Page 116 of The Omega Princess

Sinclair growled at him.

“Stop,” said Eleri, and I felt the tension in the room release as we all turned to look at her. She peered up at Sinclair. “You’re not even angry with him.”

Sinclair scoffed.

“You’re not,” she said. “You’re angry with yourself, because he brings out the bad in you.”

Sinclair shook his head. “That isn’t—”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I bring it out of you, too.”

The ends of Sinclair’s mouth turned down.

“He doesn’t need anyone to bring the bad out of him,” I muttered.

“You only think that because you haven’t seen him with Rohan,” said Eleri. “Rohan brings out the best of Sinclair.”

That cut me. Rohan was mine. I mean… we never were exclusive, sure, but Rohan was siding with Sinclair over me, and that seemed wrong to me. I didn’t mean that I wanted to have everyone for myself, or that everyone should side with me. I wasn’t trying to be selfish here.

But then I thought of what Maguire had said, how my public life demanded so much of me that in my private life, I needed to be a little selfish. He was willing to give it to me. He didn’t even seem to mind.

Fuck, I’d only let him knot Eleri that one time, and he never said anything about that.

Maybe I was just an asshole, in the end.

I dragged a hand over my face. “Fine. I’m the problem. Guess I’ll just leave and let you guys be problem free.”

“Wait,” said Eleri.

“Way to be passive-aggressive,” said Sinclair, flipping me off.

I didn’t even respond. I just walked out.

eleri

I COULDN’T GO after Devlin because I was still knotted.

They couldn’t go after him either, being stuck inside me.

Of course, neither of them wanted to. I was particularly struck about how Rohan was really angry with him, how he seemed to fume whenever he talked about Devlin.

I knew that wasn’t right, and I couldn’t help but think that Sinclair had something to do with it, as much as I adored Sinclair.

However, I wanted us all to be together.

I was realizing the problem was neither Sinclair nor Devlin, but the both of them and whatever issues they had with each other.

I talked to Maguire about it, because he was the only one who I could talk to about it. Also, we were both outsiders amongst the royals so we could see things that the others couldn’t.

I talked to Maguire about a lot of things. Now that he wasn’t working night shift, he had been pulled to attend various functions with Devlin and me. He still wore his uniform and acted like a bodyguard, but he wasn’t staff.

If there were no formal activities on a certain day, though, we would spend the afternoon in his room or mine, sometimes curled up on my bed watching TV or sitting on a couch. He was huge, like all the alphas, and I liked it when he’d sprawl out and I would lie back against his chest, feeling engulfed by him, listening to his heart beating.

We talked about his family. His parents weren’t being hounded by the press yet, but we all knew that would come eventually, and they’d been moved to somewhere secure in preparation of that. They lived in a walled and gated community with my parents, actually. Our mothers had become friends.

We schemed about going home for dinner with our families, trying to figure out the logistical nightmare of traveling there without being followed by a cadre of paparazzi. Sometimes we talked about his past. He told me about his failed relationships, how he’d never dated before going on duty in the war.

After his first tour, he’d come home and met a girl, but he’d been plagued by nightmares about the fighting. “I’d get worried about her,” he said. “I think I got a bit too worried. I wanted to know she was safe all the time, and I wanted her to check in. Once, she had forgotten to charge her phone, and I couldn’t get in touch with her, so I burst in on her girls’ night with friends, practically frothing at the mouth, thinking she’d been kidnapped or something. She ended it after that.”

---