by N. J. Lysk
Ray knew his own mistake had been grave, and he didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself for it, not even after the price he’d paid. But he still couldn’t forgive his alpha for leaving their children behind when he knew they were in danger. Not even to look for Ray. Maybe especially not to look for Ray, who didn’t deserve it. Gabriel should have known Ray would have never wanted it, not truly.
Chapter 11
He hadn’t given himself any time to hesitate. The moment he’d opened his eyes, he’d disentangled himself from the bodies on the floor and squirmed his way to the other side of the room. Then he’d shifted.
It was only when he was on all fours on the floor, legs and arms trembling in shock, that he’d realised he was completely naked. He was used to being naked. Werewolves didn’t grow up with the hang-ups humans had about their bodies; it was simply too impractical to manage when you had to undress to shift and you’d shift back into human form without any clothing.
But as he rolled to his feet and scanned the dresser for a shirt, a towel, anything, Ray realised that he did care. He found a shirt and shoved his arms into it so roughly the seams tore a little, and then shoved his legs into a pair of jeans that had got stuck behind the dresser without worrying about underwear.
And only then had he thought to check on the alphas.
They were all still asleep. Only Sasha was looking at him, luminous dark eyes curious and wide. After a moment, in the way the pups tended to do around him, she decided she’d rather have skin than fur. She beamed up at him, as if expecting him to be proud of her achievement, and Ray’s knees went weak.
The thing was… he was proud. He crouched and picked her up, holding her in his arms like she was still the fragile creature he’d given birth to. To him, she would always be. She clung back, shoving her face into his chest in a way that was not completely in line with her human features.
He breathed her in. Just let her scent and her warmth and her heartbeat, steady and sure, calm down his own racing pulse.
It was going to be okay. She was okay. They were all okay and that meant whatever had happened hadn’t broken them. It had been scary, and it’d hurt, and he was going to have nightmares for the rest of his life. But it was going to be okay.
He could survive anything, if he had them.
&
Alec had woken first—he claimed getting up at insane times to get to university while still living close enough to his pack had forever messed up his circadian rhythms—and because he was Alec, he hadn’t been able to disguise his relief.
Ray had offered him a smile from where he was holding Maria to his chest. He’d been trying to wean them out—anxious to let his body go back to normal while he still had time and desperate for a way to regain at least some of his independence—but now he only wanted to feel them close. Alec knew, but didn’t say anything.
“Morning,” Alec said a little timidly, then turned on the kitchen radio and started making breakfast while humming along. He couldn’t bear the silence, so he was giving Ray the space he needed in the only way he could.
Ray was grateful, he was okay with the babies, who couldn’t talk and much less understand, but he didn’t know if he could bear a conversation with one of his mates. Everything that had happened seemed to be about to burst out of him: the pain, and the guilt, and the deep abiding fear. He didn’t even know what had happened with Nicholas’ gang, he realised as he gazed right through the backdoor of the kitchen.
The sound of his name startled him into awareness. Iesu was standing in front of him, looking less cheery than Ray had ever seen him.
“You were a million miles away,” his alpha said. Ray nodded. “Give her here, your food is getting cold.”
And it was true: there was a full English breakfast still smoking on a plate in front of him. He shook his head and gave Maria to Iesu without a word. She complained loudly about the interrupted feeding, but Alec was quick to distract her with a bib. And the food was hot, greasy and good. After a few bites, it seemed to revive something in him—at least the wolf’s appetite was intact.
The others had filtered in soon after, probably attracted by the irresistible scent of bacon. But Ray hadn’t looked up from his plate and they hadn’t tried to engage him.
It reminded him of old times, but it was for the best. He was capable of speech again, but the words didn’t seem to be in his head to be said. And what could they say that wasn’t all wrong? They had to know. They couldn’t have failed to smell it on him, even if Gabriel hadn’t told them and… Ray shuddered in place and dug his nails into the skin of his thigh under the table to force his thoughts from the memories of pain much more intense than a scratch.
Iesu froze next to him, but he let it go without commenting. And Ray was grateful for that, even if he would have been even more grateful for something that took the thoughts away.
He didn’t know what; it was just that it felt like it had to exist. If he had to keep tiptoeing inside his own head, he was going to fall into a black hole and never come out again.
&
He'd been expecting one of the alphas. But it was his sister who came to look for him once he retired to his bedroom alone. She and the other betas had been giving Ray and the alphas space since... since Ray's return. And it wasn't like they'd have been able to talk when he'd been a wolf anyway.
He didn't want to talk now, but he'd been so braced for what he knew was coming with his mates that talking to Marisa seemed like nothing in comparison.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked, still in doorway.
“What?” Ray asked, confused and stepped back, leaving the path clear for her to walk in.
She stepped in and let him, already explaining in a high, thready voice, “I… I can’t ever apologize enough, Ray." She was on the verge of tears. "But I can go, if—”
“Apologize?”
“I let him take you,” his sister gritted out, full of pain and frustration.
“What are you talking about?” Ray asked, sitting down on the bed. “You didn’t know, and you couldn’t have left the pups anyway.”
“I had my phone, Ray,” she explained in a strangled voice. “But I was too stupid to notice you had gone to make tea and hadn’t come back for twenty minutes.”
He stood up and stepped up to her, taking her by the shoulders. “I let them in, and I left you with them. If anybody should apologize…”
That seemed to break her determination. She fell forward, clutching at him and started to cry like a dam inside her had broken. Ray held her smaller body to his. She’d always been such a good kid: obedient and helpful even when she’d been little.
“I’m sorry,” she said again in between sobs. “I came to help… I swear.”
“I know you did, sweetheart,” he assured her, not letting her move away from him. “And you have.”
“How could he…?” she started to ask before her voice gave out.
Ray had to take a moment before he could calm down enough to answer. “I don’t know.”
Something in his voice must have given away his despair because Marisa pushed him away enough to look him in the face. “Oh, no,” she murmured, and Ray realised she hadn’t known.
Of course not, she hadn’t seen him that night. She could barely imagine an alpha kidnappingan omega, let alone…
He stiffened, but Marisa dug her hands into his clothes. He turned his face from hers, feeling himself flush. His skin was crawling—intense, stomach turning revulsion making him shudder as he remembered Nicholas on top him—and it was all he could do to stay still.
It was only the fact that it was his little sister that kept him locked in place—there was possibly no one else in the world he’d have trusted to touch him in that moment. And he couldn’t bear to hurt her any more—he’d promised his mum he’d keep her safe. So he let her hold onto him even if it took digging his nails into his own hands to keep from jumping away like she was on fire.
“I didn’t… Ray.” She wa
s crying harder now, but Ray couldn’t make himself hold her back. He stood there and let her cry on his shirt—as much as he could manage without falling to pieces.
There was nothing wrong with her, of course—it was he who was tainted.
It seemed like a long time, but eventually she calmed down enough to pull back. Ray kept his gaze on the one picture he’d hung in the room. He knew it was a portrait of the pups sleeping in a pile, but in that moment, it could have been anything.
“Do you want to be alone?” she asked in a thick voice.
Ray nodded, feeling strangely calm—the frantic desperation had subsided in the minutes he’d stood there. He couldn’t meet her eyes—he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to again—but he no longer wanted to wrench himself away.
In a way, it was like he already had.
When he thought of her again, he realised she’d already gone.
&
He hadn’t wanted her to know. He hadn’t wanted anybody to know. He knew it was impossible that they didn't, even if Gabriel hadn't seen him; he had hardly been in the state of mind to jump into the lake on his way over to the house. But it was worse that it was Marisa.
Or maybe it was the fact that she’d acknowledged it. She hadn’t said the word, but that didn’t seem to matter because talking about it seemed to wrench something free in Ray’s mind. He woke in the middle of the night, tangled in his own bedclothes—throat hoarse and t-shirt wet with sweat despite the cold—and flinched when he found Gabriel standing a few feet away. He'd clearly come to check on him.
“You were having a nightmare,” his alpha explained, hesitantly.
Ray looked away from him and gestured for him to go away. Gabriel either misunderstood or ignored it because he sat at the foot of the bed instead—far enough away that he wasn’t even close to the area where Ray’s feet would have been if he hadn’t been curled up in a ball. “Want a glass of milk? We could watch the ending to that documentary.”
Ray hesitated. His whole body ached—probably from fighting against himself all night—and the shadow of the nightmare still lingered in his mind. Except it wasn’t a nightmare; it was a memory.
He could hardly erase the past. “I want a latte,” he told Gabriel, and his alpha didn’t argue that coffee would keep Ray up the rest of the night, just got to his feet.
“Coming right up.”
When Ray joined him in the TV room, the drink was on the side table and the TV was on to the news channel. Ray had never met a werewolf who cared as much about the petty messes of humans as Gabriel did. He glanced at the screen: there was a war somewhere and the deaths numbered beyond the number of werewolves in the whole world.
“Sorry,” Gabriel said, and clicked through until he found the documentary about lions they’d been watching earlier. It still had a lot of humans in it, what with the way they’d fucked up half the lions’ territory, but at least they only came up sometimes.
Ray had always thought wild animals made a lot more sense than people. They could be brutal, but they weren’t cruel.
After a while, Gabriel offered him a blanket and Ray took it, then sat back down a little closer. Gabriel tilted his body towards him without looking away from the lion cubs play-fighting onscreen. He didn’t try to touch Ray, but the offer was clear.
At some point, Ray must have fallen asleep because the sun streaming through the living room window woke him up. He didn’t know if Gabriel had slept too, but he was in the kitchen already and there was fresh coffee.
Ray hadn’t liked him this much since he’d been twelve and Gabriel had taken them all the zoo, but he could have almost thanked him now for his silence now. Except that would have defeated the point, of course.
Maybe he’d thank him one day; now he needed it too much to ruin it.
Epilogue
“Ray, are you okay?” Iesu asked with a frown.
Ray made a face, swallowing against the need to retch. “Is that broccoli off?” he demanded.
Iesu sniffed, shaking his head already. “No, I mean, it’s broccoli so it’s pretty smelly, but it smells fine to me.”
Ray shrugged. “I guess it’s trauma from that time…”
“That was pretty epic,” Iesu admitted and placed a lid on the boiling pot. “Better?”
Ray nodded even though his stomach still felt weirdly unsettled. “Aren’t there other healthy vegetables that we could be having?”
He knew he was whining, but he’d slept badly. He hadn't had a nightmare for once, and Jamie had gone to sleep with a baby bottle. But then his son had woken before sunrise, and Ray hadn’t been able to get back to sleep himself afterwards. He felt moody and off. It was only noon and his body was convinced it was mid-afternoon.
“I’ll get you a plate of stew, you can eat in your room,” Iesu offered. Marisa had decided they needed to optimize their use of meat by mixing it with vegetables. So far Ray hadn’t minded not having steaks or racks every night, and rabbit meat was good for stews, but he drew the line at broccoli. If things hadn’t been so fragile between his sister and him; he might have even told her. But even less than smelly food, he couldn’t bear her pity.
“Thanks,” he told Iesu. “I wanted to look up some designs for bunk beds anyway.”
At the rate the babies were growing, they’d need their own beds soon and even if the betas moved out into the new wing soon—assuming someone got enough money to pay for the plumbing to get done—that meant bunk beds. Ray didn’t even want to think of the cost of raising five children, and a part of him could never forget this was only the beginning.
Iesu bowed theatrically. “At your service.”
Ray forced a smile, already preoccupied with his thoughts.
&
Gabriel couldn’t have been the only one who heard him wake up screaming. They didn't have any special soundproofing, and the babies had been sleeping with Alec or Josh more often than not. Ray had woken them up with his dreaming exactly once and he'd felt so guilty, he'd cried himself. They hadn't spoken about it to him, but Ray knew they must have agreed to let Gabriel handle it.
It didn’t bother Ray, except that a part of him expected that role to fall to Josh. Josh, who’d told him he loved him right before Nicholas had taken him and now… But what was Josh supposed to say?
Ray didn’t want to spend time with him alone anyway, not really. If having Josh see him as an omega had been mortifying, having Josh known what he’d let Nicholas do to him was… revolting. No amount of showering could get rid of the feeling of wanting to peel off his own skin that overtook him any time he remembered.
The alphas were avoiding all touch but the most casual of taps, and that couldn't be a coincidence either. Ray didn’t want to need the special treatment, but he was too afraid of finding out if touch really would make him feel as bad as the memory of it did. He knew he’d need to be able to handle it soon enough; they might have missed a full moon, but that was bound to make them need it more next time the Goddess rose in the sky. Or sooner.
But maybe heat would take care of Ray’s reluctance. He could only hope that he could afford the time and distance he was too weak not to take. He hoped Josh wasn’t angry at him—not that he’d been anything but doting, but Josh would probably do that no matter what. He wouldn’t show it, not even if he was disgusted with Ray.
With Marisa and the other betas taking over some of the housework and childcare, all the alphas that had the chance were working overtime. They’d always needed the money; and now they were finalising the construction of the beta wing of the house, and they'd also decided they needed to plant some sensors on the outer edges of the territory. It shouldn't have been just Ray who could tell if a stranger walked in on them.
It was the right thing to do, for the pups, for them… but it made Ray realise how badly he’d failed. Being first omega of a pack was being its last line of defence, and Ray had taken it lightly and risked all their lives. He was lucky he’d been the only one the alphas had hurt, if anybody
else had…
He didn’t know if his instincts—the same that pushed him to do things that felt so contrary to his own desires—were broken, or if he was just a naïve idiot. Not that that it mattered: he had proof that he couldn’t trust himself to do the job on his own. There was no way he’d risk it again.
It was the same reason he could no longer delay choosing a first alpha. A first omega had powers no other wolf in their pack did, but they weren’t meant to keep that power to themselves. He was supposed to choose an alpha among his mates to share his power. He’d bite the alpha he chose to give him the power to read Ray’s emotions in turn.
But he was scared. Because biting an alpha himself would mean completing the circle of magic between them, it would mean a mutual bond that would be considerably stronger than what he already shared with each of them. And all Ray wanted was to hide all the broken pieces of his mind and heart that he had managed to hold on to. He didn’t want to share his pain, he wanted it to go away.
A mutual bond been customary between all mated alphas and omegas once. But nowadays most people found it too overwhelming to be fully bonded when they had to separate for work and travel, so only first omegas were truly expected to do it—and even they had some leeway. Nobody had told Ray it was necessary, but now he didn’t need to be told. He’d felt himself completely untethered from his pack when Nicholas had taken him, lost because he hadn’t tied anybody to himself, and his bond with the alphas wasn’t strong enough to communicate his distress.
Nobody had brought it up before, but Ray had known that if he were to choose, he was expected to choose Gabriel. His cousin had taken over leadership of the pack so naturally that even though he made Ray uncomfortable, he hadn’t thought to object to what he knew he was coming.
For a few days after they'd talked about their shared past, Ray had hoped they'd be able to find a balance. But that was over now. Gabriel had to know it as well as Ray. Ray had paid the price already, now it was Gabriel’s turn. And if it had been any time before… Ray wold have been relieved to have a reason to turn his overbearing alpha away and choose with his heart instead. But it wasn’t.
