That was my opening. I should take the chance to explain how much of myself I’d devoted to the club. How empty I felt without it.
I couldn’t find the words.
Instead, I lifted my hand, examining the numbers on my knuckles.
She reached out to caress them, then grabbed my hand and brought it to her lips for a light kiss. “Can I ask about these? What do the numbers mean?”
I swallowed dryly. The empty living room felt like a boundless cavern around us, a space that would amplify my words for all to hear. Those numbers and my love for the club; both were private. Only to be shared with the people closest to me.
I could ask to take the conversation back to her nest, but I had a feeling I would feel just as exposed there.
So, I whispered my answer to her.
“They’re symbols of what I survived. My father isn’t a kind man, and he never liked me. Each number is an age when he nearly broke me down and either killed me, or made me into the cruel man he wanted me to be. An age when I resisted and lived.”
She kissed each number on the hand she held.
“The Alpha Chariots were all I had,” I continued, the words flowing out like water from a broken dam. “I wanted to tear down my father’s legacy and prove I could do better than him. I wanted to keep them safe from his greed and selfishness. But in the end, I lost. They all trust him to lead over me because he always told them I was nothing. I was trying to keep the one bright part of my childhood from blowing up, and they would rather burn than believe in me.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to ignore the stinging sensation of coming tears. I’d told her my feelings, but I couldn’t cry. As her alpha and as the pack lead, I couldn’t afford to break down. I would stay strong for all of them.
Then her fingers brushed my lips and I snapped my eyes open again. She was staring at me with glistening hazelnut eyes, her nose red at the tip.
Was she crying for me?
Fuck me, I never should have said anything. What kind of alpha was I if I made my omega cry?
“Hey, hey,” I murmured, cupping her cheek. “It’s fine. I have you now.”
“I believe in you.” Talia sniffled as she said it. “It’s ridiculous that they didn’t.”
It made sense that they didn’t, on some level. Pops always said I was too merciful, too kind, too dumb to run the business side. I’d never been given much freedom to show them he was wrong, but I’d tried to in any way I could.
Stupidly, I’d thought the club members were watching and seeing the flaws in his logic.
Turned out only Gears and Hawk were observant enough to catch on.
“Not their fault. Pops?—”
“No, itistheir fault,” she said vehemently. “They’re all idiots for not seeing it. You care about everyone, Mercer, but you can do what needs to be done. Even my fathers can see that, and they’ve barely spent any time with you. How can the people you grew up around be so fucking blind?”
She surged up and claimed my lips in a kiss. Her frustration came through in the intensity of it, in how she wrapped her arms around me and held me so tightly it almost hurt.
I was weak to her kiss. By the time she pulled back, I was falling to pieces, tears streaming down my face.
Shit.
I couldn’t even try to rub them away. Talia saw them before I could, and kissed me again, softer this time.
“I promise you’ll be appreciated here, Mercer. The betrayal might not hurt any less, but you’ll have our confidence, always. You can build something better than what you had before, with people who want you to lead them because you’re a good leader.”
She was an angel, truly. Benjamin hadn’t taken care of her light and had tried his best to extinguish it, but I would nurture it like the miracle it was.
My omega shouldn’t have to take care of me like this. It was my job to make her feel better, not the other way around.
Yet, she didn’t want a tough, unemotional version of me. She wanted everything. Every experience that had shaped me into the man she met at that bar however many weeks ago. Even the ones that threatened to break me when I remembered them.
“I love you so fucking much.” I kissed each cheek in turn, then her lips. “That isn’t something I like to talk about, but you… You made it tolerable. And now you know how much it hurt to hear they were hunting us down like dogs.”
