by Layla Heart
Knocking on the door pulls me from my thoughts and I stand up, stretching. I’m bruised, badly, from the fight with Liam. That guy can hit...
When I open the door, it’s Spence. He’s looking stressed and I let him in. Maybe when he’s around I can make more sense of this. Spence is always the sensible one of us, the one who doesn’t just let his impulses control him.
Although... Not in that hallway and not when he held Cyra... That Spence... I definitely wouldn’t want to have to fight that Spence. He’d kill for her, even if it was me. That was more than obvious in how he moved, how he acted. He’d kill for her.
“This going to be your room?” Spence speaks and it takes me a moment to realise what he’s saying.
I grunt, shrugging. “How is she doing?”
It hadn’t taken long, after we’d all calmed down, for her to flee from the room, locking herself in the bathroom, her sobs audible through the door. That had definitely spoilt any good mood that was left and we sort of all drifted apart, not really sure what to do anymore. All needing to think for a moment, think about what just happened, where things will have to move to from here.
Spence lets out a slow sigh. “She hasn’t left the bathroom yet. Still locked inside.”
I nod, feeling like such an asshole right now. I wish I could turn back the time, keep myself under control, not let all of this happen. Not because I don’t want to have marked her, mated her, but because of how devastated she looked after. I want to turn it all back to stop her looking so sad, so broken. I don’t want her to look like that. I want her to be happy. But this isn’t something that I can fix with a crude joke or a fun present or something.
“What are you going to do?” Spence sits down in one of the chairs in the room, his eyes on me guarded.
“About?”
“Cyra. You mated her. You fulfilled what your parents wanted. You’ve got someone who you can show off during meetings...” His voice is almost cold, hostile. I barely recognise it. He never talks to me like that.
I spin to him, frowning. “We all mated her. Your parents... Your parents also wanted you to take a mate.” I’m not sure where his mind is going right now, but I do know that it can’t be good. “Spence. We all mated her. And until her parents... Until her parents sign off on it, none of this matters. Until her parents sign the agreement, we’ve all illegally mated her.” Rage crashes through me. It shouldn’t be this hard to just be with your mate. “Fuck.”
I slam my hand into the wall, the sudden surge of anger and helplessness overtaking me. “None of this fucking matters until it’s all made official. We ruined...”
Shaking my head, I stalk over to the big window at one side of the room, looking out over the forests, forcing myself to stay calm. “We ruined her life and it won’t make a fucking difference to the situation we’re in, it probably made it even worse. How does that make us any different from her parents? How are we any fucking different?”
That’s what been eating at me the whole time since we mated Cyra. All of this won’t make a difference when it comes to the mess we’re in with Cyra’s parents. We just ruined any chance she had of becoming independent, any chance for her to live her own life. We ruined it. She wanted her own life, but as things are now, she’ll probably never get it.
“We’re monsters. No better than her parents.” I put my hand against the window, looking out at the setting sun. “No better.”
Spence steps next to me, also looking out, his face pained, his voice broken. “I know.”
I stare at him, not expecting him to look or sound that defeated. I expected him to tell me to suck it up, act more like an Alpha, take control. I don’t know, something like that, but he looks devastated, broken, just like I feel.
Thinking of how easy our lives have been, how easy we’ve had it and how we just... “We’re bastards. We’re... the worst. We don’t deserve her.”
Spence shakes his head slowly. “No, we don’t. But she’s ours. She’s really ours now. Whatever the consequences of what happened today, we need to become worthy of her. And fast.”
I nod. The time for playing around, the time for just doing whatever suits us best, has officially ended.
We all marked Cyra. We had sex with her while she was in heat. There’s a good chance she’s pregnant, and we will have to become worthy of not just her, our shining phoenix Omega, but also of the lives about to grow inside her.
“Cyra?” I carefully knock on the bathroom door. Not wanting to anger her, but also needing to make sure she’s okay. “It’s time for dinner. It’s time to come out of the bath.”
It stays deadly quiet inside, worry flooding me. She’s been in the bathroom for hours now. What if something happened to her? What if she drowned... Or... Or...
“Cyra?!” I reach out to the doorknob, ready to barge in, but her voice calls out.
“Yeah, yeah. I heard you.” She moves inside, and opens the lock on the door, slowly opening it.
Her eyes are red from crying and her face is all puffy. She’s not wearing a shirt, which makes sense, since there are four marks on her shoulders. All scabbed over at the moment, but they still look really painful and any shirt she’s going to wear is going to rub over them.
When she catches me looking at them, her face hardens and she gives a quick shake of her head. “Don’t. Don’t say anything about them. I don’t want to hear it.” Her voice falters, but she pushes past me, into the bedroom, which still smells strongly of sex. I have no idea how she can just walk inside, probably because the meds dull her shifter senses.
Her meds. The ones she won’t be able to take anymore. Fuck.
It’s like someone punches me in my stomach and I swallow hard, pushing the bad thoughts down. “Cyra...” I step forward, reaching out to her, and while I expect her to pull away, she lets me pull her close. “I—”
“Don’t say anything.” Her voice is still hard and I nod carefully, trying to disturb her as little as possible.
She’s got a towel wrapped around her waist, but I can still see the bruises on her hips, on different parts of her body.
Fucking hell... It’s that shifters are sturdy, made for animalistic sex, but seeing the bruises we left on her still makes me uncomfortable. We marred her beautiful skin and it’s just another reminder of how we ruined her dreams, the life she’s always wanted to live...
She’s right to be upset. She’s right to be angry. She’s so right in acting like this, but that doesn’t make the bad feelings any better. It doesn’t make this crappy feeling any better.
I kiss the side of her head, anywhere where I can reach her. Soft kisses, trying to soothe any pain we caused. Though, the worst pain we’ve caused isn’t something that I can just kiss away.
Then I remember why I came up here. “You need to eat. Max made dinner. Pasta. It smells really good.”
“As good as I smelled this afternoon?” Her voice is harsh and I nearly flinch.
I let out a slow breath as I choose my words carefully, still confused about what happened. “I couldn’t smell your Omega scent. It wasn’t your scent that drove me... It was something else.”
She carefully looks up, trying to move her neck as little as possible. “What?”
“There was no scent. You were in heat. I could see it, you had all the signs of an Omega in heat, but there was no scent.”
She just stares at me, like she doesn’t understand it. “How?”
“I don’t know.” I carefully undo the towel she’s got around her waist.
She stops me, but a simple look from me makes her pull her hand back. Then I wrap the towel around her upper body, over her boobs, making more of a ‘dress’ for her. I glance around, finding a random hair tie that must have fallen out of her bag and I use it to secure the top of the towel better.
“I have no idea why today happened. We can figure that out tomorrow. But right now, you need to eat. You need to regain your strength.” I carefully tug her to the door, but she doesn’t move.
“Me too.” Her voice is soft now, barely audible, no longer angry. I turn around to her, confused. “I think I might love you too.”
Oh! I stare at her as my heart beats crazy fast. I take her back in my arms, kissing her face, kissing her lips.
I’d totally forgotten I’d blurted that out during sex... It kind of just came over me, and I couldn’t keep it inside.
Wrapping myself around her as much as I can, I know that no matter the mess, this is where I belong. I belong at her side, I belong with her. There’s no other place where I’d rather be, and I’m going to fight to make sure that I can stay with her.
Nobody is going to break up what we have.
It might be unconventional, but it’s ours. This relationship, this mating, it’s ours and nobody is going to take that away.
I’m going to fight, do whatever I need to do to protect this, protect us. Because even though I’ve met her only a few weeks ago, I can’t imagine a future without her.
40
Cyra
The guys won’t stop staring at me during dinner. I asked them to stop a couple of times, but then just gave up. There’s only so many times that I can glare or tell them off, but even if they look away, their eyes keep returning to me after a while. So I gave up trying.
Zack was right, the pasta smelled delicious when we walked into the kitchen and it tastes just as good. But with all of our plates empty, the guys all having taken a second serving, there isn’t much to keep us occupied anymore. The awkwardness is getting harder to deal with.
After we all calmed down, I fled to the bathroom, not able to be around them anymore after my mind had cleared. I’ve never experienced a heat this badly, it was too much.
When I stormed off, after Max chatted with his cousin and she offered to get us help, I didn’t get very far, my body going weird, and, in that moment, I knew that we were too late. That no matter what we’d try, we were too late. This is why Omegas usually take heat suppressants a few weeks early, but I’d been pushing it because I had no way to afford them yet. My heat came early and I had no way to suppress it.
Even though I knew that I didn’t want to mate anyone yet, that I really didn’t want it, when Liam found me in the forest my mind had gone blank, the only real thoughts of how I needed my Alphas. The sensible part of me, the part that had tried to stay in control the whole time I’ve spent with the guys, had shut down, leaving me behind in a state I’ve never enjoyed.
Sometimes, I’m not surprised that people don’t want to hire Omegas, that they don’t feel like Omegas can really work as much as Betas or Alphas can. When we go into heat, our bodies change, we become... We become different, weaker. The only thing our hormones and bodies are working towards when we’re in heat is to make sure that we get mated, that we become pregnant. That’s all. Everything focuses on that one goal, become pregnant, because that’s the only way to make the heat subside.
Even when I take heat suppressants, I still feel how my body goes all weird during mating season. Even suppressed, the heat messes with my mind in ways that I hate. And now... Now I’ll actually be going through mating season, unmedicated, for the first time in my life... Fucking hell.
Max moves slowly and my head jerks up, meeting his gaze as my heart pounds. His eyes grow a moment, before he lets out a slow breath, his eyes on his hand, which he almost grabbed my hand with. “How are you feeling?”
The other guys are still, almost like they’re holding their breath, just to hear my reply.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head, looking down at the empty plate and then sliding it away from me as I wrap my arms around myself. “I have no idea. I’ve never felt like this before, and I have no idea what to expect to happen now.”
My heat is low at the moment, but I know that it will come back in a couple of hours. The heat will last days, potentially over a week, and all that time my body will be weakened and the guys will have to fight to keep themselves under control. They will fail. They will fail at least a couple of times... And since I might... Since I might...
No. That just... I can’t even think it.
My heat will influence them much more the rest of the week because I won’t be able to take my meds anymore, not my pheromone suppressants, not any of the others, because it wouldn’t be safe... It wouldn’t be safe after I’ve been... mated. So even calling the number of the doctor that Max’ cousin has given him won’t be of any use anymore, because it’s too late. There’s nothing that can be done now.
I slowly stand up, needing some fresh air, just needing to clear my head. “I’m...” I look out the window, but going outside is probably a bad idea right now. “I’ll be upstairs.”
I don’t wait for any of the guys to reply, walking out of the kitchen, up the stairs and opening the room right across from the stairs. All the rooms have balconies, and since I don’t want to go back into the room which reeks of sex, I just have to use any of the other rooms.
The loud growling and angry sounds from elsewhere in the house make my head shoot up. I’ve just been sitting in a chair, staring out over the forests and mountains, trying to clear my head. Then I hear a loud crash and feel vibrations through the floor as something big falls over and I jump to my feet.
What the hell is going on?
I rush back inside the house, opening the door to the hallway, listening. It’s quiet for a moment before a table appears in the hallway below me and crashes into the floor, thrown from one of the rooms downstairs. One of the legs of the table splinters as it lands wrong and another leg snaps off, bouncing all the way over to the door. I let out a cry of surprise, pushing myself back to the wall, sliding down as my heart feels like it’s trying to break from my chest.
What the fuck?
“Cyra?” That’s Spence. “Hell, Zack. Just... Get yourself under control.” Spence’s footsteps sound on the tiled floor downstairs. “Cyra?” He calls out again. Then his footsteps are on the stairs, sprinting up, and the next moment his arms are around me. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head. I don’t think I’ll be ‘okay’ for a very long time. “What’s going on?” I try to keep my voice steady, but my heart is still pounding and fear is starting to seep into my mind.
Spence swallows hard, taking a careful breath, his arms tightening around me. “Your parents...”
Oh, no. Just those two words make me feel sick. “What did they do?” I don’t even really want to hear the answer, but I need to. I need to know what’s going on, what they did now. How they’re going to hurt... How they’re going to hurt my mates.
“Come on. Better if you see it for yourself.” He carefully helps me up and then almost carries me down the stairs.
Downstairs, Zack is standing next to the table, staring at me, his eyes filled with regret. His shoulders sag as he follows us, while Spence guides me to the living room. It’s pretty obvious where the table came from, as there’s a big empty space in the middle of the living room, but my attention doesn’t stay on that for very long.
Max and Liam spin around on the couch, their eyes on me pained, as my gaze goes up to the TV on the wall. They’ve got it turned on, just without the sound, which makes the hard breathing in the room even more obvious.
It’s like I can’t get any air as my chest constricts, my eyes not able to leave the screen. ‘LIVE: Alpha Fireborn and their Omega are holding a press conference in front of police station. First reports say that Alpha Fireborn has officially filed a missing person’s report for his Omega daughter. The four Alphas she left the party with on Saturday are currently the prime suspects in this case which is quickly turning into a potential kidnapping situation. Alpha Fireborn is willing to pay a lot of money to whoever has the tip that will return his Omega daughter to him.’
My legs give out from under me and Spence carefully helps me to the ground. How... How did they manage to make this all about my Alpha father? My name isn’t even mentioned. It’s all about how he wants me back, like I’m a car or
a boat, an object, not a person, never taking into consideration what I might want. I’m nameless, not important, what my Alpha father wants is what’s important, he’s important.
Then, suddenly, the program switches to my Alpha standing in front of the police station, his eyes passionate, and since someone has turned the subtitles on on the TV, I don’t even need to hear him to know what he’s saying.
My father focuses his eyes on the camera, doing his best ‘bereaved parent’ impression. The text above him says, ‘Passionate plea from Alpha Fireborn’. Then he starts speaking and I can read what he’s saying right under him. “Please, I implore you. Wherever you’re holding her. Please, return her to us. We’ve already had to miss her for years and now we finally know she’s alive, who she might be with, we beg you to return her to us. Alpha Tempest, Alpha Raiden, Alpha Craig and Alpha Forest, I implore you, do the right thing and return her to me. I will drop all of this, if you do the thing that you know is right. If you return her to us, we will drop all the charges, we just want her back. We don’t want any problems, we just want her.”
Then, a guy steps next to him, taking his place at my Alpha father’s side. I have no idea who he is, I’ve never seen him before, but with the way my Alpha has his arm around the ‘grieving’ younger Alpha, I can make a pretty good guess. The text on the screen changes. ‘Alpha Douglas implores everyone who has any knowledge about his Omega mate-to-be to reach out so the two can be rightfully united.’
The guy is at least a decade older than me, and a small voice in the back of my mind is wondering what’s wrong with him that he’d play along in this ploy of my parents... I get why my parents would choose some creepy rich guy, no matter his age, they like the money and status, but what’s in it for him?
