34. Melanie
Melanie
I was losing track of time.
I was pretty sure three days had passed, but I couldn’t tell how long I’d slept for because we’d fuck for a few hours, and then sleep, and then fuck, and then sleep some more.
We talked in between as well, but it seemed like Kai’s main plan was to keep me locked up and fuck me until I never wanted to leave.
But that was a guess. I hadn’t seen my mum for days, though I’d called Greensprings twice. I had to make sure she was okay, and I needed to know if anything had happened to her since I’d emptied my nest.
Kai wiped all those kinds of logical thoughts away as he smiled up at me, and I carried on playing with his hair.
We were lying in our pile of pillows and blankets on the bed again. Kai stretched out on his back, using his palm as a pillow, while I lay alongside him, propped up on one elbow, looking over him.
The first time I’d seen him with his hair down was on a screen during my heat. I’d spent so long staring, mesmerised by him because he was so beautiful. And it was the same again.
He was a perfect balance of feminine and masculine that was so completely him, and he knew how gorgeous he was.
“I’m going to get ideas if you keep looking at me like that,” he hummed as I twisted loose strands around my fingers.
“Like what?” I asked with a purr.
“Like you’re contemplating something oh so serious.” He smirked as he poked the furrow of my brow. “What’s going on in that mind of yours?”
I tried not to let my nerves show. I’d noticed whenever I let my doubts creep in, he’d react strongly to it, whether he realised it or not.
Being connected to him was amazing, but there really was no way to hide when we lay together so closely.
I couldn’t tell him that I wasn’t sure if what I felt for him was real.
I didn’t know if I was feeding off of his feelings, if it was my omega instincts, or maybe it was literally the bite.
Sometimes it felt like I was inside his body, especially when we were making love.
As if my consciousness had somehow transferred inside him, and I could feel every tiny twitch and movement like I was controlling him.
Yesterday he’d left for an hour to get us food, and by the time he returned, I was shaking and whining as if I couldn’t live without him.
And that didn’t feel like me. At least not the old me.
“I don’t know where we go from here. Everything’s changed so much already,” I said, though it barely covered the thoughts I’d had when I was lucid enough to speak.
He smiled lazily as he teased his finger up and down my collarbone, happily tracing the lines of my body like a meditation.
“All we have to do is this stupid dinner tomorrow, then the Selection Ceremony, and then you’re ours forever.”
He was as caught up in the haze as I was. Maybe that was why we had lost our sense of where each of us started and ended.
“Don’t we have to leave the nest for that?” I asked, lifting his hair to press a kiss against the strands.
“Ugh, yeah, true. I guess there’s that…” He rolled his eyes as he sighed dramatically.
Though I loved his possessiveness, I hadn’t seen Sin and Caspian since I arrived. And feeling their presence through Kai wasn’t enough to make any kind of decision. The last time I’d seen them, my heart was breaking as my nest was torn from me.
Sin might have offered me comfort, and my connection to Caspian had changed, but it didn’t mean I could jump right into mating with them. I wanted to get to know them as people, the same as I was doing with Kai.
Though it didn’t stop me sinking my teeth into Kai every chance I had, as well as desperately reaching for Sin and Caspian to find them because I wanted them with us so badly.
Kai kept stroking me as my thoughts raced. Across my collarbones, down my arms, slipping over my waist. I moved and curved with him, quietly showing him where it felt best. Even though it was a single finger, each touch felt electric.
I released his hair so I could do the same, circling the smooth lines of his chest with a relaxed smile.
He found the V of my hip. And I thought I knew where he was going next.
But nerves burst in me as he hovered over my scar. I sucked in my stomach, flinching away from his touch.
He felt the way my heart plummeted, saw how my gaze shot away from his as I bit my lip to stop myself from gasping.
I batted his hand away, a shudder going through me as shame flared up.
I reacted too violently, and the hurt on his face stabbed through me.
“Brandy… What’s wrong?” he asked, sitting up.
Even though the scar was so obvious, I’d hoped they’d never ask about it. Especially not after how they reacted when they first saw it, and the sheer fury he and Caspian threw at me when they thought I was a Knottinghill host with children. It ached too much to even think about.
It wasn’t as if it was a clean cut, like a caesarean section. It was a ragged gash that tore from one side of my stomach to the other.
I knew they were going to ask about it, eventually. I was surprised Kai hadn’t brought it up since we’d been making love for so long.
It was a conversation we needed to have at some point. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to have it with the alphas. Well, particularly Caspian.
All Zania seemed to talk about was bloodlines and keeping everything pure. Even though they said they were fighting against it, that didn’t mean the three of them didn’t want children.
Kai dragged me into a hug as the tension got to me. He held me so tight and poured so much emotion into me that I softened instantly.
“Once we’ve become a pack, no one will do anything to you. I promise. Whatever it is, we’ll keep you safe.”
I pressed my lips closed, holding back my question: Like Zania doesn’t do anything to you?
He leaned back as his fingers glided over the scar, staring intensely at it, and I recoiled from him.
Even with the trust we had built up since I arrived, I didn’t want him to touch it. Sin holding my scar as we made love was a lot, but he hadn’t focused on it and examined the way Kai was.
“Hey, if you end up getting pregnant from when Cas fucked you during your heat, we can talk about it.” Though I didn’t miss the small jab of disgust which flew from him as a flash of darkness swept through him.
I didn’t want to ask him what that emotion was. He had shown me enough when he broke down after I had sex with Sin.
Though omegas could only get pregnant through a heat, I couldn’t imagine how Kai would feel if I became pregnant after one night with either of them.
I didn’t know how to hide my feelings from him yet. He said the three of them could block themselves from each other, and that he shut out Sin and Cas sometimes when we were making love because he wanted to keep me all to himself.
And I could sense he was hiding that disgust from me now.
“I mean, I’m infertile as fuck. I could fill you with absolute buckets and nothing would come out. Sin and Cas are going to be your baby daddies in the end.”
But the face he made and the bile rising in his throat told me how he really felt. And nausea rolled through me as well.
I couldn’t stop the shame that grew in me. It crept up from the scar, winding around my stomach, squeezing my lungs and throat.
I dropped my chin, biting my bottom lip to hide it, but it was so strong that it came pouring out of me.
A whimper fell from my lips. I didn’t want to feel it, and I didn’t want to show it to Kai. I started curling up to hide the scar.
“Hey, sorry,” he said, wrapping his fingers through mine. “I was just joking around. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Upsetting wasn’t the right word. I didn’t think I could get upset about it anymore. It was like how I thought I was a beta. I had no choice but to accept it because there was nothing else I could do.
That didn’t stop me being jealous of Rosa or feeling excluded because I couldn’t relate to anyone who had a child. It didn’t matter that I was broken, because there was nothing I could do about it, so I had to get on with my life.
Or that’s what I’d thought.
Omegas talked about how they never wanted kids growing up, and how, as soon as they presented, they were filled with a need to get pregnant.
But that didn’t happen to me. No urges or sudden mothering instinct.
I’d spent my whole life taking care of Rosa and now Mum, and there was nothing in me driving me towards having a child.
Especially after seeing the way Rosa’s life revolved around Tommy and spoiling him.
The fact Zania mentioned it every single time we met made me hate the idea even more. Even if I could have kids, why would I want to bring one into a world where she would be part of its life?
“It’s okay,” I sighed. “It’s not like I’ve told you what happened. And you all made pretty horrible assumptions about me when you asked about it,” I said, trying to joke with him in return, even though it was the worst reaction anyone had ever had when they saw the scar.
Kai grimaced as he rubbed his forehead, groaning as the regret flowed through him and into me.
“Yeah, we really were fucking shit about it, weren’t we? I don’t even think ‘sorry’ makes up for that, seriously.”
He spread his aura over me, bathing me in his love.
“I’m one hundred percent different now, I promise,” he said, kissing the back of my hand so softly that my heart clenched.
More shame burned through me. I didn’t want to disappoint him.
“Do you want to tell me what happened? Have you been pregnant before?”
I shook my head, releasing a slow breath as my nerves built up. I still didn’t want to tell any of them, but both Kai and Sin had spoken about me joining their pack, and they needed to know.
“So, um…” I trailed off as I searched for the best way to say it. He fed his fingers through mine, giving me a reassuring smile