“Okay,” Harper says unsteadily. “Okay. I’m coming to you. No,Devlin—,”
A muttered argument breaks out on the other end of the line as I frown at Luc in question. He shrugs.
“They’ve been here before,” he reminds me.
Eventually, Devlin persuades Harper to put their call on speaker, and we arrange for their pack to come to us tomorrow, despite Harper’s arguments to come immediately. Ava stares at the screen sightlessly, her tears dripping off her chin as she hugs her legs as best she can around her bump.
“Ava? I’ll see you tomorrow, honey.” Harper’s voice wavers. “I can’t believe you’rethere.”
Ava clears her throat. “I know,” she murmurs quietly. “I can’t… I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Promise.” There’s a final, choked sob before the line goes dead. We sit quietly as Ava processes the last few minutes.
“Ava?” I ask gently. “Why did you think Harper was dead?”
I feel Luc’s sharp look, but I keep my eyes on Ava. She curls in on herself at my words. I can see the guilt coming off her. Clearly, Harper is very much alive.
In halting words, she tells us about their time at Omega Compound. The awful conditions, the lack of food, the fucking training, the assaults. The way she cried at night. My heart breaks a little more with every sentence.
“She was my only friend,” Ava mumbles, her face pressed to Luc’s chest. He stares at me, cold fury burning in his green eyes at her words.
“They took her away because of me,” she continues, and we both look at her. “Because of you?” I ask. She nods, her face agonized as she recounts the lunch incident that led to Harper’s removal from the OC.
“He told me she was dead,” she whispers. “He came to my cell.”
She starts to shake in Luc’s arms. I bite back the anger in my chest. “Who, baby?” Luc asks her, menace underpinning his soft words.
“Jason. One of the guards,” she starts to cry again. “He came to my cell, and he was soangry.”
Luc strokes her hair back as she cries.
“It was my fault. My fault.” She says it over and over again, and agony blazes in my chest as I read between the lines. Luc meets my eyes, a tortured look on his face as he reaches the same conclusion.
“He hurt you?” I ask her in a low voice. “Ava… did he rape you?”
She nods, and Luc groans, burying his face in her hair as she cries.
I try to push through the pain and anger in my chest. “He told you she was dead, and you thought it was your fault?”
She nods, her voice so small we have to strain to hear her. “He said… he said I owed it to him, because he couldn’t have her anymore. They found me when he’d finished, and he was sacked. My father –Stone– picked me up and took me to the nests the next day. He said that since I wasn’t any good as a pack omega anymore, he’d get more use breeding me for a male heir. He’s obsessed with bloodlines. He wanted a boy.”
She shudders as she looks down at her stomach bleakly, and my fury boils over. Luc meets my eyes grimly behind Ava.
He’s a dead man.
They’re both dead men.
ChapterForty-Two
Nikolai
Nash chatters beside me as we pack a bag, but I’m lost in my own thoughts. Grabbing the duffel, I throw in a few towels and some sun lotion. Despite the change in season, it’s still warm outside. Perfect weather for a day at the lake.
“Do you think Ava likes jam sandwiches, pa? Pa?”
I nod absently. “I’m sure she does, little man.”
“And cockroaches sprinkled in sugar?”
