They left me alone then, what I’d wanted all along, but they’d taken with it the seamless grey misery that swallowed me whole. It was horrible, but it was reliable, predictable, smothering all my thoughts and feelings and replacing everything with it. But their words, their concerns, their actions… A small whine escaped my lips, my hand going to the healed mating mark on my neck. The skin was exquisitely sensitive there, and tears slid down my face as my fingers dropped away. I growled at that, warning those feelings and needs that rushed up inside me to back the fuck off with everything I had until the quiet returned.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Cynthia? It’s Rosemary, your therapist. Can I come in?”
Chapter 25
“You look like you’re not doing so well. Do you mind if I sit here on the floor with you?” she asked.
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Speaking required having opinions. Opinions required thought. Thoughts resulted in emotion, and there were tidal waves of it smashing against the four walls I’d erected around me, creating a mental nest. I wasn’t lowering them for anything, not for my therapist, not anyone. I’d keep them up to the end of my days, learn to function better with them, do important things like shower and be able to hold conversations. They would keep me safe, I knew that with a surety that pulsed louder and clearer than the need inside me. When I held them firm, they made everything mute. Longing for Rhys, the endless rehashing of what had gone down, my heat, my mating, my… I let out a long whistling breath. No more thoughts, no more feelings.
“Cyn, your mother filled me in on the details that she’s aware of, but what would really help me is to listen to your side of things.”
No, no fucking way. She could expect all she liked. She wasn’t getting it. The waves grew higher, I could almost hear them roaring as they smashed into my walls, drowning her out. I focussed on strengthening them.
“Cyn? I can talk about what she told me. I can spend all the hours your mother paid for, sitting here, talking about and analysing that, if you want.”
I didn’t want anything, didn’t she get that? Wanting was worse than thinking. I’d been all excited about my first season when I was eighteen, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, yearning with every fibre of my being to find the alpha to complete me. Instead, I’d been led into a darkened room with a predator who—
“You don’t want to talk, that’s obvious. There are some things to consider though. Alphas have rights to their mates, something your mother wasn’t aware of. Rhys, I think his name was, can petition through the courts for access to his mate. I know she’s mobilising her legal team now so—”
“What?”
My voice was cracked from disuse, my throat closing down, a series of dry coughs robbing me of any further words, but the damage was done. She handed me the water bottle, and that was all it took to break my will. Of course it did.
“You think you’re weak,” she said.
My eyes jerked up, the walls inside me starting to shake as I did so. I’d tried to make them strong, but just one little bit of eye contact threatened everything I’d created. When I met her gaze, my eyes hurt, and when they hurt, that was it—the straw that broke the camel’s back. I couldn’t bear any more pain, and she knew it. She had good, clinical reasons for it, I’m sure, shuffling closer until her court shoes were almost touching mine. I grit my teeth, staring back at her deliberately. If she wanted to see, she could. I’d fall apart, and she’d be my witness, reporting back to Mum.
“Of course I’m weak.” Hands on my shoulder, steering me into the room, pushing me down. Hands herding me in the direction they thought I should take. Shepherding me towards one person or another, shifting me to where I was needed. Hands holding me close, cradling me within— “It’s what I am. What all omegas are.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Why not? The world does. Legally, we’re little other than children. Any
mate we take basically has partial power of attorney over us.” I bit off every word.
“And the world’s full of dumb rules that serve someone,” she shot back. “But this isn’t about omegas, it’s about you. Fuck your designation.” My eyebrows jerked up at that. “I’m outside of my consulting rooms,” Rosemary explained. “I can get away with being a bit more forward. What do you feel, Cyn? Not about omega rights and the way of the world, but you. What did they do to you?”
Fuck, I could hear the walls inside me cracking at the sound of her voice. It was strategic, what she was doing, all her professional calm gone. She sounded strident, uncompromising, pissed.
Pissed for me.
“There’s many theories about depression, but there’s one I like for instances like this. Internalised anger. Sometimes women, alpha, beta, or omega, don’t feel like they can lash out. Smashing your fist into a wall, into a door, into the face of the person who wronged you is off the table. Trashing your bedroom…” We both looked around at the enclosed space, smelling stale now from having the windows closed. “Trash your car, your house, trash yourself.” Her brown eyes were warm and kind but uncompromising. “People try to tell me that designation overrules gender, but there are differences, trust me. The part of us that’s raised to care for others, care for any children we might have, doesn’t want to lash out, knowing the pain that will cause. Instead, we hurt ourselves. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you aren’t beating yourself up right now. Tell me you aren’t angry, wanting to deliver a beatdown.”
She called this strategic challenging. She’d explained it to me one day when I was finding her questions stressful. The purpose of posing questions we didn’t necessarily want to answer was to get us thinking, considering perspectives outside our own.
Rosemary got to her feet as she heard a muffled sound at my window, putting her hand on the sill, reaching for the sash to open it.
“No!” I barked.
“No? Why, Cyn? What are you going to hear? What are you trying to block out?” The window creaked as she raised it a fraction, his voice sneaking into the sour smelling nest I’d created in my mind. One padded with ash, tears, and broken dreams, to replace what I’d lost.
“Cyn, please!”
“Please is promising,” Rosemary said. “Not a lot of rapists and fuck boys use please, though it’s not unheard of. Why don’t you want to hear what he has to say?” She peered out the window, her eyebrow cocking upwards. “He’s quite the specimen. No mistaking him for anything other than an alpha.”
A low growl escaped my lips as it all rushed up. Was I warning her off him or just the whole fucking world? My walls weren’t broken down, they were incinerated, pure unadulterated fire roaring inside me.