Bewitched, p.15
Bewitched, page 15
“Hi,” she said weakly, a little overwhelmed.
Eris rubbed his wrists across her cheeks and over her hair, covering her in his scent like an omega parent smothering their pup. She tried to dodge him and gave Kaiser an imploring look as he leaned against the door frame.
Kaiser chuckled. “Enough, Erry, give her space.”
Eris sat back on his heels. “There,” he said. “Much better.”
Layla smiled at him. It had been so long since she had seen little Eris. He wasn’t so little anymore. He was grown, just as she was. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re going to have a puppy pile.” Eris held up a bag. “I brought snacks. Dad said he was always hungry after.”
“Eris,” Kaiser reprimanded with a small shake of his head.
Eris rolled his eyes. “Uncle Kaiser said he was always hungry after. I mean, I get hungry too, but it’s not really the same thing.”
Layla glanced at Kaiser as she took a protein bar, but he was carefully looking anywhere else in the room. She furtively sniffed the air for his oversweet scent, but only light honeysuckle reached her nose.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Well,” Kaiser said and cleared his throat, “omegas take care of each other, right?”
She nodded. She wouldn’t know. She never needed to know.
Kaiser sat on the bed beside her, kicking Eris to her other side. His honeysuckle scent wasn’t as cloying now. It was the scent she had always known. She wondered what had happened to make him smell so awful a few days ago.
Kaiser grabbed the remote for the television that was bolted to the wall. She hadn’t even noticed it was there. “So, what kind of trash TV do you like? We have Love Island Beta Edition or Antique Roadshow.”
“Love Island trash,” Eris cheered.
“Love Island is fine,” Layla said. She was sure she couldn’t pay attention to anything anyway. Jaxon hadn’t come back. He was supposed to be with her, right? Wasn’t that what Damian said? Did Damian actually see her in her nest?
“Where’s Alpha?” she asked.
Kaiser glanced at her. “Jaxon? He’s in the living room. Do you want me to get him?”
She flicked her eyes at the closed door. He was still in the den, and that was the important part. He wouldn’t leave her again. He promised he would keep her. He also said she needed omegas right now. “No.”
Eris flopped around and curled up against her to watch the television. He wrapped around her like a squid, and she had to admit it was soothing. It was a different kind of contentment than Jaxon gave her. Platonic and familial. She had a strange impulse to braid his hair and rub her wrist over his nose.
“Warren should be here soon,” Kaiser said. “He’s an omega doctor. He’ll uh, be able to explain what happened.”
What happened? Don’t think. But she couldn’t stop her thoughts from spinning. To the forest. To the truck. To the apartment. To a knife in her hand. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Kaiser put an arm over her shoulders. “I know. Believe me, I know.”
She stared at him for a moment. Something was itching in her brain. Something about Hera and her death and Bryson’s sudden flight to her home with her father, but it wasn’t connecting.
There was only one thing she knew for certain. “Your suppressants failed before.”
He laughed bitterly. “Spectacularly. More than once. Eight times, to be exact, before it was stopped.”
Eris made a face. “That’s why I can’t take suppressants. It’s so annoying.”
Layla looked between them. “You and Georgia—“
Kaiser choked on a laugh and ran his hands through his hair. “Erry, go check on Jaxon. Make him eat a protein bar.”
Eris groaned and clung tighter to Layla. “I just wanted to be in the puppy pile!”
“Puppy pile later. Mated omega discussions now.”
“I’m going to be mated someday.”
“Out,” Kaiser said.
Eris reluctantly released her and stomped his way out of the room, slamming the door.
Kaiser laughed. “That’s what you get with pups.”
Layla tried to smile, but she didn’t have the energy to keep it up. She was so tired. Of being scared. Of not knowing what was happening to her body and mind. Of being so fucking naive.
Kaiser opened his mouth, then closed it. And again. He frowned, a sort of sadness taking over his expression and his scent. “The first time my suppressants failed was twenty-four years ago. I didn’t know what was happening. I was confused, terrified, and desperate. Then Hera found me.”
The hairs on the back of Layla’s neck stood on end.
“There was no fighting it for either of us. We had always been inappropriately close. She was my other half, but this was… it was something neither of us wanted, but we couldn’t stop. She was married. She was mated to Bryson. She was never attracted to omegas. But for us, when I went into heat, it was a compulsion. It wasn’t her fault any more than it was mine. Just victims of biology and a failure of science.”
Kaiser touched his neck — over his mating gland hidden by the collar of his shirt.
“She bit you.”
Kaiser nodded. “And I bit her. We were mated. Our bond was so strong it overwrote anything she had with Bryson. Not that he noticed. Bryson’s head was up his own ass most of the time, but he did love her in his own way. Hera and I were mates, and no one could know. We were terrified. We couldn’t tell anyone. It would be a scandal, and Sorretos can’t have scandals.” He laughed again. Bitter. Broken. “It would have ruined our lives. Our children’s lives.”
Hera’s pups: Ryan, Raina, and Eris, children she’d played with in her childhood. She had dated Ryan. Layla was terrified of where this was going. “Hera’s children?”
Kaiser sighed, long and pained, as if she was dragging the words out of him. “All mine.”
Layla watched Kaiser break apart in front of her as if he’d pulled a knife from his chest to bleed out over the bed. It was as painful as it was a relief of pressure.
He sighed, wiping away tears. “Those first three times, my suppressants failed. Those were the kids. It was like my body knew when she needed another pup. Damn me. After Eris, she got an IUD, so at least we wouldn’t bring any more children into this mess.”
“Oh God.” She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know how to comfort him. It was horrible. His sister. She tried not to feel disgusted. Kaiser’s biology had ensnared his own sister, just like she had Jaxon.
Kaiser rubbed his face. “The night Jaxon dragged you into the Tower. I knew immediately that the same thing had happened to you. There’s a particular scent that goes with it.”
“Sugar,” Layla said. The smell that had been the bane of her existence for three days. She hated it.
He nodded. “I’m telling you this because… I shouldn’t. But I don’t want you to blame Jaxon too much. I know he’s uncouth and useless and, in general, a terrible person to be around, but he’d never hurt an omega. I would know that too.”
Layla shifted uncomfortably and glared at him. Jaxon was her Alpha now, no matter what relationship they had in the past.
He held up his hands. “That was a long time ago before I met Georgia.”
She continued to scowl. Kaiser had touched her mate. He had attempted to breed with him. Unforgivable. Layla shook her head, pushing away thoughts of hurting Kaiser. He wasn’t a threat.
“I don’t know what to do,” Layla said.
“I know it’s overwhelming right now. A breakout heat, newly mated.”
She shook her head frantically. “People are dead.”
Kaiser sighed. “Yeah. That does complicate some things.”
She wiped tears off her cheeks. She hadn’t even noticed when they started to fall. “I’m so tired of crying.”
“Hormones,” Kaiser said. “It’ll last a few more days until it levels out.”
Layla sighed and leaned back against the headboard. She could feel the crack Jaxon had put in it with his fist. “He’ll hate me when this is over.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Just… nothing. What’s happening in this show?”
“Layla…”
There was a commotion outside the room and new voices drifting down the hall.
The bedroom door slammed open, and there was Roan. Her Roan. Her sweet brother. She hadn’t seen him in years. He looked older. He even had grays shot through his brown hair.
“Roan,” she crawled over the bed. She needed to touch him. She needed to smell him.
He rushed to her and pulled her into his arms. He smelled like home. He smelled like snow, with an overlay of Holden’s rabbit leather scent.
Roan rubbed his hands over her face, covering her in his scent, and Layla did the same, touching his hair and his cheeks. She liked this instinct to touch and hug and hold on to her brother.
“Layla, shh, shh. It’s alright,” Roan whispered.
She pulled back because nothing was alright, and it never would be. “No, it’s not. It’s worse. It’s so much worse.”
He looked her over and tugged her shirt collar to the side, exposing the rough bruise of her mating gland. “Oh, Layla.”
Layla bowed her head, shamed. “I asked him to. I think I asked him to. I was so out of it. It’s not his fault.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Breathe, Layla.”
She stared into his brown eyes so like her father’s. Her mother hated him for it. Being an omega, mating Holden. It fractured her family. She was going to make it worse. “She’s going to be so mad.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Roan said, holding her arms tightly. “Let her be mad. This is your life. I won’t leave you.”
She shook her head. “But I’m a bad omega. I can’t even be a beta. I can’t do anything right. No one will want me.”
She felt more hands on her, Kaiser, behind her. His honeysuckle scent attempted to soothe her. “Layla? Come lay down. It’ll be okay.”
Layla was filled with absolute terror and numbness. Could she feel everything and nothing all at once? It all stuck in her chest, hurting. “No, no, no, Alpha?”
“Jax!” Kaiser yelled.
The edges of the room went black, and all she could hear was Roan talking like he was far away and underwater. Then Jaxon’s heavy hands were on her. Alpha. He pulled her close, crushing her against him. She nuzzled into his chest, finding the spots thick with his scent. The black receded, and her hearing cleared. She trembled in his grasp, her only anchor.
“Alpha,” she whispered.
Jaxon shushed her and pulled her down to lie on the bed. “Breathe, kitten. That’s enough.”
“What the hell was that?” Holden asked from the door, and she flinched.
Jaxon growled. “Quiet, you loud fuck.”
Layla tried to burrow deeper into him, and she felt someone cover her with a blanket.
“I don’t know,” Kaiser said. “That’s not a typical reaction.”
“It’s a panic attack,” Roan said, and she felt his hand touch her back. “She used to get them all the time when she was little.”
No, she didn’t. Did she? She didn’t remember feeling like this. Hot and cold. Alone and overwhelmed. Hiding under her bed, pressing her cheek against the cold tile floor of her bedroom — praying that no one found her. Oh.
Layla stared at Jaxon’s chest, at the loose weave of his shirt. Don’t think.
Roan settled on the bed behind her and scooted close. He wrapped an arm over her when Jaxon didn’t growl. She glanced back at him and smiled. He rubbed his wrist over her hair.
“It’s going to be okay. I promise,” Roan said.
She felt Jaxon drawl in a long breath, but he said nothing. He didn’t smell agitated, and she hoped that another bout of panic hadn’t convinced him to send her away.
“Puppy pile?” Eris asked.
“Eris…” Kaiser said.
Jaxon laughed. “Just lay the fuck down. Both of you.”
Kaiser sighed and sat down while Eris practically crawled on top of Roan. Eris tugged at her, trying to touch as many people as possible. Layla laughed as he finally squeezed between Roan and her. She liked this, even weepy and miserable; it was better than almost anything else. What else did she miss out on while trying to be a beta?
Holden snorted from his position beside the door. “You have fun. I’m going to see what you have to eat.”
Chapter 16
Layla curled into Jaxon’s steady purrs as Roan, Kaiser, and Eris pressed into her on every side. Heavy and sedate, it was wonderful — all the safe smells and sweet scents of omegas with just the touch of spice from an alpha. She had been missing this for so long. She tried to touch them all at the same time, reaching to pet Eris’s hair or hold Roan’s hand.
Eris was the first to get truly bored of the puppy pile and wiggled to the edge of the bed to watch television. Layla half-listened as Jaxon commented on the stupidity of betas while Eris gave the backstory of every character on Love Island.
Roan stroked her hair, picking knots out of the frizzy mess. Kaiser caressed her legs, holding a calf before touching her knees and then back down to her ankles. It felt good. Intimate but not overwhelming. How had she missed out on so much of this?
She wanted it to last forever, just Jaxon surrounding her and the quiet voices of omegas arguing like pups around her. She wondered if Jaxon would want pups, if pups would make him stay, or if it was only another form of trap.
There was a shuffling at the bedroom door and the smell of sizzling meat. “Alright, fellas,” Holden said. “A real northern breakfast.”
Jaxon sat up, pulling Layla back with him as everyone made space for a large platter in the middle of the bed. There were heaps of bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, and toast.
Layla leaned back into Jaxon’s chest, feeling vaguely nauseous. “I don’t think—“
Holden waved a handful of forks over the platter. “You need your calories. Puts hair on your chest.”
Kaiser grabbed one of the forks and gently stabbed Holden in the wrist with it. “I’m not sure she wants hair on her chest.”
“You won’t survive a winter that way,” Holden said as he ruffled Roan’s hair lovingly. “This one here — can’t fatten him up. He stays skinny just to spite me.”
Jaxon took two forks and handed one to Layla. “Eat.”
Roan laughed. “Yes, my metabolism is all spite.”
Layla took a bite of potato just to appease the alphas and realized she was starving. Her stomach grumbled for more. Had it really been that long since she had a full meal?
She speared a sausage next as the other omegas gathered around the plate, and the two alphas remained on the periphery.
Jaxon curled over her back, touching her belly, still slightly bloated. She could feel his contentment in her chest, a weird blooming happiness that wasn’t coming from herself. She didn’t read into it too deeply. An alpha was always happy when feeding an omega.
She held up a piece of bacon to him, but Jaxon shook his head. She shoved the bacon in her mouth, not about to waste any of the greasy goodness.
Jaxon chuckled and nuzzled the back of her head. His constant touching wasn’t as oppressive as she expected. It was a lot, but she craved his closeness, his hands on her. It was instinct. She was his. He owned her, and that worry clenched inside her when she looked at it too long. A beta would never deign to be owned, nor would they ever want to claim ownership of another.
Alphas and omegas were separate. Strange. They weren’t part of the world her mother raised her to inhabit, no matter that Layla was one of those strange creatures she despised so much.
Eris climbed around Kaiser, reaching for a piece of toast and grabbing Jaxon’s knee for balance.
Layla couldn’t stop the growl from climbing up her throat.
Eris recoiled pulling his hands close to his body, curling over protectively. He was all big eyes and hurt feelings.
Layla covered her mouth. Why did she do that? Eris wasn’t a threat, but he was an omega with sharp teeth. “I’m so sorry.”
Jaxon tugged on Layla’s arms, pulling her further into his embrace and squeezing her tight against him.
Kaiser put an arm around Eris and dragged him away, settling him on the other side of Roan. Eris still looked pouty, and there were tears in his eyes.
Holden laughed around a mouthful of meat. “And they say we are possessive. Nothing scarier than a territorial omega.”
Layla glanced at Holden, but he was focused on shoving a forkful of fried potatoes into Roan’s mouth.
Layla wasn’t sure about territorial omegas. She’d seen what Mina could do with little prompting. And she had seen firsthand how Jaxon dealt with threats to what he considered his. It had been violent and bloody, but she had put a knife in a man’s back. It wasn’t very omega of her. But maybe she was wrong. She had been wrong about so much lately.
Eris kept staring at her, then turned a brilliant shade of red. “Oh, ew. You think I want Jaxon? I don’t want your mate. That’s gross.”
“Hey!” Jaxon grumbled.
Eris leaned closer to Layla, keeping his head lower than hers. “He’s like another dad. And I don’t want to mate my dad… any of them. That’s… ew.”
Layla chuckled softly. She really was being silly. No one was going to take Jaxon. She leaned into Jaxon as he caressed her thighs, his giant palms nearly going around her whole leg. Protective. Possessive. Something in her liked it, as much as she knew she shouldn’t.
Holden waved a bit of bacon in the air. “You know, you can calm that growling down if you just bite him.”
Layla tensed. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to think about it.
“Back home, we wouldn’t let an omega out of the nest until we had a reciprocal bite,” he continued, oblivious to the sudden chill. “It keeps the alpha calm, and no one gets accidentally killed… what?”
Jaxon growled lowly.
Layla knew she should bite him. It was what he said he wanted. But what if it wasn’t? What if he regretted it? She couldn’t take his choices away like hers had been taken.
