29. Luna #2
And I’m not talking about omegas like Brandy and her friend that left me practically naked in a freezing cold room.
There are omegas that work here who are genuinely sweet and kind.
They seem to live completely stress-free lives.
I know now that the Ward pack could have any one of them if they wanted.
“We don’t want any other omegas,” Chase says, leaning forward and trying to meet my gaze. “Your past doesn’t change how much we want you , Moonlight.”
“But—But you looked so angry after I said it,” I whisper, finally building up the courage to look up at him, tears starting to form in my eyes.
They all did.
“We were pissed because they were taking you away from us and there was nothing we could do,” Archer growls, his voice low.
His chest vibrates behind me with his words as he pulls me tighter against his body.
“We were angry that we couldn’t protect you.
Not from the threat at hand or the things that happened in your past.”
“You never should have gone through the things you went through,” Kane says. “Our anger was never directed at you, only at the people who contributed to your pain.”
“We know you’ve got this whole selection process. We’re here to tell you that we’re going to fight for you every step of the way, if you’ll have us,” Madden says.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I swear.”
“We all swear,” Archer adds.
“I—I’m not interested in any other packs,” I say, resting my hand on top of Archer’s. “Only you guys. ”
I feel Archer relax slightly from behind me, which surprises me. Did he actually think I’d be interested in anyone else?
“How have you guys been?” I ask them.
All the tension in each of their bodies seems to return instantly.
Something is wrong.
Something has happened.
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“It’s—it’s nothing bad,” Madden says, trying to reassure me. His efforts are unsuccessful because I can see some sort of hesitation in his eyes, almost like he’s hiding something from me.
“Tell me, please.”
“We found your parents,” Archer says, his voice low and intense as if he’s trying to hold back his anger. “We went to your home in the Southside.”
“You—you went there?”
The horror I feel deep in my gut quickly twists into shame. I knew when I told the police everything that had happened to me that people would eventually find them, and the place I grew up in, and that horrible, horrible cellar. I just didn’t think it would be my guys.
“You saw—” I swallow hard, blinking away the flashes of memories that are fighting their way into my brain. “You saw the cellar?”
“We did,” Archer says, his arms tensing around me. “We’re so fucking sorry you had to go through that shit. You didn’t deserve it. Not at all.”
It’s your duty as an omega. What the fuck kinda daughter are you if you’re not gonna earn your keep on your back?
I haven’t heard my dad’s voice in my head in what feels like forever. I was told all my life that I deserved it. That it was my duty, my purpose, to let men take from me.
Alpha Niall always told me that by disobeying his orders, I was asking for punishment. He’d say I deserved everything that was happening to me.
“You didn’t deserve it,” Archer whispers again, his thumb tracing small circles on my inner wrist.
It’s like he can hear my thoughts.
I guess he sort of can, considering my stress is so obvious he can probably taste it in the air around us.
“We confronted your parents before they were arrested,” Kane explains. “We wanted to try and see what information we could gather from them.”
“We learned about the alpha that wanted to buy you,” Archer says. “It turns out, Charlotte was right, and the people you thought were your parents weren’t actually your parents. The alpha that wanted to buy you was the one who dropped you off when you were a baby.”
I swallow hard, my hands tightening on Archer’s forearm.
What? Alpha Niall has known me ever since I was a baby?
“Did—did they tell you this?”
“Yeah,” Chase says. “Your fake-mom tried to stab me in the chest with a kitchen knife, too.”
“What? Oh my god, are you okay?” I try to jump to my feet to see whether Chase is okay, but Archer’s arms still band tightly across my midsection.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Chase says, a grin appearing on his face. “I appreciate you wanting to play nurse, though.”
I settle back down on Archer’s lap, trying to shake the thought of Chase bleeding out on my parents’ grimy kitchen tile floor out of my head.
I know Charlotte mentioned to me when we first met that my parents couldn’t be my actual parents, but knowing that they’ve admitted it to my guys makes it so much more real.
Plus, when Charlotte first told me, I was a lot more preoccupied with trying to keep myself calm in a house with four alphas .
“So—so who are my parents?” I ask them. “And how did Alpha Niall find me as a baby?”
“We don’t know who your actual mom is, but your fake dad said something about that Niall guy taking you from—” He swallows hard, “From an omega prostitute.”
“From my understanding of this guy’s character profile,” Charlotte adds. “He likely only let your parents sell you to betas because he has a strange obsession with ownership and purity over an omega. It makes sense that he could’ve had an obsession with another omega that he viewed as impure.”
“So—so he took me away as a baby so that he could have me when I grew up?”
“It’s definitely one of my theories, yes.”
“Then who do you think my actual dad is?”
“Probably another alpha your mother was sold to.”
“So—so my mother was like me?” I ask, my hands clenched into fists.
A whore.
“We think there’s a bigger circle of omega trafficking she’s a victim of,” Kane says.
Which means she was worse off than I was. At least I only had to service betas during my heats. The way my guys are making it sound, it seems like my mom was forced to sell herself all the time, even when she wasn’t going through her heat.
“Do—do you think my mom is okay?”
Did she want me? Did she not want to give me away? Would she have loved me if she were given the chance to?
“We don’t know,” Kane says, his expression somber. “The people that raised you are in police custody now, and we’ve conveyed all the information we’ve gathered to them. They’ve already started a major investigation into this, since it’s a lot bigger than anyone ever thought it was.”
“Oh.”
I hate being left with more questions than answers. It makes me feel so helpless, having all of these questions about my life, my past, my future, that I have no way of finding the answers to.
“How’re you feeling?” Charlotte asks quietly, reaching over from her chair and patting the back of my hand.
“I—I feel stuck. I hate it. I’ve felt stuck ever since I got here. Everyone expects me to just sit and wait for things to happen, but I hate just sitting and waiting.”
“It sucks, it really does.”
My head falls to my chest. “What am I supposed to do when all of you have to leave? I’m going to be all alone again.”
“Have you considered taking some of the classes offered here at the Omega Center? There’re cooking classes and art classes and some educational classes about nutrition and health and stuff. They’re taught by other omegas. It could help you get out of this apartment.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t been told about these classes. I guess it’s because everyone has been more preoccupied with other, more pressing things about me being here. “I—I guess I can try.”
They definitely seem to be classes aimed at making omegas better omegas, but I want to learn be a better omega. I want to actually learn how to function in the real world, especially if I want to prove to myself that this pack is making the right decision by choosing me.
“I’ll try them out,” I say, smiling at Charlotte. “Thank you for letting me know about them.”
“Great,” Charlotte says, smiling back at me. “There was one last thing I wanted to mention to you. I did more research and lab work and I’m pretty sure I’ve found the right kind of hormone medication for you to take to balance things out with your heats.”
She pulls out an orange plastic bottle full of little pills.
“This is a month’s worth. Take one a day and it should make your future heats less damaging to your body. The only downside is it could cause you to have some heat spikes.”
“Heat spikes? ”
“They’re like mini-heats. Most omegas only experience them before their normal heat, but you could experience them earlier.”
“Oh.” A bit of fear twists in my gut. The nice thing about my heats, though I’m not sure if I’d call them nice, is that they would happen, and then they’d be over.
I rarely remembered much of anything because of the fever from not having an alpha’s knot.
The thought of having my body having to go through that, god knows how many times before my actual heat, has my perfume souring. My last heat was so painful, it made me wish I was going to die.