46 Kit
Groaning, I felt how stiff my body went.
I also took in how my limbs were tangled with others because they couldn’t move.
I found Ryatt and his pack still in my bed when I opened my eyes.
It hurt my heart even more because they stayed out of pity.
They finally saw what broke me, but I hadn’t created armor out of my new broken pieces like before.
Something else rolled in my stomach, souring all the contents within it.
Jerking out of their arms and legs, I scurried to the end of my bed to bolt for the bathroom.
The fresh smell of bleach told me this hadn’t been the first round of purging my guts.
They had seen me at my weakest point, and I couldn’t fortify myself from their eyes.
Retching, I felt how the acid burned up my throat to expel into the toilet. I gripped the sides for dear life as my head hunched over. It kept coming because my body wasn’t ready for food still. Falling back onto my ass, I wiped my chin with the back of my hand before crying.
My head leaned against the wall behind me as I cradled my knees to my chest. Nothing felt like this, and I relived my past without the veil blocking it from becoming a nightmare. Thinking I had privacy, I forgot who must’ve stirred when I ran from the bed.
“Kitty Kat?” Kayos arrived only in his grey boxers, holding himself up against the doorframe. Ryatt and the others crowded around him, staring at me with concern.
Whimpering, I rapidly shook my head. “Leave! I don’t want you to see me like this!”
“We’re not going anywhere ever again,” Ryatt rebutted my order.
“I said leave!” I hissed at them. All my previous trauma reared its ugly head, reminding me they weren’t here last time.
“But you need help,” Turner murmured.
“Then get me Anika,” I sobbed. “I need Anika!”
My body remembered who our sanctuary became. It wasn’t any of the men I wanted it to be. My best friend, the one championing for me this whole time. I needed the one person I called family.
Somehow, Jericho who comprehended what the others couldn’t. Pushing them back, he tipped his chin to me. “We’ll go back to our room, and I’ll make sure she comes in.”
Clasping my head under my forearms, I balled into my knees to hide in their departure.
My knees acted as my shield, preventing me from seeing the enemies in my presence.
I knew the guys cared, but it was hard not being strong in front of them.
I wasn’t who they came back and met, ruining me even worse than the first time I went through this.
“Fuck no,” Anika growled when she saw me losing it to everything. She stomped over to where I crumbled, squatting to be face to face with me. It was hard for her to avoid the toilet, but she managed. “Who are you?”
“Don’t,” I started, shaking my head. “I don’t have her in me anymore.”
“Nah, you do. You’re the baddest bitch I know. You came out of this fire the first time and brushed off the embers. Now, what are you?” Anika took hold of my cheeks, making me meet her dark eyes. “What. Are. You?”
“I’m a phoenix,” I whispered back, knowing the words to this repetition game that encouraged me to choose strength.
“Why?” she growled, determined to get me to see what she did.
“I rose again,” I hiccupped through the river of tears soaking my cheeks.
“You did what?”
“I rose again,” I said with a harder voice.
“I can’t hear you!”
“I ROSE AGAIN!” I shrieked it with my feral nature rising. Primal screams were therapeutic, and I released mine in the echoing bathroom.
“Do you want the easy path of drugs to die, or are you going to show all these Alphas who the real boss is?” Anika stood up, holding her hand out to me.
Closing my eyes, I felt more droplets squeeze from them because my mind could only think about having another hit to numb everything. “Anika…”
“Beta!” she shouted at me. “You gave me that name because I chose you to lead me! My Omega! No Alphas, remember? You and me! We defied the odds, and we can do it again! Fuck, we’re not even starting from scratch this time.”
She panted after her tangent of power, exuding her own into me, letting me leech off her for me to stand again. There weren’t words for best friends, but Anika just needed me to believe in her as a return for her believing in me. Taking her hand, she got me to my feet, my legs already wobbling.
Anika moved to the cabinet in my bathroom, showing me where she stored the drugs Damien supplied her with to taper me down.
She revealed the hiding place, daring me to take them behind her back, challenging me to stay clean.
My body still felt like lead ran through my veins, but it came from the drugs she had been giving me to ween me off.
My mouth watered at the thought of having them again as she prepped the needle.
“This is your last day of getting any. You’ve been out for a few days now, so you better be ready for the ugly part of your recovery.” Injecting the last dose into my flesh, I felt the slight rush sweep through me as my anxiety went with it. “We just entered it.”
Tossing the needle, I watched her give me her back.
She was right, this next part would be the hardest. Being weened meant I still got the drugs.
Now, I had to fight the temptation and pretend it wouldn’t eat at me nearly every second of the day.
She turned on my shower and waited for me to climb in.
Fixated, I was still in a trance about the drugs that were within my reach.
They were right there, and they would be until Anika knew I wouldn’t think about them like I was.
Most people got rid of everything to cut their problem, but Anika made me battle it.
She placed them in a spot where she kept count of them and forced me to take accountability.
“Omega,” she gently said my name to pull me from the terrorizing thoughts. Turning my back away from the open cabinet, I made my way to my best friend. No, it wasn’t that simple, and I knew the hard days were ahead.
***
Damien
Ryatt stuck to his word, keeping me posted about Kit’s state.
She had just taken her last dose to ween her down.
While he didn’t give me details, I knew her path of hardship was about to begin.
His text felt like the easy part of my day, and that said a lot because Kit’s struggled cut through my core, but I had a meeting about to begin with who remained of my father’s men.
Most were the ones who had other work details when shit hit the fan, and they had no idea I’d been part of my father’s demise.
They believed I ran some errands in town, and I paid a kid to carry my phone around for the day to make sure they traced me in those areas.
“What do we do?” one panicked, sitting across from me. Everyone’s hummed with frantic paranoia, arguing over what they thought should happen. They had no idea I already began creating the new empire with me as their leader.
Reaching out to someone I hated more than my own father, Randall Wickham, the devil himself would be paying this meeting a visit.
Ryatt and Kayos’s father, the man secretly starting up the fighting rings with my father.
Speaking of, the doors to this conference room burst open as two of his men entered first. The men in the room all silenced, recognizing his power instantly.
Some even cowered, but I kept my head held high as the other Alpha in the room.
Standing from my chair, I did what my father always had and greeted him first to establish my territory and dominance.
Randall knew it, kicking up the corner of his mouth, but he still needed the buildings I had that were left to me in my father’s will.
His whole empire became mine the moment Castiel killed him, but I had to keep playing along that I didn’t know who killed my father.
I had to pretend I wanted this partnership to get to the root of the problem.
“Randall, thank you for coming today.” Grinning, I waved him over to the table as one of his men pulled out his seat.
“Thanks for having me, boy. I look forward to working with you and your new empire.” When he said it, my father’s men looked to me in disbelief, forgetting my place in the ranks from being my father’s shadow.
Randall knew today we were breaking the news to them, but they still weren’t prepared for it.
He laughed. “Who did you think would take over Saul’s power? One of you?”
“Me.” Antonio stood from the table. Outside of those who died, he was one of few remaining of the former inner circle.
His hands slammed the table in defiance of what we were demanding.
A proposal meant gaining their input, but this would be a dictatorship.
I’d sire those who had been loyal to me as members of my own, but Tony wouldn’t make the cut.
“Oh?” Randall swiveled his chair to face the rat.
“Saul didn’t trust his son, so why should we follow him? He’s weak and conniving.” Tony spat in my direction.
“Yet, he left everything to me?” I questioned for them to dispute the claims with facts. “Why would he do that?”
“You’re his only blood left,” Tony tried to argue.
“Wills can be left to anyone to inherit,” Randall stepped in. “Saul also let me know that he trusted Damien to work with me if something were to ever happen to him.”
“He’s weak,” Tony hissed. “He was the errand boy and doctor for the whores.”
“I’ve dirtied my hands plenty of times for my father, and you’re also forgetting I’m the one who delivers our slaves to the Sellers.” Standing myself, I knew there was only one way to handle this.
Randall defended my name again as Tony verbally fought him from across the table.
He didn’t even see me get right behind him.
Ripping Tony by the hair, I forced him to sit again with his head held at an angle over the back of the chair.
He didn’t have time to react before I slit his throat for the rest to see.
The blood sprayed over the surface of the table, letting everyone see the horror I’d create in my stride to the top.
“Anyone else disagree with my role as the new Alpha to my father’s kingdom?
” Most dropped their eyes in respect and fear.
That was how things ran in this world, and I had to be cruel to fit among the ruthless of them all.
Killing hadn’t been easy to stomach for me, but Tony’s death came easy after all the wrongs he committed.
Randall smirked at my actions, knowing it had to be done to prevent an uprising. He’d never be a man I’d ever call a friend, and I’d never bear my neck to him. He’d sink his teeth into me and rip my throat out, smiling the whole time.
If it weren’t for my debt to Castiel for keeping my hands clean in my father’s death, I wouldn’t let him keep living.
Though, Castiel needed information on the inside, and I was finally in that circle of leadership that stood against the Alphas in Kit’s home.
One day, Randall would die, but he was worth more alive today.
I began siring a few men around the table that I acknowledged as my inner circle, and no one fought against it.
Like Anika was Kit’s ally, they were mine.
Men who hated this world and the empires running it.
Choosing them meant I wanted to undo it all, and they knew that.
I chatted with each before today because I needed to know which side they were on.
With four on mine, we’d stand and run a kingdom of madness into the ground, spiraling Randall with it.
He’d asked me before this meeting if I wanted to run this empire. My answer hadn’t been a lie when I said yes because I had future plans for it. My truth tricked him, but he didn’t question deeper than that. He didn’t question if my future for it would ruin his own.
My new inner circle and I were the stained names in society, but it wouldn’t be forever.
Nothing ever was.