Chapter Fourteen – Kayla #2
“Not sure? That’s all right. Seeing as how there are only two of you, you can have as many as you want.” He laced his fingers together as he leans his elbows on the table. “Eat one, Kayla.” Three words that shouldn’t set me off. Just two regular words and my name. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
And yet…
It’s a challenge. I hear it in his voice, part of his inner alpha making an appearance. He’s so calm as he sits there, watching me, waiting, to the point where I don’t know what kind of response he expects to get from me.
An outright refusal? Would I shock him by taking a donut and eating it in front of him? I want to, God, do I want to… but that sugar-filled thing might set me on the wrong path, push me toward something I’ve been avoiding for a few years now.
First it’s a donut. Then it’s two. Then it’s a big lunch since my stomach is hungry. Then everything spirals and those typical omega instincts begin to peek through. I’ve found out more sleep leads to more omega-like responses from me; food is probably an even more slippery slope.
A minute passes, and unless I’m mistaken, the air in the dining room becomes heavy. I want to crawl out of my skin and hide somewhere, put some distance between me and Bradford’s black eyes—not to mention these damn donuts.
Man, they really do look delicious. I want to take a bite out of every single one.
“It shouldn’t be a hard decision,” Bradford says. “Eat a donut, Kayla. Just one. That’s all I’m asking.”
I swallow hard again and hope my voice doesn’t give anything away. “Why?” Short answers are my only saving grace here; if I have to talk a lot, my sore throat will be obvious. I made it through the car ride with Hayden, so surely I can make it through this.
He has a response ready: “After yesterday, I got to thinking… you really are thin. Dangerously so. I want to make sure you’re eating enough.” Though that’s what he says, it feels as if there’s something else he’s tiptoeing around, something he doesn’t want to say aloud.
Shit. He can’t know. He can’t—can he?
I don’t reach for a donut. Instead I jerk to my feet, scraping the wooden chair legs along the floor in the process. I don’t say a thing as I whirl around and hurry away, away from Bradford and away from those tempting donuts.
Thing is, I don’t really know where I’m going.
All I know is I have to get away, I need some time to think.
I make it to the front hall of the house, and the front door calls my name.
I move fast, much faster than I have the energy for, but adrenaline is good for some things, I suppose.
That adrenaline fuels me as I bust out of the house and make a beeline to the long driveway.
What am I doing? Where am I going? I can’t exactly run away from this, but everything in my head is too fuzzy for me to think clearly. And my neck hurts. I am a bundle of issues today.
Hayden, a good thirty feet away, is busy unloading some tools from the back of his truck when he spots me. He calls out to me, “Kayla, what’s wrong?” But I don’t stop. I can’t.
I need… at this point, I don’t know what I need.
A button to push that’ll instantly give me a new life?
A reset that’ll start things over from the beginning so I can make different choices?
Everything is going wrong; at this rate, I won’t have this job long enough to save up anything, let alone snoop around and steal things like Jeremy wants me to.
Hayden is quick, though. I make it another ten or so steps before his wide body blocks my path and I nearly run into him. I take a wobbly step back, keeping my head down and my eyes averted from him when his hands shoot out to my arms and help steady me.
Those hands… I’m torn between wanting to tear them off me and needing to feel them all over. His hands, as firm as they are wrapped around my arms, don’t feel like the hands that wrapped themselves around my neck last night.
“Kayla,” he says my name again, “did something happen?” He searches my face for an answer, but I give him none. I don’t say anything. “Talk to me. Tell me—” Whatever else he’s going to say, he doesn’t have a chance, because someone else joins us on the pavement, the only other person around.
Bradford says, “Bring her back inside. Don’t let her rush off.”
Hayden’s face twists into a scowl, and he demands, “What the hell did you do to her? I will not bring her anywhere until someone talks.”
All the über alpha says is, “I’ll explain inside. The dining room, Hayden. Don’t let her slip through your fingers.” He must turn and head back to the house after that; I hear his footsteps diminishing as he goes, which leaves just me and Hayden out there.
And his hands still on my arms.
His voice is much softer when he speaks to me, “What the hell is going on? What’s in the dining room that made you run like that?” I can’t say, and because of that, Hayden sighs. “Come on. We should go inside and see what he’s talking about. I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”
It’s funny. He shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep.
Hayden’s hands drop from my arms, but he doesn’t stop touching me. No, he takes one of my hands in his and holds it as he starts walking, leading me back to the house and back to those donuts.
He holds the front door open for me, and then he says, “I don’t really know where the dining room is.”
It takes us a while to reach our destination, and when the archway that separates the dining room from the main hall comes into view, I want to yank my hand from his and run away all over again.
This isn’t going to be good.
We walk through the arch and see Bradford standing next to the table with his arms folded over his chest. His dark eyes are on us, or rather, on me, as we walk in, and he says, “Sit.”
Hayden only releases me when I go to sit at the head of the table once again, before the box of delicious-looking donuts. The moment he sees the sweet treats, his brow furrows and he says, “Donuts? This is all about donuts?”
“Yes and no,” Bradford replies. “The donuts are part of it, but ultimately, it’s about her.
Isn’t that right, Kayla?” He waits a few seconds before he adds, “There’s a reason you don’t want to eat a donut, a very specific reason, isn’t there?
” A hidden accusation lies within his question, and it makes me uneasy in every way.
“What’s he talking about?” the man beside me asks.
“Tell him. Go on, tell us both, for that matter. Tell us why you refuse to take a bite, why you starve yourself.” The more he says, the more it’s obvious: he knows. Or, at the very least, he highly suspects.
It’s unfortunate. I don’t see a way to get out of this one. I could explain away the passing out, the fall, the lightheadedness… but when cornered like this, in the face of twelve donuts that I want to drown myself in, what other choice do I have?
Still, even though I’m well aware the situation is fucked, all I can do is bow my head, hide behind my hair, and wish things were different.
Bradford will not let up. He says, “You do this to yourself so you can pass as a beta, but you’re not a beta, are you? You’re an omega, and you keep your scent dulled and avoid heats by starving yourself and keeping your body from getting what it needs.”
Hayden sucks in a hard breath, and he slowly moves to the chair to my right, sitting down and staring at me all the while. “An omega,” he repeats. “I had a feeling, but I didn’t really think—Kayla, is what he says true? Is that why you do this to yourself?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, but no matter how hard I do it, I can’t magically transport myself somewhere else, to a better situation. I’m stuck here, with Hayden and Bradford, and the accusation that’s less an accusation and more of a simple statement of truth.
I’m an omega. The jig is up.
I am so fired. Jeremy is going to kill me.
Without opening my eyes, I say, “I do what I have to to survive, and I don’t expect either of you to understand that.” I speak too many words for a girl with a sore, bruised throat, and my voice cracks and wavers, giving its new weakness away.
I’m slow in opening my eyes, wondering if they heard it.
They did.
Bradford moved closer to the table, while Hayden tilted his head, no longer staring at my face but instead somewhere a tad lower—my neck. He reaches for me, measuredly, and his fingers brush my hair away and push the lengths of it behind my shoulder, thereby revealing my bruised neck to him.
“So this is why you weren’t very talkative this morning,” he whispers, and then there’s a shift inside of him. It’s not exactly what I would call sudden, but it definitely is something I’ve never witnessed a beta do before.
No, only alphas.
The posture shifting. Dominance threatening the air itself. The testosterone that’s undeniable. It’s a small shift, one I only notice because he’s sitting next to me, but it’s there.
“Who did this to you?” Hayden asks, dropping his hand from me, though he still leans close. “Kayla, tell me who did this to you, and I promise you, they’ll never be able to hurt you again.” Is the switch in him because he’s angry on my behalf, or is it because he now knows I’m an omega?
I shake my head, the shame and disappointment inside me at levels I’ve never felt before. I don’t just want to hide. I want to die. This is beyond mortifying. Who the hell was I to think this plan would actually work? I’m so stupid.
Hayden and Bradford share a look, and after a moment, they head into the hall together, leaving me with the donuts and the revelation that my secrets don’t belong to me anymore. As much as I try to salvage this situation, we can never go back to the way things were before.
It didn’t last too long, did it? I underestimated how quickly things could spiral.
I hear their muffled voices, but I can’t pick out individual words, can’t hear what they’re saying.
If I got up and snuck to the wall near the archway, I’d probably be able to eavesdrop, but at this point…
why bother? They know I’m an omega, and perhaps even worse than that, they know I’m nothing more than a weak girl who’s damn near useless.
I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on out, but if my past experience in life tells me anything, it’s not going to be good.