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Walking aimlessly, I head toward the food places in Midtown. Not in the mood for ice cream or celebrating something that hurts. Maybe I can find some comfort food to drown myself in.
There is a small diner over on 34th I used to go to once in a while on my own. They have some suitable home cooked food. Maybe one of everything on the menu would soothe my soul. At least now I have the money to buy it if I want.
Passing a brightly lit sushi place, I catch sight of Saint in a booth facing the window. A familiar head of hair across from him. My feet root to the spot as I stare at him through the window. Saint stands, offering his companion a hand to shake, and I watch as Jason reaches out with his ringed fingers and touches him.
And all I can see are the things Jason did to me with those hands. Not while he was trying to woo me, not when he was still gentle and playing pretend. My stomach twists, and I am positive the leftover breakfast will attempt to escape.
But I’m stuck in the past. Chained to a metal table in the middle of a clinical room, so the blood can be washed away. So similar to Austin’s room that I’m surprised I didn’t fold as soon as I stepped foot inside it. Jason and his terrifying smile stepped up, blocking the bright light shining down on me. It glinted off the scalpel he had between his fingers, and I struggled, attempting to get away.
It was no use, and he sliced it into me. No request. No demand. Just to cause pain that he enjoyed. I screamed. My voice gone and throat painful from the act over the last few weeks. I was losing hope that I’d survive this. That we would survive this. Sin had been missing since they cut the body parts from his body. Since I had begged for the opposite. The only promise I had that he was still alive was the single video feed that they fed into my prison.
“Oh, look at that pretty red blood welling up just for me,” Jason said. He dipped his fingers into it and ran them down my cheek, spreading my blood over my face. “You sound so pretty screaming.”
Saint looks up, his eyes landing on me. My eyes drift to Jason. I shake my head to clear it. Panic, bright and hot, spears through me. I have to go. I need to get away before he sees me. Standing here will only get me strapped back to a metal table.
“Audrey, wait!” Saint calls after me. I dodge an elbow and twirl around a lady walking her dog. I can see freedom. If I can make it across the street at just the right moment, I can get lost in the crowd. His fingers wrap around my biceps just as I’m about to dart out into the street. “Audrey, it isn’t what it looks like.”
My gaze falls to his fingers around my arm, and just as quickly, he lets go. I could run, but I need answers. “What does it look like, Dean?”
His face twists with emotion, as if he doesn’t think I’ll believe him. And maybe I won’t. The sick feeling of seeing his hand in Jason’s still hasn’t subsided. “It looks bad, but I just need to make sure you’re safe.”
“By shaking his hand?” My voice betrays me and cracks over my question. It was too late, he could read me. So I just let it all pour out in a word vomit of hurt and pain for him to see. “Do you even know what those fingers did to me? What he used his hands for? What weapons he dragged over my skin to cut me open?” I swallow hard, dragging in a shaky breath.
Reaching for his hand, the same one that touched Jason, I spread his fingers wide, staring at the lines on his palm. I can’t look at him as I admit my next words. “He is the worst of them all and a reminder of why I don’t trust alphas. Why I shouldn’t crave a pack.”
I want him, though. Saint, Dean, whatever he wants to be called, the omega in me wants to roll over and submit, show him my belly and beg for attention. Every single part of me craves what I can’t have. I drop his fingers and prepare myself for leaving him. We can’t stay in the apartment. It is too close, and I’m too weak. So like a ghost, I’ll disappear to protect myself this time. I won’t make Sin come if he doesn’t want to. He seems to have found his home, and I don’t want to take it from him.
As I turn away, his fingers close around my upper arm, a magnetic force that draws me back. I’m compelled to follow, my heart quickening as I willingly melt into the contours of his embrace as if I belong in his arms.
“Don’t,” he whispers. He pushes back my hood so he can see my face better. My dark hair spills over my shoulders as he frees it from the confines of my hoodie.
His arm is like a band around me, holding me to him as if I would run. But I’ve almost lost myself in him. I’m not strong enough to fight him. I don’t want to fight him.
“Dean,” I say against his chest, breathing in his leather and lemon scent.
“Saint, call me Saint, spitfire,” he murmurs into my hair.
Little kisses against my head are almost my undoing, but I give it one last hurrah. “Dean–Saint, let me go.”
“No.”
My heart thumps. He needs me as much as I need him. My fingers curl into his shirt, and I inhale deeply as I say, “No?” Afraid I’ve heard him wrong or that it means something else entirely.
“No,” he repeats.
He holds me as if I’ll run. When the car arrives to take us, who knows where, I submit. I let him carry me. I let him hold me. Why fight what I want? As the car buzzes across town, his fingers smooth down my back and over my hair, repeatedly. He murmurs soft words that mean nothing. The only thing that breaks the silence is the nonsense, soothing words.
Then we enter the garage, Mark parks, opens the door for Saint, and he is carrying me to the elevator. I glimpse Felix and Austin’s surprised expressions as he passes through the living room and directly into the room that had been mine.
He drops me on the bed with no ceremony or warning, and I bounce on the soft surface as I stare up at him. “Don’t come out until you understand that this is where you belong,” he orders, and then he’s gone.
I glance around at the room I thought I’d never see again. While listening to the timber of their combined voices on the other side of the door.
My fingers glide over the sheet as I take in the unmade bed. Is this where I belong? My heart is screaming,yes, bitch, roll over and submit. While my head is whispering,‘Run, all alphas are bad. It is only a matter of time.’
As a reminder of how horrible alphas are, I lift my shirt and trace the faded scars from the thin slices that caused me pain but didn’t kill. But they don’t make me think of the three in the other room. Only the ones that caused them. For the first time since being tortured, I can’t put the blame on all alphas.
And why should I? Even Austin forcing me into this situation hadn’t been that bad. He could have done so much worse after catching me stealing from him.I would have done so much more to myself.But that is probably the De Luca in me talking. My dad wouldn’t have gone as easily on me. I would have become a stain on his wood floor.
