"Come with me?" I asked. I needed to see, but I also needed the support.
"Of course."
He held my hand as we walked through the halls. All the photo frames I had up were face down, broken glass crackled beneath them. My eyes felt heavy with all the crying.
When we got there, I instantly felt regret. My PC, monitors, thousands of dollars worth of equipment destroyed. But that wasn't the worst part.
Scrawled across the wall in what looked like red spray paint, in jagged, messy lettering, was a message: YOUR MINE WHORE.
I started sobbing again, but this time, it wasn’t because I was sad. I was fuckingterrified.
"Why did you bring her in here?" Cameo asked, entering the room.
"Look at me," he commanded me.
I did as he asked, for the first time, seeing what felt like a bit of uncertainty on his face. "It's going to be okay. We won't let anything happen to you.
Understand?"
I nodded.
"Good girl. Now, go to the car with Indigo, you saw what you needed to. Let me finish grabbing your stuff and I'll be out soon."
"Okay." He was right. There was nothing more for me to glean from this mess.
Cameo kissed me hard once before releasing me to Indi.
I let Indi lead me outside and to the car. He opened the back seat and I climbed in. What I didn't expect was him to climb in after me.
"Come here," he said, opening his arms to me.
There was no need to ask twice, I crawled into his lap with ease. He wrapped me in his arms and his pheromones, calming me quickly.
"I know it's scary, but it'll be okay. We'll protect you. We always protect what's ours."
I let myself pull back from him a bit. "And that's what I am? Yours?"
He smiled fully, despite the circumstances. "You have been since day one, Doll."
A shuttered breath left me as I relaxed against him. "I like the idea of that."
The car door opening made me jump, but it was just Cameo. He tossed the bag he'd packed for me into the front seat and shut the door. "Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah."
All things considered,I was relatively happy with my performance at breakfast. Eva had wailed on and off the entire time, wiping her disgusting, snotty face on Indigo, and I hadn’t even made a comment. But, once we arrived to her apartment and the tears started again… I was already at the end of my rope.
This continued for most of the day. Eva wandering between members of the pack to seek comfort in the form of cuddling or distraction, neither of which were particularly enjoyable for me while she was a faucet of bodily fluids. And, after a very long morning, an afternoon, and then an evening of managing the unruly omega’s feelings—I’d hit my limit.
Even if I thought that being upset about her unfortunate circumstances was reasonable, the sounds that came along with crying made the vein in my temple pulse with discomfort.
Sobbing. Coughing.Sniffling.
My teeth were on edge just thinking about it.
I’d never been particularly adept at managing my own emotions, much less anyone else’s. But the way this omega didit—big fat wet tears, drooling, snot flowing—was so inherently despicable to me that my alpha instincts didn't stand a chance against my need for distance, leaving me in this sort of wax-figure like state where I wanted to approach Eva, but I was physically unable to.
Of course I wanted to comfort my omega, to make her feel better.
