“I’m going to need some backstory. It’s obvious a lot of important changes have happened since we last talked. But before I ask you more questions you don’t want to answer, can I ask how you’re feeling right now?”
Put out. Not happy to be here. Defensive. No one could really understand me; I’d convinced myself of that since the age of ten.
“How am I feeling right now? Okay, I am pissed. Pissed that the world is so ugly. Pissed that shit is handed down to people who don’t deserve it.”
“You include yourself in that mix.”
“Damn right, I do.”
The conversation went on like that for a few more minutes before I blurted, “He didn’t deserve to be made a brood slave at a ranch.”
“Are you talking about the omega?”
“Who else?”
“The ranches exist because of the low birth rate for dragons. But not everyone agrees they’re the answer. Some do believe they’re a blight in current, modern times.”
“I’d never been to one. I didn’t give a shit one way or another until my dad bought one. And ended up bonded to him. That made me angry.”
“At your father?”
I nodded. “And the omega.”
“The omega didn’t have a choice.”
I knew that. I hated that Dad had seemed to choose to save that man over me. I blamed Kirion.
Then I started really talking to Jacob, barely hearing myself, the floodgates opening, and I didn’t like the feelings that began to bubble up. Jacob encouraged me with no judgment. I admitted Dad had given me the money to get Cassius. I told him the details. Everything.
The session had already gone two hours. I didn’t even notice the time. I felt breathless. Weak. All the things I swore I’d never allow. I said that aloud, too.
“But to get through your anger and manage it, you have to feel these other things. You’re not just a one-dimensional person. You have many parts and layers. They all deserve to be, at the very least, acknowledged.”
I didn’t want this.
“Your feelings,” Jacob continued, “are more powerful for you than normal because of what you’ve been through. They are overwhelming. Too much, in fact. But having that information about yourself, remembering that, is how you start to get through them. Also, continuing these sessions. And quite important, listening to your beast. He was not speaking for a long time. Now he is. It says a lot about how far you’ve come in just this past year. And Cassius sounds like another influence. You even used that word when we first started talking today. He seems to have flipped a switch in you. It was almost instant. You dealt with that by taking him away from a dark place he was in. You empathized.”
“I don’t know that feeling,” I admitted.
“You do. You’ve had it buried. That’s all.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. I didn’t care about things. Life was easier that way.
“Do you have other feelings for Cassius?”
My head jerked. “I’m an alpha and he’s an omega if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, of course. That attraction can happen whether you like someone or not.”
“Are you asking if I like him?”
“Is that hard for you to think about? Because of Kirion?” Always a question following my questions.
“I liked it when he threw a glass at his wrangler.”
“That was a person forced to be passive and polite finally standing up for himself. You saw something of yourself there, maybe.”
“We’re not alike.”
