Chapter 26

Ollie’s POV

Not long after his reprimand, Wes turns away from me, signaling this conversation is over.

Thank the gods. Truly, I wasn’t sure I could take much more.

Hastily, I turn to Diana and hurriedly say, “I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean to disrespect her in any way. I only wanted the truth. Though, now that I have it, I’m not sure if I feel better or worse.

My humiliation feels as if it’s burning a hole through me, straight through my skin down to my heart. I can’t stand to be here anymore, not standing next to Diana, who looks away from me, clearly dismissing me. Or Wes, who also has stopped paying attention to me. Or the other brothers, who I can see walking out the door, arched protectively around Sylvia.

I don’t want to be here anymore, standing in the shadow of the place where I’ve accrued this new title, this new shame.

Omega. The lowest ranking of the pack.

So I turn and I leave. I don’t want to go back to the estate, to that place that doesn’t feel like a home anymore. But I don’t have anywhere else to go. The high school would be locked up tight today, and all of the stores and restaurants closed in honor of the coronation.

I wander without intent or purpose. Eventually I find myself in a park where as children, the quadruples, Ella, and I spent a lot of time playing on the swings and the jungle gym. That feels like a lifetime ago now.

As the park is empty, everyone likely either at the venue or watching the coronation coverage on their televisions at home, I move into the park itself and plop down on one of the swings. It sways beneath me so I grip the metal chains.

I’m there alone for a while, lost in thought, replaying every moment that seemed to lead to this one. Was there anything I could have done differently? Or was my fate predetermined, always destined to end up here like this with my future looking so very bleak?

I can’t speak for the past, as there’s nothing I can do to change that now. But I do know what’s changing in the here and now. I can feel it deep inside of me, this bubbling resentment. Whatever strings of hope I still had connecting me to this family were finally cut.

I no longer feel any attachment to the family that adopted me.

After some time, the swing next to mine creaks, dragging my attention out of the dark interior of my mind and back to the park.

Ella sits on the swing beside mine. She’s not looking at me, but instead out ahead at the horizon.

Ella was declared a Beta, like her father, which is one of the higher rankings within the pack. I feel no jealousy toward her, just pride. Though perhaps that does make me mourn my own situation more.

With our rankings in the pack so different, it might be difficult for us to remain friends. Ella will have a lot of expectations placed on her. To be connected to me in anyway might turn more than a few heads and earn her some scrutiny. She’s not the type to care about that, but I hate her having this new pressure just because she’s friends with me.

“This sucks,” she says so suddenly that I almost laugh at the shock of it. I might have, were it not for the absolute misery holding me down.

“The universities I was looking at don’t accept omegas at all, especially from other packs,” I say.

“Does the university here…?”

“No.”

She exhales long and slow, showing her frustration. A feeling I know well.

“There has to be a university somewhere that will take another pack’s Omega,” Ella says. “Maybe it won’t be your first choice school, or your second, or even your tenth. But I can’t imagine that every pack is as backwards as this one.”

Looking up at her, I can see the determination in her eyes. She truly believes what she says, and she believes she’s going to help me find a university that will accept me.

Still I ask, “You really think so?” It seems too good to be true. I’m trapped in a pit of despair; it seems so unlikely that there could be any path out of it.

“I’m positive. It might take some work to find it. We might have to go out to the edges of the continent maybe. I’ve heard things are a little more lax there,” Ella says. “But I’m certain we will find a place, and a way for you to get the hell out of here and away from the quadruplets.”

“Our Alphas,” I remind her.

She groans. “Hopefully they are better leaders than judges of character.”

“They want a perfect little sister so they see Sylvia as perfect,” I say. “I don’t know that they’d make that mistake for anyone else.”

“Unless Sylvia paints a target on them, like she did to you,” Ella says. “Let’s face it. The quadruplets might be the new Alphas, but they are wrapped around Sylvia’s pinky finger.”

I’m quiet for a moment. She’s right of course, but it makes me so angry. “Do you think they will ever see the truth in her?” I ask.

“I doubt it,” Ella says.

I stop to think again, but this time, in the silence, my phone makes a noise. It’s not my regular phone, but the burner.

Ella gives me a long look as I pull it from my purse. “You brought the burner phone? Why?”

I shouldn’t have, and am upset with myself for doing so. But talking to Hugh as his mate has been something I’ve enjoyed more than I care to admit. It’s nice to be treated not just as an equal but as someone desirable.

Now, though, I’m filled with rage for what the brothers have done to me – Hugh among them. He could have stopped the others, but he didn’t. He saw me just as lowly as they did.

If he knew the truth… That his mate and this lowly Omega are one in the same…

I open the message.

Free tonight? I can’t wait to be in you again.

Ella leans over to see the message and rolls her eyes. “Ug. He’s not even trying.”

My simmering rage punches upward and I start typing before I even realize I’m doing it.

Fuck off, I mean it. I’m not your sex doll. Don’t talk to me anymore. I’m sick of this.

I quickly hit send before I can regret it.

Ella, seeing my message, says, “Good for you.”

Confidence surges through me. Since the declaration, I’ve felt so helpless. Now, I feel like I’ve taken some of my power back.

Hugh sees my message; it’s labeled as read. But he doesn’t reply.

The confidence lingers for a while. I’m feeling good as Ella and I leave the park and head home.

That good feeling dims as Ella and I return to the estate just in time for Hugh to storm past us on the way to the garage.

“Hey!” Ella snaps as he roughly shoulders us both on his way down the hall. “What’s the big idea?”

“I’m pissed, obviously,” Hugh grumbles. “I’m going to bury myself into a long line of women, until I feel more myself.”

I have no idea why he shared this with us. Most likely, he was just talking to himself.

Even so, hearing his plans, a dark gnawing feeling eats away at the inside of me.

My jealousy couples with my regret, and it takes everything inside of me not to call out to Hugh and stop him.

Instead, I coil my hands into tight fists and burn on the inside.