Page 114 of The Butcher

Well, someone would try to knock my teeth in for it, but they wouldn’t get very far.

Namely because I didn’t get put into gen pop until right before I got out, and during the previous stretch of my stay, I was lucky if I saw anyone who wasn’t on the payroll. The nurses, even the doctors were uneasy as hell when I was around, but the paid staff didn’t really like dealing with guys like me, anyway.

The quiet ones made them nervous. Especially if they were committed before they were legally considered an adult.

Had I been put into general population sooner than my last week, openly staring at someone while they slept would have, and probably still will, result in getting knocked the fuck outat Blackhurst Ridge Institution. Which is a fancy way of saying asylum.

But this isn’t that shithole, and I’m as close to alone as I want to get anymore.

Indy shifts around a little, burrowing deeper into the mountain of pillows and blankets she’s buried under, her brow furrowing while she does.

She is really beautiful.

Her features are soft, and elegant. There’s a warmth Indy carries with her at all times, something you can see when she smiles or feel when she laughs. Clayton says she’s shiny and as weird as it is to describe her that way, it’s true. Indy is such a bright spot for us, a flash of light against all the shadowy gray that’s been consuming our lives, and Bramley fucking knows it, too.

I’m so pissed at him for missing this.

He’ll be pissed, too, once he gets his head out of his ass.

The way I feel about her, the way we feel about her, it isn’t just from mine or Clay’s instincts or feelings. It’s fueled by that stupid fucking behemoth we love because he can’t hide those things from us no matter how hard he tries. Bram does feel exactly the same way we do, and sitting here looking at Indy now, I can’t understand why he’d want to be anywhere else.

That’s not entirely true. I know what Bramley is afraid of, and I get it, but he’s not using all of his brain cells right now so it’s really hard to be understanding, or empathetic.

I’m kind of scared, too, if you can call it that, but my fear is different.

I feel like I’ve been in nothing but a constant state of fear. Between worrying over losing my alpha, and fussing over my beta, I’ve been a disaster for a long time, but now? Indy has added another layer to my anxiety that I’m not really sure how to handle, while actually handling my anxiety better than I havebefore. Which makes no fucking sense at all, but I guess that’s love and bonding for you.

When I got locked up for feeding my mother the business end of a shotgun, I was barely stepping foot into puberty, and I presented as an alpha real quick after that. All that awkward shit that happens when your balls drop and your knot pops? It happened while I was in a fucking asylum for the criminally insane, and I still thank whatever higher power there is for making sure I stayed in isolation.

But… That means, before I settled in Obsidian Falls, I had absolutely zero experience with everything. And everyone.

Bramley took my virginity. At twenty years old, he was the first person I’d ever been with in every way you can be with someone, and Clayton is number two on that list. He was also where the list ended until a few days ago.

The two of them? They’ve been with their fair share of people. Clay refers to his time before me and Bram as his living loose years, and that’s fine. I’m sure I’d be in the same boat given my situation was different, but it wasn’t, so I’m not.

I’m content with the fact that the only people I’ve been with are people I love, and I don’t care about the fact Bram and Clay threw wood like it was their jobs for a while before we met, or that Indy was put through everything she was. I hate it, fucking hate that she went through all of that, but it doesn’t change who she is, or how I feel about her. It doesn’t change anything for any of them. To be totally honest, I never really put any thought into it at all once my cherry was popped, but lately it’s been on my mind.

Not the fact that I was a virgin when I got with my pack, but the fact that the bonds we have, they almost erased everything that happened before we were together.

Until Indy.

Her past, her history, it’s so much more intense than ours, and that’s with murder being one of the common themes.

Indy being a Harden omega? It doesn’t change how we feel about her, doesn’t have any impact on our bonds or the future I know we’re going to have. But it does bring everything full circle.

This sweet woman, who’s been through some kind of hell, who lived every day surviving some of the most depraved shit that any warped mind could come up with, she trusts us completely. Blindly, without question. Indy trusts me and Clayton, even Bramley to a degree, and there isn’t any real reason for it, she just does.

She’s still trying to figure herself out, trying to get to know herself right along with us, and I don’t think she has the slightest clue about me and our mates, but none of that matters. Not when there’s more going on than a bunch of serendipitous coincidences. Not when love is involved. This is the real fucking deal, the most honest type of connection you can have with someone because it’s as natural as breathing, and it doesn’t require any effort at all to be what it’s supposed to be.

But it didn’t erase anything from Indy’s life before Obsidian Falls, and I don’t think it’s going to until we can throw Bryce Harden, that Hall son of a bitch, and anyone else who’s ever laid a finger on her at her feet, and help her carve out a new path from their bones, and let their blood wash away her old life once and for all.

“Why are you so far away?”

With a smile, I watch Indy’s brow furrow as she forces her eyes open. “How do you even know I’m that far away?”

“You’re not right next to me.” She blinks a few times, clearing the sleep from those purplish-blue crystals. “That’s too far away.”

“Ok, honey.” I chuckle as I crawl toward her. “I’ll come back, but you have to take a few sips of water for me.”

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