Chapter 20 #2
“Talking never leads to good things,” she mutters.
“I promise to bury my head between your thighs until you’re screaming my name if you hear us out,” I murmur.
I love the way she smiles up at me, until her eyes cloud over.
“I don’t even know your name,” she realizes. “What does that even say about me?”
“It means Cooper jumped the gun,” Riley says gently.
She repeats my name, as if tasting it on her lips, and my cock fucking twitches. Ugh, I need to get a grip.
“I can’t help myself around you it seems,” I confess .
Riley picks up Nina’s abandoned wig and puts it behind himself on the table when she’s distracted. She’ll never have to wear it again unless she wants to.
“So let’s start with some confessions,” he says, leaning forward. “You may have noticed that there are some gaps in your memory, Nina.”
She tenses in my lap, and my arms band a little tighter around her body before I begin to purr. It’s a deep, gentle rumble. This isn’t going to be an easy conversation.
The last thing I want to do is hold her captive in my arms as she listens, but I don’t know what else to do.
Please understand why we let you go.
Nina
Forget. They’ll kill you if you don’t.
There’s been so many times where this has run through my mind, the echo of a lost memory.
“It’s like it’s full of Swiss cheese,” I say, keeping my head against Cooper’s warm chest. It’s helping to keep me grounded, my breaths even.
I need to hold onto that. “I can reach for information I should have, but it’s not there.
Or, sometimes I can feel the emptiness where a memory should be. It’s really disconcerting.”
Shifting uncomfortably, Ellis’ boyfriend swallows hard. God, they’re right. There’s so much I just don’t know. I know that part of that is because Cooper and I got caught up in each other, but hopefully I can get some answers now.
“I’m sorry to say that I’m responsible for that,” he says. “I made you forget Ethan, Cooper, and myself.”
“Ethan…” I trail off. I don’t know who that is. Should I?
My heart begins to pound with anxiety, and Cooper’s hand runs up and down my back soothingly. I don’t know if I should lean in or shrug him off.
What should I do?
“I’m Ethan,” Ellis grunts. “Way to bury the lead, Riley.”
“So your name is fake too,” I mutter bitterly.
“Yet everything else is true,” he counters. “I didn’t know if you’d know me by that name.”
“I don’t know you at all,” I yell, feeling frustrated.
“It looks as if what I did worked better than I thought,” Riley says.
At my glare, he grabs my hand.
“Ethan and I have been friends since undergrad,” he says. “If he told you that, then know that part is true. Your mother put you into Weeping Willow because you found out that Ethan and Cooper were your scent matches and she wanted to reprogram you into the perfect daughter.”
“I’m not the perfect anything,” I say, pulling my hand away from his. I’m feeling overstimulated for some reason, and I don’t want to touch him right now.
I push away the whisper in my mind that tells me I’m a liar, because I don’t want to listen to it. I hate thinking about the hospital, but it appears that I don’t have a choice.
There are answers I need that lay there.
“We’re going to agree to disagree there,” Riley says, a wrinkle between his eyes.
His hair is tousled just so, and I wonder if he likes to have it tugged on. My thoughts are drifting in a very different direction, forcing me to ground myself. Almost unconsciously, I do what I always do, and Ethan glances down at my feet.
Only when they cramp fiercely do I stop, breathing deeply. As if nothing happened, I shrug at Riley. My quirks to survive are mine alone.
“Maybe so,” I say. “Is that why I went into heat when they brought me in? I remember that part of things.”
“Yes, sometimes, meeting your scent match will trigger an omega’s heat,” he says.
“I joined the hospital as a medical student three months after that happened. Ethan came to me and told me you were the girl he ran into on the university campus. He was completely smitten. I’ve never seen him like that before. ”
“Only because I refused to let you see it,” Ethan grumbles. “My butterflies were widely ignored when it came to you, Riley.”
“Yes, because you’re an idiot, son,” Cooper mutters.
Son…
“Ethan and Cooper are related,” Riley confirms, reading my facial expression. “There was a miscommunication between them at one point, and Ethan thought that his father would care if he was bi.”
Craning my neck to look up at Cooper, I watch as he kisses my forehead and shakes his head.
“That’s absolute bullshit, Princess. I don’t care who he loves,” he says.
Settling against him again, I nod. The tips of Ethan’s ears are bright red as he sits with the memory of how he thought his father would react.
“I was wrong,” he breathes. “I am an idiot.”
“Do better,” I tell him before glancing at Riley. He’s hiding a smile as he watches me underneath his lashes.
“I fucking love that you put him in his place,” he says. “I can defend myself, Little One, but I appreciate that you’re in my corner.”
“All the nicknames,” I murmur, though I don’t mind that one or Princess.
“Well, you’re adorable. We can’t help ourselves,” he says. “To pull this train back onto the tracks, I made Ethan’s wants and needs a priority, so I found a way to get into the facility by pretending that I agreed with their doctrine.”
“That omegas should be used, and that we’re malleable,” I grunt. “I have so much propaganda running through my mind, it’s disgusting. ”
“There’s a woman who runs a women’s organization that’s creating some chaos in Minneapolis,” Riley explains. “Weeping Willow gets their content from Emilia and pays her well for it. She’s a complete bitch, though. It’s part of the treatment plan that they had you on.”
“Along with sensory deprivation tanks, negative reinforcement, and torture,” I add. “Yeah, I was there.”
Cooper snorts, and I glance back up at him again.
“You’re going to wrench your neck like that,” he says, placing me next to him so I can curl up and still see them all. I miss his warmth, but his hand remains splayed on my thigh.
Ethan looks a little sad that he’s not holding my feet anymore, but he can deal.
“I made that noise because you have such fire,” Cooper says. “The sarcasm, the way you say things unapologetically, I love it all. You’re already coming out of your shell. Even when I knew you as your teacher, you had very timid moments. I want you to yell, fight, and make up with me.”
Ethan makes a noise, while Cooper rolls his eyes.
“Just as you’ve changed, Nina, so have I. Before I met you, I thought I needed control to be happy. I needed to dominate, expel my frustrations on my sub, but that all fell to pieces when I lost you. I need you anyway I can have you.”
“We’ve all been changed,” Riley says. “The only way that Weeping Willow would let you go is if you admitted that you didn’t have alphas that belonged to you.
Nina, the way you fought them… It didn’t matter what they did, you refused to let anyone take Cooper and Ethan from you.
I realized when I first walked into a room with you that you were mine too, but my hands were tied. I couldn’t get you out.”
“No one could,” I sigh. “I was dying.”
Cooper growls, but I squeeze his hand. It bothers him to hear about the hospital, so I want to get it over with.
“You were, so I made a compromise with the doctors,” Riley explains.
“If they could give me uninterrupted time with you, without cameras or anyone hovering over us, I would make you forget your alphas. I hypnotized you after convincing you that this was the best way, and then erased every memory you had of Ethan and Cooper. I even blurred them from your childhood, since your mother was married to Cooper for a brief period of time.”
“Married,” I muse. “Really?”
“She was a different person, or I thought she was,” Cooper grumbles. “She was sweet back then, and then I stayed longer than I should have, for you.”
“I remember the way that you’d fight her, refusing to put on dresses so you could play,” Ethan says. “I didn’t get to see you very often, but it’s always stuck in my mind the way you’d fold when she got angry.”
“My mother has a way of gaslighting you into believing that your actions are hurting her,” I say. “It’s always that I was expected to perform a certain way or I’d embarrass her.”
“Which is bullshit,” Cooper says. “Kids should be able to be kids and not dolls to be paraded around.”
“I wish I knew what that was like,” I reply. “So you made me forget everything, Riley? Even you?”
“Yes,” he says sheepishly. “I used my alpha bark so that it would stick, because I didn’t want it to come back at the wrong time.
Now, I’m worried that I won’t be able to bring back those memories, though.
I also made you forget me in a selfish moment.
I fell in love with your fire and spirit while at Weeping Willow.
I didn’t want you to remember all the fucked up shit I had to do to keep my cover. ”
“I still don’t completely understand why you wanted to be there,” I say. “It was awful.”
“If he was there, we hoped he could influence the doctors in some way,” Ethan explains. “We also wanted eyes on what was happening, but in some ways that was worse.”
“It wasn’t a cakewalk,” I say, shivering. Cooper drapes an afghan over me, the warm material attempting to warm places that are due to trauma and not the cold. “I do think the doctors would have been willing to kill me to prove a point if necessary.”
“No, I think they wanted your mother’s money more,” Riley says. “If there was a way to get you out, then I wanted to be the one to do it, Nina. Even before I found out that you were mine.”
“If you’re Ethan’s, I think I would have been yours either way,” I mumble, beginning to feel the emotional toll of the day pulling at me. “I may be an only child, but I share just fine.”
Riley’s jaw drops wide in shock, and I chuckle softly.
“Glad I can still surprise you, Doctor,” I tease him.
“I have a long way to go before I’m a doctor,” he admits. “You have so many holes in your memories… Do you want me to see if I can put them back?”
“I don’t want to be an experiment,” I yawn, covering my mouth apologetically. “I’ve had enough of that, thank you very much. I’d like to move forward with what I know now, see where things go.”
I know I’m taking a leap of faith, but I feel pulled to each one of them. I’m a little wary of Riley, yet I’ve always felt protective of him for some reason, even before meeting him. Fate doesn’t always make sense.
I don’t think this needs to either.
“I think we can manage that,” Riley says. “Are you not sleeping well?”
“I don’t have any doors or curtains in my room,” I breathe, my eyelids feeling heavy.
“My mother took them all because she doesn’t believe I deserve privacy.
Knowing that people can walk in whenever they want makes me twitchy, so it’s difficult to fall asleep.
The window also lets in a lot of light, so when the sun rises, it’s game over. ”
“Vivian really is such a cunt,” Cooper grumbles. “Do you care if you ever see her again, Nina?”
“Not really,” I say. “Is this your way of asking me if I care if you kill her? ”
This time, the strangled sound comes from Riley.
“Yes, it is,” Cooper admits. “Would you care if I killed her?”
“Not in the least. I’d finally be free then,” I admit.
“Good,” Cooper says, lifting my body as he adjusts himself so I’m lying over him. I guess he decided I was too far away. “She’s never deserved you.”
“You should nap then,” Riley says. “What do you love to eat that you never get to?”
“Lasagna,” I moan, remembering it. Fuck, my mouth is watering at the memory. “I’ve only had it a few times, but it’s so good. My mother always said that pasta was bad for my figure and would make my ass expand.”
From where I’m sprawled over him, Cooper’s hand ghosts down my body to squeeze my butt.
“She’s wrong,” he rumbles. “You’re underweight if anything. Eat the fucking pasta, Princess.”
“Yes, sir,” I sigh sleepily.
“I’m going to make you lasagna for dinner then,” Riley decides. “Take a nap, it’s just us here. No more big surprises.”
Nodding, I allow myself to drift off as I listen to Cooper’s heartbeat. I don’t know what’ll happen when I wake, but I do believe that I’m safe with my pack. I can tell from the strain in each of their faces that they’ve been through their own share of hell while we’ve been apart.
I don’t believe in beating a dead horse because it’s what my mother’s always done. She’ll take the same topic and berate me about it over and over again. My alphas did the only thing they could so I could survive and I could be theirs later.
I understand untenable circumstances, and this is one of them.
“Sleep,” Cooper murmurs. “You’re thinking very hard.”
“Hard to stop,” I rasp.
His fingers massage my scalp, and I moan with pleasure. I love this so much. I didn’t think I would because I’m so sensitive about my hair, but he really does think I’m beautiful. I can tell in the way he touches me, kisses my head, reminds me it’s just hair.
It’s going to be difficult for me to get used to not wearing a wig. I really hate the way it feels, and it’s always itchy, I’ve simply been indoctrinated into wearing it.
Cooper’s firm motions drag me under into sleep, and I stop fighting it.