Cause Ωf Death (Femme Fatale Freakshow)

Chapter 7

I snuggle deeper under the soothing pressure of my weighted blanket, the pillow-top mattress beneath me cradling my body like the softest of clouds. Adam’s muffled voice reaches me from the other side of the doors to my personal suite, but I don’t react or respond. Not yet, at any rate. I can still feel my mother’s presence, and I refuse to leave my sanctuary until she’s well and truly away from the penthouse floor.

Every time she comes up here, invading my space and making demands she has no right to, my P.I.D.D.—otherwise known as Primary Immunodeficiency Disease—flares up. I don’t know if it’s just the toxicity of her presence, or if it’s something else entirely, but without fail she has my guts cramping and churning, bile rising in my throat.

I stir within my luxurious blanket fort, and the movement of the air sends a hint of vanilla wafting to my nostrils. I’m not normally a person enticed by such sweet scents, but this one not only has my stomach unclenching, it also makes me hungry for the first time in days. Whatever type of air freshener or scented candle Adam has picked up for me, I’ll have to get him to order a bunch more. Anything to rid my apartment of the stench of my mother’s existence.

Huffing out a grumpy sigh, I finally roll out from beneath my fluffy layers and amble over to the doors. Flicking the lock, I swing them wide open, raising one eyebrow in challenge at the alpha lounging against the wall on the other side of the doorway.

“Well, I’m up. What did my mother demand from you this time, and how are we going to ruin her day in response?” I snark pettily. I know I’m safe to be a brat around Adam, not that I’m that much of one. He’s been my safe space ever since he showed up to replace my old guard, back when I was sixteen. There hadn’t been anything inherently wrong with Brody—my previous bodyguard—except for the fact that he is a sigma. The dude is like a brother to me and is still one of the few people I know I can count on.

Unfortunately for me, due to my primary immunodeficiency disease I’d been a rather late bloomer in more ways than one. My designation hadn’t announced itself until just after my sixteenth birthday, and when it came in, it did so with a vengeance. Within the space of forty-eight hours I’d not only started perfuming like my life depended on it, but I’d also hit my first heat. Brody had struggled to keep me contained, as well as control his own urges to fuck and feed me. The real danger, however, had been the security teams around me. My personal team took a beating, and I was almost knotted against my will by the head of security for the entire Prince corporation. My father had ended up calling in an alpha contractor whose company specialized in providing guards for omegas. Adam came highly recommended and has been by my side ever since. Thankfully, Brody was absorbed into Adam’s team and often accompanies us when I leave the penthouse. The head of security who couldn’t control his alpha instincts or take “No” for an answer? Last I heard, he’d been relocated to Bermuda and left floating somewhere inside the triangle.

With Adam, though, I sometimes wish he wasn’t so beyond reproach. Maybe then I would feel like I could act on my feelings, rather than hide them. For the last eleven years, Adam has been the star of every lurid fantasy of mine—both during my negligible heats when I find myself slightly hornier than usual, and at all other times. He’s one of the reasons why I’ll never seek out another alpha or pack.

My parents are the other.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my dad. Don’t ask me how he and my mother produced me, an omega, when they’re both deltas. One of those freak conceptions, I guess. I often wonder if things would have been different with my upbringing had I been born a girl, or an alpha. I can’t remember a time when Darla showed me genuine love or care, especially in regards to my illness. On the other hand, I know my father will do anything for me—fuck, the sheer amount of money he’s forked over to keep me happy, healthy, and safe is insane—and if I tell him that Adam is my choice, he’ll do everything in his power to give us the life I want. But I have no idea if it’s what Adam wants as well.

The dude is a vault. Nothing gets past him, nor does it escape. He confuses the fuck out of me, because I have no idea what he truly thinks of me. There are times when I feel as though he thinks of me as a younger brother to be indulged, and he does nothing but coddle and condescend to me. Then there are other times when he speaks to me as an equal, like I’m a grown-ass adult with a mind and thoughts of my own. One that isn’t fragile or a decade younger than him, who he can stand there and rib back and forth. Those interactions are the ones I hope for every day. Most of the time it’s somewhere between the two—like I’m a younger friend who has a working brain but is in need of protecting due to my health issues.

But then there are the days when I worry that he only sees me as a job, and not a person with thoughts and feelings, who worships the very ground he walks on. I know that other people would deliberately try and provoke a response out of him at those times, but I don’t like the idea of trying to manipulate or control him. If Adam wants me, as a man, a lover, as his omega, then he’ll have to tell me himself, unprovoked. Otherwise, I’ll always have that niggling thought in the back of my head that I’m his duty, his responsibility and nothing but a paycheck at the end of the day.

“Are you okay, Kier?” Adam’s deep rumble sends goosebumps skittering across my flesh, but I ignore it. I take a deep breath, inhaling more of that delicious vanilla floating on the air, and scrub a hand through my messy dark hair.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Adam,” I respond, gesturing for him to join me as I walk through my apartment and over to the kitchen.

“So, what did the Wicked Bitch of the West Coast want this time?” I grumble as I putter around, filling the kettle and switching it on before shaking one of my pre-prepared smoothies and lifting the container to my lips. I gulp it down in hearty swallows, ignoring the chalky aftertaste of the protein powder thanks to repeated experience. Adam hands me three pills, and I pause to throw them into my mouth before washing them down with the last dregs of my drink.

“You shouldn’t call your mother that, you know?” Adam gently scolds me while pouring boiling water from the kettle into a pair of mugs. He’s already got a diffuser ball of ginger and peach tea sitting in mine, and I know from experience that his contains matcha.

“Why not? Honestly, Ephelba has nothing on my mother. Even her flying monkeys and guardsmen are no match for the legions of sycophantic lackeys latched onto my mother’s teat. What my father ever saw in her, I’ll never know.” I sneer before gratefully accepting my mug of tea.

“I know that, Kier, but you still shouldn’t say it. Imagine how much worse she’ll be if she finds out you’re calling her unflattering names behind her back. She’ll amp up your misery until you’re buried beneath the weight of it all.”

Dammit, the man makes sense. I hate it when he does that, and effectively takes the wind out of my sails.

“Fine,” I pout, glaring blindly out of the French windows and toward the Bay, “I’ll wind back on the insults, at least out loud. However, that means I get to call her worse in my head.”

Adam chuckles between sips of his matcha.

“Kier, I’d only worry about that if she suddenly develops telepathy. Until then, internalize away with your parental loathing and disdain.” Adam finishes his mug and moves over to the sink, washing it out before setting it on the draining board to dry.

“However, back to the matter at hand. Darla is protesting your decision to go out and mingle with the unwashed masses this weekend. She’s citing a spike in the latest virus going around as the reason why you should be kept locked up.” Adam rolls his eyes derisively, and I don’t even bother biting back my smirk.

“She obviously doesn’t believe or want to hear how the freaking medical professionals are happy with your current medication regime, or how keeping you isolated like this is actually detrimental to your health. I swear that the woman is still pissed you weren’t born a girl, especially with your designation. While I have no doubt that she sees all other females as competition, having an omega for a daughter would be quite the feather in her cap.”

I grunt in acknowledgment. I’m no stranger to my mother’s cruelty and spite and I have learned to ignore the multitude of petty jabs she’s made over the years regarding my designation. I can’t remember a time when the oppressive weight of her disappointment wasn’t a burden for me to carry, that I wasn’t a delicate young daughter she could mold in her image and dress up like a doll. Her disgust at my frailty as a male, my ongoing health issues, and then the revelation of my designation only cemented her hatred of me.

That’s not even considering the trauma she put me through as a child that I’ve suppressed to the best of my ability. While I might not remember why she threatened me to stay silent when I was a small child, I can easily recall the dread she incited. Children should be able to trust their parents to care for them, not fear that they’ll turn on them and cast them aside.

I shove those memories back into the airtight box I normally keep them in, refusing to allow them to take up any more space in my head for the moment. One day I’ll drag them out into the light, expose every taunt and abuse, but it won’t be until my mother is out of my life completely.

A guy can hope, after all.

“I take it you educated her, then?” I ask, slyly glancing over at Adam.

He gives me a deadpan look before dryly responding, “No. I told her I’d turn you into a bubble-wrap burrito and suspend you from the ceiling. Of course, I did. I’m not one of her minions, I don’t answer to her. For fuck’s sake, Kier, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Adam sucks in a deep breath, and I recognize the action as one he’s used often to calm me down when I’ve been stressed and anxious. Breathe in for the count of five, hold for three, then breathe out for the count of five. But instead of the expected calm infusing him, he instead tenses up further, taking more and more deep gulps of air.

“Can you smell that?” Adam whispers to me, his eyes darting around the space as though searching for an intruder.

“Smell what, Adam?” I reply, sucking in a deep breath of my own.

All I can smell is the expected: the signature leather, tobacco, and wood smoke scent of Adam; the mouth-watering blends of the teas; my own citrus and spice fragrance; and the calming scent of the new vanilla air freshener.

“I… uh, well…” he stammers, and I do a double take. Adam is always so controlled and self-assured, I’ve never really seen him discomforted in this way.

Taking a step forward, I reach out toward the alpha. He flinches at my touch, so I immediately freeze and drop my hand. Pain lances twofold through my heart at the rejection; as someone who’s had a crush on the man for a decade, and also as an omega being spurned by their chosen alpha. I turn away, masking my expression so he doesn’t see just how much his recoil has affected me and tuck my emotions into another airtight box.

“I can’t smell anything out of the ordinary, Adam, nor can I sense anyone else here other than you and me. I don’t know what it is that’s triggered you, but I need to go and get ready for the day. Dad wants to meet with me and talk about this new treatment he’s heard about and see if it’s something I might be interested in trying.” I wash out my now-empty mug and place it next to Adam’s on the drying rack, then turn on my heel and head back to my suite. I ignore the way he calls me back to him, my name an apology on his tongue.

I need to get over this stupid fucking crush of mine, and maybe start looking toward the future. While it won’t necessarily mean I’m cured, if this new treatment pans out then it means that I’ll have more options available to me.

Including a pack of my own.