Chapter 4 #2
It took all my willpower not to let a single tear slip, even though my vision swam in blurry blobs.
Don’t cry.
“Oh, Charlie.” Again, my name was spoken by someone who felt like they were once my long-lost friend. Someone I could have once confined in.
Oh….wait.
I had done just that. I had told my fears and worries to a friend once before. It was years ago, and the answers to those fears were the same. Fears weren’t something to be voiced.
“Th-there’s other clothes for you.”
I dipped my chin towards my chest.
“I’ll…put them in the drawer for you. Vincent is waiting in the living room for you.”
I kept my arms rigid at my sides as I passed the Omega. He reached out but I sidestepped without hesitation.
Touch wasn’t allowed. Not from anyone but the Alpha who held my contract. And even then, if he wanted to punish me, he would. Whether I broke a rule or not.
I forced my mind to go blank as I took the stairs down to the main level. They softened beneath my feet, each step padded and silent. I made no sound as I reached the bottom.
I followed the low voices toward what I assumed was the living room, guided not by curiosity, but by obligation.
I paused long enough in the doorway to see two men. One sat on a loveseat while the other sat with his back towards me in a chair. In that one glance, I knew which one was the Alpha who currently held my life in his hands.
My feet took me towards him, one step at a time. When I reached his side, I gracefully fell to my knees and bowed my head.
He was the master of the house; the master of my world because I knew anything outside of him didn’t matter. Even if my heart ached with lies that I was forced to tell myself to make this time go by and things could return to normal.
I wasn’t sure if it was for the best or not that the Alpha completely ignored me. He sipped a drink, the ice clinking in the glass with each movement. He spoke, the words not at me but they still swirled around me, wrapping me into a sense of false security that wasn’t truly for me.
The other Alpha spoke deeper, his voice like whiskey on the wind. It was soothing, but mostly because he was over there and ignoring me.
I was just a simple piece of furniture, seen but spoken about. It made it even easier to withdraw from the world that I was currently in.
Being seen but not used was better than the alternative.
Certain words broke through the numbness. Some made sense while others went right through one ear and out the other.
“…he’s broken,” one voice murmured, low and clipped.
“Aren’t they all?” Came the reply. That one was Alpha Harris. Calm. Certain. His tone wasn’t cruel, but it was stated as a fact.
“He wasn’t like that when I met him a few years ago.”
“The Lockswell Residence is known to do that to our kind.” The Omega spoke, soft and sure. He didn’t stutter over the words, nor did he seem scared to speak his mind. But there was sadness underneath it, running like a current of a slow-moving river. “They force Omegas to act a certain way, Moore.”
“It doesn’t make seeing it happen in front of me like night and day any easier, love,” the Alpha replied with a huff.
My thoughts slipped backward as they spoke, repeating things I already knew, things I’d lived.
This Alpha knew me? Maybe. Probably. My only guess was that he’d been a client once.
One client bled into the next, their voices, their hands, their rules.
None of them stood out. Not because they were gentle. But because they were all the same. They each wanted similar things from me.
It wasn’t my words or my thoughts. No.
It was my body, and they each tore a piece of it out of me, bit by bit, like pieces of lint.
I was left with the broken pieces that needed to be sewn back together, but that’d never happen.
But then, a flicker. Not a face. Not a name.
A scent. Cedarwood and smoke. Sharp. Masculine.
It clung to the sheets long after he left.
He never spoke much. Just one phrase, always the same, right before he touched me.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
I hadn’t realized I was looking at him at all. But that phase had stuck in my brain. Not because it hurt. But because it was the only thing that ever felt personal.
It was as though he knew what I was, knew that my choices had been stripped from me.
I watched him from under my lashes. Not with curiosity. Not with fear. Just… with purpose.
He looked like every other Alpha I’d met over the years. Black hair pulled off his face. His muscles were filled out like he never had to watch his weight. He was put together, even in black slacks and a matching shirt, not a wrinkle out of place.
He answered a question, but his eyes flickered to me, catching my gaze. I kept my eyes on him, knowing and daring for the Alpha beside me to smack me, to do something. I tilted my head the way I used to. An action that had yet to be beaten out of me.
He shifted. Not much. Just a flicker in his jaw.
“Don’t look at me like that.” His eyes squinted, like he was trying to read my mind. Just like he did those handful of times he’d visit me.
The words hit like a slap made of memory. But I didn’t flinch. I remembered how each time he came to rent me for my body, he used it less and less. He just sat there, like he was now, and touched me gently. Kindly, almost. Like I had mattered.
I smiled. Just like I used to when he’d show up and greet me as I kneeled before him, waiting just the way he always liked me.
Whatever Alpha Harris was saying was cut off.
I knew instantly that I had messed up, but right at that moment, I didn’t care.
I couldn’t when the one Alpha that made me feel like I mattered, like I could be cared about, was in the same room as I was.
The small fact that the Omega from upstairs sat right next to him, leaning against the arm of the Alpha.
I should look away. I should do anything but what I did.
Maybe I was searching for the pain to begin. Maybe I wanted a way out and this nice man across the room would give me just that.
Whatever the reasons, my words came out before I could stop them. I went by memories alone, remembering things that stood out in this Alpha’s rules. Not the rules of the one I currently belong to.
He shifted again. Just slightly. Like something in him recognized the moment but couldn’t place it.
“You used to say that,” I said, voice low. “Every time. Right before you touched me.”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t remember.”
Of course, he didn’t. I wasn’t a person then. Just a booking. A body. A time slot.
But I remembered the scent and the silence. I recalled the way he never looked at me as though he wanted to change the way things were.
“You wore cedar,” I added. “Artificial. It clung to the sheets.”
He blinked at his hesitation, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember that time, or if he was hiding the fact that he took something that I hadn’t wanted to give up.
“That was years ago.” Two years, actually. But who was counting?
I nodded. “It was.”
He looked at me differently now. Like I’d shifted shape.
“That makes sense on why you pointed him out of the ones that were available,” Alpha Harris spoke, his voice detached.
“That wasn’t…” Moore took a deep breath. I hadn’t ever called him that, but that’s what the Omega beside him called him. “I didn’t pick him. Adrian was the one to point the Omega out.”
Alpha Harris didn’t move at first. Not even a breath. Just that stillness he wore like armor.
Then, slowly, he leaned forward. Elbows on knees. Hands clasped. I felt his movement more than saw it, as my eyes finally dropped back to where they belonged.
“You wanted someone to match your needs, Sir, Vincent.” The Omega was quick to say, not scared of speaking up with two Alphas in the room.
“Charlie is capable of that. He’s…a good match for you.
” There was more there that was left unspoken.
Secrets that we once shared in the safe corners of the garden.
The Alpha simply hummed, as though he could argue against those words but chose not to. Then, a moment later, a hand was in my hair, forcing my head up.
I kept my gaze down, my breath getting stuck in my throat. The grip on my strands wasn’t tight, but it was strong enough to remind me that he had the power to control my entire being.
“I think there’s an Omega in this room that tried to play a trick on me.”
Adrian wasn’t like me. Even before we were split apart, he wasn’t one to keep his thoughts to himself. No matter how often he was punished, no matter how often he was stripped of his freedoms, he never did learn not to speak when not spoken to.
I knew now just as I had then. I wasn’t going to stick up for him. It was better to let him swim in his own pool of misery than for me to join him. Even if a part of me wanted to save him from whatever was going to come from both of these Alphas.
“Adrian is right, Vince. This Omega’s list of talents falls right into what you’re looking for.”
“I bet any of them would have.” The words were muttered and not for anyone to reply to. But he was right.
Each Omega was trained from the moment they arrived at Lockswell Boarding to behave in a certain way. Some were trained a little differently depending on their personalities, but essentially, we were all trained to serve and to be what a client wanted.
I wasn’t sure what I was listed as, or what my talents were. I didn’t dare ask. All that mattered was that I was usable to others.
“Charlie likes what you’d like. He said so.” Again, Adrian and his words.
I didn’t respond, but Vincent did. His grip tightened just enough to remind me that he controlled me. My neck stretched tight, holding my body as tight but flexible as it needed to be.
“You…won’t harm him, right?” Finally, Adrian seemed to understand that I wasn’t like him. He understood that I wasn’t claimed or cared for.
I was bought, rented, and would be used. He couldn’t care if I was hurt. Because in the end, I would be.
I’d be torn into pieces, more than I already was. The pieces wouldn’t go back together, either. I already knew that.
I’d leave this place even more of a shell of who I was than I arrived.
“I’m pretty sure that your view of hurt and mine are on different levels, boy.” With those words, Vincent let go of my hair as if I were something he wanted nothing to do with once again.
I didn’t respond to the words. Not to the weight behind them. I simply settled back into my greeting pose with a lowered gaze. Not in submission. Not in agreement.
Just… away. My shoulders curled inward, spine straight but hollow. The silence returned, thick and familiar.
I didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe too loudly. I folded myself into stillness, just as I had been taught, like a prayer no one answered.