“You can be a real dick,” I mutter.
“Yeah, well, this dick saved you from that silly boyfriend of yours and his friends raping you in a park.”
I grit my teeth, my hands clenching into fists by my sides.
“This dick also used that as a fucking opportunity to start pimping me out,” I hiss.
“You mean gave you an opportunity to afford suppressants and put food on your table?”
“Shut the fuck up and get off your high horse. You know the reason you do the shit you do and it isn’t ‘cause you just wanna save girls,” I huff.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he shrugs, taking a step back and starting to close the door. “It’s ‘cause I like money. Now go and make some, Raine. That man’s throwing around some serious cash. Requested you specifically. Keep him happy.”
He shuts the door in my face.
My jaw starts ticking at the memory of the night. It’s what shoved me down into this rabbit hole of a life.
First, that whole bullshit panic attack I had in front of Obsidian, seeing the way the blood of that sleazy beta splattered on the concrete, and now this bullshit with Dom.
Too many god damn reminders of shit I don’t want to think about.
He really is an asshole.
But he’s right. He did “save” me. If it weren’t for him, Nate and his stupid friends would have raped me that night my heat first snuck up on me.
Come on, Reyna, it’s me! We’ve had sex plenty of times before. Why is this any different if my friends are here?
Why the hell are you fighting us, Reyna? You’re an omega, isn’t being a slut for alpha cock in your DNA?
Stop screaming that I’m raping you, you whore, I’m your boyfriend, I can’t rape you.
Dom beat them bloody. We were eighteen, so they didn’t stand a chance against someone twenty years older and harder than them. I still remember the sound of knuckles on flesh, the blood splatter on my body as my clothes lay in a tattered pile around me.
That blood. Fuck. For some reason, the blood of that night is what haunts me. There was so goddamn much of it.
After it was all over and Nate and his friends lay in a bloody pile, their chests barely rising and falling anymore, Dom tossed me his hoodie and asked me if I wanted my heat.
When I said no, he said he had something to fix it. For a price. And that price was my body. But this time, I’d get to choose.
And this was the life I chose. For better or for worse.
I lean my forehead against the cool wood of the door, trying to get my boyfriend—well, I guess he’s technically my ex-boyfriend—out of my fucking head. If I think about it too hard, that feeling of betrayal, that self-loathing, soul-consuming shame will start to eat me alive.
Nate and his stupid friends called me a whore that night.
Well, look at me now.
I let out a sigh as I check the time on the clock on the wall. Eleven forty-five. I should get ready. I’ve got a fucking eight-hour shift to prepare for.
Once I’m all dressed in the outfit I wear for nights like these—lingerie and a lace robe—I stumble into the room this client has bought. Bought along with me.
Shit, my vision is starting to go hazy around the edges.
The room is the fanciest room we have here, with a huge Alaskan king-sized mattress on a four-poster bedframe. There’s a bar in the corner full of a bunch of different booze that the customer will be charged for, of course, and an ensuite bathroom.
All things considered, it’s one of the nicest rooms I’ve ever spent time in. Maybe because, half the time, it’s Northside alphas in here and they’re used to a sort of luxury I can’t even fathom.
Normally, I’d make more of an effort to be ready for this client to enter the room, maybe be sitting up in my lace, see-through robe or standing in front of the door. Tonight, all I manage is collapsing onto the bed. I do my best to arrange myself so my curves are on display, but the silk sheets are so comfortable that I can’t help but close my eyes.