Page 20 of Bewitched

B ryson stood at the end of the table and laughed. Loud. Hysterical. Breathless. He wheezed and coughed as everyone else stared in shock. Over twenty-five years ago, Summer Nash had been on Omerex. That was it. Just like Layla. Just like Kaiser. She had a breakout heat and was stolen by an alpha on the same suppressants that Layla used.

Layla leaned against Jaxon, nearly falling, but he kept his arms tight around her. “Did you know?” she asked, staring dead-eyed at her father bent over the table.

Her father dragged his red and swollen eyes up to her. “Know what?”

“That her suppressants failed. That she was stolen because she was in heat and scared, and she didn’t know what was happening, and everything was awful and loud, and she couldn’t find her Alpha no matter how hard she looked.” Her chest seized with pain and panic. She could feel it again, the dizzying confusion, the warped need, the twin impulses of wanting and hating.

“Layla,” Mina said. “It’s okay.”

“You don’t know what it was like!” she snarled at her sister. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know where I was. And I couldn’t find my Alpha. It was so frightening.”

Mina reached for her.

Layla flinched away. She wrapped her arms around herself. She felt empty, alone, and hollow. Just an unending hurt that she could crawl out of. “No! Don’t touch me! No one touch me, please. No more.”

Jaxon grabbed at her upper arm, pulling her back against him and grabbing her wrists in one large hand. “Shhh, kitten.”

She hiccuped through her tears. “I can’t. She was alone! Please, make it stop.”

Warren’s round face swam in front of her. He put his hands on both sides of her cheeks. “Layla, breathe.”

She jerked back from him, her head knocking into Jaxon’s sternum, and he grunted. Layla huffed more air into her lungs, deeper and deeper, until she felt full and drowning.

“Alpha, make her breathe,” Warren said.

Jaxon put his hand around her neck and tipped her head back. She met his eyes, grey, hard, and angry. He touched her scent gland, trying to force calm through her veins, but she could only think of Summer, the omega aunt she never met, stolen and trapped and crying.

“ Layla, relax. Breathe ,” Alpha Commanded.

Layla let out a shuddering breath as she went limp in his arms. A half-dozen alphas growled in response to the muttered words. She could taste their anger with each full breath she took.

“How dare you,” Mina growled.

“Not now,” Warren said. “Kaiser, a chair, please.”

There was movement around her that she couldn’t quite concentrate on. She sank down, her head lolling to the side into Jaxon’s chest. He had his arms around her, holding her close like a child. Tears leaked from her eyes as her brain screamed.

People around her were yelling and growling, but all she could understand were Jaxon’s soft purrs and whispers of “It’s okay, kitten,” “Breathe for me,” and “There you are, Omega.”

When her eyes cleared, she could see her father holding tight to her mother, keeping her from running around the table. Roan and Holden held Bryson down by his collar, keeping him shoved into his chair, and Damian had Mina by her neck, pulled close to his chest as she snarled straight at Jaxon.

Warren and Kaiser were crouched down in front of her. She felt wobbly, weak, and sick. Kaiser had his hand on her knee. She brushed him off.

She looked up at Jaxon. He sniffed at her hair, purring intermittently like a motor that didn’t want to crank.

“I have a headache,” she said.

He put his hand around her head, cupping her cheek. He snuffled at her neck and flicked his tongue over her scent gland, releasing natural relaxants while letting her absorb more of his pheromones. Reasserting his dominance with his scent.

Layla shivered. For a moment, she didn’t even mind that she was surrounded by people, that there were more than fellow omegas watching this intimate moment. It should have been private in their nest, curled around each other and naked. But they were forced to be there, and they would have to put up with it.

“What the fuck!” Roan yelled.

Layla flinched and looked up, but Roan wasn’t talking about her.

Bryson had Roan by his hair, pressing his nose to his neck and breathing in deeply.

In an instant, Holden had a knife at the older alpha’s throat. “Release him, or I kill you here.”

Bryson let go of Roan, shoving him into his mate’s arms. His mouth hung open, scenting the air. His eyes were wide and nearly black. He lifted his lips and leveled his snarling gaze on Aslin. “You mother fucker.”

Layla clenched at Jaxon’s arm. Something had changed, something bad.

Aslin stared at his friend, pale, sick, and broken. His hands slipped from Shera’s arms. “Bryson, it was never meant to hurt you.”

Bryson slammed his fist on the table, and the heavy oak cracked under it. Raina grabbed the larger alpha’s elbow to keep him seated. Bryson glared at his daughter, but Raina kept him in place by will alone.

Layla didn’t understand what was happening. She wanted to go back to her nest.

Damian released Mina, and Layla clung tight to her Alpha, hoping she wouldn’t need to defend him from her sister. But Mina's attention was on Bryson, the greater threat in the room.

Bryson snarled, spit flying from his mouth in barely contained rage. “Him? Your son ? You’ve lied to me for twenty-five years, Aslin.”

Aslin stood on the far side of the table, Shera still beside him, seemingly even more confused than Layla. “I had to,” he said miserably. “You were in no right state to know. What you did to that alpha… I didn’t trust you to have sense, Bry.”

Bryson jerked his arm from Raina’s grip, but Kaiser was there in an instant, putting himself between the angry alpha and the rest of the room. “Don’t call me that,” he growled.

Aslin looked down, curling into himself like he had been punched.

Layla didn’t understand it. She knew her mind was sluggish, but she hadn’t expected this kind of argument between these two people.

“Know what?” Roan asked into the silence. He had his hand on Holden’s chest, keeping him back and comforting himself as the stench of anger and sorrow permeated the room.

Bryson glanced at Roan over Kaiser’s shoulder. “You didn’t even tell him? You made me think I was insane! When your pup looked a little too much like Perrin. When your pup smelled a little too much like Summer!”

Aslin kept his head down, deferential.

Bryson snarled, but Kaiser kept his hands on the alpha’s chest, pushing him back. “I killed a man for her, Aslin. Now tell me, what happened to her? Don’t lie to me this time.”

Sliding into his seat, Aslin stared toward Bryson but didn’t quite look at him. “You killed Perrin Iverson in the foolish duel, and that was supposed to be the end of it. I contacted the Iverson family for Summer’s body, but they insisted they didn’t know where he took her. A few months later, Perida Iverson contacted me. I thought it was for a civil suit against you, but she… she had Summer.”

“Perida Iverson, the president of the Iverson Ltd.?” Damian asked.

Layla stared. Rolland’s mother? That Perida? Her friend’s alpha mother had Summer.

“She wasn’t the president then, but yes,” Aslin said. “They were mated, Perida and Summer. Not Perrin.”

Bryson looked so sick. “Perrin killed her. He said she died.”

Aslin shook his head. “He didn’t. She wasn’t dead, not then. He was protecting his sister from us. Summer was pregnant. She was so sick. The doctors couldn’t do anything. She didn’t get better. They saved the pup, but…” Aslin looked at Bryson. “Perida had a family. They couldn’t withstand more scandal. She couldn’t risk her other pups to your rage. I took Roan as my own, and I lied.”

Layla touched her stomach, feeling sick. Jaxon put his hand over hers, and she shuddered.

“What else have you lied to me about?”

Aslin shook his head.

Bryson’s hand bled, dripping bright red on the floor where he had slammed it on the table. “If I had known…” he growled, which turned into a broken laugh. “You want your lies out, Aslin? What have you told your wife?”

“Shut up, Bryson,” Aslin said with a scowl. “I made my choice.”

“A fool’s choice, coward,” Bryson said. He tried to push Kaiser aside, but the omega wouldn’t budge. “My estate goes to three pups that aren’t my own. I don’t even mind it. I don’t mind keeping your secrets. I kept Hera’s, too. But I could have had a piece of Summer. We could have raised him together, you and I. We were supposed to be together!”

A deafening silence fell over the room. Layla could hear her heartbeat in her brain. Her father and Bryson? They had always been inseparable. They escaped to long summer vacations together without either of their families. When her father moved them to the city, Bryson was over weekly. Layla hadn’t thought anything of it. They were simply best friends. Alpha brothers. They had a special bond.

They weren’t a couple.

Shera moved first, turning and staring down at her husband with curiously blank eyes. “Together? Aslin, what?”

Aslin ignored her, still looking at Bryson. “Roan was a babe, and you were obsessed. When Summer disappeared, you were insane, inconsolable. Your fixation was out of nowhere. You weren’t anything like you. You haven’t been since then. I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know what you would do.”

He sneered. “I wouldn’t have hurt him. You always had so little faith in me.”

Layla’s father leaned over the table, reaching for the big alpha. “Bry, I love you, but I—”

Shera made a small, horrified sound. “It’s been Bryson this whole time?”

Aslin seemed to realize what he said. What he did. “Shera… I—”

She brushed off her skirts as she stared anywhere but at her husband. “I thought you had an omega hidden away somewhere, Roan’s mother perhaps, or another… but it’s been Bryson. This. Whole. Time.”

Layla stared at her father as he stood at the table, stricken. His whole life crumbling around him. It didn’t seem real. All of their family troubles pouring out onto the floor like blood. Her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest.

Shera moved away from the table, pacing frantically back and forth. She stared at Roan for a moment, then Mina, and finally, her eyes landed on Layla. “Oh God,” she whispered. “This cannot get out. No one can know about this. Any of this.”

Jaxon’s hands clenched around Layla’s hip, and she glanced up at him as he glared across the room at her mother. She stroked his chest, attempting to calm the aching anger reflected in her own.

“Mom,” Mina said. “There are other real problems aside from your shitty marriage.”

“Mina!” Shera snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “I mean, come on! They’ve been hooking up for years. Even I know that, but Roan isn’t our brother? What the fuck, Dad?”

Her father looked horribly ill, and Layla wanted to comfort him, but Jaxon held on to her like she was his only lifeline.

Aslin shook his head and looked at his son. Not his son. Not Layla’s brother. Just a boy. A cousin? Is that what it made him? “I’m sorry, Roan. It would have been more scandal. More questions. Perida agreed that you would be best with us. She was already mated with children, and Summer was gone. Bryson might have killed you.”

Roan just stared at them, dumbstruck. “Perida Iverson is my real…”

Aslin nodded.

His real parent. His real alpha. And she’d given him to Aslin.

He looked around the room in slow, dawning panic. He’d always been the quiet sort. He hated being noticed, mostly from when they were both so young, and Roan was only noticed to be yelled at.

He met Layla’s eyes, pleading.

“It’s okay, Roan,” she said.

Roan nodded stiffly, tears shimmering. He turned to Holden. “I don’t want to do this right now.”

Holden put his arm around his mate, the other hand going around Roan’s wrist. The alpha nodded at the room and silently walked out the back door of the conference room.

“So you lied to me?” Shera asked, ripping the attention away from Roan’s strategic retreat.

Aslin sighed. “What do you want me to say, Shera? Yes, I lied to you. I pretended Roan was my son. I betrayed you. I betrayed Bryson. I betrayed Summer. I kept him as my own, and you hated him for it, and I let you. I lied to you for twenty-five years to keep him safe. I lied to you about my relationship with Bryson. But I married you. I supported you. My responsibility was to you and my children, and I did that. I don’t care if it all together makes me a bad person. I did what I had to do. So what do you want from me, Shera? What do you want?!”

Shera recoiled at his sudden anger. She looked at the floor with wide eyes. She dusted at her skirts again. She was doing what she always did. Packing it away. Compartmentalizing. Ignoring. Making it small and unreal. It was what she had taught Layla. How it wasn’t real if she didn’t acknowledge it.

Her mother rubbed her hands together. “Well, now that we know what happened. We can focus on getting Layla well again. Correct?”

Damian grimaced. “Layla will be monitored for the foreseeable future until the current effects of the medication have run their course and are out of her system. They will both continue to be monitored for complications—”

“Wouldn’t this be better performed in a hospital?” she asked.

“Stop it, Mom,” Layla said. Her mother hadn’t listened at all.

Shera shook her head. “This has already proven that neither of them is of sound mind. They must be separated and their bond broken.”

Layla shook her head, and Jaxon growled. Her alpha stood, letting her feet slide to the floor, but he refused to let her go.

“It’s inadvisable,” Damian said. He was pale, too, seeming a little sickened. “The separation is traumatic for the alpha and omega. The alpha may take extreme measures to rid themselves of the pain of a broken bond.”

Kaiser gave a bitter laugh, and Bryson clutched at the omega’s arm. Hera. They had both lost Hera. The door to the conference room opened, and Georgia peeked inside, her eyes finding Kaiser.

“It’s not a broken bond,” Bryson said. “It’s a severed limb that’s still chained to you that you drag through life. It haunts you in the strangest places. In the strangest faces.”

“You were affected by Summer’s heat,” Warren said.

Layla stared. Bryson knew about Hera and Kaiser, about their pups. That they were mates and that Damian had ripped them apart. He knew what it was like to be under the effects of a medically induced breakout heat. They had both lost someone they loved, someone who had been under the effects of Omerex…

Did that mean it never wore off? Bryson’s obsession had never abated. Hera’s had not either. Hera had rather die than be without her mate.

Layla shuddered. She couldn’t leave Jaxon if she wanted to. He would die. That was… it was pressure. She didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want him to send her away, but it was terrifying that he physically couldn’t.

Bryson growled softly to himself. “It took me nearly a year to track down the alpha that took her. I killed him and ate his fucking heart. Does that sound like I was affected by her?”

It was quiet for a moment until Georgia called softly for Kaiser.

Kaiser ignored her, continuing to hold on to Bryson.

“And it was the wrong man,” Bryson said. “Shit.” He rubbed his face and then shook his head. “Go to your mate, boy, I’m fine.”

Kaiser reluctantly retreated to Georgia’s side, and she took his wrist in her hand. He leaned heavily against her, and Layla could hear their twin purrs.

Raina still stood by Bryson, laying her hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture.

Warren cleared his throat. “I would advise remaining bonded unless a personality clash causes a dire conflict. From what I have seen, that is not a worry at this time.”

Layla nodded. There wasn’t another choice. She turned her head into her alpha’s chest, sniffing at cinnamon and anger. Still so angry.

“But Layla will survive it?” Shera asked, undeterred.

“Shera, no,” Aslin said. “They can’t.”

Warren sighed. “Mrs. Nash, that will be up to the mated pair to make that decision.”

Her mother grimaced. “The mated pair? Look at what he’s done to her! She couldn’t say no if she wanted to.”

Layla kept herself tucked into Jaxon’s side. She couldn’t say no, but not for the reasons her mother thought. She couldn’t say ‘no’ because she didn’t want to. She didn’t want him to be alone and pining and broken without her. Just like she would be.

The omega doctor glanced at Layla. “I have looked her over. I cannot give you her medical details, but she is doing well, and her alpha has been engaged and receptive to correction—“ Jaxon growled, and Warren easily ignored him. “He has remained devoted to her care. That is all I can ask at this moment, and I will continue to monitor the situation as her medical care provider.”

“But he’s—“

“Mrs. Nash, I must ask you to desist. There are other practicalities that need to be tended to right now.”

“Enough of this,” Jaxon said. “You don’t need us for whatever you are trying to do here.”

Layla nodded in agreement. She needed to get out here. She needed to sleep.

Her mother streaked around the table and grabbed Layla’s hands, squeezing tight and ignoring the growl from above. “Please, Layla, just come home. We can fix this. I can be better. Don’t let him take you away. This can’t make you happy. Being here can’t make you happy. Please, think about it. I just want to talk, baby. Please, I need my little girl.”

Layla stood shocked and cold. She was overwhelmed, too overwhelmed to form a response. Her whole body ached. She tried to pull her hands away, but her mother wouldn’t let go. “We—we can talk. In a few days, okay. I’ll… I’ll feel better by then.”

Shera squeezed her tighter, desperately. “Yes, please. Just talk to me.”

Layla nodded quickly. She wanted her to let go. She wanted to leave. She wanted her alpha to take her away.

“Shera, let go,” Aslin said, holding his wife’s arms and trying to pull her back.

Her mother snarled, like an alpha, but a weak one, all impotent rage that she turned on Jaxon. “You’re a monster. I hope you burn in hell for what you’ve done. You took my precious baby and destroyed her.”

Layla flinched. Destroyed and broken into little pieces that would never fit together again. She knew it. She didn’t need to hear it.

Jaxon opened his mouth to speak, tongue behind his front teeth, but Layla whimpered. She couldn’t hear more. She wanted to leave. “Alpha, please.”

Jaxon nodded and put a hand around her waist. He turned them around to the exit. No one stopped them. Only her mother raised a loud objection, screaming as Jaxon steered her away from the conference room and down the hall to the elevators.

Layla put her hands over her ears, but she could still hear her mother sobbing as her father held her. As she screamed, “Monster” and, “Rapist,” and finally, “Whore.”