Chapter 28 #2
The collective shot of tension with an ouch, that hurt chaser that rockets through our bond makes our girl physically cringe.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she mumbles around another mouthful of the chewy sweets. “Who would have thought you five would be so damn sensitive after…”
All that.
She doesn’t say the words but we can hear them, and it’s the only way Olive has been referring to bonding with us during her heat since it happened.
It’s almost as if—
“You can’t even say the words, can you?” Niko shakes his head and sighs. “Do you even want—”
“Don’t you fucking ask me that,” she growls. “Don’t ever ask me something like that when you know damn well I want you, all of you. You’re mine, nothing is going to change that but the last time I was in a situation like this, everyone died and my entire world burned to the ground.”
She’s not wrong, I watched that literally happen, but there is a very large, very obvious difference between then and now. Five of them, actually, and each one is still pink and healing on various parts of her body.
I don’t dare say that. I know it bothered Olive more than she let on that her previous pack’s bites didn’t take, but that’s why this is different.
Bonding doesn't suddenly make us immortal, and it won’t protect us when we’re inevitably faced with terrible people wielding dangerous weapons, but it is a fact.
It did happen. Our marks are permanent, they will last as long as our bodies do, and until she can acknowledge that without fear, or allow us to help her in whatever way we can, the sting of our teeth will never go away for any of us, either.
“Here’s the thing,” Leon says as he sits down on the grass, leaning back on his elbows as he crosses his legs at the ankles.
“That shit isn’t going to fly anymore, little bird.
We know they died, we can feel how that still affects you and we hate it, but the buck stops there.
You’ve never fully explained why you feel so strongly about avenging three men you couldn’t bond with.
” Olive opens her mouth to snap back, but he holds up a hand.
“Not for lack of trying, I understand, but there is a reason for that, for why it couldn’t happen the same way there’s a reason you won’t allow yourself to move on from it. ”
“Pushing us away only makes it worse,” I say softly as I watch Olive’s shoulders tense up toward her ears. “You’re carrying around the guilt of two packs when you shouldn’t have any at all.”
The wall our girl built between us crumbles almost immediately, her posture reflecting the change as her shoulders drop and she tilts her face toward the sky.
“You’re right,” she whispers after a few moments. “You’re absolutely right. I was trying to keep you all separate, trying to keep my past from fucking up our future, and instead I’ve done nothing but hurt all of us. I don’t want to keep doing that. I can’t keep doing that.”
“Then tell us everything,” Niko says with a sigh of relief. “Even if it’s something you’ve already told one of us, or all of us, tell us everything now.”
And with an apologetic smile and sigh, our girl finally does.
“My life, it was never good and I know you all know that but… I was born into something called the Heart of Gospel.”
“That cult?” Styx asks as he takes her soda, opens it and hands it back to her. “Religious zealots, right?”
Olive nods as she takes a drink. “It was awful. Beatings and hard labor, endless worship and abusive doctrines, but the worst part was being one of two omegas out of ten kids.”
“Jesus.” Dimitri chokes on his cigarette smoke and coughs. “There are nine more of you out there somewhere?”
“No,” she says sarcastically. “I had eight older brothers, all alphas, and bigger assholes than even you could ever dream to be. Which was exactly the problem. My father didn’t want daughters, or omegas, and he got both when I was born.
Throw in the fact that Mav turned out to be an omega, too, and that our mother is the first one he ever beat into submission, we were kind of fucked. ”
Pain, sharp and hot, stabs through our bond. A pain I’m not familiar with, one laced in guilt and dripping in regret, and I swear I can almost see the little brother Olive feels she betrayed when she left him at her father’s house in order to save herself.
“I tried to save myself, anyway. But that’s not what actually happened.” Our girl sets her candy and drink down then wraps her arms around her waist. “You’re all aware of my time in the foster care system, that’s never been a secret, but what you don’t know is that I was basically adopted.”
Judging by the looks on everyone’s face, they didn’t know, and they have the same bad feeling about it that I do.
“Hayk.” She swallows hard and begins to pace. “That’s what he did. He’d find omegas in the system, foster them for a while and if they made him money, he’d adopt them.”
“Made him money?” Niko asks, his body rigid as he clenches his fists at his side. “Liv, please don’t tell me—”
“I wasn’t auctioned off if that’s what you were going to ask. I was fifteen when he took me in and it wasn’t long after that when he had me… working… on a regular basis.”
Olive sways as several bolts of rage shoot through our bond like lightning, scorching its way under my skin, and igniting a level of protectiveness that nearly makes me dizzy.
I can’t blame any of them for feeling that way, though.
The only reason I’m a little more composed than they are is because I already knew this about Olive.
It’s how I found her, that man and that place, the work she was doing led me to my omega, and it will be something that angers me for the rest of my life, but it isn’t a new feeling for me.
“My pack.” She reaches up and takes her hair down before tying it up again.
“They were the ones I worked with if someone paid to watch only. Hayk made the three of them help me when I went into heat, and apparently the combination started pulling in a lot of cash, so it stuck. Eventually, feelings changed, things evolved, and we escaped. I got out of there because of them. They were the reason I survived and was able to start a life in Thief River Falls. I’d be dead—”
“Did you say, Hayk?”
DIMITRI
“Yeah, why?”
“And Thief River Falls?” I ask with a frown as I stab out my smoke on the bottom of my boot then pull out another. “Minnesota?”
“Yes,” Liv says slowly. “Should I go get the crayons so I can draw you a picture?”
I ignore my girl’s jab as I strike a match and light up.
Why does that sound so fucking familiar?
Maybe not the name as much as the city.
It’s not like Hayk is very common, not where I’m from.
It’s not Russian and since ninety percent of the people in my father’s Bratva have names that were given to them in honor of the motherland or before they left it, it makes sense that I don’t know anyone who goes by that.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard it before, actually, but I’m questioning it right now.
Then again, Boris could have worked with him.
If that bastard was basically pimping Liv out for over a decade, I’m sure he shopped around at auctions and god knows where else.
The chances of him crossing paths with my father is higher than most people’s for that alone.
He always knows where the biggest and best shipments come in and how to weasel his way into a VIP seat if he wants it, and while he doesn’t usually go to them himself, the rare occasion would strike and Boris would make it a point to show his face right along with the other big players.
Not that this Hayk was necessarily a big player.
“Was it just him?” I ask, channeling my inner Leon, I guess, by talking right over my omega so I can follow my train of thought before it derails. “He wasn’t working for anyone, or running a territory?”
Liv blinks a few times before her brows raise. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“But he wasn’t part of some crime family or anything?”
“No,” Rune grunts, the big guy crossing his arms against his chest as he shifts my focus. “The business was his. He had a big clientele, though. Mostly rich assholes with some level of power.”
I forgot that’s how he met Liv.
Well, it’s how he scented her and knew they were matched. She was only seventeen and they didn’t have one single interaction, but that’s how Rune found our girl.
Never saw her face, barely heard her muffled voice, but he could smell her eucalyptus and peony, and that was all he needed to know that he matched with her. Rune was completely head over heels from then on.
He harbors a lot of guilt over that, not getting her out immediately, but that’s not his fault and none of us, not even Liv, blames him for it.
Rune was a victim in that situation, a victim of circumstances just like she was.
Things happened the way they did for a reason, it’s just a matter of time before we get him to accept it.
The little bit of insight he has that Liv might not have is helpful, though.
If this Hayk guy was his own enterprise, that probably increases the chances of him dealing with Boris at some point in time even more. Everyone who had quality product did.
I close my eyes and shake my head as I exhale my smoke.
Liv isn’t, and was not a quality product.