Page 46 of Shattered Omega: Part Three

“I understand, but I’m still curious why you’re pushing so hard for it.”

“I wouldn’t be claiming her if it wasn’t for the match—I think my parents would tell me not to, but… Well, it goes against my principles. She is ours.”

I worked very hard to loosen my grip on my cup as he spoke those words. I took a breath, letting go as Flynn went on.

“It’s only right we should take her. I didn’t really imagine you’d have interest with how much you are a representative of your family now. Not with the kind of work that will have to go into making her even remotely presentable. I mean her show at the ball—pretty enough, if cheap. I couldn’t take her to see my parents—don’t get me started on the eyes.” He sighed. “I do wish we’d gone to the Valentine’s Division sooner, found a decent match. Oh! Speaking of—” He tugged in his pocket and pulled out a business card. I frowned, catching a number of sweet scents tangled upon it. “I have a friend who works at the Valentine Division, you know. They’re so regulated, but she can get around a few of their… rules. Make sure the omega scents you’re exposed to are reputable. You might not be able to scent match after that dark bond, but it doesn’t mean you can’t find a good fit.”

Ah.

This was his play?

He handed me a card covered in the scents of a dozen unbonded omegas in hopes that… what? I was drawn to one of them?

I took it without flinching, knowing I was going to have to burn it (and likely my entire hand) if I didn’t want Shatter to start digging me a grave beside Dusk’s tonight.

“Not a bad idea,” I said.

“It would get their minds off of her—and this foolish vendetta. Think about it. Dusk strikes me as the primal kind. Get him another omega and he’ll forget all about her and this stupid… competition.” He eyed me. “Claim a little dignity back.”

“Dignity?” I asked, eyebrows shooting up.

He cleared his throat. “It might be hard to swallow, but everyone can see it, Kingsman. Those alphas claimed my scent match and ran rampant with your money. Time to leash them.”

My blood flashed with rage for the briefest second.

The image of the first time I’d ever seen Dusk and Umbra. Gaunt and beaten down. Starved, white outfits stained in blood. Violated over and over by experiment after experiment. Nothing more than animals to those that ran the facility.

“If you take the power back, then we can come to a proper arrangement. I can see you want this nightmare over just as much as I do. I must say, learning that your pack forged marriage papers…” Flynn’s jaw clenched. “You understand. She is ours. That is an insult.”

I got to my feet with a nod, knowing I would get nothing more from this conversation, but that every moment I stayed, I risked cracking and snapping him in two.

“I understand,” I told him. “I’ll speak to Dusk and do what I can. But in the meantime, no violence,” I said. “There’s been quite enough. I would like to facilitate it, so she goes to you the right way. I might be late to this, but that’s my pack’s bite on her neck. It didn’t sit well when your hired thug tried to… intervene.”

I hoped that would make him think twice about sending Mord. My job, after all, was to buy us time. Flynn’s jaw was clenched, but he nodded.

“Oh—Kingsman,” Flynn said as I was turning away.

“Yeh?”

He was frowning. “She will accept the princess bond, won’t she?”

I could almost see the pain on his face at being forced to ask such a humiliating question—whether a gold pack omega would be willing to accept the most valuable bite he could possibly offer. And finally, after all of this conversation, he’d circled back around to it, if only because it was his last and final obstacle. What a terrible inconvenience, Shatter’s autonomy was, to an alpha like Flynn Lincoln.

“That,” I said with perhaps my only honest smile of the night. “Is a good question, but I’m afraid I can predict her behaviour about as well as I can predict Dusk’s.”

SIXTEEN

RANSOM

I wandered back to the apartments with a nasty taste in my mouth. Worth it, though. I’d done my job—a job I owed my pack after how far Dusk and Umbra had brought us while I was sick.

Flynn was appeased. He believed he had a mole working for him, and we could only hope that would slow him down.

But I’d also seen the other side of him. The arrogant monster who saw Shatter—who saw my wife—as nothing more than a means to an end.

As his property.

A notification popped up on my phone, and rage dissolved for surprise. ‘Shatter Kingsman tagged you in a post.’ I tapped on it, frowning.

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