32. Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30
Dean
R aece’s room looked exactly the way I’d expected it to before I’d shoved the door open so hard it hit the wall, the knob going through the drywall.
“The fuck is your problem, dude,” I raged as I stepped in and slammed the door behind me.
He’d destroyed the room. Holes the size of his fist marked the walls in so many places and his knuckles dripped blood onto the hardwood floor and area rug. Clothes littered the floors since he’d pulled the drawers out of the dresser and thrown them across the room, affectively destroying them.
The sheets from his bed mixed with the clothing, glass glittered in the sunlight from the broken window and mirror…
It looked like a fucking bomb had gone off in his bedroom.
“Get the fuck out,” he growled out, his tone eerily calm for the murderous look on his face and the level of destruction all around us.
Good thing I was wearing fucking shoes.
Although, I still would have thundered across the room and slammed my fist against my pack lead’s fucking jaw.
He stumbled back under the force, blood instantly spilling from the split in his lip.
“She’s out there terrified she’ll be shipped back to that house of fucking horrors, terrified of going through all that–” I sucked in a breath. I couldn’t voice the fucking words. Nor could I stop saying or thinking the word fuck . There was literally no other word in the English language nearly strong enough for the amount of rage making me shake as red tinted my vision.
Raece swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, only succeeding in smearing the blood across his cheek and chin.
The bond to our pack lead slammed shut so hard I staggered back a step. Oh fuck no .
Lunging at him again, I swung and missed when he ducked to the side, spearing me around the waist and taking me to the floor.
My head hit something hard, but I’d worry about the pain and possible damage later. For now, I needed to beat some sense into my alpha. Shutting the bond would only keep her from feeling him through the thread. She would still hear his rage, see the anger in his eyes, hear him destroying his bedroom. She would catch the same burned edge of his clove and nutmeg smell, the sweet tartness of the cranberry nonexistent.
We rolled on the floor, each exchanging blows. This wasn’t the first time the two of us had brawled and I highly doubted it would be the last.
Normally, I could calm Raece down with a quick, hard fuck. But no chance in hell was I letting him feel any form of pleasure, not when he was acting like a prick.
I somehow ended up on top of him and gripped his shirt by the collar, shaking the shit out of him before lowering until my face was only inches from his.
“She’s in there fucking panicking and you’re throwing a tantrum. You’re the pack lead. Fucking act like it! ”
I shoved him down hard, punched him in the ribs once more for good measure, then shoved away from him.
Instead of rushing back to our omega’s side, I stepped into my own bedroom and checked myself over. The last thing she needed was to see any of her packmates bloody and bruised. Especially when it was from inner fighting.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I turned my face this way and that, checking over the light bruises and the small cut near my hairline. I could clean the blood, but there was no way to hide the swelling or discoloration.
Setting my hands on the sink, I hung my head and tried to calm my breathing and my heartrate.
Not much I could do for my own panic or the fear of losing my beautiful omega. I would literally rip apart any motherfucker who thought they could touch her. No way in hell would we willingly deliver her to the Center for anyone to touch her. I didn’t give a shit whether they were doctors, whether they were betas or alphas. She was obviously terrified, traumatized by her time there.
They’d hurt her. She hadn’t said as much, but I was still sick to my stomach over the prospect they might have raped her as part of her training . She might have been lost to her hindbrain, but that also meant she couldn’t fully give her consent.
She hadn’t given full details, but it sounded like our girl was abused on a regular basis. No wonder she’d been so determined to keep every one of us away from her when she’d arrived. No wonder she’d refused to be marked or knotted in the beginning.
Fucking Raece. A fresh wave of anger nearly sent me spiraling, nearly sent me storming back into his room to punish him for forcing his bite on her.
He’d since done everything he could to earn her trust, and she’d forgiven him. But knowing what we now knew…I couldn’t imagine how she’d felt at that moment, how terrified she must have been that the five of us would mistreat her the way those at the Center had.
I didn’t give a fuck what the alphas decided – I refused to take her back there, refused to make her go through that again. I would fight anyone I had to, kill anyone I needed to. I would drive her to the fucking border of the country and hide her, fly her across the ocean, whatever, as long as she never had to see that place, those people, or experience that shit ever again.
This whole thing had started because, supposedly , some alphas were pissed they’d been sold omegas who couldn’t conceive. How many of those omegas had been sneaking birth control? I had already begun to research how I could find Wren something to take so we wouldn’t have to wear rubbers during her heat. She felt way too good wrapped around my cock to have anything between us.
Sold .
Bought .
Omegas had been reduced to fucking livestock. Possessions. And we were just as bad as the rest of the fuckers. I knew Raece had spent over five figures for Wren. I’d overheard Winter tell Doran the Center gave our pack a deal on our omega because of her tendencies toward being off putting along with her increased age, as though she was past her prime.
And her strong personality was exactly what had caught my attention from the beginning. The fire and fight in her eyes were nothing short of a turn-on for me.
I knew without a doubt any other pack wouldn’t have seen how strong she was, wouldn’t have appreciated that fire, her stubbornness, nor would they have allowed her to chase them away from her nest during her heat.
She hadn’t chased me out. Nor had she denied Matteo. She’d let us help her through her first cycle with our pack. We’d earned her trust by giving her space.
Well, the others had. I’d flirted with her every chance I had. No reason to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. And from what I could tell, my omega happened to like me the way I was, so I didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought.
Making sure there was no more visible blood, I changed out of the shirt my asshole pack lead had ripped while we’d scrapped and pulled on a fresh tee before heading back to the kitchen where I’d left Wren with two of our alphas and Doran.
I ended up following her scent to the living room where she was lying on her back with Matteo completely stretched out on top of her. She was barely visible under his big body.
“The hell are you doing? Trying to smother her with your big ass?”
“She was having a panic attack. Hyperventilating,” Winter explained. Although…didn’t quite explain why the huge alpha was crushing her.
Leaning over the side, I realized the bulk of his weight was on his elbows, his knees on either side of hers, and her eyes were closed, lips parted slightly, and her breaths were slow and steady.
Raising a brow at Winter, I snapped my mouth shut when Doran made a shushing sound.
“If he moves, she wakes up and spirals again. Let her sleep for a few,” Doran explained.
“Should we take her to the pack bed for a puppy pile?” I knelt by the side of the couch and rested my chin on my folded hands, staring down at her sweet face.
“Let her rest a while. Then we’ll go from there,” Winter said.
“You guys are home for the night, right?” I asked, raising my eyes to first Matteo then Winter.
“Not leaving our omega tonight,” Matteo whispered barely above a breath.
Normally, I would joke and tease about an orgy. But I wasn’t sure what exactly we could do to reassure her we would never let anyone hurt her again. Because, honestly, short of going to war with the government, I still wasn’t sure what we could do to keep her away from those fuckers at the Center.
Her next cycle was a month or so away; we could always try for a child then. If she was pregnant, there would be no reason for the Center to have any interest in her. After all, the whole thing started because of omegas not conceiving.
That was a conversation we would need to have with her when she’d calmed down, though. None of us would ever pressure her into carrying our pup. And why the fuck should the Center care whether she was fertile, whether or not we decided to add to our family?
I knew the end goal was to add to the alpha and omega population, but there was literally no way to predict what designation a child would present as during puberty.
One way or another, we would protect our omega, even if it meant hiding her away from the rest of the world.