Page 59 of Bliss & Her Idols (Pack Bonds Omegaverse #10)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Torin’s Bedroom, Idol Estate

T orin wrenches open the door, before grabbing a smaller man by the front of his shirt and dragging him inside. Then he slams the door shut and pins the man against it by his throat.

“Rory.” Immortal winces, sitting up. "You muppet.”

Wait, why is Immortal looking happy to see the curly haired Alpha, who is shaking under the weight of his brother’s glower?

My heart is in my throat.

Rory has already betrayed Torin once. How much has he heard?

If Rory tells on Torin to his sister, before our plans are in place, then our lives are over.

How can we trust him?

“ Rory ,” Torin rolls out each letter of his brother’s name with enough cool dominance to make it sound like a threat. “Listening at doors is rude.”

Rory scrambles to get his feet underneath himself, as Torin drags him higher, until he’s hanging in his grip.

Alarmed, Rory’s eyes widen. “I’ve been searching for…” His gaze flicks to Immortal. “I heard the twins talking about what was going to happen to him. But he was missing from solitary.”

“Why would you visit him?”

Rory licks his dry lips. “I was going to break him out.”

“Bullshit.” Torin tightens his hand around his brother’s throat.

Yet there is something in Rory’s tone that tells me he’s telling the truth.

The question is why.

Cricket moves to wrap his arms around me, watching the exchange with a wary expression.

“Ease off,” Immortal says, looking uncomfortable. “Your brother can’t talk, if you’re choking him.”

Jin has defended Rory, and now Immortal is as well. I expected these Betas to hate the man, but they don’t seem to.

Slowly, Torin lowers Rory back to the floor. “Wasn’t me taking the beating from Mena enough? You smashed my fucking guitar. You know what it meant to me. But now, you’re trying to do something to—”

“I was trying to save an Idol,” Rory bursts out in frustration, before his shoulders slump in defeat. “Why should you believe me? Fine. Get it out of the way. Hit me. I deserve it.”

Torin quirks his brow.

To my surprise, Immortal scrambles to the end of the bed. “Don’t. He’s my prince.”

“Yuck.” Jin scrunches up his nose.

For the first time, Rory looks amused. “Not like that .”

Immortal rests his hand dramatically over his heart. “He rejected me. Can you believe that he doesn’t want to hit this tight arse? I’m heart broken.”

Torin appears blindsided. “What’s going on right now? Am I having a stroke?”

Immortal grins. “Nope, you’re just discovering the identity of our dashing secret savior.”

Rory is the undercover agent…?

Torin lets go of his brother, taking a sharp step backwards. He stares at Rory like he still can’t believe it.

Rory just about manages to get his feet underneath himself, tentatively rubbing his throat.

“You’re still the one who told Mena that you saw Jin and me kissing.

” Tremors run through Torin. Words that he hasn’t been able to say for years are finally spilling out from behind melted walls.

“I thought that you actually liked me…maybe loved me…unlike the others. But then, you had me separated from Jin and the other Idols. Had me exiled for five fucking years .”

Rory runs a shaky hand through his hair.

“I do love you. You’re my little brother.

I’ve watched you growing up, while trying to look out for you.

Yet I knew that I was doing a shit job because I could barely protect myself.

But I did try.” His eyes gleam with tears.

“I really tried, okay? I’ve been manipulating and calming down Mena in every way that I could since I was adopted. ”

“Like getting me kicked out of the pack?”

“When I saw you with the Idol, I thought that you were copying the twins. They bullied and mind fucked you. I was frightened that they’d made you think the way they used the Betas was normal too.”

“I wasn’t using Jin,” Torin snarls. Then his troubled gaze snaps to Jin. “Right?”

“We were in love,” Jin reassures. “I made the first move, remember?”

“You never tried to use me,” Immortal grumbles.

I pat his knee. “Don’t worry, I have a brother that will.”

Immortal brightens.

Rory steps closer to lay his hand, as if he half expects it to be broken, on Torin’s arm.

“I know now that you’re both in love. I realized it almost as soon as I reported you.

I made the wrong choice. I’ve beaten myself up for it ever since.

I never guessed that Mena would exile you.

To start with, she was intending to send you to the Alpha Center for five years. ”

I gasp.

That would have broken Torin.

“I managed to talk her down from that by sacrificing…a lot…to send you to our relatives instead.” Rory squeezes Torin’s arm. “I know that it was still unfair, but at least you were able to work as a musician and songwriter there with more freedom than you could have here. Can you forgive me?”

I remember the intimate way that Philomena touched Rory’s hair. How she wants to bond with him.

I shudder, imagining those sacrifices.

“Brother,” Torin says like the word has been wrenched out of him.

Then he hauls a startled Rory into a hug.

Both men don’t appear to know quite how to handle it, before thumping each other in a manly way on the back.

I take pity on them, sliding off the bed. I stroll to the two brothers and drag them out of the awkward hug back to the bed.

I deliberately don’t comment on how both men have tears glimmering in their eyes.

“You look like shit,” Rory says conversationally to Immortal.

“Right back at you.” Immortal reaches out his arms in invitation.

Torin watches with a grimace, as Immortal wraps himself around Rory like a wild cat, and Rory fusses over the Idol’s bruised cheek and busted lip.

“I am never going to get used to seeing you both like that.” Torin stares at the way that Immortal preens under Rory’s attention. “Why did you act like such a hardass to all the other Idols?”

“Someone get a dictionary. We need to read him the definition of undercover ,” Immortal declares.

“Can we read the definition of brat ?” Torin mutters.

Torin settles on the side of the bed against the headboard. He lifts me onto his lap, running his fingers through my hair.

“If I played the cold manager in public,” Rory says, “then I could advocate behind the scenes.”

Torin studies his brother. “I understand that.”

“The ice wolf thing you have going on isn’t an act, Charming,” Immortal points out.

“Hey, I still outrank you.”

“In your dreams, grumpy.” Immortal waggles his eyebrows. “Back me up, pretty Omegas.”

“We love his hunter vibes.” Cricket daringly raises his head, unable to hold back his chirp.

His cheeks flush.

“It’s always the quiet ones.” Immortal laughs.

Jin wraps his arms around Cricket’s shoulders, kissing his head.

“Ice in the streets, fire between the sheets.” I can’t help it; Torin’s increasingly outraged expression is just too funny, and we need the tension to be broken.

Immortal laughs harder.

Even Rory dares to chuckle.

When Torin snarls, tightening his grip on my hair, Rory looks suddenly furious. He’s only held back from diving at the much larger Alpha by Immortal’s hold on him.

“He’s not hurting her,” Immortal whispers, petting Rory like he’s an Omega and not an Alpha. “She’s not in danger.”

“Maybe you are a white knight.” Torin turns a bewildered gaze on his brother, loosening his hold on my hair. “Why did you become the Idols’ protector after I was sent to Ireland? Why did you try to care for me?”

“My parents died too.” Rory grits his teeth, keeping himself tightly controlled.

How many years has he had to hold himself together like this in order to survive?

My chest is tight with sympathy. I’m an orphan as well.

I know the wound that it leaves behind. “Then I’m meant to be happy about being adopted into the one pack that my Beta Mom was terrified of, which she hated more than any other. ”

Shit.

Lionzio has spoken about how horrifying it was to be forcibly adopted as a kid into a mafia pack. Like Rory, he was beaten by the Head Alpha and forced into taking a role in the business, until he literally had blood on his hands.

Lionzio struggles with that now. I wonder if he’ll ever be able to get over his past and find real peace.

“She was an Idol,” Immortal says, quietly.

My eyes widen.

I wonder if she was one of the Idols who was forced into a bond.

What would she have felt to know that her son ended up back on the Idol Estate?

Torin blanches.

Did their parents keep it a secret?

His distress is like a stabbing icicle through the bond.

He is sitting as still as a statue. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t ask,” Rory growls. “You didn’t care. In fact, all my new brothers and sisters acted like you hated me.”

Immortal gently rubs up and down Rory’s arm.

Torin looks like he’s going to be sick. “I didn’t.”

“I wanted to love you.” Rory’s tightly controlled voice wavers with tears.

“I couldn’t bear to see anyone else die.

To lose them, especially my little brother.

And after what happened in the woods, I was desperate to guard you as best I could.

Maybe it makes me less of an Alpha than the twins or Mena, but if I could save you, then I would, even from yourself. ”

“What?”

Rory’s gaze is unflinching, when he raises it to Torin’s. “You’re like the Idols here. You can be impulsive.”

I assess Rory under this new light.

He’s not weak or a coward. He’s as strong as any of my men in his own way.

“So, you’ve been doing the best for the Idols because you’re the son of an Idol,” I say.

Rory nods. “Mom hated her time here. It gave her nightmares. I want to make her proud of me by standing up for the Idols however I can.”

And hell do I understand being driven by the motivation to please a dead parent.

If we rescue the Idols, then we’ll be freeing Rory from this crushing obligation as well.