Chapter 18 #2
Players get back into position, and the puck drops. Royal Alphas get the puck right away, pushing their way toward the Scented Scorpions’ net.
The other team tries but can’t steal the puck. After some passing back and forth, the Royal Alphas take their shot. The Scented Scorpions’ goalie isn’t fast enough, and it just manages to make it into the net, giving the Royal Alphas the win.
Everyone loses it, cheering and pounding on the glass.
I watch Carson and Reid’s shoulders slump in defeat, then the camera is on Damien and his team.
Damien takes his helmet off, his smile from ear to ear as he looks up to the crowd, in the direction I was sitting.
When he sees I’m not there, the smile falls.
Guilt tightens in my chest, making me curl into FooFoo as I hug her tight to my chest.
The team crowds Damien, celebrating their win. I throw my phone down, burying my face into FooFoo’s soft fur.
Can’t my life just be normal for once?
Why do I have to feel big things so damn hard? For too many people?
Not long after the game ends, my phone starts to blow up.
Damien: Where did you go? Addie, I know what I said must have been a shock, but don’t run away from me. Where are you? We need to talk this out. Please.
Carson: Did you go home? Reid and I are coming over. Are you safe? Baby, answer me.
Tears fill my eyes because I don’t know what to think. What to say. Their biggest rival just confessed his feelings for me. And I haven’t even had time to process that yet.
Damien says he’s on his way home, and Carson and Reid are coming too.
Oh shit. This can’t be good.
Scrambling to my feet, I start to pace. Who do I talk to first? Damien? And hear what he has to say? Or Carson and Reid? Asking them to let me hear Damien out?
Do I even want to hear Damien out? I shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea.
But I want to know what he meant when he said he’s been in love with me for years. How?! Sure, I’ve seen that he’s possibly attracted to me, but in love? It doesn’t make sense. I’d have seen the signs, right?
In the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and change into a pink sweatpants and hoodie set, throwing my hair up into a messy bun.
Grabbing FooFoo, I hug her tight for comfort, her soft fur offering something to fiddle with as nerves wrack my system.
Not sure what else to do, I head downstairs and sit on the front step, waiting for them.
With each passing second, I feel like puking.
Eventually, the gate opens, and Damien drives through, and behind him, I’m guessing, is the rental car the guys are using.
Both cars park, and all three men get out of their cars at the same time.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Damien growls. “Get the hell out,” he shouts, pointing toward the gate. “You have no business being here.”
“Fuck you,” Reid growls. “We have every right to be here. She’s our Omega.”
“Addie,” Carson breaths my name, and I hold FooFoo so tight, my heart pounding in my chest.
At the sound of my name, Damien and Reid turn my way, their murderous expressions fading.
“Addie, baby.” Damien steps toward me.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” Reid growls.
“Stop!” I shout, jumping to my feet. I’m shaking; I’m so damn scared of what's going on, but I can’t have this breaking into a fist fight.
I hate yelling. I can’t stand fighting. Growing up, I heard too much of that from my parents. Hiding under my bed, my hands over my ears, waiting for one of them to leave and for the loud noises to stop.
“No fighting. Please.” My voice cracks, on the verge of crying.
Reid and Damien shoot each other a glaring look, but don’t argue. “Addie, can we talk?” Damien asks.
“About what?” Carson asks. “What did you say that upset her so much she had to leave?”
“None of your business,” Damien growls. “It’s between Addie and me.”
“She’s our Omega, it’s between us too!” Reid snaps.
“She’s my fucking Omega too!” Damien shouts back.
“What the hell does that mean?” Carson asks, looking between Damien and me. “Are you seeing him behind our backs?”
“What?” My eyes widen. “No!” I shake my head. “No, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t see anyone else without telling you. That's why I told you about the guys I’ve been playing with online. I didn’t want to keep secrets.”
“At least one of us has morals,” Damien mutters.
“What does that mean?” My brows furrow.
“It means we’ve all been keeping things from you, Addie. For years, I believed my reasoning was valid. Now, I couldn’t care less because you’re more important to me than anything. These two, on the other hand, I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t have told you by now.”
“Told me what?!” My heart is beating so damn fast I think I might pass out. I feel dizzy, my mind racing. I’m sweating like crazy. God, I think I might be sick.
Are they going to tell me there’s another girl? That they’ve been seeing someone back home?
“You going to tell her, or am I?” Damien asks the guys.
Carson and Reid look at one another, to me then back to Damien. “Not like this. Not right now.”
“Yes, right now!” Damien growls. “Everything needs to be on the damn fucking table. Right here, right now.” Damien turns to me, chest heaving, eyes a little wild.
“Someone tell me please,” I beg, before I go crazy.
“The guys you’re talking to online, Death, Waffle, and Grim.”
“How do you know about them?” My brows pull together. I told Carson and Reid, but I’ve never talked about my online friends with Damien.
His shoulders slump, and the sympathetic, guilty look on his face has my heart stuttering in my chest.
“Because we are them.”
I’m sorry, what? No, no, no, I didn’t hear that right.
“What?” I whisper, brows pulling together, shaking my head. “No.”
“Yes, Addie. I’m Death. And they’re Waffle and Grim. I’m not sure who is who, but we’re the three guys you’ve been talking to online. The ones you’ve been friends with for years, gaming together all the time. It’s me who told you I had feelings for you.”
“No.” I shake my head, my grip on FooFoo growing painful. “No. No.”
Damien takes his phone out, types something, and my phone dings.
“Check your phone, Princess,” Damien murmurs.
“Stop!” Carson shouts. “What the fuck, man? Why would you do this?”
“Because someone has to! We’ve been lying to her. She deserves better than this!”
With shaky hands, I pull my phone out of my hoodie pocket and check the notifications. It’s a message from Death.
Opening it, I nearly pass out when I see the text.
FatalDe@thWish: Hi Princess. It’s me, Damien. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.
“Is it true?” I whisper, looking at Carson and Reid. “You’re Grim and Waffle?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Reid insists. “We wanted to tell you, we just didn’t know how. We didn’t find out who you were until after we met at the gala. I promise.”
“Things were so new. We didn’t want to freak you out. We didn’t know how you felt about us as Grim and Waffle. We were afraid that if you knew, it might change how you felt about us.”
“So you kept it from me?” I ask, my heart breaking inside my chest. “Even after I told you I had feelings for my best friends? Why didn’t you tell me then!?”
“It was an awkward situation. We were taken off guard, and we didn’t know what to say at that moment,” Reid insists.
“So you hardly talk to me for days after, making me think I’m being a selfish Omega by wanting so many people? Here I thought I had feelings for five guys when in reality it was just three?” Well, six, but my feelings for Damien were confusing.
“We’re sorry, okay? We fucked up. We were going to tell you, I promise,” Carson insists. “After the game, before Damien started with his bullshit, we were going to tell you.”
“How did you know?” I ask Damien. “They were Waffle and Grim.”
“When I followed you to Vegas.” Damien rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.
I was so shocked by his confession of his feelings for me that I completely forgot about the part where he followed me to Vegas.
“What the fuck, man? So you’re a stalker now?” Reid hisses. “You should be arrested.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Damien growls.
“Who is who?” I ask Carson and Reid, my body starting to feel numb, detached, my mind starting to shut down. Too much to process, to deal with. I can feel myself disassociating.
“I’m Waffle,” Carson admits.
“I’m Grim,” Reid mutters.
And Damien is Death.
After years of wondering what they looked like, who they were, never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to be the three men standing in front of me.
The two men I met at the gala, the two strangers I went to a hotel with for my heat, found out they’re my Alphas, are two of the guys I’ve grown up with playing online.
Damien, my stepbrother, the guy I thought hated me for years, is really one of my friends, someone I’ve had feelings for for years.
It’s been them all along. Hours of gaming, laughing, and bonding. It’s been them. They’ve been my escape when I felt like my world was closing in. When I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
It was them who were my only bit of light for a very long time.
I’m enraged with the fact that they kept this from me. I have so many questions. But I’m also thrilled over the fact that I can have them. Right? I can have them? They’re mine, aren’t they?
My body starts to sway, my vision goes blurry, and the last thing I hear before everything goes black is three men rushing my way, yelling my name.