“When you gave her what she needs.” Haze rolled over, staring at the tender flesh between my legs. “If she could fit that much inside her, things are progressing, and fast. We’re gonna need nesting materials and…”
I’m sure he had more to say, I just didn’t hear it. I felt like I was floating in this haze of sensation and the more I felt, the less able I was to hold onto consciousness. So I just burrowed down into Colt’s side, breathing in his scent before dozing off.
What followed was like a dream.It wasn’t one teenage Riley had dreamed of because she hadn’t been capable of imagining something on this level. It was like an endless dream of pleasure, pampering, pleasing me until I felt like I couldn’t bear any more, and then they’d do something else super sweet.
Flowers from the garden. My favourite breakfast prepared just for me. Movies from my childhood played on the TV, and them, always them. Holding me, pulling me onto their laps, stroking me, which quickly led to other things, as they seemed to stoke the fire burning inside me until it felt like I couldn’t burn any higher.
The thing about dreams though? At some point, you have to wake up, and I did one morning to find a strange woman at the end of the bed. Eloise, Omega Vanguard, stood there, staring down at me, a small frown forming.
“I wondered where they’d got to, and now I know,” she said, her voice corded with pain. “I thought… I hoped…” She shook her head sharply. “Hello, Riley. I really hoped I’d never find you in this position.”
Chapter 36
Suddenly, I was right back in Bordertown, the only adult in the room looking down at me with disappointment, my heart racing as I tried to work out why, but it was no great mystery, obviously. I was here, in her sons’ bed, alone.
“I thought we’d talked about this?” Now she looked affronted as well as disappointed, her eyes seeming to take in my dishevelled state and the fact I was naked under the covers in an instant, her brows furrowing further. “I thought we made the realities of this situation clear to you. The boys, they’re—”
“Not for you, Riley,” I said in a low whisper, repeating that phrase I’d heard over and over. It was mantra I’d lived my life by, a prison sentence that had been slapped on me without proper process, but when I met Eloise’s eyes, I saw for her it was doubly true now.
“I always wanted you for a daughter-in-law,” she said, obviously trying to soften the blow, and when she stopped frowning, I felt a weird sense of relief. “I wanted you for my sons just as much as your father did, but you can’t beat biology.”
As if summoned by her words, a sharp slice of pain had me wincing, and then that frown was back, but that was just a tiny precursor of what was to come.
“I don’t know what they’ve told you, what they’ve done, but…” Her eyes went distant then, containing a world of pain, one she was about to drag me into. “The boys left the town without warning, with a message that the running of Bordertown was to revert to the alpha council until such time as a new ruling pack could be established via a dominance fight. I stepped in as pack omega, forced to look through the paperwork and business transactions to try and find where my sons had gone, because none of them were answering their phones or emails, and guess what I found?”
She blinked then, her eyes taking on a slightly accusing cast, but I couldn’t work out why. I didn’t do this, couldn’t tell her boys to do a single thing, as was evidenced by me lying here in their bed.
“A huge purchase of a property just outside the city and an email for a request for subjects for studies run at your workplace.” She glared at me now, drawing herself up with all the fractious power of an omega. “You were listed there, in the email, as one of the researchers. We paid for you to go to medical school, to become a doctor. We pulled some strings to get you into the fast-track program, thinking you’d use that to go out and help people, and instead?”
She was talking too fast, her words jumbling up in my head, the growing sense of dread that came with them thwarting my ability to decode them.
“Latents used to be…removed from my old pack, for just this reason,” she charged on. “Not enough beta to know your place, not enough of an omega to be what they needed, but Janine is.”
“Janine?” I said with lips that felt numb.
“They found their mate,” she snapped. “Did they tell you that? Whatever little…farewell this was…” She looked around the room, the crease in her forehead only growing deeper. “It was a bloody expensive one, though I guess if Janine wants a holiday home…”
“Janine?” I said again, unable to get past the name.
Eloise hissed at that, pulling out her phone and swiping until she found what she was looking for. She turned the device towards me, and just like that, whatever vague twinges that were building inside me were completely and utterly obliterated. There, on the screen, was the future I’d grown up to believe in. She was sweet-faced, cute, and had the same outrageously curvy body of an omega, but that wasn’t evidence in and of itself. It was the way she was centred in the photo, five familiar bodies clustered close around her, in a protective way I knew now all too well. My eyes felt as sharp as knives as I caught the way their hands rested on her shoulder, the way they smiled at the camera, at the warmth in their eyes.
“They found their mate,” I mumbled, needing to say the words to process them.
My response was immediate.
“Get out,” I snapped, clambering out of the bed.
“Riley, I’m just—”
“Fine,” I said. “You get to see my tits then.” I ripped the blankets away, grabbing a bra, a shirt, some pants, and then proceeded to wrench them on at rapid speed.
“Oh, well, I’ll just…”
She said something, no doubt important to her but not to me, not right now. I saw that wolf running inside my mind, in my dreams, and her frantic lopes made perfect sense to me now. I grabbed my bag, my phone, shoving everything into the bag before my fingers closed around the thing I actually needed—my car keys.
“Riley!” she yelped as I shoved past her, but I didn’t have time for niceties right now. I’d bow and scrape and offer my apologies if and when I saw her next, but right now, I had other priorities.
The mess in the lounge room, the mattress we’d lain on, the bowls of stale popcorn taunted me as I strode past them. They spoke of a familiarity, an intimacy that I had fought so hard to resist, but they’d… I scanned the living room, hearing Eloise splutter something at me, but I didn’t bother to listen. I had belongings scattered through the whole living area, but none that I’d miss too much if I lost them. And I would, because I wasn’t coming back here, ever.