Page 117 of Captive Omega

I was supposed to get out, make all the alphas who hurt me pay, and go home.

Back to my parents.

Back to my fiancé.

Back to the life an alpha stole from me.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” I whisper. A tear slides down the slope of my nose and lands with a cool splash on the top of my right foot.

A chair leg scrapes on the hardwood floor behind me, and the fear of someone finding me crying when I pretended everything was okay gets me moving.

I jog up the stairs, leaving the deathly silent kitchen behind me.

He’s getting married. Henry is getting married. Not to a stranger, which wouldn’t have been so much of a gut punch. To Emily. I worked with her and liked her. She’s a beta and a realtor. It makes sense he would fall for her when they have more in common than he had with me.

I hadn’t thought they were anything more than friends, but I guess I was wrong.

The only thing to be grateful for is that the ring she wore isn’t identical to the one Henry proposed to me with. The ring I tucked away in the center console of my car before I rushed into the heat clinic, terrified I’d lose it if I kept it on.

Back in my room, I shove the door closed as more tears fall. Lock the door. Double check to make sure.

Tears fill my eyes as I kick the door, cry out, and kick it again. Who cares if I break my toe?

Just when I think I’ve figured out everything alphas stole from me, there is something else. There is always something else.

And I do what I told myself I wouldn’t do until I’d found Dexter Pieter and I was back at home with Mom and Dad. I crawl under my sheets and I stop holding my tears back.

It’s been years. Two years I was gone. It’s not like Henry didn’t have a life.

Stupid to think he would wait for me. He probably thought I was dead all this time. Probably still does.

I’m crying so hard that I nearly miss the soft knock at my door.

I shove my face in the pillow so whoever it is won’t hear me.

“Resa?”

Vaughn. I’m glad he’s not calling me bloodthirsty omega right now. I don’t feel particularly strong or bloodthirsty.

The door creaks slightly, like he’s leaning on it. “Just say the word and he’ll have a throwing star in his back before he knows what hit him.”

My pillow muffles the half-laugh, half-sob that tears from my throat.

Vaughn waits a bit, probably for my response.

I don’t want Henry dead. I just want to stop hurting.

“Well, the offer is right there.” He’s silent for so long that I think he’s gone until, “I’m sorry.”

The guilt comes next. For not immediately going home when I escaped from Nathaniel Lang. For not calling Henry or missing him as much as I should have. For liking Vaughn when I have a life waiting for me to go back to.

Only, it’s not the same life as the one I left.

Why did I think nothing would change? That time would have frozen the moment I left, and it would start back up again when I returned home.

Then I get angry, shoving the sheets off me, glaring through my tears. I search for some photocopier to kick or something to destroy, so I won’t cry.

But there’s no photocopier to kick the shit out of.

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