Page 59 of Omega Chattel
He didn’t look like an addict. He didn’t even look like a whore. He had the appearance of a well-kept man who could navigate the world with grace and get anything and everything he asked for.
“Hey, Tarin,” said Kee.
“Gods,” Tarin breathed. He strode forward.
I stood to the side, watching as Tarin brushed past me and headed straight for the stranger, his former lover.
A fierce ache began in my chest.
Kee. He’d come back. He was who Tarin had wanted all along, the one Tarin sought for all of his Burns. The Omega Tarin had desperately wanted to tame.
Kee stood as Tarin approached. The two fell into an embrace that nearly made me gasp.
Oren glanced my way, but when our eyes met, he couldn’t hold my gaze and looked away. The others watched Tarin. None of them were smiling.
Tarin kept mumbling, “Where have you been? Where have you been?”
“I have a lot to tell you,” Kee replied, hugging him tight and smacking him on the back.
Tarin said, “I kept texting you.”
“I lost my phone.”
“You could have found a way to message me. It’s been almost six months!”
“I wasn’t near phones for a while. I can explain, but—“ He turned to look at the others, then at me, eyebrows narrowing.
“But?” Tarin asked.
“But not here. Can we talk in private?”
“Of course.”
As I heard those words, my entire body seemed to plummet.
Tarin’s body language showed both tension and an eager alertness. Through our link I felt a swirl of emotion I could barely define. Turmoil, yes, but also passion and caring.
I wasn’t sure what to think or feel in return. I held all my responses at bay, my self backing off and going distant the way I had when Gray punished me. It was how I coped. It was how I found any strength to keep going, and to finally run.
I made myself take deep breaths. Think nothing. Be nothing. Empty my mind. Hope became black space. My failure milled like shadows at the edges of the walls. My self-worth floated around my head in the shapes of big fat zeroes.
We’d just had a wonderful dinner, such a fantastic day. Tarin had made love to me last night and this morning and this afternoon like I was made of diamonds and light and everything he might desire. And tonight, I had hoped, my virginity might be breached. If I could convince Tarin to do it outside the Burn.
I marveled at how easily the structure of my so-new reality could quite easily fall. The house stood firm; the living room looked serene and the Tarin’s other wards sat like the proper students they were, having greeted Kee back into the fold, offering him a chair, offering him company while he awaited Tarin’s return, but all I saw was ash and ruin. None of it was real.
I wondered if Tarin would give Kee his old room back. Would I remain in Tarin’s room? And how would that be? With Kee around, what would I be for Tarin?
Now Tarin turned to face the room and his wards. And me.
Immediately, Oren, Tev and Farrell rose with excuses that they had things to do, and left to go to their own rooms or the game room.
I turned to go, but where? My room or Tarin’s? For certainly, my room would become Kee’s again, wouldn’t it?
I bowed my head once to Tarin and turned away so he wouldn’t see my burning eyes. I couldn’t let him know how much I was crying inside, and he couldn’t feel it with the link between us flooding us with such confused and muddy thoughts and feelings.
This was Kee. Tarin had cared so much for this Omega. I knew this, and one night between me and Tarin did not give me any right to stand between them. We had not consummated our bond, nor the actual relationship.
I felt I had no power in this moment, nowhere to turn. No place to call my own.
