Page 6

Immediately, I hit the call button for the nurse. I don’t know why I did it, I just did. A lot of times I acted on instinct, and my gut had rarely steered me wrong.

The guy on the left pulled a gun with a silencer attached to the muzzle, and the other one pulled out a syringe. At that point I realized the gun was for me—or technically for whoever happened to be in the room—and the syringe was for Deacon.

“Help!” I screamed, throwing my cell phone as hard as I could at the guy with the gun.

“What the fuck?” Gun Guy yelled as it bounced off his forehead.

Clearly, all I’d done was annoy him.

“Kill him,” the one with the syringe ordered.

I hurled my laptop bag next, which brought on swearing from the attacker, before scrambling up and darting around the space, finding the metal bedpan and throwing that at the one with the needle.

Someone opened a door, and I didn’t look, but they didn’t come in, so I was thinking they’d answered my cry for aid and then run to find me some more. I figured I only had to hold these guys off for moments, the cavalry was coming, so I vaulted over the bed—which was impressive, and I really wished someone had been there to get video—and caught Syringe Guy in a flying tackle. His head smacked the floor so hard he passed out. The one with the gun, realizing, I suspected, that his time was running out to get the job done, turned it on Deacon instead of shooting me, which I appreciated, since that was when I caught him in the side of the head with the same metal bedpan.

Now, people think omegas are gentile and soft, sweet and kind. And we are, truly. But they forget that we’re still wolves. My own wolf was small in comparison to others, but I was incredibly agile in my lupine form, as well as quite fast, and I had amazing balance. All that to say, in my normal form, I was all of those things as well. So fighting off two human men in a small room was not some big ask. It was fortunate for me that neither seemed very well trained.

I’d had a bodyguard when I was younger. At the time, we’d lived abroad, and people kidnapping and ransoming members of a rich man’s family was par for the course. That one bodyguard would have easily murdered me and Deacon without a moment of trouble. I had definitely fended off the B team, but still, I’d done it myself and I was proud.

When security guards rushed through the door a moment after Gun Guy hit the ground, as completely unconscious as his partner, I was thrilled to see them. I was even happier that a doctor and two nurses came in after them to check on Deacon, and last, a stunning woman in a cream-colored trench coat striding into the space. Her, I knew; I’d seen her in the society pages, with her striking red hair and porcelain skin. She was Georgia Davenport, formerly a Houghton-Crowne like Deacon. She wasn’t his sister, instead a cousin, but based on the many times I’d seen her on Deacon’s arm, they were very close.

Activity swirled around me as uniformed officers rushed into the room as well, and I methodically picked up my phone, which, because it was in a fantastic case, was unhurt, and grabbed my laptop bag, gathering the small number of items that had tried to escape when it struck its intended target.

Once I had everything, I stepped outside and stood off to the side, out of the way. A policeman in a navy suit went into the room, and then five minutes later, he came out and looked around a moment, saw me and charged over.

“Are you Aleksander Norwood?”

“I am.” I forced a smile—I was tired, after all. It was past two, and I still had to get home, shower, and go to bed. Suddenly I really missed the house I’d grown up in in the Gold Coast area. What I wouldn’t have given in that moment to be welcomed home by my parents and taken care of. I missed them, but they really loved Barcelona, and I got to see them for the holidays every year. “But please, call me Sasha.”

“Sasha.” He gave me a smile in return. “Can you tell me what happened in the room?”

I explained, giving him the full play-by-play, and gave my opinion as to them not being all that good at their jobs.

“No, no,” he corrected me quickly. “Both those guys are fixers for Matteo Rossellini, and I can promise you, they’re both lethal. You were far more impressive than you think.”

“Thank you.”

“May I ask, are you a beta or a gamma?”

He was smiling again, and he took a step closer, into my space. He was a beta himself, it was easy to tell, but I knew as soon as I told him the truth, he’d probably run.

“I’m an omega, actually,” I said and watched him recoil.

He tried to hide it—he had on his professional face, after all—but the horror twisted his expression into one of revulsion regardless.

They all thought we were weak, worthy of nothing, and their opinions were even worse now because, without protections, many had fallen into crime, the numbers even greater than before.

Before omegas had all the rights as the other classes of lupines, many whose families could not afford to take care of them were thrown out on the street, alone, penniless, left to fend for themselves. In those situations, it was prostitution and worse. There had always been stories on the news, but now there were far more. Many omegas were trafficked, as they could be badly hurt and they would appear unharmed the following day. Aberrant behavior could be unleashed on them, and if the choice was to die in the street or be put into heat nightly in a brothel, many preferred to at least be warm and fed. It was horrific, and as many law enforcement officers saw only that side, it left the rest of us to deal with the preconceived ideas of what we could and could not be.

“So,” I said sharply, because I was tired and the way he was looking at me made me want to hit him. Hard. It was not the omega way to be at all. “If you need anything else, do have someone call.” Meaning anyone other than him.

I spun around and strode for the elevator, and I was almost there when I heard the order to stop.

Was it easy to go against all my instincts and step inside with everyone else when the doors opened for me? No, it was not, especially when I knew that Georgia Davenport was the one calling out the command because I recognized her voice, and beyond her being an alpha, she was really nice. But she didn’t use my name, and that technicality was my out. How important could I be to her if she couldn’t dredge my name from her memory? Slipping into the crowded car, watching the doors close, then traveling down with people who knew nothing about me and didn’t care, was actually such a relief that I found myself breathing easy for the first time since I’d found Deacon bleeding on the sidewalk hours before.

2

DEACON