He shouldn’t have been here. Not like this.
Not under my gaze, trying so hard to be perfect when he could barely stay present.
He was the ghost of the boy I remember. And I was determined to bring him back. No matter what it took, no matter how long, I would bring my Kasey back.
Chapter 6
Kasey
I kept my eyes closed, my body as still and pliant as I could manage. It was easier that way. It’s easier to disappear into the quiet, easier to let myself drift somewhere from the room and the expectation waiting inside it.
Time slipped away again, the way it always did when I let myself go blank. Minutes, maybe hours, dissolved into nothing. I didn’t mind losing them. Losing time meant losing awareness, losing fear, and losing the sharp edges of everything I didn’t want to feel.
And judging by the way I was positioned now, I must have let myself drift for a long while.
Every part of me ached. Every part of my soul cried out for relief. Yet, the only thing I could do was hold myself in the form I was in. Arms stretched out along the bed near my head, knees drawn up, butt pushed upwards, showing off parts of me that I’d have blushed at ten years ago.
Now…. Well, now it was just skin and bones. It meant nothing to me. I was here to be whatever I needed to be. I was here to obey the Alpha whose hands ran up and down my spine, as though he were memorizing every scar that was carved into my soul.
And there were several of them. My back was littered with marks.
I didn’t need to open my eyes to know where I was. I didn’t need to listen, or breathe, or reach for any of my senses. My body already understood the space around me, the way it always did in rooms like this.
It was only my second time here, but that didn’t matter. Omegas were taught early what these rooms meant. What was expected? How to hold ourselves. How to stay still. How to follow every rule without hesitation.
We were trained for this. Trained to shape ourselves into whatever an Alpha wanted. Trained to obey before they even spoke.
Some of us learned fast. Some of us learned because we had no other choice. And some of us… learned to stop feeling anything at all.
I was one of those that stopped feeling. Feeling meant pain and despair. It meant losing all hope that there would be happiness ever after.
I wasn’t that naive little boy anymore. Haven’t been for years.
I knew what was happening on my eighteenth birthday. We all knew. I was just lucky enough to be marked a year younger than I was, hiding me from the outcome that was bound to happen either way.
It didn’t make things better, either. The knowing part was probably worse than pretending that everything was okay.
Because now, here I was, again, under a client that would use my body how he saw fit.
At least I’m already stretched and ready to go,I thought bitterly, sparks of memories of the past few days flickering through my brain.
I’d learned to sense the Alphas long before they spoke. The way the atmosphere tightened the way the air warmed, the way my body reacted even when my mind was far away. It was instant now, carved into me deeper than memory.
But this…if felt different.
Not sharper or colder. Not a heavy pressure I’d been trained to brace for.
The presence settled around me instead of over me, like a warm draft slipping under a closed door. Familiar in a way that made my chest ache, though I couldn’t find out why. My body recognized something that my mind couldn’t reach.
This Alpha was powerful; they all were. But he was…more.
I stopped a whine that wanted to come out of my chest, it’s noise quickly stuffing out as I shifted enough to push my butt higher. A silence getsit over with,andI’m readyandjust leave me alone.
“…Perfect…. of me…. not…. right.” The Alpha’s words were too soft for me to pick up as one of his hands gently cupped one side of my butt. His palm was warm and smooth, fingers long enough to graze where the sun didn’t shine.
My body pressed against his palm, seeking more. More of what? I didn’t know. Justmore.
Flashes of that same strange pull flickered behind my closed eyes; a familiar need threading through my veins before I could stop it.
