Page 211 of Fallen Omega

Heat flames in my cheeks. “I’ve never had a friend.”

She laughs. “Heaven help you if I’m your first.”

“Darcy’s okay,” Knight says, coming up, his dimples flashing as he kisses me long and slow and sweet. “Darcy’s brilliant in a fight. Always have her in your corner.”

He heads upstairs to join Dante.

“He’s trying to ask you if you’re staying. He wants you to stay. Men, kid, are easy. They’re pathetic.”

“Even Julien?” I say, teasing.

“Especially Julien.” She sighs. “Don’t tell him. But I think he’s fucking great.”

“I think he knows.” I pause. “And I can’t leave.”

“There are different ways of leaving. You could be with them here and never have them touch you again, you know?”

“I’m not leaving in any way.”

Reaper’s in the corner, unlit cigarette in hand, watching the small crowd. He narrows his eyes as one man goes to touch a waitress, but she handles it, giving him a look to let him know and he relaxes. It’s all microscopic, those reactions, and it makes me think about what he told me when I was half out of it, about bringing him to his knees.

I love them, and earlier, before Candice arrived, Reaper kissed me hard and whispered his words of love. Just simple, no moon and stars and whatever Knight feels like saying. I love it all, the quiet, the flowery.

The only one who hasn’t said anything is Dante.

I look at Darcy and sip my drink. It's sweet and doesn’t have too much alcohol, and I think I prefer it to the hard liquor and even the wine they drink.

“Do you think,” I begin, “that Dante?—”

But she cuts in. “Dante’s a hard man. I think you unhinge him in ways he can’t deal with, or isn’t sure how to deal with,” she mutters. “But I don’t think you’d be here if he didn’t want you to be. He’s set in his ways.”

I blink hard, my eyes burning. “I know, but I have less confidence than you with him. And I deserve… I deserve more than crumbs.”

I wait for her to say I’m being greedy, wanting the three of them to love me back. But she doesn’t. I sigh as the music starts for the first dancer.

“You deserve your world.” She looks at the stage.

I don’t push. I’ve said enough on that, and the only people who can work this out is me and the alphas. Me and Dante.

“But I was going to ask,” I say. “Do you think, honestly, I’m to blame for Dad’s death? She killed him because of me. She?—”

“I once heard Dante and Reaper talking, mostly Dante, because Reaper’s a man of few words. Majority of the time,” she says. “But they were talking about the man who risked everything to save them. The man who got them out of the pack they were in. Reaper was drowning in trouble, and I think Dante was set to be mated to some girl from another pack. Not his thing—it was that, or they’d take down Reaper.

“Their lives would have been locked away in an old-fashioned pack life. No out. The man, he was escaping. But he took them. Got them a long way away, hid them, and when they had to go separate ways, gave them money, as much as he could spare. They’ve talked about him a lot.”

I listen intently, wondering where Darcy’s story is going.

“And always with reverence because the things he told them, how life didn’t have to be this way just because they were alpha or delta or gamma or omega. They could do and be anything. And I think he was their inspiration. He had a kid, real little, a baby or toddler. The guy’s name was Elias. Elias Enver. And that baby was his life. His reason for living. He saved them for his kid. Because she deserved to be in a better world than the one she’d been born in.

“You, kid. That’s your dad.” She takes a breath. “And those two are where I first heard the name.”

“But—”

“As to why she killed your dad? You’re not to blame, I know that. She is. Revenge, spite… The list goes on, so take your pick. And I get the feeling he’d be pissed the fuck off if you blamed yourself. So stop. You made him happy, end of story.”

I look at her, and to my horror, I burst into tears.

Later, like the next day, they finally take me to the complex they live in. All of them. When the Trinity isn’t bunking down at their nerve center, Pandora’s Folly, this is where they live.

---