Episode 13 The Damage Done #3
“Maybe,” the prime says, coming to stand right next to us.
His hand lifts, hovers, waiting for me to pull away but I don’t.
I don’t want to. His brown eyes go soft, fingers brushing over my cheek as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, then drifts down my neck to the collar of my shirt… his shirt. His brows arch.
I shrug. “I didn’t have any other clothes. Don’t read too much into it.”
He hums and drops his hand. “If we had sent you home at the beginning, cor mea, it’s possible that none of us would have ever realized who we were to each other.
It's also equally as possible we would have spent the rest of our lives feeling like we don’t fit, like there was something missing, but never knowing what it was.
We might have spent every second of every day missing each other and never even realizing it.
” He leans forward and brushes his mouth over my forehead, sending a zing through me.
“I, for one, am so bloody glad to know you’re my mate, fated for me. ”
The admission makes my heart give a painful throb. Mostly because I don’t think I can trust it though. And even if he is telling the truth, it doesn’t mean he’s going to drop Isadora and be with me instead.
In fact, I’m about ninety percent sure he’s not going to do that.
Knowing isn’t the same as doing.
And that’s what’s killing me.
They knew I was their mate for days, and until I collapsed on international television, I’m pretty sure they weren’t going to do anything about it. They knew, which according to Forsythe, is enough.
Of course, they aren’t the ones that have to live in a body that is fighting itself.
“We need to talk,” Thayer says, when I don’t respond to the prince’s speech. “As a pack.”
“No, we don’t,” I shoot back stubbornly.
“Yes, sunshine, we do,” Piers cuts in gently, and I feel myself give in the slightest bit.
But I’m not ready to face this. I’m still hurt from their suggestion last night that I should uproot my entire life to move to Bravonne and be their mistress. As if that should be enough for me, for my omega.
“I’d honestly rather talk about what happened with Haven’s father.”
“What do you mean?” Grieves growls, looking sharply between the two of us. “What happened?”
“Stand down, bruiser,” I say with a wave of my hand. “It's just the entire root of my trauma.”
If anything, my attempt at calming him only makes it worse. “Trauma?” he snarls.
“You know, the reason I can’t stand to have an alpha bark at me.
The reason I can’t dance anymore. The fact that I would rather discuss that than whatever the hell this is should be telling.
” Court buries his face in my neck, like he needs the comfort of my scent, and dammit I want to make him feel better, so I reach back and stroke my fingers through his hair.
“What…” Forsythe starts slowly, like he’s not sure he should follow the breadcrumbs I laid out to distract them from the conversation we need to have. “What happened?”
“Don’t let her distract you,” Thayer calls me out in a flat voice.
The three recently arrived pack mates snap their attention to the professor, but his eyes are still locked on me, waiting me out.
“He’s only saying that because he already knows what happened, since Haven apparently can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut.”
“Tell me.” Grieves sounds like he’s on the verge of breaking, of feral, and his words hold a trace of an alpha bark, but it’s not directed at me… It's for Thayer, I realize.
But the other alpha isn’t swayed. Those blue eyes of his remain focused on me. “If you want to go this route, killer, you're going to have to be the one to tell them.”
With a pained sigh, Court lifts his head to prop his chin on my shoulder. “Haven’s dad was an asshole alpha who used his bark as a way to control his daughter-”
“Court,” Thayer tries to cut him off, but he keeps going.
“When Haven managed to thwart his commands entirely and bond with the Calloways, he looked for another way to control her.” His arms tighten on me in an almost apologetic squeeze.
“You?” Piers whispers, looking pale. He’s probably the only other person in this room who can fully understand the horror of being under an alpha’s control when you don’t want to be. “He used his bark on you?”
The smile I give him is thin. “Yep. Barked me to go with him, to the very same abandoned restaurant Haven started her heat alone in, told me to sit in a chair and not move, and then he took a sledgehammer to my knee while he filmed it for Haven as a warning that he would do worse if she didn’t listen, didn’t do as he commanded.
” I look away from them, out the window to the glittering water of the pool.
“I couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t fight, couldn’t stop him.
Just sat there and cried while he took everything from me. ”
There’s a long, long silence, where I can feel their anger on my behalf, their rage, their dominance. Like their alphas are ordering them to fix it, but there’s nothing to fix.
Frederick Bell is dead.
My knee isn’t going to magically heal because they will it to.
And my aversion to alpha barks is… ingrained on me now.
“Florence,” Forsythe sounds… wrecked. And I don’t want to stick around to see what else he might say.
“There now,” I say as I hop off of Courtland’s lap. I’m a little surprised when he lets me go, but maybe he recognizes I’m at my breaking point. “I think I’ve filled my quota for conversations I don’t want to have for the day, don’t you?”
Before any of them can react I hurry past Forsythe and out the door, beelining toward my little house and barricading myself inside.