Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
H arper
Is it true? Have they always loved me?
A million memories float through my head.
The way Daxton had blown me off when our summer fling ended.
The way he avoided me for years.
The way I avoided him.
The way all three alphas looked at me the first time we saw each other again after all those years.
The passion of that heat.
The look in Owen’s eyes when I said it was over.
The stony cold look on Daxton’s face.
I’m so confused.
I’m meant to be leaving for New York tomorrow and I don’t know what to do.
So I do the only thing a hormonal and heartbroken mess of an omega who can’t talk to anyone about her predicament can do.
I cry.
I cry for what seems like hours, until I hear Ethan and my mom climb the stairs, until the house is dark and quiet and it’s the middle of the night.
By that time I have no more tears to cry and I am still undecided about what to do. I drag myself up, wiping at my wet face.
All those years ago, I’d cried like this and then I’d been drawn to Daxton’s bedroom. Desperate to inhale just one more mouthful of his pine scent.
My eyes flick to my door.
One more mouthful of his scent. Scents don’t lie. Scents reveal how an alpha is really feeling. I’ve always loved his scent. I’ve always loved all of their scents. I could happily drown in them.
It’s so tempting to go stalking in his room again. But I’m not eighteen years old anymore. Sneaking into a boy’s room to paw over his stuff is pretty creepy.
Well, fuck that.
I swing my feet to the floor and tiptoe out of my bedroom, along the hallway and into Daxton’s old room.
It’s even more bare than it was the last time I invaded his space. Like me, he hasn’t lived in this house properly for the last ten years. Sure, he’s visited, had spells of returning home for the odd week, sometimes a month, but it hasn’t been his main residence.
The school trophies still line the shelves as well as a few old action figures. However, the posters have gone and, when I open the wardrobe, it’s completely empty this time as well as the drawers.
All the books are gone and in his desk drawers are only a few chewed pens and broken pencils.
It’s like a ghost of the place it used to be. Like the room has had its heart ripped out.
I snort – I know what that feels like.
When I close my eyes and inhale, there’s no scent. No scent at all … except the faintest, faintest whiff of Daxton.
Where the hell is that coming from?
I walk to his bed and sit down on the mattress, imagining him lying out, arm tucked behind his head, smiling up at me.
I shake that image away.
The sheets are freshly washed and all they smell of is laundry soap.
Yet, there’s still the faintest whiff of him. I check under the duvet. No teddy bear this time. Where did he go? Did Daxton throw him out – a once treasured, beloved item, now forgotten?
Just like I will be.
I sniffle, willing myself not to start crying all over again.
Then inspiration hits me.
Under the bed.
I lift the covers and, bending in half, peer through my legs and underneath.
There’s an empty duffle bag under there, a hockey stick, some rolled up posters and, tucked at the back and hardly visible, a shoe box. I inhale again and this time I smell him more strongly. Pine. His scent warms my insides and I know I’ll never get over that feeling. Never ever.
I consider leaving. But my curiosity gets the better of me and soon I’m down on my stomach on the floor, wriggling like a beached whale and attempting to reach under the bed to retrieve the shoebox. My fingertips sweep over the box but it takes a lot more wriggling and a lot more stretching until I finally get a hold of the box enough to slide it out from under the bed.
Daxton clearly didn’t want anyone finding this box and snooping inside, which of course makes me even more determined to do so.
I’m tempted to stay on the floor, lift the box into my lap and start rummaging immediately. But I really don’t want to be snooping in my step-brother’s bedroom. With my treasure held firmly against my chest, I hurry back to my bedroom, depositing it on my desk and switching on the lamp. I take a seat and lift the lid and immediately I’m hit by another scent.
A feminine scent. An omega scent.
Peaches.
I frown – until I realize whose scent that is.
Mine.
Why would my scent be captured in this box?
The answer is clear as I lift the first article from inside. It’s a collection of things. A collection of my things. An old hair tie – a favorite of mine I wore all the time maybe … ten years ago. I thought I’d lost it.
There’s a post-it note in my handwriting. A picture of me out by the pool, sitting in Owen’s lap, Wyatt alongside us. There’s the card I wrote and sent him when he graduated medical school – one he never responded to. There’s a picture of me at my college graduation – an event he never attended. A postcard from Paris. An article printed from the Rockview Gazette about me becoming the first omega to land a job at the Louvre. Several of my sketches – self-portraits of my face – ones I thought I’d hidden away.
And then right at the bottom, buried right at the base of the box is a pair of silky panties. Ones I definitely recognize. I’d saved up allowance to buy that matching underwear set.
I can remember him removing them, sliding them down my legs and …
I flop back against my chair.
He kept all this. Not just a reminder of that fling – trophies from his conquest – but other things too, like he’d been thinking of me this whole time. All those years.
I guess when he said he’d never stopped loving me, he wasn’t lying.
None of them were.
The tears start flowing again and this time it’s with regret and shame.
I’ve messed up. I’ve got this all wrong. Am I too late to put it right?
I dive across my room for my cell phone and jab my thumb at the buttons, with frustration deleting all the notifications just so I can get to Daxton’s contact details. I hit dial, and holding my breath, pray he’ll answer.
Against my ear, the cell rings, five shrill notes and then cuts dead.
Huh?
I pull the cell from my ear and peer down at the screen.
Did he … hang up on me?
My lip trembles. I remember that cold look on his face. Indifference – like he didn’t care things were ending.
And he hasn’t been round begging me to take them back like the others have. Not even one message. Instead, he’s been texting my mom about arranging dates with other omegas.
Maybe he can’t forgive me. Maybe I don’t mean as much to him as I thought.
I glance at that old cardboard box. I must do. Why else would he keep all that stuff?
He’s probably mad at me – that’s all.
I take a steadying breath and, with shaking hands, hit dial a second time. This time it rings only once before hitting voicemail.
I’m wrong again.
He won’t talk to me.
He’s making himself clear.
This is over.