Page 55 of Glitterati Omega

“The hell you can’t.”

“I’m bleeding,” he whined, the syllables turning into a shuddering sob. He pulled away from Winston and covered his face with his hands.

“You—”

“I can’t abort it if I’ve miscarried it!” he snapped, then covered his face again, hoping it would stifle his sobbing.

Winston was silent for a very, very long time. Rupert tried to shut himself up, because he knew crying about it was only going to make the alpha more angry. Thomas had hit him if he cried, told him to be quiet. If he felt that strongly about it, he shouldn’t have murdered it in the first place.

“Rupert.” Winston’s voice was like a knife when he finally spoke.

Rupert clutched at the wall, then sank to his knees. He’d fucked everything up, just like always—

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

He forced himself to sniff. He wrapped his arms around himself, like he could protect himself. “I was scared,” he admitted.

He could feel Winston’s gaze burning into him. “You wanted to keep it,” the alpha said.

Rupert bowed his head instead of answering. Winston sighed above him. “We should go,” he said. “Mandisa does not need this.”

Rupert sniffled a couple more times. He lifted his head and inhaled deeply. “You’re right,” he said, hating how nasally and congested he sounded.

Rupert waited outside while Winston and his mothers said their goodbyes. Winston was silent while they walked back to his mothers’ house.

“Perhaps,” Thandiwe started.

“We’re going to stay with Uncle Stanley,” Winston said.

“But,” Thandiwe started, then stopped when Ndileka laid a hand on her shoulder and shook her head.

Rupert felt suddenly sick; he looked desperately at Thandiwe. Surely, she had to know how dangerous that was for an omega. She could do something, couldn’t she? Winston was her son, even if he was an alpha.

But the alphas had spoken. He and Winston gathered their things, then trekked up to the other end of the village, to the top of one of the hills, where a very neat house sat at the crest, overlooking the other homes.

Uncle Stanley lived alone, which Rupert was grateful for; perhaps Winston merely didn’t want to play this out in front of the rest of his relatives.

Perhaps that meant he was going to hurt Rupert. Thomas had always tried to get him alone when he’d made him angry. It was difficult to pinch or slap or spank or hit in the middle of a crowd.

They drank tea with Stanley—an old man who was nearly blind, who was frail and wouldn’t be any help to Rupert if Winston decided to hurt him. Rupert hadn’t felt so sick in ages. He stared into his tea for a very long time.

After that, Uncle Stanley donned his hat and took a walking stick down off the wall and said he was off to visit Aunt Gerdie, who apparently lived on the opposite hill.

Rupert stared into his teacup for an interminable minute after the door closed, watching his breath ripple across the surface of the now-cold liquid. He could hear the blood rushing through his ears. His head hurt.

“Rupert.” Winston’s voice was far away, but his touch wasn’t, and Rupert threw his hand off the second it landed on his own, like he’d been burned.

“Don’t touch me!” he cried, then dropped the tea and curled his knees to his chest, his hands over his head, expecting retaliation.

Instead, Winston started cleaning up the shattered teacup, the spilled liquid. Rupert sobbed into his knees.

At last, Winston sat back down on the cushion at the low table. He waited for Rupert’s sobbing to become quieter. Then he said, “I just wanted to talk, and I didn’t think you wanted to talk in front of all my siblings and my mothers.”

Rupert rolled his forehead across his knees. “No,” he sniffled in agreement.

Winston was silent. Then he said, softly, “Did your ex-husband hit you?”

Rupert sniffed again. “Only sometimes,” he answered at length.