Page 30 of His Gentle Omega
He’d made sure I did my homework, and stayed out of trouble, and didn’t give our dad too much attitude, until he’d gone away to college.
Staring at him, emotions flooded my body. My throat tightened, and a painful lump formed there. My chest ached and it had nothing to do with my case of bronchitis. My eyes burned, and I blinked rapidly, forcing whatever was causing them to tear up away.
“Shay,” he whispered, so softly I barely heard him. Like he couldn’t believe he was seeing me, that I was actually in the same room with him. But he didn’t step towards me, and I didn’t move either. Too afraid that if I took that first step, he wouldn’t meet me halfway.
“Hey, Ash.”
As greetings went after so long, it was pretty fucking lame. But it was the best I could do. Anything more might shatter me into a million pieces that I would never be able to pick up.
Because I saw it all in his dark eyes, so different from mine. All the questions–about a million of them. The relief, the hurt and pain. Most of all, I saw years of pent-up anger. Which I knew he was entitled to feel.
A huge bear of a man filled the doorway behind Asher, a toddler balanced on each hip. Asher held the screen door open, allowing them in. The man was about my height of six foot four, maybe an inch taller. His shoulders were as wide as the doorframe, his biceps massive where he held each baby.
These had to be Asher’s twins, Tristan and Rafe. One looked almost identical to the man holding him, while the other looked like a living breathing replica of one of my brother’s baby pictures.
I felt, rather than saw, Bennett come to stand just inside the living room. He greeted the newcomers, but my eyes were glued to my brother. He looked tired and rumpled, his hair disheveled. Like he’d spent hours in a car, with few breaks.
He looked like the best thing I had seen in a very long time.
“Where have you been, Shay?” Asher demanded, stepping closer. Then closer still. Until he was standing in front of me, staring me down, barely an inch between us. His eyes were scanning over my face, widening slightly as he cataloged each bruise and mark.
“Why the fuck did you cut us out like that, Shay? Dad didn’t deserve that and neither did I!” His voice rose with each word, his anger a living thing, and I flinched away from him. An involuntary response to his tone, his body filling the space around me, the anger I could see in his body language. The tightly wound muscles, and the fist he kept flexing.
“You didn’t even come to his funeral! You know they wouldn’t even let me into that fortress the Clarks live in when I tried to see you after his funeral? What the actual fuck, Shay!”
“Asher,” the bear growled in warning behind him, his voice low and deep.
“And who did that to your face?” my brother demanded, and I remembered he’d always been a pushy bastard. Full of confidence, and arrogance, and a need to be in charge of every fucking thing.
Swallowing around whatever had lodged itself in my throat, jaws aching from the tightness of them, I opened my mouth to say…something, and the coughing started. Gasping, I bent over, holding my side where my ribs were bruised. Because, of course, they had to remind me they were still there, still fucking bruised. Without my shirt on, the ugly colorful rainbow that made up one side of my body couldn’t be missed.
“You show up out of the blue, after not a word for fucking twelve years, Shay, and with a child, and what? What am I supposed to say? To do?” Asher demanded, and even if I hadn’tbeen trying to expel the nasty sludge from my lungs, I wouldn’t have had an answer for him. “Just open my arms and say hey, all’s forgiven, nice to fucking see you?”
“Asher!” the bear growled, his voice sharp. “Step back and let him breathe!”
Falling back onto the softness of the couch, the coughing spell finally subsided. Panting, I reached for the glass of water, letting the cool liquid ease my throat.
It was then, when I was swallowing, my head resting back against the cushion of the couch, I heard the sharp intake of my brother’s breath. At least I thought it was Asher. It might have been his mate.
Gentle fingers touched the skin of my neck, turning my head to the left and then the right. Keeping my eyes tightly closed, I didn’t want to open them. Didn’t want to look in my brother’s eyes. Couldn’t face what I would see there.
He lightly touched one of the bruises, then another, tracing the pattern all the way around my throat.
“Shay?” he whispered, “What happened to you?”
Shaking my head, I tried to pull out of his grasp, because I didn’t want him to see. Asher knew me better than anyone, once upon a time, and I wouldn’t be able to hide from him. Hide the shame, the fear, the pain, the exhaustion. Every single thing I was feeling would be open to him, like a gaping, bleeding wound.
He paused, and I could feel his doctor’s eyes for the first time taking in every mark, every livid bruise on my skin. It was too late to hide it from him. Too late to pull a time out, while I put on a shirt to at least cover some of the damage. Not that I could hide my face, but at least my ribs would be covered, and maybe some of my throat.
“Did he do this? Did that bastard Edward do this?” Asher demanded, his voice shaking with the force of emotions he was barely keeping a lid on. “Shay? Look at me, dammit. I will fucking kill him! I swear to the Goddess, I will fucking kill him!”
But I couldn’t–wouldn’t–look at him. Even though I wanted him to see all the things I couldn’t say out loud. Wanted him to see it in my eyes, wanted him to understand why, and what, and how. Wanted him to wave his magic big brother wand and make it all go away and better with one swoop.
“Asher! Stop it!” his mate demanded.
Lucas’s soft crying penetrated my brain, along with the wailing screams of the twins.
Opening my eyes, because I refused to be a coward who couldn’t face his own brother, I stared into my brother’s face. He was angry, hurt, so many things. But I had no doubt, he meant what he had said. If he saw Edward, he very well might kill him. Or get his bear mate to do it for him.
