Page 13 of The Butcher

Not because I can actually see where the tension has released from Bramley.

Not because of the three new carcasses hanging in the cooler.

It’s not even because I can see the Harden family crest tattooed on the body he’s currently chopping up, which means he got a nephew or a cousin this time.

Sure, that helps. Killing a fucker with that name attached to him always puts a pep in The Butcher’s step, especially since he’s clearly prepping him to be deli cuts that’ll get sent up to the Ranch itself, but that’s not it either.

This was a different kind of hunt, one we needed, one we haven’t had in a while, and what’s scary is the fact that itfeels like the beginning of something a hell of a lot bigger than wiping out anyone who had anything to do with the tragedy that changed this town.

Something big is definitely coming our way and it might have these two feeling at ease, but my guts are telling me it’s going to change our entire world as we know it one way or another.

Mark my fucking words.

Chapter Three

DRY AS A BONE

Indy

Iclose my eyes and lean against the damp wood as my stomach rolls, twisting slowly while the walls start to spin.

Every inch of my body hurts. It’s almost pulsing in pain, throbbing then stinging with the most minuscule movement. I can’t stop crying. I’m sweating and shivering at the same time. My core feels swollen, uncomfortably swollen, and horribly achy, and like my insides are going to fall out. The amount of pressure between my legs is unbearable, and each time I scissor my thighs in a sad attempt to relieve some of it, it hurts even more because I can tell I’m dry.

My body isn’t producing hardly any slick, my vagina is basically a desert, and I can say without a doubt that this forced heat is easily the worst I’ve ever experienced.

It must be the double dose they gave me. It has to be.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before and it makes me wish for the first time since they started breeding me that I didn’t have my wits about me.

I always considered it a godsend that I wasn’t out of my mind, that I knew every little thing that happened during a forced heat because it felt like it would be scarier not to. Notwhen the alphas taking care of it weren’t ones I trusted let alone had any feelings for.

My mother explained what a natural heat is like.

She told me how omegas are essentially knot-crazed and delirious, and that’s why it’s so dangerous for us to go into heat without a plan. We don’t know what we’re doing, or what’s happening to us at all. Medical intervention is apparently pretty rare, but most choose that if they can, unless they’re mated. In that case, an omega’s heat is spent with their mate and it’s a thousand times safer that way.

None of that is how things happen here.

Medical intervention is essential. I don’t know how the Harden’s have access to so much, but we’re given scent blockers and something to stop us from going into heat until they’re ready for us to do so. And when they are, that’s when we’re given the liquid fire via syringe to get things moving.

There are no mates. There’s no plan or safety. There’s no such thing as trust or feelings.

We’re forced into heat so the alphas who pay can breed us, and they do it whether we want it or not.

Because our bodies do.

Mother said that most of what we feel is the same as a natural heat. We crave a knot; we need it in order to find relief. Fortunately, we don’t experience the delirium.

I suppose some would say unfortunately.

From the second it takes over until the second our fake heat ends, we are acutely aware of everything going on. We feel it, see it, hear it, we just can’t do anything about it because our bodies are on autopilot.

I remember every sick and horrible detail from every time it’s happened, and I know I’ll never forget it.

That’s how I want it.

It’s both a blessing and a curse because I’d rather know what was being done to me than wake up disoriented and wondering a few days later, in pain and full of bruises and marks.

There is no such thing as trust here, not in anything but ourselves. I’ve never doubted myself, never wanted anything different. Not until now.

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