Episode 7
Grieves
Blood splatters the mat around me, accompanied by the cracking of my nose. Pain thunders through my face and I grin through it. My opponent, an alpha named Rodrigo who I’ve sparred with too many times to count, widens his eyes in surprise at the macabre blood covered smile.
He shouldn’t be surprised, though. Everyone knows how I relish the pain, relish the fight, the way my body aches after. It matches the ache in my heart, in my soul.
He lands another blow, and a choked laugh rumbles out of me. One that has him drawing up short, stepping away from me, arms raised not in a fighting stance, but palms open and pressed toward me, trying to ward me off.
“You okay there, mate?”
I spit a wad of blood and nod. “Yeah. Just grand. Let’s get on with it, yeah?”
Rodrigo gives a sharp shake of his head. “Get on with what? Me beating you bloody and you not fighting back?”
“I’ve fought back.” Not very hard and not very well. Everyone at the gym knows what I’m capable of when I’m at my best and it’s not this. Not even close.
Rodrigo shakes his head. “No, you really haven’t. And I’m all for letting you take a few hits to deflate that ego of yours, but I’m not into beating you just because you feel guilty.”
My spine snaps straight and a snarl curls my lip. “What?”
The alpha glances around the ring, taking in the spectators, all eagerly watching our exchange. With a sigh he takes one hesitant step toward me. “Look, we’ve all seen the show. We all know about Florence.”
“Don’t say her fucking name,” I grit out, more animal than man. “Never say her name.”
“You’re just proving my point, Grieves. You sent her away and now you regret it. You made a public commitment to Isadora Aureline and you regret it. And we get it, mate. We understand.”
It's on the tip of my tongue to tell him there’s no way he could understand. That he doesn’t even know the worst thing about the entire situation, that we sent our fated mate away, that we didn’t recognize her, didn’t keep her close and safe and provided for.
But he’s already moving on. “But we, none of us, are comfortable being the tool you use to punish yourself.”
I cast my glare around the room and most of them won’t meet my eye. “Is that so?”
Rodrigo swallows thickly and nods. “Yeah. When you’re ready to spar, when you’re ready to actually hit back, we’ll be here, but until then… I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a willing opponent.”
Frustration builds in my stomach. This is the only time I feel even remotely better. Here in this ring, with blood on my chin and cracked knuckles. He’s right, this is my penance, my punishment. And without it, I think I might go mad.
“And what if I were to command you to do as I wish, unwilling as you are?”
Everyone in the room stiffens. I can’t blame them. I have never used my position against them, against anyone. I haven’t felt worthy of it. And I don’t enjoy flexing that political power. I much prefer to use the power of my body, my fists.
“Then I suppose we would have to obey, my lord,” Rodrigo says after a long, drawn-out silence. He’s staring stonily ahead, body tense waiting for me to make my choice.
I know if I tell him to fight me he will. He’ll keep battering at me if I order it, but what kind of a monster would that make me? When I know how he feels about it. How everyone here feels about it, apparently.
It would be a punishment for them as well as for myself and I’ve caused enough pain as it is.
So even though my alpha is in no way satisfied that I’ve suffered enough for my actions, I give a tight nod. “Very well. I shall return when I’ve sorted myself out.”
Which will be never.
Without Florence there isn’t a chance of that happening.
“Grieves,” Piers says, as soon as I slip through the door of our suite of rooms in the palace. “We need to talk. Now.”
Five words have never sounded so serious, so dire. No, that’s not true. You are not our omega, is pretty fucking dire too.
“Not right now,” I grunt out before I bypass my pack, striding into my room with Forsythe hot on my heels. I tug my sweat and blood soaked shirt over my head and toss it directly into the bin. I’m not going to make the staff try to get that clean.
“You can’t keep doing this, mate,” Sythe says, leaning a shoulder against my open door, watching as I examine my injury in the mirror. “It's not healthy.”
I snort and that makes my nose ache. “I used to do this all the time, remember?”
Our prime frowns. “That was when it was a job, a sport you competed in. This is…” he runs his warm brown eyes over me, cataloguing every one of my injuries. Most of which I could have avoided. I just didn’t want to. “This feels like a punishment, Grieves.”
I grit my teeth around the words I want to spit out. About how it is a punishment. Of course it is, and I fucking deserve it. We all do. About how the only time I don’t feel cut up about the pain we caused Bubbles is when I’m being hurt instead.
The longer the silence goes on, the tenser Forsythe gets, until he eventually sighs. “Isadora is coming to dinner tonight.”
My jaw aches, I’m clenching my teeth so tight.
“I’ll call for the royal physician so you don’t look like so much of a bloody mess when she gets here.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not interested in spending time with bloody Isadora.
” Ignoring his glare I pull out my phone, check the messages from the men I’ve sent to watch Florence, to protect her, verifying for myself and my alpha that she is safe, unharmed.
It's the only way I can cope with being a half a world away from my mate.
I blow out a breath when I find a new set of photos of Ren.
Every day they send them. Well every day she leaves her house, which is most days except Sunday.
It loosens something in my chest seeing her in her button-up blouse and pencil skirts for the bank and with flushed cheeks and messy bun after her yoga classes.
Lately though, she hasn’t been going to the bank.
I put Mercer on figuring out why that is and he’s yet to get back to me about that.
I hate to think she lost her job because of the fallout of the show, because of the fanatics that have hunted her down.
My men have stepped in more times than I care to think about, keeping them from getting too close without Ren noticing.
Though, if I’m honest, the fact that she’s not going into the bank has made some of my anxiety ease, because that means she spends more time behind the high walls of her friends’ property, surrounded by guards and cameras to keep her safe.
I’ve tried on more than one occasion to break into those feeds, to be able to watch my omega while she’s safe at home, but no matter what I try, I’m always rebuffed. Another sign that she is safe and looked after, even if I find it frustrating as bloody hell.
“Why are you always-” Forsythe cuts off as he plucks my phone from my hand and looks at the screen. “What the hell is this?”
I shrug. “A picture of Florence.”
His jaw ticks and his dominance swells. I ignore it entirely and firm up my stance, readying for a fight that will probably never come.
“I know it’s a picture of Florence. Why the hell do you-” He swipes at the screen, taking in the countless photos that have been sent to me in the last month. “You have someone following her.”
I snag my phone back and tuck it in my pocket. “I have a whole bloody team following her. I have since the day we got back to Bravonne. You might have been happy to send her on her merry way and never think of her again, but I’m not able to do that. I need to know she’s safe.”
“You think I don’t need that too?”
I scoff, waving a hand at his impeccably dressed form, his perfectly styled hair. His neatly trimmed beard. “Look at you. The rest of your pack is falling apart and you're making plans to have dinner with the woman who manipulated her way into it. Who fractured it.”
His jaw ticks again, and this time his hands fist at his sides. “You know I have a duty-”
A harsh laugh bursts from my lips. “How long are you gonna hide behind that, mate? How long are you gonna cling to duty as the reason for all of your actions?”
My prime’s dominance swells and my own rises to meet it. He’s stronger than me, without a doubt. But at the moment I just don’t give a fuck. I relish the chance to fight him, to battle him, even if it’s not with my fists.
The tension breaks when Piers strides into the room with determined steps. He comes right up to me, curls his hands around my wrist and tugs me bodily out into the sitting room, where Court and Thayer are still waiting. “We’re talking now. Right now. Right this fucking moment. This can’t wait.”
It's on the tip of my tongue to argue, to fight against his grip, but he sounds legitimately worried, legitimately frantic, so I relent, propping myself against the wall on the far side of the room from Forsythe when he enters.
“Okay, Piers,” Court says, picking at a patch of black paint on the back of his hand. He looks as wrecked as I feel. “We’re all here. What’s so important that-”
“Florence,” the beta cuts him off. “It’s about Florence.”
He couldn't have caught our attention more if he’d stripped naked, covered himself in oil and started shouting ‘fire!’ at the top of his lungs.
“What about Florence?” Thayer asks, voice rough.
Our beta wrings his hands in front of him. “I wanted to be sure, to verify my suspicions before I told you. And I just… I just received confirmation today. Now.”
“You better start talking,” I grit out through my teeth. “Or so help me…”
“She’s sick,” Piers says, deflating, sinking onto the couch, looking pale as fuck.
“What do you mean she’s sick?” My voice comes out hoarse, harsher than I’d like.
He shakes his head and runs a hand down his face, before pinning Sythe with a look. “I called her. I know we said we wouldn’t but I just… I needed to hear her voice.”