Page 14 of The Alpha: Part Two
“Seth was in with the rogues?” I ask, not believing it.
“Not intentionally. The other two alphas in his pack were twisted fucks and believed they could force me into my magical omega awakening. Seth was very neutral about me being with his pack until he walked in on the other two…hurting me. Jay, the worst one, was taking pictures of him trying to force his knot inside me when Seth walked into the room. He stopped them. Looking back on it, I think I may have registered that he was panicking about what to do, but then one of those assholes got his father on the phone and he started talking shit like he always did and…” she trails off, her breath trembling.
Oh god. It was Talia. The blanked out name on Seth’s file is Talia’s. I think I’m going to throw up. Never. I never would have thought the girl in Seth’s file was Talia. The way he talks about her makes it sound almost like they have something like a sibling relationship.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to finish,” I say softly. I don’t want her to be too upset. And it might make me a terrible person, but I’m not sure I want to sit in the same room with her and listen to the account.
“No,” she gives me a fierce look. “No. I will finish. You need to know. Seth has been through years of counseling. I’ve even gone with him on multiple occasions. I don’t hold what happened against him. If anything, I’m grateful for what he did; but he won’t hear about that. Seth did the best he could in an impossible situation. I’ve thought about it hundreds of times and I can’t think of another way he could have safely gotten us both out of that room without doing what he did.”
“I don’t understand. Michael said he,” I stop talking when Talia holds up a hand to quiet me.
“Seth did technically rape me. He put himself inside me and I didn’t consent to it, but he didn’t hurt me. Even with his pack and his disgusting father urging him in the most vile ways, he didn’t hurt me. He only did as much as he had to to satisfy them, then he got us out of there. He didn’t enjoy it, not a single second of it. In my opinion, Seth was raped as much as I was, but he won’t hear about that, either. None of them want to hear that.”
“What happened after that?” I ask, reeling from the horrible truth.
Talia takes another deep breath. “He untied me and helped me get cleaned up. Then he locked me in a holding cell inside of a locked room and refused to let his pack have access to me. I remember him screaming at them that he was the lead alpha and he was the only one who could fuck me. But he wasn’t fucking me. He didn’t touch me again after he got me out of that first room. After a few days, Corso came and took me away. I went to the omega council at the institute to report what happened and try to make sure no omega would ever be placed with Seth’s pack, and it was almost easier to convince them than it should have been. From then on, until we brought him out of the rogue compound with my alphas, Seth acted like he hated me. He was awful to me, and encouraged his pack and his friends to be awful to me. At the time it was frustrating because I was the one who had been wronged, but now I know that it was the only way he knew to protect me. Seth is broken, Desie. You can fix him. Michael and Benjamin can fix him. He needs the three of you.”
I think I’m going to cry. I can feel the tears gathering heavily. They all believe Seth is a monster. Seth believes it himself. But he isn’t. I knew he wasn’t. “Where is he?”
“He’s trying to secure a meeting with Alpha Minos to get the situation sorted and try to get a fix on where Michael and Ben are being held. And he might kill me when he finds out I walked out of here without you.”
It’s my turn to smile at her. “He won’t kill you. He loves you.”
She blinks at that, but doesn’t argue. “You definitely know what to inject Flores with?”
I nod.
“And you’re sure you can get him alone?” she raises her brows.
“Absolutely.”
She sighs. “Okay. He’s going to be pissed. No, he’s going to be livid. Can you put my number in your phone?”
Crap. “No, not without Flores finding it. I can remember it, though.”
Her mouth draws into a little line. “Did he put a tracker on your phone?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not surprised. They’re all going to be upset with me for leaving you, but I agree with you. If you don’t show up after your shift, they’ll take it out on your boys. Fuck, Devon’s going to be pissed. Okay. When are you planning to take out Flores?”
I bite my lip and mentally calculate the window between my heat and my remaining shifts, taking into consideration the spikes I’ll start having soon. It’s a small window. “Friday.”
Talia just looks at me. “Friday?”
I nod. “I only have about a week's window between now and my heat. I’ve already started having mild spikes, that’s how it usually goes for me. I can’t let that… jerk touch me.”
“Okay. Friday,” she says. “When will your next shift be after that?”
“I’ll come back on Monday, but if everything works out like it’s supposed to, then I won’t be back.”
She blows out a breath. “Give me a pen.”
I hand it to her along with a notepad. “This is my number,” she says the numbers aloud as she writes them on the paper. “You won’t be able to keep the paper, but seeing it will help you remember. Call me the second he’s down. Call me if you need help. I’ll find you, I promise.”
I believe her.
She hands the pen back to me and then yanks me in for a fast and hard hug. “I really do like you. Kill that motherfucker. We’ll come and kill the rest of them and clean up the mess. We’ll get your boys out and safe, and you’ll have your pack whole in time for your heat.”
