Chapter 6
Ren clenched his fists at his sides. He wanted to scream.
He wanted to throw himself at Brody and beat him until he stopped saying things that tore him apart inside and, at the same time, he wanted to sink into that scent of raisins and walnuts and the warmth of home and stay there forever.
That duality made him so sick to his stomach that he had to rest his hand on the windowsill.
“I’m not yours.”
His voice came out broken. He hated that fragility. He cleared his throat and repeated it.
“I’m not yours. I don’t belong to anyone.”
Brody didn’t react. Not a blink. Not a shift in posture. Just those intense gray eyes watching him with infinite patience, as if Ren were a wounded animal that shouldn’t be startled.
“I’ve said what I had to say.”
“Well, you didn’t have to say any of that.”
Brody shrugged. A minimal gesture that shifted the muscles beneath the black fabric of his t-shirt. Ren looked away.
The problem wasn’t what Brody had said. The problem was that every cell in Ren’s body agreed with him.
Every damn cell. He could feel that churning in his gut, in his fingertips, in that soft spot behind his knees that went weak when Brody looked at him for too long.
His body was a traitor. It had always been that way—second gender, omega nature, biology designed to submit—but never to that extent.
Never with that intensity that erased his thoughts and filled his head with white static.
He didn’t love Brody. He didn’t know him.
He didn’t know who he was beyond an alpha with a mansion that was too big, a distant relative of a man who organized omega auctions, and a friend of a guy named Rocco who stepped in from time to time to rescue some of them.
That wasn’t enough to trust him. That wasn’t enough for anything.
But his body didn’t see it that way, and that made him want to tear his own skin off.
The silence stretched on until it ceased to be awkward and became something else. A wordless agreement. Brody stepped away from the dresser, and the tension between them seemed to vanish.
“Have you seen the mansion?”
Ren blinked.
“No.”
“Good. Come.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He headed for the door and walked out.
He hadn’t closed it when he went in, and Ren realized then that the gesture had been deliberate.
Even now, by leaving it open again, he was giving him the choice to follow him or stay.
Ren chewed the inside of his cheek and followed him.
The hallway was long, with high ceilings adorned with plaster moldings and a dark wooden floor that creaked under his bare feet.
Brody walked ahead, two steps ahead, close enough for his scent to reach Ren in bursts rather than a constant wave.
Ren didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose. He probably was.
“This is the library.”
Brody pointed to a double door on the left without stopping. Ren glimpsed floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves, worn leather armchairs, and an unlit fireplace.
“You can use it whenever you want.”
They turned a corner. The staircase, wide and with a wrought-iron banister. They went down to the first floor. Brody’s scent mingled with others: furniture polish, fresh coffee, something that might be toast. Ren’s stomach was empty and aching, but he wasn’t sure he could swallow anything.
“The dining room.”
A rectangular room with an oak table for twelve. No one was seated. The empty chairs seemed to wait for him.
“The kitchen is at the end of the hall. If you’re hungry, go in and take whatever you need. There are staff members, but they don’t bite.”
Ren didn’t respond. He was taking stock. Distances, doors, exits. He did it without thinking, a gained reflex. Dining room: one door, two windows. Kitchen: service door leading outside. He filed it away.
Brody led him to the living room, a spacious room with sagging sofas and a huge TV mounted on the wall. Heavy green curtains filtered the sunlight. A low table with a chessboard and no pieces.
“You can move around here. Bedroom, library, dining room, kitchen, living room, gardens. That’s it.”
“And the rest of the house?”
Brody stopped. He turned. The light streaming through the curtains fell on one side of his face and left the other in shadow, and Ren saw for the first time the deep dark circles under his eyes, the look of someone who hadn’t slept well in a long time.
“The rest of the house isn’t for you.”
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t.”
Ren felt heat rise in his chest. Not the kind that Brody’s scent provoked in him. A different kind. Anger.
“Am I your prisoner?”
Brody’s jaw tensed. A muscle twitched beneath his skin, just below his ear.
“You’re my guest.”
“Guests can leave whenever they want.”
Brody didn’t answer. And that silence spoke louder than any words.
They stepped out into the garden through a side glass door.
The cool air hit Ren in the face, and for a second he could breathe without Brody’s scent filling his lungs.
It was enormous, surrounded by a high stone wall topped with a metal fence that didn’t look decorative.
Trimmed hedges, a white gravel path, two gigantic oak trees casting long shadows across the lawn.
Ren looked at the security guardhouse in the distance. The same guard as the night before.
“How long am I going to be here?”
Brody shoved his hands into his pant pockets. He stared at the garden with the expression of someone weighing his words before speaking.
“As long as it takes.”
“For what?”
“To make sure you leave.”
“Make sure for whom?”
Brody turned his head. He looked at him. Ren held his gaze this time, though it took more effort than he will admit. There was something magnetic about Brody’s eyes, something that pulled, and Ren felt the tug in his ribs.
“For you.”
“And my family? Do they know I’m here?”
Brody took one hand out of his pocket and scratched the back of his neck. A human gesture, almost clumsy, that didn’t fit with the rest of him. He looked away toward the oak trees.
“We’re working on that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re working on that.”
Ren clenched his teeth. Brody’s scent reached him on a gentle breeze—raisins, walnuts, warm wood—and relaxed his muscles against his will. He clenched his fists.
“Who is Rocco? Why did he help me?”
“Eat something first. We’ll talk later.”
“No. We’re talking now.”
Brody lowered his chin. He looked down at him with those broken, gray eyes that held too many emotions. Ren waited. The wind ruffled his blond hair across his forehead, and he had to brush it away with a sharp gesture.
“Rocco works for me.” Pause. “That’s all you need to know for now.”
“That’s not all.”
“That’s how it is, Ren.”
His name on Brody’s lips. Deep, rough, with that texture of wet sandpaper that ran down his spine like a finger. Ren took a step back. He swallowed what he was about to say.
Brody watched him for a moment longer. The stiffness in his shoulders eased slightly, and he nodded toward the side door.
“Let’s go inside. You need to eat.”
Ren didn’t move for three long seconds. Then his feet carried him behind Brody as if they had a will of their own, and he hated himself a little more for it.
The kitchen smelled of toast and fresh coffee. Ren sat on a bar stool at the marble island and watched as Rocco—the same man from the casino, though now without his dealer’s uniform—set a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a slice of buttered toast before him.
“Eat. You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”
Ren looked at him warily. Rocco held his gaze without pressure, leaning on the counter with his arms crossed and that expression of a guy who’s seen too much of the world to be surprised by anything.
In the light of day, he was bigger than Ren remembered.
Broad shoulders, large hands, a square jaw.
But something about him was invisible, as if he could blend into the wall in any setting.
“Why did you help me?”
“Because someone had to.”
Ren poked at the eggs with his fork. He pushed them around the plate.
“That’s not an answer.”
Rocco shrugged.
“It’s the only one I have. Eat.”
Ren ate. The first bite hurt as he swallowed, as if his throat had forgotten how to function. The second was easier. By the third, hunger hit him like a punch in the stomach, and he devoured the entire plate in less than three minutes.
Rocco poured him coffee without asking.
“Thanks,” Ren wrapped both hands around the cup. The heat rose through his fingers. “For the paper. For the address. For everything.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
“Why not?”
Rocco’s smile was brief and slightly crooked.
“Because this isn’t over. Reznov paid seven hundred thousand for you. He will not settle for losing his investment.”
The coffee tasted bitter. Ren set the cup down.
“So what then? Do I stay hidden here forever?”
“Not forever. Just until…”
“Until it’s safe. Everyone says the same thing, but no one tells me what that means.”
Rocco tilted his head. He studied him with something that might have been respect.
“You’re pretty rude for someone who just escaped an auction.”
“I’m always pretty rude.”
Rocco burst out laughing. Short, genuine. And Ren felt something loosen inside his chest, a knot he didn’t know he had. There was nothing dark in Rocco’s laughter. No intention, no calculation. Just pure fun.
“I like you, kid. That’s going to be a problem.”
“For whom?”
Rocco opened his mouth to answer but didn’t get the chance.
The kitchen door burst open. Brody filled the doorway with his shoulders. His jaw was clenched, and there was a tension Ren sensed before he even saw it. The scent of raisins and walnuts flooded the space all at once—thick, hot, aggressive in a way it hadn’t been until now.
Brody’s gray eyes darted from Ren to Rocco. From Rocco to Ren. They settled on Rocco.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than entertain the omegas of the house?”
His voice was low and controlled, but there was something dangerous beneath it.
Rocco didn’t flinch. He stepped away from the counter, ran a hand through the back of his neck, and looked at Brody with a smirk that curled the left corner of his mouth.
“I was just feeding him, boss. Someone had to do it.”
The tendons in Brody’s neck stood out like guitar strings.
“Get out.”
Rocco raised both hands in a gesture of surrender and headed for the door. As he passed Brody, he slapped him on the shoulder, which Brody took without moving, like a wall. Rocco’s smile widened another millimeter before he disappeared down the hallway.
Brody closed the door. He stood with his hand on the doorknob and his back stiff. Ren watched him breathe. Once, twice. Each exhalation expanded his ribcage as if it contained something large inside.
Ren set the cup down on the island.
“What was that?”
Brody turned.
“What was what?”
“Snubbing him like that. We were talking.”
“I saw that.”
“And?”
“And Rocco has work to do. He’s not your babysitter.”
Heat rose to Ren’s neck. He stepped down from the stool.
“I’m not going to talk to anyone either? Is that it? Am I your prisoner?”
Brody took a step toward him. Just one. But the kitchen felt smaller.
“You’re not my prisoner.”
“Well, it sure doesn’t feel like it. I can’t leave the house, I can’t go wherever I want, I can’t talk to whoever I want. What do you call that?”
“Protection.”
“Protection, my ass.”
The word came out with more force than he intended and bounced off the white kitchen tiles. Brody narrowed his eyes. The gray deepened.
“You don’t know what I’m protecting you from.”
“Because you won’t tell me. You don’t tell me anything. You bring me here, lock me up, tell me I’m safe, and expect me to swallow it without asking questions.”
“I’ve explained it to you.”
“You have explained nothing to me. You’ve given me crumbs.”
“Ren.”
“What? Are you going to tell me not to yell? To calm down? To be a good omega and stay put in the room you’ve given me?”
Brody crossed the kitchen in two strides. He planted himself in front of him. The scent hit him like a wall of heat—sweet, dark, and overwhelming—and Ren took half a step back but no further. He would not give him any more ground.
“Lower your voice.”
“No.”
“I said lower your voice.”
“And I said no.”
Brody’s eyes were gleaming. Something was vibrating in his throat, an indistinct sound that wasn’t quite human, and Ren felt it in his bones like a seismic tremor.
“You do not know what lies outside these walls. You do not know what Reznov can do to reclaim what he considers his. You don’t have any…”
“Then tell me!”
Brody raised his hand. A sudden gesture. Quick. To point something out, to emphasize, his fingers extended upward, pointing at the ceiling.
Ren flinched.
The movement was instantaneous, involuntary, etched somewhere in his body that he didn’t control.
He curled up into himself. Shoulders up.
Head tilted. Arms half-raised. A posture he recognized but didn’t remember learning.
Expecting the impact, tensed every muscle like a spring, and he closed his eyes.
Silence.
Ren dared to open his eyes.
Brody held his hand frozen mid-air. His lips parted. His eyes wide open—so wide that Ren could see the white around the gray irises—and in them something that looked like horror. Not anger. Not impatience. Pure horror at realizing what Ren had just expected of him.
The air between them turned solid.
Ren stood up abruptly. Shame burned his skin like acid. Every inch. From his ears to his hands. Worse than during the auction. Worse than finding himself dressed in latex. Worse than falling to his knees before a stranger because of his scent.
“No…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t finish it because there was no sentence that could cover that up, that could erase those three seconds in which his body had shown exactly what he was: a weak person used to taking blows.
He clenched his teeth until they ground together.
“Fuck you.”
He stormed out of the kitchen. With a forceful shove, he sent the door crashing against the wall.
With eyes burning and hands trembling, he crossed the hallway without seeing a thing, a coiled rage and humiliation devouring each other in his chest like two snakes.
He would not cry. He would not cry. He would not cry.
Behind him, Brody’s voice cut through the hallway like a bullet.
“You’re safe here. Even if you hate me for it.”
Ren didn’t stop.