10. Chapter Ten #2
His answer is immediate. "Making sure my Omega is comfortable and hoping I’m not fucking it up."
I stare at him, pressure mounting inside me because I don’t understand what this is all about. "Why would you even care?"
Gabriel kneels on the ground next to me, bringing his eyes level with mine, the warm gold of his irises steady on mine. "None of this is a game. We need you to be safe. More than that, we want you to be okay. All of the time, but especially now."
I start shaking my head. I want to accept what he’s saying, to believe in this soft world they’ve made, but everything in me shrieks danger. I recoil from his words even as they undo me, caught between the urge to run and the deep, animal yearning to lean in.
Ronan’s hands keep moving in slow circles, grounding me with every pass, damn him. "You’re never going to be just a body to us. Never just something to satisfy an itch. You won’t fall apart alone. "
Jax approaches on my other side, his big frame blotting everything out. "You’re allowed to doubt us. You set the pace. You tell us what’s safe."
The helpless knot I’ve managed to keep twisted together and locked deep inside me frays. "You say that now, but what happens when I’m a mess? When all I can do is cling and beg and…" My voice breaks, too raw and close to ugly truth. "You’re going to take whatever you want."
And I won’t be able to stop them, just like I haven’t been able to stop anything else that’s happened to me.
Gabriel’s expression softens, ache darkening his eyes. "Then we’ll hold you as long as you need and be proud to do it." I taste Gabriel’s’ honesty, but they still don’t know. They still don’t understand.
Something wild thrashes inside me. I want to scream, to demand how this can be real, when all I know is betrayal carving trust into pieces. I’m splitting in two. Half ready to bolt, half desperate to collapse into their waiting arms and pretend I believe them.
Flames crackle under my skin. My belly quakes and the familiar relentless pressure pushes me to the edge.
A sharp tang of anise cuts through the rose, curling, tangling with their musk.
I clutch the towel at my neck, but my body betrays me and coats my thighs in slick to ease their way into my body.
Thoughts dissolve into static, hot and sharp and everywhere. I squeeze the towel so hard my fingers go numb and now there’s nothing steady left to grip as panic swells and drowns out the world.
Fuck, I’m out of time.
I have to tell them.
A bead of sweat drips down the side of my face. I hate that I have to give away a secret. Hate that I must trust them, but there’s no choice. Not telling them could be worse.
Perhaps they won’t care once I’m out of my head.
I bite down on my bottom lip, summoning the courage, trying to push words through the noise inside my skull.
I may have endured heat after agonizing heat, but Hardwick never allowed an Alpha to ease me through any of them.
I’m not a virgin; Wallace obliterated anything associated with that with the endless implements he used on me, but I’ve never been fucked by human flesh.
A cramp assaults me and I grit my teeth, riding it out and pretending as though my insides aren’t twisting around barbed wire. I push my fist against my abdomen, but it doesn’t make a lick of difference.
I must make a noise as I sway toward Ronan because his hands tighten on my waist and I feel a tremor run through them. "We’ll be gentle. We promise to give you only what you need."
"You don’t understand…" I grit out, voice shaking, shame burning bright.
Ronan brushes a damp strand of hair off my shoulder. "Tell us, Kitten. What don’t we understand?"
I clamp my eyes shut to avoid their inevitable disgust when they realize how broken and ruined I really am. "I’ve never… I’ve never had….an Alpha…before."
"What?" Jax’s voice booms off the walls.
My eyes flutter open at Gabriel’s strangled sound and the clench of Ronan’s thick thighs under me.
"What did you just say, Kitten?" Ronan’s voice is iron, dark fury etched across his face. Intensity sparks in his gaze, low thunder rumbling deep in his chest.
My own anger flares, lighting up every bitter corner.
Sharp words fly out before I can stop them.
Because fuck his rage. Fuck their anger.
It wasn’t them strapped to that gurney, bleeding into tubes.
It wasn’t them forced into heat and writhing agony for profit.
"What do you want to hear? That I’ve never had a cock before?
That even when they forced me into heat month after fucking month, Hardwick and Wallace never let anyone touch me; never let me have relief?
That I had to remain pure for their twisted experiments because if I wasn’t, I'd contaminate their findings? "
My throat aches with the truth. I’m panting great gulps of too-thin air.
Ronan’s face is blurred behind the tears I’m not letting fall.
I know I’m saying too much but I don’t care.
Let them experience a millionth of the misery I did.
Let them understand how much I don’t want to be here.
Let them know how much I hate being what I am.
For once let someone hear what I have to say .
"I begged for it once. I even begged Wallace for his knot. And all he did was gag me so tight I nearly suffocated so he could work in peace."