Chapter 26 EXPOSED
SEBASTIAN’S POV
My head won’t stop pounding.
The walls in his office feel too close with everything tasting unfamiliar and fishy at the back of my throat.
The air smells like Alpha Ragnar and that alone is enough to make my chest ache worse.
He’s gone.
Again.
Just like before.
“You shouldn’t be angry with me,” Alisander says pacing in my head.
“It had to be done.”
“Had to be done?!” The nerve of this bastard.
“You hurt him, Alisander! You bit him–why? He trusted us!”
Alisander scoffs, turning away. “Trust doesn’t help you in this scenario. I did what was necessary since both of you are big chickens.”
My hands shake in anger. “Necessary for what?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Say something, Alisander!” I shout.
“I did say something,” he snaps. “You just don’t want to hear it.”
“You think you can keep hiding behind your fear Sebastian? You think the pack hates you because they’re cruel? No. They hate you because you’re weak and for whatever reason, were mated to the strongest Alpha in the region so yes I had to do something!.”
The words hit harder than a blow.
I take a step back, throat closing. “That’s not true.”
“It is!” He snarls. “You cower. You submit and let them walk all over you and then act surprised when they do it again.”
“Stop.”
“Even Ragnar–” His voice drops but is now sharper. “He pities you, you know. That’s why he looks at you the way he does Sebastian. You’re nothing but a burden to him.”
“STOP!” I scream aloud.
The air cracks and lightning flares brightly in front of me blowing me away until I fall and hit the wall.
My ears ring and I feel like I'm underwater.
For a moment, I mentally see Alisander actually looking startled with his eyes wide open–before his mouth curves into a bitter, almost proud smirk.
“There he is,” he mutters. “Heaven knows I'm tired of babying and shielding you.”
I turn away my jaw tight, refusing to even speak to him.
His words dig deep and true but they clawed open wounds that never truly healed.
The forbidden memory of my childhood plays like a soundtrack inside my head.
People are staring at me and whispering following me through pack corridors. A submissive Omega.
AProblem
A mistake.
“You don’t understand,” I whisper. “You don’t have to live with everyone’s disgust and the faces that look at you hating your identity.”
I sniff even loudly. “Do you all think I would have picked being a submissive Omega if I could have?!”
When Alisander finally speaks again, his voice is quieter. “Sebastian…”
I don’t answer.
He steps even closer in my mind,his presence heavy and brushing against the bond we share. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Seb–”
“Just–stop talking!” My voice cracks. “Please.”
He goes still.
The bond hums faintly between us, his regret bleeding through it in waves I don’t even bother to acknowledge.
I'm too tired to question what caused the lightning earlier on. I need air, space.
Somewhere that doesn’t smell like Alpha Ragnar and the shame I'm feeling.
The pack paths are dim with the moonlight filtering weakly through the trees.
I keep my head down, pulling my hood low as I scurry back home.
Every sound or critter from the forest makes my nerves jump in awareness.
I’m painfully aware that if anyone notices it even asks why my scent smells just like the Alpha's?
I don't know what I'll do.
Alpha Ragnar has made it clear from the start that this arrangement is to be private.
My scent is saying otherwise with the way it seems like I'm bathed entirely with Alpha Ragnar’s scent.
Alpha Ragnar.
If anyone notices or asks–
Don’t think about it.
I take the longer route almost skirting the edge of the pack's territory avoiding patrol wolves and people.
My cottage finally comes into view nestled at the edge of the woods and I sigh in relief.
Home.
I reach for the door.
And it swings open too easily.
My breath catches behind my throat.
The smell hits first. It doesn't smell like me. It smells like spray paint and sweat.
“No,” I whisper.
I step inside and my world tilts.
The entire place is trashed.
My furniture is overturned, shelves ripped apart and canvases are slashed.
Red paint is smeared like blood across the floor with my art supplies scattered everywhere.
My chest tightens painfully.
“No no no no–”
I frantically move my heart pounding as I rush to the far wall in my bedroom.
I don’t care about the furniture, I don’t care about the mess, I only care about the painting.
His paintings.
Please.
One by one, I check them and tuck them back in carefully when I see that they're all intact and not damaged.
Alpha Ragnar’s face stares back at me from my painting again and again as I check one after the other until I'm sure.
They’re still here.
Relief crashes over me so hard I nearly fall.
But then I freeze.
The newest one.
The one I just finished last night.
It’s gone.
My breath stutters in panic. “No–no!”
I spin around wildly frantically searching everywhere for it.
Then I see it.
On the desk.
My painting lies flat on the desk, pinned down by a short dagger plunged cleanly through the paper and right into the wood beneath.
Bright red paint deliberating smears across the canvas.
Two words are scrawled across the canvas right on Ragnar’s face.
ADULTEROUS WHORE.
Something inside me breaks.
The sound that leaves my throat isn’t quite a sob, it's too raw and deep to be called a sob.
My vision blurs as I stagger forward, my hands clutching uselessly at my chest.
“They know,” I whisper.
Alisander also goes still. I feel his shock ripple through the bond.
“They know,” I repeat, louder now with hysteria creeping in. “They know and they hate me and they’ll expose us and Alpha Ragnar will reject me and–”
My legs give out as shame pours over me in suffocating waves.
Suddenly every whispered insult feels real.
I did this.
So I deserve this.
My body curls in on itself on the floor as sobs wrack through me. I can’t stop shaking.
Adulterous.
Whore.
“Sebastian,” Alisander says softly now. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t answer, I feel exposed in my own home.