Chapter 20 Vae
Vae
PAST
“Are you sure she’s not your girlfriend?”
Deacon moans.
They kiss for a long time.
I sit outside on the porch and wait. There is no way I’m going inside with them doing that.
“Come on, don’t you think it’s weird how close you all are?”
“No, of course not. She’s Vae.”
“So, you’ve never had thoughts?”
“Oh, come on, babe, what is this?”
“Well, it’s just weird.”
“It’s not weird. She’s just our best friend. Just a beta. I am never, ever going to see her as a sexy, curvy, delicious omega like you. I can’t do this to her…or this.”
I stand up quietly and walk away.
I don’t want to hear anymore.
PRESENT
I curl up on the couch and clutch my aching stomach. What happened to them? Where are they?
The pain is worse, and the nausea is almost uncontrollable. I lay there shivering on the couch, feeling sorry for myself as time passes.
I wake up and find Mal’s face right above mine. His brow is down in concern, and he’s got a hand on my forehead.
“She’s really hot, guys.”
Raynor appears and carefully puts cool rags on my neck. He lifts my arms and puts plastic ice blocks under my arms.
“All right, what’s wrong with her?” Deacon asks. “No. No, yes.”
He’s on the phone? Who is he talking to?
“No, Vae, don’t try to sit up, lay back.” Mal gently but firmly pushes me back to the couch.
I struggle, but, in the end, I’m too weak.
“Mal?” I whimper.
“What, sweetheart?”
“Can you hug me?”
Mal picks me up and pauses, then, with a curse, he carries me back to his bedroom. He and Raynor strip me off and wipe me down before I’m laid in bed, sandwiched between the two alphas.
Deacon lingers in the doorway, still on the phone, muttering in incoherent whispers.
“What do you mean it’s normal? This isn’t normal. What’s wrong with her?”
He stalks away, and I fall into a deeper sleep.
I wake up to three loud growls. I jolt and scramble up the couch, my eyes wide, trying to find the danger.
Deacon climbs over me, pushing me into the couch, burying his face in my neck.
“Vae,” he breathes. “Vae, what the hell is this?”
I shove him back, but I can’t, and when his lips graze the spot; I melt with a whimpered whine.
He drags his teeth over the spot and then sits up, pulling me with him.
His eyes are wild, and his hair’s a mess, but with every touch, I feel better.
I reach out, clutching his shirt and dragging him back, but he just pulls me up off the couch and stands me up.
The room spins wildly, but Raynor is there to catch me, pressing his hot chest against my back.
“Vae, why didn’t you say anything?” Deacon hisses, fury radiating off his body.
I bite my lip.
“Vae, why?” Mal growls and fists my hair, turning my head so I’m looking straight at him.
“Because you saw me as family, I didn’t want you to want to be with me because you loved me like that. I didn’t want to make things weird.”
“You’re our Vae!” Deacon thunders. “You needed us. No one else is touching you, Vae. You belong to us. This heat is ours.”
All the words are right, but the tone is wrong.
But so very right.
It’s delicious gravel growls that reach into me and hit this spot that has been striving to break free for all this time. I let out a whimper and lean towards Mal.
His eyes flash, and he leans forward, touching his lips to mine. With each second in their arms, the sickness is fading, but the heat is rising.
I’m being swept under.
I cling to them until I open my eyes, not sure when I closed them, and find myself sitting on the kitchen table. How did I get here?
“We’re changing the sheets on the couch; the ones for the bedroom will be dry soon, and you can go back to sleep.” Raynor puts a hand on my thigh and squeezes, then turns back to the sink, turning the tap off.
Raynor holds a glass of water to my lips and growls at me to drink. My forehead is damp and cool, but I’m exhausted. I feel wrung out and tired.
“What happened?”
“You. You happened. I am so angry with you right now, Vae.”
I shudder, catching fleeting glimpses of memory. “You know.”
“We know. We all know. What I can’t work out is why you would hide it; why wouldn’t you come to us?”
“And have my family dump their girlfriend so they can service their sister?” I say the words bitterly.
“You’re not our sister.” He says the words in a fierce hiss that says absolutely how he feels about it. “We have never seen each other as siblings.”
I look away sullenly.
“No one would think helping you through your heat would be servicing you, Vae. We just want to be with you.”
“You don’t love me! I just wanted it to be-”
“Wait just one damn minute. We have always loved you!”
“You’re not in love with me.”
“How do you know? Have we ever talked about it?”
“Tell me now, then, are you in love with me?”
He presses his lips into a firm line and just stares at me. I have no idea what it means.
“What?” I screech. “Are you or not?”
Raynor stands up and stalks away. “I don’t know what love is!
How the hell could we know what love is?
We were all dumped here. We were just abandoned.
What I do know is that there is no us without you.
When I get up, I want to see you; when something good happens, it’s you I want to tell.
You are my Vae. You have always been here, and I can’t imagine a world more wrong than one where you are with someone else. ”
I stare at him. He’s breathing hard as if it cost great effort to get those words out; he’s confused and scared. Does he think that saying these things will make him lose me?
Maybe they will.
But it sounds like he loves me, too, and, for some reason, that makes me angry.
“Now you know how I feel every single time you bring home another bitch and put her in my place.”
Raynor’s eyes flare wide open. “Vae…”
“You with all your girlfriends, going off and doing and having a life while I stayed here and cleaned, cooked, and waited to pick up the pieces. Looking at you the way you never look at me.”
“You are the one who said we need to never blur the line. We’re best friends forever. Family first!” Raynor shouts.
“Yes! I did say that! Because I was feeling things that was damn obvious none of you did.”
We stand off against each other.
“And now I’m an omega, that’s meant to all change? You’re supposed to magically have feelings now? Going to stop fucking all those horrible omegas and stay with me?”
“So, what if we do?”
I gape at him. “That’s not fair.”
“No, what’s not fair is you're not talking to us, not telling us the rules have changed, that we can look at you and see something other than our family. It was always there, all the potential under the surface, the feelings that would not take much to bloom. Just a kiss.”
“We had a kiss.”
“Yes, we did. And I’m telling you, Vae, I have not been able to look at you as my family member since. I can’t see anything other than a gorgeous woman, whether you are beta or omega, who is my perfect match in every way. I don’t care if you’re omega or beta. All I want is to be with you.”
“But-”
“But what? Are you going to argue my feelings for me some more? Tell me how I feel, too?” Deacon shouts from behind me.
I whirl, surprised to find him there, but he looks wild with rage. His hair is a mess, and his eyes are dark, furious, accusing.
“Deacon, please-”
“You don’t get to do this. You just abandoned us without a single word.
Where was the communication, Vae? Where was your confession?
You didn’t say anything about being unhappy, about needing anything different, about being in trouble, fuck, Vae!
We’re supposed to be family. We’re supposed to love each other. ”
I stare up at him.
“I would have changed for you,” Deacon admits. “I would have changed in any way you asked me to. For you. Only for you.”
I lick my lips and stand up.
“I would have helped you with whatever you needed.”
I tuck my shoulders.
“Vae…aren’t we family?”
I exhale roughly. “Yes.”
“But you don’t trust us?”
“You have lives and girlfriends and dreams-”
“DON’T YOU KNOW THAT YOU’RE MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALL OF THAT?
” he roars. “YOU, VAE! You are the world we revolve around. You are more important than any trophy I could ever earn on the ice, any game, any dream. No omega comes close to you; no beta can touch you. You are my Hook. I love you. I don’t know about being in love, but I love you more than anything else, and I have been dying trying to figure why you have been wanting to leave, killing myself trying to figure out how to make you stay. ”
My eyes fill with tears. I reach out to him, but he takes a step back. “Deacon!”
“I need to think. I’ll be back.”
He turns and storms out of the house, slamming the door behind him. I sit down heavily on the kitchen chair, putting my head in my hands and start sobbing. Raynor has disappeared, too, leaving me completely alone.
“Vae, it’s going to be okay, Vae. It will be fine.”
Mal picks me up and cradles me in his arms, holding me while I cry.
“No matter what you decide, it will be okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Vae, you don’t have to be sorry that we are blind idiots who can’t see what’s plain in front of our faces.”
He rocks me while the emotions sweep through me. Doubts and confusion mix with anger and frustration. Everything feels so out of control, but there’s relief that my secret is out. Finally,
“I have to get ready.”
“For what?”
“I need to go.”
Mal reluctantly opens his arms and lets me go. I stand up and avoid looking at him as I grab my bag, phone, and keys and leave.
Everything in me wants to stay with him.
But, now more than ever, I can’t. I need to think. Because Deacon brought up some points that never occurred to me.
Did I ever tell them that I needed more?