Chapter 10 #2
My feet know the path. New releases, midlist, backlist. My hands trail along spines like old friends. I pick up a book I've already read three times just to feel the weight of it.
Jasper lurks near the endcap, pretending to read a history blurb. He's not subtle. His eyes track Eli and Marie as they move between shelves, watch how Marie's hand eventually lands on Eli's arm when she laughs at something he says.
I hate how much that laughter doesn't sound fake.
I find Drake by the graphic novels. "Hey. Found your next terrible series?"
"Blasphemy. My series are all excellent. You have no taste."
"I have impeccable taste. I chose you."
The words punch a hole in my chest.
He realizes what he said half a second too late. "I mean—we chose—I—"
"Relax. I know what you meant."
Jasper's gaze brushes us, sharp and quick.
When we regroup an hour later, Marie has three books clutched like fragile birds. Eli's carrying two. Drake has a stupid dragon comic I'll steal later.
"What did you pick?" I ask Marie.
She rattles them off—cozy mystery, romance, organizing nonfiction. "I know it's basic."
"Basic is a marketing term retailers invented to shame women. You like what you like. That's allowed."
Her smile is real this time.
"And you?"
I hold up my single choice, suddenly self-conscious. "Just this."
It's a book I've already read twice. Comfort and pain and found family with sharp edges.
"Only one? Are you sick?"
"I'm budgeting. For blankets. And life. And the collapse of society."
Ragon pays for everyone without blinking. Jasper watches where we stand while we wait—how Marie ends up between Drake and Eli, how I edge closer to the door like I want to be first out if something goes wrong.
He doesn't say anything.
He just files it away.
The meltdown happens at the last stop.
It's stupid, which is somehow worse.
We're at the little bakery on the corner, the one that knows my name and my usual order. The air is full of sugar and yeast and coffee. The glass case gleams with pastries.
"Vee!" The woman behind the counter lights up. "Haven't seen you in a while. Thought you'd eloped with a bread rival."
"Never. You know I'm loyal. I brought extra stomachs, see?"
She laughs and starts ringing us up before we even order. "Same as always?"
I glance at the menu. Then at the people with me. "Maybe more. There's six of us this time."
"We can share," Marie says quickly. "I don't need my own."
"You absolutely do," Drake says. "Carb equality for all."
We settle on a sprawled mess of pastries and coffee. Ragon goes to claim a table. Eli and Drake carry plates. Jasper stands near the wall where he can see everything. Marie and I wind up at the counter waiting for the last two drinks.
She fidgets with a napkin. Her scent is tense, frayed.
"You okay? You look like you might bolt."
"I'm fine." Then, quieter, "They all knew your order without asking."
I blink. "We come here a lot."
"I know. I just— It's obvious you have history. Here. Everywhere. With them."
"Yeah. We've been together a while."
"I'm trying," she blurts. "To fit. To not take things. To not replace."
I look at her, really look, at the way her shoulders are trying to fold in on themselves. "I know you are. No one thinks you're not."
She huffs out a breath. "Sometimes it feels like you do."
Her words scrape like a dull knife against the soft parts of me.
"Sometimes it feels like you're mad at me for existing," she continues. "Like you think if I weren't here, everything would go back to normal."
"Wouldn't it?" I ask before I can stop myself.
Her eyes flash. "Normal for who? For you? For them? They wanted a scent match. They wanted another omega. They wanted me. They asked me to come with them."
The barista slides two drinks toward us with a wary glance. The tension is obvious.
I force a smile for her benefit, then step aside.
Marie lowers her voice. "I know I'm the new one. I know you have all this history. But I'm tired of feeling like I'm only allowed to exist in the spaces you're not using."
My hackles go up. "Welcome to my life the last few months. You think it's fun watching everyone build new rituals around you while mine get dismantled in slow motion?"
Her jaw tightens. "You think you're the only one who's scared?"
"No. I think I'm the only one who's being told to swallow it quietly."
She laughs then, harsh and humorless. "You? Quiet? You cling. You bait. You make sure everyone knows you were here first."
"That's not—"
"You're the one they had to fix rules for. They had to make schedules and charts and rotations because you couldn't handle sharing. You're like some—some second-hand omega they're trying to refurbish so you don't break again."
The words hit me in the face.
Second-hand omega.
The bakery goes silent in my ears. The world tunnels down to the narrow space between us and the wet sound of my own heart beating too fast.
"I'm sorry," she says immediately, eyes wide. "I didn't—"
"You did. You meant it enough to say it."
"You're an omega someone else returned," she continues, because she can't stop now. "You think that doesn't scare me? You think I'm not terrified of doing something wrong and ending up—"
"Say that again," I whisper.
Her mouth snaps shut.
My vision goes red.
"Say it again. Say it with your whole chest this time, Marie. Second-hand. Say it."
"Vee," Eli says from the table, alarm in his voice.
I don't hear the rest.
I drop the tray.
Cups crash, coffee splashing, ceramic shattering. Someone gasps.
I launch myself at her.
It's not graceful. It's pure, ugly instinct. I slam into her, driving her back into the counter. She yelps, hands coming up to shield her face, and I see red because my brain pastes other faces over hers—faces from my old pack, the ones who called me broken, difficult, too much.
My nails catch skin. She cries out.
"VEE." Ragon's voice cracks through the bakery like a gunshot.
Hands grab me from behind—Drake's, Eli's, both hauling me back. I snarl, literally snarl, twisting. Marie's scent spikes in fear and in some twisted corner of my mind that only makes it worse.
"Enough!" Ragon roars.
The entire place stares.
The woman behind the counter is white as flour. A man near the window has his phone half-raised.
Jasper stands near the door, body relaxed, eyes like knives. Watching. Watching Marie. Watching Drake, whose first move was to put himself between Marie and danger, not me. Watching Eli, whose hands shake where they grip my arms.
I pant, chest heaving, held immobile.
Marie presses a napkin to a shallow scratch on her cheek, breathing fast. Tears tremble on her lashes.
Ragon steps between us all.
His scent is a wall. His face is carved from something without mercy.
"You will apologize. Now."
I laugh, hysterical. "For existing? For defending myself? For not smiling while she calls me trash someone else returned?"
"Vee," Eli says under his breath. "Stop."
"No. You wanted honesty. You wanted data. Here it is. She thinks I'm second-hand. You let her say it. Everyone watched."
"Enough." Ragon's eyes flash. "We are leaving. Now."
He turns to the stunned staff, pulling his wallet out. "We'll pay for everything. And extra for the trouble." His voice is cold and polite and terrifying.
No one argues.
Drake and Eli herd me toward the door. My legs move because theirs do. Marie follows, one hand still at her cheek, Ragon at her back like a shield.
The bell over the door jingles weakly.
Ragon doesn't speak until we're at the SUV.
"Back. Now."
I go. Not because I want to. Because every cell in my body is telling me that if I don't, something worse will happen.
Eli starts to climb in after me. Ragon stops him with a look.
"No. Not with her."
Eli's scent spikes with protest. "She—"
"No," Ragon repeats, alpha-weighted.
Eli's jaw tightens. He steps back.
Jasper watches the exchange, silent.
Marie slides into the middle row. Drake follows, instinctively closer to her. When he realizes it, his face twists, but he doesn't move.
The drive home is quiet.
Too quiet.
No ambient nonsense this time. No jokes. No hand on my knee. Just the sound of tires on asphalt and my own breathing trying not to turn into sobs.
Every time we hit a bump, my shoulder knocks the window. I flinch and hate myself for flinching.
Jasper doesn't turn around. But I can feel his attention, tracing invisible lines.
Vee shrinking from Ragon.
Vee leaning toward where Eli would be if he'd been allowed.
Drake angled toward Marie.
Marie leaning into him.
Everything is data.
Everything is a crack.
The punishment doesn't happen right away.
That would be kinder.
We get home. Shoes off. Coats on hooks. The motions are so normal they feel obscene.
"Marie," Ragon says, voice soft in a way that makes me want to tear something apart. "Bathroom. Clean that scratch. Eli, go with her."
She nods and scurries down the hall. Eli hesitates, then follows.
"Drake. Kitchen. Sit."
Drake blinks. "What am I, a dog?"
"Now."
Drake obeys, scent jangling.
That leaves me in the living room with Ragon and Jasper.
My throat is dry.
"Verena. Here."
It takes effort to make my feet move.
I stop a few feet away, body angled, every instinct screaming for Eli even though Eli is down the hall with Marie.
"I didn't start it," I say, voice shaking. "She—"
"You attacked your packmate in public. You drew blood. You made a scene that could have someone calling the registry about us."
"She called me second-hand. She said you had to fix me. Again."
His jaw flexes. "Words are not claws. You do not get to answer one with the other."
"She meant it. You heard her. Everybody heard her."
"I heard an omega whose instincts are tangled in ways we haven't untangled yet. I heard fear. I heard insecurity. I did not hear a threat worth the response you chose."
"She said I was returned. Like I'm a defective appliance you bought on clearance."
His eyes flash. "And you proved you can't control yourself in public. Do you think that helps my argument when the registry asks whether you're stable?"
It feels like he hit me.
I stumble back a step.
Jasper shifts his weight. He still doesn't speak. But there's something in his eyes now that looks a lot like and there it is.
"I'm going to correct this," Ragon says. "Hard."
Fear slams into me. "Ragon. Please. I know I messed up. I know. But please, not—"
But Ragon’s expression tells me he’s made up his mind. There’s no arguing with that look, not when he’s deep in alpha mode and every cell in my body reads the command as final.
I barely hear anything except my own pulse thrumming, fast and high. He points to the middle of the living room—the bare spot where the hardwood is scuffed from years of heavy boots and furniture.
“Kneel. Right there. Back straight. Hands palm down on your thighs."
I do it.
The wood bites into my kneecaps like teeth. My thin leggings might as well be tissue paper. Every heartbeat pulses against the floor.
The first few minutes are bearable. Then the pain starts—not gradual but a sudden, vicious bloom that radiates up my spine. My muscles scream when I try to shift even a millimeter. I can't. I'm not allowed to twitch. To breathe too deeply. To exist beyond this point of agony.
No one looks at me. No one speaks. I am furniture. Less than furniture.
Drake slinks into the kitchen, eyes huge, and flinches away from my gaze. Marie passes through once, the scratch on her cheek a bright accusation. Jasper watches from the shadows, arms folded, face unreadable stone.
Time doesn't just crawl—it splinters. Fragments of eternity lodge under my skin.
My thighs tremble uncontrollably. My lower back seizes.
Sweat trickles down my spine, but I don't dare wipe it away.
The numbness in my knees gives way to needles, then to fire, then to nothing at all.
I can't feel them anymore. I can't feel anything except shame burning holes through my chest.
At midnight—six hours later—Ragon's voice slices through the silence. "You can get up now."
Instinct surges.
Turn. Crawl. Find Eli.
I pivot, body already angling toward his room.
Ragon steps into my path.
"No."
I stop dead.
"From this moment, until I say otherwise, no alpha in this house is to comfort you."
I stare at him. "What?"
"You will not seek touch from me, from Eli, from Drake, or from Jasper. You will not climb into anyone's lap or into anyone's bed but your own."
Terror claws up my throat. "You can't—"
"You will remain alone and reflect until you remember your place in this pack."
The words drop like ice.
Alone.
No nest-sharing. No card night cuddles. No Eli's arms, no Drake jokes. No weight, no warmth, no hand on my hair when the memories get too loud. No knots to make me feel whole and wanted again.
"You can't do that. You can't take that away. I'm an omega. I need—"
"What you need is to understand that your claws do not decide who bleeds."
"I was defending myself."
"From words. You want to correct Marie, you come to me. You do not attack her in public or private. You do not jeopardize this house."
My vision blurs. "You're punishing me for all of it. Not just today."
"Yes. I am."
Jasper is at the top of the stairs now, leaning against the railing, watching.
"Eli won't—he'll never—he won't go along with this."
"He will. Because I am his alpha, and this is my call."
The betrayal lands like a physical blow.
My body veers toward his room anyway. Ragon steps by me without touching but his presence is enough to block. My omega instincts slam against his wall and bounce back, dazed.
"Go to your own room."
My legs stutter beneath me like a machine with missing parts. Each step is a negotiation with gravity.
I brush past Jasper in the hallway, one palm sliding along the wall for balance.
He looks at me, eyes dark, cataloguing.
I see it hit him—the way I instinctively angle toward the sound of Eli's voice down the hall and then flinch away like I've burned myself.
I go to my room.
I close the door.
The nest is there, a crater of blankets and scent and memory. It smells like all of us and like nothing I'm allowed to touch.
I sink to the floor beside it instead.
My knees burn with every breath. My muscles tremble with the effort of holding myself together.
Alone.
Reflect.
Learn your place.
My place used to be in the middle of a pile of limbs and warmth. Now it's a patch of carpet beside a nest I'm not sure I'm allowed to claim anymore.
Down the hall, a door closes. Another opens. Footsteps pass my room and don't stop.
I wrap my arms around my knees and press my forehead there, breathing shallow.
The house has never felt so big.
Or I have never felt so small.
Maybe both.