Chapter Eight — Victim

What the fuck had gotten into him? Joseph couldn’t believe himself. She had seen him staring at her! What was wrong with him? He wasn’t a teenager anymore who was infatuated by the sight of her smile. Though he couldn’t deny she had been stunning as she reveled in the warm sun rays hitting her face. She was still bruised, but most of her injuries faded away with every passing day. By now, he could see how beautiful she was underneath them.

He pushed those thoughts to the side quickly. Joseph took care of the generator, pleased to see that the fuel had held up better than he had anticipated with two people living in the house right now. And, once they were back inside, Maria prepared hot coffee to warm him up again, only leaving the bedroom afterward to prepare their meals.

Too deep in his head, he forgot to tell her how delicious it was once more. Maybe that was the reason why she immediately, after cleaning the dishes, had retired into her nest again. Joseph moved to the couch and pulled up his manuscript for a final read-through before he would, given the power would return soon, send it off to his editor. But he couldn’t concentrate on his words on the page. His mind returned to her and her nest.

Maria had moved it from under the bed and onto the mattress, into his bed. He liked to believe it was because she started to feel more comfortable around him. That she knew he was no threat to her. When she had stood on the porch earlier, she had also lost the ever-present smell of anxiety in her scent revealing the true sweetness she carried.

After working hard to get the path to the shed free of snow again, his knee begged for the relief of a warm bath, but he would wait until later tonight when he was certain she was asleep. Then he could be certain they didn’t get in each other’s way. Staying away from her would probably be the best plan. He didn’t need any more baggage beside his own. He leaned his head back over the backrest of the couch and closed his eyes. One hand came down to his aching knee while he took in deep, calming breaths, hoping to clear his mind from his unwelcome feelings toward his temporary house guest.

Her soft footsteps seemed like an illusion before her sweet scent, laced with the nervousness which always seemed to surround her, became stronger. When he opened his eyes, he found her standing awkwardly by the other end of the couch.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his brows furrowed in concern. She fiddled with the too-long sleeves of his sweater while sucking on her lower lip.

“I-I’m a little bored,” she eventually said and glanced at the built-in bookshelves framing the fireplace. “Do you mind if I pick out a book?”

“Of course not. As long as you are here, mi casa es su casa.”

A shy smile tugged on her lips and his heartstrings. He watched her scan the book titles and stop at the level with the books that definitely stood out.

She frowned and laid her head to the side. Joseph braced himself for the inevitable questions.

“Henry Becomes a Policeman,” she whispered and continued down the collection of children’s books, “Henry and the Thief. Henry and the Lost Book.”

She turned around with a more obvious smile, but growing sadness in her blue eyes. “Do you have children?”

“No, but nephews.” Joseph massaged his knee while she pulled out the first book.

“Do they visit you often?”

“No, not really.”

“Then why do you have those books?”

“Because I wrote them,” Joseph admitted and smirked at her almost shocked expression.

Maria let her hand slide over the cover and narrowed her eyes at the name of the author. “So, Alma Holt is your pseudonym? Why?”

“Alma is my sister. We thought it would make more sense for a Beta to write children’s books than for an Alpha.” He paused for a moment before he continued in a lower voice, “It also helps to avoid any connection with my name. It used to be in the media… a few years ago.”

“Why?” Maria asked bluntly and still held the book in her hands.

“I don’t want to speak about it.” Joseph shouldn’t have brought it up. “Just like you don’t want to talk about what happened to you.”

She pulled her brows together and for the first time, there was something else in her scent, something akin to anger. Sharp and almost like concentrated peppermint.

“That’s something completely different.”

He arched an eyebrow and laid his head to the side. “Is that so?”

“Yes, you are an Alpha. Nobody… You’re not… You don’t know what it’s like to be a victim.”

He was certain he had misheard, but even when he gave her the chance to set it straight, she only continued.

“You don’t know what it’s like to wonder if he will ever stop hitting you or if you will survive the night,” she argued and her anger became more piercing in his nose until he couldn’t hold back his own rage anymore.

“I know exactly what that feels like, Omega! How do you think I busted my knee? Huh? By slipping or what?”

His roaring voice bounced back from the walls, echoing from the high ceiling above the loft. It had an immediate effect on Maria. She dropped the book and her cheeks lost all color. She took a step back and swallowed thickly with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered and waves of her sour distress flooded the room.

Joseph knew he had fucked up, greatly. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face, trying to calm himself. When he looked up at her again to apologize, she was already gone. The next thing he heard was the bedroom door closing and he knew he had blown it big time.

“Fuck,” he muttered and contemplated going after her, but that would only scare her more. Time. They both needed time to calm down again. Tomorrow morning, he would apologize and… No, he couldn’t tell her what had happened. She didn’t need to know he had killed a man in self-defense and all that had gone wrong afterward.

***

For the following two hours, he thought about telling her everything, coming clean and maybe explaining why he lived out here by himself and why his knee was the burden it was. Then, she would understand and not ask questions that might rile him up. The last thing he wanted was to scare her and confirm that all men, all Alphas, would eventually hurt her.

In the end, he decided to wait until she was ready to approach him. Joseph could only guess how her life had been this far. The little snippets of indoctrination he had seen this far made his guts curl up painfully. If she had been so regulated before—how and when she was supposed to eat, how to approach an Alpha and how to behave from dawn ‘til dusk—living out here with little to no rules and consequences must be a total culture shock to her system. Perhaps she needed a bit more time to find her personality again.

His train of thought was eventually interrupted by the soft click of the bedroom door opening. Joseph perked his ears to make out if she only went to the bathroom, joined him in the living room again, or if she had lost her mind and attempted to leave the house again. The scent of her distress crept heavily through the air, drowning out the comforting smell of the fireplace crackling peacefully. She had a thick blanket wrapped around her when she sneaked into the kitchen and turned on the tap to fill a glass with the cold water.

Apparently, she felt his eyes on her because when she was done, she turned her head to the side and revealed wet streaks down her cheeks. Joseph’s heart sank. He had made her cry. Great work, and he was probably not the first Alpha to do so. So much for making her feel comfortable around him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice hoarse and tiny in the big room.

“Me too.” Joseph offered her a soft smile. “You didn’t know. I shouldn’t have flipped like that.”

She shivered and nodded, looking almost longingly toward the couch.

“Do… do you mind if I stay a little bit?”

He had not expected that after their last conversation. “No, of course not. Are you all right?”

She nodded and sniffed against her tears as she shuffled closer. “Just had a nightmare.”

He remembered those from his recovery. It felt like being trapped in a never-ending loop. Every night he lived through that moment again, sometimes like it had happened, sometimes he hadn’t managed to grab his gun and shoot, sometimes his attacker grabbed the gun and shot the pregnant girlfriend first and then Joseph. Even now as he thought back to them, his hands turned cold and sweaty.

Maria sat down at the far end of the couch and pulled her feet up, still wrapped burrito-style in his comforter. She clutched onto her glass of water and looked out of the window, watching the light snowfall.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do I have to?” Her eyes were wide and glistening as she looked at him pleadingly.

“No, of course not.”

She swallowed thickly and sipped her water, her gaze returning to nature outside. They sat like this for a few moments. Moose joined them, requesting sleeping accommodations on the couch with a heartbreaking whine.

“Hop on,” Joseph said and patted the spot to his side.

“So, he is allowed on the furniture.”

“Yes, I got him when he was a puppy and I was persuaded by his big brown eyes that I would be a monster if I let him stay on the floor like a peasant.”

Maria breathed out a small laugh before her face returned to the default scared and insecure mask he knew from her. “You are not a monster. I know what monsters look like.”

He had no doubt about that.

She nodded to the stack of papers in front of him and curled up more on the couch, setting the now empty glass onto the coffee table. “Is that another children’s book?”

“No, something more… mature.” He looked down at the manuscript and pursed his lips. He hadn’t even told Alma about this one, a thriller mystery for once. He would have to come up with a new pseudonym if he wanted to publish it. Probably not traditionally. Before going through the whole process of finding a new agent and a new publisher, he might as well use self-publishing and see if anyone wanted to read it in the first place.

“What is it about?”

He always hated that question, because no matter if it was a serious book or one meant for children, he always found his books bad, uninventive or bland. Alma knocked him over the head every time and reminded him that he only thought that way because he was the one coming up with it.

“Stuff,” he eventually said, drawing out the word while trying to come up with a short and precise summary.

“Mature stuff?”

Was he so tired that he imagined the playfulness in her tone or was she actually smirking at him from under her blanket?

“Yes, very mature stuff. It’s about a police officer who tries to find out who killed his mother. He ends up drifting deeper into her past than he intended to and also figures out that she was involved with a cult in her youth.”

Maria stared at him with wide eyes and whispered, “That sounds awesome.”

A weight lifted off his chest. Joseph scratched the back of his neck with a small smile tugging on his lips. “Thank you.”

“Can I read it?”

“It’s not finished yet,” he replied quickly, remembering the many graphic scenes in the book, including a few sex scenes between the protagonist and his love interest. There was some rough stuff in there and he didn’t want her to think that he… Joseph stopped himself. It was a book. Only a book, not a biography. And yet, he still couldn’t bring himself to hand over the manuscript.

“Then, maybe when you are done?”

“Yes, when it’s done.”

Maria nodded and her eyes slowly drifted shut as sleep claimed her. She made a little mewling noise as she curled up in a small ball and her breathing turned deeper. Joseph lifted his eyebrows realizing she had just fallen asleep, next to him, after he had shouted at her earlier. She must have been exhausted.

For a few more moments, he watched her peaceful face. Her bruises faded more every day. The cut in her eyebrow was already beginning to shed some scab, revealing the scar underneath it. Only a fool could deny that she was beautiful. And only a greater fool would feel the way he did right now. She had only been in his house for a few days and the drive to make her happy and keep her content increased. She would leave soon, go back to her abusive boyfriend, husband, or pimp, and he would return to being alone like he wanted to be. That’s how life went. Women, Omegas, like her always ended up with the wrong man until they broke eventually.

He listened to her even breathing until he couldn’t concentrate on his manuscript anymore. His eyes lost their focus, he skipped lines or re-read them without noticing. Time to call it a day and go to sleep, but there was one problem. Maria lay on his side of the couch. His knee was bothering him as it was and he didn’t look forward to waking up tomorrow morning if he decided to sleep in a sitting position. He had already given up his bed for her well-being, he would not continue with the only other mildly comfortable sleeping space his home had to offer.

“Maria,” he called out softly but apart from a slight twitch of her eyebrows, she remained deep in her sleep. Joseph stared at her hand lying on the couch nearest to him. He could try and gently shake her awake, but touching her was out of the question.

“Maria, wake up.” His voice was louder this time, but it still had the same result. Frustrated, he dropped his voice a little. “Omega!”

Maria’s eyes flew open and she sat up within a heartbeat.

“I’m tired,” Joseph explained and nodded over to the couch. She stared between him and the folded up blanket with a pillow on top.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She got up immediately and scurried out of the living room, her hair a mess and her scent bewildered.

Better confused than scared out of her mind, Joseph thought and hurled himself up onto his good leg to prepare his bed for the night. When he spread out his blanket, her sweet scent filled his lungs. Involuntarily, he closed his eyes and let out a low groan before he came back to his senses. This was only an arrangement for a short time. She would leave again soon. She was not his to keep. He needed to remember that.