12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
Emma
T he bedroom is large, with pale blue walls and a queen-sized bed covered in more blankets than I've seen in years. Phoenix called it “mine” when he brought me here to rest after lunch on the patio, but I know better than to believe anything is truly mine.
My fingers trace the soft comforter as I sit rigidly on the edge of the bed. Five blankets. Three pillows. More comfort than I've known in years and yet I can't relax.
Phoenix said the nest is through the door to my right. He wanted me to go in there, his eyes so earnest it almost hurt to look at him. As if I would know what to do with such a space.
I was nineteen the last time I tried to build a nest. I was in so much shock at being sent to the Basement underground at Haven I needed something .
I knew it was against the rules, but I also hadn’t thought the three blankets I’d been given and molded into a shape on top of the thin mattress on the metal bedframe could be called anything resembling a nest.
I’d seen what they should look like. I wasn’t totally naive.
At Haven, the omegas pored over glossy omega magazines, dreaming of the beautiful nests pictured inside.
We used to talk about our first shopping trip into any of the specialty stores purpose-built, and what we’d buy. The textures. The colors.
The consequential fucking.
I just hadn’t thought the three threadbare blankets Hugo and Lars had thrown on me constituted anything resembling a nest.
But I’d been desperate.
“What do you think you're doing?” Hugo's voice had cut through my concentration as I arranged my worn sweater and an extra pillowcase into the blankets.
“I—I was just—” The words died in my throat as Lars entered behind him, both alphas blocking the doorway of the room I shared with Mira and Leah.
“Nesting without permission,” Lars finished, disgust evident in his voice. “As if you've earned that privilege.”
I remember how small I felt, how I tried to explain that I was feeling anxious, that nesting was a natural omega response to stress.
“Natural?” Hugo had sneered, advancing into the room. “You think you know what's natural for omegas? We'll show you what's natural.”
What followed was three days of “correction therapy” where they systematically dismantled any notion I had about omega rights or dignity.
Three days of being forced to recite my “lessons” while they stripped me bare, hosed me down with cold water and barked at me to ‘present’ for hours in the walk-in freezer.
That was their favorite correction. They’d walk around me, laughing while I was locked in my body and unable to move. Unable to stop them seeing every private inch of me.
That was when I made up my imagined beach. The beach I told myself I would find one day. One day when it would all be over.
Except ‘one day’ never came.
I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the memory back into its box.
Some parts of those three days remain mercifully blurred.
Others remain in perfect, painful clarity.
The final lesson, delivered by Lars as they ended it: “Omegas nest when their alphas permit it.
Omegas comfort themselves with their alphas' approval. Everything you are, belongs to them. Remember that, or next time your punishment will last a week.”
I never made a nest again.
Not that I could have done so in the Carmichaels’ basement. As cold as it was down there, they only gave me one thin blanket, more to keep me alive than for any concern about my comfort. That ragged piece of fabric was never a nest, never a comfort. Just one more reminder of how little I mattered.
I have five blankets now. Three pillows. A dedicated nesting room. It should feel like luxury.
Instead, it’s a test I'm certain to fail.
This room has features that are undeniably different from any basement I've known. Carpet instead of concrete. A bathroom with actual hot water. And most shocking of all… windows. Real windows. With a beautiful view obscured by curtains.
I rise from the bed, fingers trembling as I pull back the fabric. My body is rigid, I expect someone to come barreling through the door to yell at me not to touch them. It takes a herculean effort to make myself push the curtains to either side of the frame.
Summer light floods the room, momentarily blinding me.
The sun warms my skin, but I’m so pale the sunshine doesn’t take long to start hurting.
I retreat to the bed, pulling my knees to my chest as I stare through the glass.
The compound spreads before me, manicured lawns, security fencing in the distance, and the pool where we ate lunch.
Sunlight dances across its surface, turning the water to a sheath of glittering sparkles .
It's mesmerizing. Beautiful in a way I'd forgotten things could be.
I wonder if the water at my beach looks like that. Glittering and alive. I worry that the image in my mind isn't accurate, that I've been clinging to a fantasy that doesn't exist because in reality I’ve never been to a beach.
I was sixteen when my parents died in the car accident.
Just four days after I'd presented as omega and my mother had registered me with the designation office.
I'd been at school, taking a math test, blissfully unaware that my life had already changed forever when the principal called me into her office.
“There's been an accident,” she said, the police officer beside her already holding paperwork for my transfer to the Haven Institute.
No time to grieve.
No time to process.
Just a sudden, brutal transition from daughter to orphan to omega ward of the state in the span of a single afternoon.
Without any extended family to take me in, I was taken directly to The Haven Institute still wearing my school uniform, still numb with shock.
All my dreams of seeing the ocean with my parents that summer—our planned vacation—reduced to something I'll only ever know from the photographs on my phone that the Haven administrators confiscated.
I was at Haven for three years before Mercer sent me to the Basement.
Mira and Leah were already there. The Basement brought us together.
That year made us more sisters than friends. My only remaining family.
And then…and then we escaped, and they were lost to me forever two years ago. At least I think it’s that long.
Until Mira came to see me.
I can only hope I see Leah again.
Maybe Mira will come to the beach with me. I hope the water really is that blue, as sparkly as the pool. I hope the sand really is warm. I'll have to learn to swim if I want to live on my beach. Another skill to acquire once I'm truly free.
Another thing to add to the list of “after. ”
Is it too much to hope that my afterlife will be better than my life so far? If only I could stop being omega. That would ensure I’d have something to really look forward to. No one or nothing could touch me again.
No more barking. Possession. Knots. Cocks. No more orders.
No more alphas.
I’ve had ten lifetimes’ enough of alphas, only…
Only the alphas downstairs are…different.
No less powerful. One barked order from them and I’d be on my knees faster than I could comprehend, but they…
haven’t barked at me. Haven’t ordered me to do anything.
In fact, they’ve gone out of their way to try to make me comfortable, as uncomfortable as that has been in and of itself.
One of them did take from me, though. Asher bit me. Claimed me without my consent. Something I know to be true of alphas, only…
I rub my chest, frowning at the part inside me where the tangle of bonds usually throbs. I feel the Carmichaels’ collective anger. Their incessant rage that their toy has been stolen from them, but Asher's bond is muted.
When he bit me, his emotions had poured into me. A tsunami of feeling so powerful it nearly drowned me. Elation so pure it felt like flying. Disbelief that sang through his veins like electricity. Then horror—deep, gut-wrenching horror as he took in my condition.
That horror had morphed into something fierce and protective. A powerful need to save me. To heal me. To shelter me. To give me back every piece of myself that had been stolen.
Then nothing. Or rather, not nothing, but a deliberate... restraint. Like a river held back by a dam, with only the smallest trickle allowed through.
I press my hand harder against my chest, trying to understand.
Asher's bond is still there. I can feel his presence, but it's controlled.
Muted. As though he's consciously holding back the full force of his emotions.
Not letting them flood into me unchecked as Matthew, Derek, and James always did.
As though he... cares how his feelings might affect me.
As though he's keeping himself in check to avoid burdening me .
Under that careful control, I catch glimpses of what he's containing. Self-loathing so intense it makes my throat tighten. Guilt that cuts like glass. Anger—not at me, but at himself.
But beneath that self-hatred lies something even more confusing. Tenderness. Protectiveness. A bone-deep certainty that I'm precious. Worth protecting. Worth waiting for. Worth whatever patience it takes.
I pull the blankets tighter around me, trying to make sense of it. Alphas don't shield omegas from their emotions. They use the bond to control, to punish, to remind us of our place.
Why would Asher restrain himself when he could do whatever he wants? He claimed me. He owns me. He could use our bond to force compliance, to make me feel his dominance. Yet instead, he's... protecting me?
The partial bonds with the Carmichaels are like open wounds, seeping poison into my system. But Asher's bond, even unwanted, is different. Like a door he's carefully closed to shield me, not trap me.
I don’t know what to do with this, so I do what I’ve learned: step back from the storm and lock it away in the back of my mind.
The sun continues its descent, shadows lengthening across the lawn. As daylight fades, the room grows too large around me. Too exposed. Too open. After years in small, dark spaces, all this emptiness makes my skin prickle. I feel watched from all angles, vulnerable from too many directions.
Soren said there were no cameras in my room.
I checked on the tablet that sits on the bedside table, but still I feel something .
My stomach growls, reminding me I've barely eaten.
Soon, one of the alphas will come with dinner but I don't have it in me to see any of them again.
Not today. I'm hollowed out, emptied by the simple act of existing.
I crawl under the mound of blankets, pulling them over my head even though it feels wrong. I’m nesting without permission, but this isn't a nest. Just a hiding place. A small, dark space I can control when everything else is too much.
I make a tiny hole in my blanket fortress, just large enough to keep watch on the darkening sky outside. To watch everything outside .
Movement catches my eye, a figure moving between trees at the edge of the property.
I tense, heart racing, until I make out the uniform.
A guard in tactical gear, rifle slung across his chest, patrolling the perimeter.
Another figure passes minutes later, following the same route, and I start to relax.
As twilight deepens, I notice cameras mounted at strategic points around the property, their small red lights blinking against the darkening sky. Watching. Always watching.
A soft knock at the door tightens my chest.
“Emma?” Soren's voice filters through the wood. “Are you hungry? I've prepared dinner if you'd like to join us.”
I hold my breath, willing him to go away. Despite the hunger gnawing at my stomach, despite the smell of food that reaches even here, I can't face them again. Can't navigate another meal of careful conversation.
Seconds tick by, leaving me to wonder if they’ll give me a choice. If their words are meaningless. Then his footsteps retreat down the hallway. He didn't demand a response. Didn't open the door to check on me. Just... accepted my silence and left.
And I…don't know how to process.
Full darkness falls. Hunger becomes a constant, painful companion.
I know how to endure starvation, but now.
.. now there's food available. Phoenix said the kitchen was open to me anytime. Said I could help myself. Easy words, but do they mean them? Is this another test? Another way to catch me breaking rules I don't know exist? My head is so fucked up I just don’t know. I’m driving myself insane and that gnawing hunger isn’t helping.
Now I’ve been able to eat, my body is hyperaware of what it needs and my stomach demands food.
I creep downstairs. A light shines from the living room, voices drifting out—tense, serious. I freeze on the bottom step, torn between retreat and the promise of more food just beyond the kitchen door.
“—emergency hearing tomorrow morning.” An unfamiliar male voice, slightly tinny through what must be a speakerphone. “Pack Carmichael is demanding immediate return of their 'property.' Their lawyer is good. Connected.”
I press against the wall, hardly breathing.
“We’ll find another way. One that doesn't require her to trade one form of bondage for another,” Asher says.
“I'm doing what I can on my end. But... prepare for the worst. Winters rarely rules against documented ownership. Just get me that letter. I’ll extend the process as long as I can.” The voice I don’t know speaks.
“We're not letting them take her. I don't care what the law says,” Phoenix says.
“We won’t. Even if it means our badges,” Asher confirms.
My hand flies to my mouth, stifling the small sound that escapes. They'd risk their careers? Criminal charges? For me? That's... impossible . Alphas don't sacrifice for omegas.
Too late, I realize the conversation has stopped and I look up to find three pairs of eyes fixed on me from the living room doorway.