Lily #2
I watch him through blurred eyes. He’s careful, precise, like when he’s working on a drawing. He wipes up the vomit, sprays the wood, wipes again. He doesn’t speak, there’s only the quiet sound of cloth and water.
When the floor is spotless, he peels off the gloves. Comes to me, grips me under my shoulders, and lifts me upright. He’s surprisingly gentle after the violence. He helps me grab the glass of water.
“Drink,” he says.
The water is cold, clean. It cools my throat, washes out the taste. My hands shake so badly it drips down my chin, but I drink every drop.
I want to thank him, but my throat won’t work.
Miles takes the glass, sets it aside, and looks at me. Really looks, all defenses down, just like that day on the kitchen floor. I can’t read his face, but it’s honest.
Then he picks me up, easy, like I weigh nothing. He carries me out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.
He sets me on my feet at the sink, turns on the water, wets a washcloth, and starts cleaning my face. He’s gentle, careful, dabbing away the mess on my mouth, chin, neck.
Then he reaches for my shirt.
I grab his wrists. Instinct. My fingers clamp down, heart racing, fear sparking in my chest.
He stops. Waits for me to look at him.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. The yelling has wrecked his voice. It comes out cracked and hoarse. “I want to help. That’s all. Let me help.”
I search his face for the catch, the trick, the cruelty. But it’s only Miles, who saw what he did to me and is trying to fix it, the only way he knows how.
I let go.
He pulls my shirt off, careful not to smear the mess. Then my pants, letting me step out. I’m down to bra and underwear, but I don’t care. I’m too tired. Too sick.
Miles strips down to his boxers, pale in the bathroom light, a small scar on his ribs. I don’t stare.
He turns on the shower, tests it, then guides me in and steps in behind me.
The water is warm, not hot. The perfect temperature. It runs over my hair, my back, washing away everything.
Miles washes my hair. His fingers work through, slow and soft. Then my back, my shoulders, all with careful hands, like I’m something fragile.
I don’t get it. Twenty minutes ago he was dragging me across the floor. Now he’s washing my hair like I might break if he isn’t gentle. I don’t know which version is the real one, or if both are, or if there’s another one neither of us has seen yet.
I don’t think about it. I just let him help.
I’m still sick. Still in pain. It’s hard to stay upright but his presence helps me manage somehow. When I lean too far he pushes me back in place, lets me put some of my dead weight on him.
When we’re clean, he turns off the water. He wraps me in the soft towel, dries my hair. Walks me back to the bedroom.
The floor is clean. The suitcase is still open, most of my clothes balled up inside, but no one’s looking at it. He puts me on the bed, under fresh covers.
I watch him, exhausted and confused, as he takes the dirty towels and supplies away. I hear the washing machine. He comes back, stands in the doorway for a minute, then crosses to the bed and slides in beside me.
I tense, but he doesn’t grab or force anything. He lies there, pulling me gently against his chest, arm around my waist, face pressed into my neck.
He starts nosing me. Little shivery nudges at first, careful, like he’s making sure I won’t spook.
His nose trailing up my neck, all deliberate, until he finds that soft patch behind my ear.
He pushes in, breath warm, and then there’s that tiny nip—a quick graze, barely a pinch, enough for my skin to know he’s there.
It’s what alphas do, usually. All that omega care you’re supposed to get from the real deal—a bonded alpha, scenting you, nipping, working the pressure points along your throat that are meant to keep your nervous system in check.
It doesn’t hit the same coming from another omega.
The pheromones are off, like you’re listening to music with the bass turned down low.
But honestly? It helps. God, it helps. The headache that felt like a fire alarm gets a little quieter.
My stomach stops folding in on itself. The shaking in my hands fades, and then it’s just…
gone. I hate how easy it is to melt into him after everything. I also don’t hate it.
“Thank you,” I get out. The words come out gravel-wrecked. Two words with a sob wrapped around them.
He doesn’t answer. Just keeps moving his nose along my neck. For a second there’s only the hush of his breathing. Then he talks. Barely hanging together.
“I didn’t think you were telling the truth.”
I tense.
“About the pain. The headaches. Everything.” He pulls me closer.
“I thought you were making it up to get their attention. Maybe not all the way, but at least blowing it out of proportion. Trying to get sympathy, or get them to touch you. I didn’t know suppressant withdrawal could do this or that touch starvation was a real thing that could actually…
” He stops. I feel him breathing, bracing.
“I thought you were manipulating everyone, and I was the only one who saw it.”
I don’t say anything. Not yet.
“I’m messed up, Lily.” No drama, only flat fact.
“I don’t trust people. I can’t. My old pack made sure of that.
They told me I was trash, every day. That male omegas are useless, a joke, barely worth the air they breathe.
That I should be grateful for any scrap of attention, even if it was only to use me. ”
He keeps going. His voice thins.
“I should have been an alpha. I know it. I feel it in my bones. I want to take control… be in control. Yes, I’m an omega and I submit to my alphas because that’s what my hormones tell me to do when I’m with them.
But when I’m not… when I’m not with my alphas, I don’t even feel like an omega.
I’m convinced I was supposed to be an alpha and something got screwed up and now I’m stuck in this body that wants the wrong stuff sometimes and never fits anywhere all the time. ”
He’s shaking. I feel it, his body jostling mine.