"And what if I don't?" I challenge. I don't respond well to being told what to do. Pretty sure my first social worker called it Oppositional Defiant Disorder or some shit.
I've always preferred psychopath. It gets to the point.
I don't need to see his eyes to know the face he's making behind that mask. Takes a lot to ruffle Bird Boy's feathers, and it's been long enough I'm surprised I haven't earned the honor yet, but it's a fitting occasion.
There's plenty of pent up energy coursing beneath my skin. Not just the kind she was supposedly sent here to channel, either.
Funnily enough, I wasn't even jonesing for an omega's hole before. It's the kind of thing I've always been able to take or leave. I have the same animal impulses as any alpha, sure, but the blood… it's always sang so loud and sweet it's easy to tune out everything else.
Until her.
And now, I crave blood in a different way. All I can think about is finding whoever put those marks on her and making them pay.
Hell, a part of me wants to tear open her scars and redraw them, just to remove anyone else's mark from her body and replace it with mine.
Plague's hand twitches at his side, fingers curling into a fist. I can see the tension coiling in his muscles, the barely restrained violence simmering just beneath the surface. He wants to lash out, to put me in my place. And a part of me wants him to try, craves the rush of a fight, the taste of blood on my tongue.
But he holds himself back, ever the controlled one. "I won't ask again," he says, his voice low and dangerous. "Leave. Now."
I open my mouth to retort, to push him just that little bit further, but the sound of the door hissing open cuts me off. Thane's scent fills the room, all alpha musk and raw power. It's a scent that demands obedience, submission.
But I've never been good at either.
I turn to face him, my posture loose and casual, even as every muscle in my body tenses, ready for a fight. "Boss," I drawl, a mocking salute. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
Thane's gaze sweeps over the room, taking in the scene—Plague's rigid stance, my own insolent smirk, the omega lying still and vulnerable between us. His eyes narrow, a flicker of something dark and possessive flashing across his face before it's gone, masked behind a veneer of cool authority.
"We need to talk," he says, his voice brooking no argument. "All of us. Now."
Plague straightens, his attention snapping to Thane. "About the omega?" he asks, a hint of wariness creeping into his tone.
Thane nods, a single, sharp jerk of his chin. "Among other things. Gather the others and meet in the briefing room in five."
It's not a request, but a command. And despite the defiance thrumming through my veins, the urge to push back against any and all authority, I find myself nodding, falling in line if only because I'm curious.
I spare one last glance at the omega as I leave, drinking in the sight of her. She looks so small, so fragile, dwarfed by the sterile white of the infirmary bed. But there's a strength to her, too. A resilience that shines through even in her unconscious state.
She's survived horrors that would break most people, endured pain and suffering that I can only imagine. And yet, she's still here. Still fighting.
It's that strength, that unbreakable spirit, that draws me to her like a moth to a flame. I want to possess it, to claim it as my own. To break her down and build her back up again, mold her into something new. Something mine.
But I know I can't. Not yet.
First, we have to deal with the fallout of her arrival. The ripples she's already sending through our carefully controlled world.
I can feel it in the air, the tension, the anticipation. Something's coming, something big. And the omega is at the center of it all.
As I follow Thane and Plague out of the infirmary, I can't help but wonder what the future holds. For her, for us, for everything.
But one thing I know for sure.
Things are about to get very, very interesting.
Chapter
Fifteen
THANE