14. Aspyn
Chapter fourteen
Aspyn
A spyn Aged 17
The doctor leans forward and puts a hand on my knee. She’s got long lashes and kind eyes, but I don’t like her at all.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I say through numb lips.
My mother is just staring at the doctor. She’s got no emotion left in her.
“I’m saying you can’t have children, Aspyn. We don’t know why yet, but it would appear that while you will still get heats, you won’t be able to get pregnant. The damage to your ovaries was minimal but your womb was substantial. It would appear that it’s messed with your heats and that is showing that you simply aren’t ovulating. So, it basically boils down to no eggs, no babies.”
“What does that mean, though?”
“It means you cannot have children. Luckily, there are many options: fostering, adoption, surrogacy.”
I stare at the doctor. “I’m seventeen. I can’t walk without a limp, and I’m in pain all the time. Who is going to give me a child to look after when I can’t look after myself?”
“Yes, but in the future-” The doctor frowns. “Your pack will want an omega who can bear children. I mean, if you can’t-”
She stops, blushing, but we can all hear the unspoken words. What use is an omega who is not only broken in body and mind, but now isn’t even capable of carrying children? What pack would want her?
I’m going to be alone forever, anyway. My alpha rejected me. I don’t say this, but I know my mother is thinking it. Kelly Raines was my last hope.
“It’s not going to be a problem,” I say dismissively, trying to push the agony and devastation deep inside me. “I’m more interested in my heats. What is going on with them?” How do I stop them so I never have to deal with a pack?
“Well, we aren’t sure exactly, but I would say due to the physical, emotional, and mental stress you have been under, your body has simply adapted to the stress, and instead of getting a heat every five to twelve weeks, it would appear you are going to get them every seven months or longer. Who knows, they may stop one day, and they might start again. But I doubt they will ever return to a typical heat pattern.” She frowns. “Trauma affects hormones in a fascinating way. Some people can mask what they are and some can turn it off. But, for you, it seems to have lengthened the cycles. It’s really quite unique.”
I nod and smile and say all the right things.
At night in bed, with mum sleeping beside me, I stare at the wall.
I can’t have children.
I can’t even be a mother.
I am broken in every way.
No one will ever want me.
I hadn’t even had a chance to think about it, and now they are gone. Any children. My children. Gone.
What else can I lose before my mind snaps?
Slowly, I bring my hand to my mouth and bite down hard to stop my silent sobs from waking my mother.
P resent Day
Cassie’s Crystals and Fortunes is my home away from home. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. Despite what Kelly said. It’s just a stall, but it’s mine, and I worked hard to build it up. With this little space, I can earn a living, not a good one, but it’s something.
I rearrange the gemstones and sit on the stool that Beau bought me. I will never tell him how much it helps, but I suspect he knows both that I am so eternally grateful for the small things they do and that I will never admit to it.
All around me are different types of stalls. Carrie is selling fresh fruit and jams she made. Rai sells tourist-approved items like postcards, toys made out of coconuts, and shells.
I alone stand out.
People rush around, the early risers leading the morning routines. Opening shops and stalls. All locals. The familiar sounds of a bustling market as we all push to get ready to flaunt our wares to cash-happy tourists. The visitors either walk or jog in the early morning light or limp their way home reeking of booze.
The people who work beside me day in and day out pretend I don’t exist.
Most of them. If I’m lucky.
Gwen saunters past. She doesn’t have to work, her parental pack own the hotel. She’s as close to royalty as you get out here. There’s a proverbial silver spoon in her mouth, and she has this mean streak a mile wide. She doesn’t like her toys broken.
I don’t look at her but watch her out of the corner of my eye as I continue setting up. My nerves jangle, and I focus completely on her movements as she gets closer and closer.
Two of her friends jog over to her. One of them I think she’s fucking because he flings an arm over her shoulder and kisses her cheek. It won’t last long, it never does. While the rest of town might be a threat, she’s a promise of danger, and those that follow her obey without questioning why.
She looks my way and whispers. I get that crawling sensation, that instinct that murmurs that something bad is coming. I listen to that voice now, I’ve learned the hard way to ignore it at my peril.
For an instant, all I see is the blue of the ocean as a wave curls ahead of me, reaching higher than the sky, and then I blink as they move towards my stall.
I rush out in front of it and try to meet them, to head them off, but they step around me. The first guy walks up and picks up a tiger’s eye.
“Wait, please, stop!” I try to wrestle it back, but he just holds it above my head.
The guy with short blond hair has nasty pinched eyes and a crooked smile. The other has brown hair and is slimmer, and when he laughs, it reminds me of the bullies I had at school.
“What’s this for?” the blond sneers
“It’s to give people strength and courage,” I murmur and resign myself to the inevitable.
They aren’t going to buy anything. No one is going to help me. I just have to endure.
I’m losing more and more days of work due to accidents like the one that’s about to happen. I’m late on my rent, and the electricity is about to be cut off.
I bite the inside of my cheek and lean around the taller blond guy with no shirt on.
“Please, put that down.”
He’s got a huge cave agate in his hand the size of an adult man's fist. It’s got the most beautiful teal, turquoise, and violet colours through it. It’s one of my favourites.
He turns to me and tilts his hand just enough so that it rolls out of his palm and crashes to the ground. It splits in two.
It cost me so much money. I try to kneel to pick it up, but my leg gives way. I grab one of the pieces and blink back tears when my whole stall collapses, rolling stones, gems, and my oracle card sets into the road.
The two guys burst into laughter, braying hysterically as they call me a loser.
Nobody stops to help, they all just avert their eyes.
I scramble after my belongings, trying my best to pick them up, even through blurred sight.
“You’re fucked now, Packer.”
Beau’s voice is dark with promise. I hear a yelp, but I don’t look up, not until someone crouches and starts helping me pick up my things.
Kelly reaches out and passes me a basket to hold. I take it and watch as he silently starts filling it.
“Help her!” Kelly demands of my neighbours. “What are you people doing?”
Gael and Ezy appear and fix the stall, then help gather the gems.
I hear a thud and look up. Keagan and Beau are beating the ever-loving shit out of the two guys, while Shale has Gwen on her knees by the hair.
“I told you to stop pushing me, didn’t I tell you? You really are a piece of shit, Gwen.”
“My dads are gonna hear of this!”
She screeches as he shakes her viciously.
“What are they going to do?” Shale laughs, but it’s a dark laugh. “What are your daddy’s going to do to me?”
She lets out a sobbing scream, which only gets higher when he tosses her at the ground. She hits hard, and when she gets up, she’s bleeding from her nose.
The two guys are now unconscious lumps on the side of the road, but the islanders have their eyes firmly averted. They aren’t choosing sides or getting involved. They never do, not anymore. To go against me is to go against the Daane, and they don’t play fair. But they also won’t go against themselves either. So, they do nothing.
I try to get up but can’t quite do it. Shale appears and instantly pulls me up. He holds out one hand in silent command.
Ezy passes him my cane, and I grip it like it’s my lifeline.
“Can we go home?” I murmur under my breath. It’s a soft, distressed whine that every one of my scent matches responds to, even if just to flinch.
Shale shrugs. Today, he’s in a white shirt and shorts, and he looks entirely too much like an islander. I don’t like it.
“Where are your jeans?” I mutter.
“I was trying something new.”
“Don’t be like them.”
Shale pulls me into a one-armed hug. “I’ll never be like them. All right, let’s get you home before Keagan and Beau decide to set fire to the street.” He lets out a shrill whistle, and Beau and Keagan turn instantly.
Beau trots over and cups my face. “Are you hurt, Cher?”
“No, I just want to go home. I need to sort-” A sob escapes me, and I fight hard to get my emotions under control, hyperaware of the six alphas watching me like a hawk. “I need to sort everything again.”
Keagan curses and whirls on a tourist who is staring all goggle-eyed.
“What you fucking looking at?”
The guy almost trips over his friend as he tries to speed away, but that leaves Keagan without a target.
He whirls on Kelly, but I hold up my hand and grab his shirt when he steps past. Keagan could easily snap my arm, but he won’t. He would never, ever hurt me.
Slowly, his head swivels so that we’re facing each other.
“Please, Alpha, can you take me home?”
Keagan snarls. It’s a feral sound and echoes with something that has everyone but Shale, Beau, and myself stiffening.
He picks me up and walks off with me without waiting for the others.
“Grab a basket, we have to sort the gemstones,” Shale says.
I don’t hear anymore.
Keagan ignores my demands and protests and takes me straight back to his house.
“I want to go home.”
“No.” He sets me down on the couch and stalks away.
“Keagan. It’s my house.”
“It’s not functional,” he snaps and stalks back to me.
“It’s still my home.”
“This is your home. I am your home, Aspyn! When are you going to stop denying us?”
To my surprise, Keagan drops to his knees in front of me and stares with so much emotion it makes a lump rise up in my throat.
I have no words to give him.
Kelly stalks in and puts the basket of gemstones down on the table.
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier about your…” he waves his hand at the crystals.
“Thank you,” I say, avoiding Keagan’s eyes.
Kelly rubs his chin and makes a humming sound before seeming to come to a decision.
“I can see how hard you work here, Aspyn. But you’re not going to get a fair go, not here. You’re struggling to pay your bills. Don’t bother to argue. Your neighbours at the market told us all about it.”
My cheeks flame. Keagan explodes up, but Ezy puts his hands up between them and shouts to wait.
“I want to offer you a deal,” Kelly says over the sound of Keagan’s vicious growls.
I turn to face Kelly front on, suspicious and mildly offended. “What kind of deal?”
He glances at Gael, who shrugs, and Ezy, who doesn’t take his glare off Keagan.
Shale crosses his arms and leans on the door frame.
“The kind that benefits all of us.” Kelly licks his lips and glances at Shale this time.
Shale minutely tilts his chin.
I wonder if Kelly realises he just asked the Daane for permission.
I shift my weight, looking uneasily to Beau, who moves towards me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Details, Raines,” Shale snaps.
“We leave this fucking island and go back to the surfing competition. I will pay for all of you to come so you won’t be missing any work. We keep moving and travel until you find a place you’d be happy to stay in. We set you up with a house, a home, and a stall to trade your business.”
I sit up straight. The deal is a good deal, and the fact that I know I can’t turn it down makes my stomach turn.
If I don’t take this, I’ll be evicted in probably a week or so.
“Why is this competition so important?”
Kelly exhales and shrugs like it’s no big deal, but I can see lines around his eyes that tell otherwise. “It’s our retirement tour.”
“Who cares?” Beau hisses. “I’ll pay your bills, Aspyn.”
He must know he’s made a mistake as soon as it comes out of his mouth.
“You know?” I ask. “Of course, you know. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Keagan spits a curse and turns away, running his hands through his hair.
“Yes, we know, and because you have your pride, Aspyn. None of us wants to hurt you.”
Why do those words hurt me, anyway?
I look down at my lap, unable to look them in the eyes. One word blooms in my mind, obliterating all else.
Burden.
“Don’t do that!” Beau shouts. “Don’t you sit there and think that! I know what’s going through your head.”
It takes all my willpower to lift my head and look at Kelly Raines. The perfect golden surfer, the heir to Alpha Labels. The alpha that people court and drool over from one end of the Earth to the other.
“All I need to do is come with you? I don’t have to do anything else?”
Kelly exhales roughly. “I would never, ever make you do anything you didn’t want to do, Omega. All you need to do is come sit on a beach, read a book, do whatever you want to do, and I’ll pay you a ridiculously huge amount of money for the privilege.”
I glance at Keagan, who looks distraught. I can’t leave them. I’m not strong enough.
“They are coming with us. I’m not going anywhere without them.”
“Of course,” Kelly says with a straight face, though his cheek tics.
“And Nat. She’s been dying to get off this island. I want her, too,” I say and lift my chin.
Kelly smiles. “We can bring Nat with us, no problems.”
I exhale. “When do we leave?”
Kelly looks up, and, for the first time since he’s been here, he looks actually happy.
“I can have a plane here to pick us up in four hours.”
I glance at Shale. He’s watching me intently, but with just the barest dip of a nod, I relax.
“Okay, let’s go.”