I would, but as he hit me twice in a row, my gaze grew blurry and cries shook my shoulders.
I wanted to die at that very moment.
I couldn’t live like this.
I hadn’t done anything wrong. I behaved. I always behaved. I wasn’t punished like a lot of the other Omegas.
So why did this Alpha deem me so unworthy? Why me?
“Stupid boy. Can’t even take hits properly. Weak and pathetic. Just wait, dear one. You’ll get toughed up. We’ll do this every day.”
I shook my head.
I wouldn’t survive. I’d die at the hands of this monster.
But on the next breath, what did I expect? It was the way of life.
With another hit, this one somehow wrapping its way around my throat, my breath caught in my lungs. My entire body froze as the tassel cut into my skin. It was just enough for blood to start seeping out of the thin paper cut like cuts, trailing down to join the snot and tears.
Please. Just kill me already, I begged, having no choice but to surrender to the Alpha as he got the end of the whip to wrap around my throat once again.
My tears still fell, but my mind went blank. Finally, the stupid brain took me somewhere else. Somewhere good.
There were sunflowers, swaying in the wind, bees and birds flying round. The sun was out, shining down on my bare shoulders, hugging me like no one ever had before.
I never wanted to leave. The bees could be my friends. The sun would cloak me in warmth, and everything would be good in the world again.
A scream ripped from my throat, raw and involuntary.
The field of flowers vanished in an instant—swallowed by the blinding jolt of pain that tore through the back of my right shoulder. It was sharp, searing, like something had been driven straight into bone.
The world narrowed to that single point of agony, and everything else, color, scent, memory, was gone.
As everything screamed in torment, blood dripping at points all across my skin, my mind went black.
Finally,was my last thought as the world dimmed and everything seemed to disappear around me.
Chapter 19
Vincent
The house was empty.
It never bothered me before. I never cared if I would share a space with another; it hadn’t even been on my radar to think about it.
But now, a couple hours after the Omega was taken from this house, and with little force at that, the house was quiet and still. Lonely in a way I never felt it be.
Watching Charles walk out willingly, because I told him to, fractured something in me I hadn’t known could break.
No one should have to leave a place that felt safe, wearing the weight of the world like it was stitched into their skin.
I didn’t need to be in his shoes to understand. It was etched into every line of his face. Carved into the silence between his steps. And in his eyes, those hollow, haunted eyes, I saw something I’d never forget.
Not grief.
Not fear.
Just the quiet resignation of someone who’d stopped hoping to be saved.
