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Devin winced, cringing away from the comfort he offered. Rey stiffened. Struggling to stand, she made it all of two steps before he grabbed her. Reeling her back in by the length of her arm, he abandoned Gabriel’s bottle to drag her into his too tight embrace.
“You are my mate, Devin,” he snarled, shoving her face against his neck as he buried his against her shoulder. Tasting the line of her scarred shoulder with vicious need. “You are mine, and Gods help me, I’ll die without you. Hear me?”
“You hate me,” Devin choked out, shoving at the expanse of his chest in a bid to get free.
“No one hates you!” Rey growled, glancing back at Gabe as he began to fuss and whine.
“Just see to your baby. That’s what you wanted from me,” Devin stammered, slapping a palm over her mouth to stop the horrible words from pouring out.
“Devin, if I’d had any inkling this is what it’d do to you, I never would have asked it of you,” Rey shouted, surging to his feet to carry Devin the few steps before pushing her into the wall. Chest to chest, he ground against her.
The bond came alive. Sizzling as it arced between them, a golden line of misery and love, lust and passion. So much it overwhelmed. Devin gasped, unable to draw a breath as she clawed at Rey’s back. Trying to shove him away. To pull him closer. Clinging to the solid strength of him as she sunk deep into the brilliant haze and lost any sense of herself.
There was only him. Glorious and perfect in his imperfection. Furious in his need, desperate in his desire to make her see.
“You wanted nothing to do with me. You never touched me,” Devin said, the words flowing out, a festering wound lanced to let the grisly infection out.
“You cowered every time I tried,” Rey rasped, putting his forehead against hers. “Any time I went to you, you acted like a whipped dog. I was afraid I was hurting more than helping, so I backed off.”
“I couldn’t even keep your baby inside me long enough,” Devin shrieked, Gabriel’s thin whines escalating, spiraling into the room with his mother’s shrill sounds. “He hates me and wants nothing to do with me. I’m a shit mother and an even worse mate. I let him touch me!”
Rey’s chest expanded to near bursting, crushing her against the wall before he let it out on a dangerous growl. A sound of violence, ash and soot coated the back of her throat.
“You were an Omega away from her mate,” Rey said, the deadly calm of his voice doing nothing to soothe. “That fucking bastard used it against you. Confused you, made you think what was happening was real. It wasn’t because you aremine!”
Rey grabbed hold of her legs, forcing them around his waist. Smothering her with his violent scent as he held her tight. “You never would have gone to him. I know you, Devin. You would have fought him in the end.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you better than you think I do. You chose me in the end, didn’t you? Even with all his careful planning, his disgusting behavior where he covered you in his scent to try and make me reject you. I knew I’d find you, that you would come to me, and I was right.”
“You are a good mother,” he continued, not letting Devin respond to a single thing, refusing to let her argue her point. “You’re not like other Omegas, you’ve told me that time and time again, so I thought the nanny would work. That one didn’t, maybe the next will. We’ll figure it out and it will be fine. He doesn’t hate you.”
“He screams every time I touch him,” Devin hissed, squirming away from the plaintive screams of the baby boy abandoned on the table.
“Can you blame him,” Rey demanded with a rough shake of his head to silence Devin when she took a breath. “You want nothing to do with him, and when I make you hold him you act like he’s cursed. You were more comfortable handling Kahler’s kids than you are your own.”
“He’s yours,” Devin said weakly.
“He isourson.” Rey sighed, shoulders sagging under a great weight. He didn’t let her down, somehow bringing her even closer. “He’s ours and he’s as stubborn and muleheaded as his mother. He needs convincing, just like you did.”
“Not fair,” Devin said, sniffling back a fresh wave of tears as Rey pet at her hair.
“I’m not asking you to become the epitome of Omega mothers, Devin. I’m just asking that you try.” He let her down then, enfolding her shoulder in a firm grip to turn her to the table where Gabriel had faded into quiet sniffles and perturbed grunts now that everyone had stopped raising such a ruckus.
“Just try. There’s his bottle, he’s still hungry.”
“He’s just going to cry…”
“Try for me, Devin. Try for your son.”
Sniffing hard, Devin picked up the bottle, eyeing Gabe’s suspicion with a wary gaze. She held the bottle up to his lip, tipping it forward until he took a single pull.
He began to snuffle and whine the longer he watched her, little fists knocking the bottle as he tried to batter it away. It took a handful of seconds before he was screaming again.
“See? He hates me.” Devin sagged, crumbling into her abandoned chair and slamming the bottle down on the table. Sending Gabe into an even worse tantrum as his bouncer jolted from the force.
“That’s what you call trying,” Rey asked as he hauled Devin up, taking her seat and forcing her onto his lap.
