Page 18 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two

If all she wanted was for me to hold her, that’s what we’d do.

She shrank, eyes darting between mine, so unsure, but I could already feel her unfurling in the bond, reaching out to my offer, even if she was nervous about it.

So, that was kind of it.

With the promise that we weren’t going to go any further, she settled into my arms. I felt barely a shred of anxiety as my touch drifted back to her waist to reposition her.

It was far from a perfect fix, though. Even with my purr vibrating through her frame, I felt her heating up. She began shivering in my arms, her grip digging in extra hard here and there.

This wasn’t a pain-free solution, and I didn’t have any meds down here that would be safe for an Omega, but she was holding out.

So, I let her lead.

I’d found, in life, it was easy to see a puzzle as a whole and miss the details of what mattered. To see a final picture of anger, or pain, or hatred. Whatever I wanted to see.

Knox had been vengeful and hateful when he’d taken the keys to my freedom. The picture I’d seen was a reflection of me, and it had, at the start, been easy to hate him the way he’d hated me.

Knox might have looked like a mirror of me, but to pretend we were the same, that what made up our foundation was identical, would be wilfully ignorant. His pieces were dragged together with a through-line I could never truly understand. Not until I had a taste of it like I had the last few years. And even in that, it wasn’t the same. I was protected from the pain he suffered by the knowledge that everything I endured was in the name of vengeance. I could grapple with that—could understand it—but what had happened to him? It had happened without reason.

Ihad happened to him, and in that, I don’t think he’d ever found answers.

Arrogance.

Pride.

I’d done what I had because I could. Because no one had stopped me, and that was what I’d been taught since I could remember. But what I’d claimed had cost me nothing, and nothing about it was strength.

At the start, I’d been fuelled by daydreams of what I’d do to him if I ever got free, yet all had turned stale as I saw the truth I wasn’t expecting.

Knox was paying every day. His torture had never ended, even when he was giving all that he had to the Misfits, or chasing the trafficking ring in a desperate attempt to make the pain end. And that was something I still couldn’t fully contend with.

Thistle, I knew, was no different.

She’d been through things I couldn’t imagine, and this was the best I could offer her.

Patience.

It was a second chance to give something I’d failed at the first time.

A low growl rumbled in Thistle’s chest as she clutched me. Another spike of pain she shouldn’t have to endure. Pain she didn’t deserve. I knew she was strong enough, though. She could fight through this.

Again, she shuddered, and I held her closer. I felt useless, just like I had earlier tonight, watching what was happening to her with no power to change it.

Ace had arrived, and that wasn’t my doing. Without him, she’d be broken, if not dead.

I shoved down the rage that tried to swallow me whole, trying to focus on her.

That was hard. Seeing her pain, feeling it… It was as if my ribs were slowly clamping down on my heart.

I just had to make sure she wasn’t alone—do this with her.

I couldn’t change it, but I could hold her through it. I stroked her hair, clinging to that anchor, knowing if I got lost, she would, too.

“I’m… scared,” Thistle whispered at last, glistening violet eyes turning up to meet mine.

“What are you scared of?” I asked.

She choked out a sob. “I hate…” She trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut. I waited, taking a breath and forcing my instincts into line as her heat hormones filled the air. “My… my body.”