Chapter 3 #2
The look on Logan’s face would be almost comical if the situation weren’t so dire. Rage, disbelief, and humiliation war for dominance in his expression. His hands clench into fists at his sides, and I can smell the bitter clove of his scent turning acrid with anger.
I would feel more fear if I thought there was anything left he could do to me.
“The specific nature of this bond changes nothing,” Logan finally says, his voice dangerously controlled. “As far as the world will know, I have bonded with Maya Tantamount. You, Cillian, have a secondary bond as my pack beta. That’s the story. That’s all that matters.”
Cillian cocks his head. “What about Ares and Poe? You planning to loop the rest of our pack in on this little farce.”
“They’ll know what they need to know when they need to know it.”
“And when she responds to my commands instead of yours? When everyone can see that her instincts are aligned with me, not you? What then?”
“You’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Logan hisses. “You’re still my personal guard, Cillian. You serve me. Always.”
“And we still need to learn the lesson about secrets the hard way, I see.” Cillian’s shoulders droop then, the fight leaching out of him almost as quickly as it appeared.
The exhaustion that replaces it almost has me swaying on my feet.
“Maya, why don’t you go clean up? The bathroom is through there. ”
It’s a suggestion, not a command, but I find myself instinctively moving toward the door on the other side of the room.
Spend and slick leaks from between my legs, adding to the tacky sensation on my inner thighs as I stumble away.
I’m very aware of the abused and disgusting state of my body.
I absolutely reek of the two of them, a nauseous feeling rising in my gut with every breath I take.
The worst of this will never wash away, but a shower might help me feel like an actual person again.
I stay in the shower until the water turns lukewarm and I force myself out before anyone can come looking for me.
With the tap shut off, I can hear that Logan and Cillian are still verbally at each other’s throats. Their conversation has turned into harsh and muffled whispers that I don’t even try to parse through the closed door.
I just can’t bring myself to care.
The body I see reflected in the mirror is a constellation of bruises, galaxies of every color from the handprints set in bright pink to the purplish-yellow shadows where I was gripped too tightly.
A star map of where they’ve been and still have yet to go.
I stare at my reflection, seeing a stranger’s face. My eyes look hollow and hard as shards of amethyst, as if something essential has been scooped out of them. My normally vibrant hair seems dull against my pallid skin. I don’t recognize this person.
The bond pulses inside me like a second heartbeat. Pressure and release. Two distinct rhythms: Cillian’s steady presence and Logan’s domineering force. Both unwanted. Both permanent.
What options do I even have now?
I could run. The thought flickers through my mind like a match in darkness.
But where? Eventually, the distance between us would become so painful that I’d be unable to take it.
The bond would pull me back like a fish on a hook.
Or it would act like a beacon, leading them right to me wherever I managed to hide. They will always be able to find me.
And if they don’t, the Doctor Sionis Thane probably will.
My stomach barely churns at the memory. It all feels so much more distant now: his clinical smile, his cold hands, the gleaming instruments. The basement. The restraints. The endless tests and injections.
I should have just let him kill me.
With Logan and Cillian, I might not be strapped down to a table, but there is also no chance of escape. No weakness to exploit. No biding my time in the hopes they make a mistake.
This is forever.
I trace the path of a bruise along my collarbone, then press down until my tender flesh blooms in painful protest. That ache grounds me, reminds me I’m still here. Still alive, despite everything.
The muffled argument beyond the door rises and falls like waves. They’re deciding my future without me. Again. Always.
“You had no right ? —“
“She’s mine ? —“
“—through me ? —“
“—protect her ? —“
Protect me? My lips twist into a bitter smile. The only person who’s ever truly tried to protect me was me. And I’ve failed spectacularly.
The Enclave taught us that Omegas find fulfillment in service to their Alphas.
That we’re made to nurture, to submit, to please.
Even before she sent me to the Enclave, Charlotte drilled those lessons deeper any chance she could, sharpening them into weapons against any ridiculous ideas I might get about independence.
My mother had been so sure of my eventual designation. Despite our perpetual financial struggles, she bought subscriptions to Omega magazines and entertainment holovids when I was still young enough to be years away from presenting officially.
On my sixth birthday, I had the nerve to ask for construction toys to use in the playground surrounded by trees at the center of our housing complex.
It was the only excuse I could think of to be allowed outside, preferably while not being forced to wear the uncomfortable dresses with itchy lace collars that Charlotte always put me in.
“No Alpha will want an Omega with dirt under her fingernails,” Charlotte pulling my hair so tightly into my signature pigtails that my scalp burned. “You may play with your dolls in the window. The view of the trees is excellent from there.”
Brainwashed little thing that I was, I had been ever so grateful when Prince Logan showed interest in me. Such an honor, Charlotte had gushed. The others in my class at the Enclave made no secret of the way they oozed with jealousy.
When Logan and his pack revealed themselves to be bullies and brutes, I thought swearing off Alphas altogether was the best way to protect myself.
Then came the doctor with his false promises and scientific curiosity, offering me a somewhat nontraditional mating contract with the assurance that I would never be sexually forced against my will.
Silly me, thinking that sexual violation was the only kind that mattered.
One nightmare traded for another.
Now this, unwillingly claimed twice over in a heat I barely remember, my body used as territory in their power struggle.
Heat rises in my chest, bubbling up my throat like magma. My hands clench into fists.
I am not a prize.
I am not a vessel.
I do not belong to them.
The rage explodes without warning. My fist connects with the mirror before I even realize I’ve moved. Glass shatters with a satisfying crash, fragments raining into the sink and across the counter.
Blood wells from my knuckles, bright red drops pattering on the white porcelain. The pain feels clarifying, honest in a way nothing else has been.
My fractured reflection stares back from dozens of broken pieces. Somehow, this distorted version seems more accurate than the whole had been.
Once this is all said and done, how many pieces will even be left?
A large shard catches my eye, the piece longer than my hand. Even at a glance, one edge appears wickedly sharp. I reach for it, holding the smoothest edge gently between two fingers, mesmerized by its potential. The weight of it in my palm feels significant.
What would they do if I took control in the only way left to me? Would our bond snap like a cut thread or fray like rope suspended with too much weight? How long would it take for them to feel the loss, the ragged hole I left behind?
Would either of them even care?
I turn the glass, watching light dance along its edge. One decisive movement. One choice that would finally be mine alone.
The bathroom door crashes open.
Logan surges forward, his golden eyes wide with alarm. His hand clamps around my wrist, yanking me away from the broken mirror.
“What the hell happened in here?” he demands, his gaze darting between my face and the bloody shard in my hand. “Are you hurt? Let me see.”
He pries my fingers open, sending the glass fragment tumbling into the sink. His grip is bruising, adding one more mark to my collection.
L ogan makes a point of bandaging the cut on the palm of my hand personally. He sits me on the edge of the bed, legs dangling, while he fetches the first-aid kit from the wrecked bathroom.
Cillian has retreated, likely back to whatever hole in the wall Logan makes him sleep in. His absence creates both relief and yearning, enough that the warring emotions make me want to scream in frustration.
I don’t bother to fight when he moves onto my other wounds, letting only the slightest breath hiss from between my clenched teeth as he dabs antiseptic on the scrapes and bites littering my body.
When Logan tucks me into bed and tells me to rest, it’s the gentlest I’ve ever seen him be.
I resist my body’s desperate need to sleep just to spite him, even after he quietly shuts the door and leaves me in the room alone. Curled up on my side and hugging a pillow to my chest like that’s any sort of defense, I glare silently at the wall.
But exhaustion weighs as heavy as the thick bedding, by my mind is alive with chaotic thoughts. I have no intention of falling asleep, but my body doesn’t give me much of a choice.
My mind drifts first, wandering toward the empty nothingness that is quickly becoming my only solace. The ebb and flow of emotions through the bond fade away, leaving me alone with the void inside my own soul. Oblivion is the only solace I have left.
But with sleep come unwanted dreams.
A heavy form presses against my back