Page 50 of Omega Shattered
"Well, back in high school, when we were first getting our designations, I was a late bloomer. A lot of the alphas used to tease me, saying I was going to be an omega. The omegas joined in, treating me like one of them, but in a mean way. They'd leave bottles of lube in my locker, tuck flowers in my back pocket when I wasn't looking, stupid shit like that."
"That's definitely not nice, but you didn't want an omega because of that?"
"They were so unpleasant, and I was so upset about the possibility of being an omega. I was already different, you've probably noticed that I'm not great around people, and that just made me stand out more. I kind of shut down and just did what I had to do to finish school. Then, in my last year, I presented as alpha and suddenly all those omegas who had been teasing me for years were begging for my knot. They'd perfume around me, rub up on me to scentmark me, and all I could think of was how they'd treated me before."
I nodded. "They were bitches. All of them?"
"Maybe a couple didn't do that, but they were always there, not stopping the others." He frowned and started toweling off my hair. "Then I went to college and I met Amara. And that's when I fell in love for the first time."
Chapter 27
Kade
Amara had been the one for me, I was certain. Thoughts of joining a pack fled my mind when she looked at me. Touched my arm and asked for help with her math. Everything about the omega was perfectly meant to pull me in.
"How did you meet?" Quinn asked.
I took a deep breath and wrapped her in a towel, lifting the little omega to sit on the counter while I dried off. This was a story I'd never told anyone and had figured I would take to the grave. Something about Quinn drew me in though and made me trust her.
"We were in the same Calculus class. It was way too advanced for her, so I tutored her. But she had me caught in her web before we formally started tutoring. She was beautiful and sweet, but with a cutting edge under it all. While it was aimed at other people, I didn't really notice. But later it turned on me."
Finishing up with the drying, I grabbed some shirts I'd brought in. We needed to get Quinn some clothes of her own soon. She couldn't keep wearing our stuff, since it was all too big.
"At first, she acted kind of shy and asked for help. I was happy to give her lessons and work through her homework with her. I liked helping people, especially her. She told me she felt safe around me. That I was the only one she'd ever trusted this much." I snorted. "It was all lies, of course. Her scent was amazing at the time. She'd purposefully perfume around me and then pretend she hadn't noticed how turned on she made me, but still touch me until I was ready to explode."
At the time, I'd thought we might be scentmatches, she made me so hard and made me want to spend every waking minute with her. The thought makes me shake my head as I step between Quinn's legs and pull the shirt over her head, covering those luscious breasts.
"She had a heat coming up and she wanted me to be the one to get her through it. She told me she was a virgin and wouldn't trust anyone else to help her with her heat. I was an idiot, thinking she'd done her previous heats alone, but I bought every lie that fell from her mouth. Then she gave me a handjob one night and I was hers. She didn't want to go all the way until she was in her heat."
I shook my head, remembering.
"Then one day, I was off-campus and I saw her walking with three alphas. Holding hands. Kissing them."
"What?" Quinn gasped, leaning back to look at my face. I kept my eyes down, fiddling with the hem of the shirt she wore.
"Yeah."
"Did you confront them?"
"Not then. I waited until she came over that night and told her I'd seen her with them. She started to cry, told me they were her pack, but they were abusive. It didn't mesh with what I'd seen, but I believed her. After months together, I thought I knew her."
"I'm sorry, Kade." Quinn's hands cupped my face, soft palms against three days' of stubble. "You didn't deserve that."
"It gets worse," I said bitterly. "She came to me three nights later, begging for help. She had a black eye and told me one of them did it. That they wanted sex now, before her heat and when she refused, they beat her. But it wasn't true. I gave her all the money I had and took her to the bus station so she could get away. I offered to go with her, but she said I could come after. It would be too suspicious if we both disappeared at the same time."
"Wow."
"Next thing I know, I'm being dragged in front of the ethics commitee and getting expelled from the college."
"Wait, what? Because you helped her?"
"No, because she reported me for abuse and sexual assault. I never did anything apart from kissing her a few times and the handjob, but she had it all down as full on rape." The word caught in my throat and my normally bitter scent turns almost unbearable. "I lost everything. She just went back to her pack with the money I gave her. Found out later that I wasn't the only sucker she'd played. She had three other guys at the same school going, took money from all of us, then reported us. We were all brought up on rape charges, which they couldn't prove because it never happened, but it was enough to kick us all out."
"What happened to her? And her pack?"
"Fuck all. I've searched for them since then and there was no sign of them. They probably changed their name."
Quinn's hand stroked down my neck and she gave me a squeeze on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Kade. That was unfair. I can see why omegas aren't your favorite."
