Episode 12 Kissed Awake, Still Furious
Kindly fuck off. That’s what she says after rejecting us.
I can’t even blame her.
We did the same to her. We turned her into this pale shadow of herself. She’s doing a good job of hiding how in pain she is. But every time she moves, there's a wince, a flinch. She’s hurting and we did that to her. We need to fix it. I need to fix it.
And there’s only one way for us to do that.
“No,” I say, denying her.
“No?” she mouths back at me, soundlessly.
I shake my head and move to the foot of the bed, the one that smells like her, like us. Our pack, altogether. Even tinged with sickness and pain, I want to bottle it up and carry it with me always, so I can always remember what home should smell like.
“No, Florence, we will not fuck off.” I lean down and grip the wood of the footboard, pinning her with a hard look.
“No, we will not leave you here sick and in pain. Whether you want to admit it or not, being around us helps heal you. You are conscious and your fever broke because Piers and Courtland held you while you slept. You were able to put food in your belly because Thayer sat next to you while you ate. You may fucking hate us, love, but you need us.”
She scoffs. “I would rather feel pain every day of my life than to spend another second in any of your presence. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
“I already said no,” I clip.
She glares, her pretty kaleidoscope eyes narrowing to points before she sniffs and shrugs. “Fine.” Then she reaches for her phone and I know what her plan is before she even touches it.
Grieves must too, because he gets there before I can, snatching up the mobile as she hisses at him. He gives her a sad little smile and tucks the device in his back pocket.
“You can’t ring those psychos to come and kick us out, bubbles. Not until we finish discussing this.”
“There’s nothing to discuss!” she shouts, leaping to her feet on the mattress and swaying dangerously when she’s upright. Grieves and Thayer reach out to steady her, but she slaps their hands away. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Her voice is a growl. “The thought of your hands on me makes me sick.”
Thayer pins her with a look. “I actually think it has the opposite effect, killer.”
She scowls at him. Then darts to the edge of the mattress. I catch her with an arm around her waist before her feet make contact with the floor, pulling her back against my chest as she struggles to get free. “Let me go!”
“No running, cor mea,” I murmur into the top of her head, my beard catching on the silky strands. “Not now. Not ever.”
“You left me!” she whispers, her body sagging in my hold, already exhausted from her struggle. “You fucking left me. Not the other way around. I can’t just stand around waiting for you to do it again. It’ll kill me.”
I don’t think she’s being dramatic here. I think she believes that. If we reject her again she could die.
“That’s not going to happen, sunshine,” Piers says, voice a low rumble.
Her head lifts and I can tell she’s pinning him with a look even if I can’t see it.
“No? You’re a member of the pack, bitten in and bonded and they still hide you away, Piers.
Because you're a beta. And you just stand by and let them do it.” She shakes her head, her voice thick with anguish for him and for herself.
“I refuse to let anyone do that to me. Fucking refuse.”
We all flinch. I let her go and she stumbles away from me, spinning to keep us all in her sights as she backs toward the door.
“I want you to go, and I don’t want you to come back.
Do you understand? It hurts me to see you.
Hurts me that you could suggest-” She cuts off with a sharp shake of her head.
“You know what? I don’t owe you any sort of explanation.
I want you gone. So you’ll go. End of story. ”
“No, not end of story.” It's on the tip of my tongue to bark at her to sit down and listen, to make her give us a chance to talk this out with us. To let us figure out how to fix this for her, so everyone gets what they need.
But I will never do that. Will never bark at her.
Even I’m not that much of a monster.
“Please, sit down, cor mea,” I say instead. “Please listen. Please work with us to find a way that we can give you what you need.”
“But you can’t!” She cries out, still backing toward the door.
“You can’t give me what I need. What I need is a pack.
Your pack. To be bonded and mated and you won’t give that to me, will you?
You’ll bond fucking Isadora instead and give me scraps.
I’d rather have nothing than to have to watch you with her. See her bite on you.”
A low growl rolls out of me, unbidden. “That won’t happen. She’ll never bite us, Florence, I can promise you that.”
A harsh laugh falls from her lips. “Right. You’ll just bite her instead.
You have to, right? For appearances at least. You’ll give her something that should be mine.
Only mine. And it won’t stop there, will it, Sythe?
Your bite.” Her fisted hand pounds on her chest. “Your bond.” Slam.
“Your knot.” Slam. “Your children.” Slam. “All things that should be mine.”
Each word lands like a blow, bruising. Painful. Like she was hitting me instead of herself. She’s right. All of those things should be hers. They are hers, even if I can never give them to her.
Thayer frowns at her, like he’s just now realizing what this means. “Maybe we can find a way to just marry her? Make her a princess but you’d be our bonded omega.”
“You never cared about the title anyway, right, Pixie?”
Ren stares at us, silent, condemning. I shift uncomfortably on my feet. “That wouldn’t work. Isadora would never let that stand. Ever. She’s already crowing to anyone who will listen about how we picked her over our fated mate.”
Ren flinches and I curse myself. She didn’t need to hear that.
She’s been asleep for the last twenty hours and isn’t aware of the absolute shitstorm her interview caused.
How the monarchy is saying this is another manipulation on Ren’s part.
And Isadora is feeding the other side, playing up that ours is a love match, stronger than fate, and that Florence is so bad even her fated mates didn’t want her.
I’m sure she’s going to get an earful from the queen about that, about not following the crown’s lead. But either way, it paints Ren as the villain.
Even though we know the truth.
Florence Karlin could never be a villain.
She’s pure fucking sunshine.
Our sunshine.
“Since when do we care about what Isadora does or doesn’t do?” Thayer drawls. “She can crow about it all she wants, doesn’t make it the truth.”
Ren swipes both hands down her face and mutters.
“Jesus fucking Christ. It is the truth. You picked her over your fated mate, and you’re going to do it again and again and again.
Because that is what your duty demands. Well, I have a duty too.
A duty to myself, to take care of me, to make sure I survive as long as I can for the people that love me. ”
“We have that same duty, little bird.” She flinches when Piers all but calls her a duty, and I see the remorse on his face as he takes a step toward her, hand outstretched like he wants to comfort her. “Not like that. We want to take care of you, Ren.”
The rest of us nod emphatically. Thayer presses a hand to his chest. “My alpha is raging at me that we let this happen to you.
Worse that we caused it. It's not duty, killer.
It's need. We need to take care of you, to make it right. We need to know you’re healthy. That you're safe and provided for.”
Florence’s lower lip quivers before she stiffens her jaw and folds her arms over her chest. “And your idea for doing that is to make me your pack’s mistress.”
“It’s the only way we can take care of you the way you need, cor mea,” I say the words firmly. With anyone else they would see it for what it is, a line, a statement, a truth. They certainly wouldn’t see it as an invitation to argue.
But Florence does.
Of course she does. She’s never backed down from a fight when she thinks she’s right.
“Well, we both know that’s a lie. Don’t we, Your Highness,” she sniffs.
I grit my teeth, biting back an angry retort.
I don’t want to fight with her. I never have.
Not like this. But if it’s what it takes to get her to see reason, to get her to let us help her, I’ll stand here arguing with her until we’re both blue in the face, until she understands that we need each other.
“What about when Isadora goes into heat?” Ren asks harshly, changing the subject too rapidly, it takes me a moment to catch up.
“What about when Isadora goes into heat?” Grieves asks, calmly. “You think we’re going to fuck her?”
“Won’t you?” Our omega cries, throwing her hands up in frustration.
“Won’t you? Isn’t that the whole point of having an omega?
Of choosing her? Do you imagine she’d be willing to endure a heat alone?
Or are you planning on letting other alphas take care of her, impregnate her?
With the new laws any babies conceived will be tested for paternity, what are you gonna do when the world realizes that none of you are the father?
How would that fit in with the perfect fucking image of the royal pack?
How would your grandmother react to that, Forsythe? ”
I flinch and she sees it, but I don’t back down. “There are ways to prevent pregnancy, Ren. She can use them. She’ll have to if she wants to avoid being seen as the omega who would cheat on her pack. On the royal pack.”
There’s a long, drawn out silence and then Ren laughs, loud and harsh.
“Right. Of course. An answer for everything. Your way or the highway. You’ll hold her reputation over her head, protect her position as a princess, keep her in line and all the while you imagine you’ll be fucking me? Cheating on her with me?”