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How could a mother sell her child?
I’ve asked myself the same question so many times I must be approaching triple digits because I never could. I would sell myself, sell my soul, sell every organ in my body before I sold my child. And even then, I’d sell a stranger on the street first.
So how does a mother sell a child she fed, cared for, and tucked into bed at night?
Weeks ago, I thought of an answer to the question that had haunted me since Lawrence stole me from the ordinary life I think was a lie.
Maybe it would be an easier thing to do if the child she was selling was not her child at all.
If she isn’t my mom, then who is? Did my love of drawing come from the woman who gave birth to me? And if it did, what happened to her? Is she even still alive?
A soft knock pulls me from my thoughts. “Everleigh?”
A young female voice makes me angle my head to the closed closet door. The knock—thankfully—isn’t coming from that door. The bedroom one, I think. “Yes?”
“Ah, did I wake you?”
I clamber to my feet, take in the tangle of wrinkled cotton I made into my bed, and shake my head. Some nest this is. But I don’t hate it. Better this than sharing Lawrence’s bed or the exquisite silken nest he built for me. What omega can find comfort in a nest built by a man who abuses her?
The answer is not this one.
“No.” I push the closet door open, wincing as the muscles in my back and thighs protest from a restless night spent on the floor. “You didn’t wake me.”
She doesn’t, to my relief, try to push the door open or even ask if she can come in.
Did she attempt it already and the side table I wedged under the handle stopped her?
“Good,” she says in the same briskly amiable tone. “I wanted to let you know breakfast is ready. The alphas are up already and they have big appetites. They’re greedy enough to eat the lot if you don’t get down soon.”
She’s making no attempt to keep her voice down. Surely the alphas can hear her. Right?
I wait for the inevitable explosion.
“Hali, quit putting ideas into Everleigh’s head. Rune is the greedy one,” a familiar male voice calls up the stairs with enough mirth that I know he’s grinning.
Kylian. The alpha who faked sex to save me, and the one whose coat I’m still wearing.
The female snort from outside my door sounds like she’s moving away. “You say that like I haven’t seen you eating bacon. Like a half-starved mouse with cheese the way you cram it in.”
A rumbling laugh, big and booming, threads its way up the stairs. I don’t have to wonder who it is. Rune. A laugh as big as the man himself. “Come eat breakfast, little omega.”
I’m not sure when it happened, but between me stepping out of the closet and approaching the barricaded bedroom door, I lost a little of the tension on my shoulders.
I take in the crumpled clothes in the closet and decide against putting any of them on. Instead, I shrug out of Kylian’s coat on my way to the door, leaving it on the end of the bed as my stomach rumbles.
With nothing else to wear, I have a good excuse to go down for breakfast in crumpled cotton. But huddling in Kylian’s coat? There’s no excuse for that. At least not one I’d like to ponder for too long.
Briefly, I consider slipping out the window while the alphas downstairs are digging into their breakfast, but I’m starving. I’m also not stupid enough to think that just because it’s morning, Lawrence has forgotten all about me.
He was on TV, pleading for me to come back. And he was convincing. If anyone saw me on the street, they wouldn’t hesitate to sit on me, call Lawrence, and hope he’d reward them with a generous thank you.
Lawrence would reward them with a check and reward me with a smack in the face before he locked me in my nest. It was a beautiful pink space he filled with silk sheets, cushions, and thick-piled rugs.
A nest is a place that’s supposed to bring comfort to an omega, meant to be a place where she feels safe and happy. Mine was a cage. Pretty but still just a cage.
I huff and puff as I shove aside the side table, sweating more than I should because it wasn’t easy to do it last night. With sore shoulders and hips this morning, it’s a task that’s only gotten harder.
Finally, the doorway is clear and I make my way down the hallway in all my rumpled glory, ready to face three big alphas for breakfast.
