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“Oh. But I mean, it’s not like… normal… and Omega Studies?—”
“Wants to train omegas to fit into little boxes so that they all like the same thing, and behave the same way. Only keep the instincts if they fit. Truthfully? Most alphas don’t even want that, let alone the fucking omegas.” She smiled as she stepped up to the bookshelves, peering at them curiously. “I grew up learning that. It’s a fucking task to undo all that work. I wish I knew who I was, like you do.”
I almost laughed, but caught myself because she seemed serious.
I didn’t know who I was. Literally, figuratively…
“No wonder they’re obsessed with you. You are what real alphas look for.”
“Real alphas?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Any alpha worth being with.”
Hmm.
Okay.
That was definitely a compliment.
“Are you okay?” she asked. Her voice turned more serious, and my stomach flipped.
“Um…” I tried to ignore the dark cloud that threatened to return as my mind scrambled for a response. I straightened and unstraightened my pencil case on the desk. “I mean… I’m going to be.” Shit. The notebook wasn’t quite right either. If Umbra insisted on me leaving everything off kilter, it could at least be off kilter therightway. “And uh… Dusk’s sorting it all out,” I said. “Ransom’s behind in classes so the Dean is letting me tutor him for the week.” I frowned, adjusting my candle beside the new arrangement. Also, my words were coming out so fast, but I couldn’t seem to slow them down. “Bolin’s going to drop off the coursework, so I won’t… I won’t have to go out for a bit.”
And see everyone. All the people who had seen that video.
And Roxy knew…
Oh my God, Roxy knew…
“The library, I…” Fuck. My cheeks blazed, and I ran my fingers through a tangled lock refocusing my attention on the pencil case. Itstillwasn’t right. “I swear I didn’t?—”
“They’re your mates,” Roxy said quietly. I looked at her in shock as she sat down on my desk chair right beside me. “Dusk told me.”
“It doesn’t make it okay.”
“Not okay, like… having sex in an open library?” she asked.
I chewed on my lip, shrinking down.
“I didn’t watch it,” she said quietly. “But I uh… I got enough context before I turned off my socials.”
“I was…” I chewed on my lip as Roxy examined the items on the table, then reached out and turned the pen at an angle. It fixed the puzzle, perfect unevenness, removing the tangent lines and dead space just right.
“I imagine you were quite confused,” she said quietly. “That Dusk wasn’t your mate, and he seems to care, and Eric was, and he’s… Well, he’s a vile piece of garbage not worth the alpha title he was born with.”
With nothing left to distract me on the desk, I glanced up at her. “I didn’t… I didn’t see that in time,” I whispered. “I… I’m so… so s-stupid.” My voice cracked and then Roxy was on her feet, drawing me into a hug.
“No, no you’re not, babe. I would have been so mixed up too if they were my mates.”
I hadn’t had a hug like this since Aunty Lauren, with slender arms that packed the same power as Umbra’s.
And it was okay to cry in front of Roxy. Not that I didn’t trust my pack, but they ached for this almost as much as I did. The undercurrent of rage in the bond that they had for me, it was… comforting. It made me feel so much less alone, but it curdled with their pain. Instead, I could cry to her, as she led me to the bed and held me tight.
So I did.
I cried so hard that it was hard to breathe, and she had to rush to grab tissues from my desk before hugging me again.
It took me a long, long time to get it out of my system, and Roxy stroked my hair, something sorrowful in her cosy scent of fir trees and oranges.
