12. Cassidy
twelve
Cassidy
To her defense, she doesn’t curse or try to run. All she does is close her eyes and shake her head in regret. It’s not just the sour scent coming off her. I can read the disappointment all over her face.
It doesn’t feel great that our Omega hates us so much that she stole a truck to skip town. It’s a miracle the truck is still intact since I doubt she knows how to drive.
But that’s Indigo for you. She swims, she fights, she escapes. She does things without needing to learn, without considering that other people might want to help. She’s fierce, and while I fucking love that about her, it fills me with dread and fear for her safety.
“Indie…” Nash shakes his head. The disappointment is so thick in his voice that she winces.
Nash will do that to you. He’s too nice, never raises his voice, so when he’s disappointed, it feels like a knife digging deep into your chest. It takes a moment, but Indigo shakes off the effects of Nash’s tone, and that delicious scowl returns to her face.
She crosses her arms in front of her chest and tips her head up in challenge.
“What are you all doing here?”
I scoff. “Looking for our truck. Do you know where it is?”
She flinches, looking guilty. “I had to borrow it.”
“Oh, I don’t remember you asking.”
“Cass…” Hanks says in warning, but damn, this whole thing is so dangerous. Aren’t we even talking about it?
“Can we talk, Indie?”
Nash’s voice is soft but firm. His eyes pin her in place. Okay, so we are trying not to be assholes. No one told me that. It works on her, because she drops her arms as her frown softens and she nods. Timidly, but she agrees.
“What is the number of your room?” he asks next. “Can we trust you to wait for us while we take care of the horses?”
She swallows a lump in her throat and looks down at her feet instead of our eyes. “Can I trust you not to force me to do anything I don’t want?”
“Christ,” Hank curses, turning around with the heels of his palms covering his eyes.
Each Omega under our care has a similar horror story.
I don’t even need to know Indigo’s to know it’s no fairy tale.
She was born in captivity, which means she never had a day of normalcy in her life, because let’s face it, that motel is nothing like real life.
Since all I can do is imagine what happened to her, my mind runs amok, creating fucked-up scenarios that have me doubling over wanting to spill my breakfast.
Letting the Omegas see how disgusted and enraged I felt by just knowing what they went through would only add to the burden. It’s not fair. So the best I could do is make a stupid joke and not act like they were fragile all the time.
No jokes flow past my lips right now. There’s another level of wrongness when an Omega asks you not to rape her. It fucking hurts, yet she’s right. They all did it. Why wouldn’t she suspect that we are one of them?
“No one is going to touch you,” I say, and I hope she hears the truth in my voice. I’m not only speaking about us three. No one will ever touch Indigo without her consent.
She swallows a lump and finally nods, hearing the silent plea in my voice.
“Room 55,” she says before turning on her heels and closing the door after her.
My brain is scrambled. I don’t fucking know how to act around Sour Peach. She’s not a people person, and I should be the first one to understand that, but how can I turn off this need to hold her tight against my chest?
“Let’s get the horses settled,” Nash says, cutting my thoughts in half.
Thankfully, the hotel employees were charmed by our theatrical appearance, and when we told them we needed to let the horses rest and eat, they jumped into helping mode. Even as I follow my packmates toward the back building, my eyes can’t seem to leave the door Indigo disappeared through.
The truck is in the parking lot between us and the motel, but fuck, what if she decides to get a ride with someone? She’s crafty. I pat Lion—oh yes, Emilio named his horses after other animals—and as soon as he’s comfortable, I make a beeline for the door she went through.
No one says a word or tries to stop me. A need claws its way from the confines of my being, and every ticking moment the man within gives room to the Alpha.
I remind myself she doesn’t need a beast, but even Nash, who is usually the voice of reason, jogs by my side.
There’s no way I can hold back if he can’t.
Her scent is heavy on my tongue, the closer I get to her room. My skin tingles with awareness, and my cock strains from my jeans. I push the shirt up my forearms, glancing at the ink I love so much as I try to concentrate on anything that isn’t her and her frightened blue eyes.
We glance at each other like unsure kids as we stop in front of her door. I roll my eyes at them and knock, a little more aggressively than I should, but I’m not completely sure she is still here even though she would have to pass us to escape. The fear and doubt are still plaguing me.
“Come in,” her soft voice calls.
Thank god. I push the door open, and I’m met with a scene I wish I’d never witnessed.
Stripped of all her sass and attitude, Indigo is sitting in the corner of the room, down on the carpet, hugging her knees.
Her big blue eyes are rimmed red, her breathing erratic, and the whole room reeks of her fear.
Thick paralyzing fear. The sour peach scent is nothing compared to this. Back at the motel, she smelled like sour jelly, for fuck’s sake. This? This is something else. It’s rotten black mold eating fruit alive, but the fruit is our little Omega.
“Indigo…”
Hank sways on his feet, wanting to go to her but knowing she doesn’t want us. His uncertainty reflects ours, and just like him, we stand here with no idea what we can do to make it better.
Nash moves so fucking slowly, as if she’s a scared animal, but even his soft movements are too much for her. Indigo jumps to her feet, hands out to stop him.
“Please, don’t come closer.”
The hand he’s reached out to her, he brings up now in surrender.
Everything feels so fucking tense, and I realize this is worse than I’ve ever imagined.
I never considered that Indigo was truly rejecting us as her mates.
Fuck, I knew she wasn’t jumping up and down, but I thought she would come around.
I’m so beyond stupid. She looks ill, cornered.
“We were worried about you,” Nash starts. “You just left. I had no idea—”
“I’m sorry I took your truck,” she says, licking her lips before squeezing her eyes. “I’m sorry I took the money too.”
“I don’t care about the money.”
“You should care.” She frowns. “I know stealing is wrong, but…”
“You had to do it,” I finish her sentence.
Even though we would never hurt her, she had no idea of our true intentions. At the time, running away was her only option. Whatever is going on in her mind right now is pushing her into dangerous situations, and that’s the only thing I’m worried about.
“I had to do it,” she agrees.
A coat of sweat makes her soft skin shine, and her clothes cling against her skin. She licks her lips as if they are dry, all symptoms of her heat. I wish it was her intoxicating sugary scent up my nose instead of the disgusting fear that makes me want to hurl.
“Can you walk us through the thought process?”
She winces, and I realize I sound sarcastic. I’m always sarcastic, but I actually mean it this time. I shake my head and try again.
“I just want to understand what you’re thinking.”
Indigo hugs her midsection, tears now falling down her cheeks, and she laughs a humorous laugh as she shakes her head.
“Understand what? How can I explain to you what it feels like to be forced to give your body? How does it feel to be a visitor inside yourself? How can I even start telling you that I spent my life with people taking and taking from me, and I can’t let that happen anymore?
” Her voice shakes, and more tears fall. “It can’t happen anymore.”
“Jesus, Indigo, no one is going to force you,” Hank growls.
His bedside manner is even worse than mine, but fuck, her words are cutting, and we are bleeding all over the fine hotel carpet. She needs to understand we wouldn’t take what is not freely given.
“The scent-match took away my choice!” she screams, eyes wide as she takes us in. “The heat is taking over, and soon I’ll be nothing and just beg and beg… and… my body will be yours. My life will be yours. Where’s the freedom in that?”
My stomach drops, hands ball into a fist as anger grows inside my chest, yet I can’t place blame on anything.
It’s not Indigo’s fault she feels like that.
She’s right on every word out of her mouth, yet I can’t regret scent-matching.
It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
It’s a fucking miracle. So what? What do I do with this bitterness coating my tongue?
With the hollow feeling in my chest? What am I supposed to do with pain if I can hurt something else?
“What if we can stop it?”