7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Emma
A sound escapes me, a wounded sob that has no right to be in my throat, as Mira rushes to my bedside. Her hands hover over me like she's afraid to touch, afraid I might break. Or maybe afraid I'm not real. Like I'm some ghost conjured from her memories.
“Emma,” she whispers, her voice catching. “Oh gods, Emma.” Her tears fall faster as she takes in my condition.
My eyes cloud over as I reach for her hand, needing to feel that she's solid, that she's really here. Her fingers wrap around mine, warm and real.
“Are you…actually here? Tell me I’m not dreaming,” The words catch in my throat as I study her. Healthy. Whole. There are roses in her cheeks and a spark in her eyes that has never been there before.
She sits on the edge of my bed, careful not to jostle me. “It’s impossible to be in the same dream.”
“Are we dead and this is the afterlife?” This afterlife I can deal with. It’s a step up from the hell I’ve lived in.
She shakes her head, her lips curving into a smile. “This is definitely real and we are definitely alive.”
It’s then I see the silvery scarring on her neck. She’s been bitten. Claimed. Mated. I swallow hard. I can’t take my eyes off those marks of ownership.
“Are they...” My voice cracks. “Are they hurting you? Dr. Chen, he might be able to help. Like he's helping me. We could run again, Mira. We know more now, we could…”
My thoughts spiral, memories of running through rain mixing with basement darkness. We could hide better this time. Find somewhere remote. Maybe if we—
“Emma.” Mira's voice cuts through my rising panic. She takes both my hands in hers, forcing me to focus on her face. “My mates are wonderful. They're my scent-matches. They love me. They protect me.”
Scent-matches…she found scent-matches too?
I shake my head, unable to process her words because what she’s saying is impossible. “No alpha truly helps omegas. They can't. They don't know how to be anything but cruel.” The evidence is written all over my body, carved into my soul.
“The alphas Haven gave us to were cruel. But they are the exception. Not the rule. I’ve seen what true alphas are like and they are nothing like those inhuman jerkoffs.
” The light dims from her eyes as she really looks at me.
At the bones pressing against my skin, at the rainbow of healing bruises, at the way I can't stop trembling even now. Her fingers tighten around mine.
Her gaze traces the bandage on my neck, the marks on my wrists where chains rubbed the skin raw. “What did those assholes do to you?”
The question hangs between us, heavy with two years of darkness. But I can't answer. Can't put words to what happened in that basement .
“It's over now.” My fingers squeeze hers. “I’ll never get caught like that again. I won't be anyone's fuck toy ever again.”
A desperate and wild spark flares to life. I'm going to find a beach. A real one. Not just the one in my head but an honest to gods beach with water and sand and no alphas within a hundred mile radius.
“You won't get far without your alphas,” Mira says.
I try to cover their marks with my palm. Their partial bonds simmer in the back of my mind like poison, forever carved there. I’ll never call them my alphas.
They’re a cancer.
“Asher bit you too,” Mira says softly. Not a question.
Surprise jolts through me. “How did you know? How do you know him?”
“He's friends with Adrian, my prime alpha. They've known each other for years.” She leans forward. “Emma, he's destroyed over what he did. He bit you because you're his scent-matched mate. His fated. He'll do anything for you.”
A bitter laugh escapes me, sharp enough to cut. “If he wants to do anything for me, he can forget I exist. I don't need another alpha's version of 'help,' no matter who the fuck he's meant to be to me.”
He's just another alpha who took my choice away.
Nothing less. Nothing more. The claiming bite on my neck throbs with his emotions, a constant reminder of my stolen autonomy.
One more alpha deciding what happens to my body without my consent.
The fact that he regrets it now doesn't change what he did.
The fact that he's my “scent-match” doesn't give him the right to claim me without permission.
Haven taught me what alphas are. Pack Carmichael confirmed it. They take. They own. They control. Some do it with chains and darkness, others with pretty words and gentle touches, but the end result is the same… an omega without choices, without freedom.
Scent-match. Just another word for harder chains to break, for bonds that dig deeper, for more complete control. Fate's cruel joke, matching me with yet another alpha who helped himself to what wasn't his to take .
Though... I never felt remorse from Matthew or Derek or James. Never felt guilt or self-loathing or regret through our partial bonds. Asher's emotions are different, layered with something that’s almost like... care?
No. I can't trust that. Can't trust him. Can't trust any alpha, ever again. His actions proved what alphas truly are, no matter how much he might regret them now.
Round and round these thoughts chase each other, an exhausting circle with no exit. Trust and mistrust. Hope and despair. Anger and something dangerously close to yearning.
“I understand. I felt the same way about alphas for years. But Emma... not all alphas are like the ones Haven prepared us for. Things are changing. Haven's walls are crumbling,” Mira says.
I stare at her, uncomprehending.
“Sylvia Mercer is dead, Emma. Mercer is dead ,” she continues, and my heart stops. “My alphas fight for me. For all of us. Adrian tore apart his assistant when he kidnapped me, and Asher...” Her voice drops. “Asher shot Mercer himself when she threatened me. He’s one of the good guys. I promise.”
The words don't make sense.
“Wh…what..?” Asher shot Mercer? The alpha who bit me against my will killed the woman who tormented us for years? My thoughts tangle and snag as I try to reconcile these contradictory images. Asher the alpha who claimed me without consent versus Asher the alpha who put a bullet in Sylvia Mercer.
How can they be the same person?
How can hands that took my choice away also pull a trigger in defense of omegas?
Mercer was untouchable . Powerful. The woman who smiled while explaining exactly how alphas would use us, who watched during “correction sessions,” who prepared us for lives as possessions. And Asher... stopped her ?
A traitorous whisper flickers in my chest that this alpha is different to the monsters who kept me chained, but I shut down that thought before it can take root.
That's exactly how they trap you. With stories of heroism, with glimpses of goodness, with complexity that makes you doubt your own judgment.
I can't afford that kind of doubt. Not when my freedom hangs by such a fragile thread.
But still... Mercer is dead.
And apparently, Asher pulled the trigger.
“There are investigations now,” Mira continues. “Into Haven, into the Basement at Haven. Asher's been given authority to investigate everything. He's already saved so many omegas.”
He still took my choice away.
“The public is outraged. They're demanding answers about omega rights, about the omega birth crisis.
Senator Hardwick can't maintain her power anymore.
Not with what's being revealed.” Mira's eyes gleam with fierce satisfaction.
“My alphas are powerful, Emma. They're out for blood, starting at the top. Mercer paid for what she did to us, and Hardwick will pay in blood, too.”
I struggle to breathe, to process this impossible information.
“Asher, Soren, and Phoenix head up a new division focused on changing how omegas are seen and treated.” She leans forward, face alight with purpose. “I run a therapy program at Pinnacle now, helping omegas recover from trauma. And I... I want you to come there. To help you. When you’re ready.”
It's impossible. Too hopeful.
Too much.
“Things don't change.” Why would any alpha want to give up control?
Not when they have an entire designation at their beck and call.
Their gods complex is too big to even conceive of changing.
A knock at the door makes me flinch, and I hate that.
I hate not being in control of my own body's reactions. This isn't me.
Or at least, it wasn't me before.
I used to be a girl with dreams, with plans for a future that extended beyond my next heat. A girl who didn't flinch at knocks, who didn't measure rooms by escape routes, who didn't calculate the risk-reward ratio of every word before speaking.
Being omega stole that girl from me.
Stole my life, my future, my very self.
And I hate my biology with a fury that burns hotter than any claiming bite.
I hate how I've been forced to become a person I don't recognize, someone small and scared and broken. Someone whose greatest aspiration is no longer to change the world but simply to survive it.
“Emma?” Mira's voice pulls me back to the present. “Are you okay?”
No. I'm not okay. I haven't been okay since the day my designation test came back ‘omega’. And I don't know if I ever will be again.
The door opens and an unknown alpha peers in. He's beautiful in that devastating way all alphas are. Olive skin, dark hair swept back from his forehead, stubble shadowing a strong jaw.
He half stands in the doorway, huge shoulders punching out an expensive business suit.
Matthew and his pack were wealthy, not that I experienced any of their lifestyle apart from the fact they were wealthy enough to buy me, but this alpha is clearly on another level.
If wealth had a scent, he could launch his own cologne line.