Page 35 of Cost of Courting (When it Raines Omegaverse #6)

Chapter thirty-three

Selene

It’s been half a day, and I haven’t seen them.

Night is closing in, and I can’t shake the feeling something is wrong.

The bonds are quiet, and I’ve messaged a few people who have also reported they haven’t seen them.

We’ve basically been on top of each for weeks, and now, all of a sudden, they’re all gone.

I walk to the front window and stare at their house. No movement. Nothing.

Dark windows.

Where are they?

I reach up and press my palm over Kingston’s bond mark. Why can’t I feel them through the bonds? I know we talked about building mental guards to give ourselves some privacy, but all four of them at once? This isn’t funny.

Have they left again? I hate that that’s my instinctive thought. The panic churns in my chest, and I rub my sternum. I go into the kitchen and check the fridge. I could make up some pasta. Stay busy, don’t panic, don’t break.

I bite my bottom lip, but what if they are in trouble? What if they were in a car crash and are lying in a tangled wreck, dying?

I reach up and rub at the bond marks on my neck, harder this time. I just need a sign of life. They wouldn’t leave me. There’s no way.

They said they wouldn’t.

But where are they?

I pull my phone out and call the number before I can stop and think about it.

Before it even rings, I catch sight of someone walking across the front lawn .

“What the actual fuck?” I toss the phone down and stalk to my front door and yank it open.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” My voice sounds cold like my dads.

Octavia looks up at me with old eyes like she’s seen war. She’s half her size like she’s not eating. There are bruises under her makeup and scars on the inside of her wrists. I don’t know how I feel knowing she tried to kill herself.

“Hello, Selene. Can we talk?” Her voice is weak and nothing like I remember.

I don’t even know what to say, so I stumble back, leaving the door open. She follows me into the house and stops on the other side of the kitchen table.

“You can’t have them!”

She smiles slightly and shakes her head. “I don’t want them. I don’t want any of them.”

I pause, hearing the absolute sincerity in her voice. “What are you here for, then?”

“I’m here to tell you, not to apologise.”

I glare at her. “Why now?”

“To be frank, it’s the first time I’ve been able to. I’m sorry for taking your alphas, for tricking them and hurting you.”

Who is this alien omega in front of me, and why can’t I catch her scent?

She glances around the house and looks back down at her hands. “I sold them out, but I didn’t know what he’d do. Honestly. He’s a monster.”

“I am aware.”

“I brought you something,” Octavia says as if I haven’t even spoken. It’s like she’s a ghost. Dead already.

My kettle clicks off, the water boiled, but neither of us move.

The hairs on my arms lift.

“I promise it will help you.”

I raise a brow. It’s only then that I notice the beaten and bloody person standing in my doorway.

“LUNA!” I race across the kitchen, ignoring my unwelcome guest, and catch my sister before she falls. I lower us both to the ground. She grips my shirt with a deadly grip and stares up at me.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Luna gasps out.

She says it over and over and over. Tears streaming down her cheeks. I check her injuries. Some of them need medical attention, and she’s got a bruise in the shape of the tread of a boot on her back and what looks like a brand on her upper chest.

“Who did this? What happened? ”

It takes a long time for her to calm down long enough to be able to answer me. By that time, I’ve washed the worst of her wounds, got her onto our ratty couch, gotten some water into her, and left several calls with Dot.

“Where is she?” I grumble and send her a text message telling her to call me urgently.

I look at Luna and find that she’s passed out.

“I’m going now. I need to get distance between us before he finds out what I did,” Octavia says and edges backwards.

“Where’s my pack?” I snarl at her.

She shakes her head. “Forget them. Alphas, all alphas should be shot.”

“Octavia! Where are my alphas!”

“Dead.”

My heart stops. No, they aren’t dead, I think as she disappears out of my house. They aren’t dead, I would feel it.

I don’t want to leave Luna, but she needs more help than I can give her.

“Shit!” I shout and jump up, racing out the back for the fence. I slip through, ignoring the pain as I scrape my upper arm. I glance down and find a line of blood.

But on the other side of the fence, I stop, uncertain.

A single bird whistles, and then everything goes silent.

When there’s something wrong, sometimes it’s not so much a thing that’s out of place but a whole vibe.

Something in the air, maybe it’s a scent, maybe it’s a long forgotten instinct that we’ve evolved enough to almost not feel anymore.

But between the three steps into her yard and the fence, something became painfully, obviously, clearly wrong.

I listen intently to the silence. I watch the stillness. There is no movement, no strange sounds, but that in and of itself is the freakiest part.

My hairs lift, and I debate going back, but Dot has saved me over and over.

I owe her. Plus, she’s the closest thing to a friend I’ve ever had.

She’s the one who got me on birth control, who helped me suppress the symptoms of my non-existent heats.

She patched me up, took care of me. Laughed with me.

Respected me. Was my sounding board and the person who gave me a verbal slap when I needed it.

She’s the closest thing to a friend I’d allowed myself to have after they left.

My stomach drops violently, and I find myself moving carelessly, almost as if I’m drunk.

It takes me forever to cross the backyard.

Her back door is open, the floral curtain is flapping wildly.

The sound is so weird that I can almost hear her telling me to close the damn door.

I push it aside and move into her house.

I can smell the blood, the violence. The stench of alphas has filled and invaded every corner of the house.

It’s so wrong in this space. The untouched backyard is at odds with her destroyed home.

Why didn’t I hear anything? This place is a mess, and I wasn’t here. I was so close, I could have saved her.

Oh, god.

I swipe at my cheek and brush the tears away.

I creep in, following the trail of destruction down to the bedroom.

My breathing is so loud, but I feel like I’m miles away.

Please don’t let her be in there. Please, oh, please don’t let this be what I think it is.

Let me be wrong. There are bloody handprints on the wall, her lamp is broken and lying on the floor.

The light in the bedroom is on and shining out into the hallway. My hand trembles as I reach out.

I push the door open and let out a low, agonised moan. She’s lying spread eagle on the bed, her eyes wide and staring. Dot is naked, covered in bruises. Blood pools dark red on the white sheets under her.

Everything in me wants to go to her, to check and make sure, but I don’t need to, her skin is waxy, and her colour is gone; besides, no one could survive that much blood loss.

I choke as my legs give way, dumping me on the floor. A sob breaks out of me despite my best efforts.

I spoke to her last night.

Did I miss something? Did she signal she needed help? Why didn’t I hear anything?

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I whimper and pull myself up.

With deep reluctance, I walk to the side of the bed. The blood splatters are so offensive on her white lace bedding. She looks so small lying there and so old and frail.

I hate that she ended like this. It’s not fair. This isn’t supposed to happen to people like her.

“I’m sorry my friend. Forgive me. I will see you again. I won’t forget. Any of it. I promise.” My whispers are broken up with gasps as I try to hold myself together.

I bite my cheek to stop myself from crying and step back, unable to look away from her until I’m in the hallway. My whole body is shaking, but Luna needs me.

I need to leave and make sure I don’t touch anything, but, before I do, there is something I need to retrieve.

I hate this. Tears run down my cheeks, and I tremble as I walk away from her room to the small cupboard where she kept her broom.

The bag is right where she showed me. The letters and my letter that I gave her are inside and small things she wants given out. There’s no money, it’s nothing special, but she didn’t want her brother to have these mementos that mean something to her.

I promised .

There’s one other thing I grab. Her nurse’s bag. I might get in trouble if anyone finds out I took them, but she’s got meds that can help Luna.

I need them. Dot would want me to have them.

I go back to the room, and, from the doorway, I look at her one more time. I wish I could cover her up, give her dignity back to her.

“I love you, my friend. I wish I’d told you while you were alive.”

Instead, I back out of the house and retreat back to my backyard.

On the other side of the fence, all the emotion I’d held in rises to the surface, and I collapse to my knees, sobbing for breath, loud, keening cries escape despite my best efforts to be quiet.

I allow myself thirty seconds of pain, and then I pull myself together.

I shove a fist in my mouth to stop the keening. My grief, fear, and helplessness.

Where is my pack? I push on the bonds, terrified by the silence I feel.

I detect the faintest slither of feeling and go completely still, feeling it.

Pain.

It’s pain.

What?

I scramble up and race to the house, slamming inside and going straight to the couch. I jostle Luna, and when she doesn’t wake, I do it harder.

“Where are they? Please, Luna, please. Where is my pack?”

Her bruised and swollen eyes peel open, and she stares at me with a dead stare of someone who is retreating so far into themselves that they can’t come back.