Page 45 of Shattered Omega: Part Three

“I’m still surprised at your stance at the ball—the party even. I can’t possibly imagine why you want to keep her?”

“I walked into this situation late—to Dusk telling me she’d been taken by your pack. Then she was dark bonded without my consent. I have a responsibility to ensure this situation is dealt with properly.”

This was getting easier with the drink, and as much as I’d despised my upbringing, this sort of diplomacy was something I was trained for.

Flynn nodded, considering that. “How does she…?” He narrowed his eyes as if unsure how to phrase it. “How is she with your pack?”

I took a while to consider that. “She’s… fragile,” I said carefully. “She escaped Dusk to be rejected by you.” I held his eyes, wondering what he’d have to say to that. “She is afraid of a lot of things,” I said, gauging his reaction. “Especially after what you did.”

“Afraid?” Flynn wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Well, I don’t trust her to be rational, but none of those things would have happened if she hadn’t been hiding from us. She’s a fool if she doesn’t understand the position she put us in. We’re alphas.”

I blinked, trying to contain my reaction to that. They were blaming Shatter for how they’d attacked her?

“Men like us, we’re run by instinct at the worst of times, and she was… Well, she was taunting us.” Flynn clapped me on the shoulder, and that, plus the lie he was spinning was almost enough to break my composure.

But I’d known, if I was to play this card tonight, I would be faced with something vile. That was the thing I’d learned about evil people. Very rarely did they view themselves as the villain. That had been one of the most disturbing things I’d learned from my father. I had returned to confront him—before I’d become completely feral. Back when Dusk and Umbra had begun their own hunts in retribution for the alphas that had died in those experimentations.

My father had no idea the security systems were down—that he was on the brink of his own reckoning. I’d sat before him in his office and given him one last chance.

And what had he told me?

“There was nothing inhumane about it, son. Those alphas were pulled from the Cimmerian Vaults; violent and insane, left to rot behind bars. They aren’t like us. This was the only opportunity they’d ever have to better the world.”

In a way, I supposed, he was right.

If my father had never pulled them from the vaults, Dusk would never have hunted him across his own mansion and ended him that night.

The world was better after that.

“Are you protective of her?” Flynn asked, a goading smile on his lips as he took me in. “My scent match?”

I straightened my expression, which I realised had stiffened considerably.

“She’s…” I trailed off, not finding a word that wouldn’t give too much away.

“Gold packs.” Flynn waved a hand, saving me from having to come up with an answer. “Nature’s sirens. I don’t blame you for being a bit attached, but it’s nothing more than biology.”

“I…” I swirled my glass. “She isn’t what I expected.”

“Be honest, you must want me to take her off your hands. You are the last of your line—and she complicates that.”

“What about yours?” I asked, surprised by that take.

Shatter was a gold pack. Any alpha children she had would be rogues—alphas capable of breaking the Institute’s laws that were designed to keep society safe. Flynn was right; legally, she could never have children.

Of course, that would mean nothing to Flynn, who saw Shatter as a cure for his aura sickness, but I wondered how he would mask that lie.

“We could work something out,” he said easily, waving a hand again. “An arrangement out of pack, or, well… I mean…” He paused, as if toying with an idea. “With what the world’s dealt me so far, a part of me perhaps enjoys the idea of…” He glanced around briefly, voice lowering. “Tripping the system.” He grinned. “With enough money, you can get around almost anything. And rogue alphas… I do like the idea of handing more power to my children. She can, at least, offer me that.”

Goosebumps rippled my skin as I processed those words, and it took everything I had to keep a hold on my aura.

His take was clear, though.

He was trying to play her off as worthless to me, while an asset to himself—but not so much so that he wasn’t doing me a favour by offering to take her.

“You’re a bigger risk taker than I am,” I said quietly, swirling on my drink to calm the boiling fury in the pit of my stomach.

At the lack of condemnation, Flynn downed the rest of his drink before setting it down with a scowl. “She is a gold pack caught between two families so far out of her calibre that it’s embarrassing we’re here discussing her. The least she can do is give me some power back to my lineage.” He snorted. “And she’ll be in a fucking princess bond. I better get something back after having to offer it.”

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