CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A hand curled around her upper arm just as a mouth grazed her ear. “Time to go,” Alex said quietly.

Bree frowned. “Not so soon.”

“We’ve been here hours.”

“Just a little longer.”

“You’re in pain.”

Pain seemed like a mild word. Usually, she needed to touch a person to read their emotions. But when people’s feelings were running high and wild, they tended to broadcast them. Which was why small, crowded places filled with heightened states of emotion could be a nightmare for omegas, especially memorials or funerals.

It didn’t matter how tough an omega’s shields were, there was no way to block out all that energy. Waves of it buzzed through the air. Despair. Grief. Anger. Pain. Devastation.

That negative energy felt like billions of blunt needles stabbing at her flesh. It seeped into her. Bloated her. Caused her chest to ache and her head to pound. Threatened to propel her into such a state of extreme fatigue that there was no way to stand on her own steam. And yet, she stayed. Because it just felt plain shitty to leave.

Rather than hold two separate wakes, the families of the deceased had agreed to hold one in Benny’s parents’ apartment for both him and Crawford. Mourners were scattered around, clutching tissues and talking in low whispers. Some also held paper plates that were laden with buffet food. Bree hadn’t been able to eat a thing—her gut felt knotted.

Most of the mourners were her pride mates. Others were relatives of the deceased that belonged to other prides.

Bree’s gaze drifted to the framed pictures of Benny and Crawford that had been propped on the table among the beautiful flower arrangements. Hot tears stung the backs of her eyes.

“All the other omegas left, and no one blames them for that,” said Alex. “You’re only lingering because you’re punishing yourself.”

Her frown deepened. “Am not.”

He lifted a brow. “You really going to look me in the eye and tell me that you’re not standing here feeling responsible for their deaths?”

She sighed, unwilling to lie. “I just wish … We have to get justice for them, Alex.”

“We will, I promise you. Whoever is responsible is living on borrowed time.” He gave her nape a little squeeze. “Now let’s go. You need to earth, eat, and rest—don’t argue. You’ve spoken to Renee, you’ve spoken with Benny’s and Crawford’s family, you’ve paid your respects. It’s time to go.” Still holding her arm, he pulled her toward the front door.

“God, you’re bossy.”

“This isn’t new to you, baby girl.” Stepping out of the apartment, Alex turned to her. “Stay here while I run upstairs and grab your jacket from my apartment. It’s chilly outside.”

“I’ll be fine without one, it won’t take me long to earth.”

“You also need pain pills yesterday. Wait here.” He took the stairs two at a time as he headed up to the level he lived on.

She leaned back against the wall, feeling weak and close to a crash.

The door of an apartment further down the hall opened. A familiar elderly woman stepped out. “Well, if it isn’t Bree Dwyer,” said Rose with a smile, crossing to her. “Last time I saw you, you were … what, thirteen?”

“Something like that,” replied Bree. She’d always liked Rose. As well as being Benny’s great-aunt, she’d also been the Olympus Pride’s primary omega when Bree was a kid. But after retiring from the position to make way for the primary who Dani later usurped, Rose had transferred to the pride that her son mated into.

“You were a strong omega back then. But not this strong.” Rose joined Bree in leaning back against the wall. “I had to go lie down for a while—having people’s grief beat at you is hard to take.”

Bree nodded. “I’m sorry about Benny.”

She let out a long breath. “Me too, sweetheart. He was a good man. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. I’m just glad those polar bears paid dearly for what they did.” She swallowed and then forced a small, strained smile. “So, how have you been?”

“I’ve been good. You?”

“Oh, fine, fine. I heard all about the hyena business and the problems you’ve been having with the Cages. I also heard you’re having some problems with Dani.”

Bree only shrugged. She glanced up the stairwell, but there was no sign of Alex.

“I never wanted to be primary, you know,” Rose said with a sigh.

Bree’s gaze flew back to Rose. “But you were so good at it.”

“That didn’t mean I wanted it. I fought the ascension hard. My mother pulled me aside and gave me a stern talking to. She said I didn’t realize how lucky I was; said lots of people would love to not only have such a gift but such a purpose. She told me that, like it or not, I’d been given this gift and the pride needed me to get my act together. It now needs you to do the same. You’re going to tell me that it already has a perfectly good primary.”

“Well, it does.”

“True. I’ve met few omegas as strong as Dani. You’re stronger.”

“It was different for you. Your old primary was ready to step down.”

“Quite ready,” Rose agreed. “The position can take a lot out of a person, which is why most retired primaries stick to helping their loved ones as opposed to serving their entire pride. You can understand why Dani isn’t yet ready to step down.”

“I totally can. Would it really be so bad if she remained primary?”

“Your cat won’t tolerate taking orders from her. You know that, just like you know you may have to challenge her at some point.”

“I don’t want to fight her. I mean, I’d happily smack the shit out of her for being a bitch lately. But a duel? I’d rather avoid that. Especially because I think she’d rather die than submit and lose her position. I don’t want to kill her.”

Rose sighed. “Dani has come to let the role define her and she doesn’t feel that she’s anything without it—that happens to primaries sometimes. You should ask yourself something: do you truly not want the position, or are you worried that others are right; that you’ll fall like your mother did?”

Bree looked away. “She was a mess at the end.”

“It wasn’t her gifts that led to her death. They overwhelmed her, yes, but people can be overwhelmed by lots of things—not all end their lives. I find that it depends on the individual, not the circumstance, or those circumstances would all end in the same way.”

“You’re saying she was weak?”

“Not weak. Fragile. Charity was too compassionate. She could never switch off. Could never say no to people or set boundaries. She became overworked.”

Bree remembered that about her mother. Remembered her father nagging her about it, claiming she was pushing herself too hard.

“But it wasn’t until a pride mate she was counseling killed himself that there were any fractures in her shields,” Rose went on. “She took on all the blame; insisted she should have done more to help him. Nobody else blamed her, but she was sure it was her fault and that she didn’t deserve her gifts. In short, she gave up on herself.”

Bree didn’t remember that incident well. But she did recall how her mother retreated, crumbled, and lost all faith in her omega abilities. Yes, she’d given up on herself.

“What do you think she’d say about the Dani situation? Truthfully.”

“She’d tell me …” Bree sighed. “She’d tell me I was only thinking of myself, not the pride; that they needed me to pull my head out of my ass.”

“So do it. I see in you an emotional strength she didn’t have; a strength that Dani doesn’t have. What I don’t see in you is anything of Paxton, if that’s a worry for you—he was hollow; you’re his complete opposite. You’re fighting the ascension for all the wrong reasons, Bree. Stop letting the actions and whispers of others hold you back.”

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs made them both look up. Alex soon came into view, holding a bottle of water in one hand and Bree’s jacket in the other.

Rose smiled. “Ah, Alex, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

Resting the jacket on his shoulder, he gave the woman a brief nod.

Bree almost snorted. Always so polite.

Turning to Bree, he slid his hand into his pocket and fished out two pain pills. “Take these.” Once she gratefully grabbed them from his palm, he unscrewed the cap on the bottle. She swallowed the pills with the help of the water, and he gave a satisfied nod. “Here.”

Taking the jacket he held out, Bree slipped it on.

“Well, I have to get going,” Rose announced. “You two take care now.” She gave Bree a pointed look. “Think about what I said.” And then she disappeared into Benny’s parents’ apartment.

Bree looked at Alex. “So you’re even rude to old ladies, huh?”

“Yes. What exactly did she say to you?”

“A few things. But this pounding headache is kind of interfering with my efforts to take it all in.”

“Then let’s get you to the communal backyard so you can earth. After that, you need to get some sleep. Then we’ll eat. Then we’ll fuck. Or maybe we’ll eat while we fuck.”

“As long as you make me come hard, I don’t care what order we do it in.”

Alex groaned at the feel of her pussy squeezing and rippling around him as her orgasm tore through her. Son of a bitch. Leaning back against the dining chair, he punched up his hips while forcefully slamming her down on his cock once, twice, three times. Then he exploded inside her, filling her with his come.

She melted against him, gasping for breath. “Dude, I continue to be amazed by the amount of game you bring to the table.”

Alex’s mouth almost canted up. “Always happy to please.” He splayed a hand on her back. “Don’t move. I don’t want to lose your pussy yet.” Utterly sated, he pressed a kiss to her temple and breathed her in. There was something very peaceful about just holding her when she was all limp and loose like this.

They didn’t speak for a while. They just sat in silence while he ran his hands over her—tracing, shaping, stroking. Her own fingers softly doodled patterns on his chest or followed the thick, curved lines of the tribal tattoo on his shoulder.

When his softening cock came close to slipping out of her, he carried her to the bathroom. After cleaning themselves up, they settled in bed on their sides, facing each other.

He skimmed his fingertips down her arm. “You going to tell me what Rose said?”

She groaned. “I’ve got a real good post-orgasmic buzz going on. Can’t I keep it a little while longer?”

He nipped her lower lip. “Tell me.”

“Fine.” She quickly relayed the conversation she’d had with the retired primary.

“Is she right?” asked Alex. “Do you fear you’ll fall like your mother?”

“Charity heard people’s thoughts, just like I do.”

“That wasn’t what killed her, Bree. Like Rose said, Charity was fragile. She didn’t have your strong sense of self.”

Bree’s eyes dropped to his neck. “As a kid, I blamed her omega abilities for her death. I guess I liked to blame external things for her suicide, because I didn’t want to face that she just didn’t love me and my dad enough to work through her issues.”

Hating the little shake in her voice, Alex massaged her nape. “I don’t think it was that she didn’t love you enough. I remember how family-oriented Charity was. You and Jim were her priorities.”

Bree shook her head. “She knew she could kill him if she committed suicide. She did it anyway. She knew that if he died, I’d be alone. She didn’t care.” Bree bit her lip and met his eyes again. “She left a note. She said she couldn’t handle the voices and the energies anymore. She didn’t feel that she deserved to live or be loved. She said we were better off without her. But that was all bullshit, Alex. She was just prettying up the simple fact that she wanted to end her own suffering.

“I get that it must have been hard for her to function with faulty shields. I do. It was like at the memorial today … the energy from all those emotions just invades you. It hurts and it sucks large and it drains you. But she could have tried to fix her shields; could have sought help from other omegas.”

Alex smoothed a hand down her back. “I know a little about what it’s like to feel that you failed someone; that their death is on you.”

“Freya,” she guessed.

“Freya,” he confirmed. “Is there a bigger failure than being unable to save the life of your true mate? I doubt it. I didn’t just fail her physically, Bree, I failed her emotionally. You hear about how people feel an immediate, primal attraction toward their true mate. The one I felt toward Freya wasn’t that strong. I didn’t feel drawn to her. My beast was curious about her; wanted to spend time with her. I didn’t question his interest.” Alex swallowed. “She deserved better.”

“People can be around their true mate for years and not sense it. They need to be open to mating or their unwillingness blocks the frequency of the bond—you know that. My guess is you wouldn’t have sensed it that night of the crash if you hadn’t been half out of it.”

“That moment when the mating bond pulled at me … it lasted seconds, Bree. Felt like a fucking lifetime, though.” He’d never forget the sensation of it yanking at his psyche, desperately trying to join him to her. “And then it was just gone, the same as her. Gone. I should have been devastated. Broken. A mess. I wasn’t.”

“Be honest, you didn’t feel that you had the right to grieve—simply because you hadn’t known her or realized who she was to you. And then there’s the fact that you stupidly felt to blame for her death.”

“If there’d been a mating bond, I could have saved her.”

“Or you could have died trying to save her. You’re not a healer, Alex. The most you could have done was keep her alive until a healer arrived, but they’d have had to get there damn fast to save someone with such extensive injuries. From what I heard, it took the healer half an hour to reach you; you couldn’t have kept her heart beating that long.”

Maybe, maybe not—he couldn’t be sure either way. “Never felt that helpless in my life. She was right there, fading away, looking up at me with a plea in her eyes. There was nothing I could do. The pull of the bond was gone too fast for me to accept it.”

“But she died knowing she’d met her mate—I’ll bet that brought her some peace as she passed.”

Alex blinked. He hadn’t thought of it that way before. “You think?”

“Yeah, I do.” Bree gave his upper arm a squeeze. “You didn’t fail her, Alex.”

“But that’s how it feels. Your mom wasn’t to blame for the suicide of her pride mate, but that wasn’t how she felt. Unlike me, I found it easier to shoulder my guilt because I’m no stranger to hurting people. I’ve killed, tortured, failed. Your mom was light and heart and goodness. She probably hadn’t thought she could ever let someone down that way.

“Feeling you failed to save a person’s life eats at you. Makes you question your worth. Shakes your faith in yourself. Leaves you feeling undeserving and guilty for living. But you don’t lament that you feel that, because you believe you should feel it; you believe it’s what you deserve. So when Charity said in her note that she thought you were better off without her and that she didn’t feel she was worthy of love, she most likely believed it.”

“Maybe,” Bree whispered, tracing his abs with her fingers.

He cupped her chin and stared right into those electric-blue eyes. “You’d never break the way she did. Know why I’m so sure of that? Because life has tossed trial after trial at you, but you didn’t let any of it break you. You never weakened. You faced it all head-on, and you let it make you stronger. Someone like that isn’t going to fold under the weight of a primary omega role. Your spine of steel would never allow it.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

He frowned. “Fuck, yeah, I believe it. Do you think I’d urge you to walk down a path that might later cause you harm?”

“No.”

Mollified, he gruffly said, “Good.” He rolled onto his back and tucked her into his side. “Sleep.”

“I slept for hours. The last thing I’m feeling right now is tired.”

He hummed. “I guess I could just fuck you to sleep.”

A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. “You’re more than welcome to try.”

He did try. And he damn well succeeded.

It was a muffled curse that woke her the next morning. With the fog of sleep surrounding her, she didn’t think much of it. Nor did she pay much attention to Alex slipping out of bed. She just lay there, happy to let the fog fade rather than try to wade through it.

Her cat was having none of that. She nudged at Bree again and again, urging her to wake; urging her to deal with … something. There was no danger present. No. The matter was serious enough to rattle her cat, though.

Groaning, Bree forced her eyes open. She’d drawn the curtains the previous night, so no rays of sunlight stabbed her—

Awareness slammed into her, shocking her to her core, and stole the breath from her lungs. Her heart began to pound hard in her chest. She couldn’t quite seem to get enough air. Jesus H Christ, she was wearing Alex’s scent on her skin. Wearing his scent. That could only mean one thing—the imprinting process had started.

Bree knifed up and shoved a hand through her disheveled hair. How could it have happened so soon? She’d thought that if things continued to go well between her and Alex, imprinting might begin sometime in the future. But not untilafter they’d settled into the relationship and were sure it was going somewhere. They hadn’t been together very long. Where was the steady, natural progression?

She could hear Alex moving around somewhere in the apartment, and she had to wonder what he was doing. Probably freaking the fuck out. It was one thing to be in a serious, committed relationship. It was a whole other thing for a metaphysical bond to spark to life and begin to bind you to someone.

People had serious relationships all the time—they didn’t always “take the next step” like move in together or, in the case of humans, get engaged to be married. So, yeah, she’d understand if Alex was freaking out. He’d gone from being in a relationship to being partially mated in a matter of hours—anyone would find that a hell of a shock. He might not be ready for this yet. Might never have intended to mate with her.

Anxious, her cat rubbed up against her, giving comfort and seeking it. It confused and concerned the feline that he’d left them; it made both cat and woman worry he’d reject the bond. Hell, the guy had fled the bed rather than gently wake Bree and marvel over the bond. That didn’t say he was happy about it, did it?

Her throat thickening, she pulled her knees close to her chest. She needed to go face him. Needed to know where exactly his head was at.

She took a centering breath that was a lot shakier than she would have liked. Her nose and throat burned. She wasn’t gonna fall apart if he rejected the bond. Nope. She’d long ago learned the lesson that life wasn’t fair. She’d survived worse things than losing Alex Devereaux. She’d survive this, too. But wearing his scent on her skin, smelling him every moment of every day, would be a special kind of torture all on its own.

She slipped out of bed and pulled on her robe. It was time to face the music and just hope that the tune wouldn’t be too—

Bree stiffened as a floorboard outside the room creaked. Her pulse quickened, and she balled her hands up into little fists.

When he walked into the room and stared at her with unreadable eyes, her stomach sank. Any other time, the sight of his naked body would have been a distraction. Not right then. Because all she could think was … He doesn’t want this. If he were happy, he wouldn’t hide it, right?

Feeling uber protective of Bree at that moment, her cat eyed him warily, prepared to lash out if he said or did anything hurtful. Tears clogged Bree’s aching throat. Fuck, she would not cry. She wouldn’t. And nor would she yell at or condemn him. He hadn’t asked for imprinting to start. It wouldn’t exactly be his fault if he didn’t want it—people couldn’t always help how they felt.

She cleared her throat. “It’s okay if you’re not ready for this. I can understand, and I won’t be mad at you for it. I won’t hold it against you … but I’ll need to leave.”

“Leave?” he echoed, his gravelly voice empty of emotion. “You don’t want this?”

She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t want to be bound to a male who doesn’t care for me as much as I do him.”

His dark eyes flared with something she couldn’t quite name. He slowly stalked toward her, fluid and predatory, and flicked up one eyebrow. “You’re so sure that’s the case here, are you?”

She blinked. “You don’t want the bond.”

“And you’re certain of this … why?”

“You don’t exactly look happy about it.”

He pursed his lips. “The truth? Being tied into a mating with a man like me is not going to be an easy ride for you. I’m not going to be easy. We haven’t been together long enough for you to get an idea of just how much of a pain in your ass I’ll be. But I’m not going to behave and walk away if you tell me you’re not ready for this. I’m too damn selfish for that.” He cupped the side of her neck and gave it a little squeeze. “Don’t you get it yet? I don’t have a single interest in living a life that doesn’t have you in it.”