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Some of this was probably because I’d thought about it before.

But, like I said, it wasn’t a plan.

I woke up that day, and I was in heat, and I went looking for Damian. I thought he’d be out at his place, in that shed he shared with Vincent. If Vincent was there, I rationalized, I’d claim it was Vincent I was looking for. I didn’t want to pass a heat with Vincent. When I was in heat, usually, I shifted, because that was what you were supposed to do.

I didn’t have a plan for that. I wasn’t so naive as to think that I could let Vincent fuck me while I was in heat and not end up knotted and bitten, because I knew that Vincent had no self-control. And I’d let Vincent knot me before. And Vincent…

You should understand Vincent is in love with you.

Wow, I just wrote that out. If I actually give this to you, he will never forgive me for telling you that.

He hasn’t been always, I don’t think, and I’m not entirely sure when it started. I think it started before he was aware it was happening, and he was in denial about it for a long time, because he knew it was wrong to want you, when you clearly belonged to his brother. Also, while it was fine for him to mess around with me when I was too young, he would never want to hurt you.

I’m not saying Vincent enjoyed hurting me, either, but I think he took it in stride that I was willing to accept a certain amount of collateral damage to myself to get things I wanted. Or that he and I were both craving destruction in a way, that we were drawn to our own doom.

Is that why I did it?

Okay, real talk. I did have a moment that day, and it was in front of the mirror, and it was sort of like a cartoon. I didn’t cackle an evil laugh, and I didn’t ask, like, “Who’s the fairest of them all,” or call for the huntsman to bring me your liver in a box or something.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and I thought about how I was an omega, and I was beautiful, and I was dying, and I had no future, none. I thought about how everything I was supposed to have, you had taken from me. Not on purpose, I knew, but it wasn’t fair.

I was in heat.

You know how it is in heat. You know how your body wants and wants like a feverish furnace, how there is no talking yourself into restraint or denial in heat. You have to indulge.

I thought that I wanted Damian.

I thought that I could have him if I wanted.

And so, I went looking for him.

Obviously, he wasn’t in the shed and neither was Vincent. At that point, I could have given up. I could have seen that as a sign, and I could have given up, but I… I didn’t.

At that point, I had already promised myself an indulgence, and I wasn’t about to give it up.

So, the next idea was that I needed to figure out where Damian was, and I thought that you would know. So, I called you. And then I needed an excuse, and I made up the wallet thing, because it made sense. And then you told me that he was at Jimmy’s family’s cabin.

Or maybe… maybe I’d remembered that, and I just called you to get confirmation?

Did I call you because I hoped that hearing your voice would stop me somehow? Did I hope that it would make me realize that I was hurting my best friend for the sake of a man? If I did, it didn’t work.

I won’t describe the sex in detail.

But I have to say I’ve never had sex like that before, with a man who wanted me but hated himself for wanting me. Mostly, men don’t even feel guilty after they have sex with me, because they don’t see me as deserving anything except pain. They think I was put on earth for their use and they don’t think of me as a human being with feelings. They think that because I let them have sex with me easily, it means I am worthless. They treat me that way.

But Damian was really angry.

I think he was angry with himself, mostly, but he was angry with me, too.

I thought he was going to rip my throat out. When he bit me, I thought I was going to bleed out and die. I thought he’d hit my jugular or something. There was so much blood. I was very scared in that moment.

I was bruised and sore afterward. It took me a week to fully recover. He hurt me. He hurt me and he got off on it.

He felt guilty about that afterwards, and I used that against him.

It was the closest thing he felt to love for me, do you get that? He felt guilty when he hurt me. It fostered a kind of tenderness in him towards me. He was grateful to me for being a receptacle for his darkness in the way that I was.

You were never that for him, you know, Leo?