Page 106 of The Butcher

He nods. “Is he someone who works for Harden?”

The room starts to spin as I sway on my feet, quickly reaching for the nearest piece of furniture to grab onto. “No. He… Hall… oh my god.”

Without warning, I heave again, this time everything I’ve ever eaten coming up, and thankfully, I manage to aim for the fireplace.

After a few minutes straight of throwing up, I spit a few times, then muster the strength to ask, “Did they say if he was close?”

Bram shakes his head.

Well, at least that’s a good thing.

It doesn’t mean a lot, not when he has people looking for me.

Assuming they are looking for me.

Which means they need to know as much as possible about Hall and his pack because he’s deranged, and I wouldn’t put it past him to do something crazy just to find me. He wiped out his last pack because of me, why would this town be any different?

“He… Hall is an alpha in the pack that was…” I turn and look between them, my heart hurting over what I’m about to say. “For almost three years, they tried to breed me without any results.” I flinch at their reaction, Nash going ramrod straight with a growl, Clayton sinking to the edge of the bed with a look of horror on his face. And Bramley doesn’t let on that he’s fazed at all except for the fact that he breaks the IDs in two, and crumples up the hard plastic in his hand. “Foster and Hall were the alphas whoran things, Aaron was another in their pack but I didn’t see him very often and when I did, Nicolas came with him.”

“Why would he be looking for you?” Bram grits out through clenched teeth. “Didn’t he know…”

“That I was sent to be put down? They have to notify them, they pay to breed with omegas. If they don’t say anything when one of us is disposed of, it creates all kinds of problems that Harden can’t make go away.” I hug myself as tight as I can, trying to keep the nausea at bay while calming myself down. “Plus, Foster and Hall knew this was my last chance.”

“Don’t they”—Nash swallows hard—“switch packs or something when that happens?”

I nod, avoiding eye contact the best I can. “I’m thirty two, and I presented when I was fifteen. Do the math. They were my last shot at staying alive.” No matter how meaningless that really was. “And Hall, he was in a different pack before the one with Foster, he knew first hand how useless I was.”

“Wait,” Bram grunts. “How the hell does that work?”

“He’s deranged. When his original pack decided to try with another omega, Hall put up a fight. He wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t produce any offspring, he became obsessed with the idea, and he ended up murdering his pack just so he could weasel his way into the next one who decided to breed me.”

Clayton blinks then shakes his head. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty fucked up.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I mumble, immediately regretting it because of their, once again, extremely tense reactions.

“Explain,” Bramley growls. “Now.”

“You want examples? Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The three men I wanted to give my heart to listen intently, unmoving and on the verge of exploding as I tell them about my experiences with Hall.

He was always too aggressive, he was abusive, and he somehow thought that if I was in pain, it would raise the likelihood of getting pregnant.

I tell them about different times that he was so lost in his rut, so blinded by the urge that he made me bleed, that he would go past when my heat would end, and continuing trying to breed me when my time for it was up.

I had to sit when I started talking about the worst night I ever had at the ranch, short of when my mother died.

It was a party at the main house, one of my first ones without my mom, and part of me was excited to see what would happen when she wasn’t around.

Foolish.

A stupid, foolish girl who thought those parties were a break from the misery of our day to day.

My mom wasn’t supposed to go because of what they had planned for me. They knew she wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch, and she would have to, just like everyone else.

All of the omegas, the other alphas, Harden’s fucking sons. Everyone who paid to be there bore witness to one of the nights that would undeniably change my life forever.

Hall requested mirrors.

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