Hearts of Deceit (ManxMan)

Ch 18: Regrets

When I was young, I had a very sharp bite of a memory in my head of five-year-old me and my mother going to some Wiccan shop on a street corner of Tulach Hills where the cicadas were especially prominent. The white noise of there frenzied buzzing blurred together in the background of the memory as we walked into the funky smelling shop. The first book I spotted was a detailed guide on astral projection. The  way the old lady behind the counter explained it would be much the way I felt at the moment. 

I was no longer Conrad, standing and observing the ordered chaos of the firefighters or the paramedics. I was above it all, somewhere, a few feet, looking down at my pale and trembling body hugging itself in the chill of the night. Thoughts of Elise, of her fate, of the last words said between us were some distant memory that belonged to some stranger I had never known. They didn't feel like my own. 

There was numbness as I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was easy to believe that no feeling could possibly come back to me again. Everything hurt too much.

"Conrad." I blinked. The voice was rough. Angry. No. Furious. The hand on my shoulder tightened. I tried to pry myself away but was turned around instead to face a well tailored suit and a black tie. I hardly had to look up to know that a certain very pissed alpha was standing before me, if not for the scent of rage that threatened to engulf  me as his alpha pheromones went crazy, than at least for the grim scowl that had taken over his face. 

He motioned to a sleek black car that blended in with the night. "Get in." His voice was tight. Quiet. I couldn't read anything in his eyes but it certainly couldn't be anything good. I took a shaky step back but his tight grip remained, growing ever tighter. 

"Ross, I..." I tried to start off with a reasonable tone. Apparently, that was very much no bueno. 

"Get in." His voice was louder. Much louder. Very no nonsense and all that. A few firefighters still on the scene looked over. 

At this point, there was no fighting it. I had broken a rule that was an important stipulation of the deal, and I could see it was taking everything within Ross to keep himself from absolutely blowing up. The only mystery here was why he cared. At the moment, I was overstimulated.  My mind had little to no capacity in trying to go about answering such questions. I hesitantly walked to the backseat. If I had any say in any of this, it was that I refused to sit shotgun. 

The ride was long. I didn't pay much attention to our destination. Thoughts of Elise and our last words hounded me. Thoughts of the little control I had over my life before meeting Hans quickly slipping away from my tenuous grasp also jumped around my head and not enough breathing exercises in the world could keep my heart steady. 

The ride was quiet for a  while creating just the perfect setting for me to drop myself down a few dozen rabbit holes over the next hour or so. Ross eventually did speak.

"You're going to be staying with us for now. The Blue Dragons are after you. This was a warning."

I grit my teeth. Couldn't he just let me grieve in peace before dropping another bombshell? I went to protest. He quickly interceded. 

"I'm sorry. It's too dangerous for you to work there. It's for your own good. Understand?" He looked back at me with steely gray eyes through the rearview mirror. They narrowed when I didn't respond. 

"Doesn't matter if you don't. Whine all you want. We have to take care of you."

I clenched my jaw and continued to stare out the window, stubbornly refusing to meet his gaze. I wasn't going to cry. I was a grown man. I wasn't some fragile omega. I wouldn't cry. Not in front of him. Nope. The tears were definitely not ready to spill. Bastards, I thought. Is this what omegas had to deal with? Did all omegas fear losing any and all prospects of happiness with a single word from their alpha? Their parents denying them school, their siblings keeping them single, their mates refusing to let them work. In this day and age, most omegas were not as likely as in the past to live with such oppressive family but archaic control laws hadn't been changed yet in some areas.