Prologue
Kasey
A year ago, I couldn’t handle seeing myself in the mirror. I hated how I looked inside and out.
Not because of the scars, those I’d learned to ignore, but because I didn’t recognize the person staring back. He looked hollow and faded. Like someone had scraped out everything that made him human and left the shell behind.
I thought that was all I’d ever be. Nothing but a trained Omega to serve an Alpha until the breath no longer filled my lungs and my heartbeat no more in my chest.
Then, Evander brought me home.
Not in a dramatic way, not with some grand rescue or miracle. Just quietly, like he’d decided I was worth saving long before I ever believed it myself. And somehow, over the last twelve months, this house became a place where I learned how to breathe again.
I learned how to stand without shaking. How to sleep without waking up choking on memories. How to exist without waiting for someone to hurt me.
I learned how to be a person.
At first, it was a small thing. Brushing my teeth when I decided. Choose my clothes every day. Eating because I was hungry, not because someone told me to eat.
Then bigger things like laughing, talking, and trusting.
Somewhere along the way, I started becoming someone I didn’t mind seeing in the mirror. Someone with a voice and with a purpose. Someone who wasn’t just trying to survive anymore.
Evander never pushed me, never rushed. He just stayed, patient, until the pieces of me stopped feeling like broken glass and started feeling like something I could put back together.
Now, when I look at myself, I don’t see the ghost of what I used to be. Instead, I saw someone new. Someone growing and becoming something that I actually like.
Over the past few months, I’ve gained weight where there had been once just skin and bones. I gained confidence to voice my thoughts when I didn’t enjoy something. I gained independence that I never once thought I’d get to have.
A year ago, I thought I was just an Omega who was lost and alone in this huge world. I had a name, I knew my face, but I didn’t look like someone worth keeping. I was just an object, ready to be used however an Alpha saw fit.
But here, in Evander’s house, I wasn’t just one thing. I was something worth cherishing and treasured. I was me. An Omega who thrived in the world that wanted to destroy me.
I am Kasey Lorne Hale, and no Alpha had the power to destroy parts of me again. I wouldn’t allow it.
Now, when I looked in the mirror, I saw an Omega who stood strong with bright eyes that were filled with life and hope and love. I saw a human being that was being built back up day after day.
I knew, now, that Omegas were only seen as weak because of our blood. Not because we were weaker than anyone, but because DNA said we had to be weak.
Here, with my Evy, I was stronger than I ever had been before. Here, with love and support, I got to live a life I could only dream of once upon a time.
My relationship with my family was slow going, but it was getting better day by day. They were trying. I was trying. And for the first time in a long time, trying felt like enough.
My parents carried a kind of guilt that lived in their bones.
They blamed themselves for losing me, for not finding me sooner, for every year I spent in the dark.
They were working with a counselor now, learning how to hold that guilt without letting it crush them.
Learning how to forgive themselves for things that were never their fault.
I hadn’t told them what I’d been through. I didn’t plan to. They didn’t need those details carved into their hearts. They’d bled enough for ten lifetimes. Why add more pain when the past couldn’t be changed, when I was here now, safe, and living with the one person who meant the entire world to me?
Evander gave me a home. My parents gave me love. And somewhere between the two, I found a version of myself worth keeping.
Some truths didn’t need to be spoken aloud to be understood. Some wounds didn’t need to be reopened to prove they existed. And some things, like the life I have built now, were finally mine to protect.
I knew everything wouldn’t always be perfect. I wasn’t going to have every single day be great with the sun shining. I knew that the past would try to sneak in, but I refused to let it.
My relationship with Evander was better than I could even dream of. Since the night of my birthday, when I asked to sleep in his bed, I hadn’t left that space for a single night. His room was created with me in mind, a small reminder to him that I was out there.
My bedroom was slowly turned into an art studio, where I drew and painted to my heart content. Oftentimes, Evander came home from work, finding me covered in paint colors as I danced to music.
Those were one of the many moments I cherished the most. Evander would come up to me, not afraid to wrap his arms around me and tell me hello. He’d press a kiss on my hair, my neck, and my lips. He’d always find the cleanest spots before he’d give up and just let the paint cover him too.
Because we were a pair. Always and forever.
Our sex life hadn’t gone further than a hand job here or there when the need came up, but even that felt…right. We were matched in ways I didn’t know two people could be.
For a long time, a small part of me wanted to blame Lockswell for taking away whatever desire I should’ve felt, for stealing the part of me that was supposed to want more, crave more, reach for more than the man I loved with everything in me.
But over the past seven months, I realized something wasn’t broken.
It was just me. Another layer of who I am now.
And I didn’t need to fix it.
Not when Evander felt the same way. Not when he looked at me like I was enough exactly as I was. Not when we had already worked so perfectly.
We didn’t need sex to be a pair. We didn’t need to chase something we weren’t missing. We didn’t need anything but each other.
What we had was ours. Something steady, warm and rare. And that was more than enough.
Whatever life had in store for us next, we’d tackle it together. As equals. Because our story wasn’t ending. It was just the beginning.
And there would be so much love, so much hope, that others would see us and think we were perfect. When, behind closed doors, we were just two broken people, torn apart from a tragedy and piecing ourselves back together in the only way we could.
Together.