Heart Reclaimed (Always Yours)

Chapter 1

Wilson

The whiskey burns on the way down and I let it, tilting the glass until the last of it coats my tongue before settling the empty tumbler back on the table. Two fingers of Maker's Mark gone in under ten minutes. Not my worst showing, but it's early yet.

Vice & Virtue is packed tonight, bodies pressing against each other on the dance floor while the bass from the overhead speakers rattles through the booth and into my spine.

The lighting is low enough that I can barely make out the faces of the people nearest to me, all of them blurred into shapes that don't require my attention.

That's why I come here. The noise fills the space where my thoughts try to root, and the dark means I'm just another body in a room full of them.

Nobody looks at the Beta drinking alone in the back corner.

Nobody should.

I lift my hand to flag down a passing waitress, and she nods, already knowing my order.

Third week in a row I've been here on a Thursday night, and she's got me figured out.

Whiskey, neat, back booth, don't make conversation.

Tip well and leave before last call. Predictable in a way that would have embarrassed me a few years ago when I still thought I was headed somewhere.

My phone buzzes against the table and I flip it over long enough to read the notification.

It’s a job listing forwarded from an employment board I forgot to unsubscribe from.

Administrative coordinator for a small medical office downtown.

I could do it in my sleep. I could do most things in my sleep and none of it matters because the moment they run my name through any kind of background search, the same word keeps surfacing.

Hearthstone.

I lock the phone and shove it to the far edge of the table before pressing the heel of my palm against my left eye.

The headache sitting behind it has been building all afternoon, the kind that starts as pressure and turns into something sharper if I let myself dwell too long on things I can't change.

One of the last interviews I had, the woman across the desk went from interested to repulsed in the span of a single question.

Where did you work before this? Hearthstone Omega Center.

Two years in their care program. Her smile didn't just fall.

It evacuated, like I'd told her I was carrying something contagious.

She didn't let me explain that I was working against them from the inside.

She didn't let me tell her about the years I spent feeding Omegas information they weren't supposed to have, memorizing files I wasn't authorized to read, and slipping a phone number to a terrified kid on my last day so he could cut himself free from the monster who owned him.

None of them let me explain that my position at the worst Omega Center framework nearly two years ago had been so I could get those Omegas out.

Hearthstone had been dismantled shortly after I left but no one ever wants to hear my side of the story.

All they know is the horrors of what the media told them happened in that place and assume I had a part in it.

An HR call from last month was the worst of it.

Three minutes of some woman reading from a script while I stood in my kitchen with a coffee going cold in my hand.

Your employment has been terminated effective immediately due to concerns regarding your prior affiliation with an organization currently under federal investigation.

I started talking, trying to explain myself as fast I could but she hung up.

I didn’t even get to finish my sentence.

It’s only a matter of time before my current employment calls after running a routine background check or a review. It’s always bullshit. It’s usually that someone said something or they google my name and then realized where I had worked.

The waitress drops off my second whiskey and I wrap both hands around the glass, letting the cold settle into my palms. A heavy sigh falls from my lips, my lids fluttering shut for a moment before focusing back on my glass, a dull throb pulsing up my shoulder, reminding me in some part how I ended up here.

The scar on the right side of my neck itches the way it always does when I think about the parts of my life I can't scrub clean.

I reach up and tug my collar a little higher, making sure the fabric sits flush against the ruined skin underneath.

It's a reflex at this point. I don't even register the motion until my fingers are already back on the glass, the raised edges of the scar burning a reminder into my skin through the cotton.

The bite was removed two years ago. The scar never will always be a reminder.

I take a slow pull of whiskey and let my gaze drift across the room, cataloging exits out of habit.

Front entrance, twelve o'clock, currently bottlenecked with a group of Alphas comparing cologne like it's a pissing contest. Fire exit behind the bar, partially blocked by a stack of crates someone forgot to move.

Hallway to the restrooms on my left, narrow enough that I'd have to press past people to use it.

Back door somewhere behind the DJ booth if the layout follows any kind of code.

Four ways out. I always count. My ex-Alpha, Sebastian, trained that into me without ever meaning to, the constant awareness of how quickly I could leave a room if something felt off. It's one of the few gifts from that period of my life I haven't managed to shake.

Not that I've managed to shake much.

I raise the glass to my lips, taking a larger swig than necessary as I continue to mull over everything wrong in my life.

Bills are due. Jobs won’t keep me. And then there’s that Christmas card still sitting on my kitchen counter, forcing me to face the fact that I’ve been stalling while the world passes me by.

I found it in my mailbox three days ago, the envelope addressed in god-awful handwriting from the last Omega I saved at Hearthstone.

Luca Keller. Two photos were tucked inside, one of the twin boys with frosting smeared across their faces, the other of the whole pack crammed onto a couch with Luca in the center holding his belly, round with another one on the way.

A girl this time, according to the note scrawled on the back.

I stared at those photos for a long time, long enough for my coffee to go cold again.

The boys have Luca's curls and wide eyes and I thought about the night I sat across from him in that sterile room at Hearthstone, watching him curl into himself like he was trying to disappear into the wall.

He had looked so small and yet so angry with the way the world worked.

It was then I showed him my scar, offering him an out, a way to be free of his past aggressors.

And now Luca’s got a pack, a family, and babies. I’m ecstatic for him. There isn't a bitter bone in my body about Luca's happiness.

The bitterness is reserved for the fact that I went home to an empty apartment after looking at those photos and crawled into a bed that smelled like nothing but detergent and my own stale coffee-and-leather scent.

And then, I laid there in the dark and waited for the nightmares to come like they always do, every single night for the past two years.

There is no one on the other side of them when I jerk awake with my hands fisted in the sheets and the phantom smell of cold metal and smoke lodged in the back of my throat.

But, I don't scream anymore. I stopped doing that when I realized no one was coming.

I take another sip, the whiskey doing its job, dulling the sharper edges of a day that didn't deserve to be this exhausting, given that I didn't do a goddamn thing.

I woke up, drank coffee, and scrolled through job postings I won't apply to. I even considered going for a run and then sat on the couch until the sun started dropping, showered, and then came here.

The sum total of Wilson Ashford's productive day.

There was a time when I was good at being alive.

When I wanted things and reached for them without flinching.

I wanted a bond. I wanted a pack. I wanted to crawl into bed with an Alpha and offer up every fragile, hungry part of myself because submission felt like breathing when it was done right.

The weight of someone's hand on my neck, pushing me down, pulling me apart, putting me back together after.

I craved it the way some people crave sugar. It was the most honest thing about me.

But my ex... he found that need, named it, made me believe he was the answer to it, and then he spent the next three years turning it into something I couldn't look at anymore.

The first time he pinned me down and I said no and his hand stayed where it was, something inside me cracked.

By the time I understood what had broken, I was already so deep inside our bond that I couldn't tell the difference between his desires and my own.

He was good at that, making the cage look like a house.

I drain the rest of the whiskey and set the glass down a little harder than necessary.

The couple in the next booth glances over and I stare back until they look away.

I'm not in the mood to perform politeness for strangers.

I'm not in the mood for much of anything except sitting in this dark corner and letting the bass shake the memories loose from whatever wall I've stacked them behind so I can look at them from a safe enough distance that they can't grab me.

Most nights, the distance holds.

Some nights, it doesn't. Those are the ones where I wake up with my pulse hammering in my throat and my hand pressed against the scar on my neck like I'm trying to hold the wound closed even though it healed over a long time ago.

Those are the nights where the room smells like the ghost of Sebastian no matter how many windows I open, where my body is braced for a weight that isn't there anymore, and where the worst part isn't the fear but the grief that sits beneath everything.

Because I'm not just dreaming about the man who hurt me.

I'm dreaming about the version of myself who walked into that bond willingly, arms open, throat bared, so fucking eager to belong to someone that I didn't notice the teeth were sharper than they should have been.

I miss that version of me sometimes. The one who believed. I also want to punch him in the face for being so goddamn stupid.

The waitress circles back, offering me another glass even as I shake my head.

Two is usually the limit on a Thursday. Any more and I'll end up stumbling home instead of walking, and the walk is part of the ritual.

Fifteen minutes of cold air and empty sidewalks between here and my apartment, just enough to convince myself that tomorrow will be different even though it never is.

Then again, I don’t have a shift tomorrow, so who cares? I nod, the waitress chuckling as she slides a glass off her tray.

I reach for my phone to check the time, already calculating how long I need to sit here before it's socially acceptable to leave a club after 10 PM, when someone slides into the booth across from me.

"Hi."

I glance up as hazel-green eyes stare back at me.

The Omega’s dark hair is tousled in every direction like he just rolled out of bed or stuck his head out a car window, a wide smile spread across his lips.

He's wearing a loose linen shirt that hangs open at the collar, nearly blending into his pale skin, glitter spread on his cheekbones. It’s not even remotely subtle, some part of me leaning toward him because the low light makes his face look like something out of a fever dream.

His scent hits me a half-second later, something warm and sweet, rich in a way that reminds me of something baked and golden. Apple pie, my brain supplies without permission, my cock stiffening against my thigh so fast that I have to shift in my seat to keep the pressure from becoming a problem.

Of course, my first reaction is to distrust the encounter. I frown at him. "Can I help you?"

He grins wider, which I didn't think was possible. "I've been watching you."

My hand tightens around my glass. He must see something shift in my expression because his hands come up fast, waving in front of his chest like he's trying to physically redirect the sentence he just fired at a stranger in a dark club.

"No, not creepy or anything, I promise. I just—fuck, you're gorgeous, and Lorenzo wouldn't let me come talk to you, so I waited until he got busy.

" The grin turns sheepish, his cheeks flushing pink beneath the glitter. "He'll come snatch me up in a minute."

I stare at him. "What?"

His grin takes over his entire face as he thrusts a hand across the table. "I'm Oliver Hendrix."

I stare at the hand for a beat too long before taking it. His grip is warm, his fingers slim against mine, and that scent curls tighter in my chest as I process the name. "Hendrix," I repeat slowly. "Doesn't that mean you own the club?"

"Guilty." His smile doesn't falter. "And before you ask—yes, I know this is weird.

But you've been sitting here alone for the past hour, and you're way too pretty to be drinking by yourself.

" He pauses, tilts his head, scours the nearby area like he's checking for someone I might be waiting for, then looks back at me.

A single earring catches the light on his left ear.

"Unless you're not alone? Fuck, I'm trying to proposition you. "

My mouth opens but nothing comes out. I'm still trying to figure out if this is real when a shadow falls over the table.