Page 17 of Ondine: Vol. 2

“Shut the fuck up! What’s so wrong with this? I got a bed!”

He gives me his back and bends down to rummage in the shopping bags. “A bed. A bed! This is exactly the kind of stupid ass bed a half-brained alpha would purchase. It’s made of two parts. By the end of the first day, the thing would be split in two and you’d have a sad, crying omega on your hands. Have you ever made an omega cry? Of course you probably have. I bet they wouldn’t let you around an omega under any normal circumstance.”

“Fuck off!” Shadow shouts and the subtext I can easily pick up is I’m absolutely right.

“Show me what’s in the bags. I need to know what I’m working with.”

I think he’s going to break a tooth. He’s grinding his jaws so tight. He unbags the items and drops them on the stupid thin mattress.

Synthetic fur. Thick fluffy blankets were too small to cover even Ondine. Upholstery pillows. T-shirt material bed sheets.

I think I may be standing in front of the biggest loser I’ve ever met.

He can see this thought in my eyes when he meets them. Pathetic.

“You know I can feel some of your emotions. Even though you’re an ordinary beta.”

Oooo an “ordinary” beta. Burn.

I roll my eyes at him. Only alphas think packs and bonds are so valuable. Most betas don’t even think about entering into one.

“Ok look, all of this you’ve bought so far is shit. Did you even go into a nest store? They’d be able to blindly point at things and do better than this.”

He tosses his hands in the air. “I was on a tight schedule! I had to get back into the city, so I just went to the department store.”

I sigh, because he exhausts me. And I have no inhibitions whatsoever since I was kidnapped and forced to bond. I’ve decided I’m going to make it their problem.

“You know what’s wrong with people like you? Alphas. I’ve met so many alphas in my line of work, and there’s this epidemic that no one speaks about. You want to impress the other alphas in your pack more than you give a shit about an omega. Maybe it’s because there are so few omegas. So your priorities shift. Who knows? But you will literally rot from the inside out trying to garner favor with the other alphas rather than an omega. Don’t think I can’t smell you. Your stench. It comes from mistreating an omega. At the Clinic, they pump the alphas full ofhormone supplements to combat that scent. But being an alpha has nothing to do with fulfilling the brotherhood of the pack.”

Shadow does something weird. He listens. I actually hate it as much as when he’s trying to give me excuses.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Alpha Meier. Please, I’m begging you. Tell me what you’ve done for Ondine. How did she find you? Have you been good to her?”

Obviously not. I can’t even imagine her in this house.

One thing I loved about her is how little she cared for the approval of alphas. So many omegas are desperate for alpha approval, and it broke my heart to hear them ask me about the alphas that helped them through their heats. It broke my heart because I was subjected to the other side of it. Where the alphas patted each other on the back and gloated about their performances. Disparaging the girls. (I hadn’t seen a male omega in the Heat Clinic.)

But Ondine didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t that she didn’t want their approvals. She wasn’t a fucking robot. But she knew the sum of things. She’d watch them with her intelligent eyes. She’d see the signs and come to the conclusions quickly. They were trash.

Shadow looks everywhere but at me.

“Jake found her running away from something. Someone. From you. We’d been trying to get a placement with the Institute. We already had a contract drafted. He brought her here and offered her the same thing we were going to offer an Institute omega. Two heats.”

“Where did she have that first heat?” I don’t hide my feelings. I’m scared. She didn’t have it in this fucking dank tower. Shadow turns and waves me to follow him. He takes me down the stairs and past some bedrooms to the last one on the right. He opens the door.

Half the room looks like storage. There’s a small bed that smells of Ondine. Near the window she had piled some blankets and pillows. It looked like she tried. This is egregious. Three wealthy alphas with their own private home, and this is what they gave her. I grab Shadow by his shoulders and slam him into the wall.

“What the fuck am I looking at! Omegas can’t nest in their own rooms! This is not even a room! My one legged grandma in hospice could have figured something better out. And for an omega! She’s young. And pretty. And interesting. And available. Do you have any goddamned idea what a treasure she is?” And then I spit into his face.

I don’t know why. I’ve never done it before. But he deserves it.

I expect he’ll punch me out or something. But he doesn’t. His shoulders relax a little and he stares me down, absolute rage in his eyes.

I push off of him and walk away. I want to see what she all has here. It doesn’t look like much. There are clothes but they don’t look like hers.

“Whose clothes are these?”

“We got her some clothes and things.”