She lights up. “Maite. It’s my favorite name.”
That one is harder to pronounce than hers, and I butchered it a couple of times before getting it right. She looks happy when I do. I bet she knows how important a name is.
“It’s a pretty name.”
“I like Veda, too. You were the most gorgeous little baby,” her eyes find Mirasol on Derrick’s arm. “So much like her.”
“Did you name her something different, too?”
The smile falls off her face. “I stopped naming them. It just hurts more when I have to give them away.”
That’s the most horrible thing someone ever told me. To think of the nameless babies we all had to give away because of my own flesh and blood’s greed.
“What happened?”
The question feels dumb the moment I ask it. There’s so much that happened in the twenty years she was locked away. Where should she start? But she doesn’t tell me I’m dumb for asking. Instead, she starts from the beginning.
When she was taken.
My mother was raised in a small Alpha-Omega village in Brazil. There was a time when she was daring and happy, so much more than I was. She was full of life and adventure, which ultimately led her to the United States, where she decided to take a trip before settling down with a pack. She wanted to experience the world before she experienced matehood.
Unfortunately for her, she had no idea how rare Omegas already were here, and she walked right into a nightmare. My father was my grandpa’s trap. He used him to get to her. Fred, as she calls him, though I never in my life heard anyone call him that.
He’s almighty Fredrick St. James. The heir. He died when I was a teen, but even before that, I had no relationship with him. He was just a name whispered in the walls of our house, someone who sometimes came over when things needed discussing.
Mom says they met, and he swept her off her feet, promising forever. She knew she shouldn't get involved with him. She should be back home, looking for her pack, but he was intense. He said he was in love, and she believed him. It made her feel she was in love, too.
That was when Grandpa got her. He brought her to the breeding house to live with ten other kidnapped Omegas. The pack that kept the house was cruel. At the time, she couldn’t even leave the bedroom. My arms wrap around her, and we hold each other as we cry what feels like the same tears.
The cruelty cuts me deep, especially because I know it comes from the man who raised me. He didn’t raise me with love, but I was never locked anywhere. I wasn’t a prisoner.
“That’s when he came back,” she says in a small voice. “Fred. I was only eighteen, Veda, and we were living like prisoners. He told me his father lied to him and took me, and I believed it. I thought we were star-crossed lovers.”
I hold her closer, feeling her tears damp my own clothes as she keeps talking. “I should have asked how he was getting in. How did he know where I was held? But instead, I believe in his promises again. I wanted to believe in them.”
She needed that hope to survive. It was the only thing keeping her going through a horrible situation. I can tell she feels ashamed for giving my father a second chance, but she’s not the one to blame. She was manipulated many times over. We both were.
“I got pregnant with you,” she whispers. “I think Fred was telling the truth that your grandpa didn’t know what he was doing. He never meant to save me or marry, or any of the bullshit he promised me, but I think your grandpa and the Alphas had no idea he was with me until I got pregnant. They kept me locked up through the pregnancy, andeveryone got really happy when they realized it was a girl. Even more so when it was confirmed you were an Omega.”
She takes a fortifying breath. “You were one when they took you away. It wasn’t much of parenting, not when I was a prisoner, but I did my best to shield you from everything. And I promise you, you were such a happy baby.”
My throat works in a lump, and I just quickly nod, showing I believe her. I have no doubts that this woman did her best for me.
“They weren’t happy that I spoke Portuguese with you,” she continues. “They already hated that most Omegas were Latinas, that we could communicate well between us in a way they didn’t always understand. Even if the other girls spoke Spanish, it was close enough, and we made it work. The men were scared of us. It took me a long time to realize that. At the time, I only saw size. An Alpha is so big and muscly, and what were we? Just a bunch of scared women, malleable little Omegas, but Veda, they were so scared.”
She shakes her head. “On the day Anderson came to take you, he said it was because you were his granddaughter and that it wasn’t right for you to live like that. When he took you from me… it was…hard.”
Her eyes dance over my features, and so many words are spoken as we look at each other. She doesn’t need to elaborate because I know that pain well. I’ve been walking around with a hole in my chest, a pain so deep, for a while, and it felt like home. As if pain were the only thing inside me. I moved for weeks, accepting my place in life because he caused me so much trauma that I numbed myself.
“But all I could think was that you’d have a chance. Alife.The rest of them… All my babies, he just kept taking them. He did the same over and over again,” my mother whispers. “The pack that oversaw that breeding house got me pregnant many times over. Boys, girls… it didn’t matter. He took them all.”
“How many?” Major asks from the other side of the room. His tone carries pain just like ours, his eyes hard and jaw set. “How many babies did he take from you?”
“Seven. Five girls, two boys.”
forty-three
Veda
