Page 5 of Cursed Love

“That’s the point,” she cuts me off, showing the little bit of snark that Damien has yet to snuff out. She steps closer, her gaze hardening. “It’s disgraceful, what you’ve been doing. You’re an Omega, Koa. You’re supposed to have heats. You’re supposed to find a mate and stop fighting what you are. If you would just fall in line, everything would be better. It would have been fine if you had just let things happen the first time and then you would have been happily mated.”

The first time?I glare at Carla, wondering what the fuck she’s talking about. Thefirsttime was a disaster. I nearly died,screaming so loud and hard that my voice was hoarse. No one came to save me. No one came to pick me up. I had to do all that on my own, a little Omega—scared and confused about the world around me. “Explain what you mean,” I finally say, my voice shaking. My nose turns up as I clamp my thighs together, trying to keep myself lucid long enough to hear Carla’s explanation.

She lets out an exaggerated sigh, throwing up her hands. “You were just supposed to fall in line.”

“As you keep saying! But explain it to me, Carla. Explain it like I’m that wide-eyed 22-year-old who had the world at her feet, who still believed in true love, who still thought that the world was a nice place. Explain. It. To. Me.” In another minute, Damien will feel Carla’s distress and burst in here but I want to hear it from her.

She whimpers and then it’s over, Damien stalking inside and roughly grabbing me by the throat. “What the fuck did you do to my Omega, Koa?”

“Nothing!” I rasp, grabbing at his hands. Tears stream down my cheeks as I glare up at the snarl on his face. “I just want to know what happened during my first heat because Carla—”

He cackles, roughly jostling me before throwing me onto my bed. “You’re a fucking idiot if you thought an Alpha just chose you that night, Koa. He was perfectly picked for you.”

“He brought his friends!”

“That’s not my problem. What did become my problem is the fact that he threw you back at me for fighting back. You were supposed to submit, Koa. That’s all you’re ever supposed to do. Tonight, you’ll do it. It won’t matter if you fight back or scream or yell for help. You will have an Alpha’s bite in your neck by tomorrow and you will pay your dues. Now, get dressed. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. Don’t get any funny ideas either. I will drag you out into that car if I have to.” Then he grabs Carla andwalks out of my room, leaving me with the realization that he orchestrated my first heat.

The heat that I don’t want to remember.

I thought that being the family’s pawn had been a newer thing but I’ve never been anything more than that. A trading piece. And Damien truly doesn’t care what happens to me. A sob tears from my throat as I crumble to the ground, the heat dissipating as the shock of the moment washes over me. My brother all but sold me that night.

And then left me to pick myself up.

And then fucking blamed me for fighting back.

I slap away the tears, focusing on the one sliver of freedom I have left. Whoever becomes my mate after tonight will be someoneIchoose, not Damien.

Moses

Watching my brother’s blue eyes slowly darken beneath his thick-rimmed glasses as one of the tech ‘gurus’ hired last month tries to explain their way out of a security breach is fascinating. The conference room is silent except for the pathetic stammering of the employee standing at the head of the table. His hands are shaking, his voice a mess of excuses and half-truths as he tries to explain how he let a security breach slip past him. Rookie mistake. One that won’t be forgiven.

I lean back in my chair, fingers steepled under my chin, and glance over at Hunter. His jaw is tight, eyes fixed on the guy likea hawk about to sink its talons into a particularly stupid prey. There’s this slow shift in his expression, a dark cloud settling over him as the guy keeps digging himself deeper.

And me? I’m grinning. Because I know how this ends.

Hunter’s irritation is like a storm brewing. Quiet at first, almost calm. But when it breaks? God help whoever’s on the other end of it. I settle in, waiting for the inevitable explosion, my own irritation bleeding into amusement.

“Do you haveany ideahow many hours of work you just pissed down the drain?” Hunter’s voice cuts through the guy’s rambling like a blade.

The guy freezes, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Hunter doesn’t even give him a chance to respond, leaning forward with that deviant grin of his. “You don’t, do you? Because if you did, you wouldn’t be standing here wasting my goddamn time with excuses.”

I can’t help it. A low laugh slips out, drawing Hunter’s attention for a split second. His glare says,not now, Moses,but I just grin wider. It’sThe Night of Scarlet. Everyone’s emotions are riding high, even the ones who think they’re above it all. There’s a hum in the air, a sharpness to the tension that wasn’t here yesterday. The city knows what tonight is.

The one night of the year when the rules are different. Where the lines between designations blur just enough for the Valla to crawl out of their little hellholes and take their pick of Omegas and Betas alongside other Alphas.

I tap my pen against the table, the rhythmic sound almost drowning out the tech guy’s frantic apologies. It’s funny, in a way. How society has built us up into this boogeyman myth. Ruthless, uncontrollable, incapable of fitting into their perfect little world. We’re the nightmare parents whisper about to scare their kids into behaving. The shadows they pretend don’t existuntil nights like this, when we step into the light and remind them exactly what we are.

They call us animals. Monsters. Beasts.

And they’re not wrong.

I should know.

Because I’m one of them.

Hunter is seconds away from losing it, and I can’t wait. I lean forward, elbows resting on the polished table, hands folded like I’m some saint waiting to offer divine judgment. Spoiler: I’m not. The poor employee in front of us doesn’t even realize he’s about to get shredded. Or maybe he does. Valla aren’t known for their sympathy. He’s rambling again, a mix of panic and desperation tumbling out of his mouth and I can see the exact moment Hunter snaps.

Hunter shoves back from his chair, the screech of metal against tile loud enough to make the guy flinch. He’s growling now, that low, guttural sound that’s all predator, no human. I don’t even bother to hide the grin stretching across my face. The anticipation is half the fun, watching the prey squirm before the kill.

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