might have knocked everything on the counter to the floor and stomped all over Hale’s stupid laptop.

But since I’m not angry anymore, just in agony, I can’t bring myself to take a step closer, can’t bring myself to announce my presence. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to deal with them. I don’t want to do any of this. I just want to curl up and let myself feel all of my emotions, the ones that were stolen from me first by my heat and then by the drugs my father forced on me.

It might have been weeks since I realized the Calloway pack wasn’t who I thought they were, but it’s not like I’ve had time—or emotional capacity—to really process it.

I’m about to return to my room upstairs. I’m sure they’ll deliver whatever Tic is cooking to me on a tray, leave it outside my door. But just as I spin, Tic does too, catching sight of me. “You done with those- Angel!”

Three other heads whip in my direction, pinning me in place, in a position that clearly shows I was about to sneak away, half turned away from them.

“Scurrying away to hide, little mouse?” Hale asks, his voice rough.

I try not to flinch at it but know I don’t succeed when he sucks in a sharp breath. “Haven-” he starts, but I cut him off, turning to face him fully. Face them fully.

I jerk my chin toward his open laptop. “Busy adding points to the spreadsheet? How many do you get for undressing me while I’m unconscious?”

All of them flinch.

Oh, I guess maybe I do still feel that anger. Good for me.

“None,” Hale says, slowly pushing to his feet.

“Not sexual enough, huh?” I scoff, folding my arms over my stomach. I hope it looks standoffish and strong, when what it really is is me trying to comfort myself, hold my insides in after they’ve eviscerated me so completely.

The four of them look at each other and I wonder what their pack bond is saying.

Finally, Hale looks at me with those icy blue eyes of his and says softly, like I’m the mouse he calls me and he doesn’t want to make me scurry away, “We fucked up, we get that. We would like to explain if you’ll let us.”

“Explain?” How can they possibly think any explanation they give me will be enough to make up for the heartache I feel? How can it be enough to justify the betrayal? The way they used me, no doubt intending to discard me, when they were finished?

“Yes, baby girl. Explain.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Creed’s hands curl into fists, like he’s keeping himself from reaching for me, which is good because I’d be likely to bite his hand like an injured, cornered dog if he tried.

Tic clears his throat, dragging my attention over to him. “Will you sit and have some food, Haven?”

I want to deny him, deny them. But that would only hurt myself. After all, I haven’t really eaten in the last few weeks since my father put me back on his nutritionist approved diet. The one meant to abolish my omega curves and make me look more like a beta.

In answer, I move to the island and take a seat the farthest from all of them as I can, perching myself on the stool and folding my arms over my chest as I wait.

Tic doesn’t hesitate, pulling open the fridge and grabbing out a plastic wrap covered charcuterie board. He slides it in front of me and then moves a bowl of sliced French bread next to it. “Dinner’s not ready yet, but you can get started on this.”

I frown down at the offering. All of my favorite cheeses in perfect slices, the cured meats arranged in neat rows, the grapes and olives and pickled vegetables. There are also crackers and two types of jam: fig and hot pepper.

My stomach grumbles, but I can’t bring myself to eat it yet. My mind flickering back to the doctor telling me I’d been dosed with InstyxBurn that forced my heat. I’m not sure any of the food in front of me could be drugged, but I don’t know. I watched Tic make me a smoothie every morning and never once saw him put anything in it that looked suspicious.

Though there was that dropper bottle he told me was vitamin d.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Creed asks solicitously.

Now that is something they can drug for sure. I’m dying for some water, but I don’t trust that they wouldn’t have already prepped a glass with some kind of chemical. Don’t be ridiculous. Tic gave you something to burn out the chemicals in your system, Haven.

My omega nods and adds that they wouldn’t hurt us. They’re our alphas. They only want to protect us. Help us. Care for us.

I push that thought aside. “Seltzer. In a can. Unopened.”

The four of them pause for the longest moment, likely reading into that exactly what they should. But in the next moment, they all move. Creed to the fridge, Jude reaches over and grabs some of the cheese, popping it into his mouth and chewing vigorously, staring at me the entire time like ‘see? It’s safe.’

Tic turns back to whatever he’s making on the stove and Hale goes back to his laptop, fingers flying over the keys. I pluck a grape from the board and pop it into my mouth. The first taste of the juice has me groaning as my stomach growls and demands that devour every slice of cheese and cured meat in front of me.

Who cares if I end up high out of my mind?

Creed carefully sets an unopened can in front of me and then steps away. Eyes focused on me. Actually, all of them are watching me. Even Tic, who should be watching the food. I ignore them in favor of attacking the sustenance in front of me. Eating in silence until a quarter of the food is gone and my stomach is no longer trying to devour itself.

Feeling better for the calories and the seltzer (which is just as good as water, right?) I take a deep breath and decide it’s best to just get this over with.

“I’d like to leave,” I say, voice quiet but strong. “Please. I don’t want… You got me away from my father, and I appreciate that, but I-I can’t stay here.”

Hale pins me with an unamused look, shutting his laptop and swiveling to face me. “Where the hell do you think you can go, little mouse? Where else will you be safe?”

I hesitate. He sees it. His grin grows. “Where, mouse?” he presses. “You gonna put Florence and her family at risk? You said your dad threatened her already. What will he do if you go to her?”

At AOA, one of our teachers, a sweet middle-aged omega named Elise Levenseller, made sure every omega in her care memorized the contact information for at least three groups that specialized in omega rights. She hoped we would never need to use them, but she wanted us to be prepared all the same. I still remember them to this day. In fact, when things got really bad with my father, I used Florence’s phone to look them up online. I never took the plunge, but there’s no time like the present.

“There are groups that protect omegas from bad alphas. I’ll go to one of them.”

“Are you calling us bad alphas, baby girl?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “You are almost as bad as my father, and that’s saying something.”

All four of them grumble and growl at me, but I don’t take back the words. They’ve used and manipulated me, just like he has. It’s almost worse because I thought we were going to be something. I thought they would be mine and I would be theirs. Forever.

“We aren’t like him,” Jude says low and threatening, as if the very idea of a comparison is enough to make him feral. “Tell me you don’t think we’re like him, button, please.”

My brows arch as I look at him, meeting his gaze steadily. “No, you’re worse. He was always up front about the way he was using me, the things he wanted from me. Be obedient and good. Be polite and smile. Be quiet. Be controlled. Be a beta, not an omega. He never hid what he was doing from me, how he was manipulating me. I knew what he was from the beginning, since I was a child.”

Jude’s brow furrows, and he looks away. “None of it was true,” I say quietly. “For weeks, every word out of your mouth to me was a lie. For weeks, you manipulated me into getting what you wanted from me. For fucking weeks, you made me think-” I cut off and shake my head. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. You were clearly only interested in my father and the information I could give you.”

“We weren’t using you for information,” Tic says, sounding truthful.

I scoff, because what else could they have wanted from me?

Only… they never asked me for information. They never pressed me to tell them anything about him. I think back to the spreadsheet, the attached videos, the points attached to each act. That is what they wanted from me, to record every illicit interaction. I think of how each video I saw was shot in such a way that either my face or my birthmark were on display. How often they’d manhandle me into positions, to show off who exactly they were fucking.

“No,” I say slowly, with dawning realization. “No, you wanted to destroy my reputation and, through me, to destroy my father’s. It’d be hard for him to explain why his perfectly suppressed omega daughter was begging for an entire pack to fuck her. Especially when there’s video proof.”

Jesus. I think of all the times they made me say what I wanted from them out loud, how they made me beg, how I called myself their whore, their slut, how I told them they could do whatever they wanted to me. I’d thought it was a kink, something that turned them on. But it was this instead…

All of it caught on camera, all of it ready to be used against me. To destroy me and, by extension, my father.

Though… would he even really be destroyed by that? I’m sure as soon as those videos were released, my father would tell the world I had a breakdown, throw me in a mental healthcare facility and distance himself from me as much as he could. He’d present the perfect bereaved father, mourning the loss of his daughter’s sanity, praying that with the right help, I’d be myself again.

It might be hard for him to come back from, but I’m sure that he’s more than capable. It would be me that wouldn’t. Locked away and drugged up for the rest of my life so I could no longer embarrass him. In a few years, I’m sure people would forget I even existed. They hardly remember I exist now.

They didn’t really think about how this would effect me, did they? Didn’t think about the repercussions of this on my life. About how he would react, what he would do to me.

I sway slightly, and Creed reaches out to steady me, but stops when I growl at him. A full on omega growl. His fingers curl into a fist in the air between us before he drops it to slam against his own thigh.

I wrap my arms around myself, hold myself up, because I don’t want any of them to do it. “So, what was the plan? Make me give into every one of my omega instincts, get me to bite one or all of you? Let me feel how you really felt about me, so I would know with absolute certainty that you never actually wanted me? Record everything and… blackmail him with it?”

“No, that wasn’t the plan,” Hale says, sounding calm as hell. So calm and unaffected. I want to smack him, make him feel something like I am. But I already know he feels nothing. His heart is ice cold.

“The plan was to release it to the media. Let everyone see that his policies and plans for the country are bullshit. How can he expect anyone else to suppress their instincts if his own daughter can’t?”

My eyes slip closed. “Right. So this is about his policies? The changes he wants to make to the country? The drug that you’re helping him design to stop designations from even forming?” I open my eyes to look at Tic as I say this last part, so I get to see the way he jolts in surprise.

“How do you know about that?”

“He told me. Right before he commanded me to stand still so he could beat the shit out of me. He told me he knew you didn’t care about me, not really because you were helping him.”

He shakes his head slowly. “I was never gonna develop that drug for him.”

“That’s not the part that matters,” Creed cuts in. “And it’s not why we did what we did to you.”

I want to argue because it absolutely does matter. It matters if they believe the same bullshit he does. But I just want to get this over with and they won’t let me leave until I hear them out. So I’ll listen to whatever they have to say, and then I’ll run away again.

“Then why?”

The four of them exchange a look, one heavy with meaning, one that makes my stomach clench in anxiety. Whatever they’re about to tell me, I’m going to hate. I can tell by that look alone.

“We’ve been a pack for a long time, almost fifteen years,” Hale says. “Since Creed presented as an alpha at fifteen. We always knew the five of us were going to be together.”

I frown. Skimming my eyes over the four of them. “You had another member?” All four of them nod. “A beta?” A shake of their heads. “Another alpha?” I ask the question with hope, but I know it wasn’t a beta or an alpha. I know, because of how they’re looking at me. Warily, with resignation, like they know this is going to hurt.

“You have an omega,” I choke out. “A scent match.” It’s the only way they could treat me this way. I can see it now. They can use me like this, fuck me and cast me aside because I was never a genuine option for them. My eyes well with tears. For them. For me.

They’ll never be mine because they already have someone else. Someone who truly belongs to them, with them.

Jude meets my gaze steadily as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks the screen before handing it to me. The picture I’ve seen before, of him and a smiling girl with hair a similar color as his, the one I asked if she was his sister. “Janie,” he says her name with reverence.

The other alphas in the room let out a breath, like just hearing it eases them. It’s a knife to my heart, a sharp stab of pain that almost has me curling over. Instead, I hand the phone back to Jude and step away from him, from all of them.

“You told me she was your sister.”

He shakes his head slowly. “I didn’t. You made an assumption, and I didn’t correct it.”

I guess that’s true. I couldn’t come up with another reason he would have a picture of himself with another girl, when it felt to me like we were building a future together. Now I know everything was a lie. Why bother hiding their other perfect omega from me? This was all bound to fall apart, anyway.

My mouth screws up, pinching tight around the accusations I want to fling at him. Not correcting me is a still a lie of omission. But it’s by far the least important one they’ve told me.

“Where is she?” I hate the question as soon as it’s out of my mouth. It’s not any of my business. Nothing about them is anymore. I shake my head, folding my arms around my stomach, fingers digging into my sides with a bite of pain. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter-”

“It does matter,” Hale says, his voice turned deadly soft. “It does fucking matter, little mouse.”

“She’s the reason we’re all fucking here,” Tic’s voice matches Hale’s. Soft, dangerous, a clear warning. For me? Or someone else? Probably me. After all, I’m the one that they used in some sick game. I’m the one they won’t let leave. They probably still want something from me.

“She’s dead,” Creed says bluntly, making me flinch and turn wide, shocked eyes at him. “She’s dead. She died before we could bond her.”

My mouth drops open, even though I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m intimately familiar with all of their bodies. I know they don’t have any mating bites. It would have raised too many questions if they did. It’s why I never considered they would have had an omega before me.

Jude hisses at him and then turns his attention back to me. “She was taken from us the same day she presented as an omega.”

I blink at him, sorrow for them filling my chest. My tongue feels heavy with sadness with questions I want to ask, but don’t feel like I have the right to.

“She was seventeen,” Tic says, drawing my attention over to him. “She presented when we weren’t with her. At a movie with a group of girlfriends of hers.”

“As soon as she realized what was happening though, she called me,” Hale says, hands fisted at his sides. “She left her friends and called me to come get her. Stood outside the theater as far from everyone as she could get.”

He drops his gaze, stares blindly at the floor at my feet, like he’s watching it play out in real time all over again. “I was too late, though. Arrived just in time to catch her scent and see her shoved in the back of a car. I ran after them, ran to get my car, but I couldn’t fucking catch them.”

Oh, fuck. My heart aches. It aches so bad for him. Having his omega taken from him right as she presented must have been truly awful. Especially since he was there to witness it.

“Hale,” I whisper his name, wait until he lifts his haggard gaze to my face. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

I really can’t. I’ve always known it’s not safe to be an omega. We need protection of people—alphas—we trust to thrive. But unfortunately, there are too many people out there that view omegas as commodities, things to be bartered and sold, used up and discarded. More omegas go missing in a year than betas or alphas.

“Not your fault, mouse.”

“I know.”

“Then don’t apologize for it.”

My nostrils flare with the willpower it takes to keep from snapping at him. This has to be hard for him, hard for them, reliving the last time they saw their omega. It’s bound to make him a little gruffer, a little harsher than normal.

“We met Janie when we were all kids,” Tic says, eyes glazed over and far away, reliving those early days. It’s at this point I realize that they’re going to really drive the point home that I am not their omega, that I was never going to be. I know how it ends, but they want me to know how it started, too.

I don’t think I’ll be able to stand here and listen to them, so I move into the living room, feeling… jerky and strange, disconnected. My legs give out and I plop onto the couch, fingers linked in my lap, knuckles white with how hard I’m gripping myself. Holding myself together to keep from falling apart all over again.

“She was two years younger than us and we wanted absolutely nothing to do with her,” Jude says, that same dreamy expression on his face as the rest of them have as they follow me.

I sit and listen to them tell their story, tell how as they got older, they didn’t mind having her around so much. How they grew to love her. How they all dated throughout high school. How they knew without any doubt that she belonged to all of them. That she would be theirs and they would be hers for the rest of their lives. They tell me funny stories about growing up together, and while I’ve always been curious about how they met, how they became a pack, voracious for any tidbit of information they could give me, I understand now why they never told me anything about it. Janie is too wrapped up in their pack history for them to have been even remotely honest with me.

I suppose they didn’t want to lie about it.

She’s too precious a memory for them to disrespect her like that.

They keep going for what feels like hours, spilling their past over me. Not one of them looks at me, words falling from their lips striking my skin like the blade of a knife, each one ending in a tiny wound. One I could handle, two I’d probably be okay…. But this?

This is how I die.

Death by a thousand cuts.