“We’ll be just outside,” Devlin says to Harper. He cups her face in his palm and she nods.
When the door closes, we both take a breath. There are a whole lot of different scents packed into the kitchen right now, and my knee jumps with agitation.
Harper leans over, taking my hand. “Talk to me,” she pleads.
“Tell me what happened to you, Ava.Please.”
My fingers trace the dark whorls decorating the table. “There’s so much, Harper.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I swallow hard. “It’s not… it’s notgood.”
My friend watches me, her amber eyes dimming with a level of understanding even the pack can’t reach. “I know.”
My words come in stilted sentences, my eyes fixed to the table, as I tell her about Jason.
“He just… took what he wanted,” my mouth is dry, my voice shaking as I close my eyes. “And he mademewant it.”
There it is. The words I can’t admit to my pack. Shame hits me like a wave, rolling down my back and covering me like oil as I sink my face into my hands, unable to face Harper. Her chair creaks, and I hear footsteps padding around the table before she slips into a seat next to me, her hand nudging my shoulder.
“Ava, we’reomegas,” she whispers. “We don’t have any control over what our body does when an alpha is in charge, honey. That doesn’t mean you wanted it. It just means that he used biology to force you to respond to him.That’s not your fault.”
I know that.Theoretically, I understand how little control I have thanks to my own biological make-up. But it doesn’t stop the shame I feel when I think about it.
Harper stares across the kitchen, her eyes vacant.
“When he took me from the pack,” she murmurs, “he injected me with those heat hormones, and I begged for it too, Ava. Ibeggedthem to knot me.”
Her cheeks grow pale. “I would have done anything,” she admits, her face ashen. “I was just lucky that the pack arrived before the worst happened.”
I close my eyes. It’s useless to wish to change the past. But fuck, do I wish that someone had arrived for me.
We sit in silence for a few minutes, catching our breath, before Harper speaks again.
“So, the baby…” she murmurs carefully. “It’s his?”
“I think you meanbabies,” I correct her with a small smile, and her eyes widen as she sits up. “You’re having twins?” she cries.
I nod. “But they’re not his.”
Shock pulls her shoulders back as she stares at me. “What?”
Grimacing, I brace myself for the rest of the story.
“I wish that Jason had been the last of it.”
Harper pales. “Oh, god, Ava,” she breathes, her tone anguished. Waving her off, I sigh.
“I don’t remember a lot of it, thankfully,” I admit. “But they called my father after Jason’s attack. He arranged for me to be taken to the heat nests. He wanted a male heir and figured that would be the fastest way to get one.”
Heat nests. If someone asked me to draw evil, that’s the sketch I’d create. The absolute soulless, sterile environment. The screaming, the crying, the whining and moans. A hundred different scents, mixing together. And the sensation of waking up, over and over again, smelling different scents on yourself and feeling so fucking full of them that you lose sight of your own being. Even if I don’t remember the alphas themselves, I remember the aftermath well enough.
I’ll never forget it.
“They gave me too many hormone doses,” I conclude. “I was admitted to the hospital, and Max was the doctor. The rest… well, that’s where your pack came in.”
A green tinge lines Harper’s cheeks. “Jesus, Ava,” she says in horror. “One dose of those drugs was the worst thing I’ve ever felt. And you had…”
“A lot, I guess.” Even I’m not sure how many, although Max probably knows. I consider asking him but dismiss it. There are some things I just don’t need to know right now.
“And now… here I am,” I shrug, although I don’t feel nearly as light as my tone suggests.
