There, I’d said it, putting it out into the universe—my shame.

“Jason! You get a grip this minute! You’re not too big for me to box your damn ears. You have an omega now, a mate. You don’t get to skip out. If she told you to leave, then you damn well fight for her. You tell her you can work this out together.”

“She didn’t tell me to leave. I just—” I had no idea how to put this into words, but it was like a riot going on inside my head. “Ella.”

“Your sister? What does she have to do with you and Sloane?” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see where this self-pity is going, and I’m not buying into it.”

Damn, for a tiny beta, Ma sure didn’t pull her punches. “It’s not self-pity,” I gritted out.

“I was there, remember,” she said. “I was the one who nursed your sister after your mother left. Jason, you’re nothing like those men, not even close, and don’t you dare suggest that you are.”

I gave her a baleful look.

After my mother got hauled away by the cops for stealing one too many times, it was Ma, Dane’s Ma, who took Ella and me in. I rubbed absently at the centre of my chest, my eyes lifting unerringly to where I knew Sloane would be. She was stirring, perhaps by my own feelings reaching her through the bond.

“When was the last time you spoke to Ella?” Ma persisted, because the tiny beta never let a matter drop.

“A while,” I said noncommittally.

“When was the last time you spoke to her about what happened?”

Never was the answer, and Ma saw that in my face, in the tic thumping in my jaw.

“You should go to your mate, but if you can’t do that until you put this to rest, you should talk to your sister now. She had an early breakfast, and she’s in her room. Then after, you need to see your mate and set straight with her whatever this nonsense is before you do real damage.”

“So, you’re saying that you wanted to be with them?” I rubbed absently at the centre of my chest, trying to focus on my sister’s words.

Her apartment was on the top floor, the penthouse, because when we were growing up, she was obsessed with stars. You couldn’t see them from the shitty place we’d called home back then. You couldn’t even see the sky between the layers of high-rise buildings. I remembered her saying that the stars were forever free.

When she was younger, she’d made a nest in the hall closet. Mum and I came home to find she’d thrown everything out and taken her blankets in there, said something about wanting it to be dark so she could see the stars. Our mum went fucking nuts about the mess, which was funny in hindsight, given the rest of the place was a shithole and you could barely tell more shit had been added.

Soon after, she’d revealed as an omega, and that was where it had gone from bad to worse.

“Don’t try and tell me that Mum was looking out for you, because I saw that shit happen too many times,” I ground out.

“Much of what happened is hazy for me,” my sister said. “I was suffering and in pain, but don’t believe even for one moment that I didn’t need them. They filled an empty space, and I can’t explain it any better than that. I was hurting. The betas who came around took that away.”

“Betas?” I frowned. I’d been sure they were alphas, but thinking back, I only knew that they’d seemed monstrous to me.

“Some even offered to take me away and give me stuff, like a nice place to live. I think Mum, even with her addled mind, realized that was a bad idea. You were still a kid, Jace, you hadn’t even revealed. You couldn’t be expected to understand adult situations. Why would you? Then afterwards, you never asked me about it. I assumed it all went over your head. If I’d thought for one minute you were carrying this around for all these years, I would’ve talked to you about it. I feel terrible now.”

“You have no reason to feel bad about anything, and none of this sounds fucking right. Mum was still high half the time, and you were barely an adult yourself.”

Ella pulled a face, managing to look cute. “I get all that. Mum, she was trying to make the best of a difficult situation. There were rumours about Desparion. We both know now that they’re true. If she’d taken me there, it would have gone so much worse. She made a lot of mistakes. You haven’t spoken to her for a long while, but well, she’s different now.”

Her lips tugged up at my derisive grunt.

“She did the best she could at the time, Jace, and well, I survived. Don’t get me wrong—I prefer your approach. It’s on my terms now, all of it. I haven’t found my one yet…” She looked out the window, as if he could be found there. “The one I want to be with. I’ve never marked a man. One day, I think I will. I’m happy for you, that you have, so damn happy.”

Her smile was genuine. I didn’t talk to her often, almost like I’d been afraid to lift the cover on the pain, and it was difficult to take all of this in. I felt like the ground was moving underneath me.

Was she trying to put a positive spin on it to make me feel better? I stared into warm brown eyes that were a mirror of my own. That was the beginning and end of our similarity. The rest of us were as different as night and day. Yet there was nothing fake in what she was saying, nothing screamed at me that she was lying for whatever reasons she might have.

Then I remembered what that arsehole said before I gave him a beating.

“Snake?” I grit out. “Don’t pretend like you wanted that man.”

She surprised me by blushing. My sister was a free omega who, by her own admission, used men to scratch an itch when her heat came. I didn’t think she had a blush in her.

“Snake is complicated,” she said evasively.

“Like fuck he’s complicated. I put a beatdown on him for putting his hands on Sloane. Put him on the fucking floor, and I’d put him there again.”

She grimaced. “If you put him down, he let you, Jace. Have I been with him? Yes. Has he marked me? Also yes. I encourage men to mark me. I like it, both the act of putting it there and the feeling after, but I never mark them. I never talk to you about this stuff. You’re my baby brother. Some things are not open to discussion, and you need to accept that.”

I rubbed the centre of my chest where the buzzing had picked up.

“You’re hurting,” she said.

Sloane

Before the death of my parents, I’d lived quite the privileged life. Some of it I was aware of. We had money for the things we needed, and our family never argued about it, but the rest? I’d grown up in a household of love, where I was seen, cared for, my parents a constant presence in the background, making sure I was OK. When I’d gotten the news about their deaths, that was when I saw it, what I’d taken for granted—that continual warm regard, the feeling that no matter what happened, someone had my back. Em tried now, but…that wasn’t her burden to shoulder, so I’d gone without, until now. As I hovered on the edge of sleep and wakefulness, I felt like I lay within a golden cocoon of warmth. All that loss, that pain, it was muted, right up until I opened my eyes.

How many women go through this? Wake up after a night of what felt like the most intense sex you’d ever experienced, feeling like what happened transcended bumping uglies to get what you want, feeling like you’d made a connection, literally. My fingers found the incredibly sensitive spot on my neck, playing with the scarring flesh there with a gasp and a smile that soon faded as I rolled over. The space beside me was empty, and the place where Jace had slept was as cold as the knife sliding into my heart.

I’d run from this place, from him, from being an omega, and just when I’d finally accepted that, he’d run. I forced myself out of bed, finding a pile of clothes I assumed had been left for me, given their size, and got dressed before striding through the apartment. Not in the bathroom, not in the kitchen, the place had that still feeling of an empty house, because that was what this was. I shook my head, once, twice, then strode over to the elevator, punching the button hard. The wait for the carriage to come, then to take me down to the ground floor, felt like it went forever, but then it opened on a familiar sight. I scanned the long tables, saw everyone was there—the omegas, the alphas, and everyone else between, grabbing a bite to eat before they started their day, but not him. I searched the group, but knew I wouldn’t find him.