Vengeful Bonds S3 - Episode 7 - Loch (Patreon)

Unbeta'd/Unedited. Operation Save Saint from Himself is here and an unlikely hero rises to the challenge. Grumpily. This chapter clocks in at just under 7,000. Damn.

“Do you think this will work?” Fenny asked, staring at Loch with those beautiful cornflower blue eyes.Whenever he looked at him like that, Loch felt like he couldn’t do anything but succeed at whatever it was his mate wanted. Revenge. Done. A house. Done. Marriage. Done. Babies. Done. Pulling a mentally ill alpha from his self-imposed prison of doom. Done…hopefully.

“It has to work,” Seth said, stuffing a spoon into his mouth, cheeks puffing like a hamster as he ate what had to be his fifth bowl of rice in twelve hours.

The sharp tang of ketchup made Loch a little queasy, but as long as the tiny omega was getting some kind of nutrition, he would endure. In the grand scheme of things, it was the very least he could do.

“Saint’s in there somewhere,” Loch promised. “The real Saint. The one who knows that what happened was in no way his fault. It’s our job to drag him out of his shame spiral and back to the real world.”

Seth sat on the floor between Fen’s spread legs, leaning heavily against him, his back to Fen’s chest. His mate’s arms wrapped around the little omega from behind, hands loosely clasped around his waist so as not to get in the way of his caloric intake.

It was a relief to see him eat. The rotting stench of his sadness had taken a toll on all of them. But now, he sat munching happily, cheeks full, belly full, safely surrounded by his pack.

“What are you gonna do if he refuses to come out?” San asked from his place on the floor between Binnie’s knees.

“He won’t,” Ollie said with an unnerving level of confidence.

Seth smiled around his mouthful, his sweet apple scent mixing deliciously with Fenny’s wildflowers and Ollie’s sugary paper aroma. Ollie smiled back. Protectiveness swelled within Loch as he took in their three pack omegas. They were all smart, capable…skilled in ways Loch couldn’t even begin to fathom.

They could take care of themselves, had taken care of themselves for a long time. But the need to keep them safe was instinctive, primal, encoded in his DNA. Their safety was his number one priority, their happiness was next. And it wasn’t just instinct, it was love, bone-deep and unyielding.

Fenny released Seth’s waist to comb fingers through his hair. “Loch’s right. He just needs a reality check and then he’ll get it together.”

“This has happened before,” Binnie added. “Not to this extent. But we’ve seen what happens when Saint takes on the burden of ownership that isn’t his. We’ve pulled him out once, we can do it again.” A shadow crossed over Binnie’s face. “Even without Josh.”

Loch’s chest burned from the sudden pressure. Fuck. Would Josh’s name ever not hit him like a two by four? He went months without thinking about him–he had to, just to function–but the moment someone said his name, Loch’s own guilt poured right back in like a dam releasing.

He’d never forgive himself for not checking on him, for not keeping better tabs on him at the end. He’d known Josh was nosing around where he shouldn’t have been, but he’d just…let it ride. That mistake still tasted like ash in his mouth. The scent of rotten flowers pulled him from his thoughts, Fen’s face twisted with grief, eyes wet.

Seth whimpered, pressing back against him. It was easy to forget his mate was Josh’s brother. Easy in that they looked nothing alike. Fen was small, Josh had been large, Fenny was fair-skinned, freckled, with blonde hair and blue eyes, Josh had dark brown hair and brown eyes. If not for the hours Loch had lost looking at Fen’s picture, he could almost convince himself that Fen and Josh had never even met. That some other accident of fate had brought them together.

While they didn’t look alike, they did share similar traits. Both stubborn, sassy, funny, fiercely loyal. Sometimes the only way for Loch to not choke on his sadness was to lock it in a box and shove it to the back of the tallest shelf in his mind, to force himself to forget that there was ever a world with Josh in it.

But now Binnie had said his name, summoned him into the room, conjured him like a ghost and he was just there…rendering them all mute, sadness permeating the room. Josh would have gone in there and dealt with Saint two days after his self-imposed exile. He would have sat outside his door cracking jokes until Saint got so sick of him, he’d let him in and then he would have worked his magic, convincing Saint to rejoin them.

But he was gone.

 And it was all on them.

“Do you think it’s a good idea if I go?” Ollie asked, pulling Loch from his thoughts. “Given the…” he gestured to his midsection. “I don’t want to trigger him.”

“Yes, we need you,” Binnie said. “This is going to take all three of us and the Pop-Tart.”

Ollie’s gaze snapped down to where his alpha lay with his head nestled in his lap, blinking up at him lazily like a sleepy cat. “You told them?!”

“Was I not supposed to?” Deke asked, genuine confusion on his handsome face.

Ollie thunked him on the head with two fingers. “We said we’d wait.”

“Pop-Tart’s cute,” Seth said. “Though I personally liked Stroopwafel, she sounds decadent.”

“I liked cupcake best,” San said from his place at Binnie’s feet.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Ollie muttered, shoving Deke off his lap, giving an evil chuckle when he hit the floor.

“Ow,” he grumbled, rubbing his shoulder.

“You’re going now?” Seth asked, voice small.

“Yeah, little one. We’re going now,” Loch said.

“We will bring your alpha back,” Binnie promised.

“I hope so,” Seth managed, choking on the words as tears welled in his eyes.

Loch could feel his armor crumbling. He had a weakness for pack tears. They undid him in ways no blade ever could. He forced himself to look away, to keep his head in the game.

Binnie hopped from his chair, startling San who’d been sitting at his feet. “Okay, we got this,” he cried, like he was pumping himself up for a game. When the rest of the pack gave him a flat look, he mumbled, “Excuse me for trying to get some team spirit going.”

“Let’s go,” Ollie said.

The three of them made the short walk to the spare room in silence. Each step heavier than the last, the air thick with what they might find on the other side of that door. They exchanged one final glance before Loch pounded heavily on the wood with his fist.

“On a scale of one to ten, just how hard are we gonna push him?” Ollie asked.

“Ten,” Loch and Binnie said together.

Ollie nodded like he understood the assignment.

Binnie glanced back at the staircase. “He’s got a mate down there who needs him.”

As time stretched and nothing happened, Binnie stepped forward. “We can stand here all day. Or better yet, we can just bust the door down. Either way you’re gonna talk to us today. Choice is yours, pal.”

“Pal?” Loch echoed, giving him a bewildered look.

Binnie shrugged. “What? I’m improvising.”

Seconds bled by, each one stretching into an eternity. Loch was about to take more drastic measures when there was a sound like the lock clicking and the knob twisting. The door swung open, seemingly on its own, Saint already walking away as they entered.

Loch noted the drawn curtains shrouding the room in darkness just before the smell hit him, rocking him back on his heels and making his eyes water.

“I might puke,” Ollie muttered, lip curling as he squinted into the gloom. “It stinks like rancid butter and…marinating gym socks in here. What is that smell?”

“The smell of someone unraveling,” Binnie murmured with a grimace.

“Seriously?” Ollie asked, looking from Loch to Binnie then back again. “Sometimes, I really miss being a beta.”

Saint sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “What?” he asked, voice gravelly from disuse.

“What? That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?” Loch asked. If he’d hoped for a reaction, he was mistaken. Saint just sat quietly, staring at his hands. “You need to talk to us.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s better this way,” he said, digging the heel of his hand into his eyes like just having them open hurt.

“You’ve been locked in here for weeks. You’ve abandoned your mate, you’ve abandoned your pack,” Binnie added, giving him another worried once-over before muttering, “You’ve abandoned your shower…”

Ollie nodded. “They’re right. Time’s up, buttercup. We let you cry it out. We let you rage. We let you pout and sulk. But now it’s time to put on your big boy pants and pull your shit together.”

Saint just closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. “You act like I’m just having some kind of temper tantrum. I’m doing this for Seth. He’s…not safe around me.”

“You can’t believe that’s true,” Binnie countered, studying him carefully.

“You saw what I did to him. You saw the bites, the bruises, the scratch marks, the rope burn. I…mauled him. He’s so small and I–” Saint trailed off, his anguish obvious even in the shadows.

“You didn’t do anything,” Ollie said, voice terse. “Your alpha–under the influence of an untested drug, a drug you didn’t even consent to–went a little too old-school during a feral rut cycle. It happens. It happens to you more than others. Seth was also in heat. He wasn’t afraid of you.”

“He was, though,” Saint said. “He was only pretending to stay calm because he was afraid of what I’d do to him if he tried to leave. I’ve destroyed his trust in me.”

Loch’s lungs squeezed painfully. “That’s not true.”

“Seth took the medicine, knowing full well that it could make your rut more…intense,” Binnie reminded him.

“If anyone’s to blame…” Loch said, letting the statement hang there, hoping Saint would take the bait.

Saint’s eyes cut to him, nostrils flaring. “Don’t you blame this on him,” he growled. “Even if he had told me, I still would have told him to take it. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But you did?” Binnie asked. “You get how insane that sounds.”

“He just wanted a baby. A baby I wasn’t giving him. He thought this was the only way,” Saint rumbled.

“You guys haven’t even been mated six months. Seth and Fenny both acted impulsively and decided to experiment with a medicine without your consent,” Ollie said. “If they’re not responsible, how could you possibly be?”

“It was my alpha. I should have been able to control it, control him, but instead, he fully overtook me and…did what he did,” Saint said, self-disgust dripping from every word.

“Seth loved it. He wasn’t afraid of you. He was turned on. He still talks about it. Tries to get San and Fenny to bruise him so he can relive it when they’re fooling around,” Binnie said. “Nobody wants to be bullied by their alpha more than your little omega. He’d do it again in a minute if he thought it wouldn’t have you right back here in this room, spiraling.”

Saint scrubbed his hands over his face, as though he could scrape away the fog in his head. “He looked so…”

Ollie made a noise of derision. “Okay, enough’s enough. Should we have Loch build you a cross you can nail yourself to?”

Saint looked at him, really looked at him. “What?”

Ollie shrugged. “You heard me. If you’re gonna be a martyr, you might as well go all the way, right? We can put you on the mantle so you can still feel like part of the pack. Saint Joaquin.” He pressed his palms together like he was praying. “At least your babies will get to see you that way.”

They all stared at him in stunned silence.

“Damn, I don’t remember you being this…mean?” Binnie finally muttered.

Ollie snorted, rolling his eyes. “Look, beta Ollie was a patient man. Knocked-up Ollie, not so much. You said you wanted level ten energy. This is what that looks like now.”

“This feels more like a thirty at minimum,” Binnie countered.

Loch glanced at Saint uneasily, before saying to Ollie, “Maybe dial it down to an eight-point-five?”

“No,” Ollie said, striding to the windows. He flicked open the curtains with a grand flourish, making all three other men grimace as sunlight assaulted them. Once Loch’s vision cleared, he got his first real view of the bedroom.

It was far worse than he’d imagined.

Sweat-soaked sheets bunched on the bed. Half-empty water and Gatorade bottles littered the floor. Food trays stacked on the dresser. Piles of clothes dotted the carpet like mountains on a topographical map.

It hit Loch like a school bus just how bad the situation was.

This level of upheaval–for someone like Saint–was the reddest of red flags. He’d fought for years to keep his OCD under control. The medications curbed the worst of it–no more prowling the barracks to check locks, no more standing over beds to make sure his pack was still breathing. But even medicated, Saint’s spaces were always tidy, deliberate, ordered. Nothing out of place unless Seth had left it there, and even then Saint was usually right behind him, setting it back to rights.

The depth of his guilt had to be fathomless for it to overwhelm even that instinct. To strip him of the one comfort his mind always offered, ritual, order, control. This was punishment in its purest form, his brain refusing him the small mercy of routine as penance for his perceived crimes.

This is what it looked like when Saint was left alone with himself.

He was drowning, swimming in grief so deep he wasn’t even trying to find the ladder.

I wish Josh was here.

He’d been on Loch’s mind all day, but now–seeing their friend barely recognizable after just a couple of weeks–Josh’s absence felt monumental, the pain like a blade wedged between his ribs.

Saint looked up at them, eyes bloodshot. He’d been in there long enough to grow a full beard, his skin sallow, deep purple bruises blooming under his eyes. His cheeks had hollowed, the fine wrinkles at the corners more pronounced. He looked a decade older than the man they’d seen just weeks ago.

Loch’s gaze tracked the stained green T-shirt hanging loose on his frame, the threadbare black sweatpants clinging to hipbones too sharp. The fabric draped instead of fitting. How did he fix this? Fix Saint? Usually Loch had an answer, that was why the pack trusted him, why they’d made him alpha. But now, staring at the wreckage of his friend, he had nothing. He understood on a cellular level that Saint was just as much a victim as Seth, but if their places had been reversed…would Loch feel any different?

He didn’t know how to comfort his friend.

“Jesus. When was the last time you showered? Brushed your teeth? Hell, brushed your hair?” Ollie demanded, tone sharp enough to cut. “What are you even doing in here all day and night? It’s clearly not cleaning. Or bathing.”

“What do I need to clean for?” Saint rasped.

“There’s this thing called basic hygiene,” Ollie shot back. “Separates us from the animals.” When silence followed, the pregnant omega shook his head and snapped, “Get up.”

“What?” Saint frowned.

“Get. Up.” Ollie’s voice cracked like a whip.

Saint obeyed, shoulders bowed, watching as Ollie tore the bedding from the mattress and scooped the filthy heap of sheets and clothes into a hamper. He dragged it out the door and slammed it shut like he was sealing off a crime scene.

“Those were my only sheets,” Saint said, staring at the closed door.

“Lucky for you there’s a stack more in your actual room. You know, the one you share with your mate.”

Saint was already shaking his head. “No, I can’t. It’s–”

“You think this is noble?” Ollie cut him off, jabbing a finger into his chest. “It’s not. You’re just a fucking coward.”

Saint didn’t fight back. His shoulders sagged, body folding in on itself.

“Maybe we should’ve told him to keep it at a seven,” Binnie muttered to Loch.

Ollie didn’t even glance over. “Go turn the hot water on.”

Binnie bolted to do as told. A second later, the hiss of the shower filled the silence.

Ollie planted himself squarely in front of Saint, his rounded belly level with the alpha’s hollowed gaze. “Arms up.”

“You can’t be serious,” Saint muttered.

“As a heart attack. If you won’t take care of yourself, we’ll do it for you. Arms. Up.”

“I don’t think–”

“I don’t care what you think.” Ollie’s voice cracked. “Your mate–my friend–is out there, trying to survive one of the hardest times of his life. He’s sick, horribly sick, and you haven’t even bothered to ask how he’s doing. Not once. If you had, I’d have told you he barely eats, he throws up until he’s dry heaving, he had to take medical leave, and he’s lost four pounds. And while he’s carrying your babies, you’re in here hiding.”

The sharp scent of scorched caramel filled the air, hot and acrid. Saint’s gaze jerked to Loch’s. “Seth’s sick? Babies? He’s–”

“Yeah, really sick,” Binnie said from the bathroom doorway. “And we don’t even know if he’s pregnant, because he refuses to take a test without you. He’s afraid he is. He’s afraid he isn’t. And he’s terrified he’s gonna raise these babies alone while you rot down the hall.”

“He’s been sleeping with San and Binnie every night,” Loch added quietly. “He can’t handle your room without you in it. He has nightmares. He wakes up screaming.”

“It’s good he has you guys,” Saint whispered.

Binnie’s lip curled. “Sorry, maybe I should’ve said sobbing himself to sleep every night.” The smell of scalded sugar thickened, cloying. “I gotta be honest, man. Nobody blames you for what happened during your rut. None of us. But this?” His hand swept the room. “You hiding in here while the rest of us clean up the mess? Not gonna lie, it’s fucked up.”

Saint didn’t answer, but after a few seconds he raised his arms, eyes unfocused.

Ollie peeled the shirt off him with a grimace. The smell made him gag. “Let it never be said I’m not a good friend,” he muttered, voice dripping irritation. “Stand up. Pants off.”

Saint obeyed, moving like a marionette with cut strings.

“Shower. Now.” Ollie shoved him toward the bathroom. Saint stumbled but caught himself, glowering at Ollie before shutting the door with a final, heavy thud.

When the silence stretched, Ollie looked over to find both alphas staring at him. He threw up his hands. “What? Yes?”

Loch glanced at Binnie. “Don’t you think you were a little…”

“Aggressive?” Binnie offered.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you think you could reason with the guy marinating in his own body odor?” Ollie shot back. “Once he’s clean and looks like himself again, then you can hug it out and write your feelings in matching unicorn dream journals or whatever.”

“Are you sure you’re pregnant and not just…possessed?” Loch asked dryly.

Ollie folded his arms, brow arched. “Are you implying my baby is a demon?”

“I mean, if the horns fit…” Loch muttered.

“Call my baby a demon again and I’ll poison you in your sleep.”

“Yeah, not really helping your case there,” Binnie deadpanned.

When Ollie’s back turned, Binnie silently mouthed mean. Loch huffed out a laugh, cutting it short when Ollie whirled back to glare at them suspiciously.

“When he comes out, we’re taking him straight to Seth,” Ollie declared.

“You think that’s a good idea?” Binnie asked carefully.

“Is there anyone else on this planet who can unravel Saint like Seth? That man would let his omega set him on fire and say thank you. And besides, have you smelled Seth lately? Do you really think Saint’s gonna resist the scent of his pregnant omega? If Seth wasn’t already knocked up, I’d bet good money he would be by morning.”

Ollie wasn’t wrong. One look at Seth had always undone Saint. It was why this spiral had cut so deep. But if Seth had triggered the fall, maybe only Seth could pull him back.

“This ends tonight,” Ollie said firmly. “Let the others know the plan.”

For one fleeting second, Loch wondered if they’d elected the wrong pack leader.