38. Nightcap
Nightcap
Kelya
Afew days later, Roman knocks on my nest in the morning, and I promptly ignore him.
Then Noble comes, and it’s not difficult to ignore him.
I’m still upset that when Roman dragged me into his room, no one came to make sure he wouldn’t hurt me. I was on my way to Noble’s room, and he still didn’t come check on me when I never showed up. I’ve been holed up in my nest ever since.
I get into my pool, and later Ash comes by, leaving a plate of food on the other side. Long after he’s left, I reach out and take my sandwich and chips.
Hollis doesn’t come. But he’s never been one to engage with me. I always had a feeling he lived another life entirely outside of this pack.
I don’t go to dinner either.
I feel wholly strange and vulnerable after Roman cared for our bond mark. I feel embarrassed that I needed it so much, and even worse for it working to relax me.
I miss gritting my teeth through my unmet omega needs. It was easier to starve when I was so far away from the food that would satiate me.
I set my plate outside my door and stand on the other side, waiting. I wait a long time. Ash is quiet as a specter, so I have to listen carefully.
The smallest sound of the plate scraping against the stone floor sends me into action. I rip the door open and grab him, but he jumps away, so I grab again, this time getting his forearm, and I pull. He drops the plate, but it doesn’t break, only makes a loud bang.
I pull him into the nest and close the door, then reach up and grab his throat in my hand. And squeeze.
He’s so tall he has to curl over to give me the leverage I need to hold on. If he were to stand to his full height, I’d lose my hold on him. The glint in his eyes proves he knows this and is letting me cut off his airflow.
I squeeze harder and bare my teeth.
“Where is he?!”
He obviously can’t answer, but his forehead wrinkles in confusion, then his large hands touch my arms softly.
“Tony…” I whisper, my voice cracking. “He was here the other day. I know he was here. I think you do, too.”
Our faces are so damned close, and we have a pack bond, so I know he is asking me to let go…so he can answer. I snap my teeth at him, then loosen my grip.
He takes a deep breath.
“He was here, you’re right. I saw when the cameras were glitching.
Someone had a scrambler and entered the house.
When I saw it was the private detective, I assumed he was coming to claim the money he was owed, especially after you told me he needed to get paid, so I waited near Roman’s office to watch.
But he went right to your nest, then left quickly. That’s all I know.”
Having Ash confirm Tony was here is a bigger deal than I thought it would be. I think I half convinced myself it wasn’t real.
“Did you tell anyone?”
He slowly shakes his head. My hand is still on his neck, and he gently strokes my arm. Tingles follow his touch.
The act is so tender that I burst into tears.
He pulls me into a hug, and I respond by wrapping my arms around him tighter.
“Kelya, I paid the invoice. He won’t come back again. He got what he wanted,” he says, then kisses my hair. I cry harder.
“I take it from the tears that it’s not any more comforting, but Kelya, Roman will kill him. He would prefer to do that than anything else.”
I know that. I know! I fucking know.
So I grieve for everything Tony and I could have been.
Ash strokes my back in long, heavy strokes and makes calming shushing noises.
When that sort of helps, he picks me up, and I wrap my legs around him, collapsing my limp arms over his shoulders.
He rocks me and paces. Ash is doing things that speak to my primal nature.
He’s like a snake charmer. I take a deep inhale of his soothing sweet mint and fennel scent.
In his ear, I whisper, “Where did you…learn this?”
It’s so strange feeling comforted by someone in this place.
“The Livingstons hired a consultant. There was a part in the packet for me. Unlike them, I found it all very interesting. Everything I’ve done, you’ve been really responsive to, which is just…making me want to do it more. Positive reinforcement, I guess.”
I huff out a small laugh.
“So, you’re just following a packet?”
He takes a long time to think of an answer as he carries me gently around my nest.
“I might not have known what to do otherwise. I wasn’t there for your sister, so I wanted to do better.”
“What?”
He pulls me in closer, and I’m still too confused to do anything more than let him.
“Marquette was with the Ruiz pack, and I was their beta. I wasn’t bonded, but neither was she.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Marquette got sick quickly after she moved in with them. She and I barely got a chance to get to know each other, but neither did any of them. Even though they’d just met, she loved them so much, but needed to go back to her first nest.”
Ash was my sister’s beta first…I can barely believe it.
“The one in her closet, in my house.”
“Yes. But we didn’t know that until it was too late. She didn’t want to go back. She wanted to stay with Finn and Theo. She chose to stay with them, and…”
It killed her.
My fingers dig into his back, and my legs tighten around him.
Marquette chose her alphas over her nest, and it killed her.
I’m so glad Ash is holding me, because I’m able to just give in to this heartbreak.
I fucking miss her, and it’s a goddamned tragedy that she died.
She chose her alphas and died. The dam of my emotions breaks.
Fuck.
I sob into Ash’s shirt. Deep, horrible, ugly sobs.
Marquette deserved to live. She deserved to have better choices.
She shouldn’t have had to choose! It’s so fucking unfair.
She was so beautiful, interesting, and everyone loved her.
I keep thinking about how brilliant she was.
She was studying Environmental Science, and all her professors were in awe.
I thought she’d go on to change the world. Instead, she fucking died.
What the hell is wrong with the world? Why are things so utterly unfair and tragic?
I sob into his shirt until it’s so wet from my tears that he moves me to his other shoulder.
Ash lulls me into a trance-like state with his pacing and rocking.
I don’t think I realized how much of Marquette I keep with me all the time.
How everything I have done for the last few years has been with her memory haunting me.
Holding onto Ash like somehow that connects me to her, makes me realize something: I should have been brave like her and made the choice my heart wanted. I should have chosen Tony, too.
Marquette was right.
I’d rather have a life in ropes than in chains, even if it’s short.
“I’m so sorry, Kelya,” Ash tells me.
“Can you put me down now?”
He sets me on my feet and keeps me steady. His large hands cup my face.
“You’re so incredible, Kelya. I think you deserve so much more than this house and this pack.”
“And this nest?”
“Fuck this nest. It’s small, confining, and dark. You deserve to live above the surface. In the open air.”
Ash knows the consequences of choosing to leave.
“You think she made the right choice? To stay with her alphas?”
He pulls my face back so I’m looking up at him.
“I didn’t at first. I was so angry. She should have done everything to make it better.
She asked me to look after you. When you got placed with the Livingstons, I got close to them to be close to you.
It made me feel closer to her. Then you bonded with your nest, but it was here, with your alphas.
” He shakes his head and laughs. “But they just could not win your heart. The more time I spent here the more I realized how unworthy they were to have someone like you here. I think they punished you for that. Watching you choose to die rather than be here was like reliving it all over again, but you stayed alive. Whatever you did out there helped.”
My heart kicks up a beat as I stare at his black eyes. In this light, I can’t tell the color, only the intense depth.
“Kelya.” He seems to reach deeper into my awareness. “I think Marquette made the right choice.”
Pressure releases from my shoulders, and they fall for the first time in years.
“I think so, too.”
He gives me a nice, small smile.
Big sisters carve the path for their little sisters to follow. If they make mistakes, we get to learn from them so we don’t have to make them ourselves. But Marquette didn’t make a mistake, she blazed a trail I’ll follow right over the edge.
I pull Ash down and kiss his cheek.
“Thanks for making me feel better.” I look at the door, and he takes the hint. He kisses my cheek back and then leaves. I look around my beautiful nest, keeping my insides from spreading thin and my brain from seizing. It’s a beautiful place. But it’s worth giving up.
“Fuck.”
I wrap myself in the red rope, just like Tony did on the plane—turning the ropes into a bodysuit. This time when the red stains my body, I get excited. I saw the look Roman gave me when he saw my leg. I bet that’s exactly what Tony wanted.
I put on white linen pants and then a loose green and yellow floral robe, letting the panels hang loose.
The house is dark and quiet as I move about like someone possessed; I ascend the stairs, then stop in front of Roman’s door. I tie my robe closed, then knock.
Shortly after, the door opens to a confused Roman, who’s shirtless and holding a glass of brown liquid and ice.
“What do you want?”
I nod to the drink in his hand.
“What do you got there?”
He observes my body, from my bare feet to my curls on my head, then steps aside, inviting me inside. Once the door snicks shut, I feel a little nervous.
I didn’t feel nervous in that closet on that boat with Tony or sharing a hotel room for all those nights, but Roman isn’t Tony.
And he’s been drinking.
He walks to his mini bar and asks, “What do you want?”
It comes out too easily. A simple request from a complicated man.
“What you’re having.”
His room is the largest in the house. His windows also look out into the dark desert. He hands me a highball glass of straight amber whiskey, and I walk up to the windows and look out, straining my ears for the coyotes laughing in the distance.
“When I was in Puerto Rico, the streets were so loud almost all the time, except in the afternoon. It was like everyone decided it was too hot or too boring to do anything. It’s so strange to be back here, where any sound you hear is from a predator, and every direction there’s danger.”
He comes up behind me, and his face inches closer to the bond mark.
“You’re oddly quiet.” I point out.
His weight shifts, and his scent changes. I can’t exactly tell in what way, only that my skin prickles. I open up my senses.
“Hollis was just here.” His voice is right behind me.
I look up at the reflection in the window at his shadowy face.
He’s looking at the back of my head. “He let me know that Tony Racine’s invoice was mistakenly paid for.
He also showed me the money you’ve racked up with my credit cards.
It’s been days, and our scent hasn’t changed since the bonding.
He suggested I put you in your place. Teach you a lesson.
Remind you what being a member of this pack means. ”
Is that the kind of man Hollis is? He goes behind closed doors to discuss making my life miserable…
I lift the glass to my nose.
Soap.
No, that can’t be right.
I take an intentional sip of the alcohol, and sure enough—soap. Remembering Tony telling me that’s how he knew my glass was drugged, and even Valentina tasted for soap…
That can’t be right.
Roman grabs my shoulder and turns me so I’m facing him, but I smash the glass against his head as I twist around.
The moment the glass makes impact, he ducks, and then slaps me. I can’t believe how fast his reaction is!
The slap rings out, and my vision blanks out. The pain and sting bloom across half my face.
Tears fall before I can stop them. I can’t believe he slapped me! The tainted whiskey falls onto the rug below us. Before he can recover, I try to slap him back, but he grabs my arm coming at him.
“Stop!” I scream. He has both my forearms locked in his grip, and he pulls me up to his face, my feet barely touching the ground.
“I let you have your little fit, but this stops now. Ash is no longer going to live here with us. You’ll take over the cooking and the cleaning.
Things will go back to how they used to be, where we are in charge and you do what you are supposed to.
” His breath is horrendous, and my face is throbbing, but it doesn’t distract from the pain he’s inflicting on my arms.
I struggle, but it’s futile. He’s stronger and bigger than me.
“I am the alpha of this house! Do you hear me! You are nothing but a wet cunt and a bag of pheromones.”
He’s getting more and more worked up, and I’m afraid he’s not going to stop once he gets to a certain point.
“You tried to drug me!” I scream. Instead of shock or any normal reaction to such an accusation, pride wears on his face.
“I wanted to see if I could get you to sleep with me without you turning into an alley cat. Hollis brought it to me, and I thought it was a good idea. Fate brought you to my door.”
I kick him, and it does nothing. I twist my arms, and they burn under his searing grip.
“Ahhh!!” I scream, and he just screams louder.
Then he wrestles us to the ground, pinning my thigh with his knee, digging in so hard that I cry out. He pushes my arms into the carpet above my head.
“You will do whatever I want, when I want it, Omega!”
His weight feels titanic against my body. I can’t take a full breath. I’m completely surrounded by his putrid smell. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to fucking kill me!