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Frustrated, I don’t let go of Thomas’ chin. “Why the hell would you take a cold bath? How long have you been in there?”
Thomas drops his gaze. “I don’t know. It helps to atone. You wash away your sins. That’s bullshit, I know. But inside, I can’t… I had to take one like this every night at the Alpha Center. Sometimes, when I feel like I’ve been a bad Alpha, it’s too hard to resist the routine.”
My heart breaks.
I let go of Thomas’ chin, stroking down his sharp cheekbone. “I’m sorry that you were treated like that. But you have nothing to atone for. You’re the best Alpha. We were all pretending in that room the best that we could to get out alive. The stakes were fucking everything.”
Thomas looks down at the water. “It was agony to feel the moment Ghost and you were discovered in the basement but not to be able to save you. I could also feel the moment in the study that you caught onto the game, my smart Omega. But will Ghost forgive me?”
“Ghost loves you,” I say, firmly. If there’s one thing that I’m sure of, then it’s that. “I can’t regret that by Link being forced to step up and showing that he’d take a bullet for Ghost, now those two have connected. My gargoyle has earned Ghost’s trust. They’ve been spending the day together in the basement. Link tended to my injuries, as well as Ghost’s. Then Ghost officially introduced Link to Sugar.”
“Now that’s huge,” Thomas agrees. “It’s like Meet the Cat, rather than Meet the Parents.”
“I’d watch that.” I chuckle. “I left them after lunch curled up together. Ghost was napping with his head on Link’s lap and my blue blanket pulled up to his chin. He was purring happily in his sleep. They both looked to be in heaven. I left them together, so that they could have time alone to properly grow to know each other.”
“You mean suck each other’s dicks.”
I choke on my tongue.
“Fuck, I hope so.” Then I shake my head to get over that seriously hot image. “The point is that Ghost’s been in on your plan from the beginning. He’ll trust you as much as I do. So, how about we warm you up now?”
I don’t fully understand why Thomas needs to put himself through a freezing bath.
But I do know that he’s punishing himself.
He shouldn’t.
We’re all working together to keep each other safe and help Omegas everywhere. Wearing the mask of the cruel, Traditional Alpha is what’s most effective for Thomas, and ironically, he’s being hurt by that more than the rest of us are.
Thomas doesn’t answer.
Instead, he stares out of the window at the crescent moon for a long moment, which hangs in the inky black, surrounded by sparkling stars.
“For those long months in the Alpha Center, I couldn’t see the sky,” he says, quietly. My stomach churns. I remain as still as I can not to break the spell because I bet that Thomas has never told anyone about the center, and he needs to. It’s poison inside him; it needs to be extracted. “The first time that I was sent there, I was devastated by a sense of betrayal. Dad told me that he was sending me on a business course. It turns out that I hadn’t even done anything wrong to deserve it. Dad simply wanted somewhere to stash me, while he arranged my sister’s forced matching to Fletcher. He knew that if I’d been in Haven, I’d have done anything to stop that bonding.”
“So, you were too late to save her.”
“I felt fucking powerless, seeing my sister trapped like that.” He ducks his head. “But that first time, it was more or less like attending college with training courses named asshole things like Dominance 101 or How to Discipline the Out of Control Beta, except with cells for dorms and beatings if you played truant. But they did serve an excellent cappuccino at breakfast. On the other hand, the second time that I was sent to the center…”
He hesitates, and his hands tighten to the point of pain on his legs.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say. “But I’m here, if you need to talk.”
Water droplets hang on Thomas’ long eyelashes like tears. “That time, I was viewed as a repeat offender. I was sent to an entirely different wing with the criminals and Alphas who’d been sentenced to the center indefinitely. I met Fletcher.”
My eyes widen. “Shit.”
“I’ve told Ghost about it. It’ll probably be the last that he hears about his brother, and I can’t keep that from him. I haven’t told him the details of what was done to Fletcher and me, however, because it’d hurt Ghost too much. The kind brother that he knows isn’t the man who nearly killed my sister. At first, I tried to tear out Fletcher’s throat. They had to separate us. But then, as we suffered side by side, I realized, as we talked, that in his own twisted way, he’d tried to protect Mercy from his brutal pack. Some of us can see beyond the brainwashing of our families and rise up against them. Others can’t. Fletcher was weak. A coward. It’s enough that he’s stuck in that hellhole for the rest of his life. He’s lost family, pack, and love. I got to come home. He never will; he’ll always be caged. But he was only Dad’s foot soldier. Dad’s the one who deserves to be in the cell next to him.”
My heart’s beating fast. I’m trembling.
“Do you want to tell me what was done to you?” I force myself to whisper.
I don’t want to know.
Thomas has been hiding this to protect Ghost, however, and it’s wrecking him.
Thomas’ gaze darts to my face, and I’ve never been so relieved that it feels like he’s back with me, rather than trapped in that past, caged in the center.
