Chapter 19
Malin
It was after midnight when the ride service dropped me home. I’d go back to the bar tomorrow to pick up my car. I hadn’t been in any shape to drive.
It had been an awful day. And as I pulled up and saw a light on in my hoard room, my frustration only worsened. Fuck, what now?
My day had started normally. Although my life was anything but normal right now.
I hadn’t told Cassius where I was going because it wasn’t any of his business.
Usually, I had therapy sessions online. But Jacob had been in his town office today and we’d agreed to meet there.
That agreement had been worked out days before I met Cassius.
It wasn’t like it was any big deal. But of course, this meeting would be different. I had a lot to get off my chest.
I was still deciding what I would tell Jacob and what I would omit as I pulled up to his office complex.
It was a typical office with a window overlooking a courtyard, a desk and couch. Jacob brought his chair out to face the couch. It made everything informal.
“I almost cancelled,” I began. “I’ve been busy.”
“Anything you want to discuss?”
“I talked to my dad, I bought a set omega and he’s living at my house.”
Jacob couldn’t contain his shock. “You’re serious?”
“I don’t think I could make any of that up.”
“Let’s approach one thing at a time.”
I leaned back into the cushion. “Sure.” I could feel myself distancing from reality. My brief answers, my filters in place, treating everything as if it was no big deal. That was how I did things. Especially concerning things I didn’t like to look at.
Jacob leaned forward. “You don’t like to talk about your dad. You haven’t spoken in six years.”
“Yep.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
Why are you being a dick to him? This visit is for you. To help you.
Malinekan knew it had also been court appointed. I couldn’t stop seeing Jacob until Jacob signed off on my paperwork saying I’d made progress in the sessions.
“How’d talking to him go? And why now?” Jacob asked.
“Why not now? The phone call lasted about three minutes.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“Not particularly.”
“How did talking to him make you feel?”
Jacob was a good guy. He didn’t press if I said I didn’t want to go further with a subject.
“Feel?” I asked.
“You had to have felt something hearing his voice.”
It was true. And the statement in his gentle tone seemed to coerce a more honest response.
“He sounded the same as always. Surprised, I guess.”
“But he didn’t hang up. He wanted to speak to you.”
“Yeah.” My chest felt funny. My automatic go-to would be a drink. There was nothing like that around.
“That’s nice.”
“Is it?”
“Isn’t it?” Jacob asked.
We often bantered around with questions like that. I was told it was me being stubborn, fighting the purpose of the meetings with Jacob.
“He asked how I was,” I said.
“That’s good. It shows he’s open to you.”
“The bond between us is dormant. He’s not that open.”
“Remember, Malin, it works both ways.” He put his elbows on his knees. “What else did you feel?”
“What else? I don’t know.”
“Anger?”
“That’s the point of all of this. I need anger management. Yeah, my dad triggers me but I didn’t feel anger.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.” It was so unlike me. Everything was different. It had all started with Cassius. “I think the omega might be influencing me.” There. Done. I’d told the truth.
“I’m going to need some backstory. It’s obvious a lot of important changes have happened since we last talked. But before I ask you more questions you don’t want to answer, can I ask how you’re feeling right now?”
Put out. Not happy to be here. Defensive. No one could really understand me; I’d convinced myself of that since the age of ten.
“How am I feeling right now? Okay, I am pissed. Pissed that the world is so ugly. Pissed that shit is handed down to people who don’t deserve it.”
“You include yourself in that mix.”
“Damn right, I do.”
The conversation went on like that for a few more minutes before I blurted, “He didn’t deserve to be made a brood slave at a ranch.”
“Are you talking about the omega?”
“Who else?”
“The ranches exist because of the low birth rate for dragons. But not everyone agrees they’re the answer. Some do believe they’re a blight in current, modern times.”
“I’d never been to one. I didn’t give a shit one way or another until my dad bought one. And ended up bonded to him. That made me angry.”
“At your father?”
I nodded. “And the omega.”
“The omega didn’t have a choice.”
I knew that. I hated that Dad had seemed to choose to save that man over me. I blamed Kirion.
Then I started really talking to Jacob, barely hearing myself, the floodgates opening, and I didn’t like the feelings that began to bubble up. Jacob encouraged me with no judgment. I admitted Dad had given me the money to get Cassius. I told him the details. Everything.
The session had already gone two hours. I didn’t even notice the time. I felt breathless. Weak. All the things I swore I’d never allow. I said that aloud, too.
“But to get through your anger and manage it, you have to feel these other things. You’re not just a one-dimensional person. You have many parts and layers. They all deserve to be, at the very least, acknowledged.”
I didn’t want this.
“Your feelings,” Jacob continued, “are more powerful for you than normal because of what you’ve been through.
They are overwhelming. Too much, in fact.
But having that information about yourself, remembering that, is how you start to get through them.
Also, continuing these sessions. And quite important, listening to your beast. He was not speaking for a long time.
Now he is. It says a lot about how far you’ve come in just this past year.
And Cassius sounds like another influence.
You even used that word when we first started talking today.
He seems to have flipped a switch in you.
It was almost instant. You dealt with that by taking him away from a dark place he was in. You empathized.”
“I don’t know that feeling,” I admitted.
“You do. You’ve had it buried. That’s all.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. I didn’t care about things. Life was easier that way.
“Do you have other feelings for Cassius?”
My head jerked. “I’m an alpha and he’s an omega if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, of course. That attraction can happen whether you like someone or not.”
“Are you asking if I like him?”
“Is that hard for you to think about? Because of Kirion?” Always a question following my questions.
“I liked it when he threw a glass at his wrangler.”
“That was a person forced to be passive and polite finally standing up for himself. You saw something of yourself there, maybe.”
“We’re not alike.”
“That’s fine. Let’s go back to the empathy part. Some people put on a show for themselves. Some buy into that show for the rest of their lives. It’s not authentic and they’re unhappy. You’ve put on a show, too, but you have slowly come to disbelieve it. Your dragon has not bought into it at all.”
“And that’s why he cut me off and went silent?”
“Maybe. You’ll have to ask him.”
The session went longer. But Jacob never flinched. Never judged. When he showed me out, he walked with me to the door. He reassured me again that I was making progress.
Everything we’d discussed wrestled inside me, strange and uneasy. Truths that tried not to be true. Feelings that were a little too assertive. The beginnings of shaky understandings I didn’t like.
I got into my car and drove straight to the nearest bar. I didn’t want to go back to the house yet. Cassius was there. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him there. The opposite of that was the truth. I wanted him. So I’d gone straight to Brimstone and gotten him.
When the bartender stopped serving me, I realized I was too drunk to drive home. I had not allowed myself to get drunk like this in months. I’d made one step forward, then went out after my session and took multiple steps back.
Progress, my ass.