Page 17 of Bikers & Bars

“They are,” Teagan laughed, glancing over at me with a wide grin. “Granted you’ll deserve it.”

“You enabled me!” I protested.

“Well, I’ve never been the most responsible person,” she joked, leaning over to nudge me with her shoulder. “You could always text them. Try to get on their good side first.”

“I left it behind,” I blushed and chewed my bottom lip. “They would have tracked me down or Hazel’s guys would have.”

Teagan threw back her head laughing with abandon. “Oh, they are going to kick your ass. Loki is going to be livid.”

“Probably,” I agreed before I rubbed my face. “It just sucks. I was going to tell them about Damien today.TodayTeag! And then he just showed up—”

“What even happened with you two?” My best friend focused on me, curiosity and confusion clear as her brow furrowed. “You never talked about him after we left.”

I shook my head and picked at the sweats I had on. How did I put this into words and not come out as a complete bitch? Granted I kind of was. I had been young and so sure I knew everything.

“Come on, Eliza, it can’t be that bad,” she urged me.

“I left a note and the ring on the bedside table before sneaking out,” I told her softly, my fingers touching as I spun said ring around my finger. It felt like a missing piece of me had finally come home and completely foreign at the same time.

“What did it say?”

“I’m sorry,” I cringed as Teagan gasped, her mouth literally dropping open.

“You didn’t?! I thought you had at least talked, maybe a falling out…”

“He has always wanted this fantasy life,” I told her defensively, waving my hands. “The two of us, a big family…”

“I don’t think you could ever say that Damien wanted a ‘white picket fence’ kind of life, Eliza,” Teagan countered gently, but firmly. My bestie was going for tough love today. “He’s in a MC, hell he was in it when you were dating!”

“I know that! But I can’t— I can’t give him kids or the family he wants.”

“Did you ask him?” she asked after a few beats of silence.

“I don’t have heats,” I told her harshly, tears stinging my eyes and my voice rough as I tried to control my emotions. “I can’t have kids.”

“There are other ways to have kids if that’s what you want,” Teagan said gently.

“It doesn’t matter. I left.”

“He’s back now and it doesn’t sound like he is going to let you get away again,” Teagan placed a hand on my shoulder.

I turned the ring a few times before wiping my tears off my face.

“He doesn’t know. That I don’t have heats,” I confessed, thankful that Teagan’s face was free of judgment when I glanced at her. “I couldn’t— I didn’t know how to talk about it then. I had turned eighteen and the heats never came. Never hit me. I wentto a clinic the day before we left and they confirmed it through blood tests… An omega without heats? Who would want me?”

Teagan hugged me close to her side as I let myself finally let go. I cried into her shoulder and fell apart.

It was a relief to finally not hide how I felt about not having heats. One of the only things I wanted in life was to become a mother and the universe, in a cruel twist of fate, had ripped that away from me before I even had a chance.

I would also never have as close of a connection to my pack, my alphas, without heats. At least that’s what I was told by the omega doctor who had told me the results years ago.

Those words had struck deep and were embedded in my soul now.

Every pack would find me lacking and alphas would find me to be nothing but a disappointment.

“Eliza,” Teagan rocked me slightly. “Let me call the others. We can have a girls’ night and drop you off tomorrow. You’re in no condition to face this shit tonight.”

“I can’t—”

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