Chapter 21
Vincent
The urge to destroy something—someone—hit me harder than it ever had before.
It was sharp, immediate, violent. Because when I saw Charles for the second time in my life, I didn’t feel shocked. I felt rage.
He was curled on a cot, barely conscious. Blood and vomit clung to his skin, even the mattress beneath him. His body trembled, pale and fragile, like it had forgotten how to hold itself together.
Tears had dried on his cheeks in thick streaks, and his eyes—God, his eyes—were so swollen he couldn’t possibly see me.
But I saw him. And I knew I’d never forget that image. Not for as long as I lived. Not until I made someone pay for it.
How was it possible for forty-eight hours to destroy something so precious that easily?
I had expected to arrive at Lockswells Boarding House and see a healthy, but reserved Omega. A simple boy who only knew to obey.
I didn’t expect Charles to be nearly dead, fighting to just breathe.
Thankfully, Silas was there, right beside me. He sprouted some words, the documentation, and the Omega was officially in my care. And I made a mentalpromise to never let anything like this happen to him again.
It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
I stole one of the white, scratchy blankets, wrapping it around Charles before carrying him to my car. I didn’t want any of the other Omegas to see mine fighting for his life.
“I’ll call Moore. Get him home,” Silas said, voice low.
I barely managed to get Charles into the back seat, his body limp, too light in all the wrong ways.
Silas didn’t move. He just stood there, watching. His eyes held something dark, something that understood exactly what had been done.
I gave him a nod. No words. Then I got in the car and drove away from a place I never wanted to see again.
Moore was already waiting when I arrived. His Omega stood beside him, eyes wet, hands clenched.
I didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stood there, like I’d forgotten how to be Vincent.
I watched as my best friend took over, calm, practiced, focused. He took my Omega from my car, carrying him up to my room like he owned the place.
He hooked up the IV, stripped Charles down with clinical care, catalogued every bruise, every cut, every place that had been broken.
And I stood back. Because right then, fury and grief were the only things I knew how to feel. And neither of them could help him.
Only when after all that, when Adrian being his sweet self, had touched my hand with tears still in his hands, did I come back to myself.
I have no clue what I would have done without Moore, or Adrian for that matter.
It took over four days for Charles to become aware of things around him once more. It was slow, little moments here and there. Mostly, it was when his pain and panic spiked.
Those moments didn’t last long, since Moore was right there, giving Charles what he needed to stay calm and relaxed.
By the second day, the V-shaped mark on his shoulder had turned angry and swollen—infected despite everything Moore had done to prevent it. Pus pooled beneath the skin, and my friend had to lance it with a needle, coaxing it open before administering a high dose of antibiotics.
Charles didn’t flinch. He didn’t scream. He just lay there, too far gone to react.
Through it all, Adrian never left his side. He held Charles’s hand, whispered to him in soft, steady rhythms, like he could anchor him with words alone.
He was there for my Omega in ways I hadn’t dared to be. And every time Moore or I had to touch him, Charles would cry. Shake. Like his body knew the difference. Like it could still tell the touch of an Alpha from the safety of someone like Adrian. And I hated that it made sense.
