Episode 20 The Clash of Omegas #2
I’d been torn between relief that he wasn’t touching my omega anymore, and the urge to force him back to her side to have him fix her. Never mind that he’s not some magical healer and had already done what he could.
Still it didn’t feel like enough and so now here I am, standing outside the door of her cabana with a sack full of painkillers and snacks, antibacterial ointment, and a fresh icepack.
And my omega is blinking up at me, owlishly.
Skin washed and hair pulled into a messy braid.
The dark smudge of a bruise on her cheekbone has my blood boiling all over again, and it's everything I can do to stop myself from finding Isadora, dragging her to the beach by her hair and tossing her into the ocean.
“Court? What are you doing here?” She reaches up to rub her eyes, tiredly, but winces when she makes contact.
I hold up the bag. “I brought supplies in case you didn’t already have them. Can I come in?”
She leans her shoulder against the door, considering me. “It’s probably not a good idea.”
“Probably not.” I agree. Then give her my best mischievous smile. “But we should do it anyway.”
A soft laugh falls from her puffy mouth and she shakes her head, stepping back and holding the door open wider to let me in. I don’t waste time, pushing by her before she can change her mind, dropping to the couch and busily pulling the items out of my goody bag and placing them on the table.
I twist the cap off the bottle of painkillers and shake two into my palm, then pause, glancing up at her. “Have you eaten?”
Her lips twitch. “You’re very comfortable for someone who just invited himself in.”
“Occupational hazard,” I mutter, handing her the pills and a bottle of water. “Also, you rough.”
“Oh, swoon. You say the nicest things, pretty boy.”
She takes them, anyway, settling down beside me on the couch instead of retreating to the far end like I half expected. Close enough that I can feel her warmth, smell the faint trace of her natural scent under the soap. I hate how good that feels. Hate how right it is.
I peel open the fresh ice pack and hold it up. “Cheek?”
She nods and I lift my hand slowly, deliberately, giving her time to pull away if she wants to. She doesn’t. Doesn’t even flinch when my fingers brush her jaw as I position it, just exhales and lets her head tip slightly into my touch.
My chest tightens at the trust in the movement.
“You froze earlier,” I say quietly. “When the medic tried to check your leg.”
Her shoulders draw in a fraction, but she meets my gaze steadily. “I did.”
“That wasn’t just embarrassment, was it? It was something… more.”
“Maybe.” She lets out a small, humorless huff. “You always this observant?”
I shrug. “Only when it matters. And you, Pixie, matter. A great deal.”
Her mouth drops open and her eyes flutter, like she’s beating back tears. Silence stretches. I keep my hand steady, ice pack cool against her skin, my thumb braced just under her ear. I can feel her pulse there, quick and uneven.
Finally, she murmurs, “I get flashbacks sometimes.”
My jaw clenches. “Of what?”
She keeps her gaze fixed somewhere past my shoulder, like she needs to keep some part of herself away from me as she tells me her truth. “An alpha.”
Something cold and sharp twists low in my gut. I don’t interrupt. Don’t rush her. Just shift closer, my arm coming around her without caging her in, giving her the option to lean or pull away.
She leans.
She sighs.
She scrambles into my lap, like she needs the comfort, or maybe she thinks I’ll need it by the time she’s finished telling me… whatever she’s about to. Her face presses into my neck, instinctually seeking the spot where my scent would be strongest if not for the suppressants.
“Without going into specifics,” she says carefully, the words tickling against my skin. “I… had a really awful experience with an alpha. Just-just one… but it was-” a delicate shudder cuts off her words. I rumble a half growl, half purr and pull her closer.
“It was enough to make you wary of all alphas. He barked at you?” I guess, thinking of how she’d asked that I not do that during our first challenge together. “Made you do something you didn’t want to do.”
I can just imagine what that might be. A beautiful, sassy, stubborn omega like Florence who has no problem telling and alpha ‘no.’ I can guess what he did to her, and it makes me feral. Enraged.
She nods, unaware of the fire burning inside me, the need to hunt down this motherfucker and rip him limb from limb with my bare hands.
“I know it's not logical. And I guess… Once I get to know an alpha, I can feel safe with them. My best friend Haven’s alphas are wonderful. They’re like this pack of big brothers that I would trust with my life.
But everyone else…” She trails off again, clearly uncomfortable talking about this, sharing this with me.
My hands smooth gently over her. Down her spine, the side of her thigh, her arm. Gently, gently, gently. So she doesn’t know that I’m plotting murder.
“They make you wary.”
A jerky nod of her head. “Part of why I came was because I thought this would be a good, safe way to interact with unknown alphas. My therapist wanted me to start going to those alpha/omega mixers—do you guys do those in Bravonne? But that felt too… overwhelming. Safe, sure. But all those packs? All those alphas?”
“You wanted to start with just one new pack. See how it went.”
A hum of agreement from her as she nuzzles closer. And doesn’t that just make my heart go all warm and gooey? Here she is doing something hard, telling me something she doesn’t have to share, just because I asked.
Brave little omega.
I rub my cheek over the top of her head, wishing like hell I could scent mark her, make her smell like mine, but the damn suppressants make it impossible.
“How do you feel about us? Now that you’ve had a chance to get to know us?”
My arm lifts with the strength of her inhale before she blows out a long breath. “You guys are… great.” Why does she sound hesitant about that? Is she just telling me what she thinks I want to hear?
I pull back, wanting to look at her expression while I press the issue. “Is that the truth?”
A small huff of laughter makes her pretty eyes crinkle.
“It’s part of the truth,” she admits. “You are great. All of you, and I never thought I would feel so at ease with another group of alphas. Especially not alphas who aren’t…
mine.” She finishes on a whisper, looking away from me.
The admission hits like a punch to the gut, like Grieves just fucking roundhouse kicked me in the stomach.
We are yours, I want to tell her. But I can’t.
“I kind of thought I wouldn’t be able to get to this point with any alpha unless they were, you know, my pack.” Fated mates she means. Fuck, I need to know what happened to her. Need to understand what’s made her so fucking terrified of my designation, but I know I can’t force her to tell me.
It’s not my fucking place to demand anything of her.
Not when I can’t offer her more than this, more than listening to her, offering her the barest amount of comfort.
After a long stretch of silence, she says softly, “He didn’t rape me. I don’t want you to think that’s what happened. It wasn’t sexual for him. It was more about dominance.”
I blow out a breath that ruffles the soft strands of her hair and pull her closer to me.
Which is a feat because she’s already pressed into my chest as tight as she can be.
“I had been… worried that might be that case.” Worried is too soft of a word for what I’d been feeling.
Concerned. Sick. Fucking irate as hell that anyone would dare to touch her without her consent.
She tips her head back, just enough to press a soft kiss to the hinge of my jaw, like she thinks I need to be soothed in this moment.
And she’s right, I do need it.
I need her.
Her soft kisses on my skin. Her warm weight on my lap. Her yielding curves pressed to my hard edges. Her laugh. Her smile. Her words. Her safety. Her love. I need all of that. All of her.
I wish like hell I could have her.
Keep her.
Make her mine.
But that’s not in the cards for me. For us.
This is as far as it can go. This show, these moments. And if that’s the case, if I’ll never have the chance to hold my little pixie on my lap again, there’s no way in hell I’m going to waste this chance, this moment.
Ren’s brows pull low over those bewitching eyes of hers as I lean back, using a knuckle to tip her chin toward me. “Court?”
“I want to kiss you, Pix. Can I?”
There’s a flicker of hesitation, a moment where I’m sure she’s going to say no. So much so that I’ve already dropped my hand away from her chin, when she breathes out a soft, “yes.”
Another moment where I don’t let myself think through the consequences of my actions. My hand comes back to her precious face, my mouth already descending toward hers. She lifts to meet me and then…
Electricity.
Fireworks.
Bolts of lightning zipping up and down my spine.
With one kiss, Florence Karlin has altered my make-up, my DNA.
And I will never be the same again.