Rust #2
"Trust me," Lyra gives Adrian a tight smile. "They don't care about me."
She glances around the table at the rest of us, and I watch her take it all in—Owen's sad eyes, Mack's jaw set hard, Adrian's hand hovering near her back like he's bracing to catch her, then me. All of us wound tight and watching her, clearly waiting for her to fall apart.
Something shifts in her face, and she sets her fork down.
"Okay. You all look like someone died." She sighs, and some of the flippancy drains out of her, replaced by something more patient, like she's decided we deserve a real answer.
"Let me explain, so you’ll all stop looking at me like that.
" She looks around, making sure we’re all looking at her.
"The Van Houten bloodline was pure alpha for over a century.
Before me, they were an empire. Every child born was an alpha, going back generations.
" She presses a hand to her chest. "And then I came along. I’m the first omega ever born in my family.
And the day I presented, I stopped being their daughter and started being a liability. "
Nobody says anything. Even Mack's gone quiet.
"But they’re so protective of you." Owen's brow furrows. "You said your mother barely let you out of the house. That's not how you treat someone you don't care about."
"They weren't protecting me, Owen." Lyra huffs out a breath, almost amused he'd think that. "They’ve been protecting their money."
Owen frowns not understanding, and I honestly don’t either.
"My parents kept me locked up because they were terrified some rogue alpha would catch me alone, mate me by force,” she says gently, like she’s worried she might accidentally upset Owen.
“They didn’t want a stranger to claim a chunk of the Van Houten fortune through an omega they never wanted.
” She picks up her fork. "I wasn't a child they wanted to protect.
I was a security threat to their empire. "
She takes a bite of her potatoes, unbothered, like she's recited this to herself so many times it's lost the power to cut.
“They waited a month to avoid paying a dowry,” she says and Mack shifts in his seat.
“A dowry?” The alpha frowns.
“Yes.” She takes a slow sip of her water.
“There's a law that if an omega is taken and forcibly mated, the alpha can demand a dowry from her family, but only for the first thirty days.
After that, the window closes. The mating stands on its own and my family doesn't have to pay a cent.
" Those honey-brown eyes meet mine. "My parents didn't spend the last month searching. They spent it waiting,” she says plainly, and my rage twists.
"Lyra." I keep my voice gentle. "I need you to hear something, and I'm not saying it to scare you."
She looks at me, and some of the ease slips.
"There’s a chance they’ve been looking for you this whole time. A full month of looking." I lean forward, forearms on the table. "And it took them this long to trace you here, to Owen."
She frowns. "That doesn't—"
"Think about it," I say, before she can wall it off. "A man shows up at Owen's work today, asking about you." I hold her eyes. "That's not a man with no leads. That's a man closing in. They might know you’re here."
Her hand stops. She's got the water glass lifted halfway to her mouth and it just hangs there, an inch off the table. The smile's still on her face, that bright practiced one her mother drilled into her, but it's gone wrong at the corners, held up by nothing now.
"I don't know that for certain," I say. "Maybe you're right and they've written you off.
I hope to God you're right. But I've been sitting here trying to figure out why a family that supposedly doesn't care would hire a professional to track you down.
" I let it land. "Maybe they do know where you are.
Maybe that PI talking to Owen today was to send a message. "
The room has gone dead silent.
Then our bond breaks open.
Fear pours down the line into me, cold and enormous, nothing like the thin thread of unease I've caught off her before. It floods in fast, and half a second behind it I feel her catch herself trying to haul the emotion back, not wanting me to know how scared she really is.
It’s the same thing I do when there's something I don't want Owen to feel.
But Lyra’s not fast enough. There's too much of it, and it's already in me.
"You think they're coming here?" she asks quietly as she slowly sets down her glass.
"I think it's possible.” I want to protect her from all this awful truth, but she needs to know that we still need to be careful. "And I don't want any of us to be blindsided if they do."
And then I watch the full force of the situation hit the omega.
Her eyes cut to Owen, then to me, then Mack, and Adrian. I see the exact moment she stops thinking about what her parents would do to her and starts thinking about what they'd do to us.
"Oh, God," she breathes.
"Lyra—"
"If they find me here, they don't simply take me back.
" Her voice has gone thin. "My father is the chairman of the Monogamist Alliance.
If he walks into this house and finds four men and an omega—" She presses a hand to her mouth.
"He'd out you. All of you. He’ll destroy your business.
And Owen's job at the library." Her eyes go wide as she realizes the weight of it all. "He'll burn you to the ground."
For once, she isn't calm at all.
"I'm so sorry." The words tumble out of her, fast and wrecked. "God, I'm sorry, I never should have come here, I've put all of you in danger, I didn't think—I didn't think about what it would do to—"
Adrian moves before she can finish.
He reaches over, gathers her up out of her chair, and pulls her into his lap. One big hand cradles the back of her head and guides her face into his neck, into his scent, and she goes, burrowing in, breathing him in like she can't get enough of it.
"None of that," he murmurs into her hair. "Don't you dare apologize." A low purr starts in Adrian's chest, deep and steady. Lyra's shoulders come down. The fist she's got knotted in his shirt goes loose.
Mack shifts his chair closer and reaches out, smoothing his hand slowly over her hair and down her back, again and again.
"We've got you, darlin'," he says in his most gentle voice. "It's all gonna be okay. I promise."
I watch the two of them fold around her, and then I feel the cut of anger slice through my bond with Owen. It’s sharp and hot and pointed straight at me.
I look at my beta across the table, his jaw tight, his eyes hard behind his glasses. He's furious. Because I scared her. Because I took her calm and I broke it.
And I refuse to apologize for it.
I hold my mates glare and don't look away, because he can be angry all he wants, but I'm right. This is the risk of being in a pack.
Every one of us signed up for it the day we chose to build this family in a world that wants us gone, and I will not pretend otherwise to make a hard night feel softer. Lyra's part of this pack now. She needs to understand exactly what that means, the same as the rest of us do.
I look around the table, and I see it in the others too. The anger. Adrian's got it in the set of his shoulders, and Mack's expression is hard even as he strokes her hair.
I pull in a slow breath.
"I've been thinking about something for a while now," I say. "And maybe this is the night to finally say it out loud." I wait until I've got their attention, even Lyra's, her face still tucked against Adrian's throat. "But I think it’s time to move."
The table goes still.
"This city isn't safe for us, and it hasn't been for years," I continue. "We have to hide what we are every single day, and one wrong word, and we could lose everything."
Lyra’s face scrunches up as our bond twists with her self-hatred, but I cut that shit off.
"That was true before you ever walked through the door," I say firmly "You didn't put us at risk. The risk was always here. You’ve made me stop pretending it wasn't a problem."
Lyra pulls in a slow, shaking breath. Then she turns her face back into Adrian's throat, pressing her nose against his warm skin.
Adrian's arms tighten around her.