Chapter 7
Violet
Far off voices drifted into my ears, stirring me awake and making me painfully aware of the fact that I was laying in a puddle of my own drool.
My eyes remained closed as I forced myself upright and rubbed my palm against the corner of my lip.
My neck ached and my cheek throbbed where it’d been pressed to a hard surface.
A low hum of conversation floated around me, muffled like it had to pass through water before reaching my head. I tried to blink, to focus, but my lashes felt glued together, my face puffy from sleep. The chair beneath me dug sharply into my tailbone, too hard, too narrow, too familiar.
No.
No no no.
A cool draft brushed my ankles, and the scent hit next, pine cleaner, citrus polish, and sharp musky cologne.
Logan’s cologne.
The one he made me spray on his suits every morning. The one he used to cover up the smell of hi–
My breath caught as my eyes snapped open.
The blinding white dining room stretched in front of me, a dining room I’d seen a million times.
My head yanked side to side as I took in the sea of faceless mobsters seated along the impossibly long table.
They were dressed in crisp black suits, hands folded, shoulders perfectly square, an army of mannequins placed here purely to torture me.
My pulse thudded in my ears.
I tried to push back from the table, but my chair refused to budge. The legs seemed fused to the glazed marble flooring. My stomach was tight and swollen and pressed into the oak in front of me.
My eyes fell to the fine china on the table. It was loaded with ruby red pomegranate arils. They were mounded together on the gold rimmed plate, juice oozed unnaturally from the middle before bleeding over the rim and soaking onto the placemat.
A pit formed in my stomach as my mind raced with the stories I’d read in the mythology books lining the walls in Logan’s walls. He’d never picked up a single tome, he just thought they made him look smart, but they helped me pass the time.
Pomegranates meant ownership. In the tale of Hades and Persephone, Hades tricked his bride into eating just a few seeds, the numbers varied between books but the implication remained the same.
After consuming them, Persephone’s fate had been sealed, she was doomed to spend a portion of each year in hell, but I didn’t have four or even six on the plate.
There had to be hundreds.
My breath came in frantic bursts as the faceless men leaned in closer, their blank heads tilting toward me as if their eyeless sockets could see me better that way.
A hand, warm, heavy, and familiar in the worst way, settled on my shoulder and the scent of body odor and rotten meat drifted into my nose.
“Violet.” Logan’s voice wrapped around me like a chain. “It seems like pregnancy has forced you to forget all the manners I taught you.”
This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. Please don’t be real.
His fingers dug into my shoulder causing pain to crack down my arm.
“Look at your alpha when he speaks to you, Omega.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, but his thumb forced its way under my chin, dragging my face upward until my lashes fluttered open, bringing me face to face with a set of hazel eyes I could never forget.
Mousy brown hair fell onto Logan's forehead as he squeezed my cheeks until my lips popped open like a fish.
“You are pregnant with my child, Violet, I own you.” His teeth glinted in the golden light of the chandelier as he growled, breath rotting against my lips.
I tried to turn my head and pull away, but his grip bruised my jaw and my eyes watered.
“Open wider,” he hissed. “Don’t make me force you.”
I thrashed my legs, trying to move, but all they did was bang against the table.
Logan released my cheeks only long enough to reach toward the plate and scoop the fruit into his palm. Juice dripped from between his fingers and ran down his palm.
“You forgot your place,” he murmured. “And I’m done reminding you gently.”
He shoved the handful toward my mouth. I tried to push him away, but my hands wouldn’t move. It was like someone had replaced all the blood in my veins with lead.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he snarled. “You will eat. And you will swallow. And you will obey like the good Omega I trained you to be.”
I shook my head violently.
His eyes darkened.
“You dare disobey me now? When you carry my legacy?” His voice cracked with fury, the chandelier lights flickering overhead. “You think finally keeping a pregnancy makes you special? All this baby proves is you weren’t as broken as I thought.”
His hand clamped the back of my skull and my breath hitched.
“You are nothing but an incubator for my future generations.” His fingers tightened. “You don’t get to tell me no.”
He pinched my nose shut and all the air vanished from my lungs. My chest seized as I fought against the instinct to open my mouth and draw in a breath.
“Open,” he crooned.
I kept my mouth closed and violently shook my head. But, I was only human, and after what felt like an eternity, my body betrayed me.
My lips parted on an involuntary gasp and Logan rammed the pomegranate seeds inside.
They burst against my tongue and juice drooled down my chin.
“Swallow,” he growled.
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Swallow.”
I choked on the syrupy sweetness as a seed slid down my throat like a pill I’d never meant to take. And then another. And then another.
“That’s it,” Logan crooned. “Good girl. That’s my omega—”
Hands shook me, but they were different, warmer.
“Violet. Hey—hey, sweetheart—wake up.”
The dining room flicked off in a show of static and suddenly I was upright, gasping, and sobbing as my fingers clawed at something familiar and soft.
My bunny.
I yanked on the stuffed animal, and a black suit clad arm slipped into my vision.
No.
No. No. No–oh, it was just Vinny.
My shoulders sagged in relief as I tugged the bunny away from him and drew in a breath to compose myself. But my face felt wet, and my chest was tight, and it felt like he was stealing the one bit of softness I was able to pick up and carry around with me.
It was stupid, and childish, and absolutely pathetic, but after years of being denied even the basic decency of kindness, something as juvenile as a stuffed rabbit meant the world to me.
As an omega, it was in my blood to like soft things and gentle touches and all the things Logan never allowed me to have.
I had a whole nest here, I didn’t need the bunny, and I hadn’t purchased it because I’d wanted it. I’d gotten it purely to see how Vinny would react.
When the box arrived, I expected him to throw it away. He’d open the glossy pink box, look at what his four hundred dollars went to, and throw it away. Logan would’ve done much worse if I had tried that in the Stellar mansion. But, Vinny didn’t do that.
Instead, the same man who shook me upside-down like a feral cat six weeks ago, took one look at the bunny, dressed her in the tiny ballet outfit she’d shipped with, and handed her straight to me without a word and kissed my forehead before going to kill someone or whatever he did for work.
And sure, I’d handed him the positive pregnancy test like twenty minutes before the bunny arrived, and he was probably just being nice because I’d given him what he wanted.
But, I didn’t know what to do with this kinder side of Vinny, especially because it wasn’t always there.
Sometimes he was thoughtful, he even surprised me with a few outfits for my bunny. There were times when he was gentle, like when I couldn’t sleep and he’d come tuck me into the nest he banished me to because I wasn’t good enough to be an official part of the pack.
But, for every loving moment, he had two more where he was Vinny. Bossy, smug, overbearing, a man who bent the world to his will.
It was impossible to tell which side of him was real, and that terrified me.
I clutched the bunny tighter, fingers digging into the velveteen fur. I wasn’t stupid. I’d lived with an alpha who always had an ulterior motive to their kindness.
Logan had bought me jewelry before breaking my hand.
Logan held me close before locking me outside.
Logan kissed my cheek after every time he back handed me.
Male alphas only knew how to be gentle when they wanted something, and Vinny wanted a mark.
But I would rather die than bear another man’s teeth on my body. Logan’s mark was easy to hide under my wedding ring, and I wasn’t sure Vinny would let me off so easily.
“You good?” He laughed, ruffling my hair. “You fell asleep at the table and now you’re white as a sheet.”
His touch sent a wave of cold creeping across my scalp. I flinched before I could stop myself and his smile faltered.
My shoulders crept up to my ears as I held my breath, praying he wouldn’t notice, praying he wouldn’t press, praying he wouldn’t smell how wrong everything inside me still felt.
Thankfully, salvation arrived in the form of Benji barreling into the room with a wooden tray balanced on his hand.
“Vinny,” Benji scolded, kicking the chair beside me out with his foot. “Give her space. Goddamn. You’re hovering so hard I’m shocked she hasn’t suffocated.”
“I’m not hovering,” Vinny snapped.
Benji snorted. “You’re one inch away from breathing her air for her. Move.”
Vinny glared but took a singular step back.
Benji rolled his eyes and set the tray in front of me. Toast with honey, sliced fruit, scrambled eggs, and a glass of that horrible green juice he and Skye swore by.
“There,” he said warmly as he sat down beside me. “Breakfast my baby, and her baby.”
He gave my belly the gentlest pat before bending down to kiss the gentle swell beneath my nightgown.
“Buenos días, bebé,” Benji cooed at my stomach before I swatted him away.
I was annoyed with the attention, but Vinny was irritated.
“Benji,” he growled, “Quit distracting her. Her appointment is in an hour. She’s not dressed yet, and she needs to eat before we go.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head as I stared at him because we weren’t going anywhere.