AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If he rejects me, I won’t be able to stay, even with the other two marking me. And the crazy, impossible fact is I want to stay. I don’t want to keep running. He snuggles into my neck, and a lone tear falls from the corner of my eye and soaks into the pillow.
It is clear he wants me. But I know that doesn’t mean he wants to keep me, no matter how good the sex is. And with the most recent wave of heat satisfied by him now fading into the background, I feel rejected even though he didn’t say the words. I know what they say, actions always speak louder than words, and he has told me I’m not the one by not giving me his bite.
Long after his soft snores fill the room, I lay in his arms, soaking up his alpha warmth, staring sightlessly out his large windows. I should go back to my room. He probably doesn’t want me to be in here in the morning.
With that thought in mind, I attempt to slip from his arms, but he tightens them in his sleep, muttering nonsense as he holds me firmly against his chest. My heart races. It means nothing. Just alpha instinct. So I try again, this time finding success as I slip off the bed. My stomach feels hollow as I feel his cum leak from between my legs.
Pressing my lips into a tight line so I don’t actually release the whimpering sob that wants to escape, I slip on my dress and grab up everything else to make the walk of shame back to my room.
The penthouse is silent as I slink to my door and close it behind me. Heading for the bathroom, I twist on the shower, to the hottest it can be, and then stand under the spray as it removes Austin’s tantalizing musk from my skin and washes it down the drain. Only then do I feel like a semblance of myself, like I don’t actually need an alpha to make my life whole.
Drying off, I slip into my bed, piling the pillows and blankets into a nest and sinking into them. Still, sleep doesn’t come as I stare at the slowly lightening ceiling. I hate that I want him, that I want any of them. But what I hate the most is that he doesn’t want me the same way. When sleep comes for me, it is filled with dark dreams.
Nightmares that pull me under.
I’m back in that room. Helpless. Strapped to a cold metal table, and Jason is grinning above me. A scalpel in-between his fingers promising pain. He slices me, and I bite my tongue to hold in the scream. But he keeps doing it, and finally, a scream tears from my throat as blood pools beneath me.
“Look at the princess, brought so low,” he sneers.
“Stop, I’ll do whatever you want. Whatever you need, I can give it to you,” I plead, my voice broken and raw.
How had I fallen for him? Why wasn’t I enough? If he wanted power, he would have had that once I took over for my father. He would have had that with me. But he was greedy. My parents’ lifeless bodies flash into my head, the mental image as much of a torture as the knife he cuts me with, and I sob.
“Why would I want you? A spoiled omega? Nobody will ever want you once I’m done with you.”
Then the scalpel finds my skin again, only this time it drags over my neck where the mate marks go. When he peels my flesh away, I scream. The sound wrenched from my body.
My gasps ring through the air as Saint gathers me into his arms, shushing me and running his hand over my hair. “You’re safe, I’m here, I’ve got you,” he promises.
The visage of the nightmare clings to me as I sob into his shoulder, making myself as small as possible as I curl into his lap. The safety he offers calms me.
As my heart rate returns to normal, slowing to an almost sluggish pace, I suck in a breath. That was a new nightmare. I run my fingers over the two bite marks on my skin. Of course, my brain would serve me up some portion of the truth of what happened. The words were real, an echo of a past I escaped, but the torture was a new twist to an old story that my brain dished out.
Brushing the tears from my face, I lift my head to look up at Saint. He isn’t Jason, he could never be Jason.
“Nightmare?” he asks, his deep brown eyes darting between mine with concern making them even darker.
I sigh. “Yeah. I get them sometimes.” I shrug, attempting to brush it off as easily as I had the tears.
“From what happened to you and Sin?”
I cock my head to study him. He is on a first name basis when talking about my brother, that—is—interesting.
I press my lips together and tug on my ear. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
He rubs my back and nods. “Of course, I can just hold you.”
“I’d like that.”
He smiles softly and then guides my head to his shoulder, before reaching for a blanket to cover us with. His even breathing and calming purr seeps into my very soul. We fit so perfectly together that it puts me at ease. My thoughts drift to Austin and his avoidance of marking me. I am pretty sure during a rut that control is lacking, and he still held back.
“I don’t think Austin wants me to be part of the pack,” I whisper into Saint’s chest.
“He does.”
“I’m not denying that he wants me. I have physical proof of that fact. But he didn’t claim me with his mark.”
Saint’s arms tighten around me, as if I would bolt for the door and run away again. But this time I’m only leaving if they make me. My heart flips at the thought, at the absolute pain walking away would cause.
