Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Since we’re going to teach you how to behave like a proper omega once and for all, I believe we can start with what should be the simplest of lessons, and that is acts of service.
” Dax pointed toward the bed, and Lilac went obediently, those cold eyes settling on Sidian where he stood just past the doorway.
“Help me undress. You never were very good at it back at the center.”
Sidian swallowed, his hands shaking. “Sure. I can do that.”
It took far too much effort to close the narrow space between them, his fingers locating the smooth white buttons on Dax’s shirt as he slid each of them from their respective holes.
Ripping off Roman’s clothes had been wild and exciting, and Sidian had ached to see every inch of olive skin laid bare, but the thought of so much as brushing Dax’s pale flesh left Sidian shuddering in distaste.
The longer he took, however, the longer it took for Dax to touch Lilac.
Maybe it was stupid to care so much about an omega he didn’t know, but Sidian knew one thing: he saw himself when he looked into Lilac’s eyes.
There had been no one there to help him when he was alone with Pack Kincaid, but if he could spare someone else even a moment of that anguish, he would do it no matter how it made him feel.
Dax sighed. “This is nice, isn’t it? Acting civilized.”
What a remark to come from him. “I was in heat when you came to see me.”
He chuckled and wrapped his hands around Sidian’s wrists, stilling his movements as Dax leaned in close enough that his warm breath curled against Sidian’s cheek.
“But you looked so lovely in heat. Sweet, desperate little bitch. It’s a shame it’ll be such a long time until I can have you like that again, but in order to join you to our pack, I have one special surprise in mind. ”
What the fuck was he talking about? “I don’t know what you mean.”
“That’s for me to worry about. You just focus your pretty little head on the task at hand.” Dax shrugged his shirt off, and when Sidian tried to step back, he was jerked forward, his hands laid over Dax’s belt. “Go ahead, omega. You’re intimately familiar with this part, aren’t you?”
He was. The memory threatened to leave him sick and shaking, but Sidian made himself unbuckle the belt as the warmth drained from his fingertips.
A numbness threatened to settle over him to blanket him from the rest of the situation, taking his mind somewhere where he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the situation he was in.
Where he wouldn’t have to worry so much that Dax was moments away from raping someone just to teach Sidian a lesson.
“There you go,” Dax cooed. “See? Not so hopeless after all. How quaint.”
The heat that rolled off of the flesh between his legs made Sidian’s stomach roil, his guts churning at how close he was to something that had hurt him. “If you say so.”
Dax’s pants dropped around his ankles, and he stepped out of them in one fluid motion, leaving him in just a pair of boxers.
“Now take my clothing to the laundry basket in the corner of the room. You and Lilac can handle the washing tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll be amenable to showing you how the machine works since I doubt you’ve ever had to do such a thing for yourself. ”
Of course, he had. Who the fuck else was supposed to do laundry back home? “I know how to wash clothes. I’m not fucking stupid.”
“I never said you were.” But Dax smiled as if they were sharing a private joke.
Sidian hated him. He’d hated Dax from the moment he realized what the alpha intended to do to him, but he hated him more for every assumption he’d made, every conclusion he’d drawn.
Dax did not even see him as a person; who the fuck was he to decide what Sidian was and was not capable of?
Who was he to think he knew anything about Sidian at all?
He chuckled as he stepped forward, hand rising to cup Sidian’s jaw, forcing their eyes to meet. “Your scent is so interesting when you’re angry, little pet,” he murmured, voice husky with lust; Sidian knew that tone. He’d heard it before. “I always enjoyed seeing you get angry.”
“Fuck you,” Sidian hissed. He couldn’t help himself.
“Such a naughty little creature. Never able to hold that tongue of yours, hmm? But I know how many uses it has.” Dax squeezed his jaw tighter, drawing him closer.
“I knew you would be bad if you got a chance. That’s why I had to have the tracker implanted the day Amethyst was born.
The moment you lost consciousness, I knew what had to be done. ”
Wait… What? What the fuck did he just say?
Dax laughed as Sidian stared at him, his brain refusing to process the words the alpha had just spoken.
What tracker? What was he talking about?
No, Sidian would have known if something like that had been done to him.
The thought that Dax had violated his body in ways he didn’t even know about made him sick.
He had to get out of there. He had to kill the son of a bitch.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded, though his voice came out whisper-soft.
“When the breeding center told me you were a prime omega, I knew we had something special on our hands, and I didn’t want to see anything bad happen to you.
I didn’t want someone to claim what belonged to us.
” Dax thumbed over Sidian’s lower lip, his gaze distant as if trying to figure out what he wanted Sidian to do with his mouth.
“Did you think I would ever let you go? I mean, if you’d been a regular omega, I might have.
I wasn’t close to my father, so, contrary to popular belief, I felt nothing when your stupid little alpha dog killed him. ”
“The alpha who tried to buy me was your father?” Sidian asked, his heart beating faster.
“Sterling Kincaid was his name. A businessman by trade. I forget what he owns in Washington. That’s my brother’s area, not mine.
” Dax trailed the backs of his knuckles along Sidian’s throat, and Sidian shuddered at the touch.
“My entire pack was more than happy to rape you when I told them what happened, though. And then you were far too precious to let go of.”
Sidian didn’t know what to say. What to think. His brain fuzzed over, static crackling between his ears so much so that he almost didn’t feel it when Dax turned him around and gave him a light swat on the ass, pushing him toward the laundry basket in the corner as he turned his attention to Lilac.
Sidian almost wanted to laugh. The son of the man Roman had killed… It explained so much. Too much. His skin itched as he tried to figure out where the tracker could have been placed, his guts churning as tears stung his eyes. Dax had always known where he was. He had never escaped.
All that shared time with Roman, and they had been watching in their sick little way.
No wonder they hadn’t acted sooner. Dax had watched whatever device he used for the tracker and saw that Sidian was making his way across the country right to Dax’s doorstep.
When Sidian had been screaming himself to pieces on the floor of that dilapidated house, Dax laughed.
There had never been a moment in which Sidian had any freedom whatsoever.
It would only come when Dax was dead. Sidian understood it in its totality now.
There was wanting him dead because he could not come back from the grave; there was needing him dead for the security it would provide, but none of that compared to the simple truth: Dax would never stop, and Sidian had proof now.
If he didn’t kill the alpha who had tormented him for years, then he could never raise his children. Never live happily alongside his mate.
He balled up the fabric in his hands, and something hard pressed against his palm.
He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to see Dax nudging Lilac up toward the pillows, his attention focused on the other omega. It gave Sidian just enough time to realize he was feeling something inside the pocket of Dax’s pants, sliding the piece of metal out.
It was a pair of brass knuckles with just a little blood flecked on the steel.
Sidian stared at them for a moment before curling his hand tight around them, gripping them as he dumped the clothes in the hamper.
Before Dax could look up, he slipped the weapon under the nightie and into the side of the embarrassing panties he’d been given to wear, the tight satin pinning the metal in place against Sidian’s hip. It bit in just enough to feel secure.
Dax glanced up just as Sidian returned to the mattress, his eyes looking him up and down as he seemed to consider something. “Maybe this would be a nicer affair in the nest. What do you think, Lilac?”
“No.” Lilac said it so quickly that it caught Sidian’s attention, his brow furrowing as his eyes flicked toward what he assumed was the nest in the corner of the room. What was wrong with it that Lilac didn’t want to go in there? “No, alpha, please, the bed is more than comfortable enough—”
But Dax rose to his feet, taking Sidian by the wrist and dragging him around the bed to lead him toward the double doors on the far side of the room. “Come here. It’ll be your nest soon, too.”
“What is it?” Sidian glanced back at Lilac, who only stared at him with wide, horrified eyes as he pressed his back into the pillows. “What’s wrong? What did you do?”
“I wanted to decorate it nice and special for our pack omega while he was settling in, and I thought, you know, he should get to know you as best he can.” Dax pushed the doors open and reached inside to flick on a light that was far too blinding for an omega’s nest. “Come here. Tell me what you think.”
He didn’t give Sidian a chance before shoving him into the room.
An omega’s nest was supposed to be a dark space tucked away from the world, small and secure, soft and comforting.
Having such harsh light defeated the purpose of it all together, and Sidian blinked until his eyes adjusted to the light.
The nest itself was far too neat; Lilac wasn’t nesting. Big surprise.
Sidian glanced around the room, not sure what he was looking for until his eyes settled on the wall that faced the nest. Settled on the myriad photographs pinned to the pale plaster.
“No,” he said, the word a dying gasp on his lips.
Dax’s chest pressed up against his back. “Oh, yes, Obsidian. What do you think?”
He didn’t remember most of his heats beyond the pain and the blood, and evidently, Sidian didn’t remember cameras being shoved in his face.
His mind refused to let him process a single photo, but the longer he stared at them, the more they took shape and form.
Photos of his naked body in every position possible.
Photos of the blood and semen smeared into his skin, the bruises that marred his flesh.
Photos of his tear-stained face, his pupils shot wide from his heat, his lips bruised from sharp kisses.
And far, far too many close-ups of every intimate part of him that was never meant for Pack Kincaid.
The horror of it washed over him, and he felt lightheaded. He knew they were evil, knew they had no limits in what they would do to him beyond what the center put in place, but it was too much. The grotesque array of images was too fucking much.
A sharp prick on his arm made him whine, hugging it close to his chest. “What did you do that for?”
“Just a little something to make sure you’re in the mood.
A true heat would cause you to miscarry, and while I’m certain I can breed your fertile womb with ease, I wouldn’t want to lose a potential alpha son just the same.
That injection will send you into a pseudo-heat, and you’ll look just as lovely as you do in these photographs.
” Dax’s hand found his stomach once again, pressing down enough to feel the shape of Sidian’s womb, taut with the growth of his child as he tossed what looked like a slender syringe into the center of Lilac’s nest. “I wonder what your children will think of you when they’re old enough to see their mother for what he is, hmm? ”
The reminder of his children was all Sidian needed to act.
He ripped himself away from Dax’s touch, a snarl twisting his lips as he stared up at the alpha who had ruined so much of his life.
The rage that washed over him was familiar, an old friend that he knew how to work with.
Fear and pain and grief did nothing for him, but rage was something Sidian knew far too well. And no one had ever taken it from him.
The flicker of amusement in Dax’s eyes only fanned the flames higher. “What are you going to do, little bitch? Do you think you can stand up to me?”
Sidian lunged at him. Even if it killed him, that alpha would die tonight.