To heal a Rogue

BONNIE

Something in his voice made me look at him again.

The teasing smile was gone.

"My father was very authoritarian," he said after a moment. "Given that you were Lily of the Valley, for a while, I suppose you already know that."

I nodded slowly.

"I never had it as bad as the lower ranks did," he continued. "I was his son. His heir, after all. There were things he expected from me that he would never have expected from anyone else, but there were also things he would never have done to me because I was supposed to become him."

He gave a humorless little smile.

"That was the problem, I think. He wanted me to be a miniature version of himself, and I let him."

"Why?"

"Because I thought it was the only way out."

His gaze drifted toward the ceiling.

"I watched the way he treated people he loved. The way he controlled them, broke them down, made them afraid of disappointing him. Eventually, I realized something rather simple. The only person who could remain completely unscathed by my father was my father himself."

His fingers shifted against the blanket.

"So I became good at mirroring him. I learned what he wanted to hear. I learned when to be cruel, when to be silent, when to make people afraid of me. I did my best to become exactly what he wanted."

He paused.

"But even I had a limit."

I watched his expression change, the weight of the memories settling more heavily across his features.

"There were roads I couldn’t bring myself to cross."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

"Sometimes," he said quietly, "I wonder if I’m exactly like him anyway."

I frowned.

"I can be violent."

His voice had gone almost flat.

"Not the sort of violence people can excuse because they’re angry. Horrible violence. The kind that makes you wonder what sort of person you have to be to do it."

He swallowed.

"And sometimes I think I’ll look back one day and feel sick about what I’ve done."

I didn’t know what to say to that.

He gave a faint, bitter smile.

"It’s not all the time, and I believe that is somehow worse. Sometimes I can look in a mirror and see myself just fine."

His eyes finally met mine.

"And sometimes I swear I can still see him looking back."

My chest tightened.

Without really thinking about it, I reached across the space between us and took his hand.

He looked down at our joined hands.

He didn’t pull away.

"I killed my father to protect Fia," he said.

My fingers tightened around his. He was completely shedding. Telling me things I was fairly certain I was not supposed to know.

"He was obsessed with the healers from the Age of Legend. He liked what they were capable of. If he’d succeeded in getting his hands on her..." He stopped, jaw tightening. "I knew her fate would be worse than death."

The room seemed to grow quieter around us.

"So I killed him." He drew in a slow breath. "But I wasn’t even brave enough to face what I’d done and take the fall for it."

His thumb moved once against my hand, almost absently.

"I took another life and put it all on her."

I stayed silent.

"I told myself at the time that it was justified because she was a horrible person. That she’d done enough to deserve whatever happened to her."

His mouth twisted.

"But that crime wasn’t hers to carry."

He looked down at our hands. "It was mine."

I tightened my grip. "You’re clearly carrying it."

A short laugh escaped him, almost surprised.

"I guess that’s part of it too." He leaned his head back against the wall. "The baggage of being an Alpha. You keep carrying it."

His expression softened, but only slightly.

"I even feel guilty for you."

"Why?" I questioned.

"My father is the reason your life is so messed up."

I shook my head. "No."

He looked at me, and I continued.

"Being a healer is the reason my life is so messed up."

His eyebrows lifted.

I shrugged.

"If there is someone I want to blame, it would probably be the goddess Selene."

For one second, he stared at me.

Then he laughed.

It was sudden and completely unrestrained, so unexpected that I couldn’t even figure out what was funny about what I’d said.

"What?" I asked, already laughing because he was.

"Nothing." He said back.

"You’re laughing."

"I know."

"Then tell me what’s funny."

"I don’t know."

That only made me laugh harder.

He shook his head, still grinning, and for the first time since he’d started talking about his father, the heaviness in his face disappeared.

I didn’t understand why that was what broke him.

But I was glad it did.

"Okay, my turn again," he said once I’d caught my breath. "Worst thing about being an Omega? Aside, of course, from the many, many cons."

Something in his expression shifted, gentler now.

"And you don’t have to answer that if it’s too—"

"No, I want to." I shifted against the pillows. "It’s fine."

I thought about it for a moment.

"Honestly? It’s the way people decide what I am before I ever get the chance to tell them."

His expression grew more serious.

"People assume I’m weaker, that I’m less capable. Less intelligent. Less suited to anything that requires authority." I rolled my eyes. "And some of them aren’t even subtle about it. They look at an Omega and decide they’ve already figured out exactly how far they are allowed to go."

I shifted against the pillows.

"That’s actually why I had to dream higher when I infiltrated the palace as a retainer."

He looked at me with renewed interest.

"I knew what people thought an Omega should be. Quiet. Useful. Grateful for whatever position and grace they are given. Certainly not ambitious enough to walk into a place where decisions are made and ensure they had a semblance of a voice."

A small smile touched my mouth.

"So I decided that if they were going to underestimate me anyway, I might as well make them underestimate me all the way, and it fucking worked. Which is still so insane to think about."

He laughed softly.

"That sounds like you."

"It was exhausting and also mildly infuriating."

"I imagine," he said. "But the good thing is that times are changing."

I looked at him.

"Are they?"

"They are."

He shifted against the pillows, his expression becoming more thoughtful.

"We keep losing people to rogues. Whole groups of them. Omegas especially. Everyone knows what happens when they get caught in the wrong place, and the old systems that were supposed to protect them haven’t exactly been doing a brilliant job."

There was something grim in his voice.

"Lily of the Valley used to lose Omegas to the rogue pipeline all the time. People knew. They looked the other way. Or they decided it was someone else’s problem."

My smile faded.

"But things are changing. Slowly, perhaps, but they are. There are more protections now. More people now actually investigate when Omegas disappear rather than simply recording them as missing. More Alphas willing to put their names behind reforms that would have been unthinkable a generation ago."

He looked at me.

"We’re still losing people. I won’t pretend otherwise. But we’re doing the work, and it is not as bad as before."

I studied him for a moment. This was what Delta had been talking about. But it was hard to be optimistic. A man against the institution? It was a losing game.

"It takes more than a man to break an institution." I eventually managed.

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