Chapter 12 #2
I turn my focus to the last man. Reid Harris.
He's back by the balcony, his silhouette framed by the glowing skyline of the city.
His blonde hair cropped short and professional, a sharp contrast to the wildness I remember from our youth; he once looked like he'd stuck a fork in an outlet.
That is what I remember about him, how his straight hair would stand on end with static running through it.
He played God with my life from a distance, orchestrating every move I made since before I stepped into the lobby downstairs. He is the Sunday persona, the one who dictated my pleasure, while he signed the checks for my residency.
"That makes you Sunday, right? The big boss.
The one who pulls all the strings." I walk toward him until we are inches apart.
"Did you enjoy the surveillance, Reid? Was it worth the millions you spent to build this high-tech voyeur den?
Did the data from my heart rate satisfy the manager in you while you watched me touch myself to the sound of your voice? "
Reid walks toward the center of the room. He moves with dominant stride that makes the hair on my arms stand up. He stops next to Micah and Theo, his presence anchoring the pack. He looks at me with a dark intensity that tells me the mask of the professional is finally gone.
"I didn't do it for the show, Zora." Reid’s voice is the Sunday voice now, deep and full of an authority that makes my pussy pulse with a rhythmic ache like some kind of fucking Pavlovian response.
"I am the one who carried you out of that building in 2011.
I am the one who promised you a home where the roof would never fall.
I built The Nest because I couldn't trust the rest of the world to keep you safe.
I had to know where you were every second of the day because I was terrified of losing you again.
We worked hard to give you all of this."
"You built a cage, Reid. I didn’t ask to be saved.
" I walk toward him until my chest almost touches him.
"You watched me through a lens. You watched me masturbate because I was so lonely, but terrified of stranger Alphas. I thought I was losing my mind when I found my instincts reacting to Micah as if he was an Alpha, but he didn’t smell like one.
You used my face blindness to hide in plain sight and laughed at how easy it was to trick me. "
Reid looks into my eyes with a dark, terrifying focus.
"I watched because I love you. Every word I said to you as Sunday came from the man who has wanted you since we were kids sharing a blood oath in the yard.
I sat behind that screen because it was the only way I could be with you without triggering the panic that nearly killed you fifteen years ago. "
I freeze at the word Love. It hits me like a bucket of ice water, staggering my momentum.
I stare at him, my gaze tracing the unfamiliar lines of his face.
He is a stranger. He is a man who spent two weeks pretending to be my apartment manager and fifteen years being a ghost. For him to stand there, amidst the hidden cameras and the layers of lies, and claim love feels like a fresh violation.
It is so big and so out of left field that my brain can't even process the logic of it.
"You love me?" I let out a hollow laugh as I take a step back.
"You don't even know me.” My gaze goes around all of them.
"You know my heart rate. You know my sleep cycles.
You know the way I sound when I'm coming to your filtered voice.
But you don't know the woman standing here right now.
You love a memory from a yard that burned down a decade ago.
You love a science project you spent millions to curate. "
Reid reaches out as if to touch me, but he stops himself. His eyes are full of a dark, crushing pain that I refuse to acknowledge. "I know everything about you, Zora. We never stopped looking or wanting you to be in our lives."
"That isn't love. That's an obsession. There are a million ways you could have reunited us, and you chose the worst way possible.
" I look at all of them, four blonde Alphas who think they own the air I breathe.
"You turned my life into a product for your company.
You missed the chance for love the second you turned on those monitors and started recording my every movement.
You think you are my protectors? You are just my keepers. "
The heat in my belly is a furnace now, and I’m hitting the point where I will need them and all logic will go out the window.
My pussy throbs with need. Slickness is running down my thighs and my folds are swollen and sensitive, crying out for the friction of a cock to fill the void.
I don't intend to offer a single one of them mercy during my heat. I am going to use them and then I am going to leave. Because fuck them for thinking they can be my Alphas when I didn’t agree to that.
Let them feel the weight of what they have done while they serve me.
"You want to be my pack? You want to be the ones I need? Then you are going to be the tools I use to get through this. You are going to take the penance for every camera and every lie. I am going to use you until the fire goes out."
I keep the thought of what comes after the heat to myself. They don't deserve to know the exit plan while they are busy trying to claim the territory.
I look at the one whose tattoo gave him away first. "Dameon, go kneel in front of the sofa."
The Alpha I know as Saturday moves. He walks toward the gray sofa and sinks to his knees on the stone floor.
He looks over his shoulder at me. I stand in the center of the room and reach for the buttons of my pink pajama top.
I take my time, pulling the silk aside to reveal my bare chest. I let the top fall to the floor.
Then I slide the bottoms down my legs until I am standing completely naked in front of the four men who could’ve been the ones I've been looking for, if they weren’t idiots.
I walk to the sofa and sit down, my back against the cushions. I open my legs wide and reaching down to spread my swollen, dark pink folds apart, revealing the slick that drips onto the fabric.
"Kneel between my thighs, Dameon." I watch him crawl forward until his face is inches from my heat. "Eat me out. I want you to taste every bit of the fire you helped start. Fix the ache you caused, and don't you dare stop until I tell you to."