Chapter 11 - Jace
We left the campsite behind after sending a message to the Burgess alphas, who agreed to send some people to clean it up for us so we could get back to Tyrell as quickly as possible.
We shifted to our wolf forms to move more quickly, but Jasmine still slowed us down.
Several times, I considered suggesting that one of us stay with her while the others go ahead, but every time I dismissed it.
All of us, whether we cared to admit it or not, would be distracted and anxious to be parted from her. The best thing to do was stick together at a pace she could go.
When we reached the trailhead where our car was, she gratefully climbed into the backseat. Killian and Renz climbed in after her, while Owen drove. The tension remained thick, even when Jasmine slept with her head on Renz’s shoulder.
My wolf whined in jealousy whenever I glanced back at them.
I wished it were me who had been able to kiss her, to touch her, to bring her to orgasm.
As soon as I’d seen them, Jasmine on her knees, kissing Renz passionately while Killian worked his hand between her thighs, I’d known she was in heat.
It was the only way they would have jumped to sexual contact.
Gods, this was the last thing we needed.
Even in my desire and jealousy, the guilt made my stomach cramp.
It wasn’t Jasmine’s fault that she went into heat, but I couldn’t help but think we would have been better off if she just hadn’t.
Owen clearly had shit he was still working through, and to have this on top of everything else?
I shook my head as we reached Tyrell. I couldn’t let myself be distracted by thoughts of our relationship as it stood, not when we had business with the pack to handle.
We headed straight for the infirmary, where two omegas were being held. They were in separate rooms, both with the blank eyes of the possessed. I recognized them both: Marla and Alex, who worked with children at the pack’s daycare. They were two of the gentlest people I’d known.
And they were both covered in bite marks, bleeding heavily, and straining against their restraints. They gnashed their teeth, grunting and growling. The doctors were keeping them in separate rooms, but it seemed like they could sense each other’s presence.
“What happened?” I asked.
The warriors who were standing guard over them explained how the two had gotten into a fight in the market—luckily not the daycare—and had nearly killed each other. It had taken several warriors to pry them apart.
Jasmine chewed her thumb. “I know them both. They’re gentle and kind and always look on the bright side.
Maybe I can find a recipe in my gran—my cookbook,” she corrected, glancing quickly at Owen.
“I have plenty of dried herbs, and they can sometimes help to relax the mind. It might help with…this.”
“Do it,” I told her. “But when you’ve got something ready, call us. Don’t come back alone.”
She nodded once, her clear black eyes on me.
She seemed to want to say something else, but instead turned and headed out.
The warriors watched her go, and I had to bite back a snarl.
Her scent had receded again; they wouldn’t be affected by her heat.
On the other hand, if we alphas started to make a big deal out of it, it would cause trouble.
“Run us through exactly what happened,” Owen said.
After we had heard the story from multiple people and were assured by the doctors that these two omegas would survive, the four of us headed to our offices. There, we entered the conference room. I poured myself a coffee, my mind turning over what we’d just learned.
“It’s the dark energy. The same as what happened in Burgess last year,” Killian finally said. “It manifested this same way before. It’s only going to get worse from here on out.”
“Is it the dark energy, or is it the curse that the omegas put on the land?” Owen asked.
I rubbed the back of my neck. For generations, we had thought that the omegas cursed the Maplewood valley. That they had done something that would slowly kill off the forest and creep into our towns and wipe out everyone who wasn’t an omega.
All of it was a lie. The curse itself was a lie.
Though whatever they had done had left behind something in the valley, and that did result in things that went wrong, it wasn’t because the omegas had made a malicious attempt to wipe us out.
Instead, they’d known about the darkness, and the ‘curse’ was, in fact, a warning system.
Supposedly, at least.
Apparently, the omegas who first cast the curse, or spell, or whatever it was, had known that the darkness would come back.
There was an evil here that wanted to destroy us.
But since they were omegas, nobody listened to them, and since they were bound to the land, they put this omen in place to warn us when the evil was coming back.
Of course, the rest of our ancestors assumed that the evil was their doing, and so the omegas were treated as the enemy. It had lasted all this time, and I still wasn’t entirely certain how it worked.
Nor did I understand how this was connected to Jasmine. Clearly, it was, because the Goddess had chosen her for us to marry. Penelope had been chosen because she was meant to be the last descendant of the omegas who cast the curse in the first place.
“If the original omegas cast this curse because they were bound to the land, it could be that each pack’s omegas had their own spell,” I said aloud.
The others must have been thinking along the same lines, because none of them asked what I was talking about.
I turned back to them. “If each pack has its own curse to deal with, then maybe Penelope was the last living descendant of the omegas that cast the spell in Burgess, and Jasmine is a descendant of the omegas that cast the spell here.”
“Spell?” Owen repeated. “It’s a curse.”
“The alphas of Burgess don’t seem to think so,” Renz countered.
Owen shook his head. “Fine. Spell, curse, we’ll chalk it up to semantics. My point still stands. The violence could be because of the omegas and not because of the darkness.”
“If that’s the case, then we still have to defeat the darkness to break the curse,” Killian said. “At this point, where we assign blame isn’t important, except for how we move forward treating our omegas. We can’t think of them as our enemies, Owen. Especially not Jasmine.”
Owen rubbed his forehead, scowling. “It’s not like I want to keep acting like this.”
It would be easy to tell him to ‘just don’t, then,’ but this was also the first time in quite a while that he actually admitted to wanting something different.
I sat down at the table, casting a quick look at Renz as he opened his mouth.
Renz shut his mouth with a snap and leaned back, nodding at me to continue.
Focusing back on Owen, I asked, “Then why do you?”
“Because I’m an idiot and an asshole?”
Renz snorted and Killian smirked. I frowned at both of them. “Let’s stay serious, shall we?”
Both of them nodded.
“Right. Let’s get to the bottom of this.
What do you have against Jasmine? Why did you lead the bullying campaign against her when we were kids?
” I considered my words and shook my head.
“No, we can’t just say when we were kids.
Our behavior lasted way longer than we can write off as childhood behavior. ”
Owen leaned his elbows on the table and sighed. “It’s fucked up,” he warned.
“Then tell us,” I answered.
He was quiet for a moment longer, staring at the pattern that the wood grain created in the table. Finally, he lifted his head. “I knew from the moment I first saw her that she was my mate.”
My brows furrowed together. What?
“I knew it. And I was so happy, but then I made the mistake of telling my father.” Owen’s shoulders hunched forward, and we all winced.
Owen’s father had been a harsh man. He’d been dead for five years now, and there were still times when I caught myself looking over my shoulder, worried I’d heard his voice.
As much as the four of us had been friends since we were kids, we’d always hung out at my place, or Killian’s or Renz’s.
More than once, Owen had shown up at my window late at night, asking if he could sleep on my floor because his dad was in one of his moods.
“When I told him, he reacted about the same way you’d expect. Then he started to rant about her grandmother. Apparently, she was the one who got him thrown in jail,” Owen said, his voice low and pained.
Knowing how tough and closed off he always tried to be, there was no doubt that every word was costing him something. I let him speak, keeping my questions and emotions to myself. It wasn’t any surprise that Owen lashed out at Jasmine after that.
Owen fidgeted in his chair, still staring at his hands.
“That feeling, that she was my mate, didn’t go away.
So, I finally started to bully her. I didn’t mean to recruit you all into it.
But once I started, my dad stopped bringing it up.
So, I did my best to bury my feelings and just try to pretend like she deserved my hate. ”
“That explains when we were kids,” Killian said softly. “But since then? When the Goddess said we were to marry her? What’s holding you back now?”
“I guess…I know she can’t forgive me. Not when I was the reason for it all to start with,” he mumbled. “And I thought, if I were the villain, it would make it easier for you three to be her heroes, and then she would forgive you. You four together could be happy, at least.”
I couldn’t stop myself from groaning. “That is—” I cut myself off before I called him stupid. “Manipulative. And it doesn’t work like that. You’re a part of this team, and if anything, you’ve been holding us all back.”
Owen scowled. “Just because I know she’s my mate doesn’t mean that I like it. It doesn’t mean that I want to be a good husband to her, or any sort of husband, for that matter.”
“So, it’s more than just your father?” Renz asked.
“Yes. No.”
“Her grandmother?” I pressed.
Owen rubbed his eyes and let out a heavy groan. “Yeah. She was one of the midwives with the pack. She was the one who came when my baby sister was born.”
A new heaviness fell over the table. I let out a slow breath. Owen’s infant sister and mother had both died shortly after childbirth due to complications. I never knew any of the details, only that they did.
“My father hated omegas. He always went on rants against them. I wasn’t at the house when it happened, but he would get drunk a lot and talk about it.
I don’t know what happened, and if I’m honest, I never blamed her grandmother, even when I was hearing about how it was her fault.
My guess is that my dad, hating omegas, didn’t let her do her job properly.
He should have taken them to the hospital. ”
“At the campsite, you called her grandmother a thief,” Renz said.
Owen stood and strode to the window. The sun was starting to sink, casting him in an amber glow.
“A family heirloom disappeared around that time. My father blamed Jasmine’s grandmother, and I did, too, because it was something we could finally agree on.
When he went to take it back, she claimed he attacked her, and he was jailed. ”
Knowing his father, my guess was that it was true.
“That’s when he started using. Everything afterward was just worse.
It was easier to keep blaming omegas for it all than to admit how terrible a father he actually was.
I suppose I inherited that hate, and I aimed it at Jasmine, because I was angry at myself for being so weak that an omega would be my mate. ”
I went to him and squeezed his shoulder. “We can choose to be different from our parents.”
Owen shrugged, not to brush off my hand, but to show that he’d heard me and didn’t quite believe it.
“Are you going to tell her the truth?” Killian asked from behind us.
“Jasmine, you mean?” Owen turned and scowled. “There’s no point.”
At this, I rolled my eyes. “You are too smart to play dumb with us. She’s in heat.
It’s possible that the three of us could relieve it without you, but if you sensed she was your mate from a young age, then the bond is there.
Try to settle things with her, Owen. At least get to a place where you’re not attacking her at every turn. She deserves to know the truth, too.”
Owen shrugged. “Fine. But we have a crisis on our hands right now, so let’s focus on that.”
He went back to the table, and I sighed internally. He was part of the crisis. Our relationship with Jasmine was at the center of this all. But if he wasn’t ready to admit that, then I supposed we just had to hold back and wait, at least for now.
But not long. We didn’t have much time.