“Josie?”
Theo’s muffled voice floated through my blanket cave in my nest. Ben had left me to go shower. It was good that he’d left me alone, or at least that was what I told myself. I couldn’t stand to see his disappointment when I didn’t eat. How could I eat when I didn’t want to have a body anymore?
It was safer to be here. Alone.
“You in there, angel?”
My fingers itched to reach out and grab Theo and drag him under the blankets with me. I wanted my skin pressed up against his, wanted to purr until all traces of his stressed scent vanished and all that was left was happiness. And arousal.
I slammed down a steel barrier against that train of thought. I couldn’t do any of that. Couldn’t give in to my omega’s desires.
I slowly poked my head out from my hiding spot. Theo was perched on the edge of the bed, his phone in his hand.
“Sam’s on the line,” he said, holding his phone out to me.
He didn’t touch my face or lean down and kiss my cheek. He just sat there, phone outstretched. I didn’t move to take it. I didn’t want to talk to Sam or anyone else. Because then I’d have to tell them what happened, and if other people knew, it would make it real.
I met Theo’s gaze with wide eyes and shook my head, trying to tug the blanket back over me. His hand stopped me and for the briefest moment, his touch lingered, his thumb running down my cheek in a gentle caress before he pulled away again. I held back a whine that would demand he put his hand back.
“I know you’re there,” Sam said through the speaker.
I scowled at Theo as I begrudgingly took the phone. Traitor. This time, when I threw the blanket back over my head, he didn’t stop me.
“Let me know if you need anything, my love,” he murmured. The bed shifted as he got up. I curled up into a tight ball, succumbing to the darkness of my cave once more.
The bright phone screen lit the darkness, and I sighed.
“Hi,” I croaked, my voice scratchy from disuse.
“Josie.” Sam’s voice was filled with agony.
My throat tightened. Just hearing that one word made me want to burst into tears.
“They told you?”
Sam’s breath hitched, and then there was a long silence.
“Yeah, they told me,” he responded, his voice thick with emotion. He paused, likely trying to gauge my reaction. But I had nothing to say. I was empty.
“They also said you haven’t been eating or sleeping or even speaking since it happened.”
I shrugged, even though Sam couldn’t see me.
“Josie.” This time he said my name with reproach. “They’re your alphas. They want you to lean on them. No, they need you to lean on them. Why are you pulling away?”
I was going to deflect, change the subject, tell him it was none of his business. But when I opened my mouth, I blurted out, “All I do is ruin people’s lives.”
Sam made a noise that was halfway between a grunt and a scoff. “How do you figure that?”
“I ruined yours. You had to pay my rent. You risked getting arrested every time you got me suppressants. You’ve spent the past year worrying about me when you should have been enjoying your new life with Gerald.”
There. I’d finally done it—spoken the truth. Now Sam would realize he was better off without me, too.
“I didn’t have to do any of that shit,” he snapped. He breathed heavily, and I could imagine him pacing. “I did it out of love.”
I covered my mouth tightly to hold back a sob as the emotions I’d locked away in the tiny box tried to escape. I breathed through my nose, forcing my body to calm down and my heart rate to settle. Once I had all my feelings stuffed back where they belonged, I responded in what I hoped was a convincingly calm and logical tone.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done, but right now, it’s better for me to keep my distance from everyone. It’s not safe to be around me. Glen isn’t going to let go of this fixation he has on me.”
“So we should all just leave you to him, is that it?” Sam snapped.
I bit my lip as an awkward silence fell between us.
Sam sighed. “Do you remember the day you revealed as an omega?”
His tone was pointed, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment. Sam and I had been sixteen, and our families forced us to attend a party at Glen’s home. We’d slipped away after dinner, escaping out a secret exit we’d discovered with a bottle of champagne and a plate of desserts. We’d lain on Sam’s jacket on the forest floor behind the mansion, watching the stars peeking through the trees as we passed the champagne back and forth. It was a chilly night, but my skin felt hot and prickly. I hadn’t realized what was happening. All I knew was that Sam’s scent was stronger than ever before, and my body craved being closer to him. I needed his scent on me, so I rolled on top of him and licked his throat.
Sam had quickly realized what was happening since he’d revealed as an alpha just the week before. He’d clutched me to his chest, covered me with his jacket, and ran around the house to get us into a car and drive me home.
I groaned. “We swore to never speak of it again.”
“I wasn’t talking about the throat licking,” Sam said, amusement in his voice.
There had never been anything sexual between us, but in that moment, my omega had been overwhelmed. All she knew was that there was a good-smelling alpha near us, and she wanted to taste him.
“Do you remember how Glen reacted when he caught us in the driveway?” Sam’s voice turned serious.
I struggled to piece together the memory. Most of what I remembered that night was my emotions and hormones going haywire, reacting to all the scents around me. Faintly, I remembered Sam’s desperate hands on me, grasping my shoulders in a way that made me moan before he pushed me into the house.
“The gross fuck scented you were an omega, and I thought he was going to try to take you away from me right then and there,” Sam said. “You were so out of it at that point. We hid in the library. I watched through the crack in the door as your parents argued with Glen about something, and it almost looked like they came to some sort of agreement. Then you whined, and your parents found us and took you home.”
Sam’s words stirred memories I’d repressed, and I burrowed deeper into the pillows.
“I don’t know why he’s always been so fixated on me. That’s why everyone would be better off if I went away,” I said.
“Fuck that. Don’t pretend you’re doing this for them, or me, or any of your friends. You’re martyring yourself and saying it’s for all our sake, but in reality, you’re just trying to protect yourself from getting hurt again.”
“So what if I am?” I shouted, sitting up, my face flushing red. “Why does it matter why I’m doing what I’m doing? The outcome is the same. I have to protect everyone else.”
“It matters because your life is worth more than that,” Sam growled, his tone vicious. “You have people who love you and need you. Those alphas of yours are losing their absolute shit right now. You think I’ve been here relaxing and enjoying my life after you messaged me saying you had to go to the DC, and then I didn’t hear from you for six fucking days?”
My lip trembled and I pressed my face into the palms of my hands. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “So sorry.”
“No, Josie, fuck. Don’t apologize,” Sam said. “I’m not angry at you. I’m fucking furious at what they did to you and pissed that I can’t be there.”
“I don’t think I can survive this again,” I confessed.
“You can and you will. You survived last time in much harder circumstances.”
“This device is different. Any alpha can make me do what they want, and I can’t fight it. What if I leave the house and an alpha barks at me? I can’t do this.” My voice was high-pitched, and I was close to hyperventilating.
“You’re forgetting that the Alliance is working to neutralize the effects of the device through a serum injection. They’re getting close, too. You won’t have to deal with this for long.”
It was the same thing my alphas had been repeating over and over, but I couldn’t let myself believe it. I’d been let down too many times before.
As if sensing my skepticism, Sam continued.
“I’ve spoken to one of the scientists working on it. You’re not going to fucking believe this—she’s an omega. So she knows what’s at stake.”
That got my attention. A tendril of warmth curled in my chest that omegas in other provinces cared about what was happening to us here. I would never meet them, but we were connected by our designation, by this inherent understanding of what it felt like to be an omega. The realization cracked my protective numbness as I started to feel. I lay back down under the blanket, needing its protection.
“It doesn’t change the fact that I’m damaged,” I whispered.
“How are you damaged?” Sam asked.
Tears dripped down my face onto my pillow below. I quickly wiped them, not wanting to mess up the perfect blend of scents on the pillowcase.
“Everything about me is wrong. I wasn’t a good omega to begin with, and now I’m all tainted.”
“Being good is overrated,” Sam said.
I smiled in spite of myself. We’d had this same conversation many times growing up when I got down on myself after being berated by my mother or pack fathers.
“Don’t give them that kind of power, Josie. No one has the power to taint you—not Glen, that fucking doctor, or anyone else. Remember what you told me the night you revealed? You said your designation changed nothing. You were going to live your life how you wanted to, and no one would stop you.”
“I was naïve,” I said. The girl I’d been back then—so confident and alive—felt like a distant ghost, almost as if she’d never truly been real.
“You’ve been dealt a lot of shit cards, but that sixteen-year-old omega knew what she was talking about. Maybe you need to remember.”
“Wish you were here,” I whispered, trying to dislodge the comfort Sam’s words provided. I couldn’t allow myself to be hopeful. I wasn’t sure I would survive the disappointment.
“Me, too. But I’m not, so you have to take care of yourself. I know it’s so fucking unfair for me to say you have to hold on, or wait, or just be patient, but you do. You don’t have any other choice because I will not lose you. Those three alphas of yours certainly aren’t. Even though they should have protected you from this.”
A surge of anger and protectiveness filled my chest. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t their fault at all,” I snapped, my omega snarling.
Sam snorted out a laugh. “Well, fuck. I owe Gerald ten bucks. He said all I needed to do to get you to snap out of this was insult your alphas.”
“You suck,” I pouted, feeling my emotions lighten in the way only Sam could do. “And Gerald’s on my shit list, too,” I muttered.
“I’ll let him know,” Sam said cheerfully. “And you better start responding to my texts, or you’ll be on my shit list. Understand?”
“You can’t just fix this, fix me, by pissing me off.”
“Ah, Josie. That’s where you’re wrong. You don’t need fixing. You’ve always been whole. The entire world can try to break you, but they can’t break what was never theirs to begin with. You belong to yourself, and you’re only as broken as you let yourself feel. Omegas are the center of everything, the true power in our society. Don’t forget that.”
I squeezed my eyes shut against the tidal wave of emotion.
“Plus, it’s sooo easy to piss you off. Omegas. So sensitive.”
I snorted. “Fuck off.”
Sam chuckled and I could imagine his broad smile, which always felt like sunshine. “Love you, Josie.”
“I love you.”
I hung up the phone and wrapped myself around a body pillow. I felt a hopefulness and an aliveness I hadn’t all week, but with those emotions came the overwhelming terror I’d been trying to keep at bay. I tried to crawl back into my dark hole of numbness, but it was as if Sam had scraped away my protective outer layer, leaving me exposed.
