“Anyway, I’ve been living as a beta for a really long fucking time,” Isidro says. “I’m on a lot of meds, I don’t perfume, and barely slick. I drop the meds once a year to have my heat with Harlan and Kyren. They’re my scent matches. Somehow, even with all the meds, they knew pretty early on that I was important to them. I think Harlan knew you were important when he saw your picture, and that’s why he couldn’t shake you.”
“Do you think Lexi’s scent matched to his brother?” she asks, sitting up to face him.
I hadn’t really thought about that, but the possibility is pretty high.
“That’s what I’m thinking. Aiden is a good guy, but he doesn’t even know I’m an omega,” Isidro confesses.
“Why are you telling me?” Silva asks.
“I don’t want you to think I’m competition, and I also need you to know that Kyren and Harlan aren’t bad alphas,” he says. “They’re fixers, which means they want to disband whatever is hanging over your head and murder them all.”
“Bulls in a damn china shop,” I grumble.
Isidro sighs, nodding.
“I have a lot of…guilt over taking a deal from G. I won’t say his name, because it’s borrowing trouble,” Silva says. “It was our only option. The six of us were young, and our self defense skills aren’t what they are now. We were exhausted from running, and I had to think about the other girls as well.”
“When do you not think about other people?” Isidro asks. “Honestly, everyone who talks about you either says you’re scary, or gushes about how amazing you are.”
“Are you asking where the truth lies?” she asks, rolling her eyes. “I almost didn’t leave the mansion, Isidro. A part of mewanted to stay back so they at least had one omega to sell. I did all the leg work, and made certain everyone was ready.”
“You almost stayed?” Isidro asks, appearing horrified.
Goddamn it. I very much want to wrap my omega in bubble wrap, but that’s the fastest way to lose her.
“Yep. Think about that when one of your twatwaffle alphas says I’m a coward,” she says, sighing. “I worry about our safety bubble bursting. There are so many people who need Widows Peak.”
“You almost stayed?!” Isidro asks again, yelling. “Are you fucking insane?”
“Isidro, stop being broken,” I complain. “Spitfire, do you think he needs a reboot?”
Silva laughs as she leans against me, and Isidro stares at us.
“You know what? You’re both insane,” he groans. “There’s no cure is there?”
“Nope,” she says, shrugging.
“You’re different with Syrus,” Isidro mentions. “Lighter somehow.”
“I laugh more with him,” she says. “It’s nice. My life isn’t all rainbows, Isidro. I don’t sleep well, I wake up screaming from nightmares, and then drag myself out of bed to start my day. Harlan, Kyren, and you remind me of every shitty dream I’ve ever had.”
Isidro looks like he’s been physically struck, and I don’t blame him. That’s a heavy statement.
“Tell him why,” I ask Silva. There’s got to be a reason. She doesn’t have a cruel bone in her body.
“Your presence threatens everything my friends and I have sacrificed for,” she says. “Going after the people who took us, without handling it properly, means ripping away not only our safe haven, but also that of the four thousand people who live here. They don’t have a background in any kind of defensetraining, nor do they know our pasts. My nightmares lie to me almost every fucking night, telling me I didn’t get out, I’m still being tied down, raped, and abused by my foster brothers. Or that I was sold to an alpha and his friends that are twice, maybe three times my age. Rape isn’t the worst thing you can do to a person.”
“You’re right,” Isidro whispers. “We came on too strong, and fucked up. Harlan is freaking the fuck out. We’re bonded as pack. He’ll be worried that you’ll reject him before he can show you he’s not the Boogieman who lives underneath your bed.”
“I check for those, every night,” she says halfheartedly. “In my experience, the best looking ones do the most damage.”
“If your pack wants to make it right, they’re going to have to do better than a woe is me attitude,” I say. “Silva and pity don’t go well together.”
“Pity is only good for drinking binges at my bar while a person is telling me that their ex cheated on them,” she says. “Afterward, I pour them into a rideshare with a note pinned to their shirt that says ‘you deserve better.’”
“You sound like a delight,” Isidro says, hiding a smile.
“It gets the job done. Sometimes I try to be inspirational, and say ‘the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else.’”
