He stood, and I tensed, ready to fight, ready to claw and bite and scream if he came any closer. But he just walked to the window, pulling back the heavy curtain to look out at his manicured kingdom, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the gray afternoon light, his reflection ghostly in the glass.
"My father built Branston Ranch from nothing." His voice was distant now, lost in memory, his fingers tracing patterns on the window like he was drawing maps only he could see. "Started with a hundred acres and a dream when he was twenty-two years old. Worked his fingers to the bone for forty years — up before dawn, in bed after midnight, never a vacation, never a day off. By the time I was born, we were the second-largest operation in the county." He paused, his jaw tightening, a muscle jumping beneath the skin, his reflection twisting with something bitter and old. "Second largest. Do you know what was first?"
"Longhorn." The word tasted like ash on my tongue, heavy and bitter.
"Longhorn." He confirmed, turning back to face me, his eyes glittering with something old and wounded and dangerous, his lips twisting into a grimace that was almost a snarl. "TheCaldwell family. Reid's grandfather, then his father, now him. Three generations of men sitting on that prime land, that perfect grazing territory, that water access that should have been ours by rights."
"Should have been yours?" I couldn't keep the disbelief from my voice, my brow furrowing as I stared at him, trying to understand the twisted logic that had led to this moment, to me trapped in this room with a madman. "It's their land. Their family built it. They've been there for?—"
"My father tried to buy that land for thirty years." Easton moved closer, his steps slow and deliberate, his eyes fixed on mine, his scent washing over me in waves that made my Omega recoil, that made my hindbrain scream wrong wrong wrong. "Made offer after offer. Fair prices, generous terms, everything a reasonable man could want. And every single time, the Caldwells turned him down." His voice hardened, something ugly and festering creeping into the cultured tones. "They looked down on him. Treated him like dirt beneath their boots. Like we were nothing. Like forty years of work meant nothing because our name wasn't Caldwell."
"So this is about... wounded pride?" I couldn't help the incredulous laugh that escaped me, sharp and bitter as bile. "You're destroying lives, threatening people, kidnapping me — because your daddy's feelings got hurt fifty years ago?"
He moved fast — faster than I expected, faster than a man his size should be able to move — crossing the distance between us in three long strides. I scrambled backward, a snarl ripping from my throat, my hands coming up to defend myself, but he stopped at the edge of the bed, looming over me, his chest heaving with barely contained fury, his scent going sharp and acrid with rage.
"You don't understand." The words came out low and dangerous, his dark eyes blazing, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides like he was fighting the urge to wrapthem around my throat. "My father died believing he was a failure. Died thinking he'd never be good enough, never be respected, never be anything more than second best. He had a heart attack at sixty-three — worked himself into an early grave trying to build something that could compete with Longhorn." His voice cracked, just slightly, a hairline fracture in the mask before it hardened again into something cold and cruel. "I was twenty-two when he died. Same age he was when he started. And I stood at his grave and promised him I would finish what he started. That I would take Longhorn and everything the Caldwells built and make it mine. That I would make them pay for every slight, every dismissal, every time they made him feel small."
"And me?" I pressed myself against the headboard, my heart pounding, my scent spiking with fear and fury intertwined, my teeth bared in a warning that he seemed determined to ignore. "What am I in this sick little revenge fantasy?"
"You?" His smile returned, but there was no warmth in it, no humanity — just cold calculation and hungry want, his tongue sliding across his lower lip as his eyes raked over me in a way that made my skin crawl, that made me want to scrub myself raw. "You're the prize, little Omega. The crown jewel of my collection." He leaned closer, and I bared my teeth at him, a growl rumbling low in my chest. "An unbonded Omega, claimed by a pack of four Alphas who didn't have the sense to mark you when they had the chance. Do you have any idea how valuable you are? How rare? Omegas like you don't come around once in a generation."
"I'm not a thing to be collected." The growl grew louder, more feral, my vision narrowing to the threat in front of me, my body coiling to strike if he came any closer, every muscle tensed and ready. "I'm not property. I'm not a prize."
"Everyone is property." He said it like it was a simple fact, like he was explaining basic mathematics to a slow child, his dark eyes cold and certain and utterly empty of anything like empathy. "Everyone belongs to someone. The only question is who has the power to claim them." He straightened, smoothing his jacket with those manicured hands, composing himself back into that polished mask of civility. "I have power. Money. Influence. I can give you things those ranchers never could — comfort, luxury, a life of ease. You'd never have to work another day in your life. Never have to muck another stall or mend another fence."
"I like mucking stalls." I spat the words at him, my hands shaking with the effort of not launching myself at his throat. "I like mending fences. I like working beside my pack, building something real with people who actually care about me. I want my pack. I want my home. I want you to let me go."
"That's not going to happen." He said it simply, without malice, like he was stating the weather, like my entire life didn't hang in the balance. "In time, you'll come to accept that. In time, you'll be grateful for what I've given you."
"I will never—" I started to snarl, but he held up a hand, cutting me off, something shifting in his expression.
"My mother was an Omega." The words stopped me cold, unexpected and jarring, like a bucket of ice water over my head. Easton moved to the window again, his back to me, his voice taking on that distant quality again, lost in memories I wanted no part of. "Beautiful, spirited. The most stunning woman I've ever seen. My father worshipped her — gave her everything, denied her nothing." His shoulders tensed, his hands fisting at his sides, his reflection in the glass going hard and bitter. "And she left him. Took her things in the middle of the night, didn't even leave a note. Just disappeared. Left him broken. Left me."
I didn't say anything. Couldn't. Just watched as something like pain flickered across his profile before hardening back into ice.
"I was ten years old." His voice was bitter now, sharp with old wounds that had never healed, that had festered and rotted into something poisonous. "I woke up and she was just... gone. All her things, all her clothes, even the photographs of her. Like she'd never existed. Like I'd never existed." He turned to face me, and I saw something terrible in his eyes — not just hunger, but a desperate, twisted need that went far deeper than simple desire, that spoke to wounds carved into his soul before he was old enough to understand them. "My father spent six months trying to find her. Hired private detectives, called in favors, spent a fortune. And do you know what he discovered?"
I shook my head, mute, a sick feeling growing in my stomach.
"She couldn't handle being bonded to just one Alpha." His lips twisted, ugly and cruel. "She wanted more. Always more. A pack, she said in the letter she left with her sister. A real pack, with multiple bonds, multiple Alphas, an Omega's proper due." He practically spat the last words. "My father gave her everything. Everything. And it wasn't enough. She chose them — strangers, men she'd met through some underground matching service — over her own family. Over her own son."
"That's not—" I shook my head, trying to find words for the wrongness of what he was saying, the twisted logic that had warped his entire worldview. "That's not about Omegas being property. That's about people needing different things. That's about compatibility and biology and?—"
"That's about weakness." He cut me off, his voice sharp as a blade, his eyes flashing with fury. "That's about Omegas who don't know their place, who think they can have everything, who destroy families because they're too selfish to be satisfied withwhat they have." He moved closer again, and this time I was ready — when he reached for me, I lunged.
My teeth found his hand, biting down hard, my canines breaking skin, copper flooding my mouth. He howled, jerking back, and I used the momentum to scramble across the bed, putting the heavy furniture between us, my chest heaving, my lips pulled back in a feral snarl, his blood on my teeth.
"Don't touch me." The words came out guttural, barely human, my Omega completely subsumed by the survival instincts that had kept me alive for nine years on my own. I grabbed the brass lamp from the nightstand, brandishing it like a weapon, my injured ankle screaming as I put weight on it. "Don't ever touch me."
Easton cradled his bleeding hand, staring at me with something that looked almost like admiration mixed with his rage, his dark eyes bright with a terrifying intensity, his chest heaving with rapid breaths.
"There it is." He breathed, his voice rough with pain but threaded with excitement that made my stomach turn. "There's that fire. That's what I want. That's what those ranchers will never be able to tame, no matter how soft they make you." He wrapped a silk handkerchief around his wounded hand, his movements deliberate, controlled, his eyes never leaving mine. "You're wasted on them, you know. Four gentle Alphas who treat you like glass, who coddle you and pet you and let you think you have choices." His smile turned cruel, blood seeping through the silk. "I won't make that mistake. I know exactly what you are, what you need."
"You don't know anything about me." I stayed behind the barrier of the bed, lamp raised, my body trembling with adrenaline, my ankle screaming with pain, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
"I know everything about you." He said it with absolute certainty, reaching into his jacket pocket with his uninjured hand and pulling out a folder — thin, manila, filled with papers I couldn't read from this distance. "Aster. No last name on record. Former foster child, bounced between twelve different homes before you aged out of the system." He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the contents with cold interest, reciting my life like a grocery list. "Ran away at sixteen after your last foster father tried to bond you against your will. Spent years on the street, working odd jobs, never staying anywhere longer than a few months. Always running. Always hiding."
My blood ran cold. He'd been watching me. Researching me. Knew things I'd never told anyone, not even my pack.
