Chapter 19 Vae
Vae
PAST
In a way, I’m relieved that they didn’t include me in their bonds because now they don’t know how I feel. They can’t feel the despair and hurt, the rejection that has saturated every cell in my body, leaving me wondering how I’m even still upright and walking around.
However, the relief that they didn’t bond a female into their pack has me almost giddy. It’s just the three of them. I don’t know why, but I’d assumed the worst. I’d prepared myself to have to leave, to run far away to save myself from the pain of seeing them with someone else.
Instead, I’m sitting here, hurting but sick with relief. Nothing has changed. They aren’t acting differently. They are still hugging me and touching me. Jokes are flung, and everything is exactly the same.
As the days pass, nothing changes.
Nothing at all.
Except every time I look at them, I see silver scars on their necks.
Bonds that bind them together for eternity.
And I don’t have one.
PRESENT
I walk around the shop and finger the fabric. The blanket is so cute and fluffy that it makes me ache. I blow out my cheeks and then pick it up, adding it to the shopping basket. I furtively look around, but no one is looking at me.
I see a pillow that I really need, but instead of grabbing it, I force myself to turn and walk away.
My chest aches, and I sniffle.
“Hun, just get the pillow.”
I turn and see an older omega. She’s got brown hair with grey streaks cut in an asymmetrical bob. She’s plump around the middle, but she looks like she smiles all the time.
She holds the pillow out to me, I look down at it and feel the ache lessen.
“Trust me; a little pampering will make you feel good. My name is Nancy Lane. Is this your first heat?”
I nod my head.
“Come and have coffee with me. Let an older omega give you some advice.”
“You’d do that?”
“Well, I mean I’m not normally this forward, but I’m seeing a distressed omega walking around looking at fabrics with hearts in her eyes and not an alpha to be seen, and I think to myself, ‘she looks like she’s in trouble. You should just reach out.’”
“You want to help?”
Why does that thought make me want to cry?
“Of course, I do; we omegas need to stick together. Let’s go have a coffee, we can chat, eat cake and make a plan.”
Before I can blink, I’ve got a bag with my groceries, my blanket, the pillow, and I’m following the woman across the road.
She buys me a massive piece of mud cake. It’s rich and decadent and makes my mouth tingle with the shock of the bitter and sweet before the flavour explodes on my tongue. I close my eyes and moan.
“Good?”
“It is so good.”
She reaches out and puts her hand on mine. “Honey, if your alphas are doing you wrong-”
“No, it’s not like that,” I protest.
And, for some reason, maybe because I don’t know her at all, the whole sordid story tumbles out. We drink two coffees each and end up ordering lunch as well.
She sits back. “You’re in love with your best friends, the boys you were foster brothers with?”
I wrinkle my nose. “It sounds so taboo when you say it like that. We never saw each other as siblings, just best friends. Maria never raised us to consider each other as siblings.”
She laughs. “You know the easiest thing to do would be just to tell them everything.”
I glare at her. “That would change everything.”
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“They could hate me, laugh at me; it might ruin everything.” As soon as I say the words, I recognise how stupid I sound.
She nods her head knowingly, not even fighting the smile.
“Okay, okay. Even I hear that.”
“My vote is you march your cute little ass back to that home of yours and tell them everything. Trust me, it will be better if they hear it from you first.”
“What if they don’t want me?”
She leans forward, whispering. “What if they do?”
I sit back and nervously toy with my coffee cup.
“Trust an old omega. Do yourself a favour. If they say no, they aren’t interested, then you will be able to move out without looking back. But if they say yes, you can have the heat of your dreams with alphas you love, and if things don’t work out, you will always have that memory.”
“There you are!”
I blink up at the alpha who puts a hand on the back of her chair. She twists around and smiles. It’s such a love-filled smile that I am immediately silenced by the feeling stretched between them.
“I missed you.”
“Oh, I missed you, too,” she murmurs, her cheeks turning pink with pleasure.
He picks up her hand and bends to kiss it.
The emotion is so intense I have to look away.
She clears her throat. “Well, I better get going, but you have to call me and let me know how it goes.”
“Thank you for the advice.”
She smiles as she stands up, the older alpha escorting her out. They’ve forgotten the world, lost in each other.
I sit there for a long time, staring out the window at the passers-by. With a final cooling coffee, I pull out a notebook and pen and start writing. I have two columns. One for telling them and one for not.
But it’s one point that makes up my mind.
Am I going to regret this for the rest of my life if I don’t tell them?
I pack up my belongings and my bag with my blanket and head back home. It takes me a while to get there, but when I do, they aren’t here.
I shouldn’t think of it as home anymore, but I can’t seem to stop. I think this house will always be home.
On the porch is where I skinned my knees. Maria dropped a pile of bandages in front of me and went back inside. I had to figure it out on my own.
Then, later, they did it for me. We helped each other.
I let myself in and wander the house. No one is home, which makes everything anticlimactic. There’s a tiny part of me that is relieved, but the rest of me is disappointed. I had the courage, and now I have to keep it.
I go and sit on the couch, and a wave of heat crashes through me. I start sweating and tug my jacket off. It’s not enough, so I go to the kitchen and down two glasses of water, but that doesn’t help either.
My head feels thick and heavy, and I’m suddenly so tired. I shove off my pants and shoes and lay on the couch, moaning as the room spins and twirls.
There’s something really wrong with me, and I’m scared. I’m really scared. Where are my alphas?
A whine tears out of me, and I get a brief thought that I should know what’s wrong with me, but the thought disappears again, leaving me lost and floating in an island of pain.
My joints ache, my head hurts, my pulse is so loud in my ears that I can’t bear it.
I turn my head and see Deacon as he was when I first met him. His sullen glare makes me smile.
“Deacon, I missed you.”
He frowns and shuffles closer to me. “You’re sick.”
My smile fades. “I know.”
A teenage Mal kneels beside me and leans in real close, his eyes filled with concern. “Come out and play, Hook.”
“Can’t, Mal. I don’t feel good.”
He frowns and slaps a kiss to my forehead. “You are hot.”
We both snigger, but he gets up as if he hears someone calling and runs off. I want to tell him to come back, but Raynor sits on the edge of the couch, leaning down over me.
“You look like shit, Vae.”
“Sweet words won’t turn my head,” I whisper.
My eyes get heavy, but I’m scared he’ll leave, so I force them open.
“Where’d you go?”
I thrash around until I hear a sound. I open my eyes and see Maria sitting on the coffee table, knitting.
Tears fill my eyes. “I missed you.”
She scoffs.
“I did.”
She looks up and sets her knitting aside. She looks just like she did the day she died. Her hair is pinned back in a bun. She’s wearing a purple cardigan that she loved over a plain white shirt and a navy blue skirt with her no nonsense shoes. Her eyes are shrewd, hard.
“I needed a family.”
“No, you needed a safe place to survive,” she counters.
“I needed a mum.”
“I couldn’t be that. I could only be me.”
“That was enough,” I say and choke on sobs. “It was enough for me. You were the only parent I ever knew.”
“And you were my children.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
She’s standing up, her eyes on something I can’t see.
“I have to go.”
“No, stay.”
She disappears as someone rounds the couch. It’s a large shape, and I recognise the scent. That intense vanilla can only be my Raynor is back.
“Raynor?” I call out. “You came back.”
“Vae? What’s wrong with you?”
I’m burning up again.
His hand is cool and sends a chill through my body, but I reach up, clinging to it. I blink my eyes open and smile.
“Can you sing to me? Like you did when we were kids when I was scared?”
“Are you scared?” Raynor asks in panic. He yanks his phone out and holds it to his ear.
“I am scared, please sing to me. Make me feel better.”
“Get here now. It’s Vae!”
Raynor moves closer and peels the blanket off me. I scrunch up, not liking the cold, but he curses fluently and rushes out of the room, returning with a cup of water. He holds me up and puts the glass to my lips.
“Drink,” he barks, giving me no option.
I drink the whole glass and then lay back on the pillows. “Just one little song?”
He sets the glass down, his lips pressed together firmly. “One song.”
I close my eyes, but I don’t hear a single note of the song.