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“Yeah, I’m fine,” Chase says, a grin appearing on his face. “I appreciate you wanting to play nurse, though.”

I settle back down on Archer’s lap, trying to shake the thought of Chase bleeding out on my parents’ grimy kitchen tile floor out of my head.

I know Charlotte mentioned to me when we first met that my parents couldn’t be my actual parents, but knowing that they’ve admitted it to my guys makes it so much more real. Plus, when Charlotte first told me, I was a lot more preoccupied with trying to keep myself calm in a house with four alphas.

“So—so who are my parents?” I ask them. “And how did Alpha Niall find me as a baby?”

“We don’t know who your actual mom is, but your fake dad said something about that Niall guy taking you from—” He swallows hard, “From an omega prostitute.”

“From my understanding of this guy’s character profile,” Charlotte adds. “He likely only let your parents sell you to betas because he has a strange obsession with ownership and purity over an omega. It makes sense that he could’ve had an obsession with another omega that he viewed as impure.”

“So—so he took me away as a baby so that he could have me when I grew up?”

“It’s definitely one of my theories, yes.”

“Then who do you think my actual dad is?”

“Probably another alpha your mother was sold to.”

“So—so my mother was like me?” I ask, my hands clenched into fists.

A whore.

“We think there’s a bigger circle of omega trafficking she’s a victim of,” Kane says.

Which means she was worse off than I was. At least I only had to service betas during my heats. The way my guys are making it sound, it seems like my mom was forced to sell herself all the time, even when she wasn’t going through her heat.

“Do—do you think my mom is okay?”

Did she want me? Did she not want to give me away? Would she have loved me if she were given the chance to?

“We don’t know,” Kane says, his expression somber. “The people that raised you are in police custody now, and we’ve conveyed all the information we’ve gathered to them. They’ve already started a major investigation into this, since it’s a lot bigger than anyone ever thought it was.”

“Oh.”

I hate being left with more questions than answers. It makesme feel so helpless, having all of these questions about my life, my past, my future, that I have no way of finding the answers to.

“How’re you feeling?” Charlotte asks quietly, reaching over from her chair and patting the back of my hand.

“I—I feel stuck. I hate it. I’ve felt stuck ever since I got here. Everyone expects me to just sit and wait for things to happen, but I hate just sitting and waiting.”

“It sucks, it really does.”

My head falls to my chest. “What am I supposed to do when all of you have to leave? I’m going to be all alone again.”

“Have you considered taking some of the classes offered here at the Omega Center? There’re cooking classes and art classes and some educational classes about nutrition and health and stuff. They’re taught by other omegas. It could help you get out of this apartment.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t been told about these classes. I guess it’s because everyone has been more preoccupied with other, more pressing things about me being here. “I—I guess I can try.”

They definitely seem to be classes aimed at making omegas better omegas, but I want to learn be a better omega. I want to actually learn how to function in the real world, especially if I want to prove to myself that this pack is making the right decision by choosing me.

“I’ll try them out,” I say, smiling at Charlotte. “Thank you for letting me know about them.”

“Great,” Charlotte says, smiling back at me. “There was one last thing I wanted to mention to you. I did more research and lab work and I’m pretty sure I’ve found the right kind of hormone medication for you to take to balance things out with your heats.”

She pulls out an orange plastic bottle full of little pills.

“This is a month’s worth. Take one a day and it should make your future heats less damaging to your body. The only downside is it could cause you to have some heat spikes.”