Page 133 of Alpha’s Possession

“Your mother is the one who bid on me.”

Thane lifts his head and looks at me, shocked.

“You didn’t want me to begin with. You wanted Tara.”

Thane blinks at me.

“Who told you that? Did Jake say that?” he asks, and I look away. “I never loved Tara. Tara, she was—”

“You don’t love me either. How could you? You don’t know me. I was just a purchase, like buying a damn car.”

“We would have taken care of you, grown to love you, Harlow, and you us.”

“See now, that’s the difference, Thane. I would have been forced to love you, forced to mate you, accept you. That choice was never mine; it was always yours.”

“It wasn’t mine either! You said it yourself, my mother bid on you. I wasn’t shopping for a fucking Omega. But it is my responsibility to keep my pack together, to keep the city in check. All that was expected of you is that you stand by us. Nothing more and nothing less. Spit out some kids, and that’s it,” he snaps, and I blink at him.

“So simple, right?” I ask him, folding my arms across my chest and shaking my head.

“No. That is not… That came out wrong,” he shakes his head and growls. “We would have looked after you.”

“I didn’t need looking after. I needed freedom. I wanted a life outside of the one expected of me!”

“But you’re an Omega!” he screams.

“Exactly! And not by choice, by blood. You think growing up and being told you will run a city, a pack, is hard?”

Thane looks at me, folding his arms across his chest. “All that is expected of you is to lie on your back! Do that, and you get everything else handed to you,” Thane snaps.

“Really? You want to compare the differences, Thane? Is that what you want?”

He tosses his arms up in the air. “Fine, you want to play this game, go for it!” he says.

We are so far off from the original topic now—his apology—I might as well toss it out the window. He wants to play 'who had it worse'? Fine. Let’s fucking play then. I press my lips in a line, furious; so furious, my hands begin shaking as I stifle the urge to shift. I can’t believe he thinks that all that is expected of Omegas is to lay there and spit kids out.

“Well?” Thane asks expectantly.

“Your mother was an Omega,” I tell him.

“Obviously!” he growls.

“Do you even know what Omegas are taught?” I ask him.

“Well, obviously not. I went to an all-Alpha school.”

“Private school,” I tell him.

“And so did you. That is what the sanctuaries are for. Parents are given a choice to either use the public schools, home school, or the private sanctuaries. We had it the same on that front,” Thane tells me, and I laugh.

“No, we did not. I spent my childhood on the run with my parents, Thane. My mother didn’t want us to have the same upbringing she did. Zara and I were lucky to live somewhere for more than a month before the authorities came for us. We were practically raised in my parents' car.”

“And that was her choice,” he says.

I shake my head, not because he is wrong, but because he thought she had a choice.

“Yes, it was. Zara and I hated her for it. We wanted to live somewhere where we didn’t have to run, where we could grow up and make friends, where we could have our own rooms, belongings, a life.”

“You can’t blame me for your upbringing,” Thane says. I shake my head, holding up my hand.