Page 69 of The Omega Archives: Part Three

“Scent matches are rare, but mostly fabricated. Anyone can pretend or say that they love your scent more than another. Would you like me to do that?” He asked me. “I’m sorry that I didn’t to begin with. Should I tell you that your thick cherry scent makes my mouth water? When you are around I can’t breathe because I can’t get enough of your scent in my lungs?”

I pulled my arm away from him. “I don’t want your lies.”

“Then let’s make a promise to each other.”

“A promise.”

“Not to lie.”

I blinked. “You wouldn’t lie to me?” I asked in disbelief.

“When have I?” he asked.

I paused, thinking again. “You said you’d take care of me.”

“Didn’t I?”

“You beat me?” I asked though it wasn’t a question.

“I trained you. At home. With my family. With your family at the time, if I’m not mistaken,” he said. An image of Peter flashed into my mind, though I wasn’t ready to bring him up. Not yet. Not when I knew that the moment I did, whatever progress I was making here at a chance for freedom–at least an ounce of it–could be forfeit. “What’s so different about that compared to the academy you’ve been at?”

“They don’t beat their omegas?”

“No,” he said. “They just put them into isolation if they misbehave. Correct?”

“I…” I wasn’t sure.

“They take away pillows and blankets and nesting items until they feel so unsettled that they have to do whatever they must to find some comfort again in such a strange new place they’d been put since they designated.”

“It’s not the same,” I said.

“Maybe not exactly. But it all ends in the same result,” said Ben. “Doesn’t it? But you wouldn’t know that would you? Because even if you misbehave constantly for me, you somehow have that academy wrapped around your finger already.”

I didn’t know what he meant.

“From what I understand you have been progressing well at the academy.” He said, “Well, what do you have to say about that?”

I didn’t know what to say. Usually, I thought when it came to Benjamin, saying nothing was nearly always the right answer. But he seemed unusually chatty today.

“Are you shocked?” I asked.

He shrugged, dropping back onto his couch. “You think I would be.”

“I wouldn’t attempt to know what you’d think.”

“Now, for the rest of the afternoon you are going to smile and behave and pretend like we are having a fine time so that when I deliver you a proper dress for the choosing ceremony in a few days where my family will be there among everyone else, you will look like the picture-perfect omega I was always meant to have or else anyone you have ever come in contact with over the past few years could very well be in a position you’d rather they not be in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Now that the Prestfords are playing along nicely by the looks of things, I can’t do much about them. But I can do something about your little beta friend you had at the university. I hearthat she's interested in a teaching position at some of the top universities. Unsure if that will work out of her.”

Rita.

“And your other omega friend back at the academy and her disgraceful pack of alphas. Well, they’d be all too easy to wipe away. It wouldn’t take more than a wave of my hand to have them… removed in one way or another.”

He couldn’t even be suggesting…

“Oh and let’s not forget the young alpha I’ve been told has been spending more than enough time with you on campus lately,” he said with a raise of his eyebrows. “Now that just doesn’t sit well with someone of my satire to have my omega speaking to any other alpha but me. Did you forget that?”

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