Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Nikolai
She’s alive. Aries was alive and in my arms. My bite was still fresh on her neck.
Maybe it should bother me that I didn’t stick around with my pack or give them a second thought once I saw her. The rut took over and that was all I was, a feral beast hellbent on claiming the omega he thought he lost.
Aries was still asleep on my chest, her skin pressed against mine, her scent open and calm. My fingers ran lazily up and down her arm as I studied her features.
The girl I left behind was so fiery, yet sweet. She was timid at times, especially when her mom was in a bad mood. Everyone else got the full brunt of her fury.
The woman that stood before me yesterday was so different, but also the same omega I love. She let me claim her, because I had no doubt that if my Aries was opposed, she wouldn’t have allowed it.
I was dying to know what she had endured from the time I lost her until now, and that familiar fear was there. The one that worried she wouldn’t like the man I became.
Life had changed me. Grief had changed me.
I had taken lives. Most, if not all, I felt like were justified, but was it really my place to make those assumptions?
A soft sigh escaped Aries, and her eyes fluttered open. Her long, dark eyelashes made them even more stunning. She was gorgeous now that she was all grown up.
Her eyebrows crinkled adorably as she glanced up at me like she couldn’t figure out how I was here.
“Nikolai… it wasn’t a dream,” she breathed out.
“Does that mean you dreamt of me often?” I husked.
God, I still couldn’t get over the fact that I was holding my Aries. After all this time, it felt incredible, but delicate. Like any small movement would make this moment shatter like glass.
“I didn’t notice any other marks on you.”
Instinctively, her hand went up, covering the bite mark I’d left on her collarbone.
“You marked me.” It wasn’t an accusation, more of an observation.
“I did,” I confirmed. “I’m not going to apologize for it, either. I’ve waited too many fucking years to do that.”
Her eyes darkened for a moment, full of heartbreak. I could feel her discomfort through the bond but couldn’t quite make sense of it yet.
Was she angry that I couldn’t save her?
“I’m sorry, baby. If I had any idea—”
She tried to shrug it off, but it fell flat. “There’s nothing you could’ve done,” she argued.
“I should have never left you. You were already vulnerable and hurt. I just thought that your boss would keep you safe while I got us a way out.”
“He didn’t know,” she said. “I was just taking out trash. I'd done that a million times.”
“I brought our pack with me,” I said, carefully studying her.
There was hesitation in her bright blue-gray eyes. I couldn’t blame her. I’d known Ronan and Luca for years now, to her they were strangers. I had a feeling once she scented them we’d be golden.
“I’ve started forming a pack as well,” she admitted. “It’s new. We haven’t even fully slept together yet. God, I hope he’s not upset with me.”
“I should hope not. We’re scent matches,” I said, my annoyance flaring.
“So are we,” she challenged. “We’ve both been through a lot, and I won’t leave Leon behind. He was here for me when I had no one else. Honestly, when the nightmares started again, he was the one that finally helped me sleep like a human again. I need him.”
“Nightmares?” I questioned, holding her tighter. I hated the thought of her alone and scared, waking up screaming.
At one point in our lives, Aries and I were each other’s only salvation. I didn’t like that she was finding that in others but at the same time I was relieved to know she didn’t suffer alone all of these years.
“I’m assuming you’re talking about the beta?” My voice was careful, but my bond let my insecurities slide through.
“Yes,” she said, sitting up and narrowing her eyes.
I pulled her back down with a sigh. “Don’t pull away from me right now.”
“I get to do whatever the fuck I want, Nikolai,” she ground out, refusing to rest against me again.
Stealing a kiss from those lips, I grinned against her mouth that was still arguing with me.
“I’ve missed fighting with you. But just think, now we get makeup sex. Even if you get angry, no matter what, we’ll work things out. I’ll be damned if there’s ever distance between us again. You’ll be lucky to go to the bathroom in peace.”
“I’m not the same girl you lost, Nikolai. I’ve been independent for a long fucking time, and I don’t plan to just roll over and give you complete control because you stole me away and rutted me.”
Anger flared.
“Excuse me?” I growled. “Don’t act like you didn’t need that as much as I did. That you didn’t let this happen.”
“Yet I’m not ruining a perfectly good wake-up with bullshit,” she argued.
I gritted my teeth to stop myself from saying something that would set her off again.
“Okay, baby. I’ll do my best to try to remember that you’re an independent omega.
I’m not here to fucking control you, though.
I was here to claim you,” I stated pointedly.
“Twelve years is a long fucking time. They told me you died, Aries. I searched for you, hired people, did everything I could to find you. The police in that town were fucking useless.”
“They were,” she agreed. “And I’m so happy that you tried to find me. I knew you would.”
“What happened that day?” I asked.
She laid back down against me like she couldn’t bear to face the story quite yet. I gave her time to think it over.
Finally, she started speaking.
“A man named Gideon took us. Not personally, of course. He had a whole mess of guards that worked for him and did the dirty work. They drugged me and I woke up in that place. There were others there, but we were put in groups and couldn’t talk to anyone else.
It was me and the other widows here. We trained together and were taught to be obedient, perfect omegas.
The kind that he could sell for the top price. ”
“Did he—?” he dragged it out, unable to form the words.
“No, they saved that for after the sale,” she said in a hollow voice. “They tried to tell us that we were lucky. Explained that Gideon gave us a good life. It was a nice home, not some concrete cell. That they saved us from a life like my mother led.”
She hesitated and I tried to push reassurance through the bond.
“Sometimes I try to tell myself that it could’ve been so much worse, but they stole years from me, Nik. Hell, a whole life.”
“He did,” I agreed, wanting nothing more than to hunt this Gideon down and cut off his knot.
She wasn’t done yet, though, and this wasn’t about me, this was about her and her story.
“The last night there, he dressed us up like his little princesses, trying to sell us off to alphas paying insane money. Lucky my ass. They would have broken us further. So, we escaped. One of our girls is a hacker and had contacts on the outside. She arranged everything. They got us out, and we ran. We made it here to Widow’s Peak, creating a place that was safe. ”
“He didn’t try to come back for you?”
She let out a small, sharp laugh.
“He did. We knew we had to have a backup plan, so when they came knocking, we were ready. Blackmail is a strong motivator to back off. When that wasn’t enough, we made sure to solve the problem.”
“So, this bastard’s already dead?” I questioned. My alpha was barely holding on. I needed to hear it, but that didn’t make it easy.
“Yes,” she admitted. “It was slow and gruesome, and he deserved it. Told you… I’m not the omega that you lost.”
“Did you ever look up your mom?” I hedged, figuring if we were airing out our skeletons then mine should be out there, too.
“Do I know that my mom’s dead?” she asked with a small chuckle. “Yes. Good fucking riddance. I looked her up once and found out that she had burned in that godforsaken place.”
“I couldn’t let her live,” I admitted.
She bolted upright, looking at me with wide eyes. “You did it?”
I nodded, not bothering to deny it. “The night you were taken, I went to talk to her.”
The memory made my lip curl and a low growl echoed out. I could still picture her sneer and that table loaded down with booze and drugs, not a hint of shame that she’d sold her daughter for it.
“After you went missing, something just didn’t feel right. And I was right. She had a whole buffet of booze and pills and made some comments. They weren’t enough to implicate her, but I had a feeling she was more than involved.”
“Of course, she was,” Aries said bitterly. “My mother would never just let me be free.”
“I spent a whole lot of years in my version of therapy, and I checked every month, twice a month, for updates. The police department was sick of me and finally four years after that, they told me you were found.”
Her jaw dropped open. I knew she could feel all of this through the bond, but I didn’t lock it down. She deserved to know how much I fought for her.
“I don’t understand how they could’ve marked me off as dead. It’s not like I don’t have my own accounts here. Even going by Aries, I still had to use my legal name from time to time.”
“They likely forged the documents,” I admitted. “I’m just happy you’re alive. I told myself you were, that I’d feel it if you weren’t. But as the years dragged on I started to doubt it.”
“I felt the same,” she admitted. “You were the only thing I thought about in there. I dreamt about escaping and fighting my way back to you.”
“Did you ever look for me?”
“For a long time, I was simply getting through each day. We focused on building Widow’s Peak and I had to block a lot about that portion of my life.
When I finally found the courage to get information on you, well…
it’s been sitting in my email inbox and I haven’t been brave enough to look. The nightmares were bad again—”
She cut herself off, and my arms held her tighter, refusing to think harder about what she’d gone through since I last held her like this.
“We’re together now and he’ll never touch you again. No one will,” I vowed.
We fell silent as we just held each other, both lost in our own versions of our past.
“I have to pee,” she finally said, wiggling out of my embrace and heading off into the adjoining bathroom.
I finally climbed out of her bed. It was comfortable as fuck, but without her, it wasn’t the same.
I slid on my clothes and actually took my time looking around.
The scents were stronger here. Her scent was distinct, easily the strongest in the room, but there was another one, too.
The beta. He was a complication, but if she needed him, then we’d figure it out.
Despite the hell she had just described to me, it seemed my girl was doing pretty well for herself. This place was nice. Maybe not Victor Crow’s level of spending, but this was a true pack house.
It had heart and life in it.
I could see touches of Aries everywhere. Her signature red was mixed in with decor that was cute and cozy. Things she appreciated back then but her mother would never let her have.
Fresh plants adorned the empty corners, vines creeping up one of the walls and going around the doors that led outside.
Despite that, I noticed there were no pictures.
Everything seemed homey and inviting, but not quite lived in, though I knew she had lived here for years.
“Why do I feel like you’re judging me?”
I glanced around to see that she was dressed now. Her hair was pulled in a cute ponytail and she was wearing a dark green sports bra and matching athletic pants.
My eyebrows rose at her choice of clothing. She crossed her arms, glaring at me.
“What’s with the running clothes? Do you run now?”
“Every fucking day,” she said. Why was she always assuming I wanted to fight with her? “And right now, I have some nervous energy I need to burn off, so I’m going to call my beta, and I’m going for a run. Then we can talk more.”
“What about my pack?” I demanded, frustrated again. It felt like she cared nothing about them. Yet, I owed them everything, including my damn life.
This entire thing was quickly spiraling out of control. I just got here, and already we were at each other’s throats.
Aries and I had never fought before, but life had hardened us both in different ways.
She ignored me and stomped over to the front door, sliding on running shoes before making sure they were tied.
There was no way in hell I was letting her run out that door and leave me behind.
Was I dressed in running gear? Absolutely not. But I didn’t give a fuck.
She huffed when she saw me fall in line next to her, giving me another look.
“You’re not invited on this run. I’m swinging by for Leon, and then you can fuck off and give me time to process this.”
“Absolutely fucking not,” I bit out. “I told you that you’re not leaving my sight. At least not for right now.”
I knew when she rubbed her chest, she could feel the frustration and hurt I was feeling, but I could tell that she was also overwhelmed.
The downfall of the bond meant that our feelings were loud and clear. Our bond was far too fresh to be able to shut it down properly.
“Go talk to your pack. You’ll see me after. I’ve kept myself alive for ten years despite your alpha need to protect me. I learned to protect myself.”
She picked up the pace, leaving me behind.
Her words hit me right in the chest, another lance of pain echoing through me.
She was right. I hadn’t protected her.
Aries protected herself, kept herself alive, escaped, and built a life without me.
So where did that leave me?