Page 103 of The Heat of Us

“The doctor caring for me had been involved in the development of the National Omega Commission’s bond dissolution trials. She recommended I go through it and start using heat services. Said it was my best and possibly only chance. Heat services…I understood and accepted. I couldn’t bring myself to use the same alphas twice, though. I didn’t want to risk my omega getting attached. But the trials…”

I met their eyes one by one, trying to make them see.

“Adrian was the furthest thing from abusive. It was what our parents did to me that qualified me for the trials, not him. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to. You understand, right?” My words started to run away from me, tripping and stumbling as I felt my control slipping. “I loved him. All I wanted was the life we were meant to have back. I didn’t mean to hurt him, I didn’t mean to—”

I couldn’t seem to get enough air all of sudden, my confession choking me as I fought to breathe.

“Hazel.” Aleks was holding my face, trying to coach me through some deep breaths but it was just white noise.

“I killed him.”

“No.”

“I did. I broke our bond and he died two weeks later. I killed him.”

“Holding on was killing you.”

“Then I should’ve gone with him!” I screamed.

They’re horrified by what I’m saying.

I’m horrified by what I’m saying.

But it was the truth.

“I became so…numb from the pain. At first it was to cope, and then it was my normal.” I flicked my eyes at Ben and then back down again. “I never told Juno, you know. Not properly anyway. She knew about Adrian’s coma and my guilt over his death but not what he meant to me. Juno didn’t really speak about her old alphas, so I didn’t either. After our bonds broke, we were both so messed up in our own ways, the last thing I wanted to do was burden her more.”

I saw the grief in Ben’s expression and I hated reminding him of that time.

My fingernails scraped along my skin in an attempt to feel something. “I wasn’t even allowed to go to his funeral,” I said listlessly.

“Because of his parents?” Remy deduced.

I nodded, looking away. “Even my mum said it was best if I stayed away because of what I’d done.”

“Is that what they made you believe?”

“What?”

Remy seemed incensed. “Were they cruel enough to put that on you? To make you carry that all this time?”

My brows furrowed. “Why wouldn’t they? He died because of me.”

“No, Hazel.” Ben shook his head vehemently. “Do you understand what a two year coma is? He was in a vegetative state. Long term. He didn’t respond to anything. He wasn’t going to come back.” His lip curled with outrage. “And I don’t think this facility was legit either.”

I think I knew all this. Deep down. But facing it would’ve required me to dig up everything else so I never did.

“Bond dissolution is too new and the effects are still being studied,” Ben continued. “Did your health improve after? Once you went off suppressants and started using heat services?”

Yes. Almost immediately.

Ben didn’t need me to answer, he could see it all over my face. “Do you think Adrian would have wanted that for you? To see you healthy? Happy?” He paused, stroking my cheek so gently as if afraid I would shatter under his touch. “Loved?”

“I don’t know.”

I always thought his eyes were kind but I was starting to think they were that way for me. To be my haven after the storm.

“I think you do know.”

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