Chapter 12 June
June
The next morning, my breasts are swollen.
I want to slip my hand between my legs, rub and rub until my back arches and my body shatters. More than that, I ache for a knot to stretch my pussy. Need it. Want it. Crave it.
I run my tongue along the inside of my mouth, and I taste my scent. Blueberry pie with a hint of brown sugar. It’s strong. Nearly overwhelmingly sweet.
My heat isn’t just coming; it’s here.
I stretch out my shower for nearly an hour, until the water turns cold, but I linger. I take thirty minutes to pick out an outfit, buying even more time.
Finally dressed, I drag myself down the stairs and hesitate in front of a closed door where male voices are barely audible from within.
I hold my breath for a second, release it, and knock firmly.
Yesterday morning, Archer dragged me up from the grass in the garden, pulled me into the library, fucked me against a bookcase, and walked away, leaving me aching and unfulfilled.
I haven’t seen any of my scent matches since then, and I don’t want to. They’re determined to hate me, and I’m determined to hate them right back. But saying nothing about my heat starting is not wise. An omega in heat in a house full of alphas will lead to an explosion that none of us would want.
Biting my lip, I knock again, hoping they weren’t waiting for me to leave by not answering my first knock.
The silence stretches out for two full seconds.
“Come in,” Callum calls out.
I twist the doorknob, push the door open, and walk inside.
Torin is on his back on a leather couch, flipping through a magazine. Archer is standing at the window, hands in his pockets, staring out. He doesn’t turn as I walk into the room.
Callum has his phone in his hand, one eyebrow raised, his expression as cold and disinterested as any I’ve ever seen.
I stiffen my spine as I meet his gaze, projecting the same disinterest as I say, “My heat is starting.”
They must have known it already. They’ve been avoiding me more than usual.
Callum taps on his phone's keypad. "Veronica will take you to a free heat clinic,” he says, bored.
For a second, I think I’m hearing things. The cold indifference I wrapped around myself starts to thaw. “What?”
Callum glances up at me from his phone. “We have stuff to do. Veronica will go with you, and Steven will drive. You’ll stay at the free heat clinic for the next four days, and she’ll collect you and bring you back.”
I never envisioned my scent matches would be so cold.
They are my alphas. They are supposed to help me through my heat, not shove me out of the door the second I need them.
I lick my lips. “But I’ve never been to a heat clinic be—”
“That’s what the staff is there for. They’ll explain whatever needs to be explained.” Callum lowers his phone and looks at me when I don’t move, annoyance stamped across his face. “Was there anything else?”
“I wish I’d never met you,” I whisper.
“The feeling is mutual,” he says, his attention dropping back to the text message that he seems to regard as a better use of his time than talking to me for five minutes.
Tears prick my eyes, and I blink, willing them away.
I turn around to walk out, then I stop as a thought tunnels into my mind.
This doesn’t have to be my life. I can change it anytime I want to.
I thought time might make things better. Time is making things worse.
I turn around.
Callum has his head bent over his cell phone, his fingers busy tapping a seemingly endless message. Archer is staring out of the window, bored, and Torin has yet to show his face from behind his magazine. After the cruel things Torin said to me, the less I see of him, the better.
None of them want me here, so why am I here?
“I’m leaving,” I tell them firmly.
I meant it before Archer said things that made me afraid to leave. Maybe it was just lies. Maybe they’re just playing mind games with me.
Torin barks out a laugh, and I jump, startled. “No, you won’t.”
I lift my chin. “Yes, I will. You don’t want me here, and I don’t—”
“You’re ours for as long as we want you. And it’s not like anyone else will want you either.” Torin’s tone is harsh and ugly.
“Sinclair Parrish—”
Torin cuts in, "Wanted you before you were used goods. Go knock on his door if you want, see if he’ll even open the door to you now you’ve opened your legs to us.”
“I hate you,” I whisper.
“But that won’t stop you begging for our knots, will it?” Torin asks from behind his magazine.
Can’t bear to look at me. Yet he can’t help himself from lashing out at me.
I stand there, bristling with rage and shaking with tears.
But he’s right.
If I don’t go to a heat clinic, it won’t be long before I’m begging them for sex.
“Get out,” Archer says coldly.
I walk outside, closing the door behind me. Veronica appears at the end of the hallway as I’m struggling to control my tears.
“Miss?” she asks with a gentle smile.
Straightening, I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Can you pack me a bag? My heat is starting, and I’ll be spending the next few days at a heat clinic.”
Her expression doesn’t change, though she has to be wondering why my alphas aren’t helping me through a painful need that hits an omega every three months. “Yes, Miss.”
She walks up the stairs, while I stand in the entryway, my eyes blurry with tears and my hand pressed against my cramping belly.
I whisper to myself, “This is nothing.” But I’m lying to myself. I am trying so hard to be strong, but how much can anyone take of this hate?
Soon I won’t be able to stand. The pain will get worse. I will cry. I will beg, and I would throw myself at the nearest alpha to put out the fire inside me. Worst of all, I smell my alphas inches away—just behind the closed door—and I hurt, but they won’t help me.
I press my face against the wall, trying to breathe through the pain, ordering myself to keep quiet and not make a sound. They’d only laugh and slam the door in my face if they knew how much pain I was in right now.
“Miss?”
I startle, spinning around at the familiar male voice behind me.
Steven, the limo driver who brought me back from the party where my alphas abandoned me, stands next to the front door beside Veronica, wearing an all-black uniform. He doesn’t live here. Which means they called him and asked him to come to the house.
“I’m here to take you to the heat clinic,” he says, avoiding my gaze.
Just when this moment couldn’t get any more humiliating, another person appears to witness my alphas rejecting me.
I briefly squeeze my eyes shut in shame, my belly cramping as another wave of pain nearly drives me to my knees. “I don’t know where one is.”
His expression remains blank, but he’s judging me. How could he not be?
“They gave me instructions. I’m to take you to Ever Safe. There’s one not too far from here.”
Of course they did. As long as I’m someone else’s problem, I bet they don’t care where their driver takes me.
Veronica carries my bag as I follow him out, the sound of my shoes echoing on the marble entryway. From the games room, I hear my scent matches laughing.
“You’ll find everything you need here.” The woman showing me around my suite at the free heat clinic is nice. “The bathroom is on your left. You’ll find towels and whatever you might need to freshen up. And there're snacks as well between… well. When you need them.”
“Yes.” My eyes linger on the sex tools laid out on a wall shelf beside the bed. All are objects I can use to ease the painful need for an alpha’s knot that I’m here to sate.
Haven Academy told me what to expect when mating with an alpha. They didn’t prepare me for my alphas sending me to the nearest free heat clinic because they didn’t want to touch me.
“We’ll check in with you every couple of days, make sure you’re getting fluids.
” The nice beta retreats. Her nostrils flare as the scent of my perfume invades every corner of this sterile, windowless room with nothing in it but sex toys to imitate an alpha's knot, a bathroom, a bed, and a small silver fridge so I don’t starve while I do nothing but fuck this painful need away.
I wish I’d thought to get myself heat suppressants before.
Now that I know what to expect from my alphas, I’ll get some.
Five days later, Veronica sits beside me in the back of the limo, my bag of clothes by my feet, as I stare out of the window. It’s a gray afternoon, and every part of me is sore, tired, and fed up.
My heat was clinical and entirely forgettable. The staff might have checked on me, or they might not have. I didn’t care. All I was concerned about was fucking myself with every sex toy they had.
“Are they in the house?” I turn to ask Veronica.
I refuse to call that place home. It’s not mine, and it never will be.
“They had an event to attend, but I believe they’re back now.” There’s no judgment in Veronica’s voice, but I hear it just the same.
Of course they did. Their lives continue whether or not I’m under their roof. I bet they didn’t even notice I was gone.
“Did my mother call?” I ask her.
“No, Miss.”
That comes as no surprise. I call her. She never calls me.
“And my sister?”
“No, Miss.”
I hadn’t expected River to call. She’s still at Haven Academy, and speaking to her isn’t as easy as just picking up the phone.
The school will be focused on getting her ready to match her with an eligible alpha.
I wish I could warn her to run while she has a chance before she winds up with alphas like mine.
I nod but can’t find it in me to speak to Veronica anymore. I just want to get back to my room, have a long, hot shower, and crawl under my sheets. We sit in silence for the rest of the journey back to the house.
The driver opens my door for me, and inside the house, Veronica heads to the kitchen to start dinner. I’m walking toward the staircase when I hear a woman laughing.
It stops me in my tracks.
For two seconds, I stand with my right hand curling around the bottom of the balustrade as the sound of my heartbeat fills my head.
I tell myself to ignore the laugh. Nothing good will come from going to investigate what I heard. I know that in a deep, secret place in my soul.
This has the ability to hurt me. Badly. Maybe even scar me. Better to ignore it, go to my room, and pretend I didn’t hear anything.
But I can’t do that.
I have to know.
With my heart in my throat, I take my hand from the balustrade, turn around, and walk along the hallway to one of the living rooms I never use. The door is open, and my scent matches are not alone.
A beautiful woman, delicate, with long dark hair and China-blue eyes, sits on an armchair. My scent matches stand around her, smiling down at her as if she means everything to them.
An omega.
They sent me to a heat clinic. Alone. And they were here…
With her.
My eyes burn as I swallow more tears, nails digging into my palms. It doesn’t hurt; nothing could hurt me as badly as this.
They never even look up.
They don’t see me walk away, cross the entryway, and run up the stairs with tears soaking my cheeks as I struggle to build a solid ice wall around my heart.
It still hurts.
I don’t know why I go to the small room off my bedroom. Autopilot really. My heart hurts, and when an omega is hurting, she crawls into her nest, a place of comfort, and it comforts her.
But this nest brings me no comfort, and no joy.
Nothing but pain.
They built this for me, and I will never know why they gave me a nest this beautiful when they’ve done nothing but hurt me. I’d rather have no nest at all than this hollow, empty, superficial thing.
I see the silks and the cashmere and the fur and I wonder if this nest is identical to the one they made for her. And if that’s why I never see them in the house. They’re with her.
I tear into it as fat tears roll down my cheeks, my heart ripping in two. I shred the silks. When it isn’t enough, I hunt out a pair of scissors. I stamp on the cashmere; I rip and tear and fling everything around.
I destroy.
And when I’m standing in my destroyed nest, I sink to my knees, cover my face with my hands, and sob for the girl I used to be. The girl who wanted love and passion and something real.
But all I got was pain.