Page 32 of Shades of Scars

I fiddle so long with my shake, downing nearly half of it, when Lark finally speaks again. “I’d like you to tell me, Scarlett.” He lets out a deep sigh, like he’s disappointed in me, and I fucking hate that. “But I’m not going to make you.” He adds after a tense pause, and I inwardly throw myself off a bridge in my imagination.

Gritting my teeth, I huff in annoyance.Fuckthese alphas for being so damn perfect and breaking down my walls, andfuckmy stupid omega hormone driven heart for falling for it. “It’s not really all that glamorous of a story.” I grumble. Total fucking lie. He’s going to lose his absolute shit when he hears it.

He arches a brow at me. “I love boring stories,” the jackass says.

I let another minute tick by, and then Cosette returns with our food, but she doesn’t stick around long. “Enjoy your meal! I’ll be back in a bit to check on you!” She calls over her shoulder as she sweeps away to handle some other tables in her section.

Snatching up a piece of my bacon to appease my growling stomach, I sigh. “As a seemingly unbonded omega, I garnered a lot of attention. Started getting regulars.” I begin while I chew on my bacon, barely stopping myself from groaning at how good it tastes. This place seriously has the best bacon in the entire city. Sometimes, when Kate’s finished working a morning shift, she’ll bring me home leftover bacon, and I seriously consider kissing her feet every single time. If she ever wants to get on my good side, or she needs something from me, she always supplies the bacon.

Lark cuts up a chunk of his stuffed french toast, before stabbing a ripe red strawberry, and popping it in his mouth. I look back down at my stack of pancakes so I don’t get hot and bothered while watching the hot as sin man eat.I’m such a fucking creep. “Anyway, most of my regulars were amazing, but I had a few unsavory ones. One day, one of them took my friendliness a little too personal. During a rush, I had to pee so damn bad, so I ducked into the bathrooms to take care of business.” I pause again, already noting that Lark has stopped eating and is staring at me with a twitch already starting in his left eyebrow.

Not good.

I make sure I finish off my last slice of delicious fried piggy before I lose my stomach with this next part of the story. “He cornered me in the bathroom. Caught me as I was coming out of the stall.” I swallow hard, squeezing my eyes shut as I relive the memory. It isn’t as bad as most of my other memories pre-Black Tide Valley, but it’s uncomfortable to rehash none-the-less.

“Dream Girl-”

“It’s fine.” I cut Lark off before he could tell me to stop. He wants to know, so I am going to tell him. I’ve already opened the wound. No sense stopping and letting it fester between us. “I… I can’t give you details. He punched me in the face. Shovedme back into the stall and tried to take me against the wall. All I really remember is biting down on his cock when he tried to shove it into my mouth.”

I gag, unable to stop the reaction when my brain’s being assaulted by the sensations of the memory all over again. Suddenly, it’s no longer bacon I taste on my tongue, but the coppery tang of alpha blood. My hand trembles as I reach for my milkshake, desperate to rid myself of the ghost of him.

Such a goddamn coward…

“Fuck.” Lark grinds out through clenched teeth, and I manage to look at him for the first time since I started the story. I would’ve startled at the intense fury blazing in his steel blue gaze if it had been anyone but him. This ismyalpha. An innate part of me knows that I have nothing to fear from this man. It was the same reaction I’d gotten when I’d watch Caito kill two grown men with his bare hands for touching me.

It’ssoincredibly fucked up.

Yet so damnfreeing.

“The entire diner heard his howls of pain. He’d locked the door behind him, so Jerry had to shatter the door in pieces just to get in.” I go on, wanting to finish this story as quickly as possible so I can get back to my pancakes. Oddly enough, I’m still hungry as hell. Definitely not normal. “After that, Jerry—the owner of this place—begged me to stay. Told me how sorry he was. I was a damn good waitress. I brought in a lot of revenue. But I couldn’t work here anymore. It was too public. An omega without alphas is nothing but a hindrance. I couldn’t guarantee my safety after that, and neither could Jerry, despite the big game he talked. Jerry’s a nice guy. A mated alpha to an omega for the last thirty years.”

It’s painful to talk about this. I’m actually thankful that Cosette or Rosa haven’t outed me to Jerry if he’s here this morning. I’m sure he would’ve come out here to try to sweet talkme into coming back. He really is a nice guy. Too damn nice for the hoodlums of this city, that’s for sure.

Despite my roiling stomach, I cut into my stack of pancakes, taking a few bites before I dare peek at Lark again. He looks so damn angry. He’s clenching his fork so tight in his fist that I’m afraid the metal handle might cut into his skin.

“You should eat while it’s hot.” I gesture towards his barely touched food, hoping to knock him out of his mood. It works, for the most part. He blinks, glancing down and staring at the mound of stuffed french toast like it’s personally offended him.

It makes me chuckle a little. The sound of my light laughter jerks his attention back up to me, and he gives me a bewildered look. “Why are you laughing? You just told me how you were assaulted in this very restaurant, and now you’re laughing? Are you OK, Dream Girl?”

I choke on another laugh and shake my head, taking another bite of pancakes full of delicious blueberries, syrup, and butter, savoring it before I respond. “The longer you stick around me, the more you’ll learn that I am shit at taking things seriously. It’s how I’ve coped my entire life with things that would otherwise break normal people. I’m not the average omega. I come with a lot of emotional trauma and baggage. I need you to know that.”

Lark stares at me as I finish, but I just shrug and return to my food. Finally, with super tense muscles, he picks up his coffee cup and takes a sip of the liquid that’s probably cold by now. I still watch as it helps marginally relax him until he’s able to return his focus to his food.

After a few minutes of eating in silence, he surprises me with his next words. “Tell me Jerry took care of the asshole?” His thready tone makes me smile. I smell violence in the air.

“He served the last six months down at the BTV jail for minor assault charges that Jerry filed for me. He would’ve gotten more had I testified. I didn’t want to face him again.” My face fell, andI pushed around the last bit of my food on the plate. I’m pretty full, anyway, so it’s a good way for me to keep my hands busy. “He was released on another six months of probation two weeks ago. I got notified as the victim as soon as it happened.” I shrug, feigning nonchalance.

“So he’s back out there on the streets? A potential threat?” Lark is seething, and he slowly sets his fork down beside his mostly empty plate. Probably to stop himself from taking it and tracking down the bastard to stab him to death with it.

“Probably being a menace to society as we speak. The only upside is I think I broke his dick, so there’s that. I was able to read some of the court transcripts when the trial was done, and it was mentioned that he suffered intense injury to his ‘manhood’.” I snicker, actually proud of myself for that one. They’d wanted to prosecute me for that, but there’s a reason they put omegas on the jury stand during trials in cases of aggravated sexual assault. They shot that shit down faster than someone could say the word hoodwinked.

Lark looks impressed as hell when Cosette finally comes back with our bill. She gives me a soft smile when she hands it over to the alpha, and I make sure I smile back. She’s a good person. I don’t need to go out of my way to be a dick to her. “It was so nice to see you again, Scar. You never visit. Do make sure you drop in again soon, yeah?”

Lark hands her over a pile of cash, telling her to keep the change, and I nod in agreement. “Perhaps Lark and I will make this a weekly thing.” That gets the alpha’s attention, and I can see him beaming out of the corner of my eye.

Cosette giggles like he’s the funniest thing on the planet. “I’ll be sure to make Rosa put you in my section every time. Take care.” She reaches out, and I rise to my feet so I can offer her a one armed hug. I’m typically not a hugger, but like I said, Cosette is a good human.

And I can inwardly admit that the hug is just what I need to take the edge off from the horror story I told Lark over breakfast.

---