Chapter 26 #4
Except, I think it’s too late for that. I said too much. Showed her too much of me.
I take a measured step back and lock down my emotions. “I don’t owe you an explanation, Omega.”
She’s looking at me strangely, like she’s trying to understand something.
Worse? She doesn’t look scared anymore. Just curious. And that raises my anger to a fucking ten.
I stalk to the table, pushing books out of the way as I search for my whiskey. I find it, refill my glass, and take a few measured sips. I use the time to calm down. Get my emotions under control.
I’m the one asking questions here. Not her. I don’t owe her anything, especially not answers. That’s not how this is going to work.
“What I want to know,” I say, calmer now that I’ve regained control, “is what you and your father are planning.”
The tension visibly lifts from her shoulders. The way she looks at me doesn’t feel like surrender, though. It feels like resolve.
“I don’t know what he’s doing. I know he meets with a man. At least… I think he’s a man. He scares me.”
I keep my face stoically blank as she speaks, ignoring the way my heart lurches at the thought of her alone with a male who scares her.
Like right now? My Alpha taunts.
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Lovely. Now I’m talking back to the fucker.
“What else?”
The Omega sighs. “The meetings happened maybe once a month for a while. Recently, they were more frequent. Weekly. Sometimes multiple times a week.”
Now we were getting somewhere. It’s a road I already traveled, but at least it’s a direction. “Go on, then. Who is he?”
“His name is Alexander. Other than that, I don’t know.”
Her little chin lifts, like she’s daring me to push for more.
So I do.
“Did they meet at your house or somewhere else?”
“My Father’s house.”
She bites absently at her lower lip, brow furrowed in thought. “I didn’t leave the property, but Father left a lot. I’m sure he met with him sometimes, but I don’t know when, or how often.”
The muscle in my jaw ticks. “What did they discuss in these meetings?”
“I only overheard them a few times. Once, he said he had some kind of serum. One that could force an Omega’s heat.”
“Where did he get it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who was he planning to use it on?”
“He—” she bites down on her lip harder. Red spots appear at the top of her cheeks, and she won’t meet my eyes. I already know the answer, but I push anyway, making her say it.
“Who, Omega?”
She clears her throat awkwardly. “He suggested that my father use it on me. To sell my first heat, and keep the money to fund his research.”
Interesting.
I don’t quite believe she isn’t using this story as a ploy to gain my sympathy.
At the same time, I absolutely believe the Severed might possess a serum to induce an Omega’s heat. There have been rumors of one in the works for years.
“What research does your father need funding for?”
This is the answer I really need. What Varenthrall’s up to. What he and the Severed are injecting into the Omegas, and why…
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
I grind my molars. Of course, she doesn’t.
“When Alexander came to your home, where did they meet?”
I watch as, once again, her eyes begin to glaze over. She’s losing steam right in front of me. To make matters worse, she isn’t providing me any fucking answers worth a damn.
“Where, Omega?” The volume of my shout startles a reaction out of her, just as I hoped.
Her lashes flutter, like she’s struggling to focus. She frowns before muttering, “In Father’s study?”
“Are you asking me, or telling me?”
She eyes me like I’m about to strike. “I don’t—”
I throw my glass against the wall behind her head, and it shatters before she can even finish speaking. Sparkling shards of crystal rain down, flying across the room. I watch one lodge itself in her hair. Another slices a thin cut across the fabric of her shirt near the shoulder.
I feel a sliver skate across my forearm, the sharp sting of pain grounding me before my body heals itself.
My lungs heave, my lungs working overtime as a growl rumbles steadily in my chest.
What the hell is it about this Omega that makes me act so fucking out of character? Any other time, I can sit through an interrogation for hours without coming close to losing my cool.
So why am I coming unglued because of this slip of a girl?
Only a few seconds have passed since I threw my glass, but it feels like hours.
The Omega doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move. She just stands there with tears streaming silently down her face, staring at me like—
Like I just killed something.
The reality of the situation slams into me like a fucking truck. I stagger back a step, finally taking in the explosion of glass surrounding us.
What… what the fuck did I do?
I threw a glass at her head.
There are sharp splinters of crystal caught in her hair, and glittering all over the floor around her bare feet. Glass dusts the shoulders of the oversized grey t-shirt that hangs off one thin shoulder.
The Omega’s pupils are dilated. The longer those wide, blue eyes stare at me, the more certain I am that she’s judging me.
She looks at me like I’m a monster.
No. Like I’m a monster who can’t stop losing control.
She blinks. The second her eyes begin to lose focus, I know I’ll lose my mind if I watch this female escape into her own mind just to get away from me for the third time in an hour.
The fist around my lungs tightens painfully. My hand flies to my chest.
Am I having a fucking heart attack?
No. Don’t be an idiot, Daxen. Vampires don’t have heart attacks. You know that.
Then… what the fuck is this feeling?
Why does it feel like something’s about to explode in my chest? Why does it feel like my lungs are fraying apart?
My eyes snap back to the Omega. At that vacant fucking stare that isn’t normal. I don’t want to look at her anymore. I don’t want to look at her pale face and sad eyes and vacant stare, standing in the aftermath of my loss of control.
“Get out,” I bark, not quite a Command, but close.
The girl doesn’t move. She just stands there, back against the wall, body trembling with fear, staring at the flames with eyes full of nothing.
My eyes catch on the pulse point at her throat.
Not once have I had the desire to feed from a human. I’ve done so when faced with no alternative, but human blood simply does not sustain us long enough to bother. Their blood lacks substance. Like ordering chicken broth when there’s a steak on the same menu.
Despite that, I can’t pull my eyes away from the vein beating steadily under the skin of her pale throat. I can fucking hear it from across the room. My fangs throb, mere seconds from dropping.
My mouth waters.
Finally, after far too long to be acceptable, I convince my legs to move. Turning away from the girl, I tunnel my fingers through my hair and tug at the roots, hoping the slight pain will focus me.
This isn’t right. Everything feels off kilter and sideways. I need her out of here before I do something I can’t take back.
“Omega! I said, get the fuck out of here!” I take a deliberate, menacing step toward her.
It’s not until I’m less than three feet away that the vacancy in her sapphire eyes clears and she finally registers my proximity.
She jolts into motion with a startled, terrified yelp.
The fist gripping my heart tightens at the sound. I advance on her step for step as she scrambles for the library doors. The moment she gets close enough, I reach around her and shove them open with so much force they nearly clock an unsuspecting Vaelenor in the face.
“Fates, asswipe, watch what you’re—” Vae cuts off when he sees my expression, and his own shifts as he notices the way I’m looming over the Omega.
Sensing additional danger, the Omega’s head snaps frantically between the Vae and me.
She must realize she’s in the middle of a vampire sandwich because fear fills her eyes right before she visibly wilts. Then, like a dying flower, her body leans wildly to the side like she’s lost her balance.
I watch her fall, landing against the wall with a soft thud.
There’s half a second where I’m overcome with a tidal wave of shame and self-loathing knowing I not only scared her, but I also just watched her fall and made no move to catch her.
Then the image of Caelan, still and weak in his hospital bed, hooked to monitors and tubes and oxygen, flashes before my eyes.
And any shame is shoved so far down I won’t even remember I felt it five minutes from now.
The Omega’s legs buckle as she slides down the side of the wall. She lands on her knees, slamming against the stone with a crack. Vae reaches for her instinctively, but she recoils from him.
Then, using the wall as leverage, she pulls herself up with trembling fingers and turns away from us. The moment she’s facing the right direction, she takes off on wobbly, shaking legs like a baby deer being hunted by a wolf.
I watch until she reaches the end of the hall and disappears behind the door to the attic stairs.
The moment she’s out of sight, Vae frowns at me.
“The actual fuck was that?” He demands, pushing me back into the library with a hand against my chest. He locks the doors behind us and turns back, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation.
“Actually, you know what?? I feel like we need a button that plays that exact question every time you do something stupid around that girl. And maybe a punch card. Every fifth Omega-related traumatic incident involving you and Idril, and we get a free personal pan pizza.”
His boots crunch over the broken glass, and he looks at the floor in confusion before following the trail of destruction to the wall where whiskey’s still dripping down the stone in slow, steady streams.
He raises a sardonic brow. “Redecorating?”
“Very fucking funny,” I grunt, snatching one of my ledgers off the table just for something to do with my hands. Pointing the book threateningly, I turn back to my packmate.
“Keep her out of my sight, Vae. I mean it. I can’t be around someone who thinks ‘I don’t know’ is a viable defense. The next time someone sends her in here,” I aim a pointed look at the floor lined with broken glass, “I won’t miss.”
“Yeah, sure.” Vae agrees with a nod. “Except… nobody sent her here.”
I still. “What?”
“Yup,” he pops the “p” obnoxiously and falls onto the couch, casual as fuck.
“I was actually searching for her. Cooks said she was supposed to head back to the kitchens after taking food to the trainee compound, but she never returned. It was getting late, so I came looking to make sure she didn’t miss her suppressant.”
He yawns, carelessly tossing the blanket I used as leverage onto the dirty floor. “I swear to the Fates, it’s only day one, and it’s starting to feel like fucking babysitting.”
“She said she was told to clean the furniture in the rooms on this floor, and this was the last one left,” I mutter, wracking my brain for why she would lie.
Vae shrugs. “Don’t know.”
My temper starts to rise. “Where the fuck was Cage?”
That idiot has one damn job, and somehow he’s already screwed it up.
“That was going to be my next stop.”
Vae’s eyes close. I stand over him, waiting for him to get up, but when his breaths even out less than thirty seconds later, it’s clear he’s not going anywhere.
I grab my laptop, determined to get back to my research. I can’t help but marvel for what must be the thousandth time at how Vae can fall asleep so fast, no matter where he is or what’s happening.
An hour later, nothing’s changed outside of Vae’s snoring and an increase in my anxiety. I can’t stop looking at the blanket I taunted the Omega with.
Eventually, I snatch it off the floor and throw it back on the couch. Not because I want to keep it clean for the female, but because if it’s dirty, she won’t want it. Then I can’t use it as leverage again.
My Alpha snarls in his cage, sensing the lie.
Great. Even my fucking instincts are regularly calling me out on my bullshit.
I sigh, eye the broken glass I still haven’t informed the staff of, before my attention falls back on the white fur-lined blanket.
Everywhere I look, that damn Omega is there.
I need to get out of this house.
Gavran’s right about one thing. When it comes to this research, I do need help. Another set of eyes. Preferably someone with a slightly different way of looking at things. Someone who might see what I’m missing.
Once I’ve packed up, I try one final time to rouse Vae and let him know I’m leaving.
All I get is a half-conscious thumbs up along with a kick to my thigh, which is essentially Vae-speak for, “I’m sleeping, please fuck off.”
I leave the library feeling like the weight of the evening is suffocating me.
Yeah, getting out of here is a good idea. Talking to someone else about all this shit will also help. And I know exactly where I need to go and who I need to talk to.
It’s time to return to Redmark.