My stomach drops.
Oh god.
The footage.
Vee didn't push Marie.
Marie lied.
And I believed her. Weallbelieved her. We punished Vee for something she didn't do and I stood there and let it happen. I didn't push back. I just accepted that Vee would do something like that because Marie said so and Marie was my scent match and scent matches don't lie.
Except she did.
The guilt is harsh and unyielding. I let it come.
I swing my legs off the bed and sit there with my head in my hands, trying to breathe through the nausea.
She lied and I bought it. Scent-drunk and stupid and so wrapped up in biology that I didn't even question it. I just believed her because she smelled right and she cried pretty and every instinct I had saidprotect her, believe her, choose her.
How many other times did she lie?
The memories come back sharper now that the rut fog is lifting.
Her crying in the hallway when I spent too long talking to Vee in the kitchen."I just feel so left out. Like I'm intruding. Like she doesn't want me here."
Me pulling away from Vee to comfort Marie instead. Wrapping my arms around her and telling her she belonged. That Vee would warm up; it just took time.
Vee watching from the kitchen doorway with that carefully blank expression she'd been wearing more and more.
Marie looking sad when Vee baked."I wish I could do something special like that. Something that makes everyone happy. But I can barely even make toast without burning it."
Me telling Vee maybe she should give Marie some space in the kitchen. Let her feel useful so she can find her place.
Vee's face when I said it. How her shoulders came up. The way she said "Of course" in that tone that meantabsolutely not of course but I'll do it anyway because I have to.
Her half-truths about feeling unsafe. About Vee glaring at her when no one was looking. Or small slights that I never actually witnessed but accepted as fact because I was fucking smitten and surely Vee was just being difficult because change is hard for territorial omegas.
And the kitchen. God, the kitchen.During the heat.
I came out for snacks. I strolled out like it was halftime and I needed chips. Vee was at the counter, her hands were shaking and I asked "how're you doing" like I was making small talk at a bus stop. She said she was fine. She wasn't fine. I could see she wasn't fine and I didn't stop because Marie was waiting, the rut was pulling me back and stopping meant looking at what I was doing. I didn't want to look.
I kissed her temple while I was covered in Marie's scent. She gagged. Physically recoiled from me. And I still left. I told her "We'll focus on you after" and walked back down the hall like that meant anything. Like "after" was a real thing I was offering and not just a word I used to make myself feel less guilty about leaving.
Nobody barked me back to that room. Nobody ordered me. I had a choice and I chose a quick exit over my omega who was shaking in her own kitchen.
That one is mine. Not Ragon's. Mine.
Her face stayed with me though. Even through the rut haze, even with Marie's scent drowning out everything else. Vee'sexpression when I pulled away. How she whispered "please" like she was asking me to either stay or stop existing near her and either one would have been better than what I actually did.
It kept surfacing between waves, in the brief windows where my brain came back online, I'd see her face and the guilt would cut through the fog.
That's when I started pushing back.
I told Ragon I needed to check on her. He said she was fine. I said I didn't believe him. He barked me back into the room so hard my knees almost buckled. Eli tried the same thing an hour later and got the same treatment. Even Jasper, hand on the doorknob, that stubborn look on his face—Ragon cut him off cold.Leave now and you're out, you never get to bond in. Jasper stood down.
We all stood down.
But I need to be honest about the order of it. I chose wrong first. I walked past Vee in that kitchen and chose wrong when nobody was making me. The bark came later, after I'd already failed her on my own.
