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The way they aren’t taking this seriously makes me want to scream.
“She is catching feelings. She is the ultimate case. You heard her. She left home for love.” I’m throwing my hands around, talking with my arms louder than I am with my words, but there is a thread of soul deep panic coming from the memory of howshe looked at us, and I can’t understand why they aren’t taking this more seriously.
“So, she’s a romantic. But she knows what kind of alphas we are. She knows we aren’t the ones. We are a stop on the road. A stepping stone on the garden path,” Crow murmurs and then goes back to kissing a trail down Hunter’s chest.
I stalk away from them, let out a snarl, and spin back around, facing the bed, glaring at the silent Hunter in deep accusation. “And doesn’t it bother you that she smells that good? Dare I ask if either of you has noticed, how. Damn. Good. She. Smells?”
“Of course, it bothers us,” Hunter snaps, sitting up and narrowing his eyes on me. “It occurs to me she could very well be our omega. But we made an oath.”
I scoff. “She’s falling in love with us, you two numbskulls. She doesn’t know or realise we aren’t available, and the longer this goes on, the more dangerous it’s going to become. Bethany is an omega in heat. She is an emotional bomb waiting to go boom.”
Crow finally starts paying attention to me and brushes his hair back while he tracks my movements.
“And what happens if we explain it to her tomorrow, and she goes into her true heat? You know how dangerous omegas can be in their heats, we’ve all seen the reports on the news. Savage, unpredictable, merciless. No, I’m not risking either of you,” Crow says, and though it makes me feel warm inside, I can’t shake this feeling of wrongness.
I pace again, losing track of how many laps I do while I play over every moment.
“She smells so damn good,” I mutter. “Can’t keep our hands off her. We told her, didn’t we tell her?” I turn but find the other two asleep.
I let out a frustrated snarl, but I don’t want to wake them. With one last grumble, I leave the room. In the kitchen, I pull out the brandy and splash some into a glass. I walk through thesilent house until I get to the backyard, which is really just an overgrown courtyard but one of my favourite places in the whole world.
I should be at peace, but it’s like something inside won’t let me. The frustration and drive to take that omega versus the memories that keep slamming into my skull, throwing image after image of pain from the past, are keeping me moving in a desperate drive to escape and stay.
It takes me a moment to spot her curled up on my swing chair. My head tells me to walk away, to leave her there, but I find myself walking over to her and sitting down beside her. Maybe if I face the beast I’m afraid of, I will steal away its power.
“Somewhere out there, my family is under the same stars that we’re under. And I hope they are as happy as I am. That’s all I can ask for,” she murmurs with a sigh. She hasn’t looked my way, and I take the time to really study her face.
Her voice is soft, thoughtful. I find myself captivated by the sound of her. She’s not the evil, love-obsessed villain I’m painting her to be. Not when she’s like this.
“Why not ring your dad, explain? Surely, they would forgive you?”
“And go home to a farm in the middle of nowhere where I wouldn’t have found my scent matches?” She shakes her head. “It would have been death by a thousand paper cuts.”
I sit back and shake my head. “Love is an overrated emotion that exists only as a construct to torment those who claim to have it.”
She whirls on me so fast she sets the swing moving.
“How can you say that when you have Hunter and Crow?”
“That’s different,” I say defensively. “It’s not love-”
“No, it’s not different at all. You have the love that people spent their entire lives dreaming about. Do you know how rare it is?”
“It’s a bond, its brotherhood, its-”
“Love. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. How can an alpha in love be telling me he doesn’t believe in love?”
“Love is something that people wield as an excuse to do cruel and unusual things. It is an excuse for unacceptable behaviour and ill deeds. In a society such as ours, if you say you did it out of love, you are forgiven or punished less. It’s obscene.”
She’s watching me intently, her expression shuttered. She seems older somehow, like a primordial goddess expressing her displeasure. “It’s the motivation that provides miracles, amazing strength, and acts so good they move the world. Love is why we do what we do. It drives all of us.”
I shake my head and chuckle. Obviously, there’s no arguing with her. “I just don’t understand how you can be where we found you and still believe.”
“How can I not? Everything was going wrong, and then an act of love saved me.”
Good grief, she is worse than I thought.
“That’s not love,” I argue without hesitation, feeling triumphant.
