He wanted to. Fuck did he want to. Anything would be better than living with the crushing agony in his chest, the realization that he’d failed his daughter, and he’d never see her sweet face again. How big had she grown? How many milestones had he missed because of the psychopaths that used him like a fleshlight and left him in the center to bleed?
He would never see Amey again.
The car came to a stop on the cracked pavement of the parking lot, and Roman cut the engine. He stepped out of the car without a word and returned moments later with a key dangling from one finger, waiting on the sidewalk that stretched just far enough to give the motel a walkway. He hadn’t said a single word on the entire drive, though he had to have questions. Sidian wondered what was going on in his alpha’s head. If he was stillinthere.
Maybe he was angry, and silence was the only way to hold on to that anger, to keep it at bay instead of turning it on Sidian like he damn well knew he should.
Sidian dragged himself out of his seat, still aching to his gut as he followed Roman into the motel room. They’d been so hopeful about what information they might gather at Pack Kincaid’s home that leaving empty-handed made Sidian feel a deep, simmering shame he didn’t know how to handle. It was too much. All of it was too much. At least the Mambas couldn’t see how much they’d failed, right?
What did he do to deserve it? Was it somehow punishment for what he did to his father? But that bastard wanted to break him, bleed him, use him, and abuse him just like Pack Kincaid. How can trying to protect himself have been wrong?
A desperate whine rose in his throat again, but he choked it back down and reached for the anger instead. It burned hotter,choked him, but it was so much easier to process than the pain. Horrible, agonizing fuckingfailurethat threatened to eat him up from the inside out like a parasite.
Roman took a seat at the rickety table next to the window, dropping his head into his hands. “I’ll make contact in the morning and see what the Mambas make of this.”
“Why?” Sidian kicked his shoes off and dropped on the edge of the bed, his hands balling up into fists. Deep breaths, but he didn’t want to breathe when every lungful of air hurt. “They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. All that money just for them to be too fucking stupid to get us one address. I asked for so little.”
Roman swallowed so hard that Sidian heard his throat click. “I know, Sidian. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” That wasn’t good enough, and Roman knew that. It would never be good enough. “You should have thought of that when you turned into a psychopath. You should have thought about that when they hauled me off. I didn’t get any peace beforetheyshowed up. Did you know that?”
Roman didn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him. “Yes.”
He was so calm, so controlled, that it pissed Sidian off. Why wouldn’t Roman fight with him? Why wouldn’t he yell back? Why did he let Sidian push him around, shove him, smack him? Sidian had seen with his own eyes what Roman was capable of, the level of violence that made him picture perfect in the eyes of Lorcan fucking Devereaux. Perfect enough to be spirited off to fight injustice or whatever bullshit while Sidian suffered and bled and begged for the mate he barely knew to come rescue him because he couldn’t save himself.
And in the end, he couldn’t save himself. He would have died of exposure out in the woods, alone and pregnant. And he couldn’t even save his daughter from her monster fathers.
What fucking good was he if he couldn’t do anything?
The tears came again, burning his already dry eyes, but he dashed them away and pushed himself to his feet, storming over to Roman and shoving him so hard his hands fell. His head snapped up, his eyes wide and uncertain, like he didn’t know what to make of Sidian. Like he was looking at an animal, some kind of beast that was just out of his control. Coming upon a furious mountain lion, or maybe a bear.
Sidian wished he could be that, belikethat. More like a rabid deer, useless and dying, and just as frightened and pathetic.
“What good are you as an alpha?” he asked Roman, and Roman winced but didn’t speak. Didn’t move. “Couldn’t find me, couldn’t save me, can’t find my daughter. What can you do? Fuck me? That’s not special.Theycould do that.Theydid that—”
Roman’s jaw clenched, the first and only sign of anger Sidian had seen in him so far. “I’m nothing like them.”
“I wish you were. That would make this so much easier.” Sidian wouldn’t have to feel anything at all. Roman would shove him down and take what he wanted, and it’d hurt, but Sidian would know the score. Roman would never have promised Sidian a future, never would have promised him a family, and maybe that would have been better. At least then, Sidian would have understood it.
He wanted Roman to hurt him, maybe. Wanted him to do something, anything, that made this simple for both of them. Bend him, break him, bleed him just like Pack Kincaid so Sidian could stop believing in the stupid fairy tale mate bullshit between them.
“Hit me,” he said, and the color drained from Roman’s stupid, pretty face. “Come on, big boy. You’re the alpha. Don’t you get tired of me pushing you around?”
Roman shook his head, the uneasy expression returning. “I will not hit you.”
“Don’t you get tired of being my bitch?” Sidian’s hands found the collar of Roman’s shirt and fisted it, dragging him closer, over the table until he knew the edge of it had to be pressing into Roman’s chest. It had to hurt. “Show me who’s in charge, Roman. Put me in my place. You gonna let me treat you like this? Huh?”
Without breaking Sidian’s hold on his shirt, Roman all but melted out of the chair, his knees sinking into the dark carpet beneath them. The sight made Sidian’s breath hitch, his omega whining for him tostop.It was one thing when Roman knelt for Sidian because he wanted to, because he enjoyed it, but it didn’t feel like that at the moment. It didn’t feel right.
Everything was spiraling out of control. Sidian couldn’t take it.
“I fucking hate you.” He tightened his grip on Roman’s collar and stood over him, spitting the words into his face.Yell at me. Fight me. Hit me. Do something.“When we were in the woods that night, I thought about ramming that scalpel into your neck, and I should have done it.”
Roman said nothing, hands resting on his thighs, his scent giving away nothing but the same soothing, calming, warm pheromones as always.
Always trying to take care of Sidian even when Sidian couldn’t take care of himself.
His resolve cracked in the face of that silence, that steadiness, Roman’s refusal to rise to any of his taunts. The tightness in his throat grew until it was too much, his hands falling from Roman’s shirt. There was an angry red rash across his skin from the abrasion of the fabric, and Sidian’s omega whimpered a soft apology at the sight. When Roman let Sidian hurt him, when he enjoyed the pain, that was one thing. And this wasn’t that. This was…
