Chapter 116

Ollie’s POV

I don’t consider myself a coward, but when faced with the certainty that Conrad undoubtedly knows the truth, the fear that fills my heart overpowers all else. I left it control me, finding strength in the dread.

In a flash, I shift into my werewolf form and then take off running straight into the woods.

I don’t need to see Conrad to know he’s also shifted and is now chasing me. Maybe it’s the bond between us, or perhaps it’s my heightened werewolf senses, but I can feel him following me.

His Alpha form is faster than me, but I push myself to my limits, moving quicker than I ever thought possible, desperate to flee and escape him.

I’ve never felt fear like this, like I’m backed into a corner and my very life depends on my getting away.

Maybe it’s fruitless, but I have to try. I can’t be caught here and now, not after all I’ve done to keep my secret and my freedom.

If the brothers catch me, it will only be after I’ve exhausted all other means of escape.

Behind me, I hear a howl I know to be Conrad’s. Wes gives an answering howl almost right away and joins in the chase. Two more howls eventually follow, but they are further away.

However, they catch up by the time I make it to the park and push through, deeper into the woods. They are gaining speed.

There’s nowhere for me to go, but my feet are leading the way.

My wolf is guiding me to the cabin. The place where I shared precious moments with the brothers when they promised to keep my anonymity, when our encounters were nothing more than fleeting, pleasurable connections in the night.

What changed from then to now?

Why had they been so willing to have me for only one night in the past, but want to keep me now?

Maybe being there will help me plead my case. At least, I hope so. So I rush there without stopping, slowing only once I’ve crossed the threshold into the cabin itself and flicked on a life with my newly human fingers.

Walking into the living room, I turn to face the door. Just as I do, the brothers reach the door one by one, each shifting as they cross the threshold, joining me in the living room.

They stop a few feet away, leading to a kind of standoff, where they stare at me and I stare back, all of us hiding our true emotions.

“You have to let me go,” I tell them.

They don’t even need to look at each other before they all reply in tandem, “No.”

They’ve always been stubborn. Why would I think they would be different in this case?

“You are our mate,” Declan says. “You’ve been hiding yourself. Why?”

“You must know why,” I tell him. “Do you really need me to explain?”

“What’s one more deception, right?” Hugh asks, somewhat bitterly. It hurts the worst, coming from him, as he was the first I had reached out to, and the person I thought would understand the most.

“I never intended for things to get this far,” I tell him. “I was in danger confining my wolf all the time and needed the release of our… closeness. You never wanted questions before. All of you kept pushing and pushing. We shouldn’t be here.”

Hugh looks away, perhaps out of shame, but I feel no victory in this. This entirely situation leaves me feeling bereft, like my entire known world is crashing down.

Because it is.

Nothing will be the same after this, and everyone in this room must know that.

“You say yourself you need our closeness,” Conrad counters. “So why do you run? Why not accept us? Surely you can’t find us lacking.”

His over-confidence annoys me, but it does not exist without merit. Physically, they are perfect specimens of the male werewolf. As far as emotional intelligence though? They can’t see past their own noses.

“You see me only as omega,” I say.

“Because that’s what you are,” Wes says. “And I know you feel some strange jealousy against Sylvia –”

“It’s not jealousy,” I say vehemently. “It’s the way you allow her to treat me.”

“As a Gamma, she ranks higher than you,” Declan says simply.

“That does not excuse the way I’ve been treated,” I say.

“You brought some of the punishments onto yourself,” Hugh says, looking at me again. “This isn’t the first time you deceived us.”

“I was a child then,” I say. “Do you really think I would have the wherewithal to compose some kind of elaborate scheme to weasel my way into your good graces?”

Hugh looks away again.

“It’s pointless to argue this,” Conrad says. “Facts are facts, regardless of what else is at play here. You are our mate, Ollie. You belong to us.”

I look at him earnestly, pleadingly. “If I go with you, if I agree to be your mate, will you accept me as your equal?”

Conrad’s nose scrunches. “You are omega. You will never match an Alpha, let alone the four Alpha Kings.”

“Not even as your mate?”

“Especially as our mate,” Conrad says. “Your place is to serve us, both in and out of the bedroom.”

“We will take care of you,” Wes adds quickly. “You will be protected and kept safe.”

The more they talk, the less appealing such a situation seems.

“I want you to leave me alone,” I say. I’m highly aware I’m trapped here, with limited power. But there is one card I have left to play, one bit of leverage still in my corner.

“Absolutely not,” Declan says.

“We’ve searched for you and now we’ve found you,” Conrad says. “We’ll never let you go again, Ollie.”

Maybe in a different life, those same words will fill me with joy and affection. But here in this one, I know the price that comes with such a thing, the endless torment that awaits me. The way Sylvia would ridicule me, and my own mates wouldn’t intervene. The way my mates themselves would disrespect me, seeing me as so much lesser than them.

Underestimating me. Undervaluing me. Keeping me as something like a sex slave or a pet.

I am none of those things.

“Leave me alone,” I say, then swallow. My ultimatum isn’t easy to present, even knowing the alternative. “Leave me alone, or I will reject all of you here and now.”

They freeze. Declan’s face grows cold, as Wes and Hugh’s eyes widen. Conrad seems angrier than he was a moment before.

“You wouldn’t,” Conrad says.

“You want to test me?” I ask. “So help me, I will. I want to be free, don’t you get it? I refuse to be your servant, or Sylvia’s, or anyone else’s. I don’t care what fate has in mind, or what the Moon Goddess wants for me. I am my own person, with my own dreams, and I’m not going to forget that just for great sex!”

Conrad falls silent now as well.

“We won’t reject you,” Declan says in warning. Unless the rejection is mutual, all involved will feel a terrible pain at the loss.

I’m not afraid of that pain, not when the alternative is a total lack of freedom. “That’s up to you,” I say.

I straighten myself to my full height, feeling braver now than I have in a long time. The threat has been made, and now it’s up to them to decide where we go from here.

“What’s it going to be?” I ask.