Chapter 33
chapter
thirty-three
I’m Tristan Thorne.
But that doesn’t mean shit right now.
Right now, I’m just a man who wants to tear the world in two but can’t fit my hands around it.
Serena asked if she could talk to all of us. I never expected this , though.
I’ve been keeping an eye on her all week, making sure she seems as settled and happy as she feels through the bond. Until I walk into a room, that is. Then her panic and shame lash at my insides.
It’s been easier for me to watch from a distance. Absorbing her quick smiles and intelligent eyes. Seeing how she relaxes into Jonah’s nurturing and rises to meet Avery’s attitude.
I’ve even seen glimpses that I know Spencer would love—her thirst for knowledge, the careful way she reasons through situations, hovering at their edges before acting. Which is why I suspect she’s been thinking about this carefully since she arrived.
What to tell us, how to tell us.
She chooses the living room. That feels obvious, since the only other place we’d all fit and have a place to sit is the nest she hasn’t even opened yet. I was hoping Spencer’s shopping trip may encourage her. Not because I want to go in there— although —but more because she needs that safe space.
I’m starting to think she’s never had one.
As we all shuffle into the living room, I can’t help but run my eyes over her outfit. It’s one of the new ones—tight pants that hug her hips and a silky low-cut blouse. I might appreciate the ensemble more if it wasn’t soaked in the scent of her stress.
Sweet baby.
It really isn’t fair to her, the way she smells aroused when she’s scared. If I didn’t have her distress churning a pit in my stomach, I might never have figured out the difference between her perfume and this darker sweetness.
The rest of my pack has figured it out, too. I can tell they’re all on edge.
Avery sits on the edge of the sofa with his elbows on his knees, shifting restlessly. Jonah drags his palms over his jean-clad thighs. And Spencer stands in the far corner of the room with his arms crossed, motionless.
It’s telling that Serena chooses one of the individual reading chairs instead of wedging herself between Jonah and Ave. Until tonight, she’s seemed content to take every opportunity they’ve given her for affection.
Now, the small omega-sized space between them remains vacant .
I’m the last one in the room, coming to the only chair left open, across the coffee table from Serena. She bites her lip while I sink into it, chagrin and apprehension clanging through our frayed tether.
Her right hand curls protectively around her hummingbird necklace and she starts to talk, her words slow and halting.
“Those alphas today. They know me from the club I used to… work at.” She swallows, her stomach flipping as she winces. “Wally’s Boom Boom Room.
“It’s a—” Her voice cracks. “It’s a strip club. Downtown. They have dancers and private rooms and… other things .”
She lets those words land in the middle of the room and suck half the air out of it.
“Like me,” she adds. “I was one of the things alphas could only get at Wally’s—an omega with super-perfume, walking around, delivering drinks, free for fondling or pictures…”
God, I can’t breathe . The slicing shame carving her insides to shreds has severed my airway. When I try to look her in the eye, she ducks her head and bites her lip harder.
“How did you end up there?” I force out. “Did you want to be a dancer?”
Dear God, please say yes . Please say this sweet omega wasn’t there against her will for God knows how?—
“No. No, I never wanted to be there.” She shakes her head, casting desperate looks at Jonah and Avery. Begging them to believe her.
As if this is somehow more acceptable because she didn’t want to do it.
Which makes me furious .
“ Look at me .”
My bark flies out and her head snaps to the side instantly. Fear spikes hard in her belly, forcing out a whine.
As soon as her eyes land on mine, I lower my voice. “Do you think,” I rasp, “that we’d be angrier if you’d had a choice? That knowing you had to work somewhere— anywhere —against your will isn’t the most horrible thing any of us can imagine?”
Aside from death and assault. Although, what she’s describing would legally qualify as the latter. Especially since?—
“I never wanted to be there,” she repeats, shriller. “My—Wally made me start when my designation came through. He—he’d been planning it all along.”
A low buzz begins to hum through my ears. “All along?”
She nods, her wild desperation tearing at my gut. “He chose me because he thought I’d be an omega.”
Chose her .
The words spiral through my brain until Spencer puts it all together, his frozen voice clipping out, “He adopted you.”
It isn’t a question, but Serena nods anyway, darting a quick look to my brother before turning back to the floor. “He knew my mom, I guess. And she had the same strong perfume. He thought—he thought I would be like her. So when she decided to surrender me, he swooped in.”
Jonah looks sick. His russet skin has a faint grayish cast as he scrapes, “And you were— raised by him?”
Serena grimaces. “Nannies, really. Then, tutors and babysitters. For a long time, I had no idea anything was weird. I lived in a house, I went to school. I didn’t know that other kids' parents always spoke to them or spent time at home. I thought we were normal.
“But then, right around junior high—when I started to figure out that most kids didn’t sleep in their parents' basements or go months on end without seeing them—Wally pulled me out of school and got me virtual tutors. For a long time, that was the worst part; I really wanted to go to school, but I wasn’t allowed.”
Spencer speaks again; no doubt because his linear mind is the only one capable of thinking straight at the moment. “Did he say why?”
Serena sighs. “He told me that my designation bloodwork indicated I would be an omega and claimed keeping me in the house was the best way to protect me. Said a lot of people did it.”
Sadly, that really isn’t far from the truth. Many families pull their omega sons and daughters out of school when they designate. It’s one of the things I’m trying to change with my work—making it illegal to cut an omega’s education off before they’ve finished high school.
“Wally always told me how lucky I was that he adopted me in the first place,” Serena remembers, tracing her toe in circles on the floor. “Everyone else—teachers and neighbors and whatever—all said the same time thing, so I believed him. I felt grateful .
“At first, when he asked me to work at the club for him, I wanted to make him happy. When he made rules about how much I could eat or who I was allowed to talk to, I did my best to follow them. For years, I didn’t even notice all the locks on the doors and the windows because it never occurred to me to try to get out… Once I figured it out, I did everything I could to try to get away from him. Even when he would… punish me.”
Avery has been still and silent this whole time, but he finally moves. Standing without a sound, he takes five heavy steps around the table.
And drops to his knees.
His tattooed hands mold around her face. “I knew there was a fighter in here,” he says, rough and earnest. “There she is.”
Serena’s eyes fill as she stares back at him. “You’re not mad? You don’t want me to leave?”
“ Manamea ,” Jonah gasps, lurching to join Avery on the floor in front of her. “ Never . None of us would ever want that.”
She doesn’t believe him. I feel doubt expand inside her chest. Golden green eyes blink at Jonah before slowly turning to Spencer.
Waiting, I realize, for him to disagree.
My brother doesn’t, though. He gazes back at her, steady and intense. Saying, without words, None of us. Not even me .
Which only leaves?—
Serena chooses to look right at me for the first time in days. Tears sparkle on her lashes, but she seems grimly determined, otherwise. That flawless poker face of hers locks into place, hiding how sick she feels.
I can’t think of a better reason to let the door blocking my feelings collapse.