Good Girl by Sam Hall

Chapter 29

“I’m teaching you archery,” Brendan said down the phone line.

“What?”

I was lying on my bed, phone to my ear, talking to a hot alpha like I’d always imagined I would when I was a teen, but he wasn’t whispering sweet, dirty, nothings. He was talking about arming me.

“I took a look at what you’re wearing. You’ll look freaking amazing in it, but that quiver… We could add a small compound bow to that and some real arrows, along with the knives on the thigh sheaths you’ll wear.”

“Yes, alpha,” I said sarcastically, but I caught the brief whistle of his breath in response to that.

“I want you to have as many weapons as possible and the skills to use them. I’ll come by in the morning and start training you.”

“Kai said we could come to her gym. She’ll reinforce what we practise as much as she can, but she teaches self-defence, not attack,” I replied.

“If she’s got you blocking and breaking holds, I’ll feel a lot better about this,” Brendan said, “but we’ll stay close to your place. Shooting arrows won’t do much for the state of Kai’s walls.” He sighed. “Haven’t got much more about Benson. Orion is hardly ever here anymore, and Marcus? He just looks through me, like the past few years were nothing.”

“You need to get out of there,” I said, and not for the first time. We’d had a few conversations like this now, the rush when I saw his name on my phone display shaming me as much as it thrilled me. “You don’t have to stay there.”

“I know. I talked to Mum. She’s offered me my old room back.” He snorted at that. “But I’m looking around. For a new job, a new place, a new everything after this. We’ve just got to get past that fucking ball…” I could hear his fingers scraping down his cheek, still way too stubbly. “When that’s done, when I know you’re safe, that’s when I can make plans. Maybe I can get Rhys to come with me, get back to the way things were.”

Before me, I thought, stung, knowing he didn’t mean it that way.

“Maybe then… Maybe you could…come and visit or something?”

“What do you think Brendan’s intentions are?” my therapist had asked. “He’s an alpha, you’re an omega. He wanted you as his mate before. Do you think that’s changed? Do you want it to?”

“I…” The syllable stretched out as I thought, as I saw her gentle smile, her even gaze that seemed to see everything with calm equanimity. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve done such a good job of asserting yourself, of making sure you get answers rather than allowing people to manoeuvre you around.”

So why haven’t you asked him about this? the unspoken question went.

“I’ll ask him,” I assured her.

“What…?” I moved my mouth, the question on the tip of my tongue, ready to be spoken. I just needed to do it. My heart raced, thundering in my ears, almost drowning him out, but of course, it didn’t. I could hear him waiting in the more rapid intake of his breath. “What do you want from me?”

His groan, when it came, was almost like a full body caress, parts of me that I’d thought had died resurrecting so abruptly, my head spun. It was a sound of need and pain and desire, and it cocooned my body in an unholy warmth.

“Baby, you don’t want to ask me that.”

“I’m done keeping quiet, remember?” I replied, my voice way harsher than I would have dared but not as harsh as I wanted it to be. “If I ask, I want to know.”

“OK. I get that. I said before, if it’s mine to give you, I’ll give you it, but… Fuck, Cyn, I’m trying to be good here. I’m fucking rigid every time I hear your voice or smell your scent, and that’s not OK. You don’t need that from me.”

Don’t I?I thought. I wasn’t so sure about that.

“But if you want my five-year plan, it’s this. Nothing’s changed for me. It’s still you, Cyn. I’ve never stopped wanting you…” A pause that seemed to go on forever. “Loving you. We didn’t talk about that before. I could see things moving faster with Rhys, was willing to wait until we’d spent a bit more time together, getting to know each other, seeing if you liked me that way too. Do I want that still? Fuck yes, Cyn. Fuck. Yes. Every day with every fucking breath, but honestly, I’ll take whatever I can get. Some alpha I am, but I’m not gonna huff and puff and blow your house down. I want to help you get through this problem and the next, and if that’s all I ever am to you, just a shoulder to cry on, someone to lean on? Well, that’d be my fucking honour.”

For the first time in what felt like an age, tears pricked my eyes, but not from pain. Or at least not an awful one. I was glad he wasn’t here to see it, to watch me calm my breathing, claw back my composure.

“I need to see Rhys,” I said, abruptly changing the topic, unable to pursue that one anymore. I’d reached my limits on that particular thread and had to move on before I broke. He seemed to recognise that, releasing a small laugh, low-down and dirty, like he saw more than he possibly could but was willing to let me take the lead.

“I know. I’ve been scoping out Marcus’ timetable. He doesn’t leave here often unless he has to, but he has to tomorrow. Gotta meet with Len and his boys about some issues with alcohol distribution. I’m supposed to be his backup, but I’ve told him that’s done. I’ve got a place here until I don’t want it, he’s made that clear, but everything else is done. I’m done.”

The sound of him shifting on his bed, making me see him lying there on top of crumpled sheets. Was he shirtless? Dressed in only those ridiculously brief rugby shorts, the silky fabric draping—

“You still there?”

“Yep,” I replied sharply, something that made him chuckle.

“I’m yours, Cyn, until you don’t need me anymore. That’s all I have planned. And when you’re done, I’ll work something out then. I always do.”

I should’ve said something, feeling the need to ease that wistful tone, but I couldn’t, didn’t, so he just sighed and said, “I’ll be there at your doorstep at nine-thirty, and then I’ll show you how to fight like an omega.”

“Clumsily? Weakly?” I said with a snort.

“In a way that brings alphas to their knees.”

This was a bad,bad, bad idea. I was downstairs in my training gear as soon as I heard the roar of Brendan’s car engine. I shut the door behind me, then turned and froze.

Male alphas didn’t often wear shorts, because they were positively pornographic. The shorts didn’t cover a whole lot, his muscular thighs on display, and all I could do was stare as he strode closer. His torso wasn’t much better, an old worn jersey pulled over the top, stretching tight around his biceps and chest.

“You all right, Cyn?” he asked, looking concerned. I belatedly saw the duffel bag full of weapons he was toting.

“Um…sure. We’ll do this in the backyard, yeah? The neighbours are already gonna shit bricks.”

“Sounds good.”

Yep,bad idea. He was walking me through a stretching routine, much like Kai did, but I didn’t get lady wood with my trainer. Both of them corrected my form with small impersonal touches, but I didn’t pull out of stretches with graceful sinuous movements with her, my body like some sort of preening cat, while my prefrontal cortex had a very stern conversation with it, dragging up all the highlights of How These Alphas Broke My Heart. So why, as I straightened up, did my eyes drop down, sliding over his body like my fingers twitched to do, taking in the very apparent reaction he was having to me?

He grimaced, reaching down and rearranging the lump in his pants into what was apparently a more comfortable position.

“Look, love, I’m sorry. It’s not something I can control. Since the moment I first saw you, I’ve been rigid, but I can ignore it if you can.”

I could. I absolutely could. I nodded and then said, “Knives or archery first?”

“Archery you can practise any time once I’ve shown you the basics, so we’ll start with that. I spoke to Madam, and she’s given me the dimensions of the bow and quiver she intended to use. This is the smallest I could find that also looked decorative enough to pass as an adornment.”

He pulled out a bow that looked like it was made of wheels, pulleys, and filigree, the silvery chrome finish glittering in the sunlight. All my Katniss Everdeen induced wet dreams had manifested in the hands of an alpha.

“It’s a compound bow, so the pull is nowhere near as brutal as a conventional bow would be. I spoke to the bloke at the place that sold them, and he said this was one that omegas tend to favour. We’ll give it a few experimental pulls, then start shooting. So to shoot a bow properly, your stance is important.”

He stood with his legs spread apart, one foot in front of the other, slapping his thighs to draw my attention. Yeah, that was not needed at all. I was looking.

“So you hold the bow out like this.” The thing looked tiny in his grip, but he wouldn’t be the one to shoot it. “Arm out in line with your shoulder, and then draw it using these two fingers. Your draw arm should also be in line with your shoulder. You might need to take this to a fitting, ensure you have enough movement in the dress for that, and get her to make alterations.”

“She could make it strapless I think,” I replied, which drew his gaze. His eyes trailed over me, as if imagining just that, then nodded.

“OK, let’s give it a go with what you have on, just to get your stance good and strong and see how drawing the bow feels.”

I wasn’tsure what shooting an arrow would feel like, but I liked this. It was a bit like the warrior pose in yoga, and I felt strong when doing it. Hadn’t let an arrow fly yet, but y’know, I took any moment that made me feel empowered these days.

“Good, I just need to… Just gonna correct your stance a little.”

His tone was positively nervous for an alpha, and I soon felt why. He slotted his body in around mine, widening my legs and lining my feet up better, then lifting my front arm while lowering the other a little.

“You need that straight line,” he said, running a hand across my arms. “It tells the arrow where to go. Straight initially and at close range, that’d be likely all you need. Just wing him if he starts anything.”

“Who?”

“Benson, Orion, I dunno. Every one of those snooty fucks who are circling you.”

“Orion is your snooty fuck.”

“Not anymore.” He was still holding me in this position, his mouth against my ear, the hard line of his body supporting mine. “The man I mated, he wouldn’t do this, would have kicked Benson in the fucking nuts for even thinking this shit. Maybe I made him up. Maybe he was never real.”

My stance faltered, the bow dipping down as I turned to face him, seeing the pain writ clearly on his face. It made me frown, my eyes narrowing as I watched him so bloody closely. Was this what it looked like, the pain of betrayal? It tugged at me, not leaving me alone until my traitorous omega hand reached up, cupping his cheek and stroking it.

“It hurts, y’know. I’ve lived, loved, been with him for so fucking long, and to find out…” His eyes fluttered, but when they met mine, they hardened. “What am I saying? You know. Of course you do.” He kissed my knuckles briefly, leaving the butterfly soft sensation there long after he turned me around and had me practise pulling the bow.

“Deep breath in, then release.”

I had an arrow nocked in the bow, my eye following the line of it, matching it to the knot in the tree I was aiming for. I did as he said, took a breath, feeling the sounds around me drop away, and released the arrow.

Only for it to soar over the grass and bury itself in the dirt, metres from my target.

“Shit.”

“Don’t stress,” he said. “It was your first shot. You let the bow dip a little when you took that breath. Gotta make sure your stance is strong and you relax into it, not relax your whole body. I’ll show you.”

An evil part of me wondered if this was foreplay. It felt like it, the way he was forced to jam his body against mine, showing me how to shoot arrow after arrow until I started to get a feel for it, but any prickling sexual tension dissipated the minute I shot an arrow myself. By the feeling as it soared through the air, somehow I knew it was going to make it, and it did. The steel tip buried itself in the tree with a thunk I felt all through me, my stance ruined as I thrust my arms up with a whoop.

“Fuck! I did it! I fucking did it.”

“So you did, clever girl,” he said in a low rumble as I wrapped my arms around him, grabbing me around the waist and swinging me around, but it was when we came to a stop that the trouble started.

I told myself that this was me being a little selfish, grabbing a small moment of pleasure, but was it? I didn’t know, but I stared down at his lips, watching them purse under my inspection, then part as I darted closer.

“Cyn—”

I silenced him with my mouth, just a harsh press of lips, but that was never going to be enough. I slid down his body, bow dropping to the ground as my hands buried themselves in his hair. I’d been so good, holding back, not crawling back to the club the day after I’d left, anything to stop the pain, but there was no pain here, only Bren, Bren, Bren, and a need beating inside my heart along with its rapid pulse.

“I’m sorry.”

I pulled away, jerking free, touching my now swollen lips, the way the skin around them was scored by his stubble like they were the lips of someone else. He lunged after me, then pulled himself up, his hands flexing as he sucked in breaths, sucked in my perfume.

“Don’t be,” he replied belatedly. His smile, so fucking bright, appeared and disappeared. “Jesus, Cyn, I never thought that’d ever happen again. I’ve been poring over the memories of you, of the way you feel, like an old bloke would his war photos, trying to fix it in my mind. I…” He took a long breath in and out. “I’m not gonna hassle you for more, but that was…” His gaze speared into mine, pinning me to the spot. “That was fucking everything.”

And it was. I didn’t need to reply, couldn’t say a thing, just stood there, until finally, he pulled back and started putting me through the basics of knife fighting.

I could have donewith a knife right now. I sat in the passenger seat of Brendan’s car, fidgeting. Something to split my skin, let all the calamity building inside me out, would have been just dandy, as I felt too full, too tight.

“It’ll be OK,” Bren assured me, taking his hand off the gear stick to grab my hand and squeeze it. No more of a gesture than what his mother had done, but it didn’t feel the same. We both knew that what was coming wouldn’t feel the same either.

If I was antsy on the drive over, that was nothing compared to when we pulled up at the club. Brendan parked on the street, seeming to know going into the parking garage was not gonna be OK, taking my hand and walking us into the side entrance. A staff member saw him and approached, but he waved his hand in response.

“I’m gonna take Cyn to see Rhys and then we’re leaving. If you want to still be breathing in the morning, you won’t be telling Orion or Marcus about that,” Brendan said with a growl.

He seemed like an average guy, Brendan, and then he brought me bags full of weapons and spoke to other people with a kind of controlled ferocity I could only gape at. He waited for the man to nod, then drew me deeper, deeper into hell.

Because that was where Rhys was, or purgatory at best. The smell hit me as soon as Brendan unlocked the door, and he paused, looking at me apologetically before walking in first. Just in case there was a threat, he put himself between Rhys and me, a wall of muscle and determination.

We were on the wall. That same big screen TV I’d seen Marcus and Orion together on played a video on repeat. I could only stare at it, wide-eyed. There was me, a shadowy figure in the low light, rearranging fabric into my nest, my now expert eye sniffing at my previous efforts. Nesting was a part of me, and I was starting to learn my preferences there. It was assumed that omegas liked silks and satins, velvets and furs, but I didn’t. I like half destroyed fabrics—cottons that had been worn thin and smooth, open weaved knits and things that stretched around me, as tight as I needed to replicate their embrace.

But Rhys didn’t watch this with me, the replay of our mating. He was a dark lump on the bed, partially covered by a mess of blankets. I heard his long slow breaths, heard the little whimpers and cries and felt them pricking at my skin.

If this were a fairy tale, we had it all wrong. It should have been me sleeping the slumber of the dead, with him, the handsome alpha prince, leaning over to kiss me awake, but as I crept closer, I guessed it made sense. I didn’t want to be found, discovered, awakened, not anymore. I wanted to do the awakening.

Didn’t I?

I moved to the side of the bed and saw the matted, greasy fall of Rhys’ hair. It wouldn’t feel like feathers anymore, it would catch on my fingers and leave a residue. But I dropped lower as Brendan moved restlessly around the bed’s edge.

“Rhys.”

That came out in mouse whisper, so it was no surprise he didn’t respond. I swallowed hard and knelt down on the mattress, freezing when he began to shift. His face emerged from the matt of hair and his pillow, his nose questing. He had a scent of me.

“Rhys.”

I was much firmer, louder now, and his brows creased, his eyelids fluttering. He was swimming up out of sleep, about to crest.

“Rhys.”

That time was different. I wasn’t a mouse or a friend politely inquiring after his health. I was his mate, estranged and forced away from him, the bite he’d left healing long after the rest of me was still bleeding.

“Rhys.”

I placed a hand on his shoulder, ready to shake him if that was what it took. The part of me that had wedded itself to him was done waiting. Pain had kept her back, whipped her and forced her deep into her burrow, but she was no longer cowed. Cyn and Rhys might be having issues, but the omega was before her alpha and she wanted out.

He reared back, a blinking monolith, a massive hand reaching for me, snagging me around the waist and dragging me under the ripe smelling bed linens. His body covered mine, surrounding me, providing a wall between me and the rest of the world, but he didn’t see me, not yet. The alpha was in control, growling at Bren when he got close, which allowed Rhys to come online. His eyes blinked madly, as if he didn’t believe what they were telling him. Finally, he said, “Cyn?”