Episode 1 Once Upon a Reality Show #2
I know physically, I look like the ideal omega.
But mentally and emotionally, I’m still all fucked up.
I’m not sure I could handle going on the show, being compared to countless other omegas, meeting the most famous pack in the world.
I’ve watched the show enough with Haven to know that the producers look for someone to paint as a manipulative asshole through the show, and I really wouldn’t want it to be me.
I don’t think I could handle the public hate, random strangers trolling me online, or in person.
Haven sighs, likely seeing every one of my thoughts scrolling over my face. “Okay,” she says gently. “You don’t have to go. But just think about it okay? Don’t send the refusal right away.”
I wrinkle my nose, because I had been planning on refusing as soon as she and Hale left. “No promises.”
“Yes, promises,” Haven presses. And then she gives me this look that makes my stomach clench in anxiety.
She’s about to lay a truth bomb at my feet, set a timer and then walk away.
“Ren, you need to do something. You aren’t-you aren’t yourself anymore.
And don’t get me wrong I get it, I understand why you’re struggling.
We all do. But all of us need you to come back to yourself a bit more.
Just a bit.” She pushes off the stool and comes to take my hand in hers, lacing our fingers together.
“You’re my sunshine girl. The light of my life for so long.
And it's so hard for me to watch you struggle and do nothing. And I think… I think what you're doing now isn’t enough. You’re surviving, Ren. Not thriving.”
She reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Going on the show, it probably won’t be the answer. As much as I would love for you to become an actual princess, I know it's unlikely. And not because you’re not wonderful, but because I’m convinced the show is rigged.”
“Still stuck on season seven?”
Her pretty face folds into a scowl. “The Reachers were so in love with Karli it wasn’t even funny. But Rachel was the fan favorite. So now she’s Rachel Reacher and that is so unfortunate.”
I tilt my head. “I actually think I read somewhere they didn’t bond.”
Haven points one finger at me menacingly.
“Stop trying to distract me. My point is that you need to do something different. Think of this as a vacation, like Jude said. You can just go and be, and meet new people, and meet princes and get a tan, and then you can come back. And we’ll figure out the next step. ”
The next step is likely going to a scent clinic and trying to match with other packs.
Haven is trying to help. I know she is. But she doesn’t understand that the thought of being around unbonded alphas… terrifies me. Hell, even bonded ones I don’t know scare me.
I can’t tell her because it's her father’s fault. Which she’ll take to mean it's her fault.
But I can still feel the weight of Frederick Bell’s alpha commands. The way he took control of my body. How I was unable to fight. To resist.
The idea of anyone doing that to me again makes a well of panic open in my chest.
My therapist says in order to work through it, I need to expose myself to unknown alphas. But I haven’t been able to convince myself to do that yet, not beyond the customers that come into the bank. Brief interactions that only last a few minutes and then they’re gone.
So I nod. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I’ll think about it okay? I’ll give it a few days and then send my response. They gave me until Friday.”
Haven squeals and claps her hands, before throwing her arms around me and squeezing tight. “I’m so excited for you. And jealous. So jealous.”
“Why might that be, little mouse?” Hale drawls, book held open in his giant hand.
“She’s meeting princes, Hale! Real life princes. It's just very fairytale-esque, you know?” Her alpha makes an unimpressed sound that I can’t help but mimic.
I quirk a brow at her. “So like Cinderella? Cause that’s just about the difference in our social standings.”
Haven scowls but she’s not deterred. “I don’t see why not. I’m sure they’ll fall in love with you the moment you sweep into the introduction ceremony in some fabulous gown you’ve designed and sewn yourself.”
“Yet another sign of how very different our stations in life are. They’ll be wearing Tom Ford and I’ll be in a Florence Karlin original.”
“And you’ll look lovely, Ren,” Hale says, not looking up from the book. “You could go in wearing a garbage bag and still blow all the other omegas out of the water.”
Haven turns her head toward her alpha slowly, eyes wide and scent spiking. Hale’s mouth quirks into a smirk. He knows what he did just then. For whatever reason, having her alphas care about me, about my emotional wellbeing is a huge turn on for her.
Probably because she loves me so much and knowing her alphas love me too—like a little sister, of course—makes her appreciate them all the more. It's only gotten worse since she got pregnant.
“Need something, mouse?”
My best friend makes a sort of choked needy sound, before she stiffens her chin, looking pointedly back to me. “Nope. I’m just… I’m fine. I don’t need a damn thing.”
Her self-control is a thing of beauty.
I wave her off. “Go away. You’re stinking up my house with your perfume.”
Hale chokes out a laugh and snaps the book closed, holding it up to me as he pushes to his feet. “I’m borrowing this.”
“Of course you can borrow my book, Hale. Thanks for checking with me first.” Haven’s scent spikes even more when he laughs, making my nose wrinkle. “Get your mate out of here, dude.”
“As you command, princess.” Stuffing the paperback into his back pocket, he bends and scoops my very pregnant friend into his arms.
“Don’t call me that!” I call after their retreating backs.
Hale only laughs. “Why not? It's what you’re gonna be, isn’t it?”
That I don’t dignify with a response, shaking my head as I move to open a window and try to air out as much of my best friend’s scent as I can.
Sweat slicks my skin, my heart thundering in my chest, as I stare up at the ceiling, hands fisted in my sheets.
My knee throbs with remembered pain. Memories assault me, the empty restaurant.
The chair. The inability to do anything, to make my body move, because an alpha bark held me in place. The hammer as it swung to make a point.
I flinch, jerk in my sweat soaked nest and try to pull myself out of it.
I’m not there. I’m not there. I’m safe.
Safe. Safe. Safe.
The word echoes in my head as I try to make myself believe it.
I don’t. Not really.
No unbonded omega can truly feel safe. Not when it's so damn easy for alphas to take away our autonomy, our agency. A single command with the right amount of power behind it and we’re fucked.
Knowing I won’t be going back to sleep tonight, I reach for the lamp on the bedside table and flick it on.
Squinting against the light, I stare up at the ceiling, forcing my lungs to slow.
Breathe in for a count of four, hold for four, out for four.
Over and over and over, until my heart is no longer thundering and my breathing is calm.
Almost two years and countless hours of therapy later and I still have nightmares. Still wake up clutching at the sheets so certain that I’m back there, in that abandoned restaurant having my dreams shattered.
Haven is right.
I can’t keep going on like this.
I need to shake myself out of the fog that has swallowed me up. Out of the fear of alphas—alphas that aren’t the Calloway pack—that makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning, go to work, do anything. I’m always braced for an alpha command, for a bark that is going to take away my autonomy.
My therapist, a lovely omega named Fiona, who specializes in helping traumatized women of our designation, has told me repeatedly that not all alphas are bad. Not all alphas will hurt me.
I know that on some level, I do. Logically. The problem with PTSD is that it's not logical. At all.
Immersion therapy.
That’s what she’d recommended. Of course, she’d suggested I go to one of those mixers between packs and omegas where they try to sniff out an appropriate mate. But I’d balked at the idea of being in the vicinity of so many alphas all at once.
I am not ready for that.
But maybe just one pack, in an extremely controlled environment. Where countless people are watching every move and there’s the threat of cameras to keep everyone in line.
Maybe I could handle that.
Not immersion therapy—dip-your-toe-in therapy.
And maybe by the time I get back, I’ll have convinced that terrified, traumatized part of myself that not all alphas are bad, and I can overcome my fear enough to finally seek out a pack. My pack.
I’ve almost convinced myself that this is the right move.
But I’m still restless, still a little uncertain.
So I climb out of my nest and pad into the living room of my little pool house, grabbing my laptop off the coffee table.
I curl up on the couch under three blankets and do a quick internet search.
I, like most people in the world, am aware of the Ashbourne pack.
I know that they exist, but I haven’t given them much thought beyond that.
Mostly because, well, I’m American and they are Bravonnian and so their existence has no bearing on me at all.
Beyond the shirtless thirst traps that paparazzi sometimes snap of them and then sell to the highest bidder.
I am guilty of drinking those down.
But I don’t know much about the pack.
A quick search and I’m inundated with information and pictures, so many pictures.
I just want the basics though. If this were a pack I was actually considering, I’d want to get to know them face to face.
Plus, I don’t trust much of the information on the internet.
People lie all the time through a screen.
Lie for their public persona.
Lie to keep fans and family and everyone happy.