24. Erin

Chapter twenty-four

Erin

“Don’t touch me!” Locke screams so loud it hurts my ears.

I jerk upright and awake, a deep snarl breaking from my lips as I search the room, ready to destroy whatever has upset my omega. My growl is echoed by two others, equally as vicious, as Shane and Bray sit up with deadly grace. Locke shoves Finn off him and stumbles backwards, knocking over a lamp and hitting the wall hard.

He doesn’t appear to see it or feel it. Locke is lost in a world we aren’t part of, and that’s the only thing that breaks through the aggression and brings reality back. Nightmare. He’s having a nightmare.

I slide off the mattress and move around the bed. We’re no longer in the nest but the bedroom that Locke gave the green light to before his heat started. It’s got three stairs down and into a deep room with no windows. It’s a dark cave, and everything alpha in me had purred when I saw it.

But Locke is freaking out. Why?

“Locke?”

He bares his teeth in my direction and lets out such a ferocious and pained growl it breaks my heart. He throws himself at the wall, trying to put as much space between us as possible. I swallow hard, rapidly trying to come up with a way to wake him without causing more damage.

We’ve seen the signs of it. I’ve been cautious this whole time. I’d thought we were safe. This is what I was sensing, this wrongness in my omega. This throbbing pain that has turned the air back to burnt sugar.

“Omega!”

He snaps his teeth, and when Bray comes too close; he lashes out, punching the alpha in his gut. It must hurt his hand, but he doesn’t let on at all. His eyes are still unfocused and wide. Like a trapped animal.

Bray steps back and glances at me. It’s desperate and unhinged. Locke’s fear is turning the room feral. I have a short amount of time to get control before I have two alphas on a warpath.

Shane rises from the bed, his eyes almost black with the need to protect his omega from danger. His growl is a deep bass that makes the air vibrate as he moves towards the door, looking to cut off any danger.

I inhale through my nose, trying to work out what I’m going to do. I can only see one way out, and I hope that it doesn’t bite me in the ass later.

“Shane. Bray. Out. Now.” I let the alpha bark out, and I don’t allow any way for them to argue with me.

They go, casting me furious looks.

Finn is standing to the side of the huge bedroom, his eyes wide. It’s been a week, a perfect, amazing, dream-like week. He’s looking to me for instruction, holding perfectly still, making himself smaller, less of a threat. I appreciate the fuck out of him right now.

That bliss from the last few days is gone. Burnt sugar has chased it away. This is reality. Locke’s nightmares, and I’m ready to do battle with them.

This is my unseen enemy.

“What is this?” Finn mouths at me.

I shake my head. Deep in my heart, I have an idea, but I want to be wrong. I’ve seen this before. Once, when I was working pro bono at a firm that specializes in helping victims get justice for crimes against-

Don’t think about it, Erin. Just thinking about my omega suffering like that-

Stop. Thinking. About. It.

I stand up and move around the bed. Locke stares at me like he hates me. Like I’m the enemy, like I’ve hurt him. My chest is so tight as the bond floods me with pure, unadulterated panic.

“Stay the fuck away from me.”

So much venom in his voice.

I step closer and reach out.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

The wail of pain brings tears to my eyes. Not telling. Not commanding. He’s begging me not to touch him.

Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I blink back tears and clear my throat.

“Locke!”

He ignores me and starts to frantically claw at the walls. He’s going to hurt himself.

“LOCKE!”

He still ignores me. I put the bite of my alpha bark into my voice, hating myself for doing it. Hating that it’s necessary.

“Locke, you are going to stop hurting yourself and trying to escape and face me. I want you to follow all my instructions.”

He turns back, his face full of resignation and fear. Full body tremors shake him while he shrinks in on himself. It’s worse than the blind panic and rage. So much worse.

I take his hand.

“Come with me.” I keep my voice even and calm.

I lead him from the room and through the house. When we get outside, I let go of his hand. Finn hands me a pair of his pants and his shoes. He yanks off his own hoodie and pulls it over Locke’s head.

With a growled command, I help him dress and then gesture to the forest.

“Let's go for a walk.”

Locke glances back at me. The panic is still there. My Locke is not in control yet. But I know a trick or two. I don’t let any judgement or emotion on my face, I just keep a calm voice and talk like nothing is wrong.

“Come on. No one will touch you. We can just walk.”

Locke’s grateful expression is so raw that it’s painful.

I glance back at Finn. “You need to clear the house and get rid of the scent of that before Bray and Shane get back or you’ll have two rabid alphas.”

“I’ve got it,” Finn says and jogs back into the house.

I turn and follow after my omega. Whatever he needs, I will give it to him. If he needs space and time to run, he can have it. If he needs me to hunt down whoever hurt him, I will do that, too. Willingly. With enthusiastic pleasure.

He leads us up the path Shane pointed out to us when we first came here. He talked about a waterfall at the top of the trail.

It’s picturesque, and any other day, I would enjoy it, but right now, I barely see it. The waterfall roars, and all around it is green. I find a fallen tree and perch on it whilst I watch him pace.

Locke stops and stares at the waterfall for a long time. I stand a few feet behind him, waiting. I’ll wait forever.

“Do you hate me now? Now you know I’m broken.” His voice is bitter, full of self-loathing.

“Nope.”

“Do you pity me?”

“Not at all.”

He makes a sound of disbelief. “I attacked my alphas.”

“You did.”

“And you don’t care? I’m unreliable, I’m dangerous.”

“So are we. And I’m impressed you managed to get Bray so hard. He wasn’t expecting it.”

He finally whirls around, and I see the nightmares in his eyes that I’ve only had glimpses of before.

“Erin…” he breaks off and starts to cry. “Alpha, please, save me.”

Everything in me goes still. “Tell me everything, Omega.”

Locke has cried himself out, and he’s sitting beside me. I have his hand in mine, and our bodies are touching all the way from thigh to shoulder.

He’s been trying to start the story for twenty minutes.

Whatever it is, I’m wondering if I have the willpower to withstand this story and keep my calm.

I have no choice.

If he can live it, I can bear witness. Whatever my omega needs.

“My mother wanted me to be a popstar. She took me to auditions, made me learn dance and all sorts of music. It was terrible. I hated every minute of it – the music, the other kids, the judgement of the adults – because Cara Raine’s son didn’t have the same skill she did. They hated me because they were envious, angry they lost, jealous, insecure. It doesn’t matter, they just hated me. I didn’t get to have friends or a childhood. We traveled too much, and people suck.”

Locke lets out a laugh that makes my skin crawl.

“I hated it, I can’t say that enough. Maybe if I didn’t, what happened wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t want to sing pop songs, I wanted to create something cooler. My style differed from my mother’s, and she hated it, and the more she hated it, the more I leaned into it. So, when Alpha Labels approached me when I turned seventeen to join a new band they were creating, I jumped at it.”

I tense.

“I’m the front man of the band Derision.”

My eyes widen. I know them. Holy crap, do I know them, the entire world knows them. And now that he’s said it, I can’t unsee it. Hell, I have one of their albums that I listen to all the time.

“That’s why you look familiar,” I breathe out. My head is still reeling.

“Yeah,” he says in exhaustion. “That’s where it all went wrong. I was seventeen, my mother disowned me as soon as I signed, my manager gave me a contract that I didn’t understand. I didn’t have an agent back then. So, there’s no way I can get out of it. It’s not a good contract.”

This isn’t the nightmare. The truth is still coming, and he shifts away from me, putting space between us. I understand he’s doing it to protect himself, but everything in me wants to erase that space and destroy everything that has made him sad.

“What happened, Locke?” I prompt softly when he doesn’t speak.

He inhales, opens his mouth to talk, and then chokes on the words. Gags on the words.

Finally, he spits them out.

“The band is composed of five members. The other four are a pack, and part of my contract is that I’ll say I’m part of their pack. I’m Locke Raines, the beta of Pack Derision.”

I let out a savage growl. No! No! No! This is not happening. I’m not losing him. No. Not now. “You’re mine, now. They can’t have you.” The savagery in my voice makes me sound borderline insane.

But for some reason, that makes him feel better, the panic and fear easing through the bond. It doesn’t last long. He gets up and moves away from me. When he speaks, he sounds like he’s talking about the weather. Only the still way his shoulders are held and the burnt sugar drowning out the forest’s natural scents tells me how much pain those words cause.

“She said I wanted it. I was flirty, and…”

I’ve gone completely still. She?

“Sometimes, I’d wake up with people, and I’d known things had happened, but I don’t know how I got there. I had no memory of that night. She would come in whenever, and I had no choice. I couldn’t say no. Sometimes, when I was sleeping or…”

Why is he trying to explain? Why is he justifying himself?

My rage is a living, writhing beast beneath my skin. She? I’ll skin her alive. I’ll cut her clit off and feed it to stray cats. I’ll destroy her.

“Rape,” I say the word succinctly.

“No, she was female, I was-”

“It was rape. If you didn’t want it, Locke, it was rape. If you said no, if you were drugged, if you were incapacitated so badly you couldn’t say yes, then it was rape. If you were sleeping, it was rape.” The words snap out of me, sharp and furious.

He finally turns to look at me, his blue-green eyes hurt and full of pain. So lost.

“Erin…they tried to bond me. She made Wiley bite me, but it didn’t take. We’ve been pretending. I don’t know why he’s doing it, but I’m grateful. When I woke up to my mansion on fire, I just ran.”

I snarl. “She tried to force another alpha to bond you?” The sickness of that. The fear he must have had.

Locke nods, his expression so full of despair that I can barely breathe with the need to tear them apart. Now is not the time to tell him about our bond. Not while he’s vulnerable, but I feel uneasy keeping it a secret.

“And your mansion was on fire? How often have things like that happened?” I’m reeling, reeling. So many threats, so many different attacks. He’s been living in a war zone, trying to survive while he entertains the entire world.

He shakes his head. “A few.”

I stand up and grip his hand, pulling him back to the fallen tree I’ve been sitting on.

“Locke, I need you to go back to the beginning and tell me everything.”

I pace in front of Finn, Bray, and Shane.

“Locke has asked me to tell you so he doesn’t have to relive the details again. He’s sleeping in our bed.” Not the nest. He wanted the dark. He needed to hide. Where he was safe and couldn’t be seen.

The fury in me won’t be still.

“Is he okay?”

I laugh ruefully and run my hands through my hair and pull at it. “No. No, he’s not.”

“Perhaps we should-” Finn looks at the door.

“You should sit down and listen,” I snap.

Finn shuts his mouth with a snap.

“Sorry, sorry. Fuck, this is a mess.”

“Erin, just tell us.”

“Our omega is contractually tied to a band where he is, at best, being taken advantage of, at worst, being abused by them and multiple thems,” I say with a growl.

Finn blinks rapidly, but Bray and Shane don’t move. The dangerous side of an alpha rising to the surface, I see myself reflected in their eyes.

“Further, it was not us but memories that had Locke freaking out this morning. The band masquerade as a pack, and a particular beta named Delilah has been abusing Locke for years. Physically, sexually, financially, and I strongly suspect she may be responsible for the five accidents that almost killed him.”

All three of them become laser-focused on me. I can feel the weight of their rage.

I stand there and tell them bluntly, painfully, everything Locke told me. I talk to them about the drugs in the food and drink. About him waking up in pain or covered in cum, with strangers in his bed. I tell them about the way she ties him up, and the things she says. How she takes him when he says no. How this bitch rapes my omega. She uses drugs or coercion and just takes what she wants.

I explain about how when Locke went to his manager, he was called a liar. How the head of Alpha Labels, Locke’s uncle, had laughed and told him to enjoy it and stop whining. His mother refused his calls. And then, when it came to a head, the band backed Delilah, who is a good five years older. Locke looks like a trouble-making teen. A liar.

No one believed him.

No one would help him.

And I stand there while Shane breaks and starts to cry. Huge tears of pain that disappear into his beard.

I bear witness as Finn empties his stomach, over and over. And while Bray stands up and walks out, his emotion, his rage so potent that I shiver.

When they all come back, I look at them. “Locke is our omega, whether he chooses this pack or not, I’m not leaving him in this situation for this to continue.”

“Agreed!” Bray snaps.

Finn nods. “Of course, not.”

Shane makes a sound of assent. “Where is he?”

“He’s in the bedroom, he thinks we’re all going to hate him.”

“Idiot omega,” Bray snaps and stalks to the bedroom. I follow, glancing back to see Shane and Finn coming to.

Bray kicks off his shoes and flops onto the bed, pulling Locke into his arms.

“I’m never going to leave you,” Bray whispers. “You can leave me, but I’ll always be right behind you. You just need to look. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Same!” Shane growls and sits down on the other side.

Finn wraps his arms around me and watches our alphas with our omega.

“Are you going to stay?” he murmurs.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now, but I know that I can’t go back. I sent an email to my bosses requesting more time. They have agreed. I have another month to decide what to do.”

Finn hums in agreement and walks us towards the bed.

Shane and Bray are talking quietly to Locke. Murmured words that turn the stiff omega into a relaxed and vulnerable young man.

The feel in the room transforms to hope, and when vanilla blooms in the air, I know we’ve reached him.

I grab Finn’s hand and drag him onto the bed.

I can’t go back. But he’s not going back, either. I’ll do anything I have to before I let anyone hurt my omega again.