Chapter 17 #2
Ren shook his head again, squeezing his eyes shut.
“I lied,” Ren said, voice small. “When I told you about my family… I was lying.” Falk didn’t respond, and when Ren looked up at him desperately, his face was etched with concern rather than betrayal. “It was before we were actually friends—it was before all of this. I’m sorry, I didn’t?—”
“It’s okay,” Falk said, pulling Ren into his arms. Ren buried his face against his chest, inhaling the comforting scent there.
“My family is awful,” Ren whispered into the quiet gathered between them.
“My mom… she hit me a lot. She was always so mad at me. She said I reminded her too much of my dad.” He thought back to a part of himself he had never been able to explain before.
“The reason I’m such a light sleeper. The reason you can’t touch me while I’m asleep is because my mom…
whenever she saw me sleeping would get really angry, saying that I should be doing something better with my time than laying around.
Even in the middle of the night, if she found me asleep, she would beat me awake and give me something to do.
I started hiding in different places in the house so she wouldn’t find me. So now I just expect it to happen.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Ren. I?—”
“And my brother,” Ren continued as though Falk hadn’t spoken.
“I really wanted us to be friends. I wanted nothing more than for us to be close. We were two Omegas, we should have protected each other. I thought of him so much when everything was happening—after I killed those Alphas one of the first things I thought about was the fact that they couldn’t ever hurt him. ”
“Ren—”
“I really wished we had been a nice family,” Ren whimpered, shaking his head.
“They both hated me so much even though I never did anything to them. And the people of the town… all I ever did was try to be kind to everyone, but none of them cared about me. The Omegas all seemed to go along with my mother’s hatred of me, and the Alphas only ever looked at me like I was something for them to own. ”
“I’m sorry,” Falk murmured, pressing his mouth to Ren’s forehead.
“I never had any friends. I don’t know why they all hated me so much.” Ren took a long, shaky breath. “It’s why I had always wanted to come to the castle. I wanted a fresh start away from all of them.”
“I’m sorry,” Falk repeated, “I wish I had known. I didn’t mean to bring up all these bad memories for you.”
Ren’s gaze tracked Falk as he moved around their room.
He was going about his evening as normal, as Ren had done a few minutes before.
Ren’s wet hair was soaking into the pillow beneath his head and his blanket was pulled up all the way to his nose.
Falk had finally come out from the bathroom and was quietly pulling on the soft shirt and undershorts he usually wore to sleep.
As Falk was pulling back the corner of the blanket for himself, Ren’s mouth was opening before he could even think about it. “Can I go spend the night with Flory?”
Falk froze where he stood, gazing at Ren with a strangely blank expression. They simply stared at each other for a moment before Falk spoke, “Flory?” he echoed. “Why would you want to go spend the night with her?”
“She’s my friend,” Ren murmured.
“It’s nighttime, Ren. I’m sure she and Mont are already asleep,” Falk said. “Why do you want to go see her right now?”
“I just… want to see her,” Ren said again.
“Ren, are you mad at me?” Falk whispered. “Why are you?—”
“I’m not,” Ren said quickly, “I…” He searched for the correct words, chewing on his lip as he second guessed everything before it made its way past his lips.
“Sometimes it’s comforting being around you, and sometimes it’s comforting being around other Omegas—my friends,” he said slowly.
“And right now, I just want to go see my friend.”
Falk let out a slow breath. “Let me go see if she and Mont are still awake.” He put the part of the blanket he had picked up back down and walked out of their quarters. Ren felt like he wasn’t breathing the entire time Falk was gone, not even blinking while the door was shut.
“Flory said she can come over here,” Falk sighed as he walked in, “Mont is not too happy about it, though.”
“You can go keep him company,” Ren said.
Falk’s eyebrows raised. “Are you kicking me out of my own room?”
Ren smiled sheepishly. “I wanted to talk to Flory alone, so yes.”
Which was how Flory ended up marching into his quarters with an armful of blankets and shouting at Falk to “get out of here, the Omegas are having a sleepover.” Mont glared pointedly at Ren from the doorway as his mate tossed all of their bedding on top of him.
“This nest is pathetic,” Flory said, shaking her head.
“Did Falk not let you get more blankets and pillows?”
“Was I supposed to?” Falk asked, lost. “We have plenty?—”
“Not enough,” Flory interrupted. She waved her hand at the two Alphas. “Get out.”
It was hard arguing with her.
Ren let her rearrange the perfectly made bed Falk always organized each morning—just two pillows for their heads to rest on with a large, quilted blanket and a single sheet to cover both of them.
She shoved and fluffed up all the pillows until they made a semi-circle, and then made a small mountain out of the blankets in the center.
“There,” she said, flopping down and breathing a happy hum. “Much better.”
Once she was fully tucked into the newly made nest on the side of the bed Falk normally occupied, she turned onto her side to face Ren. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Ren murmured.
“You’re very quiet,” she hummed, “and I never thought you’d ever want to be away from Falk for any amount of time.” Her gaze flicked over his face, trying to reach him. “Did something happen? Did Falk do something?”
“No,” Ren shook his head.
“Are you lying?”
Ren sighed. “Yeah.”
“Well,” Flory hummed, rolling to lay on her back again. “You can tell me if you want to, but I’m not going sit here and force it out of you.”
Ren bit his lip, chewing on the skin there as he watched Flory’s face. Her eyes were closed, as though she was trying to go to sleep. “Thanks for coming here with me,” he said after the silence had hung for too long.
“Of course,” Flory said.