Sugar Coated

54

Delaney Linwood

It wasn't freeing and a weight didn't lift off my shoulders the second it was off. Instead, my hands shook like I was holding a weedwhacker and the only thing that kept me from hyperventilating was the feel of Jax's hand covering my throat where the collar had been moments before.

My mind stayed nearly completely blank save the one comical image of a horrendous tan line around my neck, which was half trying to send me into a fit of laughter that I knew might end in tears.

My grandmother's necklace.

It was a tiny and insignificant thing when I saw the scrap of fabric in my hand. It looked so much smaller than it did in the mirror.

He didn't lean in to kiss the space it had left behind and I didn't quite know what I would have done if he did all my thoughts going haywire in my head like static on a TV, every thought crashing together until you couldn't make out anything.

My teeth clicked together when I shut my mouth, trying to form words to make any of the thoughts in my head real, "You'd have thought I'd die when I took it off from how she acted like my life depended on me wearing it." The dark velvet of the choke was nearly threadbare on the section that lay against my neck, I ran my thumb over it like it was some small fragile creature.

I flipped the ivory pendant until I could see the design, an unbloomed flower. "It'd been a gift for my grandmother, from one of the alphas in her pack. A flower because her name was Lily."

While Jax was quiet as the words tumbled out, his hand continued stroking the line of my neck with enough strength behind them that their grip kept me close to his chest.

"They hurt her. Don't know how mom never elaborated, but she ran the next day, convinced they'd done it because grandma was a Beta and mom believed she was next."

"Do you remember it?"

Remember it? "I don't think I was born yet," I paused at the thought racking my brain for anything that told me otherwise, but nothing surfaced when I trawled the bottom of the pond in my mind, "Everything she ever talked about made it sound like I was an unhappy afterthought." The idea stung more than it used to when it came with the suspicion that Mom had known what I was.

"Did she ever mention your father?"

No. "Never."

"Did you ever wonder–?"

"Always," the word was out of my mouth before he'd even finished his question. "What kind of man would have loved her," I stopped myself, "though I suppose there are other circumstances than love that could have made me...but I'd hoped he'd been the kind to love...the kind that would have wanted something better for me than her...the kind that would have done something if he'd known."

"Given that you're an omega, Doll...there is the chance your father was one too. It's not always the case, but there is precedent for designations having some basis in heredity."

"Either that or I was just so desperately unlucky," when I squeezed the ivory even the rounded edge of it felt sharp against the meat of my hand. "Is there anything left of me that she hasn't had the opportunity to take?"

Jax kissed my temple, "You are so much more than the pieces that have been taken from you." His hand found mine and with gentle fingers, he eased the grip I had on the necklace, "You can put it down, Doll. Every ounce and every pound you can put it down or give it to us. We can take it. I promise."

His hand dwarfed mine where it rested in his, the ivory charm I'd been disgusted by sat perfect and polished holding my attention like a wreck on the side of the road, "I'm not ready yet to let it go."