Chapter 12
TWELVE
THISTLE
The person who stared back at me from the mirror in my bathroom was unrecognisable.
I was breaking.
I still don’t know what happened last night. Literal fucking witchcraft. And he’d only got off once ?
Why?
And why had that turned my brain to mush?
Now I was trying to get ready for an event tonight—and I didn’t know what this was about, either.
I blinked, folding my arms and tapping my foot on the marble.
Oh.
Oh.
This was all just a game.
He’s gonna make you watch him with others…
I squeezed my eyes tight shut, balling my fists.
This is it. The other shoe, Bunny.
Just like there had been with Ace.
Four years before—The other Omega.
For three weeks, I’d been in Ace’s mansion. Still, I hadn’t escaped the blood.
Ace had found me in his room surrounded by the remnants of rage, tears streaking my cheeks.
I’d lost myself just like before.
I shook with terror.
The last time this had happened had been with my family. The world had faded to red, and my instincts had taken over. I didn’t remember much, just my father walking in. The disgust on his face.
The fear, too.
I’d ended up at the club soon after.
Abandoned. Sold. Unwanted when I thought I’d finally done something that would make him proud.
I swallowed.
Ace was going to see this and then he wouldn’t…
He won’t want us, Bunny.
I tried to focus on my breathing as the world began to fade again. I wasn’t supposed to kill this one…
I had to fix it.
But shards of glass slid through my hopeless grip, blood oozing from cuts I barely noticed.
There was no fixing this.
I jumped as the door opened and Ace’s voice floated in. My gaze darted from the floor on which I knelt.
“If that’s what he wants…” He was on his phone. “He’s not coming here, I’ll visit myself, I have a score to set—” His low words cut off as he saw the room before him.
The wreckage.
The tears and blood.
The horrible guard that had escorted me here, telling me Ace would be coming.
He’d seen my excitement and mocked me, telling me…
Telling me…
No.
The world blurred and my fists were in my hair as I staggered to my feet; the accusation tumbling out before I could stop it.
“You were with another Omega?”
Ace’s eyebrows rose at the question that wasn’t a question. I could smell her on him, the faintest trace of a cool, dark scent. Cream cardamom. Worse, it was edged with something I recognised.
He’d been with an Omega in heat ?
I caught the scent on the blade, too, tangled with the flecks of blood.
“I was,” he said, watching me carefully.
I tugged at my hair violently, ignoring the pain from my open wounds. A feral sound tore from my chest before I could catch it and another surge of tears flooded my eyes I couldn’t stamp down.
I was being so stupid, but I couldn’t stop, my instincts a violent scream in my head.
“Did you…?” I shouldn’t ask. It wasn’t my place. He was my god Alpha and could do whatever he wanted. He could. He could, but desperation was a cruel beast, clawing me open from the inside. “Were you with her?”
He cocked his head, turning the knife in his grip, watching me with that strange stillness I couldn’t read. “No.”
I blinked, hating the surge of relief at those words, but what he said next drew me up. “She doesn’t want me.”
My eyes widened, a manic laugh slipping out. “Wh-what?”
Who would dare reject him?
I felt a surge of rage that he might ever be turned down by an Omega, even if I was so glad he had been.
“She’s a believer in fate,” he said. “I’m not in those cards.”
“Is she… dead?”
Did I want her to be?
“Far from it.” He took a step toward me, and I hadn’t realised how close he’d come until I felt the static prickle of his finger curling beneath my chin.
“Do you w-want to be fated to her?” I stammered, gut twisting at a question I may not want the answer to.
He smiled, and it was so, so captivating. “Hear this promise, Omega.” He shifted closer, voice a whisper in my ear. “There is no one in this world I would hold in deeper contempt than an Omega the universe tried to bind me to.”
“Oh…” I didn’t understand why he was telling me that. “It’s not… like that with me,” I whispered, uttering words that almost destroyed me to say. “I’m yours, n-not the other way around.”
He drew back, and my breath caught at his beauty again. I don’t know how I forgot every time I even blinked.
“Tell me, why is another of my guards dead?”
I swallowed as his gaze landed on the body. There was a lot of blood. I’d got a hold of his gun, first to ground him, but after that… I squeezed my eyes shut for, trying to drag back anything from that beautiful blur of memory—of the shattered glass, torn flesh. Ace’s ice-blue eyes traced each of the open wounds—the place where a face had once been.
“I assume he delivered the news.”
“…The stupid guard told me she was prettier—that you’d never want me—Bored already…” I fought the strangled wail that almost escaped. “But it w-won’t happen again,” I stammered, my breath tight in my chest.
I knew it was too late.
“Is that so?” Again, Ace’s gaze swept the room, and I was waiting for his fury. I could hear the unnerved voice of my father, an echo of the last time it had happened.
“What have you done?” My father had sounded afraid.
“Y-you said they were calling for money you d-didn’t owe.” He was always so stressed about it. Worrying they’d go further if he couldn’t pay up. They weren’t good people, or he wouldn’t be so scared.
I had all these instincts now, and I’d just wanted to protect them—to show them that they were mine, and maybe that was worth something…
My father had looked at the bodies again, and I could see how sick he been.
A sickness he turned on me next.
He’d abandoned me, saying the only way I could be safe was a place like Dan’s pack, with enough Alphas to keep me cowed. Enough to punish me for any hint of violent, unnatural urges. And so he’d left me to be kept like a misbehaved pet that they could use whenever they felt like it.
Ace… didn’t look sick, though. Just like he hadn’t when he’d visited to see what I’d done to Wyatt. As his eyes traced the gashes, wounds, and blood, I thought his pupils blew wider.
I tilted my head, exposing my neck, and I heard the faintest trace of a growl rumble in his chest.
Suddenly, my anxiety was gone.
Was he… pleased with me?
I think he was telling the truth. He hadn’t been with her, but seeing her heat must have affected him. Enough to make him more open than usual; the razor-sharp control he always exercised; it wasn’t there anymore.
It was wrong, but I wanted to push that, desperate need to discover if he might want me a fraction as much as I wanted him.
“Use me, Alpha,” I whispered.
It had been weeks since I’d arrived here, falling further into obsession by the day, and finally, he drew close and his lips pressed to mine.
Present
“ I’m yours. Not the other way around.”
That’s what I’d said.
That’s what I’d believed, not understanding what was in front of me—something that should have been more.
I rummaged around the makeup I’d been left with, clambering up onto the bathroom counter to get closer to the mirror.
“What do you think, Bunny?”
Should I look like me or… or more like Glade?
It was so rare that Ace took me to events, and most of the time, she was there, too. I knew there could be only one reason for it… She was better than me, in his eyes. He thought she looked better at his side.
Until the day she’d escaped him.
It was the best thing that had ever happened to us. She could be with the mates I knew she wanted so badly, and it would just be me and him 3 forever 3
And I’d thought maybe then he would let me be at his side more often.
So, I’d tried to dress up all the right ways, and one evening I’d snuck into Glade’s abandoned rooms to find her makeup.
Yet, when I did, it was to be met with disgust in those beautiful ice-blue eyes. I’d caught up to him on the way to one of the poker games he’d always taken Glade to.
“What have you done?” Ace’s finger caught my chin, forcing me to look up at him.
“You, uh… don’t have anyone to take, and I’m here, and I thought I could…” I’d trailed off, panic setting in at the way he was looking at me.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
His thumb had pressed against my lips, smearing the red lipstick I’d done so many times over to try to get it how she always had.
“Never again, Omega.”
He was so angry.
I think he loved her back then…
She’d been the one, in the end, to show me how wrong that was.
That I was his, and he was mine, and he should never have… have… wanted her.
I squeezed my eyes shut, still curled up on the bathroom counter, hugging my knees close.
“What’s Knox gonna want?” I asked. “You’ll know.”
I looked down at the pencil eyeliner. Did he want me? Or the proper kind of Omega—the one that would use the red lipstick in the golden case at my side?
It wasn’t that I wanted him to be happy. But if I could guess, I could do the opposite.
Knox was the greatest threat I’d ever faced. Greater even than the monsters chasing me in Ace’s mansion, because he wasn’t my scent match.
But he’d fucking broken me, anyway. I’d almost burst into tears this morning when he’d told me he was going to give me space today. I’d kept my mouth shut, though, still desperately processing everything, and I was glad I did.
I couldn’t be tripping over myself for him.
I didn’t even know why I was.
He was being too nice, and it was kinda freaking me out, especially when he didn’t seem to ache when I wasn’t there.
We’re not doing great, Bunny. Gotta get it together.
He’d said I was the only Omega who’d caught his interest, but that was a lie! How many other Omegas had he been with? Treated like he’d treated me last night?
Probably more than five.
Dozens.
Millions.
He was going to break the spell tonight. He would take me just to show me how worthless I was to him.
And my job was simple: I had to make sure he knew I didn’t care one bit.
Even if the stupid hormonal Omega bitch who had her nails deep in my heart kinda did. A lot.
I usually didn’t hate her, but Knox made exceptions.
Hmm.
I guess that was the answer to my question, though.
We’re gonna show him we don’t care tonight.
“Good point, Bunny,” I said, popping off the cap to the black eyeliner and flicking the red lipstick right off the counter top.