39. Sam
Chapter 39
B eing back in my own house is fucking heaven. I turn on the hot water in the bathroom, fully intending to scrub off the travel grime—then wash Kelly from head to foot until she’s putty in my hands. But when she takes off her sweats, her knees are bandaged up again. Sometimes I think this girl is trying to kill me with either worry or sexual frustration.
“Sweetheart, what happened? The doctor said that you were only treated for the injury to your neck.” Kelly looks at Teddy, her eyes filling with tears before a big sob comes out. Teddy looks baffled and pulls her into his arms. His big body wraps around her in a way that reminds me of when we first met, and he rocks back and forth, making quiet soothing noises .
With a sigh of resignation, I turn the water off and follow them back into the bedroom. His voice is a quiet whisper. “Shh, it’s ok, Pixie, I can fix it. Whatever you need. Please don’t cry, you’re gonna hurt your throat worse. Come on, sweet girl.” He carries her to the side of the bed and pulls her into his lap so that her head is resting on his shoulder. I can’t make out what she says in his ear, but a cold shiver runs down my spine as Teddy’s face drains of color.
Well, fuck.
I guess we’re doing this now.
I had hoped to avoid the conversation until Teddy was more comfortable, but after Sarah’s little outburst a few days ago, I knew it was coming. Teddy is shaking when I sit next to him, and I wrap my arms around them both, offering what comfort I can at what’s sure to be a horrible moment for my omega.
I don’t start purring, because I don’t want to cause confusion. He can tell me about his wrists, and then I can purr for both of them. If I do it now, it will just cause hormone fluctuations as he relaxes and then tenses up repeatedly. That won’t do anybody any good, especially this close to his heat. I hold my pack while Teddy shivers and Kelly cries softly into his neck. They need to get the emotions out. Bottling everything up won’t help anybody.
After a while, Teddy’s body stills. He takes a few deep breaths before shaking himself and pulling away from me. Then he unwraps Kelly’s arms from his neck and passes her over so I can hold her. He’s fidgeting and twitchy, and it comes as no surprise when he stands up and starts pacing back and forth.
His voice is cracked as he starts talking, the sentences rambling and disjointed as he walks across the room and back—fingers twisting and curling along the edges of those damnable leather bracers of his.
“Well, I guess…I mean, you’ve both met Vee and Garret’s dad now. He…he was always kind of ass. Not that he ever hurt me like he did them. Heck, I didn’t even know about it at the time. It wasn’t until recently…”
“Shit, let me start over. Ok, you know Marc was an abusive cunt to his kids? We’re all on the same page there?” He stops moving and stares at us, waiting for Kelly and me to nod before he continues his relentless pacing.
“My parents didn’t know. I mean, they never said anything, and you’ve talked to my mom. I’m pretty sure she would have called the cops on him if she knew—and tried to move the guys in with us. She loved both of them dearly. She was completely fine with our planning to mate when we were older. Mom…well, all of them since I presented as an omega—but Mom has always been overprotective. Shit, that’s why you talked to them…why the hell am I telling you this? You already know how they can be.”
Teddy’s shaking again, and Kelly squirms out of my lap to go wrap her arms around him. Her voice is just a whisper. “Breathe.” She takes deep breaths against his chest until he starts syncing up with her. Once he calms down, she hops back over and puts her arms up for me to lift her back into my lap.
Teddy’s voice is clearer now. “Whew. Ok, so, we know Marc was an asshole. We didn’t know that before I presented as an omega. From what the guys said, he made it pretty much impossible for them to talk to me…or they were too fucking afraid of the bastard to try.” My omega’s expression has taken on a hard edge, and my mind wonders briefly at how he presented as an omega in the first place. Genetic lottery is a bitch.
Teddy’s jaw clenches, but he keeps going. “I didn’t…I didn’t mention this last week when we were talking. It seemed pointless, and until I was sure that they were going to be staying here, there was no reason to bring it up. Um…after my designation came in, Marc reached out to me. He lied to my mom to get me on the phone. Told her that he was worried about his sons. That Garret was ready to go meet new omegas, but that neither of them felt right about it until Vee officially ended things with me.”
Kelly’s voice interrupts, a little froggy. “But that’s not true.” Teddy’s resulting chuckle is dark, and my stomach rolls when he looks at us.
“No, sweet girl, that’s not true. Marc was a lying sack of shit, and I was a newly awakened omega who had grown up thinking like an alpha. I had no problem sneaking out that night to what I thought was a meeting with Vee. Shit, I wanted to talk to him. I needed to try to understand what was happening, why he wouldn’t answer my calls…why they left. ”
Teddy stops speaking. He’s gone kind of green. When he hurries into the bathroom, I’m worried he’s about to be sick. Thankfully, the sink turns on, and a few moments later he comes back with water dripping down his face, and his color a bit closer to normal.
“So…Yeah, I got there. I was just told to come to the house. It wasn’t anything creepy, like a dark alley, or anything to cause alarm bells to go off. I was a fucking idiot.”
“Marc met me at the door. He seemed genuinely contrite about everything, and I followed him back to his office, where he said my friends were. That was a complete lie. Thinking about it, I doubt the guys were even still at the house. It had been about a week, so chances are he’d already sent them off to that private school they graduated from.”
He’s stalling. Rambling on, like he wants to avoid this next part. While I already have a few strong suspicions, it’s his story to tell. I’ll be here when he needs me.
“So, Kelly…which ones did you get? Mine were Kase and Kevin?”
Kelly meets his eyes, and a tear slips free and slides down her cheek. “Kyle…I didn’t get the name on the other one.”
Teddy nods. “Vee explained it to me…his dad has…had some sort of obsession thing with goons whose names started with K. It’s fucked up, but in the long run, the names don’t really matter, they’re all fucking horrible people. Anyway. Kase and Kevin were in the room, not my pack. Marc came in behind me and closed the door. ”
“He…he said he didn’t want to hurt me, at least not in a way people could see. That was sloppy. But his men didn’t have the same concerns. The bigger one, Kace, grabbed me by the back of my neck. Told me he’d never had a boy omega before, but that I was cute enough, so it wouldn’t be any hardship.”
Kelly’s crying full out, her breath coming in little wheezy bursts through her injured throat, and my mind turns to murder at the possibility that those two fucks who were taken into custody could have threatened her in the same way.
My omega’s voice is stronger when he continues, and I wonder if his thoughts are anywhere near mine. “Marc said he didn’t want things to get ugly. He’d rather settle this peacefully, but I had to stop trying to get in touch with his sons. I wasn’t worth their time. Male omegas are completely useless…I don’t want to go into everything he said, but you’ve met the guy, so you can probably guess the general tirade.”
“The bottom line was that if I kept trying to get in touch with Vee or Garret that he knew where I lived. He knew that Mom was there alone during the day while my dads were at work…and that Kace and Kevin would be happy to pay her a visit one day, or me a visit one night. Kind of the straw that maimed the camel…when they dropped me off at home, you could see Mom through the window, and Kace started talking about how I had her pretty black hair, and maybe he wouldn’t wait for word back from Marc.”
“I…I scrambled out of the car, making a beeline for the front porch, intent on telling Mom and Murph. If someone was th reatening them, they had a right to know. But my phone went off right as I reached the door. A text from a blocked number. If I told my parents, I gave up any protection that was offered. I was a stupid sixteen-year-old kid, and I panicked. I snuck back into the house and never told my parents. With Vee gone, and my being a risk to Mom…”
Teddy trails off. He looks exhausted, but watches the two of us carefully as he unbuckles the leather straps he’s kept around his wrists. The skin underneath is lighter from lack of sun, and when he turns his arms over, the tattoos are on full display, along with raised scars running across both wrists. There’s a T section as well running from his scars and up his forearm, but those are mostly covered by his tattoos. I can now see how the pattern is done to hide as much of the line as possible, including the additions of the column behind the three of swords.
A loud braying sob draws me out of my intense inspection, and then Kelly’s sliding off of me and throwing herself at Teddy. His hands come under her butt and lift her, holding her against his chest. His brow pinches with the new sensation on the sensitive skin that was so recently exposed, but his purr starts up to comfort our beta.
Standing and walking over to them, I wrap my arms around his shoulders, trapping her shaking body between us, and dropping my forehead to his.
Softly, like my breath might break him if I’m too loud, I ask, “Nobody else knows?” It’s an assumption, a guess. He was terrified enough to try to take himself out of the equation. He probably kept it inside…all these fucking years. Jesus, our poor boy. If that piece of trash wasn’t dead, I’d fucking kill him myself. Teddy’s eyes meet mine, our purrs synching up in a cocoon of comfort for all of us.
“Nobody. I mean, after Mom found me, there was all the doctor shit. Even when I started meeting with Dr. Dana. There was already so much to deal with, and part of me was still terrified that if I said anything…I couldn’t risk Mom, and I didn’t know…” His voice trails off as he sinks against me, Kelly squirms a bit, her hand coming up to stroke his face. Her broken voice rasps as she tries to make soothing noises.
Note to self: order the best fucking coffee maker on the market for Xan and gift wrap that bitch with a fruit basket or cookies or some shit.
Eventually, I’m too exhausted to keep standing. “Ok, everybody strip. Next time, I can show you all the fancy shit I put in the shower. For now, we’re gonna get clean and get some sleep. Sweetheart, lemme see your knees. I can tape some plastic wrap or something over ’em if we need to so you can get cleaned up.”
Her responding giggle and snort ends with a low murmured, “Ow…Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.” Teddy sits her on the ground while I kneel and peel away the bandages on her knees. The skin is pink and looks abraded with a few deeper cuts, but mostly healed already. She meets my eyes when I look up at her, and answers my unspoken question. “Steve…he’s apparently pretty good at treating injuries, so they don’t scar as bad.”
After everything else I’ve learned recently, this is going to require a deeper conversation with Steve, but now’s not the time. I’m tired enough that I don’t try to hide the grunt that slips out when I stand up. I’m getting too damned old for this much excitement. Thinking back to the frail-looking alpha for a moment, it occurs to me that despite what we’ve done together; I haven’t actually seen him topless. It sends a rush of guilt through me for not being attentive enough to my pack’s needs. Only adding to what I’m already feeling about Teddy.
Stepping under the hot water with Teddy and Kelly, helping each other get cleaned up fills me with a relief I didn’t know was possible. Despite all the shit that’s happened, things will be ok. Caring for my people, and having them return that care, feels better than anything I could have imagined. While it doesn’t fix the problem, it does go a bit towards letting me forgive Joseph for his shitty behavior with how worried he’s been about his own pack.
Getting clean takes a bit longer for three people than it would if I were just scrubbing myself, but we finally get rinsed and dried off—not bothering with pajamas because it’s just an extra step. Crawling into bed, I’ve missed being able to hold Teddy and Kelly both…as long as she faces Teddy so she can’t epilate my damned chest any more than she already has.
It feels amazing to fall asleep with my arms wrapped around her waist, her small soft body pressed against me. Teddy pressed flush against her front, trapping my hands. For this moment, at least, everything is right with the world.