Bewitched, p.22
Bewitched, page 22
“I’m going to call Warren,” he said.
She grimaced. “I just wanted to be happy. I tried so hard to happy, and it’s not working. Tell me how I’m supposed to be happy.”
He shook his head and reached for her. She let him take her hand and slowly sat her on the couch next to him. He took her wrist in his hand, rubbing his thumb over her scent gland before pulling her in the rest of the way, sitting her on his lap. She buried her face under his neck, taking in the heavy scent there.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Shh, enough of that,” he said. “We’re both sorry enough as it is.”
She relaxed against him in the relative quiet, only the television playing in the background. He curled his arms around her, squeezing her tight. It wasn’t the nest under her bed, but it could be the second-best place she wanted to be.
Layla covered her ears as he called Warren, so she could pretend she didn’t hear him talking about her. She could pretend he didn’t say things like ‘I don’t think her head’s on straight,’ ‘she’s not making sense,’ and ‘she’s going to hurt herself unless you do something.’
She rocked fitfully, and Jaxon moved with her until he hung up with a frustrated growl.
“He’ll be here soon,” Jaxon said. “He said not to leave you alone.”
She nodded. The college had a seminar for freshmen omegas about mental health and living alone for the first time. They went over signs of depression and anxiety and how to use campus resources. She hadn’t paid attention. She wasn’t an omega. She’d never struggle like they would. Until now.
“Is he going to take me away?”
Jaxon took a long time to answer. “Only if you want.” He nuzzled the top of her head, his breath hot on her scalp. “I thought you had gone—earlier when I ran in here. Came to your senses and fled.”
She grimaced. His hands were hard on her, gripping like she would slip away, turn to smoke, and drift away. “Where would I go?”
“Anywhere. Not here,” he said.
She sighed. “I didn’t think of it. What happens now?”
“Warren will come. We’ll do what he says then.”
“Not that.” She stared at the ceiling. Everything in her head was so bad. It could only get worse when Damian sued the Wayland Corporation. The news would want to know everything about what happened, like they did with Roan and Holden. That attention had almost destroyed her, and she wasn’t even at the center of the scandal. She had stayed in her room, under her bed with her stuffed toys and pillows, while journalists knocked on the door and peeked in the windows. She missed her nest under the bed.
Not again. “I don’t want to be the face of this lawsuit. I can’t do it. I… I’m not strong enough. I can’t. Please, I don’t want the attention. I can’t stand to see my picture on the television. I don’t want to be out there — not for this, not for anything. I just want to be left alone.”
Jaxon nodded and brushed away the gathering tears from her eyes. “I’ll tell Damian. He’ll be an ass, but he’ll get over it.”
Her mouth was sticky and wet, hard to move. “I don’t want this to happen to other omegas either. Am I bad for… not wanting to?”
He shook his head and leaned in close, kissing her cheek. “Warren said he found more people, didn’t he? Some of them have to be mad enough to go against the Waylands. At the very least, there’s still Summer’s story. No life to ruin there.” He stared at her for a moment and grimaced at his word choice. “Bryson won’t let that get buried now.”
There was only one glaring problem: the problem who wouldn’t listen to her even if she begged. “My mom isn’t going to let this go.”
“Fuck your mother,” he snarled, baring his teeth.
She cringed, filled with the dual ache of anger and sadness. Layla wasn’t sure if she would ever be free from the need to please her. “She’s my mom.”
Jaxon pinched her chin and made her look at him. His eyes were dark and angry. “Stop. Fuck your mother and what she wants,” he ground out. “Fuck your brother. Fuck me. Do this for you. Or don’t do it for you. You want to flaunt this travesty the world over? That’s your decision. You don’t? Fine. Don’t let her threaten you with what she might do. Don’t you crawl back to her like she holds your leash. Hold your own leash, for fucks sake.”
She pulled her face from his grasp, tucking herself into his chest, where he couldn’t see her. He smelled like cinnamon and sweat. Sour anger with a tinge of fear.
Mina would tell her to let it all burn. Roan would say the same. Her father would say nothing at all. He’d just let the world pass by as he always did. Aslin didn’t make choices; he let choices happen to him.
Maybe that’s why everything was broken, because he wouldn’t reach for what he wanted, and now Layla didn’t know how. She was almost too tired to try. Almost.
She took Jaxon’s wrist in her hands, pressing her fingers into the scent gland until a fine sheen of oil covered his wrist. She swiped up the oily mix of pheromones and licked her fingers clean.
The flavor burned her tongue, buzzing her brain like too-sweet alcohol.
Jaxon purred louder. “Watch yourself, omega. I wouldn’t do that before we get visitors.”
Her lips twitched up. “I want you, I think. I just don’t want it to be because of hormones and chemicals and stupidity.”
He huffed. “All we are is chemicals and hormones,” he said. “And stupidity. A lot of that.”
She chuckled, and the numbing sadness ached. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, leaving behind a smear of her scent. “I want to love you. I want you, and I need you, and I don’t think we’ll ever be free of each other now, but I don’t… Please don’t be mad. I don’t know you. Not really. We’re not friends. We don’t hang out. We have nothing in common. You don’t like me—”
Jaxon squeezed her tighter against him. “I like you just fine.”
“You don’t. You just want to fuck me.”
His expression darkened. “Just because I don’t like the stupid beta decisions you make doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”
Layla squeezed her eyes closed. “I’ve never been an omega before. I wasn’t allowed. Do you understand that now? How it was all taken away and put on a box and put on a shelf that I couldn’t reach. Now, I think I’m missing most of the pieces. And it’s not… I can blame my mom, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing can fix who I am now.”
He cocked his head. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You have shitty instincts. You’re not the first omega to get their signals crossed. You’ll figure it out. You’re a smart girl. A little slow, but you get there.”
She snorted. It might have offended her before, but the feeling in her chest was fond. “I think I used to dream of you. I’d dream of sleeping in a nest, a nice one with pink curtains and bright green pillows. This alpha would sneak into my nest and curl around me like those pictures of a mommy cat and her babies.”
Jaxon nodded, staring at her.
“I thought the alpha in my dream was Dad or Bryson or someone I knew. Someone who was nice to me. But the dream didn’t smell like Dad or Bryson or Holden or anyone else. It smelled like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Layla shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe Warren was right and that we were meant to be together.”
An annoyed growl took up the place of his purr. “Fate? I don’t believe in any of that shit.”
Layla hummed. She wasn’t sure she did either. Not since she was a little girl. “The big grumpy alpha doesn’t like soulmate romance. Noted.”
He jerked back and cocked his head in confusion.
She grinned. “Am I wrong?”
Jaxon sat back against the couch, still scowling, but he didn’t seem angry. “The beta-wannabe has jokes now.”
Layla sniffed and turned up her nose. “I’m very funny. Mina laughs at me constantly.”
He glanced at her again, the corner of his lips twitching up in spite of himself. “She’s a fucking piece of work.”
“I know! Did you know she has a big whiteboard in her room with a tally of how many people she’s stabbed?”
“Aye. I gave her the whiteboard.”
Layla giggled and leaned into him. She relaxed, comfortable and content, her head under his chin. His stubbled beard scratched her forehead as he nuzzled at the top of her head.
She wondered if they could stay like that forever, curled up and purring like in her dreams. She reached for his hand and twined their fingers together, his big palm dwarfing hers easily. She played with the rough skin of his knuckles, rubbing over bone.
Eventually, there was a knock on the door, and Warren came in at Jaxon’s shout, Nora following behind.
The omega doctor crouched down in front of her, and Layla felt like a fool for bothering him again. “You ready to take a little trip?”
She clung tighter to Jaxon’s hand. “Where? I don’t—”
“He’ll come too,” Warren said. “We’re just going to talk to some people better at this than I am. Alright?”
“A hospital?” she whispered.
“Of a sort,” he said.
She glanced at Jaxon. He was frowning but nodded. “Okay.”
Layla took Nora’s hand, and they waited for Jaxon to gather a bag of clothes and a few other things. He took her wrist in his hand and then slid his fingers down to twine between her own. He held her hand as they left the apartment and all the way into the car, waiting for them. He didn’t let her go when they reached the hospital or were sent to a room to wait. Layla didn’t let go of him, either, and she hoped she could keep holding on.
Chapter 23
Four Months Later
Layla stared through the glass panel of the oven at the rising cake inside. “I think it’s finished.”
“There’s still five minutes left,” Mina said.
“I can smell it burning,” she argued.
“It’s not burning,” Mina said. “Stop watching it.”
“My last batch burned,” Layla argued. She’d been trying to bake for weeks, but everything turned out burnt, or underdone, or tasting like flour. The oven was not her friend.
Mina stepped back with a well-put-upon sigh. “You should just hire a cook.”
Layla glared at her sister. She was always trying to get Layla to do less, coddling her. And she really didn’t want it. She just wanted everything to be some semblance of normal, and it was almost there. Almost.
Mina threw up her hands and retreated to the living room. It was a new apartment. This one had two bedrooms, all new furniture, and big bay windows overlooking the city. Damian had bullied Jaxon into moving, giving Layla more room to nest, and pace, and hide from him. She did quite a lot of the last one in the days after coming home from the hospital. She wasn’t sure she had learned much from her stay in the tiny room with Jaxon and half a dozen doctors checking on her constantly, but the new medications had helped. Anti-depressants, anti-anxieties, heat suppressants, sleeping pills, vitamin D; it was a rainbow of pretty little pills.
The extra bedroom held most of the stuff Eris and Clover had liberated from her dorm. Layla hadn’t returned. She couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing Helena on accident. Her life before her sudden heat still gave her extreme anxiety, but it was getting better, slowly.
“Jaxon can’t afford a cook,” Layla said. “Besides, I can do this. I can do everything except… bake, apparently.”
“Or do laundry,” Mina said.
“I only shrank four things… five… six. Five. Socks count as one article of clothing,” Layla said. “And Jax didn’t mind. He didn’t like that shirt anyway.”
Mina gave her a look. “It’s okay, sweetie. At least you’re pretty.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to staring at the cake. Layla had become used to having people around all the time, usually Mina and Roan, sometimes Kaiser and Eris. Raina would come with Kaiser when she could. Rolland had even talked himself into a visit.
Layla wasn’t allowed to be alone, not yet. Not again.
She was better, though. Again. She’d been doing so well in the new apartment and her new life. She thought she had been okay and had spent a month off the 24-hour watch, but her phone had sent a notification that she needed to renew her prescription for Omerex, and she had a breakdown. There had been a lot of blood by the time Jaxon found her. And there had been a lot of yelling at Warren and Mina and Damian. She didn’t remember much, but they had to replace another carpet.
They came in rounds whenever Jaxon had to work. Never alone. Always coddled. She didn’t like to think about it. Getting better was a process. Sometimes, it went backward. That’s what the doctor said.
“I’m taking it out,” Layla said, opening the oven and pulling out the cake before Mina could argue with her again.
Mina groaned and slumped onto the couch. “Fine. You ruin it all by yourself.”
She ignored her sister and stuck a knife into the cake. It came away clean. “Ha! I did it.”
“Good job,” she mumbled as she scrolled her phone.
“Eris would help me,” Layla mumbled, but Mina ignored her.
She liked that. She was finally being treated like a sister instead of a fragile omega, and she felt a little less brittle about it, too. Everything was comfortable and normal, as if nothing awful had happened at all. Except that it did, and she saw a therapist once a week because of it. But it was nice not to feel so raw. Jaxon had been wonderful in that rough, angry alpha way of his. Blunt and truthful. She could always count on him to be honest.
She’d come to like it. It was almost like having a normal beta boyfriend, except he chewed on her a little more, and she could judge his moods by the feeling in her chest. It was good.
Mina turned on the television, and a live news alert flashed over the screen.
“This medication has already caused several unintentional and avoidable deaths, and there have been no studies on the effects of the children born from these influenced matings. Omerex must be taken off the market, and restitution must be paid to those affected.”
Perida Iverson stood before a small podium in the courthouse, flanked closely by Bryson and Rolland. He had mentioned he was in contact with his mother again; Layla hadn’t realized it was because of the lawsuit.
Layla stared at the screen for a long moment. There was her mother on the far side of the stage, barely in view of the screen. She didn’t even recognize Shera for a moment. She’d dyed her hair and cut it like she was a different person. Maybe she was.
Perida stepped back from the podium, and Rolland moved off the screen. Shera took a spot at the front, preparing to speak. Suddenly, the screen went blank.
Layla turned her eyes to Mina.
“Sorry,” her sister whispered.
She shook her head, trying to push it all away. It wasn’t her business. She wasn’t involved. When the lawsuit broke the news, Bryson and Roan were at the forefront, with Shera playing a dutiful mother to a lost son. It was a lie, but it served her purpose. Layla’s name had never been mentioned, nor had the Sorretos. The surprise came from the Iverson family; Perida joined on behalf of her slain brother and one of her own omegas. She had refused to claim public parentage of Roan, as she had already claimed two omegas as her own, one by betrothal and one by accident. Acknowledging a third would have put too much pressure on her family. Three omegas for one alpha… But if it was because of heat sickness — the thought made Layla ill.
“Have you talked to Mom?” Layla asked.
Mina grimaced. “Yeah, she’s… Mom.”
She nodded as she put the finishing touches on the cake. The icing was melting into a puddle and dripping down the sides. She should have let it cool. “I haven’t…” Her lips twitched up. “Jaxon hung up on her the last time she called.”
Mina grinned. “Good for him.”
Shera hadn’t tried again after that call. Her dad called, though, weekly. Aslin had moved out of his house and was staying in Bryson’s building. She didn’t know where that relationship was going, but she hoped her dad was happy. She hoped he could stop drifting.
“Shit,” Mina said as she looked at her phone. “I have to go. Damian did something, or he might be in jail. He’s not making sense.”
Mina took a step toward the door and stopped short. “Uh, are you…”
“I’m fine,” Layla said. She felt fine, at least. That was an improvement.
“You sure?”
She pushed the cake knife into the sink. “I’m sure. Go on. Rescue Damian from whatever stupid thing he did.”
Mina nodded and grinned at her. “Jax will be here in, like, five minutes.”
“I know.”
Mina reluctantly left, and Layla stared at the cake for a moment longer. She really did feel good, like herself. Maybe a little like a beta, and her life was completely normal, and she hadn’t had one continuous mental breakdown during the last four months.
That had been the strangest part, feeling like herself again instead of an entity outside of it. She wasn’t so much an omega or a beta; she was just herself, and that was nice.
Her instincts were still muddled, through her own limitation or the new mood-stabilizing medications. Jaxon didn’t complain about it too much. Not that he had a chance to. She didn’t do much.
She cleaned up a little, picking up the school pamphlets from the table. Jaxon had brought them home a few days ago and kept leaving them around the apartment, even after she threw them away. She didn’t know what he wanted her to do with them. She wasn’t ready for school again. She wasn’t ready for much more than taking a walk around the building.
She put away the towels and soap in the bathroom. Jaxon had taken the mirror off the cabinet over the sink. It hadn’t bothered her in months, but she decided it was a sweet gesture if a little misguided.
Layla tried the laundry room next, but there was a note taped to the top of the washer: DON’T YOU DARE.
She laughed. Well, that took one thing off the chore list. She’d get the hang of it eventually. She was sure it was the dryer that had caused the damage anyway.
