“Her grandmother?” I pressed.
Owen rubbed his eyes and let out a heavy groan. “Yeah. She was one of the midwives with the pack. She was the one who came when my baby sister was born.”
A new heaviness fell over the table. I let out a slow breath. Owen’s infant sister and mother had both died shortly after childbirth due to complications. I never knew any of the details, only that they did.
“My father hated omegas. He always went on rants against them. I wasn’t at the house when it happened, but he would get drunk a lot and talk about it. I don’t know what happened, and if I’m honest, I never blamed her grandmother, even when I was hearing about how it was her fault. My guess is that my dad, hating omegas, didn’t let her do her job properly. He should have taken them to the hospital.”
“At the campsite, you called her grandmother a thief,” Renz said.
Owen stood and strode to the window. The sun was starting to sink, casting him in an amber glow. “A family heirloom disappeared around that time. My father blamed Jasmine’s grandmother, and I did, too, because it was something we could finally agree on. When he went to take it back, she claimed he attacked her, and he was jailed.”
Knowing his father, my guess was that it was true.
“That’s when he started using. Everything afterward was just worse. It was easier to keep blaming omegas for it all than to admit how terrible a father he actually was. I suppose I inherited that hate, and I aimed it at Jasmine, because I was angry at myself for being so weak that an omega would be my mate.”
I went to him and squeezed his shoulder. “We can choose to be different from our parents.”
Owen shrugged, not to brush off my hand, but to show that he’d heard me and didn’t quite believe it.
“Are you going to tell her the truth?” Killian asked from behind us.
“Jasmine, you mean?” Owen turned and scowled. “There’s no point.”
At this, I rolled my eyes. “You are too smart to play dumb with us. She’s in heat. It’s possible that the three of us could relieve it without you, but if you sensed she was your mate from a young age, then the bond is there. Try to settle things with her, Owen. At least get to a place where you’re not attacking her at every turn. She deserves to know the truth, too.”
Owen shrugged. “Fine. But we have a crisis on our hands right now, so let’s focus on that.”
He went back to the table, and I sighed internally. He was part of the crisis. Our relationship with Jasmine was at the center of this all. But if he wasn’t ready to admit that, then I supposed we just had to hold back and wait, at least for now.
But not long. We didn’t have much time.
Chapter 12 - Owen
After the meeting was over, I took a run in the forest to try to clear my head. The others were going to work on damage control. Having two Omegas, especially ones that had been trusted with the children, developing this violence would only cause more suspicion within the pack. With me being… well,me, it was decided that I wouldn’t be helpful.
The forest was quiet today. The sky was overcast but not dark, just that pale gray that stopped the sun from being blinding. I trotted through the trees, keeping close to the edge as I made my way around the town.
After talking to the others about Jasmine and explaining exactly what happened, I felt…lighter. And heavier at the same time.
This hatred that I’d kept close, the insistence on trying to deny what I knew was true by lashing out at Jasmine, was like a heavy chain that had wrapped around me. Every link had been forged carefully to keep me caged, and now I wasn’t sure if I was able to break free.
My father had died from a meth overdose. He started using while in jail because Jasmine’s grandmother accused him of attacking her. He always swore the accusations weren’t true, and I’d tried to believe him. I molded my actions as though I did, as though it wasn’t his fault that it all happened.
And if that wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t his fault the way he screamed, berated, and threatened to beat me when I told him that Jasmine was my mate.
Over the years, I’d hardened that shell around me. Turned it into a holding pattern, because that was more comfortable than really examining myself.
Maybe I would never trust her, or any other omega. I doubted whether her ancestors were as innocent as the story had turned recently. But I had blinded myself, on purpose. It didn’t just hurt Jasmine; it hurt my teamwork with the other alphas, it hurt the pack, and it hurt omegas in other packs, too.
I was part of the violence. My hatred had encouraged hatred from others.
So I needed to talk to Jasmine. Maybe if I could explain everything, things could start to change. They were right. It was unlikely that her heat would pass fully if we didn’t all have sex with her, and I wanted to get to a better place before that happened.
I found her at the infirmary, making a pot of coffee for all the doctors and nurses. The scent of herbs filled the air, and I glanced at a steeping teapot.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly as I stepped up to her. “Are the herbs helping?”
Her shoulders hunched inward. “They seem to be a little. They’ve calmed down and aren’t trying to break from their restraints. But it also might be the drugs the doctors gave them.”
