Chapter 96
Chapter Ninety-Six
~Harlow~
Once I am back in Leon’s room, I shut the door. I don’t intend to speak with Thane again until he pulls his head out of his ass. Yet, in true Thane form, unwilling to be on the tail end of a losing argument, he busts the door down within minutes of me climbing into bed.
A squeak leaves me as the door bangs against the dresser, making the mirror on top rattle.
“You don’t get to yell and scream at me and then run from me.” He is furious, but I can tell through the bond that his anger isn’t directed at me. As he moves closer to the bed, I shuffle upright, knowing all too well how unpredictable his mood swings are.
“I’m not going to hurt you. For fuck’s sake, Harlow, stop flinching. I have never beaten you.”
“No, you only locked me in a damn Den and ordered me around and used your damn aura on me,” I snap at him. My hand slips to the nightstand, where I keep the wolfsbane spray Rhen gave me. My fingers wrap around the can, my finger on the trigger.
“I can’t take what I did back, but you can stop throwing it in my face every damn chance you get,” he growls.
His eyes turn onyx and his canines protrude.
My eyes widen in horror as flashbacks of him chasing and charging at me flood the forefront of my mind.
Thane reaches for me, and I shriek, squeezing the trigger, only for the nozzle to be facing the wrong way, accidentally drenching and blinding myself.
I choke, gasping for air as I inhale it. My eyes and skin burn as if I have been doused in acid, and I drop the can and claw at my face.
“Fuck!” I hear Thane swear as I blindly reach for the blanket, needing to remove the substance burning me. Hands move under my legs and ass as I flail and cough on the wolfsbane.
“Don’t swallow it,” Thane panics. I feel cold water blast me from the ensuite’s shower. My feet slip on the floor, yet his arm under my belly holds me steady.
“Hang on,” Thane says, scrubbing my face with soap while I spit out torrents of water so I don’t swallow any. The soap makes my eyes burn even more. I can hear the mind-link open. Thane is trying to reply to them, yet all I can focus on is the burning of my skin.
Eventually, the pain eases. I blink, my vision returning, and I stare at the black tiled wall. Blood coats the floor from the spray eating away at my skin. Something is forced against my lips. I choke as his metallic-tasting blood floods my mouth.
“Drink. It’s my blood,” Thane urges. I grab his wrist, swallowing it down. His blood doesn’t work as quickly as Leon’s, but I can feel my skin heal slowly the more I drink it.
“Did you swallow any?” Thane asks, and I shake my head, pulling away from his bleeding wrist. I hate that I can’t shift. Everything takes longer to heal without it.
“Geez, Harlow. I’m not going to hurt you,” Thane says before sticking his hand inside my shirt. I grip his wrist, my nails digging in; he hisses and growls behind me as his hand slips into my bra.
He steals the serum that I always keep on me, and I snatch it off him. “I’m not taking it. Use it, Harlow,” he whispers, and I peer up at him over my shoulder. Thane adjusts the shower temperature, turning the heat up.
“I’m pregnant, Thane; it will affect our daughter.”
“Our daughter has four fathers and a stubborn-ass mother to keep her in line. Use it. She will be born Alpha. It will enhance my DNA in your system and override yours, ensuring she won’t be Omega,” Thane tells me, and I look at the vial.
“There is no way in this world I would let our daughter be sold off, even if she does choose that life,” Thane growls.
“Omegas are rare, Thane. We are almost extinct.”
“Fuck the rest of the world; I don’t care about them. I only care about you and our daughter,” he tells me.
“It changes nothing, though. The entire Omega system is wrong. That’s my point, not that I hate being Omega. Well, I do. But I see why we are necessary to Alphas.”
“Well, what do you want then? I can’t win with you. You wanted space; I gave you that. You wanted me to sign you over to Leon. I did that. I sleep in the Den because you told me to! I don’t know how else to make up for what I did up to you!” he growls.
“You could apologize! Let’s start with that!” I snap at him.
“I did apologize!”
“No, you acknowledged you were wrong. Big difference.”
“It’s the same thing,” he says, and I turn around to face him.
“Are you being serious right now?” I ask him.
Thane blinks at me before reaching for my shirt and peeling it off while I scramble to try to keep it. Thane tosses it out the shower door, ignoring me, slapping my hands away as he undoes my bra and the button on my jeans.
“Thane!” I snap at him as he undoes the zipper.
“I’m helping you,” he retorts, jerking his hands away. I growl at him, removing my own damn pants while he rids himself of his shirt.
“Fine. I am sorry,” he says like a sulking child being forced to apologize to a sibling.
I press my lips in a line and shake my head. “Just get out!” I tell him, reaching for the controls to turn the heat up more.