The Arrangement (Omegas of Hunter's Point Book 1)

Chapter 31

Von had come to when a secondhand shock of anger had popped in her chest, like wood in a campfire. She knew she was in a hospital. The antiseptic smell was unmistakable. She only questioned her presence there for the few seconds it took her brain to register that her shoulder throbbed, sharply. Dazed, she touched the gauze dressing and knew.

Her mind immediately denied it. It wasn't possible. She wasn't pair bond material. Her registration profile even said so, in big, red letters so no one would miss it. Damian had seen her registry file. He had to have. And Aily had, almost gleefully, revealed Von's dysfunction to him.

A cold clutch of apprehension bloomed in her belly. No, he knew how much her independence meant to her. He wouldn't be so cruel as to snatch it all away. Besides, no alpha would take a barren omega.

Except an alpha who didn't care about her defect.

At the gala...he'd proposed. He'd wanted her to be his mate for real. But he'd also said he'd wait for her decision.

She reeled. It wasn't a claiming mark. It couldn't be. She'd been attacked again. She just didn't remember it. And whoever had found her had taken her on a two-hour Metro ride to the most expensive hospital in the city...?

Damian found her.

Damian found her in the bathroom. He'd discovered her in estrous. A peak at his impressive appendage. His impressive appendage making her peek. Mind-blowing sex. Then...then...

Pain.

Her stomach dropped. It was done. Decision made. Choice gone. Her omega had wanted it to happen, and she had allowed it. Her stomach gave a sickening lurch. She was going to vomit. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught her own movement in a large, gilt-framed mirror hanging on the wall. There was only one way to know for sure.

She slid down out of the bed, pulling the laden I.V. stand along. The gauze was in the right place. Though, there were other reasons she'd be wounded there. Someone could have tried to cut her throat. Maybe she'd been mugged and was blocking it out.

The reflection staring back at her looked different. The change had been subtle. The woman looking back at her had skin that evanesced with an inner light. She'd heard that could happen sometimes when... Her brother Liam's gorgeous omega mate (Siri? Seri?) had arrived at their pairing announcement party, her claiming mark still healing, her skin glowing like the sun.

Mate.

She pulled the stained gauze away, slowly, wincing when it stuck to the wound in places. Though still grotesquely swollen and discolored, the crescent-shaped wound was very clearly a bite.

A claiming mark.

Mate. Checkmate. She'd lost the game.

Instantly, the part of her that had been conditioned from her earliest memories to want this sang out in joyous chorus. She'd been chosen! An alpha had deemed her worthy, the perfect flower for his house.

His house. Not her house. His rules. Not hers. His life. She didn't get to have one anymore. Her accounts, her property (what little of it there was), her future...they were all his, by law. It wasn't permitted for a claimed omega to work outside the home. That meant no more teaching.

Her heart contracted in despair. No more seeing students light up when they finally understood a concept that eluded them. No more imbuing her annual roster of temporary wards with a passion for, and an understanding of, their people's shared past. No more faculty meetings where she could contribute and be heard.

But she'd been mated, her omega chimed in. She didn't have to bother with pesky things like making her own decisions or earning her own way. She had someone to do that for her, as she should! She was at long last as she should be, claimed by her alpha.