Page 45 of Bound By Song (Evie Quad Omegaverse #1)

I nod, beaming at Blaise who’s scrunched his face up in confusion. “Pygmy goats. They’re so cute.”

“I thought for sure you’d say a puppy or a kitten or something fluffy.”

“Goats are fluffy. But they’re intelligent and practical too.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure having horned little devils bouncing round everywhere chewing holes in everything is super practical,” he snorts.

“Alright then,” I retort, crossing my arms over my chest. “What would you have?”

“A dragon. Obviously.”

“Very fluffy.” I snort.

“I’m not an omega. I’m an alpha .” He puffs his chest out comically, but it still stirs something in me that my omega appreciates. “I don’t need fluffy. I have you for that. I need something big and strong and noble and kickass. Like me.”

Ignoring the way my heart flutters at the way he says he has me, I scathingly remind him that dragons aren’t real, but he shrugs and dismisses me, telling me that his dragon will be pink . Before I can argue with him, Dane interrupts with the next question.

“Who used to live here with you?”

I freeze. Up until now we’d avoided anything too personal. But this…this opens a whole can of worms I’m not sure I’m ready to inspect and dissect.

“Uhhh…”

“It’s okay, Evie. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” Xar says kindly, offering me an easy out.

“Yeah,” Blaise adds, eyes twinkling with mischief. “We can move on to a different game, like strip poker!”

Dane chucks a cushion at his head and the tension breaks as I laugh. I take a deep breath and shake my head.

“No. It’s okay. We’re getting to know each other, right? I want to do this.”

No matter how hard it is.

Okay, here goes nothing.

“This house used to belong to my grandmother, Grams. She was…well, she was a formidable lady. A beta. She didn’t know the first thing about raising girls.”

“Girls…plural?”

I nod. “Yeah…my three sisters and I. We’re actually…ummm…kind of…identical…quads.”

“Holy shit!” Blaise gasps. “Quads as in…there’s four of you?” I give him a tight smile.

“You can count?” I retort. He grabs his heart dramatically yelling ‘wounded’ and I laugh.

Even quad betas are rare, he doesn’t need me to confirm that the four of us are all omegas and therefore rarer than a unicorn that shits diamonds. Not that Grams knew that we’d definitely be omegas when we were younger, but she suspected.

“Yeah. Our mother, an omega, died in childbirth, and our father, her alleged scent match and true mate, died a couple of hours after. Grams said he died of a broken heart, but always made it sound more stupid than romantic. So she was left with four screaming babies to raise, on her own, and I think she was already pretty old then – or at least she seemed it to us. She was incredibly strict and old fashioned. Gave a whole new meaning to the term old school.”

“Wow, little dew drop. I can’t imagine how she’d manage that. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

I have to try really hard not to swoon at Xar calling me little dew drop.

“I know, right. So Grams brought us back here to the farm house and raised us, single-handedly, with absolutely zero outside help. She was pretty reclusive, but of course she still had to get supplies delivered from town and things. No one knew that my mother had given birth to four babies. Well, I don’t think many people even knew she was pregnant to be fair.

And so Grams kept it secret and…” I trail off, dreading how to explain the next part.

If they didn’t think I was weird before, they will by the time I finish this tale.

“Basically, Grams raised the four of us as one person.” I cringe at the stunned silence that follows. “Okay. That didn’t come out right.”

“Can you explain what you mean by that?” Xar asks patiently. I jerk my chin.

“She called us all Evie. Only ever took us out one at a time if absolutely necessary. Dressed us the same. And we, ummm, just share one birth certificate and ID and stuff. Which might even be fake now I come to think of it. Anyway, so yeah…umm...that sort of thing…”

Silence. Deafening, screaming, what the actual fuck silence.

“…Why?”

I shrug. “Grams was…well, she wasn’t the biggest fan of alphas, despite her son being one.

I don’t really know the full story there.

And I don’t know if it was early onset dementia or something, but she was incredibly paranoid about us growing up.

To begin with, I think it might be because she was worried about social services getting involved and taking us away.

If someone reported that she was struggling to raise four kids alone at her age.

..you know? But then we presented as omegas, earlier than expected, and that’s when everything changed. ”

“When did you present?” Dane asks quietly.

“Around our ninth birthday.” I shiver, and pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Grams freaked and put us on suppressants the next day. God knows how she managed to get them.”

“Jesus…” Blaise mutters.

“Grams’ health deteriorated fast after that, and with it, her paranoia grew.

She was relentless in her sermons that alphas couldn’t be trusted, that the world couldn’t be trusted, and that we were safer within the walls of this house with her.

It got to the stage where even going outside on our land, to feed the chickens and collect eggs, became a battle.

She was convinced someone was going to swoop in and steal us away.

Thought four identical omegas would be something worth stealing and selling.

Using and abusing. Especially with omega numbers declining so rapidly. ”

“She held you prisoner in your own home?”

“It wasn’t a home. Not really. You guys have noticed, it’s a house.

There’s nothing comfortable or comforting here to make it a home,” I reply sadly, ignoring Blaise’s accusation.

“I don’t think she meant to, though. Keep us prisoner, I mean.

She wasn’t well. Growing up it was our normal but now I can see it was a sickness. But…well…that’s the way things were.”

“What happened to your sisters?” Dane asks, his voice low, his expression unreadable.

“Evie,” I chuckle, then correct myself. “Grams called us all Evie for ease. Or maybe because she couldn’t remember our actual names.

Sorry. Old habits. So, umm, Everly left.

She was the second oldest and she ran away one night when we were teens.

We’ve not heard from her since.” I take a deep breath.

Talking about Everly is always so painful, despite Evangeline’s insistence that we’d know if she weren’t alive, I can’t help but wonder.

“She was my best friend and losing her like that was excruciating. I never got over it.”

“Evangeline, the oldest, Evelyn, the youngest, and I stayed here until Grams passed away. Evelyn left the day of her funeral and watching her go was brutal, even though she’s stayed in touch sporadically since.

Evangeline stayed with me for about six months and then moved out.

She’s the one I have most contact with now, but I’ve not seen her in person for quite some time.

I spoke to her today at the store when I was freaking out and she gave me some good advice.

..Anyway, the house was left to the four of us but my sisters agreed to let me stay here because I had no desire to leave.

I was the most compliant out of all of us, the most easily led by Grams. And I’m ashamed to say that I let her views cloud mine. ”

“She made you too scared to leave the house,” Xar says quietly.

I grimace. “I mean, I can leave the house. If I have to. It’s not like I have an illness or a phobia that prevents it. But I prefer not to.”

Plus, if I left and Everly came back…well, I’d never forgive myself.

“You were on the verge of a panic attack when we went to the store earlier,” Dane points out.

“That’s because I thought we were going to local shops in the village. I’d never been to that huge store before. I tend to avoid new places, especially if there might be crowds.”

As I finish speaking, the silence between us deepens, heavy with the weight of my words.

I’m not sure what I expected, but it’s not this – this quiet understanding that settles over the room.

The guys are processing everything I’ve just shared, and I can feel their eyes on me, their gazes steady but not invasive.

They don’t appear to be judging me, or to be too freaked out by what I’ve just told them.

Blaise is the first to break the quiet. He leans forward slightly, his expression soft but still full of that mischievous energy.

“Jesus, Evie. No wonder you’ve been through hell and back.

You’ve carried a lot on your own.” His voice is gentler now, no longer playful.

“You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. ”

I shrug, unsure how to respond. I don’t feel strong. I feel broken, fragmented, and just...lost. But I appreciate the words, even if they don’t quite fit. And with their presence, I’m slowly starting to discover myself, which makes me feel a little less broken.

Dane shifts on the sofa, his usual quiet presence becoming more pronounced. “So your independence was born out of necessity, not choice then. I’m glad you’ve got us now, Evie,” he says, his deep voice steady and comforting. “I swear to you, wildflower, we’re here for you. No matter what.”

I glance up at him, feeling the sincerity in his words settle into my chest. His dark eyes are filled with something I can’t name, something that makes me feel like maybe I don’t have to carry all of this weight alone anymore.