The world came back to me slowly, the weakness still lingered in my body and I rubbed weakly at my eyes. I blinked slowly, letting my surroundings sink in, the world around me was so much more different than I remembered. I was curled up in someone's lap and I hesitantly glanced upwards to see a man with a scar across his face. Memories slowly came into my head and I lowered my gaze before risking a glance at him once more. He seemed intent on something over my head and I could faintly hear the sounds of a television.

I frowned, trying to remember his name. The voice in my head screamed at me not to use it and I swallowed thickly. "Sir?"

"Its Uncle Jace." His voice was rumbling but he didn't look down at me as he said it and I flinched slightly, waiting for the punishment to come but it didn't. I wasn't used to not receiving punishments for my wrong actions. I didn't like that I wasn't in a position I was familiar with.

I swallowed thickly, clasping my hands in my lap tightly. "Sir?" I glanced up at him quickly but he made no indication he had even heard me. Panic filled me as I slowly shook. "Uncle Jace?" I tensed, fearing a punishment for the impropriety of my use of his name but he merely glanced down at me and a small smile crossed his face before his arm shifted around me. It felt strange having someone tuck me close to them as I slept. I wasn't really used to physical contact.

"Yes, Maricella?" He looked at me with such tenderness that I wanted to cry. I wasn't sure why he cared about me, why he looked at me like that. I was unaware of who he was, of how he knew me.

"Where am-" I couldn't get the question out as an ever familiar pain flooded my chest. I felt my breathing increase as the pain started to beat at me. It dug in deep, tightening around my chest until i felt like I couldn't breathe. "I hurt." I managed to get the words out before I clutched at my chest and breathed heavily. Deep panting gasps filled the air and slowly a large hand rubbed at my back. It was soothing but tears flooded my eyes and I shook as the pain ran rampant through my chest and stomach. I fought the urge to throw-up. There would be nothing there even if I did.

The arms around me brought me closer, tucking me closer to the large male. "I cannot help you right now, Maricella, but know that we will fix this." He rubbed my back gently, his voice soothing. It didn't help the pain and made me shake. "Amber is getting the medication ready for you. Just breathe." I could barely hear his voice through the static in my brain. I could barely force myself to breathe let alone think about what he was saying. I was rocked gently from side to side as another wave of pain crashed over me. I gave a sharp cry that faded to a whimper as it continued to beat at my body.

"Is she okay?" The new voice sounded frantic and there was a rumble from the chest I was pressed to. I couldn't focus on anything as the pain seared at new places in my body. I felt my body curl up tighter, my whimpering seemed too loud to my ears as everything was tightening with the pain. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I felt like I was going to die. "Can't we do anything? We can't just leave her like this!" I couldn't hear a response as my head throbbed painfully but I could feel the vibrations of the chest I was pressed to. I gave a pain-filled shout as I clutched at the arms holding me. I felt sorry for Uncle Jace as my fingers dug deep into the muscles of his arms.

The waves grew in intensity and I struggled to breathe for what felt like hours. Sharp cries of pain exited my mouth and nothing around me mattered. It was like I was encased in a bubble filled with unbearable, painful static that I could never escape until it was all suddenly gone. I slumped against the large male, my chest heaving with the effort of breathing. I sounded terrible, my breath was coming out in wheezes and my entire body shuddered every so often.

"Two months of that, by herself? You have got to be fucking kidding me." The voice was pained and I rolled my head on the wide chest I lay on and saw Davin. His face was pale and he looked angry. "Why didn't you tell Uncle Andrew sooner? Why wait until you couldn't move?" His voice cracked slightly and his green eyes were narrowed. I closed my eyes against the sight and let my head roll back to its natural position.

"Don't be so hard on her, Davin." Uncle Jace squeezed me in reassurance and I felt slightly uncomfortable but at the same time I was exhausted. I lifted a shaking hand and wiped at my sweaty forehead. I could feel my hair sticking to my skin and it made me itch unpleasantly.

"I'm not. I just want to know why." He emphasized the word and I took in a deep breath, trying to calm the rapid pounding of my heart and to calm my wheezing breath.

"An Omega must do as an Omega is told." The familiar words fell from my mouth and there was a sudden, deadly silence in the room. I could feel Uncle Jace's muscles tighten with a sudden anger and without warning I was pulled from his arms as deadly claws emerged from the male's nail beds. Davin cradled me to his chest and I looked up slowly in confusion. He looked almost worried.

"A fucking what?" Uncle Jace's voice was quiet in the silence and I looked over at him. I kept my gaze on his heaving chest and slowly blinked. He was mad, furious about something but in my exhausted mind I couldn't figure out what it was.

"An Omega must do as an Omega is told. I was told to stay silent." I hated how slurred my raspy voice was and I was suddenly thirsty. The thought of cold water made me lick my dry lips.

"Oh really?" The way he said it made me shiver with a sudden fear. The man who had let me sleep on his lap was so far from gone it appeared as though he was on the other side of the planet. I tried to push myself closer to Davin, wanting to get further away from the angry male.

"Dad. I'm going to call Collin in to take Maricella. Stay calm, for her sake." Davin took several slow steps backwards and I leaned my head against his chest. My neck was unwilling to hold the burden any longer. I lifted a shaking hand, everything was too confusing, there was too much going on and I was so tired.

"Stay calm? He turned her into a fucking Omega! After all the advice I gave him. After all of the letters he sent me, he turned her into a fucking Omega! I'm going to kill him. Painfully and slowly so he knows just the reason why." He jumped to his feet and started pacing. The action looked violent and fear jumped quickly through the exhaustion, causing my heart to pound unpleasantly in my chest. I wanted to make him stop but at the same time I needed him to understand that me being an Omega wasn't a bad thing.

"I am the child of rogues. I am an orphan. I was happy to have a place in the pack, no matter how low. Being an Omega was better than being left to fend for myself in the wild." I said the words low and I stared at my hands, blinking slowly. It was the one place I belonged. I didn't deserve anything else but to carry the name of Omega.

"No matter how low- Are you shitting me right now, Maricella?" There was an edge of furious disbelief to his voice and I shrunk back towards Davin, suddenly scared that the intensity he was putting off was now aimed at me. I had tried to make it better, why had it made it worse? Everything was just getting to be too much. I wanted to go back to my pack, i wanted to be back where I knew what was going on and what I had to do to stay safe.

Davin took another step backwards. "Dad, don't be mad with her. She is just repeating what has been drilled into her for the past fifteen years. You cannot fault her for this, this... brainwashing." Davin's tone was calm and even, as if trying to reason with the furious male. I risked a glance over to the large pacing male whose face was angular as if his wolf wished to emerge. He stopped abruptly, running his hands through his hair as he looked at me. I quickly glanced down, not wanting to be punished for staring.

"You are right. I apologize, Maricella, but that brother of mine is never getting his hands on you again. I swear to fucking god I will murder him before I even think of letting you go back there." There was a heavy venom in the words, a complete and startling promise that had me looking up at him completely with wide eyes.

I shook my head quickly. "He saved my life. He is a good Alpha." I wanted him to understand. Alpha Lawrence was a good Alpha, everything he did was for the good of the pack. He had sent me away because he had promised to make it better. He had promised me it would be better. He never broke his word. He was a good male.

"Well in those letters he managed to convince me he was a good father. Now I have learned he turned his daughter into an Omega and you learned that he can throw you away without a thought. He had tricked us both, Maricella. He didn't even tell you your name, for christ's sake. Your name." He sounded pained and I opened my mouth to say something when the blonde man sprinted into the room. I closed my mouth with a snap and immediately stared at my hands.

"Give me my sugar." I could hear the smile in the new male's voice and Davin held me a bit tighter before he reluctantly handed me over to him. I tried hard to push through the exhaustion and remember his name but it was hard. "Thank you very much." The amusement was very clear in his voice and I felt uncomfortable with him, I didn't know him. I didn't know any of them. It frightened me to be in a place I didn't know with people I knew even less.

"Collin, no flirting with her. Now go." There was a faint command to the words and Collin said nothing as he carried me out of the room. I clasped my hands together as tightly as I could with the exhausted weakness filling my body.

"You can put your arms around my neck. I won't bite." He was smiling as I glanced up at him and I felt my face flush slightly. I picked at my nails wondering if I should do as he said or stay like I was. These people were so confusing it made my head hurt.

"I said no flirting!" Davin's loud voice sounded from the doorway and Collin laughed loudly. The sound rumbled through me and I picked at my knuckles. The skin was slightly flaky. I knew it was from poor nutrition but I couldn't stop. I needed to do something to stop the anxiety. I could control the picking, it was the only thing I could control.

"Okay, sugar. What do you want to do?" He asked it so easily that I was slightly shocked for a moment. I didn't know how to answer. No one had ever asked me to do something. I was always told, I was ordered, never asked.

The unbearable dryness in my throat made me open my mouth. "May I please have a drink of water?" The words were a squeak and I quickly hunched my shoulder forward. I was waiting for a reprimand for speaking out of turn but Collin merely spun around with me in his arms and laughed again. The action made my head hurt slightly and I felt almost nauseous but he was enjoying himself so I didn't want to tell him to stop.

"Of course you may. We mustn't let you be thirsty!" With that he raced down the hall and my arms immediately went around his neck in fear of being dropped. My heart jumped into my throat, wondering if he would punish me for the action but he just made a rather ridiculous airplane sound with his mouth. "Air Sugar coming in for landing. Over." He gently set me down on a chair and I yanked my arms from around him as if he had burned me. My heart pounded in my chest with fear.

"I'm sorry!" I blurted the words out, staring at the floor. I felt terrified. I was so tired that it was making me forget my place.

"Whatever for, sugar?" He was looking at me but I refused to let myself look at him. I needed to remember my place. I was an Omega and would always be an Omega. Ingrid had smacked my hands with a leather strap until I could barely hold anything with my swollen fingers and beat my back bloody with a wooden cane, just to get me to remember the lesson. The voice in my head hissed the reminders at me. I would go back there because Ingrid knew everything.

"For touching you, sir." My voice shook as I said it and I looked at my hands in my lap. I was still wearing my nightgown and the red ribbon. I could hear a cupboard open and a tap turn on before shutting off.

"Sir? No, sugar, its pronounced Collin but I can see how that might be a tad confusing. Here you go." A cold glass of water was set down in front of me and I looked at it for a brief moment before I picked it up with a shaking hand. I tried to focus on bringing the cup to my lips. I took a small sip and closed my eyes before taking a bigger drink. Before long I had drank more than half the cup. I gave a small sigh of relief as the dryness was chased away. "You are so skinny." Collin said it casually and I heard a fridge open.

"Skinny? No, she's a walking bag of bones and demons take the motherfucker who rejected her." It was a new voice that I gave a startled jump at. The cup slipped from my hands and I watched in horror as it hit the floor and shattered.

"I'm sorry. Let me clean that up!" I quickly stood but no sooner had I taken a step my legs buckled underneath me. I fell hard to the ground with a small groan of pain as my knees slammed against the hardwood.

"Don't worry about it, sugar. Accidents happen. I'll clean it up." Collin picked me up and tears filled my eyes as he set me back on the chair. The voice screamed at me, piercing my head, causing it to ache.

An Omega must never let anyone clean up an Omega's mess.

"But I broke it. I need to clean up my mess. You shouldn't be cleaning up my mess." My voice slowly rose to a hysterical level and I started breathing heavy looking at the broken glass. "I can clean it up. Please. Just let me clean it up!" I started hyperventilating and my heart pounded sharply in my chest. The panic was sharp and my heart pounding in my ears, nearly deafening me.

"Would it calm you to clean it up, Maricella?" Davin's voice slowly made its way through the pounding and I nodded quickly. I needed to clean up my mess. An Omega must never let anyone clean up an Omega's mess. He was suddenly there and he carefully me picked me up and set me on the floor before letting me go. "Breathe, Maricella." I picked up chunks of glass with shaky fingers, feeling a calmness fill me at the small task. "Here is a dustpan. Put the glass in there and here is a towel." He handed me the items and I nodded, keeping my gaze on the floor as I set the large glass pieces in the dust pan. I dabbed at the water with the towel, feeling my body relax with the motion. I was useful again. I couldn't walk but I could still clean.

"What is wrong with crazy cleaning lady?" It was the new voice again and I tried to block him out as I started to pick up the smaller chunks of glass. Cleaning it up made me relax. I was doing what I was trained to do.

"That is my cousin, you ass. She has been conditioned for the past fifteen years into thinking she is an Omega." His voice was angry and I couldn't understand their anger. Being an Omega, especially for me, wasn't a bad thing. I was a bastard child of rogues, it was all I was good for.

"I am an Omega." I said the words softly. The voice hissed at me over and over again, squeezing my head so tightly until it ached unbearably.

Once an Omega, always an Omega.

"You never should have been one, Maricella. If Uncle Andrew hadn't been such a fucking dipshit with his head jammed up his own ass, he never would have let you become one." His voice shook with anger but his tone was calm. It was like he didn't want to scare me and I was grateful for the gesture.

"Alpha Lawrence is a good Alpha. He saved my life. I was happy to serve the pack." I dabbed at the rest of the water before carefully sweeping the floor with it, sending the tiny shards into the dust pan. "I was happy to serve the pack." For a brief moment I wondered if I was trying to convince them or to convince myself. That cruel little voice in my head screamed at me for the thought. I was an Omega because I was supposed to be, it was the only position i was fit for.

"Sugar? You done down there?" Collin sounded completely unaffected and I nodded before setting the towel on the dust pan. It would need to be shaken out over the trash to get rid of any bits of glass sticking to it. Large hands grasped me around the waist and I was lifted to my feet. "You are so fucking tiny." He said it low, as if he hadn't really wanted anyone to hear it.

"She's small because of the rejection. Her body was literally just trying to kill itself. It still will until Amber can get the fucking meds mixed together in a timely fashion." The voice was venomous and I risked a glance up to see a dark haired man with dark eyes scowling at me. I quickly looked away and Collin wrapped an arm around my back before lifting me up completely, holding me close to his chest. I didn't like it, it made me uncomfortable.

"Ignore, Seamus. He's a bit pissy right now. Now what is it you would like to do?" He was smiling at me but I felt too off balance and stared at my hands. I started picking at the ribbon. A red ribbon for banishment.

"A male told me the ribbon should have been black for death." I could hear someone suck in a deep breath. "I understood what he told me. That it should have been black because I never would survive on my own. That they weren't banishing me, they were killing me." I tugged on the edge of the ribbon gently before looking over at Davin. I avoided his gaze and kept my eyes on his chest.

"He said I wasn't weak. He said I deserved better and tried to stop me from walking but they wouldn't let him. It was the kindest thing anyone, other than Alpha Lawrence, had ever said to me." I let my gaze fall back to my hands and I ignored how thick the silence felt. I wished I had an ability to thank Bennett. He was a good male. He had spoken out against his Alpha and Beta

"Well, at least not all the members of the Tacita pack are utter assholes." Collin said it slowly and rocked me in his arms slightly. The movement made the exhaustion that much heavier in my mind.

"His eyes were really blue and he called me beautiful." I remembered the first time I saw him but I felt no embarrassment. He had repeatedly shown me kindness that should have been given to someone above my station. He had taken care of me. It was something I would never forget.

"That's a terrible line. You aren't even blushing." Collin sounded almost amused and I looked up at him with wide eyes. My gaze rested on a faint scar on his chin. I wondered for a brief moment how he got it.

"I am an Omega. There is no reason to blush because I cannot have a relationship with anyone above my station." I looked away and Collin rocked me a little harder before he chuckled and spun me around again. I grimaced slightly at the action as it made my head swim unpleasantly.

"You blush at me." He was over exuberant, much like a puppy. I couldn't tell if I enjoyed it or not. Everything was a jumbled mess. I couldn't think and I just wanted to be left alone to process what was going on.

"I am uncertain of my station as of right now but I am sure I shall remain an Om-"

"Do not finish that statement, Maricella. You will not be an Omega because we do not have Omegas in this pack." Davin's voice was sharp and I instantly rolled my shoulders forward, staring at my hands.