Omega In The Office - Aria Grace Page 0,27

I keep going, trying to get it all out in one fell swoop.

“No one else in the family wanted us, so we went into the foster care system.”

The clatter of dishes emerges from the kitchen as Leon digs through the cupboards for cookware. I know he’s trying to drown out my words. He blames himself for a lot of the stuff we went through back then. No matter how many times I tell him nothing is his fault, he won’t listen.

“No one wanted an alpha-omega sibling group.” I shift my gaze away from Candor as I relive my worst memories. “So we got passed over but all prospective parents. As we started getting older, there was talk about splitting us up, but we weren’t going to let that happen. We bounced from home to home together, but never quite fitting in anywhere...”

My voice trails off as the noises in the kitchen quiet down.

“If it wasn’t for me, we never would’ve wound up in that place,” Leon says, his voice barely audible from the other room.

“I’ve told you, none of it was your fault.”

“Of course you’d say that. You’re the idiot who went back for me.” Leon slowly emerges from the kitchen and leans against the door frame. “But it’s just a fact. If you didn’t have me, or if I had been an alpha, things would’ve been different.”

I sigh and shake my head. “Sure, but if you were an alpha, would the three of us be here like this right now? I love you the way you are. We overcame everything, and we’re stronger for it.”

“You guys don’t have to tell me the rest if you don’t want to,” Candor says, clearly trying to be helpful. “I don’t want to make you relive something that’s behind you.”

I look back at Leon. “It’s your call.”

He closes his eyes and slumps his shoulders. “No, it’s fine. It might help him understand things a little better. I’m just...gonna focus on dinner.”

Once again, Leon retreats.

“When we were twelve.” I lean back as I return to the story, “we ran away from our foster home. There had been a couple ready to adopt us both, but they were clearly more interested in me. There was no doubt in my mind that once we were safely theirs, they would have neglected Leon.

“We spent three days on the streets before we ran into trouble. A gang scooped us up and took us back to their place. I didn’t know what it was called back then, but I realize now that it must’ve been one of those omega stables back before they were cleaned up.” I shake my head at the memory. “They seemed to think we were a prize catch. An alpha they could raise to join their ranks and an omega who would eventually...well...”

I grimace at the thought and can’t bring myself to explain any further. Thankfully, Candor seems to understand. His face is screwed up in a twisted look of pure horror.

“They weren’t complete animals. We were too young to do much with, so they had me helping out around the warehouses, and they sent Leon to help out in the nursery because that was the real purpose of the stables, you know? Breeding top of the line alphas and matching them with families willing to pay a fortune to adopt them.”

From the look on Candor’s face, he’s never heard that part of it.

I’m not surprised. Most people know about the discrimination against omegas, the forced prostitution, and the constant abuse they suffer. But most people don’t know, or don’t care to know, just how bad things actually are.

Which is probably why omega discrimination went unaddressed for so long.

“Leon worked with babies all day, and I did manual labor. We got to see each other throughout the day. We ate together and slept beside each other. It wasn’t perfect, but we thought it was better than being separated,” I continue. “If I’d know what was really going on, I would’ve taken us out of there a lot sooner...”

I clear my throat and force myself to push forward. There’s something cathartic about saying words out loud that are normally tucked deep in the recesses of your memory. “We kept going like that for three years, until Leon’s first heat. That’s when things turned bad. They had a doctor examine him, saying all sorts of crazy stuff about whether or not he was ‘sound.’ Thankfully, they decided he wasn’t ready yet, and they locked him up in