Chapter Thirty-One – Nic
When Mercedes first told me to get the guys into her room after they came home, I was curious. I didn’t ask at the time, mostly because I was shocked into silence, but I had plenty of time to think about it while waiting for Darius and Warren to get back, while not-so-patiently waiting for them to re-heat their dinner and scarf it down.
She has to be ready to tell us about the alpha she’s running from. If I would’ve known that seeing my scars, that hearing the story of how I nearly lost my life four years ago, would push her to open up to us, I would’ve told her the moment she came home with us.
Of course, it isn’t as though I enjoy reliving those memories. If anything, I prefer to pretend they don’t exist, which is what I think everyone in this family does. But over the last four years I’ve learned that we couldn’t go on forever the way we were; things between me, Darius, and Warren never completely healed. I think they were always wary, their guards up. The scars on my chest are the only visible ones from that horrible day and the days that followed, everything else was under the skin, the fracture too deep for us to heal on our own.
When Warren strolls into the house after dusk, I’m ready and waiting for him in the kitchen, and he slows to a halt when he spots me. “Hello,” he says slowly, eyeing me up. “Is there a reason why you’re standing alone in this dark kitchen?” He goes to the refrigerator and pulls out the leftovers from dinner, fixing himself a plate.
I almost tell him I’ve been waiting on him for a while, but if I mention Mercedes now, he’ll skip dinner. So instead I ask him, “Where were you?”
“I’m sorry. Are you my mate wondering why I’m coming home so late with another woman’s scent on me, or are you still my brother?” His deadpanned comeback makes me roll my eyes, and he chuckles. “Seriously, though. What gives?”
Folding my arms over my chest, I say, “I was just curious where you were. You obviously didn’t come straight home after work, otherwise you would’ve eaten dinner with me, Mercedes, and our parents.”
“I, uh, had to make a stop first. No big deal. Just a quick stop on the way home.”
There’s something he’s not saying, but I don’t press him on it, mostly because right then someone else strolls into the kitchen—Darius. He wears a scowl, but the moment he sees us together, that dour expression lessens. “What are you two doing in here?”
I watch as they both fix themselves a plate. “I was just waiting for you two to come home.”
Warren mutters under his breath, “I told him he was being too clingy, and that it’s such a turn-off.” And then he grins at me, making me roll my eyes yet again.
Groaning, I say, “Just hurry up and eat.”
Warren tosses his plate into the microwave and hits the minute button. “What’s got your panties in such a twist? You’re acting like we’re supposed to be somewhere or something.” He glances at Darius and visibly scoffs at me, acting like I’m ridiculous. When the microwave beeps, he pulls his plate out and heads to the table with a fork while Darius does the same. “Like, seriously, Nic, is Red rubbing off on you or something?”
Red. I’ve never asked about that nickname, but I have a brain, and I’ve always assumed it’s due to the fact that she wore a stunning red dress the first time we saw her. Our omega really does look good in red.
Darius joins him at the table, sitting across from him. Both men are intent on the food and not so much me, not until I say what I say next: “Yeah, we are supposed to be somewhere. Mercedes wants us all in her room after you—”
Both Warren and Darius drop their forks like the stainless-steel utensil suddenly morphed into a hot potato. Darius is the first to jerk into a standing position, and Warren is two seconds behind him.
“After you eat,” I finish. “After. She said after.”
Warren stabs a piece of the pork with his fork and shoves it in his mouth before taking off, not even bothering to chew it, while Darius simply looks at me and asks, “The moment you said her name, you had to know what would happen.”
“I did,” I say, “which is why I tried not to, but he just wouldn’t let up.” As Darius and I go to follow in Warren’s footsteps to the hall and up the stairs, I let him know about our earlier conversation. “I guess Mom let it slip that something happened a few years ago. Mercedes asked me what happened.”
“And?”
“I told her,” I say with a shrug. “It was bound to come out eventually. She reacted as well as I imagined she would—no, wait. Better than that. The way she looked at me after told me she actually cares. I’m hoping this means she’s ready to open up herself.”
Darius grabs my arm, and together we stop midway up the staircase. His voice is low when he says, “Warren…”
“Warren what?”
All he does is shake his head and say, “Nothing. We should get up there.”
Hmm. Somehow I don’t think that’s what he was going to say originally, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Besides, I really am curious as to what she wants to tell all of us. If I’m right, then we’ll get a name, and we can go from there.
When we make it to her bedroom, we find Warren sitting with her on the bed. She glances at us as we walk in, and I notice how she sits a little straighter when she looks at Darius. I shut the door behind us to give us some privacy; our parents’ room isn’t nearby, but still. I have the feeling this conversation isn’t one they should overhear.
I go to sit on her other side, which forces Darius to remain standing. “Did you guys eat?” she asks, furrowing her brow as she glances between Darius and Warren. “I hope so. I doubt you’ll want to eat after I tell you this.” Her gaze drops to her lap, and she fiddles with her fingers, the anxiety she feels evident.
Warren simply says, “I ate enough,” while Darius doesn’t say a thing.
I grab one of her hands and squeeze it gently, whispering, “Whatever you want to talk about, we’re here for you.”
She sighs, her shoulders rising and falling with the exhalation. “You guys probably already figured out I never planned on sticking around. The offer you wrote me, with the money and the exit clause… it was everything I needed to get out of the city and away from—” She swallows hard. “—from him.”
Sometime during her admission, Warren found her other hand. I don’t know how Darius can stand there without touching her and not go crazy. Then again, Mercedes only has two hands, and I sure as hell am not going to let her go.
“We, um, grew up together in the system. Maybe he always knew he would become an alpha—he always kept the other kids away from me. He was a year older than me, so when he presented as an alpha and got shipped off, I hoped that would be the end of it. But he always had eyes on me. Always. When I moved to Solus, I thought I’d be free of him.”
She closes her eyes. “But I wasn’t. He found ways to visit, bullied his way in. Used his dominance to get people to comply. He was obsessed. He never stopped. He thought I belonged to him, even when we were kids.”
The thought of her being terrorized when she was a kid, basically stalked, fills me with a certain type of anger I can’t say I ever felt before. Indignant rage on her behalf. This asshole… he needs karma to pay him a visit, and unfortunately for him, I don’t mind wearing karma’s badge on my chest while I teach him a lesson.
“He found me, somehow,” she mutters with a frown, her voice trembling a bit. “He’s the one who threw the rock at the house. His name is—”
“Jay Kellogg,” Warren says, causing both me and Mercedes to look at him. To further explain, he adds, “I made a stop at Solus on the way home. It’s why I was so late. Headmaster Helen didn’t want to say too much, but I convinced her that it would be better for her long-term health if she told me what I wanted to know.”
My mouth falls. If I would have known, I would’ve met him there and backed him up.
“It seems like this Jay asshole is an über, so he was able to get the headmaster to spy on you.” This Warren tells Mercedes. “She also knew you were claimed at the Omega Garden, and that pack Alabaster has an omega. She knew you were ours.”
Mercedes pulls away from us, getting to her feet and pacing the length of the bed. “Of course she was one of his spies. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it. How else would he be able to get in and out of the academy so easily all those years?” Suddenly she stops pacing and buries her face in her hands, breathing hard.
I’m slow in getting up and reaching for her. “Hey, it’ll be okay. We can take care of him, show him you don’t belong to him—” Before I can touch her, she jerks away from me and drops her hands from her face.
“He…” She glances at Darius. “There’s more.”
More? I can imagine the things that asshole did to her. If she feels the need to tell us every single detail about her abuse, I won’t stop her, but she doesn’t need to rehash it all. We have more than enough to go on.
Her hand shakes as she reaches for the bottom hem of her shirt, and without another word she lifts it up, revealing her stomach. And on that stomach—on her hip, more precisely—is a scar in the shape of a bite.
Darius merely scowls, but growls leave both Warren’s chest and mine the moment we lay eyes on that bite mark. Warren gets to his feet, his metaphorical hackles raised.
What the actual fuck?
Mercedes ducks her head like she’s trying to make herself small, and she releases the shirt. It falls over her stomach, covering the scar. “He bit me there so no one else would see it, when we were younger. Ever since, he said… he said he wants to wait until my first heat to bite me on the neck and tie us together forever.”
Warren is still growling, but since Jay isn’t here, it looks like he’s posturing at her, so I nudge his elbow with mine to calm him down. Don’t want him scaring her, especially now, when she’s telling us the whole horrid truth of her past.
Now that he’s not completely lost to his rage, Warren whips his head in Darius’s direction and asks, “Why aren’t you more upset? Since she’s your—” I’m curious if Warren knows she’s Darius’s scent match, but I’ll never know if that’s what he was seconds from saying, because Darius talks over him.
“I saw the scar right before we came here,” he says, the unspoken tone in his voice telling Warren to drop it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, absolute dejection in her voice. “I’m sorry I’m not… better. I thought all alphas were like Jay, but you three… you’re not. You deserve better. You deserve an omega whose only bite will be yours. Not me.”
Based on how utterly forlorn she sounds, I know she means every word. She truly doesn’t think much of herself—thanks to that asshole Jay, no doubt. Who can blame her? She’s never had anyone stand up for her, protect her, in her entire life.
That Solus Academy needs a full gutting.
“Don’t say that,” I tell her.
“He’s right,” Warren says with a nod. “Don’t you dare say that.”
Both Warren and I glance at Darius after that, and the alpha is slow in dropping his arms to his sides. He steps closer to Mercedes, though he doesn’t give her a word of comfort. Instead, his tall frame bends over, and his forehead touches hers the same moment his hand curls over her hip… right where that bite mark is, beneath her shirt.
Darius’s chest hums with a purr, a sound I don’t think I’ve ever heard him make, and she instantly melts into him, breathing out what must be a sigh of relief. “I will never let him take you from us,” he murmurs. “You’re ours now, and I’ll do everything in my power to take care of you, do you understand? Jay will never touch you, never hurt you, never so much as look at you ever again.”
Frankly, I’m a little in awe that our pack leader could say something like that, given his history. He isn’t the most emotionally expressive alpha; he’s always been rough around the edges.
I shouldn’t be so shocked, though. She is his scent match, after all. His instincts, much like mine and Warren’s, must be going haywire.
Before Mercedes can say anything in return, he wraps both arms around her and hoists her up, picking her up and straightening his back out, instantly nuzzling his nose into her neck. Her eyes are closed, but the soft moan that comes from her is indication enough that she accepts the physical touch.
Darius moves her to the bed, slow in setting her down and saying, “Warren, Nic: get on either side of her.” Leaning over her, he says to her, “You’re ours now, omega. Let us show you what that means.” His nose grazes hers, and as Warren moves around the bed to get to its other side, he kisses her hard.
Comforting our omega? Warren and I are more than up for it. We’re downright eager, overzealous, some might say. And based on the perfumed scent that fills the air when Darius kisses her, I’d say Mercedes is ready and willing.
We’ll help her forget all about Jay.