Page 11 of Cost of Courting (When it Raines Omegaverse #6)

Chapter nine

Selene

The bruises take a while to heal, weeks of having them try to gain my favour, but I am stone.

I heal fast, but he did me over real good.

The Dread Pack hovers. They bring me food; they invade my house.

When I come home from work, they are sitting on the porch watching.

When I get up in the afternoon, they are laughing with Luna in my kitchen.

Their scents drive me wild. I feel like I’m under siege.

It goes on and on. Everywhere I turn, there they are. Smiling, laughing, talking, but always watching me. Not far behind, lurking and invading every inch of my life until I feel like screaming.

Until the temptation to yield is a constant battle.

Bailey comes over a couple of times, returning some of Luna’s things, and once because Edric apparently kidnapped him.

He’s avoided me like I have the plague, but just seeing him is salt in the wounds of betrayal and the inferiority complex I have.

I can still feel the thrumming attraction to him, but the humiliation and his words have cut deep.

It’s not going away no matter how many times I tell myself that he’s a sleazy mongrel.

Luna has already found a new boyfriend. She brought him over and marched him into the kitchen, propping her breasts up with her folded arms and glared mutinously at me.

“Are you fucking this one, too?”

The poor guy looked so confused and appalled.

He’d looked at me and said with such complete bafflement, “but she’s so old!”

Luna had been mollified and stalked off with her new beau, with her nose in the air and all the haughty disdain she could muster.

I’d sat at the table and gone through all the reasons I stay. Then I went over the list again.

Still, an hour later, Kingston charges in, dropping to one knee in front of me and takes my hand. I try to pull it free, but he just holds on, staring up at me in pity.

“You’re not old.”

I snarl, and it’s echoed by another, much deeper one. I hadn’t realised Bailey had followed Kingston into the house. But now that I can see him, I can’t look away.

His knuckles are bloody and his cheeks flushed. He’s got eyes only for me. Why? These are his alphas.

Kingston turns his head and frowns. “Bailey? What happened? Are you okay?”

He ignores him and stalks to me, pulling me up out of the chair as I stand up.

I step back, but he steps into my space, looming over me, his scent choking me.

There’s a thin line of blood running down his temple, and it doesn’t look like he’s shaved.

He looks unkempt and completely, deliciously feral.

“What happened to you?” Kingston growls and follows him, so now I have two of them in my space.

I step back and keep going until I hit the kitchen counter, unable to take my eyes off him. I try to shift to the left, but his hand comes down heavily, blocking my way out. He steps towards me again, pushing me up against the kitchen counter.

Now we’re touching when we breathe. His air is my air. Our scents mingle and fill the kitchen. My eyes dip from his gaze to his lips, just wondering about that kiss that never happened, even though I know I shouldn’t, even though I know I can’t.

“Bailey-”

I barely get his name out before he ducks his head towards me and inhales deeply.

He moves quickly, his whole body pressing hard against me, driving one thigh between my legs and pushing my shoulders until I’m leaning back over the counter, clinging to his bunched up shirt in my fists to keep me upright.

My perfume fills the air, rich, strong, and undeniable.

“Omega,” he murmurs darkly.

“Bailey, are you all right?” Kingston murmurs and strokes a hand down the alpha’s spine. And he is an alpha right now. Any sign or trace of the omega is absent.

He growls, low and vicious. The last part of sanity leaves me. Slick soaks my underwear, my perfume breaks free, the full intense version that I’ve only smelled twice in my life.

A chair crashes to the floor, and Bailey jumps back. I catch myself and stand up, warily watching the four alphas in my kitchen.

Their eyes are glazed, their scents out in force. Pack Dread look like what they are. Savage, unhinged, feral alphas who grew up dirt poor and belong to me .

“That’s the scent she was wearing,” Edric hisses. “Octavia was wearing that scent.”

“She took my clothes,” I say simply. “You didn’t listen to me. I tried to stop you. I believe the exact phrase was ‘stop sabotaging our happiness’.”

Kingston winces and steps back.

The spell, whatever was holding us, snaps, leaving me free to breathe easier.

Bailey is looking between us all but ends up staring at me.

“You don’t want this, remember? You want normal so you can stop being who you were born to be and live a lie.

Go back to your world, Bailey Raines, and leave me alone.

” I turn to Pack Dread. “And you.” I let all the loathing I feel enter my tone.

“You had and lost your chance. I will never, ever be yours.”

There’s a long silence, and then Mael, who looks demonic in the low afternoon gloom, starts to laugh.

I widen my stance and glare at him. “What’s so funny?”

“You’ve always been ours.”

It’s a threat and a promise. It’s something I’ve heard a million times in my dreams. But never out loud, not in that tone, not in a way that has every single part of me hoping he means it.

How is it that everything I’ve ever wanted is being offered on a silver platter now? I’m strong.

I am good on my own. I don’t need them now.

I brace myself as he moves slowly towards me, but he doesn’t touch me. He just leans in close enough that I can see the edges of the scars peeking out from under his top.

“Run if you want. It will just make it more interesting.”

I shove at him, but he preempts my attack, catching my wrists and kicking my feet out from under me. I find myself lying on my back on my kitchen counter, my legs spread and Mael pressed between them, leaning over me.

“You think we’re going to walk away from you again?” he whispers and leans down.

I’m helpless, horrified, turned on, and so desperate I could scream as he lowers his lips to mine. I don’t kiss him back. I refuse to move, but I don’t try to fight him either.

It’s Mael. I’d never win. I’m not a hundred percent positive I’d want to. He’s infinitely gentle, his lips a whisper that leave me shuddering and trying to hold in a moan. When his fingers skate over my hip bones, I struggle, panicking, but he lifts his head and looks at me.

“Shh, it’s all right, Sel. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He will, though, because there are more ways to hurt someone than to hit them. Words hurt more. Actions can destroy someone. Watching them walk away again might steal all my will to live .

I might beg them again.

I might cry.

For weeks, months, and then whenever I’m alone and the memories of them come back, I’ll find I still have tears to shed.

“NO!” I shout and struggle free. When I look back, Mael is watching me with a look I recognise. He’s not giving up. He’s just letting me go.

I snarl at Edric when he steps towards me, shifting so my back is to the fridge. Why is my house so small?

“What is wrong with you? You left. You found your omega and left.”

Edric grins. It’s feral and so violent. “She just wasn’t you.”

There is something so sinister about those words that I hesitate. I want to demand the whole story and find out, but Mael clears his throat, and the three of them leave.

No goodbye, no words of affection. They just walk out.

I hate it.

“Just leave, then!” I shout.

Edric whirls, and he’s on me before I can speak. “We’re not saying goodbye because we’ll be back in an hour. Pretty girl, our crazy omega. Don’t fret, we’re not going to make that mistake again.”

I snarl, but Edric leans in, and when I raise my hand to slap him, he captures it. His grip isn’t painful, but he holds me so I can’t move. He turns his head towards my hand and nuzzles my palm. I try to curl my fingers, but, before I can, he licks slowly up my palm.

I gasp, my hand tingling. It shouldn’t be hot, it should not be sexy. And yet, I’m dripping slick and leaning into him, dazed.

“Have you had a heat yet, Omega?”

I shake my head before I can stop myself.

Edric suddenly grins, and I’m stunned into silence. He’s so much more potent up close. He leans in and touches his lips to mine.

“We’re looking forward to it.”

As soon as he lets me go, I slump against the wall, blinking rapidly. Bailey glances back at me and then follows the alphas out.

I lick my lips and taste Mael.

I should wash it off. I should shower their scents off me and purge the kitchen of our combined smells.

I don’t.

Instead, I go into my room and sit on the mattress on the floor and stare at the water stain on my wall .

When they come back, I don’t protest the way they crawl onto my bed, filling all the spaces. The four of them take over my space, and, though I would never admit it out loud, for the first time in a long time, I feel safe enough to sleep.

When Mael wakes from his nightmares later, I reach out before I can think. He captures my wrist and turns his head into my thigh, nuzzling, and drops back into a sleep.

I think I’m the only one awake until I notice Bailey staring at the ceiling.

I watch him, wondering why he’s here. What he wants. I did my research. He went out and slept around with just about anyone he could get for a while. And then he just stopped.

He’s the CEO of Alpha Labels.

But there’s something so lonely and distressed about his countenance.

He looks defeated.

“I am a switch,” he says in a low tone. It’s an anguished whisper.

I wait, and, when he turns his head to me, I realise he’s actually talking to me. Tingles run up my spine. I wasn’t aware he knew I was awake.

“I have been trying to find a way to stop it from happening. It just changes with my emotion. Until I met you four. Now it just changes at will.”

“Has it occurred to you that it could be a strength rather than a weakness?”

Bailey shifts onto his side so we’re facing each other. “How is being an omega a strength?”

“Because, Bailey, everyone underestimates an omega. They think they can’t do it, that it’s not possible, that they are victims of their hormones and pheromones.”

“And you’re not?”

I smile at him. “No, I’m not. I have lived in this neighbourhood alone and protected my sister.

I have fought, defended myself and my friends, I have worked and earned a wage, I have done everything a beta or alpha could and done it better.

I didn’t perfume every time I met an alpha.

I didn’t throw myself at them, whimpering and needing a knot.

I was not a victim or a slave to my hormones. ”

“And how do you do that? It’s so strong.”

“It’s really simple. Think about it like this: what do you have to lose? If you give into those emotions, to the impulses, you will lose that thing you care about. You’d be surprised what the right incentive can do for your willpower.”

“Do you ever think you’re the exception? I got into a fight with an alpha today who tried to…is it always like that?”

Did he? How frightening to have people try to just take a part of you. Think they are entitled to you .

“No. There are heaps of omegas out there who have learned how to control our designations. This is the time of enlightenment. We choose our lives. We are no longer slaves to heats and scent matches. I will not allow anyone to take me just because we are scent compatible. That dream is a fantasy for little girls. I live in reality.” I pause.

“As for people who think they can take what they want? Well, I just go out of my way to make them bleed.”

“Well, damn, crazy girl, that just makes me want to fuck you even more,” Kingston purrs.

I roll my eyes and notice the baleful glare of his cat.

“What is that thing doing here?” I snarl.

“Shade loves you.”

“Shade would love me in little slither bits he can eat,” I retort.

“Don’t be like that. Shade approves of you being a strong, kickass omega, don’t you, Shade?”

The cat lets out a chirp that sounds suspiciously like agreement and gets up.

He walks across the bed and climbs up onto my chest. He turns four times and just drops down.

One leg somehow ends up punching me in the nose.

But the cute little upside down eye somehow tugs on my heartstrings enough that I decide to just leave him be.

He’s so soft, and when Shade purrs, I find myself staring at him in awe.

I glance at Bailey, but his eyes are closed, his breathing slowed, and he looks, for all intents and purposes, like he’s asleep.

I couldn’t possibly have fallen for him so soon, could I? No, impossible. I shove that horrifying thought away.