31. Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
Wren
P ulling my arms over my head, a smile stretched across my face at how deliciously sore I was. It wasn’t the same deep tissue and joint aches of a heat. Rather, it was the feeling of being thoroughly sate, thoroughly pleasured by my beautiful pack.
A pack I hadn’t wanted. A pack I’d done everything I could to resist.
A pack who now owned my heart in the most unexplainable, irrevocable way.
They had each chiseled their way past the ice I had carefully packed around the organ, found ways past my sky-high walls, and forced me to love them.
Not that it had been all that hard once we’d all gotten over our egos and admitted how much we’d screwed up in the beginning. I’d already forgiven Doran and Raece for their early behavior, but they made sure to do something every day as though trying to make it up to me.
Rolling onto my side, I frowned. I was still in the nest, the only light coming from the fairy lights overhead.
And I was alone.
Someone had covered me with a bunch of fluffy, soft blankets. But I still felt a chill to my bones without my pack wrapping themselves around every inch of my body.
Checking the bond, I felt them deep in my chest. But what I felt wasn’t that warm, affectionate feeling from last night. The feeling that had made my heart stutter then race when I realized how deeply each of them felt for me, how deeply attached to me they each were.
Yeah. I knew how they felt. In such a short time, I’d started to forget my life before them, had started to forget all the reasons I’d fought against the idea of becoming a member of a pack.
There was still that lingering affection, but there was anger darkening the bonds and making them vibrate in a different pattern.
Something was wrong.
I wasn’t in danger. Otherwise, one or all of them would have been right here with me. Right?
They would have at least warned me to get dressed so I wasn’t facing some unknown enemy butt ass naked.
After a few more stretches, I crawled out of the nest in search of clothes. Being as I was covered in cum, slick, and sweat, I probably should have taken a shower. But I was wearing my pack’s scent like a shield until I figured out what would steal them all away from snuggling with me and why everyone seemed so pissed.
Snatching a shirt from the ground that smelled heavily of Dean, I pulled it over my head, tugged on a pair of yoga pants, then twisted my hair into a bun in a failed attempt to tame my frizzy curls. Too many fingers had combed through them, twisted in them, and tugged on them last night leaving my head full of knots.
Tendrils sprung free around my face and tickled my neck as I shuffled from the room and sought my pack.
Raece leaned against the island, resting on his elbows with a laptop open in front of him. Dean and Matteo stood on either side of him.
Winter and Doran were at the kitchen table with their own laptop open between the two of them. There was some kind of a news clip playing, but I couldn’t quite make out the words until I got closer.
“…recent events, all omegas obtained through the Omega Center will be required to report in on a regular basis for further testing. Any questions?” the man asked before being bombarded by voices talking and yelling over each other.
Further testing? What the hell did that entail? I’d been poked and prodded, been strapped to a table naked while my legs were restrained in stirrups while doctors…
My heart began to race as memories bombarded my brain.
As though catching my scent at the same time – or perhaps picking up on the fear and anxiety coursing through the bond – five heads lifted, five sets of eyes landed on me standing in the entryway to the kitchen.
“What the hell?” I whispered as the room began to sway around me and my breathing came in short pants.
Matteo made it to me first, his big, strong arms wrapping around me and lifting me from the ground before settling on a chair with me on his lap.
His lips trailed over my face, my forehead, eyelids, and cheeks, before he nuzzled his cheek against mine, refreshing his warm spring rain scent on my skin.
“Why? I mean…there’s more. Tell me all of it. Tell me everything he said,” I choked out.
A soft, rusty purr vibrated against me and chased away some of the tension in my shoulders, but it couldn’t erase the anger and fear squeezing my heart.
“The governor…” Raece started before pushing his fingers roughly through his hair. “There have been accusations brought forth by packs that infertile or sterile omegas are being sold.” His voice sounded a little choked on the last word as though it tasted bad on his tongue. “Those who aren’t impregnated within a year are being returned.”
“Like a shirt that doesn’t fit,” I ground out. We were being treated like malfunctioning equipment, sold, traded, exchanged, or returned. “We used condoms,” I said through a closing throat. “During my heat, we used condoms.”
“We have plenty of time,” Winter said, sitting in the chair beside me and Matteo and reaching for my hand.
“She still has to be brought in for testing,” Doran said, and damn if he didn’t sound like an enraged alpha with his deep, growly voice.
“Is there a way around this bullshit? She’s fucking claimed. She carries her alphas’ marks. She carries our scents,” Dean said.
He was pacing the kitchen, his hand repeatedly lifting and tugging at his short hair.
Raece wagged his head side to side slowly, but more like he was thinking rather than answering Dean’s question.
“I can’t go through that again,” I gritted out.
Winter stopped toying with my fingers and lowered his head until we were eye to eye. “What do you mean?”
My tongue was too heavy in my mouth, my throat tight. Adrenaline felt like both ice and fire in my veins and my heart thundered behind my ribs. My training was one of the main reasons I’d had no desire to be the omega for any pack. It was the reason I didn’t want to be trapped in a house full of alphas, to be used and abused at their whim.
Blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay, I swallowed the whine threatening to tear from my throat. “How do you think we’re trained?” I asked, looking my alpha in the eye.
“What?” Winter whispered. “What do you…”
“Virgins are high value but rare. Because most alphas want an omega who knows how to please her pack. We’re taught to bow to your every whim. To cook and clean and be your fucking servants. And if we fail? If the alpha in charge of our training decides we didn’t please him in whatever way he chooses–” My voice broke as that old rage and fear crashed into my chest and made it hard to breathe.
“Motherfucker,” Dean growled out, his pacing becoming more frantic as his steps grew a little jerky. “I’m going to fucking kill someone.”
“There are too many,” I whispered, the sound rough.
“Were you…is that why you refused us during your heat?” Raece asked. He looked like he’d been punched straight in the heart. “Fuck me, Wren. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He stormed from the room, the sound of a door slamming a second later. Then there were repeated thuds and crashes.
“Someone go stop him before he hurts himself,” I muttered, unable to focus on much else.
Dean stomped from the room, and I wondered if he was the best choice to bring Raece down being as he looked as murderous as our pack lead.
“I can’t do it again,” I said, my eyes unfocused as the memories played on loop in my head. Every time I blinked, I was right back at the Center, back in the exam room where people took blood, fondled my boobs, inserted things into my core.
Alphas cornering me in the makeshift nest as they tried to force my body into heat with their hormones. Alphas ridiculing me during my first heat as I begged for help, begged for relief at just sixteen years old.
Fighting alphas to avoid being taken against my will when I wasn’t in heat.
Fighting. Growling. Threats. Punishments.
So many punishments…
Eventually, they pumped sedatives and painkillers through an IV when I outright refused to allow a single alpha near me while at my most vulnerable. That was when they first started using other means to punish me, sometimes waiting until I was nearly unconscious before giving me anything for the pain and fever.
I was beat on a regular basis, but nothing that would sully my looks for a future pack. I was locked in a tiny room barely big enough to stand. I was deprived of meals. All because I was considered stubborn, spirited, and insubordinate.
I’d tried and failed several times to escape. Each time, the punishment became crueler until I gave up on trying to get out on my own and found myself hoping for either a pack – with the plan of escaping from their house – or death.
Even my attempts at ending my misery at my own hands had failed and resulted in more punishments, constant restraints, and threats of being thrown to the feral alphas permanently locked in the basement of the Center.
Somehow, I had been lucky enough to end up with a pack like mine, with alphas who truly cared about me, about my wellbeing and happiness.
And now…I would be forced to return to that hell, to have people touching me against my will again.
What would happen if I didn’t get pregnant within that year deadline? I knew my pack wouldn’t return me, wouldn’t even bother telling the Center we’d been using protection during my heat.
Although now that I’d finally gotten to know these alphas and betas, now that I’d learned I could truly trust them, the prospect of having a family with them didn’t sound so scary.
In fact, I kind of liked the idea of carrying a pup by one of them, maybe a little girl with Winter’s white-blond hair and Dean’s dark green eyes. Not that it would work that way, but one could dream.
“So if I don’t get pregnant within a year of our bonding ceremony, they’ll force you to return me?” I whispered.
“Not going to fucking happen,” Doran said, bending at the waist and kissing the top of my head.
“What the hell could the five of you do to stop them? There’s not a damn thing any of us can do if they demand–” My words were cut off by Matteo’s lips, something that would normally piss me off.
But he wasn’t stopping me from talking. He was desperately staking his claim as my words caused fear to rush through our bond.
He deepened the kiss, his hand cupping the back of my head as he devoured my mouth.
When he pulled back, his pupils were dilated, but there was rage and determination shining bright in their brown depths.
“You’re not fucking going anywhere. There isn’t a chance in fucking hell I’ll let you go. We won’t let you go. We’ll fucking move out of the country if we have to,” Matteo said.
He’d been the first alpha to break through my walls by simply letting me exist, letting me get used to him. He’d brought me food. He’d eased me through my heat by letting me take what I needed. He and Dean had been the first two of the pack I’d let past my barriers.
In the time since I’d seen him on the dais for our bonding ceremony, I’d never seen him look so intense, and just shy of scary.
His arms tightened around me, and he began to rub his cheek against me, dipping his face into the crook of my neck and against my scent gland as though covering himself in my essence.
The sounds of violence down the hall had ceased, but I could still hear raised voices. I hated that my mere presence turned their lives upside down.
Nah. It wasn’t my presence. It was my designation, something I hadn’t chosen yet others decided to exploit for their own gain. It was wrong, yet society as a whole appeared to simply accept it and go on with their lives.
Of course, they did. Why would they care if it didn’t affect them?
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. But as they welled and fell over my bottom lashes, I realized I wasn’t crying out of fear. At least not fear for myself.
If I didn’t allow my pack to impregnate me – or if for some reason I was infertile – I could lose my guys. I could lose my alphas and my betas. Would they find another omega? Would they feel for her what they felt for me?
Would our bonds shatter the moment I returned to the Center as though I’d never felt them deep in my heart?
The tears began to fall freely, and my chest squeezed so tightly it felt like someone had reached inside and pummeled my lungs. I couldn’t pull in a full breath; I was growing dizzy.
“Fuck. She’s hyperventilating,” Winter said, but his voice sounded far away.
Oh. Wait. It was because he’d pushed to his feet and was rifling through cabinets.
He returned with a brown bag like the kind we used as kids when we’d take our lunch on field trips.
“Breathe into this before you pass out,” he said, holding the bag to my mouth.
Both he and Matteo began to purr, my alphas desperate to comfort their omega.
“Breathe, sweetheart. Slowly. Can’t have you passing out,” Matteo said around his purr.
“Dean will take advantage of you if you do,” Doran said. And I knew he was teasing, trying to lighten the mood. But I couldn’t so much as crack a smile as panic seized my heart and mind.
I could feel their panic through our bond. So, no matter how much they tried to calm me, I knew my pack feared the same thing as me – that we would be torn apart and there wasn’t a fucking thing we could do about it.