"He can't touch you now that you’re fully bonded . Any Alpha who puts hands on a bonded Omega can face criminal charges."
"That assumes he cares about criminal charges." Amots leans forward from the back seat and his hand rests on my shoulder. "But Dominic is right. The marks change the legal weight of everything he does. Father is many things but he's not stupid enough to assault a bonded Omega in his own home with witnesses."
The three of us walk through the front door together but the house smells wrong. Four days away and the absence of our combined scent has let Richard's dominance reassert itself through the whole ground floor. The scent of leather and whiskey and the sharp undertone of an Alpha who has been drinking heavily permeates the walls and the furniture.
Richard is in the living room. He's sitting in the armchair by the window with a glass of something amber, his suit jacket buttoned despite the fact that it's eleven in the morning. Everything about his composure feels forced, from the crossed ankle to the newspaper folded on the side table as if he's been reading rather than waiting.
He doesn't stand when we enter. His eyes move from Dominic to Amos to me. He catalogs the bond marks, his expression remaining neutral.
"You've made your choice." His voice hardens a little. "Live with it."
Dominic's hand tightens on the back of my neck, his fury bleeding through the bond.
"We're here for Mattaniah's things." Dominic keeps his voice level. "We'll be gone in twenty minutes."
"You'll be gone now." Richard sets his glass down and the crystal rings against the side table. "Both of you are no longer allowed in the house."
Richard's Alpha authority fills the foyer.
"Mattaniah comes with us." Amos steps forward.
"Mattaniah stays." Richard's eyes don't leave mine. "He has twenty minutes to pack his belongings. You two wait outside. If you're still in my house in sixty seconds I'll have security remove you."
The bond stretches as Dominic and Amos move toward the door. The pulling sensation in my chest tightens with every step they take away from me. Dominic's fury burns through the connection, followed by Amos' concern.
Dominic stops in the doorway and turns back, his gaze finding mine. Mild relief builds in my chest as I pick up that he's not going far.
The front door closes behind them and the house goes quiet.
Richard stands, moving to button his jacket, an unnecessary gesture since it's already buttoned. His face contorts and then restructures before he crosses the living room toward the stairs. My Omega recoils with the proximity of a hostile Alpha, every muscle bracing for the hand that has found reasons to land on me for weeks.
He doesn't touch me. He walks past without slowing, his shoulder not quite brushing mine, and climbs the stairs. The study door opens and closes on the second floor.
The silence is worse than any confrontation. He's calculating, and when he's finished, the response will be aimed at whoever has the least protection.
My legs carry me up the stairs on autopilot. The bedroom door is open and the room looks exactly as I left it three days ago, the bed made by staff, the closet organized. My suitcase is in the closet and I pull it onto the bed and start filling it.
The closet is empty. The absence of the nest in the corner of the closet makes the space look naked, every trace of the person I was becoming in this house packed into a bag and driven across the city while I was in heat.
"Mattaniah."
My mother's voice from the doorway stops my hands mid-fold. She's dressed as if she's going somewhere, everything about her current image completely perfect. The triumph on her face is barely concealed.
"I told you submission was weakness." She leans against the door frame with her arms crossed. "Look what you've done."
"I bonded with two Alphas who love me." I set a shirt in the suitcase and keep folding. "That's what I've done."
"Bonded to two Alphas." She repeats it the way she corrects everything I say. "Do you understand what that means? You'll never be free of them, Mattaniah. A bond doesn't break. A bond means every time they're angry you'll feel it in your chest. Every time they're disappointed you'll carry it. Every time they decide you're not enough, you'll know before the words leave their mouths."
"Sounds like you're describing marriage, Mom. The kind you thought you'd have with Richard." I keep my back to her because looking at her face will either make me fold or make me scream. "How's that working out for you?"
"Don't you dare compare me to you." Her voice sharpens. "I made strategic choices. You made an emotional one."
"You leaked those photos to the press."
The silence that follows confirms it. She didn't expect me to know this soon.
"Your Alphas told you." She says it flatly.
