Chapter 21
Ariana
Mourning people who are still alive is unpleasant.
Things will never be the same again. I’ve thought it a million times, but a small part of me has always hoped to return to the beginning. Before my first heat, before I had a role to play. When we were just an omega and three alphas reveling in the magnetic attraction of a newfound scent match.
Despite my grief, acceptance feels freeing. There’s a weight off my shoulders I didn’t realize was there. I’ll never search for the old Ian, Liam and Cole again. Neither in the words nor their actions.
I don’t know if the realization came from the hollowness during Amy’s heat or after, when they declared me selfish. Saying I’d changed aloud made me face the truth, maybe. Now that my eyes aren’t avoidantly closed or looking over my shoulder towards the past, I can see clearly for the first time.
No more telling myself that my seclusion comes from protectiveness. This home is a cage. It may be beautiful and luxurious, but no matter how precious the material may be, a cage is a cage even if it’s made of gold.
I may be stuck with them, but the Coates pack was right. I don’t love them. I think I haven’t in a long time. I’ve just been clutching to memories from when I did, captivated by the bond and the draw of our scent match.
Maybe my birthday wish came true. I wanted things to be different. Perhaps I’m the thing that’s changed.
Walking into the sugary perfumed hallways doesn’t hurt. Not like it did days ago. My stomach doesn’t lurch in the slightest, even when I walk into the living room and almost smack into Amy. For the first time since she moved in, she’s the person I was hoping to see.
I haven’t run into her since my birthday party days ago. The distressed woman from then looks nothing like the one in front of me now. She has a content air about her, and an even more smug smile on her face.
My eyes travel to her neck. It’s not bare in any sense of the word. Hickeys paint the skin, but there’s not the crimson wound of a fresh mating mark. The alphas were honest in that regard.
An elegant silver necklace sits at the base of her throat. It’s gorgeous, catching the light of the apartment’s floor to ceiling windows. It matches the earrings dangling on her ears.
And the bracelet I received five days ago.
“What do you think?” Amy’s smile widens, touching a hand to the necklace. “Do you think it suits me?”
I stare at her in response. She’s certainly pulled out all the stops.
Her dress has Liam’s name written all over it, expensive and low cut to show off her ample chest and the marks on her neck.
Unlike my bird’s nest, her hair has been carefully styled, every layer blown out and curled.
Her makeup’s been done immaculately, the wing of her eyeliner sharp and precise.
Amy is a beautiful woman. I can see why they consider having her in the pack to be a status symbol. And by the way she rubs her hand against the necklace, it’s clear she’s enchanted by it.
She’s me, ten years ago. Prettier and shinier, sure. Appearance aside, at her core, she’s just a young woman swept off her feet by the attention and charm of a pack much older. I know how this story goes.
“Get out,” I blurt without malice. Words I wish someone had said to me when I was in her shoes. They aren’t the refined ones I’d been planning to say in the park during our walk, they come out of me bluntly. “Before it’s too late.”
“What?”
“Are you pregnant?”
Her hands go to her stomach. “Excuse me?”
“No, you can’t be. You just had a heat,” I note mostly to myself. “You’re not marked, they can’t stop you from leaving.” I run my mind through our options, considering how I’m going to tell the Coates pack I have a plus one. In my apathetic state, I hadn’t mentioned it during our walk.
Amy looks at me with her mouth open and eyebrows pressed together. Then her mouth widens into a smile and she laughs. “What the fuck? Are you that pressed about my heat?”
“You don’t understand-”
“No, I understand a lot better than you think I do. You think you can manipulate your way back to their hearts. Well guess what? They love me. I’m not you.”
My attempts to help her are falling on deaf ears. Amy is, after all, twenty one. Would my younger self have listened if someone had told me what my pack would be like in the future when I was being courted?
I look her over again. At the lavish gifts of expensive and exclusive jewelry on her body. By the way she’s dressed, they’ve told her about their planned grand gesture of the date they’ll be going on after her heat. I’m well aware of the constant affection they dote upon her.
And the realization strikes me that I won’t get through to her. The same way no one would have gotten through to me ten years ago, if anyone had tried. I am her, ten years in the future and she is me, ten years in the past. We are two sides of the same screwed omega coin.
My plan to convince her has failed, but it’s succeeded in one thing. The apathetic numbness in my body has disappeared. The results of my brief bouts of sleep over the week hit me in full force, making me feel more exhausted than I ever have.
“You think this is love?” I use the tone my alphas use on me, like they’re explaining something to a child. Because really, Amy is young. “I know their attention feels amazing right now. And this apartment’s stunning, right? Stunning enough to never leave these four walls?”
The other omega slows the hand running against the luxurious chain on her neck. Her eyes are big and blue. They remind me of Evan and Nico’s.
“It gets annoying being cooped up, doesn’t it?” I can’t stop talking now that I’ve started. “That’s why you’re dressed up for your date already. You know they won’t be back for hours. Especially not after missing work for five days to deal with your heat.”
She scoffs. “They didn’t deal with it. If that’s what you’re telling yourself to help yourself cope, go ahead. But I promise you, they were enthusiastic about it. They loved it. They couldn’t take their hands off of me. Want me to tell you what each of them felt like?”
Each sentence comes out more venomous than the last, accompanied by a wide smirk. I tilt my head slightly, smiling back at her knowingly. I think I see where our past ‘misunderstandings’ stemmed from now. Amy’s the type to lash out when she feels cornered or upset.
“Stop.” The other omega commands me, but she’s no alpha. She has no power over me.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
Right. Amy didn’t like receiving my sympathy before either.
“This will be your first time going out in a while, huh?” I turn my head to look out the window, watching the small people walking along the streets.
I remember nineteen year-old me, pressing my forehead to the glass. Giving the passersby below stories, because she could not go out and make her own.
“Seven years. It took seven years of being bonded for them to let me go outside for just simple walks. It wasn’t me that convinced them to allow it.
It took another alpha, a doctor to tell them it was a good idea.
How long has it been since the last time you went out, Amy?
” She doesn’t reply. I take a step closer regardless.
“Do you think they’ll be this enthused for post-heat dates forever? Your heat will stop being novel or exciting at some point. It’ll be expected. And you’ll be expected to bend over and accept their knot without the pomp and circumstance of preparation or care.”
“Not just during your heat, but every night. Then you’ll be expected to thank them for leaving you to go back to work so they can pay for this gold cage they’re keeping you in.”
“You’ll see,” I tell her. “One day you’ll be me.
And someone younger and more beautiful than you will come along.
A scent match was supposed to program them into loving me.
It still couldn’t stop them from chasing after the new and shiny thing.
Only, they’ve already bonded me in. It’s not so easy to replace me. ”
The other omega’s hands have left her necklace and are clutched into fists at her side now. She glares at me, but I continue.
“But that’s not the case for all of us. What do you think they’ll do with you when that time comes?” It’s harsh. It needs to be.
Two omegas in a pack are a status symbol. Three omegas in a pack are more than just a crowd. They’re unheard of.
“I’m. Not. You.” Amy repeats, hissing through clenched teeth.
“For your sake, I hope not.” Without looking back, I leave Amy standing alone in the living room.
* * *
Over the days of Amy’s heat, my phone died. I meant to text the Coates pack and let them know I’d like to leave. Instead, while waiting for the battery to recharge, I finally succumb to my exhaustion.
I can’t tell if I wake up in brief stints or imagine the sound of my pack returning.
I swear I hear them knock, letting me know they’re leaving for their post heat date.
Ian’s feet linger under the crack of my door after his announcement, but depart soon after with the other pairs of steps, making me sure it has to be a dream. Ian’s never hesitant.
I’m snapped abruptly out of my unplanned rest by the sound of the door flying open. It slams against the wall with a crack that makes me jump.
His dominance enters the room before he does, unrestrained. The force of it pushes down on my back, pins me to the mattress.
“Tell me,” Liam seethes, “that you didn’t tell Amy you were going to have her replaced.”
“I didn’t.” Say it in those exact words, I think to myself. I suggested she might be. By the man who’s standing above me irate at the thought, not by me.
A sob echoes follows after my denial. “She’s lying.”
Stuck laying on my stomach by the aura of the alpha’s dominance, I hadn’t registered the new arrivals. For the second time today, the pack’s collected in my room. With a new addition this time.