Page 113 of Curvy Dirty Omega

“Your conclusion may have been wrong, but your observations weren’t,” Cassius admitted, flexing his own hands to squeeze mine like he knew just how much that statement would bother me. “Ever since high school, Liam and I have been together, if not…together, because Liam doesn’t really like omegas. They’re too fragile for him.”

I didn’t want to believe him, because if I did, it would just feed into my insanity and obsession, which was the last thing I needed, but that stupid voice in the back of my head kept reminding me we’d only ever seen Liam go out with an omega once, and it had made the news – the very same omega he’d mentioned before who was nothing more than a blind date set up by their packs.

“Liam can take care of an omega just as well as any other alpha, but he can’t help them through their heats without hurting them.” Cassius sighed, his breath ruffling my hair. “I may not be a legacy alpha, but the same goes for me.”

Maybe it was stupid to risk it, but I turned my head and rested my cheek on my arm so I could see his face.

Those bright blue eyes stared me down, but they were still empty. This topic didn’t cause enough emotion for it to leak through, but his body was tense. Whatever he felt about this, he didn’t want me to see it.

Why? Did he think I was too fragile, or did he think he couldn’t trust me? Not that I’d really given him a reason to.

“Finding an omega who can handle not just one, but both of us?” Cassius released one of my hands to pull my hair out of my face, gently tucking it behind my ear. “It feels like a miracle when I never thought I’d get to have an omega to take care of.”

Those words combined with his tenderness…I tried not to let it affect me, but my heart actually clenched. It physically hurt in a way I wasn’t expecting and didn’t know how to deal with. Those words combined with this sensation in my chest overwhelmed the part of me that wanted to panic at how casually he’d said that – how easy it was for him to see me as not just an omega, but one he wanted to take care of.

I forced myself to look away from those breathtaking blue eyes and stared at our intertwined hands, wondering if I could even do this.

Not only could they scent my pheromones, but they found them pleasing enough to help me through an unexpected heat. Neither of them seemed to care that I was a private detective who worked in the field, and Cassius had even asked me to pretend to be Liam’s girlfriend just in case he was arrested, all so that I could protect him.

Cassius Valentine believed that I could protect the man he loved – whether it was platonic or romantic love, I wasn’t sure anymore, but they loved each other in one way or another, or they would never have been able to do what they’d done last night without trying to kill each other at least once.

And now that my pheromones were suddenly making Frankie sick, I wouldn’t have an alpha to rely on, not even platonically. It might be a temporary issue, or it could be permanent. There was no way to really know, but I had to assume the worst.

Just imagining her keeping her distance from me for the rest of my life…

Once again, I was forced to realize what it meant to be an omega and this time, it wasn’t a warm, fuzzy feeling.

I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore – not when the grief that overcame me was strong enough to wash away everything else, even the anxiety.

I wasn’t born to stand on my own and that was a fact regardless of how I felt about it personally.

This solitary life was slowly killing me, and up until now, there hadn’t been a single person who could give me what I truly needed. I’ve been starving my whole fucking life until these two had stuffed me to the breaking point.

My father was right…

I never should have fucked an alpha, let alone two. It didn’t matter that I was made to handle Liam and Cassius when no one else could – that I could calm them down or send them into a feral frenzy depending on the state of my emotions and pheromones.

Whether I was truly a dominant omega or not didn’t matter either, because I knew I could, and would, wield my pheromones like a weapon – especially if Liam and Cassius were the only ones who could detect them.

I wasn’t a kind person and never had been. My father had made sure of that, and now I finally, finally understood why.

Because now that I knew what I’d been missing out on, I would do anything to have it again.

Anything.

My father had made me into this starving thing, that up until now, had simply existed with the bare minimum. I’d convinced myself that my life up until now was enough, because the hunger burning inside me was fucking terrifying.

I’d walked into that bloody bathroom as a child and hadn’t felt horror or grief, but curiosity above all – the desperate need to understand. The second I’d realized that, I’d run out of there crying, all covered in blood…

But not because I was devastated to lose my mother.

I’d bawled my eyes out for hours because in that moment, I’d understood there was something very, very wrong with me. And when I found out my father was murdering alphas of all people…

Everything had clicked.

Finding out why still pricked at me, but I’d known that if my father could do it, then it wasn’t that much of a stretch for me to manage it either. Not when he’d trained me so well.

It may be in my nature for me, an omega, to be whatever an alpha needed – but the soft, sweet, and caring traits I’d been born with hadn’t been nurtured.

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