Chapter 95
Chapter Ninety-Five
ONE WEEK LATER
~Harlow~
Leon and I return home from an ultrasound and are walking through the door when his phone starts ringing.
He answers it as I walk into the house, only to find that Thane is home and sitting at the counter reading a newspaper.
He sets it down as I make my way to the fridge, and I can hear Leon arguing with whoever is on the phone, still in the foyer.
“How did your ultrasound go?” Thane asks.
I glance at him over my shoulder. We hardly speak, and I prefer it that way. It is easier to just stay away from him than deal with his moodiness.
“Harlow?” he says, and I continue to ignore him, grabbing a bottle of water and moving toward the foyer to find out what has Leon so upset. As I pass Thane, however, he reaches out and grips my wrist, stopping me. I jerk my hand from his grip and glare at him.
“Can you answer me, please? All you do is ignore me,” Thane sighs, wiping a hand down his face before scratching the back of his neck. “You can’t just ignore me. You are pregnant with our child. We have to at least co-parent.”
“Our daughter has three other fathers. I don’t have to do shit with you,” I tell him. I’m about to turn away when he stops me again, making me growl at him. I was locked in that damn Den for a month, and he expects me to just forget it. Without even a fucking apology?
“Fine. Just go,” he sighs as Leon walks in. He grabs a bottle of Coke from the fridge.
“Everything alright?” Thane asks him.
“No, I need to go see Talon. He is having issues with one of his vendors.”
“I can go,” Thane says, standing up, but Leon shakes his head.
“No, stay. I will deal with it. Watch Harlow for me,” Leon says, and I sputter.
“Why can’t I come?” I ask, not wanting to be stuck at home with Thane.
“Because his vendor is a vampire, so neither of you are getting anywhere near him,” Leon replies.
“Well, why can’t Thane go?” I ask, pointing at Thane.
“Nope, his blood is just as addictive as yours. I’ll handle it,” Leon says, pecking my cheek and walking off.
“Leon!” I shriek in panic, rushing after him.
“Harlow, enough! It isn’t safe. Thane’s your mate too. He won’t do anything. He hasn’t, has he?” Leon asks. I look at Thane beside me and swallow nervously. It will be the first time I am left alone with him since coming home.
“I’ll call Rhen and tell him to head home, okay?” Leon says, cupping my face in his hands. He presses his lips against mine, and I sigh.
“No, I’ll be fine. Just go,” I tell him, and he looks at Thane who nods to him before he turns on his heel and leaves.
Dread fills my stomach as I turn to find Thane watching me.
He says nothing as I wander into the living room and flick the TV on.
I am watching the midday drama when he walks out and sits on the couch across from me with his newspaper.
I try my best to ignore him, but his presence has me on edge.
Although, I am curious as to why he is home so early.
“How come you aren’t at work?” I ask him. He briefly lifts his head to glance at me.
“Because I wanted to be here when you got home from your ultrasound, so I can find out what is happening with your pregnancy and our daughter,” he says simply, and I roll my eyes.
“She is fine. I’m sure Leon would have told you later. You didn’t have to come home early,” I tell him.
“No, he wouldn’t have. None of them tell me anything regarding you.”
I scoff. He sets the paper down, looking at me.
“Our mates barely speak to me, Harlow, and they won’t until you start.”
Shaking my head, I turn my attention back to the TV. “I have nothing to say to you. Nothing nice anyway,”
“Your anger I can handle. Your silence is driving me insane,” he mutters, opening his newspaper.
“Wow, it must be so damn hard not having your mates speak to you.
Sucks, doesn't it? Try being mute, too; that will really drive you crazy. Silence is one thing, but being mute? Having your voice stolen from you for so long that you forget what it even sounds like. Eventually, you start believing you never had one in the first place,” I tell him.
Saying the words out loud makes them truly sink in. For both of us.
Thane says nothing, but I can feel his gaze as he watches me—feel the guilt writhing through him. We sit in awkward silence for what feels like an eternity, when he finally speaks.
“Harlow... I... I know...”
Turning my head, I look at him, watching him struggle with whatever he is trying to say, when he stops for a second. “I know what—”
“No, you don’t know. You don’t know because you grew up with the privilege of being born an Alpha. You always had a voice, and when I finally found mine, you took it, proving it was never really mine to begin with,” I tell him.
“You think because I am an Alpha, I had it easy? I have had responsibility shoved on my damn shoulders from the moment I could walk,” he snaps at me.
“And what responsibility is that, Thane? The pressure of knowing you will have everything handed to you on a silver platter, because of your DNA. That you will be able to pick and choose every aspect of your life, deciding which Omega you will destroy, so you can raise the next Alpha asshole?” I scoff.
“I have spent every damn second of my life training and being brought up in my parents’ image.
Raised with the responsibility of knowing I will be the one everyone turns to, to protect them, keep them safe.
I thought you killed my mother. What did you expect me to do, Harlow? Just forgive you and move on?”
“Yes. Because I didn’t fucking do it!”
“And you lied to us, all of us!” he screams at me.
“I lied because from the moment I met you, all I heard was how much you fucking hate Omegas! How much you wanted to kill the woman you thought killed your mother! Was I supposed to add that to my fucking resume? ‘Assumed killer of Mrs. Keller!’ I lied because I had no other choice, and you proved that because the moment you found out, you locked me in the Den without letting me explain,” I retort.
Thane tosses his newspaper on the coffee table “You should have come to us instead of running for two years!”
“I was fucking scared! I was barely eighteen, Thane, barely a fucking adult. I watched someone get murdered. I thought my sister was dead because she joined a pack and couldn’t take the knot, and I was worried I would end up exactly like her.
I didn’t want to be an Omega. I hated what I am, and for two years I was convinced I killed my own sister because she took my place.
She took my place because I was terrified of being a pack Omega, only to be told that she was dead and I was being shipped off as a damn breeder to a pack I didn’t fucking know! ” I scream at him.
“You should have come to us. You could have called or gone back to the sanctuary or—” He clutches his hair in frustration. “I know you must have been scared; it’s why I sent my mother to get you. We didn’t want to scare you.”
“Your mother is the one who bid on me.”
Thane lifts his head and looks at me, shocked.
“You didn’t want me to begin with. You wanted Tara.”
Thane blinks at me.
“Who told you that? Did Jake say that?” he asks, and I look away. “I never loved Tara. Tara, she was—”
“You don’t love me either. How could you? You don’t know me. I was just a purchase, like buying a damn car.”
“We would have taken care of you, grown to love you, Harlow, and you us.”
“See now, that’s the difference, Thane. I would have been forced to love you, forced to mate you, accept you. That choice was never mine; it was always yours.”
“It wasn’t mine either! You said it yourself, my mother bid on you.
I wasn’t shopping for a fucking Omega. But it is my responsibility to keep my pack together, to keep the city in check.
All that was expected of you is that you stand by us.
Nothing more and nothing less. Spit out some kids, and that’s it,” he snaps, and I blink at him.
“So simple, right?” I ask him, folding my arms across my chest and shaking my head.
“No. That is not… That came out wrong,” he shakes his head and growls. “We would have looked after you.”
“I didn’t need looking after. I needed freedom. I wanted a life outside of the one expected of me!”
“But you’re an Omega!” he screams.
“Exactly! And not by choice, by blood. You think growing up and being told you will run a city, a pack, is hard?”
Thane looks at me, folding his arms across his chest. “All that is expected of you is to lie on your back! Do that, and you get everything else handed to you,” Thane snaps.
“Really? You want to compare the differences, Thane? Is that what you want?”
He tosses his arms up in the air. “Fine, you want to play this game, go for it!” he says.
We are so far off from the original topic now—his apology—I might as well toss it out the window.
He wants to play 'who had it worse'? Fine. Let’s fucking play then. I press my lips in a line, furious; so furious, my hands begin shaking as I stifle the urge to shift. I can’t believe he thinks that all that is expected of Omegas is to lay there and spit kids out.
“Well?” Thane asks expectantly.
“Your mother was an Omega,” I tell him.
“Obviously!” he growls.
“Do you even know what Omegas are taught?” I ask him.
“Well, obviously not. I went to an all-Alpha school.”
“Private school,” I tell him.
“And so did you. That is what the sanctuaries are for. Parents are given a choice to either use the public schools, home school, or the private sanctuaries. We had it the same on that front,” Thane tells me, and I laugh.
“No, we did not. I spent my childhood on the run with my parents, Thane. My mother didn’t want us to have the same upbringing she did. Zara and I were lucky to live somewhere for more than a month before the authorities came for us. We were practically raised in my parents' car.”
“And that was her choice,” he says.
I shake my head, not because he is wrong, but because he thought she had a choice.
“Yes, it was. Zara and I hated her for it. We wanted to live somewhere where we didn’t have to run, where we could grow up and make friends, where we could have our own rooms, belongings, a life.”
“You can’t blame me for your upbringing,” Thane says. I shake my head, holding up my hand.
“I’m not done, and I am not blaming you, but your way of thinking is how every Alpha thinks.
Zara and I hated our parents, until we figured out why they did it.
We were tossed into the sanctuary right after they died; became wards of the state.
And the first thing they teach us is how to please an Alpha.
On our first day there, we weren’t taught math or science.
We are taught how to pleasure an Alpha,” I tell him.
“Sex education. Everyone is taught that,” Thane says, and I chuckle.
“We thought it was a sex education class too. Turns out, every class was like that. How to sit, how to speak when with an Alpha, how to obey, even how to suck dick. Normal classes ended at the age of twelve. No more art, no more English, or whatever the fuck you were taught. It is all about how to pleasure an Alpha. Taught about the serums. Told how we will die if we can’t take their knot.
Taught the laws surrounding our ownership.
Taught how we aren’t people, we are belongings.
That’s what they teach you in the sanctuary. ”
Thane opens his mouth, no doubt to dispute what I said, but I cut him off.
“Then we are given a choice: rotation or pack life. Those are the two choices we are given. That’s it.
Now imagine growing up hating your parents for running, only to learn that they were running because it was the only chance we had for a normal life.
Omegas are raised to be used and abused.
Nothing more and nothing less. Expected to obey, look pretty, and open our damn legs and accept any dick that is forced on us.
Sure, they tell us it will be a lavish lifestyle, and we won’t have to work unless we choose rotation; told that we will be adored by our packs, if we choose one or if we are sold to one.
But all I saw was that my future depended on how well I could fuck! ”
Thane appears to think for a second, his brows pinch together before he leans back to look at me. “My mother never told me that.”
“Why would she? She was raised to obey too—raised to be an Alpha’s whore,” I tell him, getting to my feet.
“Harlow,” Thane says as I leave. I am over this argument already.
Stopping, I stare at the ceiling for a second. Digging into my back pocket, I pull out the ultrasound picture and hand it to him. Thane takes it, brushing his thumb over the image.
“Your mother told me you were a good man. That you would look after me,” I tell him and he looks up at me.
“For our daughter’s sake, I hope that’s true.
Because if she is born Omega, I hope you see more than dollar signs over her head.
I hope you value her more than you do me; value her enough to look past her DNA.
If she is born Omega, her fate is in your hands, just like mine is,” I tell him, walking out of the living room and up the stairs.