Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

FREYA

G one. All three of them taken from me. Ripped from my arms when I needed them the most. Three claiming bites throb on my neck, absolutely begging for the owner's attention.

What I knew to be true from movies, books and a little of high school education, mating bites need aftercare to heal properly and to create a strong bond. I think I had a few hours with each of my alphas for them to tend to their marks and me the ones I gave them.

I bet theirs are crying out for my tongue to lap at them too. If I focus hard enough, I can still taste their blood on my tongue—Luke's being the freshest.

He's been gone a while. I can still feel the brand of his hot fingertips against my cheeks and his words still ring in my mind as he tugged on the pieces of our souls tethered together.

"I'm with you forever now, sweetheart. You won't be alone ever again. Be strong, my sweet omega."

Fuck, my eyes water thinking about the genuineness of his words. I barely remember the details of our time together during my spike, but I'm pretty sure it was fucking explosive. As it should be. That's one thing our romance story got right. We came together with a bang .

Tears still roll down my cheeks and my throat feels like it's getting tighter and thicker. Ronan, Elliott and Lucas. I feel each of them trying to hide their suffering from me in our bonds, but they don't have enough practice yet to truly be successful.

No matter though, I would prefer to feel their misery than not feel them at all. Is that fucked up? I haven't given any thought to block my emotions from them. I'm too exhausted but knowing they can feel me, that they are finally seeing me and knowing me soothes so much of the fractured, lonely girl I have been for so long.

Maybe I'm a terrible person, an awful omega for tormenting my clearly distressed alphas with my issues. But even if I tried, I don't think I could block them out. My omega may be weeping, but she's snuggled deep in their bonds right now as our body trembles from the aftereffects of that brutal, drug induced heat.

Like a fresh bonding mark, I'm in desperate need of some aftercare. And not the poking and prodding that came after they took Lucas away. After confirming my heat had broken, the doctors had frowned at their charts and whatever the fuck results they found before leaving me alone.

Alone, covered in slick, sweat, and cum. The fever lingers just a bit, keeping me just a bit too warm even as shivers rack my body. Am I in shock?

I don't know how long it's been, but every muscle in my body is cramping with the constant tension of my never-ending chills. I'm not sure where Elliott's shirt went, or if someone took it from me, but I have nothing once again. Not even the clothes I was taken with.

I'm bare to the blinding lights of the white room and freezing tile floors. I can't find it in me to care when I hear the familiar sound of the door opening and closing. Keeping my back to whoever has entered my prison seems like a bad idea, but I'm drowning. I'm fucking suffocating without my mates.

I never knew I could know pain beyond what I have experienced in the past, but this is a whole new level. Forcing my mates to bond me, then ripping them away is beyond cruel. My alphas saved me from my heat killing me, but our separation might end my life anyway.

"Oh my god," a voice whispers. "What have you done to her?"

I'm hallucinating now, but Casey's soft voice in my head makes my lips tilt up in a weak smile. At least I think they do, or maybe my cheek just twitched. Whatever I did with my mouth doesn't last long though, as exhaustion pulls my lips back to their resting position.

"Not sure. That's why you're here."

My eyebrows twitch in confusion. Why would I be hallucinating Ken when I should be surrounding myself with my pack?

A grunt sounds. "Let me go," Casey snarls low, shocking a hushed whine from my throat.

I want to move, to see if this is real, if my fourth mate is actually here with me, but I can't move. Instead of rolling like I had planned, I think I curl even further in on myself. I'm completely naked and forcing a fetal position beyond something that would be considered comfortable.

I just can't face it. Reality. I don't know what's what anymore and I'm terrified I'll never see my pack ever again.

"Even if you're just a beta with no knot or bite to provide her, I think she needs to sink her teeth into your throat. Maybe then she'll stop trying to wither away."

Is that what I'm doing? That's a great way to explain it, I guess. I feel like I'm nothing but a shell of myself and my omega sinks deeper as time moves around us.

"Isn't this how you wanted her?" Casey spits out, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. "Nothing but a hole and a breeder?"

My beta's words are like a stab to the gut, over and over again until I realize the faint high pitch noise ringing through the room is coming for me.

"Just fucking fix her, beta. She's just killing herself at this rate and I won't have all my work flushed down the drain because you failed!"

Feet stomp, then a door slams closed. Am I alone? It's quiet for so long that I begin to believe I did actually hallucinate the whole argument, but the slightest sound makes me shift ever so slightly.

There it is again; a soft sniffle. And another.

Then the most beautiful, broken word I have ever heard. "Baby?"

Casey's nickname for me.

He's really here.