I’m not dead. I should be. I don’t know why I’m still here. But my mind is caught on the knowledge that for three hundred and sixty-five days, life moved… on.
Without me. Just like I knew it would.
My lungs feel as though they’re filling up. As though I’m drowning on dry land. “Tell me—,”
I’m choking.Tell me what to do.
Tell me what the hell I’m supposed todo now.
It doesn’t stop. Doesn’t end, the tears soaking my top, leaving me shivering. Oscar’s arms tighten, but my grip on him is tighter.
Don’t let go. Don’t let me go back there.
“You’re not going anywhere.” His words are so clear, so strong, that I blink, assuming I spoke out loud. “You’re staying right here, Ken. Where you belong, with us.”
With… them.
Except—
“Kenny?”
At the low murmur, my face turns from where it’s buried in Oscar’s shirt.
Theo drops his outstretched hand. He looks different too. Maybe more so than the others.
Bigger. He looks… bigger. Although they all look bigger than I remember.
Maybe I’m smaller.
Or maybe it’s the sight of the torn, broken skin that now ruins the tattoo that curls around his throat. He wears his own jagged lines now. My own bitemark, forced into his skin.
Just like Brett did to me.
I flinch back, the low whine curling out. Theo’s ashen face tightens further. “Kenny.Please.”
I don’t know what he’s asking me for. What he wants. But I can feel something. A line that stretches between us, wavering but there. Intangible.
Something I put there.
“I can feel you.” Theo’s jaw tics. “I can feel how much pain you’re in, baby.Please.”
Because of the mark in his neck. Tying us together. When he shifts, my arms fly up. “No.”
Everyone stills.
And Theo… his face nearly collapses. “Kenny—,”
“I can smell it on you.” The words drag free, rusty and broken and agonized. “I can smell her. Your…mate.”
Ayear. A year of being in this room.
A year was all it took for him to find someone else.
Not me, after all. Someone he chose.
Because nobody would choose you. Not voluntarily.
The anger bubbles up. And I let it, let it flow over me. Better than fear. Better than nothing. And far, far better than the pain I feel at thinking of him with another omega.
