24. Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
Wren
“H ow do you know if you’ve never actually seen them?” I’d asked Ella.
I was currently strapped to a bed in the infirmary, my throat and stomach both cramping after getting my stomach pumped.
I’d managed to stash enough medication to finally go to sleep for good. Except, instead of being found dead in the morning, my roommate had found me collapsed on the bathroom floor, lying in my own vomit.
I didn’t fault Ella for sounding the alarm and getting me help. No way could I have sat there and watched her die, either, even if I understood the desperation and fear we all suffered.
“Same reason I know there is such a thing as good alphas. Just because we haven’t actually met one doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I mean, there has to be good ones, right? No way can every single one of them be assholes.”
I chuckled and rolled my eyes. I knew she was right, but she was also correct in the fact we hadn’t met one, at least not since we’d come to the Center. My father and brother were both alphas, but from all my training since coming here, the memories of my years with my family had become little more than that of a dream, fading as you wake.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Ella whispered, leaning closer and resting her chin on my forearm. “They’ll end up keeping you sedated until someone picks you.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes. “I don’t want to get picked. I don’t want a pack.”
I was eighteen and had already been groomed for the past two years. Until a group of alphas deemed me worthy enough to be naked in their bed and pregnant with their pups, I would stay a resident of the Center.
Maybe if I got too old, they would give up and toss me out onto the street. Then I could seek out some black-market suppressants and blend into society as a beta, build a life of my own. Maybe even find a little piece of land and put one of those adorable tiny homes on it and live like a hermit far away from others.
“Would you rather stay here? With them?” Ella looked over her shoulder, making sure she wouldn’t be caught out of our room after lights out.
The fact she was willing to risk punishment just to be by my side told me exactly how much she cared for me. And the feeling was mutual.
Someday, though, we would be torn apart. One of us would be shipped off to a pack of alphas and we would never see each other again.
“If these great alphas exist, why haven’t they come here?” I asked.
Rolling my shoulders, I tugged against the restraints around my wrists. There were similar ones around my ankles and a thick band across my middle to force me to be still when they forced a tube down my throat to feed me or when they gave me shots to keep me docile instead of fighting them.
I would never stop fighting. Part of me hoped they would give up and throw me out. The other hoped they would kill me and do the hard part for me. Not like we had access to anything sharp enough to slash my wrists. The best I could hope for was finding enough pills again.
Like that was going to happen. They would be keeping an even closer eye on me now, making sure I wasn’t stockpiling meds I traded from my fellow omegas.
Hell, I would be lucky if I was released from this damn bed and the infirmary any time in the near future.
“I heard they wait until an omega has been bought. Like…okay, so I heard one time one of the omegas was purchased and then traded to this really screwed up pack. And then these alphas broke in, rescued her, and put her somewhere safe.”
“Or they just kept her for themselves. You never thought about that? They could just be rival traffickers and want to make money from us.”
I couldn’t slow my heartrate as I stared at Raece. They were real. They couldn’t have been the alphas who’d been doing that kind of work when I was a teenager; they were all close to my age.
But people like them really did exist. There really were alphas out there helping omegas.
Raece pushed from the desk and stalked toward me. I’d been so shocked by his revelation I hadn’t noticed the look of rage and terror all over his handsome face.
“What are you—” I started to ask as he moved closer.
But my words were cut off when he yanked me from the couch and crushed me to his body, his arms tightening around me.
His body vibrated and a deep, rumbling growl filled the room.
Raece’s hand tangled in my hair and held my head so tightly to his chest I grunted.
“Hard to breathe,” I squeaked out.
What the hell had gotten into him?
He released me so fast I stumbled a little, but he kept me upright with his hands on my shoulders.
“What – what’s wrong?” I asked, frowning up at him.
“I can’t – you said…fuck.” He took a step away and pushed a hand roughly through his hair then dragged it down his face. “Did you ever actually attempt…”
“To kill myself?”
He nodded, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he watched me.
“Yes.” I spoke the word barely above a breath.
He lunged at me again, dragging me into his arms before dropping onto the couch with me on his lap.
His lips pressed against the top of my head, my temple, my cheeks.
“Raece…”
What the hell was going on? He’d gone from treating me like a roommate to refusing to let me off his lap or out of his arms.
“I can’t – the thought of you dead.”
“But you hate me.”
He pulled away and looked down at me like I’d grown a second head. “Why the fuck would you think I hated you?”
“You didn’t want me here. You said it yourself – you only added an omega so you could pretend to have a legal company. And you don’t talk to me or touch me.”
“I talk to you,” he argued.
“You’ve had more intimate encounters with Dean than you have with me.”
His cheeks went a little pink and he darted his eyes from my face for a moment before looking at me and cupping my cheeks in both hands.
“I’ll be better. You have to promise me you’ll never try to hurt yourself again.”
I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I raised my hands and held his to my face. “I have no reason to want to escape this life anymore.”
Tears shone in his eyes as he stared at me. That growl slowly turned to a purr before he pulled me closer and slanted his lips over mine. A soft sound, something so close to a sob, escaped his lips as he simply held me there, never deepening the kiss, never pushing his tongue into my mouth.
What the hell was going on? Why would me revealing something about my past affect him so strongly?
I wasn’t lying when I said I no longer had a reason to end my life. These five men, even Raece, had treated me well. They spent time trying to get to know me. They didn’t force themselves on me or into my bed. While I wished Winter and Dean would do more than either watch Doran and me like voyeurs or brush their fingers across my skin so affectionately, I knew they were giving me time to discover how much I could trust them.
When he finally pulled away, I watched in awe as a tear trailed down his cheek. He swiped it away roughly, pretending it never happened.
I had never seen an alpha cry. Until this pack, I’d never seen an alpha show any softness or affection. I hadn’t believed it was even possible, regardless of all the stories we were told through the years.
“Tomorrow,” he said, shifting me so I was straddling his lap.
And, yeah, I felt his hardness below me. This position felt so intimate compared to the way he constantly kept his distance from me.
Yet he didn’t rub himself against me, didn’t try to rip my clothes away, didn’t try to draw me in for a little necking.
“Tomorrow?”
He dipped his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. “I’m taking you out tomorrow. Anything you want to do. It can be just the two of us or the whole pack. Anything you want.”
“When do we need to check in with the Center?”
Eventually, they’ll wonder why I wasn’t pregnant. I’d only had one heat cycle with them, and there was no guarantee an omega would get pregnant their first try.
But, after a year or more passed, the powers that be would eventually question it.
Would they assume I was defunct and leave me alone? Or would I be considered a failure?
I knew the pack didn’t care if I wanted to keep using protection. Or at least I assumed they didn’t since no one had brought up the possibility of having children.
While I had been completely against the idea my entire life, these five men made me wonder if it would be so bad to have a home full of children who looked like each of them.
“I haven’t heard yet. We’ll get a call eventually. But you carry my mark and the pack’s scents. Your ours, Wren. And we’re yours. And yes, Winter and Matteo can mark you. Dean and Winter are waiting for you to give them the green light to take you to bed. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life…and I would be honored to sleep in the pack bed with you tonight and every night for the rest of my life.”
My heart felt as though it swelled at his words. This person wasn’t the same alpha from that first night. It was like I was watching him turn into a completely different man right before my eyes. He was still intense, still felt so dominant and powerful.
But now, I was starting to understand him a little bit more. I’d fought them when I was brought here, like I’d fought everything in my life. He’d feared the lack of his bonding mark would mean I would be taken away from him, from them, and sold to some monster alphas or a psycho pack.
The headmistress would have been more than happy to simply gift me to anyone, as long as I was out of her hair.
I jumped when the door swung open.
“Hey, gorgeous. Time to get ready–” Dean froze in the doorway, his eyes going from me to Raece then back again. “Everything okay?”
Turning to me, Dean raised his brows as though waiting for me to confirm that everything was, indeed, okay.
“Everything’s great,” I said with a smile I felt deep in my soul. “I’m going to take a shower and get ready. How long do I have?”
“I want to head out of here in an hour. That long enough for your sexy ass to get all gussied up?”
“I don’t know about gussied, but I want to at least wash off the sweat and alpha hormones.”
Climbing from Raece’s lap, I stopped once my feet were on the ground, turned, and pressed a kiss to his cheek before heading toward the door. When Dean slapped my ass as I passed, I squealed then giggled.
He’d flirted from the first day we met. Even winked at me when we stood on the dais and I swore my life and loyalty to complete strangers.
But then he’d done nothing more than kiss me, play with me, tease me, and coach Doran on how to please me.
Dean and Winter are waiting for you to give them the green light to take you to bed.
How exactly did I give the green light that I wanted them to not only make love to me, but I wanted Winter and Matteo to mark me so I could feel them more strongly through the bond?
They’d already slowly started to make their way into my heart – now I wanted everything this pack could offer me.
And that started with completing the bonds with our bodies.