Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The drive to the motel was deadly silent.
The only sounds that permeated the quiet were the tires crunching over asphalt and the dual sounds of breathing.
Roman’s remained steady and slow while Sidian’s hitched and trembled, not quite recovered from his breakdown in the house despite it having been a good half an hour ago.
His chest hurt. The weight of failure draped itself over his shoulders, bearing him down to the earth like nothing ever had before, threatening another round of tears as if there was anything left in him.
Maybe vomit. He’d felt the burn of bile multiple times but told himself to swallow it back, to keep whatever he could down for the sake of the baby still inside him.
He couldn’t risk his son too if he would never get Amethyst back after all.
White-hot rage coiled in his chest, demanding he lash out at Roman again for the sake of being able to do it.
Instead, he forced himself to sit, trying to take deep breaths.
Screaming at his alpha would not change anything.
He could grab the wheel and jerk them off the road and into a ditch, and it still wouldn’t change a fucking thing.
He wanted to. Fuck did he want to. Anything would be better than living with the crushing agony in his chest, the realization that he’d failed his daughter, and he’d never see her sweet face again.
How big had she grown? How many milestones had he missed because of the psychopaths that used him like a fleshlight and left him in the center to bleed?
He would never see Amey again.
The car came to a stop on the cracked pavement of the parking lot, and Roman cut the engine.
He stepped out of the car without a word and returned moments later with a key dangling from one finger, waiting on the sidewalk that stretched just far enough to give the motel a walkway.
He hadn’t said a single word on the entire drive, though he had to have questions.
Sidian wondered what was going on in his alpha’s head. If he was still in there.
Maybe he was angry, and silence was the only way to hold on to that anger, to keep it at bay instead of turning it on Sidian like he damn well knew he should.
Sidian dragged himself out of his seat, still aching to his gut as he followed Roman into the motel room.
They’d been so hopeful about what information they might gather at Pack Kincaid’s home that leaving empty-handed made Sidian feel a deep, simmering shame he didn’t know how to handle.
It was too much. All of it was too much.
At least the Mambas couldn’t see how much they’d failed, right?
What did he do to deserve it? Was it somehow punishment for what he did to his father? But that bastard wanted to break him, bleed him, use him, and abuse him just like Pack Kincaid. How can trying to protect himself have been wrong?
A desperate whine rose in his throat again, but he choked it back down and reached for the anger instead. It burned hotter, choked him, but it was so much easier to process than the pain. Horrible, agonizing fucking failure that threatened to eat him up from the inside out like a parasite.
Roman took a seat at the rickety table next to the window, dropping his head into his hands. “I’ll make contact in the morning and see what the Mambas make of this.”
“Why?” Sidian kicked his shoes off and dropped on the edge of the bed, his hands balling up into fists.
Deep breaths, but he didn’t want to breathe when every lungful of air hurt.
“They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
All that money just for them to be too fucking stupid to get us one address. I asked for so little.”
Roman swallowed so hard that Sidian heard his throat click. “I know, Sidian. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” That wasn’t good enough, and Roman knew that. It would never be good enough. “You should have thought of that when you turned into a psychopath. You should have thought about that when they hauled me off. I didn’t get any peace before they showed up. Did you know that?”
Roman didn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him. “Yes.”
He was so calm, so controlled, that it pissed Sidian off.
Why wouldn’t Roman fight with him? Why wouldn’t he yell back?
Why did he let Sidian push him around, shove him, smack him?
Sidian had seen with his own eyes what Roman was capable of, the level of violence that made him picture perfect in the eyes of Lorcan fucking Devereaux.
Perfect enough to be spirited off to fight injustice or whatever bullshit while Sidian suffered and bled and begged for the mate he barely knew to come rescue him because he couldn’t save himself.
And in the end, he couldn’t save himself. He would have died of exposure out in the woods, alone and pregnant. And he couldn’t even save his daughter from her monster fathers.
What fucking good was he if he couldn’t do anything?
The tears came again, burning his already dry eyes, but he dashed them away and pushed himself to his feet, storming over to Roman and shoving him so hard his hands fell.
His head snapped up, his eyes wide and uncertain, like he didn’t know what to make of Sidian.
Like he was looking at an animal, some kind of beast that was just out of his control.
Coming upon a furious mountain lion, or maybe a bear.
Sidian wished he could be that, be like that. More like a rabid deer, useless and dying, and just as frightened and pathetic.
“What good are you as an alpha?” he asked Roman, and Roman winced but didn’t speak. Didn’t move. “Couldn’t find me, couldn’t save me, can’t find my daughter. What can you do? Fuck me? That’s not special. They could do that. They did that—”
Roman’s jaw clenched, the first and only sign of anger Sidian had seen in him so far. “I’m nothing like them.”
“I wish you were. That would make this so much easier.” Sidian wouldn’t have to feel anything at all.
Roman would shove him down and take what he wanted, and it’d hurt, but Sidian would know the score.
Roman would never have promised Sidian a future, never would have promised him a family, and maybe that would have been better.
At least then, Sidian would have understood it.
He wanted Roman to hurt him, maybe. Wanted him to do something, anything, that made this simple for both of them. Bend him, break him, bleed him just like Pack Kincaid so Sidian could stop believing in the stupid fairy tale mate bullshit between them.
“Hit me,” he said, and the color drained from Roman’s stupid, pretty face. “Come on, big boy. You’re the alpha. Don’t you get tired of me pushing you around?”
Roman shook his head, the uneasy expression returning. “I will not hit you.”
“Don’t you get tired of being my bitch?” Sidian’s hands found the collar of Roman’s shirt and fisted it, dragging him closer, over the table until he knew the edge of it had to be pressing into Roman’s chest. It had to hurt.
“Show me who’s in charge, Roman. Put me in my place.
You gonna let me treat you like this? Huh? ”
Without breaking Sidian’s hold on his shirt, Roman all but melted out of the chair, his knees sinking into the dark carpet beneath them.
The sight made Sidian’s breath hitch, his omega whining for him to stop.
It was one thing when Roman knelt for Sidian because he wanted to, because he enjoyed it, but it didn’t feel like that at the moment. It didn’t feel right.
Everything was spiraling out of control. Sidian couldn’t take it.
“I fucking hate you.” He tightened his grip on Roman’s collar and stood over him, spitting the words into his face. Yell at me. Fight me. Hit me. Do something. “When we were in the woods that night, I thought about ramming that scalpel into your neck, and I should have done it.”
Roman said nothing, hands resting on his thighs, his scent giving away nothing but the same soothing, calming, warm pheromones as always.
Always trying to take care of Sidian even when Sidian couldn’t take care of himself.
His resolve cracked in the face of that silence, that steadiness, Roman’s refusal to rise to any of his taunts.
The tightness in his throat grew until it was too much, his hands falling from Roman’s shirt.
There was an angry red rash across his skin from the abrasion of the fabric, and Sidian’s omega whimpered a soft apology at the sight.
When Roman let Sidian hurt him, when he enjoyed the pain, that was one thing. And this wasn’t that. This was…
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Apologize, he told himself, but the words never came. For fuck’s sake, apologize to the only person who ever gave a damn about you.
“Sid.” Roman inhaled, a hand rising to rub the front of his throat, but there was no hiding what Sidian had done to him. “It’s okay. It’s fine. Just take a deep breath.”
None of it was okay. How could he not understand that? How stupid was he? “A deep breath isn’t going to fix any of this shit. They took my fucking daughter. I know you don’t care about that because she’s not yours, but she matters to me. And now I don’t know where she is.”
Sidian had to stop. He knew that. Lashing out at Roman was only going to make this worse and was going to cost him the only ally he had, the only person who loved him.
The last two years of his life had been torment with only one light at the end of the darkness, and he’d come.
Roman had saved him, and now what? Sidian was going to rip his head off his shoulders for something he couldn’t control? Because of someone else’s mistake?
Roman was too forgiving. Too understanding of a monster like Sidian.
“Your daughter,” Roman tried, his expression softening. “Goddess, I didn’t even… Why didn’t you tell me? Why wouldn’t you tell me they’d taken something so precious from you?”
Sidian’s jaw tightened, and he whirled away from his alpha, ripping at his own hair again as a furious growl rumbled up his chest. Why bother?
It wouldn’t have changed anything, and Roman couldn’t understand.
He could pretend to be forgiving, but he would never understand what Sidian was going through.
Would never understand why he was so afraid.
Prime alphas didn’t have to be afraid of anything. They were above it all.
“I hate this,” he snapped, and because it was close, Sidian yanked one of the two chairs out from beneath the table and flung it at the door, the cheap wood splintering against the scuffed steel. “You don’t get to judge me for not telling you! She’s my daughter. What if you didn’t want her?”
Roman’s face crumpled. “What makes you think I wouldn’t want her?”
Sidian sank down onto the mattress, nails scrabbling at his own scalp as he tried to suck in air, his lungs so tight that it hurt.
Everything hurt. Amey was gone, and there was nothing they could do about it, if even the people who were supposed to know where she was had no idea.
He’d never get to see her again. He’d never get to hold his daughter, to promise her she’d never be taken again.
He’d failed her. He’d failed her so completely. What if he failed his son, too?
A hand on his shoulder was slapped away, the floor beneath his feet shaky as he pushed himself away from the bed, away from Roman.
Comfort from his alpha should have felt natural.
It was all he wanted, all he needed, and yet the thought of letting Roman touch him sent a wave of unease through his entire body.
Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t speak—
“Sidian.” Roman’s voice was low, soft, though there was an urgency in his tone he couldn’t disguise as he raised his hands, palms out, trying and failing to look harmless.
How could an alpha of his size ever be harmless?
Did he know what he was? “Talk to me. Let it out. Bottling it up will hurt you.”
“Fuck off. Stop pretending you understand. You don’t.” Every word trembled on Sidian’s tongue, and he hated it. Hated his own weakness, his own uselessness even in the face of the one person he wasn’t supposed to be afraid of. How was any of this fair?
Roman tried again, voice even softer now. “You’re right. I don’t. But I know that holding it inside is bad for you. Just let it out. I don’t care if you yell or break things. Just let it out.”
He tried to take a step forward, and Sidian snarled at him in warning, hackles rising.
He didn’t want Roman anywhere near him, something that startled him because Roman was the only person he’d ever wanted at his side.
The two of them fit together; Roman was the only person in the world who ever made him feel like he might be worth something.
The only alpha who treated him with respect and consideration, who put his wants and needs first. Always over his own.
What makes you think I wouldn’t want her?
He didn’t know Amey. Had never seen her or held her and would not know how he felt until he did.
Sidian had to lie to him; Roman couldn’t have known how he would have felt if Sidian had told him the truth.
He couldn’t understand how important Amethyst was, how precious, how perfect, and how badly she needed Sidian to come and save her from her sorry excuses for fathers.
Roman didn’t even understand just how evil Pack Kincaid was.
“Get out.” The words tore themselves from Sidian’s chest, and his omega whined in protest, but he silenced it as he had so many times before, his hands clenching into fists to steady himself.
“Get the fuck away from me until you can tell me how your buddies fucked this up. Until you know where my daughter is, I don’t want to look at you. ”
“All right.” Roman lowered his hands, his expression blank as he took a step back. “I’ll go. Take a shower, get some rest. By morning, I’ll have an answer for you.”
The moment the motel room door clicked shut, Sidian pressed his back against the wall and slid down, curling into the smallest ball he could as his shoulders shook with silent sobs.
What was the point of it if he never got to see Amethyst again?