“You’re right.” I agreed finally, sighing. My breath was no longer labored as my panic attack had stopped at some point during our conversation, and I was already starting to feel better.
“I generally am, kiddo, not to toot my own horn.” The old man grinned at me, “tell them your story, Tibby, take back control over your own narrative. These alphas won’t hold it against you.”
We ended the phone call after that, and I sat in the closet for a few more minutes. Slowly gathering my courage, I stood, opened the door, and was immediately greeted by the sight of Theo. He was perched on the edge of my nest with his elbows perched on his knees as he stared at the door which I had just opened.
“Little Bit,” He used his nickname for me as he stood, an apology already on his lips. I cut him off by reaching out and threading my fingers through his. His hand was much larger than mine, and the skin of his fingers was cool and dry as I gave them a small squeeze.
“Don’t apologize,” my voice was hoarse from my panic attack. “But I think it’s time to be honest with everyone.”
Theo shook his head vehemently, “You don’t have to share that part of yourself if you don’t want to, Tibby. I can tell them to drop it.”
My heart gave a little squeeze at his words, and I very nearly agreed, wanting to keep parts of myself just to myself. However, as soon as the thought entered my mind, it was gone again. Gary was right, I needed to give them a chance, and that would never happen if I kept my past a secret. If you had told me a week ago that I would be sharing my past with people who were, in essence, strangers...I would have told you that you were insane, but they didn’t feel like strangers though. I knew that it was in part because of my omega instinct telling me that they were safe, but it was also because of Theo. Even if I refused to share my past I knew that he would support me even at the expense of his own relationship with his pack.
“Thank you, Theo. For protecting me—even from the people that you care about.” I used my free hand to reach up and touch the alpha’s cheek and was pleased when he leaned into my touch.
“I’ll always protect you, Tibby.” He replied gruffly, and damn if my heart didn’t skip two beats at his words. I wanted to stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his and see what his reaction would be but, unfortunately, I had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
“We should head downstairs, I think it’s time to fill everyone in on my sordid past.”
Ten minutes later,I sat at the kitchen table surrounded by Theo, Aria, Matteo, and Cobb. Aria looked miserable as she tried to apologize to me with her eyes, the confidence that she normally projected was completely gone, and was replaced by a mess of a woman with swollen eyes and a cherry red nose from crying. I wanted to be angry with her, she was the reason that I was having to share a very private part of myself after all, but I couldn’t stay angry or upset with her, it wasn’t in my nature.
“Okay, so I’m going to lay everything out for you guys,” I began. “I don’t want any questions until the end, and please don’t interrupt. I just need to get all of this out.”
Theo, whose hand I was still hanging onto for dear life, was the comforting presence that I didn’t know I needed. He’d taken the chair next to me, and I was leaning heavily into him for support as I began.
“I wasn’t born in Hezekiah Jordan’s cult, I lived in Los Angeles with my mother until she became addicted to heroin. She met Hezekiah Jordan, and he offered us a place to stay. It was really nice at first, everyone was kind, maybe a bit stricter than I was used to, but they took care of us.” They had really shown us what community living was all about. We never starved, and my mom had even started doing really well after the initial withdrawal symptoms had worn off. “We lived like that for five, maybe six years? I’m not sure, but that all changed when I was eleven.”
Taking a quick, steadying breath to calm myself I continued, “I woke up one morning feeling different, all of my clothing felt super scratchy and uncomfortable. No one around me seemed to notice, I know now that it’s because almost everyone else in the compound was a beta.”
I remember their funny looks, but they all seemed to just gloss past it and go about their day. I’d been on water duty that day, bringing buckets from the well to throw into the compound’s water tank. By the time that I finished for the day, it was already time for dinner, and I was hot and sweaty. I wanted to go home and wash up, but I also didn’t want to be late for dinner. They were strict about being on time to meals, and the punishment wasn’t worth being late to wash up.
“After working all day, I went to dinner like normal, and everything was fine. Until, that is, when Hezekiah Jordan sat down to eat.” I closed my eyes, and I could almost see the busy dining room where everyone gathered to eat every night. It was in the meeting house, and everyone sat together at one long table, passing food around to each other. My mother and I usually sat on the end since we were on the lower end of the hierarchy in our compound. Jordan would sit at the head of the table with his wives, and would pray over dinner before we could even think about eating. “He, um, he walked past me, and his nostrils kind of flared. Somehow, I just knew that I’d presented as an omega.”
Someone at the table cursed under their breath I ignored them and continued on, afraid that if I stopped now, that I would never finish the story. “I’m sure you already know all about Hezekiah Jordan’s religious views from the files.”
Alpha-supremacist. That was the word that most people used when describing how Hezekiah Jordan ran things inside of his compound. He believed, not only, in traditional roles for alphas, omegas, and betas, but he took it one step further. He referred to himself as the ‘prime’ alpha in our compound, aligning our dynamics more similarly to how packs of wolves were in the wild. The alpha was in charge of the pack and all of the most eligible mates were his.
Lissy, Olivia, and Regina were his three omega wives. Olivia and Regina were older and had been married to Hezekiah long before my mother and I had come to live at the compound. I was six or seven when Lissy perfumed, and she had only been sixteen. They had gotten married almost right away and that was that. I never questioned it then, it was just how things were done at the compound.
I continued on, “When he realized that I’d perfumed as an omega, things went really fast. Six months later, I was standing at my own wedding and getting married.”
“How is that even fucking possible?” Matteo’s voice was rough as the question rumbled out of him. His dark eyes were stony as he gripped the edge of the dining table so hard that his knuckles had turned white.
Aria, pale-faced, jumped in with the answer, “the state of California doesn’t have a minimum age requirement for marriage with a parent’s consent.”
Pursing my lips, I nodded, “Ding, ding, ding. My mom said no at first.” I smiled at the vague memory of my mom standing up to the man who’d given us a new life, but the smile quickly faded. “But the funny thing about recovering drug addicts, is that when you wag the potential of their drug of choice in front of their faces...the chance of relapse is really high.”
My mom had signed the papers and spent the last five months of her life high on heroin, barely able to function let alone take care of me. “When she eventually overdosed, they moved me into the main house, and I was married to Hezekiah Jordan.” My thoughts moved to one of the pictures that had been mailed to me at the omega academy. The picture of me at twelve years old, dressed in a wedding outfit. That outfit had been for my own wedding.
“Jesus.” Aria reached her hand across the table, palm up, and I slid my fingers through hers, “Did he...?” Her voice came out a bit hoarse as she spoke, as if she didn’t want to finish her question.
I shook my head, “No. I was lucky—at least in that aspect—another part of Hezekiah Jordan’s religious beliefs was that omegas don’t truly mature until their first heat. I didn’t do much more than be forced to watch him with the other wives from time-to-time.” Though that had been almost as awful. He would set up a chair in front of their bed whenever one of the wives was in heat, and I’d have to sit and watch for days while he rutted into her. It was what he called ‘bridal lessons.’ Looking back on it now, with my experiences with healthy heats cycles, all I could think was ‘ew.’ There was nothing to be learned from those days and I put them from my mind as much as possible.
It had taken a lot of therapy and time to feel lucky about how my story had started.
“I had my first heat two months after Hezekiah Jordan’s trial.” My smile was triumphant now, it was my first personal win over Hezekiah Jordan. The fact that I was able to have my first heat on my own terms, even waiting until later to have a heat partner for the first time. It had all been my choice, and I was grateful everyday for that. “I’m really sorry for not being upfront about my past until now. I’ve spent so long being Tibby and avoiding Tabitha that it’s hard, sometimes, for me to be honest about my past.” Sometimes I wished that I could forget about Tabitha completely.
Tibby was the strong one. Tibby’s court documents were sealed, so no one could look at her with pity or disgust. Tibby was her own person who didn’t take any shit from anyone, and always spoke her mind.
