Page 74 of Storm
And when it was over, when my heat finally broke and clarity returned, he was gone. Back to the city, back to Jonathan and their endless business in the city.
He never returned after that. And now, a full year later, I'd resigned myself to the fact that he never would. But he’s coming now.
I shake off the memory and head to the kitchen, forcing myself to be practical. If they're coming—all of them, whoever that includes—I need to prepare. Food, water, clean linens. I check the pantry, mentally calculating how much we have, how long it might last, depending on how many there are. I should make something for their arrival.
As I work, I can't help but wonder what this sudden return is about. Was it the fathers? The rebellion? Alexander had mentioned unrest in Crescent City during our last call. Beta-born alphas protesting the lottery system, demanding more omegas be released from the Omega Houses. Had it finally boiled over?
Or was it something more personal? The thought makes my hands shake so badly I drop the can of soup I'm holding. It rolls across the floor, coming to rest against the cabinets with a soft thud.
I bend to retrieve it, and that's when the memories hit me full force. Memories of darkness and pain, but also of salvation—of Reed's face, contorted with a fury I'd never seen before, as he found me in that basement room.
The roomthey keep me in is small, barely larger than a closet, with no windows and a single overhead light that flickers incessantly. The walls were once white, discolored with age, with time. There is a narrow bed against one wall, a toilet and sink in the corner, and nothing else.
No books, no clocks, nothing to mark the passage of time except for the visits. The door opens, an alpha enters—sometimes one I recognize from my time with the elites, sometimes a stranger—and I am expected to serve. To please. To fulfill the purpose, they claim I am made for.
Male omegas are rare, unnatural, according to the state. We can't reproduce, can't give the state what it needs most—more omegas to satisfy the ever-growing population of alphas. But we can serve in other ways, they tell me. We can help alphas in rut when no female omegas are available. We can be useful.
I haven't always been down here, in this room beneath the Omega House. For seventeen years, I lived as a beta. Just another beta serving the elite. Only I had something elite children didn't. I had a mom who cared. She worked as a maid. She never told me of my father, but I suspect he was an elite who took advantage of my mother's beta status. We lived in the home of the Kingsley's. The three fathers, the drunk mother and the twin sons. Alexander Kingsley became my first real friend. Status meant nothing to him. He didn't see me as beneath him. He treated me as an equal.
We were inseparable, Alex and I. Even when he presented as alpha at sixteen, nothing changed between us. He never treated me differently, never used his status to dominate me as other alphas might have. He introduced me to his twin brother and Reed. What started as friendship with Alex blossomed into something more. Secret touches in darkened hallways, stolen kisses when no one was looking, whispered promises of forever. We were young, in love, and too naïve to understand how fragile our happiness was. Alex was the first person I ever loved, the first to touch me with tenderness rather than entitlement. In his arms, I felt seen for who I truly was, not what my status made me.
We planned to form a pack, the four of us. Jonathan as the alpha leader, Reed as his enforcer, Alexander as the peacemaker and me as the beta. A perfect balance. Alexander and I had our own private plans of continuing our relationship within the pack, protected by Jonathan and Reed. The fathers would never approve. Then I turned seventeen, and everything changed. My body betrayed me in one violent, agonizing night, my beta scent replaced by the sweet, honeyed notes of an omega. A male omega. The rarest, most unnatural designation of all.
Alexander found me first, huddled in the bathroom of his house, terrified and confused by the changes overtaking my body. He held me, promised to protect me, swore that nothing would change between us. His eyes had been frantic, desperate, his hands trembling as he wiped away my tears. "I don't care what you are," he whispered fiercely. "I love you. That doesn't change."
But something already had.
The authorities came that same day. His fathers reported me as soon as they found out. They took me away despite Alexander's protests, despite my mother's tears. They said I would be processed, assigned to an Omega House, given special consideration due to my unique status with the Kingsley's.
But we all knew that was a lie.
The last thing I saw as they dragged me away was Alexander fighting against Reed's restraining arms, his face twisted with rage and grief, screaming my name. I wondered if that would be the last memory I'd ever have of the boy I loved.
Instead, I was brought to a small room beneath the main Omega House, a place that didn't officially exist. A place where male omegas were kept as entertainment for elite alphas, as stress relief for those in power, as a dirty little secret the state pretended to know nothing about.
I spent three years in that room, learning that my body was no longer my own, that my purpose was to serve, to please, to submit. Three years of being touched without consent, of being used without care, of being broken piece by piece until I barely remembered the beta boy I’d once been. Three years of clinging to memories of Alexander's touch, trying to remember what it felt like to be loved rather than used.
I’m half-asleepwhen the door to my room opens. Another visitor, another use of my body that I have no say in. It is one of the regulars. It is the alpha, with the cruel smile that makes my stomach clench with dread.
Then Reed appears in the doorway behind the alpha, his stormy eyes widening in shock as they land on me, before hardening with a rage so pure it transforms his face into something terrifying.
What happens next is a blur of violence I've never witnessed before. Reed moves with lethal precision, grabbing the alpha from behind. There is no hesitation in him, no mercy, only cold, calculated fury as he snaps the man's neck with a sickening crack. The alpha drops to the floor, lifeless, and Reed steps over him without a second glance, his focus entirely on me.
"Fox?" he whispers, as if he can't believe what he’s seeing.
Behind him appears Alexander, his face a mask of rage and grief. But it is Reed who moves forward, Reed who wraps me in a blanket from the bed, Reed who lifts me as if I weigh nothing.
I am too stunned to speak, too afraid to hope that this is real and not another cruel dream my mind has conjured to escape reality. But the warmth of Reed's arms around me, the gentle way he holds me despite the violence he's just committed, tells me this is real.
"I found you," Alexander says, his voice breaking. "I promised I would. I'm so sorry it took so long." His eyes hold mine, filled with a rush of emotions, and I want to reach for him, to touch him again after all this time, but my body won't respond.
But it is Reed's eyes I can't look away from—the storm in them not yet passed, the fury barely contained. I've never seen him fight before, had only heard Alexander mention his need for it in the past. Now I understand why even elite alphas fear crossing Reed Howard.
As Reed carries me out of that room, up a narrow staircase I have never been allowed to use, through a door hidden behind a bookcase in the main Omega House, I can see Jonathan keeping watch, his expression cold and focused. He nods once as we pass, a silent acknowledgment that the path is clear. Alex’s hand brushes mine as we move past him, a fleeting touch that promises conversations to come, explanations, perhaps even a chance to rediscover what we've lost.
The cool night air hits my face as we emerge into a garden, the first time I have felt the outside world in three years. I remember thinking it smells like freedom, like hope, like a second chance I never thought I'd get.
"We're taking you home," Alexander promises as Reed places me gently in the back seat of a waiting car. "Somewhere they'll never find you again."
