Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
“Did you go to the Omega Academy?” I ask Ethel. It’s the middle of the night, but once again, neither of us is asleep.
It’s hard to sleep when you don’t know when they’re going to come and collect you. I’ve only been here two days, and I haven’t figured out a pattern yet.
Ethel swears there isn’t one, that they’re trying to keep us on our toes and not let us get comfortable.
As if we could be comfortable in cages.
Still, I’ve tried to keep track of their movements. I wish I had something to write it on, but for now, all I can do is hope I don’t lose time when they take me for treatments.
“I did, but I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all of being an Omega.
Sure, I learned some interesting things, but I don’t think an Omega that doesn’t go is less than.
A lot of it was bullshit meant to make Omegas feel subservient to the other designations.
Some real Perfect Omega bullshit.” Her dark eyes have deep purple bags under them, and her lips are chapped. Her body looks wrung out.
I wish I could touch her.
“My sister-in-law was a late-presenting Omega. Like, super late,” I tell her. “She always wanted to go, but couldn’t.”
“How late did she present?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Shit,” Ethel swears. “That isn’t just late. That’s unheard of.”
My brother’s Omega, Jordan, had a rough go of it for a minute there.
She spent her whole life knowing she was an Omega, but my brother was the first person to believe her.
He even triggered her presentation. He says it was pheromones and proximity, but the long-buried romantic inside me thinks that believing in her is what finally did the trick.
In what world would Jordan’s Omega nature feel safe enough to present itself if no one trusted what she was saying all along?
I tell Ethel the story, including Icarus’s research into the Omega gene that may have stopped Jordan from presenting.
“Are you saying there are a bunch of Betas out there that are supposed to be Omegas, but won’t ever present unless they spend enough time around their scent matches?” she asks curiously. “There’s no other way to get them to change?”
I try to lie on my side, with my legs curled up, to ease the crick in my neck from being bent over. “He’s trying to figure out a way to simulate the pheromones of a scent match to trigger the presentation in those who want it, but it hasn’t worked yet.”
“It could solve the ‘Omega crisis, ’” she says bitterly.
The Omega crisis, as the media has termed it, refers to the further decline in Omega presentations following the implementation of regulations for the Design Clinic.
Never mind that children designed under the new regulations are nowhere near presentation age.
The political pundits don’t seem to care about that.
It is all spin and sensationalism, with the laws about child design being blamed for the Omega decline.
All they seem to care about is demonizing the Perfect Omega, Nora Sloane, and all those who oppose heavy-handed Design.
The Design Clinic specifically designed and trained Nora to be the Perfect Omega, and she was their spokesperson until she met her scent matches.
There was a court case in which Dr. Albert Greene from the Design Clinic and the prosecutor argued she wasn’t a person but property, a case that was all over the news.
She’s been an incredible advocate since then, speaking at rallies and events.
I don’t know how she does it. If I went through all she did, I’d probably never leave my house again.
That’s what I think happened to Plain Jane, the Omega who was at the center of a design scandal a few years before Nora. Like Nora, she was over designed, but in Jane’s case, it was to force a Beta presentation.
It didn’t work.
Now she’s an Omega living with life-altering health conditions.
“It would surely add more Omegas to the population,” I agree. “But it needs to be their choice if they get that gene activated. I wouldn’t want to be an Omega. No offense,” I add quickly.
“None taken. There are a lot of parts of it that suck. And going into heat is barely scratching the surface.” Ethel chuckles and adjusts herself in a mirror of my position. “If I had the choice, I’m not sure if I’d have chosen this life.” Her voice is heavy with exhaustion and grief. It worries me.
The metal door slams open, and heavy feet stomp across the room. Our doctor, still in his scrubs and mask, approaches my cage with a syringe in hand.
“Athena!” Strong arms band around me. “Athena, please,” the voice continues. “Come back to us. You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
My awareness trickles in slowly, like a veil being lifted off my face.
And when it slams back into me like an airbag, I throw myself out of the unfamiliar arms that are wrapped around me.
My pulse kicks up, my chest heaving, as I try to process everything that’s happening around me. I can smell Atlas’s coconut pheromones, but they’re sour with fear. I can hear the purrs of the four Alphas, Pack Lupine, who say I’m meant to be their Omega.
How is that possible?
I’m not an Omega. Not in the ways that count.
Does this mean packs can have more than one scent match?
Does this mean they might meet another Omega one day and leave me behind?
They always leave me.
My scar aches, and I rub my hand down it, trying and failing at convincing my brain that it’s not dripping blood like it did when that heavy lamp crashed into me.
I can practically see the beautiful, stained glass lampshade crack against my flesh, cutting deep, but not as deep as the realization that the woman that I thought was my Omega, my future, didn’t want me.
The doctor said I was lucky my collarbone hadn’t broken.
Lucky.
Athena Valentine is not lucky, as evidenced by the fact that I was kidnapped and turned into an Omega.
I’m vaguely aware of the men watching me.
What do they see?
Can they tell that I am falling apart?
I bet they can. I feel like a pot being held together with sugar water, and I will crumble apart at the smallest amount of heat.
Do they know that I will never be whole again? That I am ruined, torn into shreds, and reformed into a monster? I am stealing their opportunity to have a normal Omega away from them.
“Yeah, I’m not doing that,” I hear a quiet voice snarl, shortly before a warm hand lands on my shoulder. “You’re not there, Athena.” I look up into the scarred face of Harvey, one eye partially closed from the scar tissue, but both kind and gentle. “You’re not there.”
“Feels like I am,” I say, gasping for breath, scrambling to hold on to his hand, to let it anchor me. “Why does it feel like I am?”
“Why do I wake up sometimes convinced I’m lying half dead on the asphalt?
Our brains are fucking douchebags sometimes.
Do you want to talk about it?” He slowly makes himself comfortable in front of me, one foot braced on the nest. He’s handsome, older than me, with a voice that tells the story of too many cigarettes and a face that wears the worst moments of his life.
The others are slowly inching toward us, but I don’t pay them any attention. Right now, Harvey feels like a life raft.
“It was a memory. Of being there.”
“Yeah? What was happening?”
I open my mouth to tell him about Ethel. Atlas doesn’t even know about her. But it feels wrong. Because I know they’ll say that there is a chance she’s alive, that maybe we can find her.
But I know she’s not.
I don’t know how I know, but I do.
And I don’t want to wake her ghost right now.
“How about I show you mine first, yeah?” Harvey says playfully, pushing his hair off his face. “I was twenty-three. I was a stupid fucking kid and took a curve too fast on my bike. I over-corrected, like the fucking prospect I was, and got dragged behind the bike until it hit the guardrail.”
I wince at the visual of a younger Harvey getting into such a serious accident. Without thinking, I reach out and take his hand in mine. I’m surprised when I purr, and he gives me a sweet, lopsided smile.
“It took a team of doctors to put me back together, but sometimes I wake up on that road even now.”
“I had a pack,” I tell him, my words rushing together.
I want to share some of my history with him, since he shared his.
And since I can’t talk about Ethel, this is the next best thing.
“And they met their scent matched Omega, and she was… everything. I thought I was finally getting what I had dreamed of since I was a kid. An Omega to cherish, to spoil. It was fine, great even, for a few months. Until she went into heat.” My free hand presses against the scar on my chest, and I close my eyes as the memories threaten to overwhelm me.
“She got mad that I was touching her Alphas and threw a lamp at me—one of those big, heavy ones, with the colorful glass shades. You know the ones I’m talking about?
It hit me in the chest and broke on impact. ”
Awareness of the other men prickles around me. I know they are all hanging onto my words. I can’t look at them, can’t acknowledge that they’re here. I’m glad I won’t have to tell this story again.
“I went to the hospital by myself because the Alphas couldn’t leave her while she was in heat, and since nothing was broken, I asked the ER doctor to stitch me up and send me on my way.
I wanted to get back to my pack. I still thought we could salvage things.
But that was wishful, na?ve thinking. I got home to a dead-bolted door and my things piled outside it. ”
There was no time for me to wallow in my grief, because I could hear them fucking through the walls. I dug through the stuff for my essentials and then bolted, calling my brother and sobbing uncontrollably into the phone.
He picked me up almost immediately and took me back to his place. He nursed me through both pains in my chest.
“I don’t know why it’s bothering me right now,” I admit to Harvey. “Why is it taking up so much space in my head?”
“If you don’t mind my interrupting,” Charles says cautiously. I tilt my head to the side and give him a small, encouraging smile. “Was that your last time in a nest?”
“They put us in a nest,” Atlas whispers. “We both woke up in one, and then they drugged us.”
I don’t even have to look to know where he is.
I am always so aware of my Omega mate and where he is.
I want to curl up in his arms, but the idea of letting go of Harvey’s hand makes me want to cry.
I think Atlas can feel that through the bond, because he shuffles closer to me and wraps himself around my back.
“So it sounds like you haven’t had positive experiences in nests at all,” Charles continues. “That’s probably why. I was doing some research, and it said that new traumatic events can bring old trauma back to the surface.”
“Like a two-for-one deal,” Sebastian pipes up.
“Sebass!” Charles hisses.
But I burst out laughing at the utter ridiculousness of his statement.
“Three and oh, boys,” Sebastian says, holding up three fingers. “That’s three times I’ve made her laugh while you jabronis sat around doing nothing.”
“Jabroni?” Atlas asks incredulously. “That’s the insult you go with?”
Sebastian shrugs and leans back, propping himself up on his elbows. “If the glove fits, or whatever the saying is.”
I can practically hear Icarus’s correction of the phrase to “if the shoe fits” in my head. I am sure Sebastian would mess up sayings purposefully to get a rise out of my brother. It helps me imagine, for a moment, what life could be like if I got to keep Pack Lupine.
Charles’s words echo in my head as Sebastian and Atlas go back and forth. Harvey feeds his fingers through mine, casually holding my hand as my eyes catch on Wyatt, who’s quietly sitting away from the rest of us.
When the Alpha catches me staring, he dips his chin and smiles softly at me. “Go to sleep,” he says, his voice carrying with no need to be raised. “You don’t have to process all your trauma at four in the morning.”
“Am I allowed to do that? Wake up the entire house from a nightmare without addressing the cause? It feels like something you’d want to talk about.”
Wyatt snorts a little as the other guys tune into our conversation. “I’ve been through this before, princess. You need sleep more than you need Chuckie to psychoanalyze you.”
“That’s not what I was doing! I was only saying-”
I ignore the bickering between Alphas and instead sink further into the arms of my Omega, refusing to drop Harvey’s hand and hoping that I see Ethel in my dreams as much as I pray I don’t.