80. Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Riley
One second, I’m ready to start a fist fight with the best friend I’ve ever had, and the next, I’m collapsing against him, letting the weight of these last five years crush everything inside me.
Xane stays with me, holding me close, keeping me from falling, and reminding me I’m not alone.
All this time I’ve been acting like I’m on my own.
Like I had to pretend nothing happened to get on with my life.
To protect the pack from my weakness and keep everyone safe.
I don’t want to push him away.
I need this. I need to feel like he’s still there.
Like he hasn’t been for so fucking long.
“Where have you fucking been?” I ask.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he admits. “I didn’t know what to do to help you. So, I let you do whatever you wanted. That was a mistake.”
“No shit,” I mutter, pushing him away and wiping at the wet trail under one eye.
I move back a little and sit down on the sand.
It’s much cooler than it was earlier.
My arms and legs feel a little sunburnt.
That’s okay. It makes me feel more human.
I haven’t felt human in a long fucking time.
“I messed up, and I’m sorry, Riley. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you.”
“You can start by telling me where you hid my miniatures.”
He laughs. “I emptied them out.”
Damn. He wasn’t kidding about that.
“Brutal,” I mutter.
“Sorry, not sorry. I know you’ve been using it to cope, but you can’t do that anymore.”
I blow out a breath. It sucks, but I know he’s right.
“I need chips, and soda.”
“Trick got you some. Give me a second.”
Xane gets up but he doesn’t leave right away.
“You’re not gonna move until I come back?”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll find the miniatures you hid in the sand?” I raise an eyebrow.
He shakes his head. “Just stay there, okay? I don’t want to have to use my command voice on you.”
“Ooh, kinky,” I joke.
He leaves with a sigh.
I lie down, stomach starting to growl.
There were sandwiches in a cooler earlier.
I could probably use one now.
And a few bottles of water.
Pain killers would be good.
Ugh. I feel like shit.
Xane comes back and I push myself back up to a sitting position.
He’s carrying a lantern, and a bundle of other stuff.
“I grabbed you a sandwich. Didn’t have time to check what was on it.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, taking it out of his hands.
It smells good, whatever the fuck it is.
“Doesn’t matter,” I admit as I unwrap it. “Kian’s got good taste in food.”
“He’s never sure if you like what he orders.”
“Gotta keep the brat on his toes. He’s spoiled enough.”
I eat while Xane sits in silence across from me.
I know it’s coming, but I don’t know if I’m ready for it.
The sandwich is gone quickly.
I pick up the bottle of water next and sink a few hefty gulps.
I wouldn’t say I’m all better, yet, but I feel a lot less shitty.
“I know what you want to talk about.”
It doesn’t feel any better to pre-empt it, but that doesn’t matter.
The only way I can escape this vicious cycle is to talk about it.
And there’s literally no-one else I would want to tell.
“I know it’s hard,” Xane tells me. “I was there when she first perfumed. I remember what that felt like. I walked her back to her room that morning and she tried to kiss me.”
“She did?” I ask, surprised that he didn’t mention that the night it happened.
He nods slowly. “I moved away, but I hesitated for a second.”
“You hesitated?” I ask, not quite believing it.
Xane is the strongest Alpha I know. He always has been.
It’s kinda shocking to hear him admit weakness.
“I wasn’t attracted to her,” he states. “But her perfume … I didn’t expect it to affect me the way it did.
I know if I let instinct take over, it would feel good.
I also knew I’d regret it, and thankfully that’s what made the decision for me.
I told her Larry gave her drugs that triggered her perfume, and that I would never take advantage of a kid.
That made her mad. She went into her room and slammed the door in my face. ”
“I didn’t think you really understood, but I didn’t know she came onto you that night.”
It doesn’t change much, but everything makes a little more sense.
He didn’t just bury himself in work because he couldn’t stop what happened to me.
He felt the same unwanted desire for a girl neither of us ever would have tried to even talk to under any other circumstances.
“I didn’t think it would be so potent,” I admit. “You hear stories, and you think they’re an exaggeration, until you’re in those shoes. Her perfume was incredible, but the situation was beyond fucked up. I felt dirty for days after that first night.”
Even thinking about it now makes me shudder.
“It makes me feel sick,” Xane admits. “That I hesitated. That for a fraction of a second, I considered what it might be like. That never would have happened if she hadn’t perfumed.”
“Yeah, that’s why I threw up. I might have done that anyway, thanks to all the booze and drugs and everything I ate after all the booze and drugs, but it was like snorting an aphrodisiac then having a teenager walk into the room. I was feeling the effect, but I didn’t want to be. It was messed up.”
“And that’s not your fault, Riley. Her perfume did what it was supposed to do, to any Alpha, to us. It made us feel something we didn’t want to feel for her.”
And if it ended there, with no action taken, that would have been bad enough.
My libido took a nosedive going forward. It was just as well considering parties were no longer gonna be a thing, but it worried me to the point where I started randomly screwing groupies to make sure my dick was still in full working order. It was. But I wasn’t having fun anymore.
She killed the adventurous side of me.
But it’s what she did next that hollowed me out on the inside.
“What she did to you was wrong,” Xane reminds me. “And none of it was your fault.”
“Wasn’t it, though?” I ask, as the memory floods through me.
It was three months after the party that ended all parties.
I’d pushed her out of my mind.
She was no longer occupying too many of my thoughts.
I was getting used to the changes we were making.
Everything felt calm, if not exactly normal.
We were in another town.
Xane was in charge of everything.
Larry was long gone, and his job opportunities were drying up.
I was gonna get over what he’d done, and what I’d felt from her.
All I needed was a little more time, but I didn’t get it.
“It wasn’t your fault one little bit,” Xane assures me. “She knew what she was doing.”
I can’t help but feel guilty, but I know he’s not wrong about that second thing.
She knew which town we were in, and she found out which hotel.
She didn’t come to the party, because we didn’t have one.
I had six beers backstage after the gig, and then we all went to the penthouse suite of our hotel.
I don’t know what time it was when I passed out in my bedroom.
I only know I woke up with that completely intoxicating scent in my lungs, and a tight pussy swiftly turning my dick into a knot, a feeling I’ve never forgotten, and never experienced, ever since.
It didn’t matter that when I looked up, I saw it was her.
I was already under her spell.
“I didn’t want to stop,” I admit. “Nothing mattered when I woke up like that. I didn’t care that it was her. All I wanted …”
I cut myself off because it’s too disgusting to even say out loud.
“She knew what she was doing,” Xane repeats. “She did it the way she did because she knew you would never initiate anything with her. It was assault, Riley. You know it was. It doesn’t matter what she made you feel. There was no consent. There never could have been.”
Yeah, because I was asleep when she climbed on top of me.
“Like anyone would ever believe that,” I mutter.
“Anyone who knows you would absolutely believe it. They know you would never have gone to bed with a minor.”
“It’s so fucking wrong, Xane. I should have been too disgusted to keep going. I shouldn’t have been hard at all. My dick shouldn’t have knotted for her …”
There are too many things that feel like my fault to not feel guilty about it.
“You were passed out when she snuck into your room. There was nothing you could have done until it was too late. Your body did what it was made to do. None of that was your fault.”
“Well, it feels like it was. I don’t know how to get rid of that feeling.”
“Staying sober’s a good start. Talking about it should help, too. If I’m not helping, we can find you someone who can …”
“No therapists. I’ll talk to you.”
“Okay. Then, we have a plan.”
I snort. “You sound like Ki.”
“He does always have a plan.” Xane gives me a wry smile.
He passes me the pack of chips. I snatch them up quickly.
“What?” I ask, as I open the chips. “You look guilty as fuck. Don’t tell me you knew what she was capable of …”
He shakes his head. “It’s not about her, and maybe it’s not the best time.”
“Like that matters. Spill, Xane, or I’ll smack it out of you when I’m done with these chips.”
I start eating them, because I’m still hungry even after the gourmet sandwich.
“You’re not gonna like it.”
I roll my eyes. “It can’t be worse than being assaulted by an Omega.”
Xane smiles tightly. “Kian planned this … trip.”
“Uh, yeah, I know he got us a month off if we did the interview with that blonde him and Trick have been fighting over. I think Trick’s gonna win that one, if I’m being honest.”
“That’s part of it. Sure.”
“You’re telling me there’s more?”
“You were kinda wasted for most of the day. I wasn’t sure you were taking it in. I guess you weren’t.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda the point of drinking to forget.”
He takes a breath. “Kian thinks that blonde is our true mate. He arranged that interview specifically to get her out here with us. And by here, I do mean here. Not the resort.”
“Not the resort …” It doesn’t make sense, until it does. “You think she’s our true mate?”
“I … considered it.”
“You considered it enough that you let Kian talk you into landing on the deserted side of the island,” I finish for him.
He nods slowly.
As far as bombshells go, it’s a big one.
I can’t deny the blonde has something.
I felt it when I saw her.
Even if I decided to ignore it, I can’t pretend I didn’t feel it.
If Xane thought for even a second, that this woman might be our true mate, then this is something I can’t run away from.
It’s a minor miracle, really.
Most people aren’t guided together by the Fates.
It’s just pretty fucking unfortunate that a crazy teenager decided I was her true mate and made damn sure I would never forget her, even if I did push her out of my life.
“Are you okay?” Xane asks.
“No, but I’m getting there.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes, and I realize I have chips to finish, and a full can of soda to drink.
I finish my late-night meal, sitting in silence with my best friend and lead Alpha.
When I’m done, I do feel a little lighter.
“Thank God you’re finally back,” I tell Xane.
He gives me a smile. “I need you to tell me if I start to disappear again.”
“Don’t worry. I will. If you’re making me do this sober thing, I’m making sure you’re present.”
“Deal,” he says.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
I get to my feet, and he does the same.
“Scarlett’s sleeping in the jet …” he starts.
“I can piss in the woods. Wait. Wasn’t her name Saffron, or something?”
He laughs. “You missed a few things while you were drunk. I’ll fill you in when you’re done pissing in the woods.”
“Deal.”