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“You’re on suppressants?” Jackson asks, inching closer to her.
“That’s not any of your business,” she snaps back, crossing her arms over her chest. Stubborn girl.
Ford chuckles. It’s not a pleasant sound. No, it’s low and filthy, makes shivers erupt on my arms. “Jesus, Vee. It’s obvious that you are. You don’t smell like a fucking omega.”
She rolls her eyes and then says, “fine. Yes, I am obviously on suppressants. A shit ton of them and I use scent canceling everything if I think I’ll be around people.”
“How long?” I ask, and she looks back at me.
“Since I could afford them.” She shifts on her feet, suddenly aware of the four alphas moving slowly toward her. She eyes them warily, prey in the presence of hunters.
I shake my head. “How long have you known you were an omega?”
Vee’s eyes slip closed, cutting me off from those pretty hazel pools, and she shakes her head again. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I get the impression you won’t let me leave until you know. So seven years.”
Seven years.
Seven years? She’s known she’s an omega the entire time we’ve been apart.
“Two weeks after I ran away.” I don’t miss that she emphasizes those words. “I was living on the street and presented as omega.”
We all freeze. Every single one of us, our instincts on high alert.
She presented as an omega while living on the street, while alone, with no one to protect her. I’m not an alpha. But in this moment I feel like it, feel my protective instincts for this beautiful, infuriating girl rise like a flash flood sweeping me under until I’m drowning in it.
“Fuck, Vee.”
“Why didn’t you come home?” Ash asks, his voice quiet. But I can tell he’s hanging on by a thread. We all are.
Vee’s eyes narrow. “To what home? You picked an omega already, announced it to the whole goddamn world. My grandmother kicked me out the same fucking day because I failed.” I wince. Sylvie never once tried to hide her grandmother’s machinations from us. We knew her worth in Gladys Benson’s eyes was her relationship with us, with the promise that Vee would be a member of our pack and all the doors that would open for her.
Of course, Gladys abandoned Vee the moment she felt she was no longer useful. With that damn news article that came out, Gladys probably felt that Vee wouldn’t pair with any pack in the area. Hell, Maxim made Vee out to be some psychotic stalking teenager. Gladys probably thought it would be better to have Sylvie completely out of the picture, to cut ties totally to avoid that stigma, if she could.
All this time we thought she left us, ran away. But she was forced out.
She must have felt so fucking alone.
And in the last fifteen minutes, we’ve accused her of being a coward, a runaway. Someone not strong enough to fight for her pack. We are such fucking assholes.
“She kicked you out?” Jackson’s voice has dropped an octave, into a low rumble.
Sylvie blows out a sharp breath and tips her chin up. “Yes. As soon as we got home, she shoved twenty dollars in my hand and told me she bought me a bus ticket as far away from her as I could get.”
“And you got on the bus,” Asher says, sounding wounded as fuck. “Without talking to us, without coming to us for help.”
Vee’s still eying the door, still thinking of running. “What help would you have been able to give me, Ash? You were in the middle of welcoming your omega into your pack. And that interview you gave made your feelings about me very clear. Besides, Yasmin has never liked me. She wouldn’t have been okay with you helping another woman and specifically not me.”
“We wouldn’t have given a fuck,” Ford says, pushing to his feet, moving to stand in front of her. “No one would have stopped us from being there for you if you’d given us a chance. But you didn’t.”
Vee stares up at him, her body vibrating with tension, and then I watch as it melts, fades away. She drops her eyes and all the fight goes out of her. It makes something in my chest crack, watching her make herself smaller, dimming her light in front of us. The men she’s supposed to always be comfortable with, the pack she’s supposed to be herself with.
“Fine,” she says, softly, so softly I almost miss it. “Fine. Everything that went wrong is my fault. That’s what this is, right? You telling me I fucked up, convincing me I’m wrong, have always been wrong. Sure. That’s what happened. I fucked up. None of you are to blame for the last seven years. It’s all on me. I ran away. I stayed away.”
What the fuck?
“Vee, that’s not-”
She takes a step back, eyes still focused on the floor. “I’m leaving now. Please don’t follow me.”
