To ruin an Omega novel Chapter 360

Chapter 360: The Secret

CIAN

I turned to Valentine and Madeline. They were still standing there somehow, watching the entire scene unfold.

"I’m pretty sure I said you could go."

My voice came out harder than I meant it to. More authoritative. The kind of tone that left no room for argument.

Valentine’s eyes flickered toward Teagan, then back to me. For a second I thought he might say something. But he simply nodded and gestured to Madeline. They moved toward the door together without another word.

The sentinels followed.

Their boots echoed against the stone floor as they filed out one by one. The heavy door shut behind them with a dull thud that seemed to swallow all the sound in the room.

Now it was just me and Teagan.

She was still on her knees. Her hands were shaking where they rested against her thighs. Tears streamed down her face in steady tracks, carving clean lines through the dirt smeared across her cheeks.

I looked down at her.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The words came out quieter than before, but there was no softness in them.

Teagan let out a choked sob. Her whole body shuddered with it.

"I had an affair with Aldric."

Her voice broke on his name.

I felt my jaw tighten but I said nothing. I waited.

She swallowed hard and forced herself to keep going.

"It was supposed to be a one time thing. Just once." Her hands curled into fists against her lap. "My husband and I were going through a rough patch. We had been trying for a child for years and nothing worked. He thought it was my fault. He said it out loud more than once. Made me feel like I was broken."

Her breath hitched.

"Aldric said the right words. He made me feel pretty. Like I mattered." She wiped at her face with trembling fingers. "One night with him showed me it wasn’t my fault. I got pregnant. I kept my secret. I raised my boy."

She paused, her chest rising and falling in uneven jerks.

"Eventually my husband realized it wasn’t me who couldn’t perform. It was him." Her voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. "He challenged me about it when he knew. He was going to ruin my life. Ruin Ronan’s life. The shame of it would have destroyed everything. All three of us."

I stared at her.

Something cold and sharp settled in my chest.

"Until what?" I said.

She flinched at the question like I had struck her.

"Until what, Beta Teagan?"

Her eyes squeezed shut. Fresh tears leaked out from beneath her eyelids.

"You can punish me for all of his sins," she whispered. "I will take it all because I am responsible."

"Until what?"

She opened her eyes. They were red and raw and filled with something that looked like resignation.

"I had to tell Aldric," she said. "He came up with a plan. A way to keep my secret safe. To make sure Ronan didn’t suffer the shame of what we had done."

Her voice cracked completely.

"We killed him. We killed my husband."

The room went silent.

I felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs.

For a moment I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. I just stood there staring at this woman kneeling in front of me while the truth of what she had just said settled into my bones.

Then something clicked.

"Now that I know Uncle Gabriel is not an enemy," I said slowly, "some of these things make so much sense."

Teagan’s head jerked up. She looked at me with wide, terrified eyes.

I let out a bitter laugh.

"So he wasn’t killed by someone working for Gabriel." My voice came out flat. "I remember a sentinel literally took the fall for that. An innocent man I am sure."

She nodded once. The movement was small and broken.

"I know the sins I have committed," she whispered. "I know I need to be punished. The choices I made are what led to all of this."

Her hands twisted together again in her lap.

"Because when Ronan learned what happened. Why he suffered in the hands of his father for so long. Why that man resented him. And how that man wasn’t really his father at all." Her voice shook violently now. "He hated me to hell and back."

She looked up at me with desperate, pleading eyes.

"I’m sure that is when Aldric got his claws into the boy."

I stared at her.

Ronan was supposed to be my sworn brother.

We had grown up together. Trained together. Stood side by side more times than I could count.

And all of it had been a lie.

"Nothing he has done," I said quietly, "and nothing you have said gives me reason to pity him."

Teagan’s face crumpled.

"Hearing this does make me sad for him," I continued. "Because he could have told me. I would have gotten it. I would have understood him."

My jaw tightened.

"But he didn’t. Instead, he joined hands with a man who has tormented my family. He played me like a fucking fool because he wanted to. He didn’t have a gun to his head. He has a choice and he didn’t choose me."

"Please, Cian, please." Teagan’s voice rose in pitch. "He would be beheaded. They will behead him."

I looked down at her kneeling there in front of me.

"So be it."

For a second she didn’t move.

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