He looked down at her with a tenderness I fucking hated. I’d never gotten into the whole omega bitch fight thing that seemed to compel some to scratch the eyes out of every other omega around them, but I’d have a go at hers. My fingers flexed, the little lost girl pure alpha bait, but the rational part of my brain put the brakes on that. Benson was a fucking monster, and anyone who had anything to do with him was likely to get savaged. If he was the one who’d put those shadows in her eyes, I’d hate myself for suspecting her.
“Um…so I’m Orion’s half-sister. I didn’t even know who he was until a few years ago. I grew up in a little cottage out on the outskirts of town. It was quiet, semi-rural, nothing flash, but… I knew my mum was an omega. Everyone did. She told people her mate had died and she was raising their daughter on her own. That was the truth of it, as far as I knew. I went to the local school, but people didn’t really warm to me. I guess they expected I’d reveal as an omega and either bring the gangs to our suburb, looking to claim me, or I’d get snapped up by the academies. The last bit was what happened. A man, tall, with dark hair and green eyes, just like me, he came by the house one day after school, and Mum was there waiting for me. He explained he was an exclusive academy representative, and he was offering me a place there. I backed away. Something wasn’t right. Mum, she looked nervous, and there were bruises…”
Ari’s brows knitted, her eyes staring at the table in a way that made sense to me. I knew what that was—she was reexperiencing something, something that hurt. Orion’s arm went around her, tightening, creating a smaller, more secure space for her, but she shook slightly, her fingers digging into the table’s edge.
“I said I wasn’t revealed yet, that I might turn out to be an alpha like my dad.” She snorted then, a sound that was completely without joy. “He just laughed. He pulled out a leather case, and in it was a syringe. That broke Mum. She started to scream, cry, and then…”
When she looked up, her eyes had filled with tears, and suddenly, I didn’t want answers anymore. I was up and out of my seat, walking around to her and crouching down by her side
.
“It’s OK, Ari. Listen to me. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. You don’t know what’s coming for you.” Her head shook back and forth, over and over. She grabbed my fingers, clenching them hard. “You have to listen.”
“I’m listening, I promise.”
“I’m only fifteen. I wasn’t supposed to reveal yet, not for another few years.”
I took a long breath in, smelling the scent of scared omega, but there was something…different to it. Our scents sour when we get angry or afraid, but hers was strangely artificial, like the difference between real flowers and the weird chemical alternates they used in air freshener or something. I couldn’t imagine anyone being attracted to it. It blasted the nose, clogged my throat, and—
“He shot me up full of some drug that brought my reveal forward. I soaked my school uniform with this thick, bloody slick that splattered everywhere. He belted me then, for getting it on his shoes.”
Tears were running down her cheeks and I really didn’t think we should be putting her through this, but the words kept coming, like she’d held them in and couldn’t keep them back anymore.
“And then he took me, put me in an academy, just like he said.” She looked up at me, her eyes like lasers, boring into mine. “I’m training to become someone’s wife, to be biddable and not embarrass my high-flying husband at social events, and the other girls are nice, mostly. But…”
Oh fuck, I don’t want to hear this, I really don’t want to hear this.
“He can come to the academy at night, something no one else is allowed to do, and sometimes there’s visitors. They come in stinking of cigars and Scotch, of alpha pheromones that clog my nose.”
I grabbed her hands, squeezing them tight, stopping the tide for a second.
“You don’t have to tell us this. If you’re still there, maybe you shouldn’t. Save it for a therapist, someone who can help.”
“They haven’t touched me, yet. They come into my room. The other girls are spitting chips that I have a room on my own, but he did it for a reason—so there’d be no witnesses. The men, they come closer, smell me, tell me I’m a good girl.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck…
“That when the time comes, the one who’s chosen will be gentle.” Her eyes roll down to meet mine. “I let them look at me, inspect me, leer at me, because…” Her teeth clamped down, the words forced through them. “He told me if I didn’t, he had another injection he’ll use. It’ll trigger my heat, whenever he wants, and he’ll take me to a place for bad girls. He’ll throw me to the wolves who sniff around my door, not as a wife, but a thing to be used. If Orion doesn’t do what he tells him, same outcome. It’s why he was receptive when Benson brought you to meet Orion, why he played along, until he didn’t.” A single tear rolled down her face, and a hand went out, touching my cheek like I was the one who needed soothing. “He loves you and is sorry for what he has to do.”
“Ari…”
Orion stiffened as Ari told her story. He’d reached out and trailed his finger through a small saucer of soy sauce as she spoke, drawing circles on the tabletop with it. But at the end, he nodded, putting the fingertip into his mouth to suck clean, before wrapping his arm around his sister.
For a moment, he just held her, his chin resting on her head as he soothed her with long strokes down her back.
“Marcus has known for a while. His plan is in play, and this dinner is a meeting, to see where you stand. I hurt you, every single one of you. I didn’t want to.” His eyes dropped at that. “For a while there, I thought I could have it all. I experienced hope for the first fucking time when Rhys took you as his mate, Cyn. That somewhere in all this fucking ugliness, there was something beautiful for me.”
In 1967, the last person to be executed for his crimes was hung in my country. I’d always wondered what he must have looked like, walking up to the noose, facing down his executioners, not knowing that he would be the last. When I looked at Orion, I had an inkling then of the sentenced man’s expression as he faced down the hangman.
“I’ve got tickets here for the three of you. You should run, get as far away from this bullshit as you fucking can, because the blowback is gonna be fierce.” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t want people I love anywhere near it.” He reached into his suit jacket, pulling out a large yellow envelope. “There’s fake passports, licenses, accommodation, itineraries, everything to take you to one of five different countries. Use whichever one takes your fancy.”
“You’re saying goodbye,” Brendan said, leaning forward, scanning his mate’s face. “This is the end?”
“What do you and that fucking bastard of a mate of ours have planned?” Rhys ground out.
“I’m going to execute my father the night of the Omega Ball.”