Chapter 26
The woman sneering at me was unrecognizable to the frightened girl that used to always hide behind me.
“You know, if you gave up, we wouldn’t be doing all this.” She waved her hand around. “Mess.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and huffed like we were inconveniencing her.
What was happening?
“Mess,” I repeated, numb. I’d resolved myself to claiming her as the Pack Omega, believing that my duty was to her. Incorrectly placed loyalty.
“Yes, all this drama. I didn’t want to break your hearts.”
Rafael scoffed. “Unbelievable.”
“You crazy bitch,” Cade tacked on, but there wasn’t any heat behind it. They were just as shocked as I was.
“Oh, shut up, Cade. All you do is whine.”
Cade laughed in a sharp burst, and madness edged it. “You play the ‘pitiful, victimized, abused Omega’ card well, you fucking snake.”
Before he could lunge for her, I was there, squeezing her throat in my hand, digging so hard that blood burst under my fingernails. Her eyes bugged.
When she first arrived at the orphanage, she’d sobbed about everything. Even when she stole food from other children, she’d come up with stories excusing her actions . . . and I’d believed them, not caring whether they were true or not.
By the time she arrived, Cade, Rafael, and I had already formed the pack bond which was unusual at such a young age. Of course she’d spat out all her bullshit. She wanted protection.
I squeezed, watching her legs kick out. The tip of her shoe kicked my shin, but I felt nothing. Her face turned an unpleasant purple. One by one, I lifted my fingers until she fell to the ground with a hard thud.
“You had nothing to do with the Forest Peak’s bullshit stopping.” We’d never looked into it. After it all ended with her disappearance, we were just grateful. She hadn’t even crossed my mind as being the reason it all stopped. She’d always been a coward.
Then, years later, she found us and spouted on about reporting what happened. Her being backed into a corner about accepting the adoption even after we’d planned to age out of the system and start our lives together.
“I took beatings to save you from them,” I gritted out through clenched teeth. I crouched, taking pleasure in her flinch. “Was you finding us again by chance?” She blinked up at me, face pale. “Speak!”
She screamed. “No! I saw you in a magazine. Your wealth, your fucking app! I wanted the money. Don’t hurt me. My Alphas will end your fucking life—”
She fell back from the force of Rafael’s kick to the face. Her piercing scream echoed, muffling the sound of the opening door.
“What’s going on?” the Beta from the front counter scanned the room.
“They’ve been trying to kill me!” she wailed.
“Security!” the Beta shouted into a little speaker.
“Where’s Eva?” Cade’s alarm clashed into mine, and my knees buckled.
I caught myself and grabbed Susanna’s neck, dragging her to her feet. She sputtered, her face reddening. “If we lose our Omega, I will make you disappear,” I hissed.
Her eyes widened. I threw her back, and she landed with a yelp. I never believed I’d utter those words to her. The female I’d been prepared to take as our Omega.
“I hate you Ironwyld Pack!” Demi screeched. “With your ugly fucking scars.”
I would have snapped her neck if I hadn’t seen a swarm of five security guards converge on Rafael.
I barreled into two of them from behind, kicking their legs out from under them.
They lost their balance, stumbling to the side.
A third male snuck up behind Rafael as he beat the man on the ground bloody, and I rammed my fist into his face, eliciting a satisfying crunch.
I stepped over another security sprawled face down and unconscious. Rafael kept bashing his knuckles into the last Beta.
“Rafe.” I pushed dominance into the order.
He shook his head and met my eyes without the familiar fog of bloodlust. He stepped with me into the hall in time to hear Cade’s shouts echoing. I ran with the thrum of the music coming from the main hall echoing around us.
“Where the fuck is she?” Cade roared into the female Beta’s pale, frightened face, a vein pulsing at his neck.
Eva is gone?
Nausea swirled in my stomach.
“I don’t know,” the girl wailed. “She left.” That was all we needed. Rafael grabbed Cade’s arm while I grabbed his other, and we dragged him into the lot.
He thrashed, trying to get loose. He would have beat the fuck out of her if we hadn’t grabbed him. The chilly autumn night did nothing to soothe the heat boiling through my veins.
“Is she in the car?” I let Cade go and jogged to it. Even before yanking open the door and searching, I knew the answer. The remnant caramel scent was what lingered from earlier. The potency that had hugged my senses when she was around was gone.
“What the fuck? What the fuck?” Cade repeated, raking his hands through his hair. My growing dread seemed to be forming a life of its own.
“She left,” Rafael whispered, his voice making it sound like a question and a torment. I sagged against the passenger door.
While we’d been distracted with that piss excuse of a woman, she’d left us.
Cade went silent. It was so sudden it forced my attention to him as he slid to the ground. He’d gone catatonic, staring into the distance. Helplessness blared from his side of the bond, saturating my fear.
Where was our Omega?
I slammed my palms against the car, bracing myself and struggling to think. But desperation coming from Rafael’s side of the bond added fuel to my self-hatred.
So many fucking mistakes. The primary one was wasting time on that bitch in there.
Her distaste for my scars settled like a bitter taste in my mouth. She had never hidden it, so it wasn’t a shock. After all, in the years she’d lived with us, I’d only fucked her with a shirt on.
I believed there could be no Omega more loyal to our Pack other than the one who saw the horrors we experienced—and the one who stopped it.
She’d left, and the next day, the torture had stopped. It was too much of a coincidence, and I hadn’t believed in those. My hubris was my downfall.
I’d thought of her as a victim, but she was a fucking liar. She had always been this manipulative and unstable.
And the woman I was supposed to cherish was the one we’d harmed.
A veil of falsely placed loyalty had been ripped off, and guilt devoured my insides.
Eva had released me of the chains weighing me down, and I treated her . . . I bent over the side of the car and vomited. The burn of bile stung my throat. My body hadn’t reacted this way since the beating that almost severed my arm.
This agony was worse.
Where was my Omega?