Page 89 of All Packed Up

Nic ran a hand down his face. “Fuck, Wendy. I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” she admitted. “I wish…”

She wished what? That she’d never met them? That she’d made different choices?

What could she have done differently? Without knowing what she did now?

“I was a small-town girl in the city. At college. I felt like an idiot if I said no, like I’d never get this chance again, you know? And since my dad, who was an alpha, raised me, he really had no idea how the omega center worked, and neither did I. Why would I need to, when campus had been bursting at the seams with hopeful alphas? I wanted to meet my alphas organically, like my mom met Dad. I didn’t want to meet them in a scent binder.”

Nic squeezed her hand, and she figured he didn’t know what to say. What did someone say when an omega was dumping their trauma on them?

“I don’t know how long they’d planned this con of theirs. That’s what it feels like, you know? A long con. They had family money, so there was never a need for anything. Their house was gorgeous, and the nest they had was so sparkly. But it had all been a show. A mask to hide the ugliness underneath.”

She sighed and pulled her hand from Nic’s to smooth her long hair out of her face. Her hands worked deftly as she tied it into a ponytail, mind tracing the timeline of her pack life.

Wendy continued with a sour note in her voice. “Their personalities weren’t as pretty as their scents or their home. They just…” Wendy bit her lip as she searched for the right words and avoided the roots on the ground. “They wanted me to be as picture perfect as all the paintings they had on the walls. And I didn’t see it until it was too late.”

“How do you mean?” Nic asked. “What happened?”

“They are businessmen, so they know how to sell. And they were really good at selling themselves. While they courted me, they were the perfect gentlemen and seemed to love everything about me. Even the…” Wendy trailed off with a frown.

“It’s like, now that I’m not with them, I just keep remembering things that should have clued me in. Things that I should have never let stand. Those assholes really had me fooled from the first day.” She shook her head with a scoff. “They made it seem like they loved the harder-to-love parts about me. But as soon as I told them I was ready to take the next step, as soon as they got me in the perfect house and the lock clicked behind me, I knew something was wrong.”

Nic pulled her to a stop so fast it startled her. “Wendy. They didn’t…”

In a flash, her head was pushed to the mattress again and pain flared bright as teeth bit into her neck.

She shook her head and the vision out of her mind and cleared her throat. “No. The bond was the only thing they took against my will.”

Wendy continued walking, her cheeks flushing with something that had nothing to do with the cardio. “That pack never wanted an omega. They wanted a doll they could dress up and take to work functions to complete their white picket fence picture. And anything less was…” She waved her hands in the air, looking for a word to describe it. “They threw out my clothes and replaced them with an ‘alpha approved wardrobe.’ I couldn’t leave the house unless I was dressed the way they wanted. They took me to a hairdresser, but only so they could style me how they wanted. And they almost… they almost wouldn’t let me keep Knuckles.”

She glanced up to the trees as they walked, skeletal hands reaching for the sky. Shivering, she pulled her hands inside her hoodie’s sleeves, hiding from the wind that seemed to grow chiller by the moment.

That cat was probably the only fucking reason she’d made it this far. Taking care of him and having that silly, pudgy cuddle bug gave her a purpose that had nothing to do with what the alphas wanted.

Knuckles had been her first taste of freedom. The first moment she’d realized she had to get out of there. But how?

Nic squeezed his hand around hers, and she squeezed back. Her heart was racing and her cheeks were flushed, but she wanted to keep going.

“Tell me about the bite,” Nic said, voice somehow soothing her panic. It gave her something to focus on, and she let him help her through a thicket of branches as she tried to find a starting place.

“I have to give it to them, they were patient. I mean, they courted me properly, convinced me to move in, then to join their pack. I got away with it for another two years, not bonding them. I knew I didn’t want to mate them, and the longer I stayed, the less I wanted it. It wasn’t until my last heat that they really pushed.” She gritted her teeth and came to a stop in the middle of the overgrown path.

“They just—they overwhelmed me until I said yes,” she admitted. Her throat was tight, and she clenched her fists to match.

“Wendy,” a deep voice sang. She blinked the fog of her heat away and stared up at Derek. “There you are, Lost Girl.”

“Hi,” she greeted, her heat swelling again. She reached for Derek, already missing the soft touch of Gavin.

“Gavin is taking a nap. You wanna see me?”

Even in the haze, Wendy knew it would be easier to tell him yes. She’d learned to pick her battles.

So she nodded because she didn’t trust her voice. Once this heat was over, she could go back to avoiding Derek at all costs. He was her least favorite.

The swell of her heat heightened, and hellos were a thing of the past as Derek tended to her like an alpha was supposed to. Wendy couldn’t deny these alphas knew what they were doing between the sheets. But even as lost as she was in the pleasure, as he pounded another orgasm near, she felt him grip the hair at the back of her neck and twist.

“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice as he held her immobile.