Prologue #5
Continuing through the long locker room, I close the door to the shower stall in her face and drop my clothes on the bench before I quickly shed my sweat-soaked ones. I sob at the slick on my skin, the despair physically manifesting in each painful tug until they’re gone.
Being an omega can be so gross. I hate myself and my designation.
“O!” Meghan yells, hoping to get a response from the cute nickname that her son has for me but it falls flat.
I don’t have it in me for cute right now.
“Go away, Meghan.” I rasp, the words feeling like shards of glass in my mouth as I say them. “I just need some time.”
Soiled clothes dropped to the floor, I crank the shower on as hot as it’ll possibly go. I want to scald off the slick and disgusting need my body is making me feel. I don’t want it, never again, and words to that effect are whispered under my breath like a prayer.
“I’m leaving, but not for long,” Meghan says, her voice thick with tears. I hate that I’m making her feel this way, but I can’t comfort her. I can barely function as it is, there’s no way I can muster the ability to hold space to comfort anyone else.
Sometimes, when the world is shattering at your feet, it’s okay to be selfish. It’s the only way to be able to keep your head above water.
Except, I don’t even think I’m capable of that.
My knees buckle from the pain, and I barely register the sting of the tile as it splits my skin.
I hardly notice the way my thighs begin to shake, or how every muscle in my body starts to spasm.
I don’t even feel it when I lurch forward and nick my forehead on the faucet handle, the only indication I did being the slight pressure before I land on the shower floor in fetal position.
The cramping intensifies, and I vaguely wonder if Meghan is going to go find Aurelia or Aisling. They’ve both been fairly patient with me. I know I can come off as standoffish and bitchy, but they never react with anything but kindness. Maybe they’d take pity on me and put me out of my misery.
My eyes roll back as my body rips itself apart from the inside out, an involuntary scream tearing from my throat as the water continues to cheerfully flow over my skin.
My skin that suddenly feels clammy and cold.
At least it’s doing part of its job, rinsing my slick down the drain, erasing a small part of—
“Oh my god.”
I can’t see who’s speaking from this position, I didn’t even hear them come in, but I do recognize the voice, and there’s a whole lot of fear in it. More than there should be all considered.
“Olive, you’re not in heat,” she says. “Get up, we need to get you help. Let’s go.”
What? What does she mean I’m not in heat?
That’s what this is, right? I’m not great at tracking my cycle and this is early, but that’s not unheard of. Especially when you factor in all the stress and trauma. I think this makes a lot of sense but I guess Aisling doesn’t agree.
“I’m so sorry to push you, Olive. There’s no way I’m losing you.”
I’m still trying to work through brain fog, and I’m not tracking what she’s saying.
I feel hands on my body, gripping my arms and trying to move my legs, and that’s when my fight instinct kicks in.
“Don’t,” I whine as I start to flail my limbs the best I can. “Please, don’t touch me. Leave me alone!”
“Olive, we have to move you.”
“No! Stop touching me, just—”
“If we leave you here, you’re going to bleed out in the shower.”
I still immediately, her words overriding the pain, and I force my eyes open.
Aisling and Aurelia are here like I thought, both of them worried and on the verge of tears, and when I follow their line of sight, my heart stops at what I see.
Blood.
I’m bleeding.
It’s not my slick, it never was.
There is a thin river of blood running down the drain, and it’s coming from between my legs.
I don’t know how to feel, I’m not sure I understand, but my mind is trying to tell me that I’m losing something important right now. That I’m losing something vital that I won’t ever get back.
I stare for a few moments, blinking repeatedly, trying to process the only explanation for what I’m looking at when the first sob breaks free and I start to scream.
“No!” I kick my legs, sliding over the wet tile until I’m kneeling above the drain. I reach down between my thighs, my hand coming up covered in a bright red that will haunt me forever. “No, oh god! Please, no!”
Scrambling forward, I reach for the grate, bordering on hysterical while I try scooping the blood back toward me, desperately trying to hold it in my hands as the water pelts it into nothing.
“Olive, we need to worry about you first,” Aurelia says, unshed tears thick in her voice. “Please let us help you.”
“Oliv—” Aisling begins to speak, but I shake my head violently.
“Fuck off! Leave me alone!” I scream as I’m pulled back into her arms. “Please, god, no. Please… Our baby…”
But she doesn’t leave me alone, and she doesn’t let go.
No, Aisling and Aurelia both hold me while I cry, while we all cry as I sit and watch what was left of my mates get washed away, and that’s what I do right up until I black out.
I don’t know how to feel the next time I open my eyes. Aside from empty. I feel that. Hollow and intensely empty. The void. There’s this huge gaping hole where my mates were. It feels as if I’ve lost them all over again, lost them right along with the tiny little baby that I couldn’t keep safe.
I did this. I know I haven’t been taking care of myself, not as well as I should, even though I've been trying, but at the same time, my mates were right. This time was the charm. It just wasn’t meant to stick.
“Olive, you had a miscarriage,” Aisling rasps, her voice torn up and fried. “The doctors want to do more tests to find out if you’ll be able to conceive again. There’s… a lot of scar tissue.”
I stare past her as she continues to speak, tears silently trailing down my cheeks. I’m going to allow myself to mourn right now and then pack up my emotions. I’ll bury them because tears can’t help me, my dead baby, or my fallen mates.
I can use this though, and I will. I’ll allow this pain and heartache to fuel my need for vengeance.
I’ll let it grow, let it bloom into a hate so violent it consumes me, and I’ll use that to help all of us.
I’m going to rid the world of the fuckers who did this to me, to us, and I won’t stop until it’s done.
I’ll get justice for my mates and our baby, no matter what it costs me.
I’ve got nothing left to lose.
PT. 3: NIKO
A Stranger - A Perfect Circle
One and a half years ago
With a tired sigh, I turn my face toward the window, letting the sun warm my skin with its early morning rays.
Winter sunshine is my favorite.
It’s such a harsh contrast, the bright heat and frigid winds. The tiny, elaborate flakes of ice falling against beams of warm light, hoping they don’t melt before they hit the ground and join the others in piles over the buried grass.
There’s something about feeling that same sun on your skin, letting it warm you from the inside out, all while knowing there are two or three feet of snow on the ground and a wicked storm on the horizon.
It might hold a little more significance this morning, though.
A smile touches my lips as I stretch my arms above my head, arching my back and pointing my toes before I quickly curl up into a ball while I roll to my side.
I reach out beside me, my smile growing before it falls completely, my eyes popping open when my hand slides over the empty space and cold sheet I find there instead.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
Or hurt.
But I can’t help the fact that I feel a little sting of both as I push up on my elbow and look at the side of the bed that’s clearly been vacant for at least a couple of hours.
It’s been slept in, that much is clear. The sheets are rumpled and creased, the pillows are barely hanging onto the edge of the mattress, and it smells like butterscotch and bourbon.
He was here, he was with me almost all the way until the end, and I can rest assured in knowing that despite the sadness that is now sitting in my stomach like a boulder.
Even without those things, I’d know he didn’t leave until this morning.
When I finally fell asleep last night, it was in my nest.
In my nest, covered in slick and cum, happy but far too exhausted to move on my own.
Which means he was the one who cleaned me up, and he’s how I got into my bed after I inevitably succumbed to that same exhaustion.
There was no way I was doing anything but sleeping after the last few days, and he knew that.
I’ve never gone into heat before. Not once, not even by accident.
As soon as I presented as an omega, my mother made sure no expense was spared when it came to making sure I didn’t have to go through that until I was ready to make the choice on my own. She never had a choice, and she didn’t want that for me.
So, I’ve always been isolated, medicated, and looked after by the best doctors and nurses her money could buy when the time came, and we’ve tracked my cycle like we were being paid to do it for just as long.
That’s how I knew it was coming this time.
It’s how I knew, and it’s how I was able to plan a trip to my cottage during that exact two-week stretch while lying my ass off about having a doctor meet me here.
I’m not a very good liar, I never have been, and Mia Kozlov can smell my bullshit from miles away, but she didn’t argue with me.
She looked over my travel plans, demanded regular updates and phone calls, then let me go to the Adirondacks all alone.
My mother trusted me and what I told her enough to let me go away for two weeks without a bodyguard or anything else.
I felt guilty at first. For a few days, anyway. It was all I could do to keep myself from spilling my entire plan to her, ask for forgiveness, then hide in that giant house until she decided to grant it.