Page 57 of Shattered Omega

He was fixing me with an unreadable expression that made my skin crawl. “Punishable by indefinite confinement in a secure facility… sounds… really… really bad,” I said weakly.

“Yet, to report me, you will undo the safeties I put in place for you.”

“My… My pack is in trouble,” I whispered. “If I don’t help them, they could die.”

“Your pack?” he asked. “Are you referring to the alphas that dark bonded you?”

I straightened, holding his gaze furiously. “I asked for the bond.” My voice was hoarse. “I love them, and I won’t leave without your help.”

He leaned back in his seat, considering that, and he was a lot less surprised that I’d imagined he would be. I think, perhaps, something even softened in his eyes. I rarely saw that for anyone other than Aunty Lauren.

More seconds ticked by, and I nervously shifted the stack of papers, trying not to break his eye contact.

“I was worried that when she saw that bite, she would… she would… Well, she would never forgive me. She already doesn’t.”

“Aunty?” I asked, voice hoarse. “She’s here?”

“She’s away for the weekend. But I hope that she will be able to see you again, perhaps when this matter is dealt with. Especially if there’s a chance that the bond on your neck isn’t as dire as it looks. I don’t think… Well, she was so very worried when you left. The thought of you becoming bonded against your will gave her nightmares. Both…” He cleared his throat. “Both of us.”

I frowned, somewhat taken aback by that admission.

“I rather thought you were here for sanctuary,” he added.

“From… them?” I asked, fingers touching Dusk’s bite.

“Yes.”

I blinked at that. Mostly because, even believing that, he’d let me in. I’d run from him after he’d taken me in. He’d risked a lot to protect me, and still he was prepared to help if it were a pack of alphas who had put an unwanted bond on my neck.

“She loves you, Shatter. I hope you know that. I… I have been far from perfect, but I do want to see you find happiness.”

“My pack,” I said, seizing that. “I need to protect them. It’s the reason I’m here, and I don’t think anyone else has answers.”

He nodded.

“Well. I admit a reasonable amount of curiosity. I don’t know a great deal about what happened at the facility before, but in the community, breakthroughs do have a way of spreading—no matter how much the Institute wished they didn’t.”

“Do you know what they were trying to do?”

“Not explicitly, though one can draw some conclusions with the right puzzle pieces.”

“What puzzle pieces?” I asked.

I knew Umbra and Dusk had tried to overturn every stone for those answers about what the experiments were trying to accomplish.

“I’ve been in this line of work for a long time. The Akologists they arrested were old colleagues, some of which I’d even studied with. I knew their drives—their obsessions. And only obsession could push one of our own to go to such… unethical lengths for answers.”

I nodded.

“The Lincoln pack were part of it.”

His eyebrows rose. “The pack I sponsored—the alphas you claimed were your mates—were a part of those trials?” he asked.

I nodded. “Clients helping fund the… the studies.”

“Now that,” he murmured. “Is rather disturbing. I assume one—or more of them?—”

“Flynn,” I said. “Flynn has aura sickness.”

---