24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Leah
E verything inside me is wrong. I am unmade. Peeled raw. It’s a kind of agony, but nothing compares to the humiliation of what will follow. My body is a traitor and has never known the meaning of mercy.
I want to scream.
I want to claw out of my own skin.
Fire crawls up my thighs, floods my belly, scratches beneath my breastbone until it sears me from the inside out. My clothes stick and scrape, every thread sandpaper against my skin.
Ronan’s presence is immediate and inescapable.
He says something, gentle and guttural, voice soft with concern.
I can barely parse it through the static in my head.
"Kitten, you’re burning up. You’re shaking.
" There’s awe and fear in him, too, and something tender that I want to rip from the air, stomp to death.
He feels good . Warm, steady, right. Right and wrong.
The shape of him crowds every one of my nerves.
I’m shaking in his arms, molten between my thighs, and my body is once again making me its prisoner.
The weight of Gabriel and Ronan, the charged air between us, fills my head and makes my knees buckle, my back arch.
I’m gasping. Desperate for my Alphas’ touch, sick with wanting.
I want to bite and curse and tear into them.
My skin prickles with self-loathing, nausea coiling through the fever.
I hate the Omega in me, turning me into this slavering beast that can’t tell what the real danger is.
She only recognizes the relief in her Alphas’ touch.
She craves things we should be running from.
If I could, I would rip her out before she can humiliate me further. Instead, my thighs squeeze together, sliding with the slick my body is releasing.
I wish he would let go.
I wish he would never let go.
Gabriel comes up behind me, wrapping me in power, sweet and warm like afternoon sun. His palms sear my biceps as he fits his hard chest against my back and his hips to my flank and, oh Gods, that’s perfect. "We don’t like seeing you like this. Let us take the ache away, Sweetheart."
I don’t want their help.
I want to disappear.
I want to be ash.
But my body buckles, useless and weak, and arousal scalds fresh through me so angry, so demanding, it isn’t even truly mine.
I dig my nails into my palms, searching for a lifeline, for anything to anchor me as another rush of need twists through my gut.
I don’t want to want them. Not Ronan, not Gabriel, not Jax.
Not their hands, not their scents, not the safety they offer.
But the part inside me I hate howls for her Alphas.
She wants their hands. Their bodies. Wants to climb into their warmth and stay there, forever.
The wall I rebuilt trembles and a fault line splits down the center.
I try to hold it together. I try to hold myself together, to will the heat away, but my body fights against me too.
Every part of me is at war, and I’m exhausted.
A strangled noise catches in my throat as my abdomen locks up tight, a throb ripping through my center.
I barely draw a breath when the next cramp follows bigger and deeper.
I tuck my face into Ronan’s chest, shame flooding my skin because I’m so hollow inside and I know his cock is the only thing that will fix this.
I won’t cry. I won’t beg.
I will not let her win.
I will not give her the satisfaction. I’ll ride it out, sobbing for air, hating everything she is and, oh my Gods, air .
I can’t get enough. My body is shaking, muscles knotting under my skin, arousal swimming in my veins until I taste copper on my tongue.
I can barely get a breath in. Each inhalation is too tight, too shallow, too rapid.
My chest heaves but I’m breathing through a narrow straw and no matter how hard I try, air won’t make its way in.
Ronan’s arms tighten around me, anchoring me and not letting me float away.
Gabriel slides behind me, his fingers banding over my shoulders as he molds himself to my back, covering Ronan’s hand.
His body heat sears into me, but despite how hot I am, the warmth isn’t invasive.
Their steady comfort blankets the simmering, demanding arousal.
A deep, rumbling vibration pulses through my chest and back. The vibrations meet in my bones, thrumming through the molten ache inside me.
It’s impossible to stay rigid, nestled between the two of them as they purr. Their sounds ripple through me, reaching the place where instinct takes over. The noise seeps through panic, loosening something deep and hidden. My breathing slows. The shaking eases, each inhale steadier than the last.
The world slows by a fraction. My heart feels less like it will punch through my ribs and for a moment I remember how it was to be cared for without conditions, before everything went wrong .
My chest loosens. The edges of the room blur and my breath lengthens, deepens, as if my body recognizes a refuge safer than pain or fear. For a moment, the panic recedes, leaving space for a quieter calm in its wake.
"You’re a good Omega, Kitten. Perfect, beautiful, sweet Omega." Ronan’s voice slips through the haze.
His hand strokes my spine, anchoring me to the moment I don’t want to be in.
My tongue is thick as dough, mind cotton-wrapped and skipping tracks but I push through because they have to know. I don’t want to be called good. Don’t want to be Omega. "No. Not right. Not good. I’m stupid. A stupid ruined Omega."
A good Omega is caged. A good Omega is nothing but a hole begging to be fucked. A good Omega does whatever she’s told. She presents, begging for cocks, knots. She exists to be filled. Nothing but a good little cum whore.
Ronan’s purr falters and stops. The world loses its soft, blurred edges; everything sharpens. His eyes lock onto mine and his brows draw tight. "What do you mean, Kitten?"
His words are careful, edged with the same tightness that returns to my chest. I lick my lips, fighting the urge to beg him to kiss me. "She’s making me feel this. She’s killing me from the inside. Want to…cut her out."
Then everything would be better. I could live. I could be free. I wouldn’t have been locked away. My parents would be alive. It’s all her fault.
Her.
Fault.
Gabriel dips his head against mine so we’re cheek to cheek. Tension thrums through his body, and I swallow the bitter tang of orange. "Who is she ? Who do you want to cut out?"
It’s so hard to speak through the hissing in my head. "The Omega…inside me."
Gabriel’s zest hits the depths of my throat. "You’re not separate, Leah. You’re Omega. One and the same. "
I barely recognize the broken, keening sound as coming from me. She’s the cause of everything that’s happened to me. She can’t be a part of me. That can’t be true. I need her out of me. I need her gone. I need her…
Ronan bends down to speak in my other ear. "Your trauma’s playing tricks on you, Kitten. Making you think things that aren’t true."
But if that was the case, then my parents would be alive. Dr. Mercer wouldn’t have sent me to the Basement. Senator Hardwick wouldn’t have taken me to the facility. Dr. Wallace wouldn’t have done all those things to me. Things I didn’t want to happen to me. Things I begged him not to do.
My chest caves under the weight of it. "All. Her. Fault—"
" None of it was her fault. None of it was your fault. The blame lies at the feet of everyone who hurt you because that was their failing. Not yours." Ronan grips my cheeks and makes me look up at him. "None of it was your fault, Kitten. None. Of. It."
I clutch Ronan’s wrists, his words sinking into me, planting doubt in my own certainty.
I was so sure before. So sure the rot in me was my own, that the blame couldn’t belong to anyone else.
Now I’m turned around, spinning inside out, can’t find the seam between what’s real and what they want me to believe.
I’m desperate for air. Their presence swirls around me, thick as mist. If only I could think, but words and thoughts all jumble, slamming into each other in the eternal scream inside my skull.
I latch onto the memory of fresh pine forests and clementine peel and…
but something’s missing, and I can’t reach for the very thing that could stop this storm.
I bury my face into the hard, warm chest in front of me but that can’t settle what’s restless inside me. I want. Oh Gods, I crave , and I can’t trust any of it. I want them farther, I want them closer, I want to tear out of my own skin but also dive so deep inside them I’ll disappear forever.
The air changes. The door drags open, and the missing piece slams into me so hard I jolt. Smoked vanilla mixes with pine needles and tinged with spice, and the breath I’ve been holding whooshes out in a shuddering, fractured sound .
Gabriel mutters, half into my hair. "Thank Gods you’re back, brother. She needs all of us."
Jax. Alpha has returned. The relief is visceral, but I can’t want. Shouldn't want…
My mind blanks to white static and a heavy storm screams to life inside my brain.
Jax crosses to me, his gaze sweeping me up, and something gives inside and there’s nothing except the thick pulse of their scents rooting into my lungs, rewiring me from the inside out.
Snarly, knotty words tangle in my head. Words slip from my grasp.
I’m hot and aching and the feral hiss growls her desperation.
I’m theirs and I’m burning, and I should be terrified, and I am, but I’m not.
Arousal boils beneath my skin, radiates from the core of me, sets my nerves alight one by one.
Another cramp hits before I can draw another breath, twisting deep in my belly, wringing a whimper out of me before I can clamp down on it.
I hear Ronan’s far-away voice. "She’s burning up.
Fuck, she’s burning." His worry is a distant echo.
All I know is I need something , anything, relief or release or just to disappear.
My mind scrambles, tries to find anchor, but all that’s left is ache and unyielding hunger.
I can’t get away from it. The shame is a living thing, crawling under my skin, biting.
I don’t want to crave this. I don’t want to be drawn to them, but my body doesn’t care.
My hips twitch against Ronan’s hold, seeking, begging.
My cheeks flame. I loathe myself but want to be touched all the same.
This is the omega in me. This is her fault.
She’s the rot. Can’t cut her out. Can’t stop her. She is pain and hollow, frantic need.
"We need to cool her down." Gabriel’s words ripple through me.
I’m hot. So hot I’m the flames burning bright inside me.
"Get her in the shower. Now." Alpha barks and my limbs jerk.
I’m lifted. I’m a boneless puppet. I’m carried, pressed close to a chest that smells like citrus and spice meeting golden light, but the haze turns cold at the edges and then I realize the haze is here .
The haze means things happen to me, things I have no say in, things I can’t stop. My breath quickens, animal and sharp. "No!" but the word is only air, not sound.
I can’t do this. I can’t.
And then gentle, careful hands cup my jaw, stroke my hair, thumbs circle my temples.
Purring rises, low and steady, from every direction, layered and thick.
The vibrations sink under my skin, root into my bones, coax the panic back from the precipice and then the scratchy clothes are gone, and cool, cool water flows over me and I sigh and sink into the overwhelming darkness.