I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The words were there, but they were locked behind the rules I’d swallowed for years.
He stepped closer, not enough to crowd me, just enough to be felt. “You don’t have to trust me. But don’t lie to yourself about what you see.”
I looked at him then. Really looked. And for a moment, I didn’t see an Alpha. I saw someone who’d been broken differently. Someone who’d learned how to carry it without letting it rot him from the inside.
Alpha Harris didn’t step back nor did he didn’t raise his voice. He just looked at me like he saw something I hadn’t meant to show.
“I used to flinch too,” he said. “Not from pain. From kindness.”
That stopped me.
He went on, voice steady but low. “It felt like a trick. Like softness was just the setup for something worse.”
I didn’t move.
“I learned to brace for silence. For the moment after someone said they cared because that’s when the rules changed.” His gaze didn’t waver. “So I stopped believing in softness. Until I met someone who didn’t ask me to.”
I swallowed. The counter edge still pressed into my side, grounding me.
“You don’t have to trust me,” he said again. “But don’t punish yourself for surviving the way you had to.”
Then he stepped back. Just enough to give me space.
“How about we get some dinner, before it gets too much later.”
I managed to nod. I didn’t move until he did, and I still waited a good thirty seconds before I got my feet to carry me in the same direction.
Somehow, through the few seconds my attention was on Alpha Harris, Adrian left the kitchen, and with it the only bit of bravery I had.
My knees threatened to fall, weak as my thoughts jumbled into one giant mess.
Just because an Alpha feared something, didn’t man I feared the same thing, though. I didn’t flinch, exactly. I was just…accustomed to how pain came with touch. I was accustomed to my thoughts not mattering to another. I was…an Omega.
Omegas were to keep quiet, to serve, and do was they were told.
I feared pain, which in turn caused fear to touch. It was normal. And I had been taught ways to ignore it, to ignore the fear that would always be invoked into my soul.
And I needed to remember that right now, because once my feet got me to Alpha Harris, I had to shut it off. The fog needed to return so I could remember my place.
There was no hope of me becoming like Adrian. I wasn’t someone’s pick.
I was simply here because I was available.
When I got to the dining room, one single glance was more than enough to calculate my next move. Moore and Adrian sat in chairs, as though they were equals. They shared one plate with two sandwiches between them. Adrian had a smile on his lips, a look of pure happiness in his eyes.
He was adored here.
I was not.
I was only an Omega who was conditioned, shaped, rehearsed under a hundred different rules.
I sank to my knees beside Alpha Harris’s chair, head bowed, eyes shut against the room’s weight.
My stomach gave a soft, hollow protest. But hunger didn’t mean I deserved anything. It was just another reminder: need didn’t equal permission.
Alpha Harris didn’t speak right away. He ignored me, as I was used to. For I was merely just a piece of furniture, taking up space with my presence alone.
Then the chair creaked, and I felt the air shift as he leaned forward. His voice became quiet, almost reluctant. “You’re hungry.”
