Chapter 15
Selfless, Brave Little You
I retreat to the guest room and close the door between me and the Calloway pack. Though, I’m not entirely sure they are a pack anymore… the energy between them isn’t the same. It feels off, like the bond between them is gone. They still know each other better than anyone, but I got the impression they couldn’t feel each other anymore.
But what do I know? I’m just a pawn in their fucked up revenge against my father.
Seeing the spreadsheet all those weeks ago, I knew it had to be something bad, but to have them confirm it? To have them tell me one portion of their revenge plan was to ruin me the same way my father ruined Janie? Their scent matched omega?
Fuck, that hurt. Badly.
My hand moves to the space between my breasts and rubs, as if that will help with the ache that has settled there. It’s only gotten worse since I heard their story, since I know what my father did to them, to their pack.
What they did to me wasn’t the same. I was a willing participant. I eagerly sought them out, gave them my body and my pleasure. Desperate for someone to want me, to cherish me the way I’ve always been told omegas should be cherished. I gave them everything.
The amount of InstyxBurn that they gave me wasn’t enough to alter my ability to choose or say no. I could have asked them to stop at any time, I just… didn’t. Because I wanted them. Because I thought they wanted me. That I finally, finally, was going to find my home.
God, how they must have laughed at me. Every time they updated that spreadsheet, attached a number value to each sexual act and emotional confession… I can just imagine them congratulating each other on a job well done.
My hands fist at my sides and it’s all I can do to hold it together. With the effects of the mind and emotion numbing drugs out of my system, everything is overwhelming. The pain, the anger, the hurt, the hopelessness. A giant swell of everything the chemicals were blocking hits me like a tsunami. I’d foolishly thought that maybe I wasn’t as upset as I originally suspected. That maybe I’m not broken because of them, but that was all a lie told to me by chemicals.
I am broken. Very much so, and I’m not sure I can hold all my broken pieces together. I’ve been doing it for so long, ever since I woke up on my seventh birthday and discovered my mother had abandoned me overnight, left me with my overbearing father.
I’m so fucking tired of it.
Exhausted, weary down to my bones, I force myself into the closet, where I strip off the jeans and sweater I put on as armor and pull on leggings and an oversized sweatshirt. All I want to do now is curl into bed and ignore the world. Sleep for the next six months and wake up when the Calloway pack has finished getting their revenge. Yeah. If I sleep for the next few months, then when I wake up, I can just go. I won’t have to deal with any of this.
Logically, I know that will not happen, but doesn’t stop me from crawling into bed and pulling the blankets over my head, willing sleep to come.
I’m not sure how much time has passed when there’s a knock on my door, solid forceful. I ignore it. But a second later I hear the door creak open and then the bed dips and a body covers mine. I tense for a moment, thinking one of the Calloway pack is really overstepping boundaries here, but in the next moment I relax as I register the slighter weight, the willowy build, the citrus and hibiscus scent that drifts through the blanket.
“Ren,” I croak out through the immediate tears that well in my eyes.
“Haven.” She sighs back, squeezing me tighter through the blankets. “Missed you, babe.”
I push the covers off of my head and throw my arms around her, holding her tight, burying my face in her mass of blond hair. Silent tears soak into the strands and I know she can feel it, but she doesn’t pull away or say anything about it.
A throat clears and Ren pulls back to glare over her shoulder at the alpha lingering just inside the door. “You can go now.”
I snort a surprised laugh at the command, and Tic’s eyes fly to me, widening just slightly then going soft. Ren lets out a little omega growl. “Get out!”
He still hesitates, looking between the two of us, before he settles on me. “Dinner should be ready soon. Will you be eating with us or…” he trails off like he already knows the answer, and before I can so much as part my lips, Ren’s doing it for me.
“We’ll take dinner up here, Jeeves,” Ren says, dismissing Tic with a haughty flick of her wrist.
His jaw tenses and I think he’s on the verge of telling her no, but then he sighs and nods his head once. “Whatever you say, my lady.”
Ren scoffs and glares at him, eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “If we see any of you for any other reason besides food, I will take my girl out of here. Clear?”
Another tip of his head. “Clear.” He leaves us then, closing the door softly behind him and then Ren is on me, arms and legs wrapped around me in a tight hug that makes me fall back on the bed with a surprised laugh.
“Don’t you dare ever do that to me again, Haves. You’ll send me to an early grave.” She nuzzles her face into my hair and I stroke her own wild strands, letting the presence of the one person who has always had my back, who has never abandoned me, settle against my skin, soothe the ache in my heart.
“I’ll try not to.”
“There is no try, only do,” she says in a terrible Yoda voice that makes me laugh again. God. That feels good. I didn’t think I’d be able to laugh today of all days. Not after everything I’ve learned. Ren takes a deep breath. “I’m staying the night.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to kick all of their asses in the morning.”
“Sounds good.”
“But I need my Haven cuddles first.”
I hum. “And I need Ren cuddles.”
We lay like that for a while, just hanging on to each other with all our might. Until there’s a knock at the door, and Creed gruffly calls out that he has food for us. Ren pats my head and tells me to stay right where I am, as she goes to answer the door.
Creed enters carrying a huge tray of Thai food and drinks, muscles bulging slightly under the weight as he slides it onto the small table by the window. He looks at me in the middle of the bed and I swear I see a flash of longing in his gaze. It’s almost enough to make me melt, but I force myself to remember that he’s a liar. He used me.
Ren moves until she’s blocking his view. When he growls at her, Ren snaps her fingers. “No. No, you don’t get to be all possessive over my girl. You fucked up. She’s not yours anymore. Get the fuck out of here. She doesn’t want you here.” A quick glance over her shoulder at me to verify that she read the situation correctly. “You don’t want him in here, right?”
“Right.” The word is hoarse, and partly a lie. I do want him here. I want all of them here. My omega wants the comfort only an alpha can give. But, I have to remind myself, not these alphas.
Ren flicks her fingers at him in a dismissive gesture. “You heard her.”
Creed gives me one more lingering look, then closes the door behind him. I have to bite my tongue to keep from calling him back, because as much as I don’t want to be around any of them right now, I also very much want them to make this right. To prove to me they didn’t mean it. That they really do want me.
But that can’t possibly be the truth.
No one actually wants me.
My omega whines and Ren whips her head toward me, colorful eyes narrowed. “What’s up, buttercup?”
I grit my teeth and shake my head. “Just my omega being stupid and wanting any alpha she can get her greedy little hands on.”
Ren rolls her eyes and drags the table closer to the bed. “That’s not true, babe.”
“Uh, yeah, it is. That’s what being an omega is. Proximity to an alpha makes you want the alpha.”
She laughs and shakes her head, scooping up a bowl of Pad Thai and sitting cross-legged on my mattress, facing me. “Uh, no. That’s not how it works. If it did, I would cream my pants during every rehearsal because of Giles. But I am decidedly not.”
“You’re on suppressants,” I remind her, because it’s the only way she can guarantee she’ll be available for rehearsals and shows. She stops them during the breaks between shows to have a heat and then starts them up again. Her doctor is not pleased with this method, but Ren says that a dancer’s career is so short anyway, that in a few years she’ll be able to stop taking the suppressants and have normal heats.
“Okay, yes, but all that time at the Academy and we never once felt compelled to say yes to any of the packs we met. We have some say, Haven. You know this better than anyone.”
I sigh and run a wearing hand down my face as she shoves a forkful of noodles into her mouth. “Holy shit, did Tic make this?”
Another sigh. “Yeah. he did. He’s very talented in the kitchen. It’s probably why I didn’t realize he was drugging me.”
Ren stops chewing as her eyes narrow. She swallows and then viciously spits out a few choice insults before muttering, “I’m going to cut his fucking dick off.”
A quick laugh bursts out of me, and I reach for a bowl of Tom Kah Gai. “Hence the comment about my stupid omega wanting any fucking alpha she can get.”
“Do you want Brian?”
I choke on the bite of soup I just spooned into my mouth and the next several minutes are me gasping for air and coughing as Ren pounds on my back. I look up at her through watery eyes. “Why the hell would you ask me that?”
“He’s an alpha,” she shrugs. “If your statement is accurate, then you would want him, right?”
I shudder at the thought. “No. No. I do not want Brian. I’ll never want him. Even if he smelled divine and was hung like a horse, I wouldn’t want him.”
She jabs her fork at me. “Exactly. Omegas are all about instincts, babe. And your instincts are good enough to warn you away from the bad alphas. You know Brian is bad. Your omega knows Brian is bad. You don’t want him.”
I frown, running my spoon idly through my soup. “So why does she still want the Calloway pack? They’re bad too.”
Ren reaches out and pats my knee. “I think maybe your brain thinks that… but Haven, babe, they also rescued you from your father twice now. They’ve given you a place where you could blossom and be yourself. They lied to you, yes-”
“A lot. About really important things.”
“A lot about really important things. But your omega also realizes that while they were lying to you, they were taking care of you, making you feel safe and secure, providing for you.”
I stare at her hard, and I wish like hell I could deny what she’s saying, but I can’t. They did all of those things. Saved me from my father. Provided for me. Made me feel secure. Safe enough that I went into heat.
“But the lies….”
“Oh, the lies absolutely outweigh the good.”
For some reason, hearing her say that, agreeing with me, makes me frustrated. But what did I expect? For Ren to side with them, try to convince me to give them another chance, to prove that they won’t hurt me again the way they did before? That they want to keep me?
Um, yes. I think I was hoping for that… shit. I wanted her to give me the okay to try with the Calloway pack again.
“Did they tell you why they did it?” I ask hesitantly. “Why they approached me to begin with?”
She shakes her head and sets the bowl of Pad Thai back on the table. “No, but I don’t see how it matters.”
I blow out a breath. “I think it matters.”
Ren frowns and shifts until she’s sitting next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to tug me into her side, and then she settles us back against the pillows. “Tell me.”
So I do. I spill all the horrible things my father did to their omega. To their pack. I tell her about their thirst for revenge and how I can’t even blame them for wanting it. I tell her about how what few pieces of me were intact before the start of the conversation completely shattered with the realization that I wouldn’t ever actually be with them.
“How can I be?” I ask, head tucked into the curve of her neck. “How can I still want to be with them, when I know that they’ll never actually want to be with me? They had an omega, a scent match, Ren. We know what happens when a scent match dies. The pack never fully recovers.”
“But they didn’t bond with her, Haves.”
“Do you think that really matters?” I shake my head and tsk. “And besides, don’t I deserve to be with my pack? My scent match? Don’t I deserve more than to be some pack’s consolation prize?”
Her arms tighten around me, and she drops a kiss to the top of my head. “Absolutely. Abso-fucking-lutely, you deserve that, babe.”
We’re quiet for a while and then she asks softly. “You really think your dad did all of that?”
I blow out a breath. “I’m sure he did. He’s never been a good guy. We know this. The way he treats people, the way he’s treated me, I can absolutely see him kidnapping an omega.” I hesitate for the longest moment, then whisper to her. “I’m pretty sure he has a bonding bite…”
Ren jerks her eyes wide as she stares at me. “A bonding bite? Are you sure? I thought your mother was a beta.”
“She was.” I shrug, because I’m not sure I saw what I think I did. “I saw it after a caning, so I could have hallucinated it. But it was a scar shaped like a bite on his shoulder.”
She hums, her expression contemplative and a little hard. “So you think maybe he forced a bond with Janie? Made her bite him?”
I nibble on my bottom lip. “It makes sense, right? He-he’s a lone alpha and somehow he’s managed to not go feral. We know he’s not taking suppressants. If he was, he wouldn’t be able to bark at anyone.” Ren shudders and her face pales and I know she’s remembering being under his control, unable to stop him from taking me, helping him when he demanded it.
I reach over and squeeze her hand. She squeezes back. “So you think he bonded with Janie to keep himself sane?”
I nod. “I do. But…”
Her eyes narrow at me when I trail off. “But what?”
“She died over ten years ago, Ren. How has he been staying sane since then?”
Her face goes ghostly white and her voice, when she speaks, is a croak. “You think he’s still doing it? Taking omegas and forcing a bond on them?”
My chest gets tight just thinking about it. “I think it’s something we need to consider. Maybe he took another omega after Janie and he’s kept her alive for all this time, but that doesn’t make it better. Whether it’s been one or twenty. He needs to be stopped.”
Ren takes a deep breath. “What if he hasn’t found one, though? What if he’s… What if he’s actually feral?”
I look at her sharply, and she holds up a hand to stave off my denial. “Wait. Just hear me out, okay?”
I motion for her to continue, and she tucks both sides of her long blond hair behind her ears as she does. “Okay, your dad’s always been an asshole. We know this. You remember him being that way with your mom before she left. But he was never this much of an asshole… right? Like even when you presented as an omega, he let you go to AOA, let you meet packs, let you interact with other alphas. But as time went on…”
“He got more controlling over my life.”
She nods. “We know Feral alphas get crazy about things they view as theirs, whether the thing, or person in this case, does actually belong to them. What if he views you as his-”
She notices the color drain from my face. “I’m not saying like… romantically, cause gross . But like you’re his daughter, and that means you’re his. Not his omega in the traditional sense when an alpha says it, but like his daughter, his property.”
I frown. “You think having me around keeps him from going full feral, but he’s on the verge?”
She shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t know. Maybe? The longer you’re away from him, the more erratic he becomes. It seems as likely as anything else.”
I look away from her and my brows furrows as I consider this new idea. It’s possible. More than possible that it’s true. Maybe having an omega daughter to take care of was enough to keep him from going totally feral. And maybe since I’ve spent months away from him, he’s losing it.
But if that’s the case…
I suck in a sharp breath. “If that’s the case, then he’ll try to find another omega if he can’t get his hands on me. He’ll take one.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Ren shakes her head rapidly and grips my arms. Hard. “You don’t know that, and even if that is the case, you cannot put yourself back in his hands and under his control to keep someone else safe. You cannot do that, Haven.”
“But-”
“No! No! You promise me! I can’t stand the thought of you being back with him, locked away from the world. You cannot do that to me. To Ginny. To my mom. We need you. I fucking need you. You can’t risk yourself again.”
Tears prick my eyes at her plea. I know she needs me to promise. And, god, I’d promise her just about anything. But I’m not sure I can promise her this. I can say the words, but I’m not sure I’ll mean them.
“Florence,” I say softly, cupping her cheeks in my palms. “I can’t do that. I don’t want to break a promise to you. If he kidnaps some unsuspecting omega, if he kidnaps you, then I will throw myself at him, put myself between him and whoever he plans to use.”
Ren stares at me hard, tears filling her eyes, then she looks away and huffs a humorless laugh. “I knew you’d say that. It’s part of why I love you so goddamn much. Selfless, brave little you.”
We’re silent for a long minute until I tuck her hair behind her ear. “Wanna eat our weight in Thai food and veg out on Alpha Love Getaway?”
Another laugh from her, this one slightly more genuine. “Yeah babe, I think I do.”