For any other mated pair, this would be a sweet, sensual thing, but for us, it was a minefield. There were the considerable bruises on his face to navigate, and then there were our combined emotional ones. I’d demanded he do this, the mess of his hair somehow a personal affront I couldn’t let go, but then we were settling down on the stripped bed like two strangers.
I saw the pain on his face as he lay down, but it was nothing until he moved farther up. I hurt him, putting his head on my lap, far more than anyone in the basement had. I frowned and brought my focus to the here and now, raising the comb, starting at the ends of his hair, grabbing them in my hand and then working it through until they lay smooth. Then I moved higher and higher, until finally, I was able to get the comb through from root to tips in easy strokes. I let my hands do that for some time afterwards as I tried to process what was going down.
I hated seeing him hurt. Every bruise, every laceration, felt like one on me, and when Bren got some antiseptic cream and started applying it to the worst cuts, I sent him a grateful look. Maybe he felt the same way. Maybe. There was only one way I’d find out. It wasn’t my fault what had happened. I didn’t force Rhys to hurt himself, and it wasn’t my job to heal him. Omegas tended towards co-dependency, but I wasn’t gonna delve into that, otherwise emotionally, I’d be tugged and tied up by the actions of people I had no control over, but I didn’t like it. I wanted to find a way through this and guessing hadn’t gotten me very far, so I said the words no man wanted to hear.
“We need to talk.”
“Finally…”
Rhys didn’t open his eyes, a kind of peace settling over him through the process once he’d accepted this would happen, but he breathed the word out and we heard him.
“I wasn’t ready beforehand. I literally could not hear what you guys had to say. I couldn’t process it, verify it, digest it. You could have dumped all your guilt-ridden shit on me, and it just would’ve hurt me more,” I snapped in response, setting the comb down on the bed. His hand rose up, gingerly, taking mine in his.
“I know. I didn’t want to, but I worked it out. It took a whole lot of beatdowns, but no one accused me of being the brains in the outfit.”
His voice was quiet, strained, and Bren moved closer to me, sitting at my back, not touching, but a silent presence.
“How much did you know?” I asked.
I was going to start small, ease into things, but in the end, that was what I needed to know. How much had been behind that sad but not surprised look?
“If you want to know, I’m gonna tell you all of it. Not that it’ll excuse me or anyone, but…I can’t tell one part of the story without the other. I just can’t.”
“You want to tell me the whole story of your pack?” I asked incredulously.
“No.” A long sigh. “Just the parts that lead us here. That OK?”
Rhys looked so tired when he opened his eyes, but I turned to Brendan. He shrugged, making clear it was my decision.
“OK, tell me your story.”
“Marcus was always fucking smart, like freakishly so. I heard the counsellors at the alpha camp talking about it. He ran that place, and when the three of us banded together, that drew his attention. I dunno why, but he wanted in. He wooed every single one of us, and then the three of us as a group. The golden boy who smiles down at you? We were always going to cave, and we did, which set the tone for the pack going forward.”
Rhys tried to get comfortable, putting his hands on his stomach, but the pain soon stopped that.
“We wanted out of the camp, and we were not long afterwards. There was a scandal with some of the counsellors getting caught abusing some of the kids, then the funding for the place was revoked and no one wanting to touch a tainted project like that. We were returned home, Marcus, Bren, and me all living within biking distance of each other. Then there was Orion.
“It was much harder for us to keep in touch, so Marcus worked his magic. Straight out of school, we started working for the gangs, bringing in money doing low-level shit. Mostly just carrying mysterious packages from one place to another, but we made enough cash to survive and finally rent a shitty place out in the real crappy area of town.
“Orion had a car, so he came to see us every day, slept over more days than not, and gave us what money he had. That fascinated Marcus, that a family could have so much money, they could afford to throw it around like that. Putting big sums into the hands of a recently graduated teenager without a second thought? That was the one thing Marcus never had—money. Didn’t realise it at the time, but that’s when the plans started to hatch.”
He opened his eyes now, staring into mine, his thumb moving over the hand he now held.
“We went to the clubs a lot, carrying parcels, using the gang names to get us into places we shouldn’t, mostly at Marcus’ behest. We wanted to have a good time, party, find our omega, and settle down, all vague pipe dreams, but Marcus?” Rhys shook his head. “It was always something much bigger. I’d met plenty of blokes who insisted on telling you about their big plans, but not Marcus. He kept quiet about it all, cards always close to his chest. He watched and he waited, us fucking around, him getting an impromptu apprenticeship in running a club. Then he started putting the plan into action.”
I watched Rhys’ eyes roam the room, taking in the bland features like they meant something.
“He got us taking riskier and riskier jobs, because they were higher paying ones, which most leaders do. No risk, no pay off, but people always got caught. Not us. There’d be two almost exact same jobs, and he’d insist we take A, while the boys doing B were arrested mid deal and slung into prison. People started talking about us, about our weird fucking luck. Big bosses sought us out, giving us bigger and bigger jobs, and the money really started flowing, but we never saw that much of it. We had enough for food, a roof over our heads, and a fucking good time, but no excess. We didn’t shoot our earnings into our veins or snort it. It just…went into some mysterious pool that Marcus controlled, and that’s what he used for seed money. He bought this place when it was derelict, the home of junkies and rats mostly, but it had great bones, having been a beautiful club nearly eighty years ago. And then he did a deal with the devil.”
Rhys went to sit up, but my hand snapped out, holding him where he was.
“Benson Ratcliffe.” His fangs flashed at that name. “I’m pretty sure Marcus thought he had him stitched up, and maybe he does. There’s no way Orion should be running with us or wearing our marks. A bit of youthful indiscretion could be overlooked, but this? Wedding himself to us for eternity, that was too permanent to ignore. I remember when we did it, when we marked each other as ours. Marcus had begun the renovations here, starting with this level, and we were standing in that room.”
“The one you shared.”
“The one that stand
s empty, will stand empty forever now. We were there, looking down at this brand-new bed, big enough for the four of us, and…”