Chapter 107: The bait?

Elias’s POV

He’s sitting in my lap, looking me in the eyes, and daring me to take his life.

This zero-awareness omega’s defiance doesn’t surprise me. He’s easy to fold and toss aside.

What surprises me is the way my own hands immediately seek out his waist.

I should be hating him for taking me to Julian. I should be doing my best to show how much I don’t want him. Instead, I hold his petulant glare and do my best not to show how folded I am for him.

"What do you mean you don’t have your memories?" I ask him.

"What were you dreaming about?" he counters my question and I swallow the urge to take him to the bathroom and drown him.

"You’re infuriating, Noah"

"What happened to killing me?" he asks and I shut my eyes.

The weeks I spent trying to study and possess him have been a waste. Noah will always do the unexpected. And he’s the most unaware human I have ever met.

Only Noah can choose a house next to an active volcano as his vacation home. And only Noah can make that volcano want to change into a simple mountain.

Kill him? I can’t kill him and it’s not because he’s stronger than I am. It’s not because he has more value than any of my rocks, no, it’s because he’s Noah.

"I can’t kill you" I confess the bitter truth with a frown on my face and his expression softens. He looks less defiant and bratty.

"Tell me about your dream and I’ll tell you anything you want to know" he says in a softer tone, and I tilt my head to study him.

"It was a nightmare" I say with a flat tone, and Noah reaches out to touch my sweat slick temple. "I can tell" he murmurs and I get lost in his perfectly blue eyes.

I don’t want to fucking talk to him.

I take his hand from my face and put it down. I don’t want him to touch me and warp my judgement. He’s already doing too much by sitting here with me.

"Fine" he huffs.

"Don’t talk to me, jerky prick" he hisses and when he gets off my lap, I grab his hand and pull him back down on me without thinking.

We both groan from the impact, but Noah doesn’t try to leave.

"I want to understand you, Elias. You take your time to study me, you have books from Winslow, you know everything and I know nothing about you" he says in an anguished voice, and I curse myself for caving.

Why does my heart have to beat for him like this? My brain is sending warning signals of everything that happened today, and I’m still prioritizing him because of a stupid tantrum.

"You have my life in your hands, Elias. The least you can do is to let me understand you" he says and his eyes start to shine with a sheen of tears.

"Tonight, you stood behind me like you owned me, and you threatened me like you possessed me...and then you left me all alone" he says.

"I possess you" I correct him.

"Then why did you leave me alone?"

I have the answer to that question, but my brain is not functioning as fast as it should.

"I know you see me as a tool and nothing else, but I told you...I’m a person. I want to feel like and be treated like a person by you" he continues to talk and I shut him up by hugging him to my body.

Even when I hold him against my chest, the blonde man continues to talk.

He says more things that I don’t hear and care about. All I can filter through his ranting is; "I saw my dad and yet I chose you."

My fear of losing him before now was all for nothing.

"I didn’t leave you" I say in a choked voice as I breathe a sigh of relief and Noah scoffs.

"Where were you?"

"I had a panic attack and seeing Julian triggered it" I say and he freezes, pushing himself away from the hug to look at me.

"Uncle Julian? You knew Julian before today?" Noah asks and I nod. I can feel my throat closing up at the slight change in scent.

His omega is releasing protection scent with his strawberry pheromones. It’s a fear signal I’ve smelled on hundreds of omegas before.

"You’re scared of him?" I ask him and he shudders.

Noah frowns as if he’s looking for something inside his own head.

"I shouldn’t be scared of Julian, but for some reason I can’t remember...I am" he whispers and I search his eyes for what to take as the truth.

Fuck, if this is a trap, I will kill him and waste his body on the streets.

"Julian used to be my father’s righthand man. Then he betrayed us. He kidnapped me and my brothers when we were little" I tell Noah and his eyes widen.

"What?"

"We were with him for what felt like years" I say.

I have a therapist, but I don’t talk about that room or what happened during that time frame.

I do everything to forget about it, but they come back to torture me in my sleep. I make myself forget by forcing everything around me to stay under my control and not giving in to sleep.

Things have been going well...until now.

"What did he do to you guys?" Noah asks in a shaky voice.

"He fucked with us in different ways. He turned me into a teenager with a cocktail of mental health issues" I say and Noah winces. There’s pain and confusion in his eyes.

"He didn’t want to kill us. He wanted information, but we didn’t give him anything, so he pulled and picked us apart until we got saved from him" I say and shut my eyes.

I’m seeing it again; I’m seeing the white walls that are lined with different kinds of things. Toys. Equipment. Musical instruments. Rusting machines.

"Julian has never acted out of place to me as far as I can remember" Noah says in a small voice.

This is fucking hard for me.

"He never showed a sign to us. Not until my brothers and I woke up in his facility. He gave us food and water and played with our head till...fuck" I breathe out and shut my eyes to anchor myself.

I’m starting to drift between then and now.

I can’t be unstable when Noah is also unstable. One of us has to be strong for the other. I need to keep my head in check.

"Elias? Elias..." Noah calls my name twice and I open my eyes.

The omega changes his position so he’s straddling me and he’s eye-to-eye with me.

"Let’s not talk about it anymore tonight" he says.

The omega is holding my cheeks in his hands and I’m blinking rapidly to force myself back to the room.

My neck hurts from the bad angle I was sleeping in. My injured side is throbbing. And my head is thudding, yet just looking at him takes it away...just like the drying cherry blossoms in my pocket took my pains away back then in Julian’s cell.

Noah drops his head to my shoulder and sighs against my skin.

"Why is life so hard for us?" he asks, voice low and muffled against my neck.

"Tell me about the memories, Noah" I say and he sighs again.

"A man named Conan kidnapped me from my home when I was younger and he brought me to a part of Gottingen. My memory is filled with so many holes, but I remember you" he says and I tilt my head.

"What are you implying?"

I met the man Conan. He told me to bring snacks to the cherry blossom boy. He said the cherry blossom boy was lonely and that he would like me to bring my brothers.

I did what Conan asked just because I liked the cherry blossom boy even though he annoyed me with his endless chatter.

"I’m the cherry blossom boy, Elias."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"I don’t know why they tampered with my memory but I...Elias?" when he realizes that I’m lost in my own head.

Noah was...bait?