Chapter 22 - Melanie
Melanie
“Brandy,” a whisper came through the darkness of my dreams as my body tightened.
I didn’t want to wake up. If I woke up, there would be more fear and pain.
At least in the darkness, I could hang in the empty space where all there was was Caspian and Kai, and the glimmer of Sin like a star in the distance.
I just needed their love, and all the pain would fade away.
“Brandy, wake up.” Kai gently shook me, and I groaned as I turned onto my back.
Now that the bond with Caspian had cemented, I didn’t need to reach for him like an addict. He was still there, beating loudly in my heart from wherever he was in the house, but I didn’t feel like I’d die if I let him go.
It made opening my eyes so much harder because now I didn’t have the flurry of sex and love to drown out the fear that Zania would come back for us.
“Brandy, please,” Kai whined. The same ache that I heard in his voice when he was holding me in the restaurant corridor came back as he shook me again. “Brandy, just open your eyes.”
I twisted my head to look at him. He sat in front of a lone lamp on the bedside table, scattering orange light around us. As soon as I met his gaze, he sighed in relief.
“What’s happening?” I croaked. I was so tired from fucking Caspian that I wanted to stay in bed forever. But I needed to see my mum and see what was happening with her. I had been away from her for too long, and I had to find out if she was okay.
“It’s time to get up,” he said.
I glanced at the window behind him, frowning as I pushed myself to my elbows. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“We’ve planned a surprise for you, but you’ve got to get dressed quickly and come with me.”
Sitting next to him was a small pile of clothes, and he folded the duvet back so I could climb out of bed.
I was groggy, my body aching, and excitement hummed through Kai. But it still felt odd.
I didn’t want him to know that I’d heard the argument between him and Sin. They were shouting so loudly that there was no way I could have slept.
But there were two sides to their story.
And from everything I had learned, I agreed with Sin more than I did with Kai.
I didn't want to end up like mum, especially if it meant I couldn't take care of her.
But Kai had been so wrecked and heartbroken that day that I wanted to tread carefully with him.
No one had ever loved me the way Kai did, but I needed time to get better before we could properly talk about what happened.
“Why does it have to be in the middle of the night?”
I asked as I pulled my clothes on. I reached for Sin and Caspian, and they were both asleep. It didn’t make any sense why we were getting up now.
“Because we’re taking you there first before Sin and Caspian come,” he said, giving me a smile. “It’s been a week since you’ve bonded to Caspian, and now that it’s settled, you’re finally going to be part of our pack, so we want to celebrate.”
As soon as I was dressed, he grabbed my hand, squeezing me too tightly.
Tension rose as he pulled me through the corridors without a word, his face hardened, only stopping when I stumbled before the steps that would take us away from the third floor. But he couldn’t hide his fear, and I didn’t want him to be alone.
I tugged at Caspian to find out where he was, but he didn’t respond. Even when he was asleep, he would unconsciously reach for me.
Nerves danced through me as we got to the ground floor and picked up speed.
“Kai, something’s wrong. What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll find out once we get there,” he said stiffly.
He kept pushing, racing us towards the door that led to the basement garage.
“No, tell me what’s happening now.”
I struggled against him, but we were already through the door, hurrying towards the car that’s front doors were already open. Street light flowed into the large, open doors at the top of the ramp, and the uneasy feeling grew stronger.
“I can’t tell you because it’s a surprise. I don’t want to spoil it. Just get in the car, Brandy. Trust me, it’ll be totally worth it.”
How many times had they told me to trust them since our relationship had shifted into more than blind hate and suspicion?
Reaching out for Caspian again, I still couldn’t sense him. So I took a risk and tried to find Sin’s presence as Kai’s hands trembled in mine.
I didn’t know if I could even say that Kai wouldn’t hurt me. Everything he’d done recently showed that he loved me, but did that mean he wouldn’t turn on me if I fought him?
I slid into the passenger seat, and Kai threw himself into the car. As he started the engine, the locks clicked shut, and he switched it on.
The engine revved, and he grit his teeth. “Fuck!” he shouted as Caspian’s panic exploded through the bond, rocking me back in my seat.
I gasped out as a wall of fear hit me, twisting deep into me.
“I thought I’d be able to hold him off for longer,” Kai tutted as he slammed the pedal and we suddenly reversed out of the garage.
I threw a glance over my shoulder, even though it was obvious where we were going. And my gaze landed on the brown suitcase packed up on the back seat. My suitcase.
“Kai! What the hell is going on?” I cried out.
But it was too late.
The garage door to the house burst open, and Caspian stood there, drenched in sweat. But we were already at the top of the ramp.
He shouted as he ran after us, his words lost under another rev of the engine as Kai snarled and spun onto the road.
“Kai!” I yelled, but his foot was already down, and we soared along the street filled with parked cars on either side.
He let out a laugh, smacking the steering wheel as Caspian faded away behind us.
“Shit, I didn’t think we were going to get away in time,” he gasped as emptiness bloomed inside me. Kai forced love through the bond, trying to fill the space, but I instinctively knew it wouldn’t work.
“Kai.” My voice was low as I gripped the door. “What have you done?”
“We can’t stay there, Brandy. I promised I’d keep you safe, but I can’t do it if we stay in that house. With them.”
“Them—” I choked out. “They’re our alphas, Kai. We can’t just leave them.”
“They aren’t our alphas anymore,” he said, his icy tone cutting the air. “They stopped being our alphas the moment they made us wait at the restaurant. And every single piece of bullshit that came after that.”
The madness in his eyes struck me deep, and the tightness in his body reverberated through mine.
“We can’t be around alphas like that, Brandy. We’re not safe there. If they were really our alphas, they wouldn’t keep hurting us. We deserve better than this, Brandy. And I can’t fucking believe it took you coming into our lives to make me realise that.”
He drew a shuddering breath as he spun the wheel and took us into a side street.
“They haven’t changed for you, not like I have. They don’t understand how important you are. They can’t love you like I do, and I won’t let them take you away.”
But Caspian had changed. It was so obvious from the moment we shared a bite that he wasn’t the same man from the heat suite.
Maybe I couldn’t completely tell if Sin had changed, because he kept so much of himself hidden. But Kai hadn’t seen the way sobs poured from him when Caspian and I first opened our eyes.
Of course, Kai had changed, and I loved him so much for it. So why couldn’t he see that his alphas had as well?
“Running away isn’t the answer here, Kai. We can talk about it. We have been talking about it, haven’t we?”
Kai shook his head. “I’m not going back to a pack where all we get is anger and silence,” he said, echoing the words I’d said at the restaurant.
“But it’s not like that anymore. I thought it had changed since the restaurant.”
“That’s just Caspian fucking with your mind! Why do you think things are ever going to change? I’ve had five years of this shit, Brandy. They are going to keep dragging you back in, and you’ll never escape from them. That’s why we have to do this now.”
But that was his life, and his experience.
Knowing I was loved helped me rediscover a part of myself I was convinced I had lost. But Kai wasn’t the only one who brought that out in me.
Sin was the first of them that breathed life into me with his gentle looks, and Caspian made me feel like the sexiest woman in the world, desperate to fuck me, no matter how much he hated it.
I didn’t want to give up on them.
“There’s always time to change, Kai. Why can’t we give them another chance?”
“They left you there to die!” he hissed. “They fucking abandoned you, and you couldn’t fight back because Caspian tore into your fucking throat when he was in a rage.”
I went quiet, my head dipping, clenching my hands together as I forced myself to stay calm. Everything had been a blur because my obsession with Caspian had drowned me, so I couldn’t remember everything I’d said during it. But it was obvious I hadn’t told Kai the most important thing.
“I was the one who asked him to bite me. I started it all—it was my fault.” I lifted my head to meet him with a glare, because if he had torn me away from them because of that…
He shuddered, and the car jumped as he slammed to a halt at a junction. Two cars zipped in front of us as Kai drew in a harsh breath and waited for the road to clear.
“What?” he asked darkly. “What did you say?”
“I’m the reason Zania attacked us. I wanted to get back at her, so I told Caspian to bite me.”
Kai’s eyes were wide as he stared at the road, leaning forward against the steering wheel. The engine revved as we took off again.
His hands tightened, and he kept his gaze ahead. He was silent for too long, and it couldn’t just be disbelief shaking him.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re still leaving.”
“Would you have acted differently in that situation? Where Zania pushed me to a point where I couldn’t take it anymore?
I’m not like you, Kai. No matter how strong you say I am, I couldn’t bear it anymore.
I wasn’t just angry. Biting Caspian gave me a better chance at staying safe from her.
I just never realised she would hurt him as well. ”
“I can keep you safe!” he shouted. “I’m better than them because I won’t hurt you! I won’t fuck up your life like they have! I’m the one who loves you, Brandy. Not them!”
I swallowed my frustration because giving in to it now would make it even harder to talk to him.
“I love you too, Kai. I really do, but I don’t want to leave. I thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives curled up in our nest, where we don’t have to worry about anything else because Zania is gone?”
He stilled, and the whirlwind of emotions inside him raged more strongly. “No. We’ll find somewhere new. I’ll make us somewhere better than this. Then we won’t have to hurt anymore.”
“And what about our bonds with them?”
“Fuck the bonds! Fuck everything!” he yelled, his despair soaking his voice. “You could have died, and they didn’t do anything!”
His hands stayed rigid on the wheel as he sped through the streets, and my heart sank as Caspian vanished. We were left sitting in the lonely car that was filled with sour amaretto.
All the excitement he’d had when we shared our first bite had twisted into poisonous determination.
“Kai, we have to go back. We can’t do this.”
“I’m keeping you safe,” he said, his chest heaving as his acrid scent filled the car. “They aren’t good enough for you. They never were.”
“And doing this makes up for that?”
It was strange how calm I was, even though I had no idea what Kai planned to do with me.
I thought the madness was over, and that we were going to settle. I stupidly thought that I could go back to a life where I didn’t have to be scared anymore.
But was it ever going to stop?
“I’ll be your only mate now. I told you I’d take you away to a desert island, didn’t I?”
“Is that where we’re going!?” I jolted forward in my seat. “Are we leaving the country?”
Kai shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t take you away from your family like that.
But we need to go somewhere where they can’t find us.
At least for a little while. Caspian’s fucking company makes it harder for us to get away, but we can do it, okay?
” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “We can get away from them.”
“I don’t want to get away from them!” I cried out.
I noticed it after I first met them. Even when we’d bonded, and they could feel exactly what I felt, they still thought they knew me better than I did myself.
‘You’ve just presented, so you can’t control yourself’.
‘He’s manipulating you through the bite, so what you’re feeling isn’t real’.
‘You don’t actually want to be with them. They’ve fucked with your mind’.
It was mostly Sin and Kai, but they kept saying I was their omega, but then treated me like I couldn’t think for myself.
The bite had definitely messed with my mind, and my emotions had been running high since I’d met them, but it didn’t mean I needed them to tell me how I felt.
“Just wait and see. You’ll understand what I mean when it’s just the two of us. You’ll see what I’m talking about.” Kai muttered, never taking his eyes off of the road.
Kai hissed at Sin about only wanting me because it made him feel like an alpha, but what about him? If he loved me, why wouldn’t he listen to me?
The hurt beating from Kai clenched my heart, summoning my own pain. It fought through the horror of experiencing Zania die in my hands, pushing further to reach the deep-seated shame that was the foundation for my life. And Kai unearthed it with his own fear. His regret. His bitterness.
His alphas weren’t what he needed when all he felt was pure distress. If he needed to run away with me to face the pain that had built up in him for years, then I could do it. It was better that I stayed with him instead of watching him collapse. And that was my decision.
“Okay, Kai, we can go. But I have some conditions.”