Chapter 18: Masturbate With Briar's Nightgown

 

Briar looked at the shoe on the floor.

She looked at Eliza.

"You want me to put your shoe on for you," she said.

"I just said that." Eliza said impatiently, shifting her shopping bags. "My hands are full. It fell off. Put it back."

"We've never spoken before," Briar said. "I don't think we've ever been in the same room for more than five minutes."

"So?"

"So why are you like this to me."

 "Because you deserve it. You've spent three years embarrassing my brother and dragging this pack's name through the dirt. Including making Vivienne's life harder, and she is ten times the woman you will ever be." She shifted her bags again. "The shoe. Now."

"Eliza." Vivienne appeared from around the display stand, her voice warm and smoothing. "She doesn't need to do that." She bent gracefully, picked up the sandal, handed it to Eliza with a small apologetic smile. Then she turned to Briar with an expression of gentle concern. "Briar. I didn't know you'd be here."

"I'm shopping," Briar said.

"Of course." Vivienne glanced at Mabel, acknowledged her with a nod, and looked back at Briar. "You look tired. Are you eating properly? Since Mary left I've been worried."

"I'm fine," Briar said.

Eliza made a small sound. "Vivienne has been worried about you for years. She defends you constantly, you know. And this is how you treat her." She looked Briar up and down. "You should be grateful."

"I am grateful," Briar said, carefully.

"You have a strange way of showing it."

Vivienne touched Eliza's arm lightly. "It's fine. Really." She looked back at Briar with that soft, patient expression. "Actually, there's a vitamin supplement I've been meaning to tell you about. The woman at the counter over there stocks it, very good for energy. You really do look pale." She touched Briar's arm. "Come with me for two minutes."

"That's okay," Briar said.

Vivienne blinked. Something behind her eyes recalibrated. "It will only take a moment."

"I said that's okay," Briar said. "I don't need it."

A small silence.

*She said no,* Kallie noted, from somewhere cold and attentive at the back of Vivienne's mind. *Again.*

Vivienne recovered with a small fond laugh. "Of course. Another time."

She shifted position, turning slightly, and her elbow caught the shelf beside her. A small ceramic pot tipped and fell directly toward Briar, shattering on the floor, sending decorative stones and dust across Briar's shoes.

*There,* Kallie said. *Now she bends down to clean it up and you help and somehow the hot water from the sample station ends up involved and she goes home looking like she started it. Same result, cleaner hands.*

"Oh no." Vivienne's hand came to her mouth. She reached for a folded cloth on the display table and crouched slightly, holding it out. "I'm so sorry. Here, let me help."

Briar looked at the mess on the floor.

"I'll get a dustpan from the staff," Briar said. She stepped carefully over the broken pieces and did not take the cloth. "Don't worry about it."

Vivienne straightened.

*She didn't act as we had expected! why,* Kallie said. *why she didn't keep doing that.*

"IIt doesn't matter. We have plenty of ways to make it difficult for her." Vivienne said.

Then, casually, like a thought she had just had, she opened the mindlink.

[Killian. Your Luna is wandering the shopping center unsupervised again. I thought you should know.]

Briar felt the link flare in her chest a moment later.

[Get back to the house. Now.] Killian's voice, flat and hard.

Something hot rose in Briar's chest.

[Go to hell,] she sent back.

The silence on the other end lasted exactly two seconds.

[What did you just say to me?]

Briar did not answer. She simply stopped engaging, letting his voice sit unanswered in the mindlink.

Mabel was already beside her, hand on her arm. "We need to leave. Right now. Before something else happens."

Briar looked at Vivienne one more time.

Vivienne looked back with soft, patient sorrow.

"Take care of yourself, Briar," she said.

Briar turned and walked out.

---

They moved her things that night.

It did not take long because there was not much. The box of candy wrappers. Her clothes. Her phone charger. The medicine. The small photograph of her mother.

She did not take the ruby earrings. She left them on the nightstand.

Mabel's couch was narrow and the spare blanket was thin. Briar slept better than she had in a month.

Three days passed.

Killian has been very busy these days. By the third morning he walked into the master bedroom and stood very still.

The bed was made too carefully. The nightstand drawer was empty. The bathroom held only his things.

On the nightstand sat a pair of small red earrings.

He realized that Briar had left, but didn't know when.

Then he opened the link.

[Where are you.]

Silence.

[Briar. Answer me.]

Nothing.

[You have been gone for three days. You are coming back today.]

The link stayed open on his end, her presence faintly detectable at the other end the way you can feel someone standing in a dark room, present but deliberately still.

She did not answer.

He called Gideon. Gideon had the address within half an hour and appeared in the doorway.

"She's at a friend's place. Easy to get to. You want me to go collect her?"

"No," Killian said.

Gideon waited. When nothing else came he nodded once and left.

Killian let out a roar of fury. He had never seen her fight back. He hated it. It was disgusting and annoying and he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat just to make her stop.

But his body didn't care about his anger.

He looked at the laundry basket. A soft, pink nightgown was hanging over the edge. He grabbed it, his knuckles white. It smelled like her. It smelled like that cheap vanilla lotion and sugar.

He sat on the edge of the bed and unzipped his trousers. He hated himself. He hated that he was the Alpha and he was reduced to this because of a fat, slow-witted girl. But he couldn't help it. He was addicted to her. No matter how many times he looked at Vivienne’s perfect face, his body only screamed for the idiot he had just driven away.

He wrapped the soft fabric of her nightgown around his hand and gripped his cock. It was rock hard and throbbing. He began to pump himself, his movements fast and desperate. He closed his eyes and let the scent of her fill his head.

"Damn you, Briar," he choked out, his voice thick with lust.

He imagined her pinned under him, her messy hair spread across the pillow and her big, teary eyes looking up at him while he took her. He thought about the way her soft body felt when he buried himself deep inside her. He let out a low, animalistic groan as he came, spilling himself into the fabric of her stolen nightgown.

He sat there for a long time, breathing hard, staring at the empty room. He had never felt so much hate and so much hunger at the same time.