Page 14 of Rivers and Roads

I let out a slow breath, then nodded. “We can give it a shot. I don’t know how much good it’ll do.”

He let out the smallest laugh. “Well, maybe it’ll help to tell you that regardless of how submissive some Omegas are, none of us feel the need to fall to our knees and bear our necks the moment an Alpha enters the room.”

I flushed at the ridiculous stereotype that even our own people had fallen victim to. But he was right—it had crossed my mind in spite of never having seen an Omega behave like that. Not even in the first waves of a heat. “I figured,” I finally told him.

He folded his hands together between his knees and leaned a little closer to me. “I might be different because I was raised between two Alpha kids. And you know Zane wasn’t much of a caretaker, but Talia always has been. She was very maternal, and I think that sort of helped hone my desire to help people. But I’ve never had a problem standing up to an Alpha when one started posturing.”

I licked my lips. “Has your heat ever been triggered by one?”

Danyal bit his lip, and there was something in his gaze—something like pain—but he quickly shoved that away. “As far as we know, that only occurs when there’s a bond match between an Alpha and an Omega. And almost never with total strangers.”

That was shit we had all learned in our biology class, but something in his voice told me he knew from experience. I desperately wanted to ask, but it wasn’t my place.

“So, what can I expect, then?” I said, feeling like I was out at sea without help of rescue.

Danyal leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowed in thought. “I suppose it’s like…the feeling of wanting to go with the flow in order to keep the peace. It’s soothing, in a way, to let someone else make the decisions. But it never, ever erases common sense.”

It made sense to me—it lined up with everything I had ever seen in an Omega. But it was still wrong. It didn’t fit inside my skin.

Taking a deep breath, I rolled my shoulders back, then rose from the chair and centered my balance. “I think I’m ready,” I told him.

He gave me an appraising look, then gestured at the dummy. “If you’re sure…then let’s begin.”

By the time I got back to the room. All I wanted was my bed in my little apartment with a bottle of scotch and a few days to forget the bullshit that lay ahead of me, but I wasn’t allowed to leave.

The session with the dummy, then running on a treadmill while he measured my heart was bad enough. And once the other Wolves came in, I was ready to call it a day. I was grateful that they were both vaguely unfamiliar to me. The Alpha was a woman named Sasha who had been an envoy between us and one of the other resistance camps. She approached the situation with an almost clinical attitude, following Danyal’s orders to give me commands.

And Danyal had been right. My body wanted to obey, because it felt better than telling her to go fuck herself when she told me to take a seat in the chair and refrain from talking for ten minutes. But there was nothing in me that prevented me from opening my mouth, or from standing up. I wasn’t afraid of her, it just felt good to listen.

The Beta was one that had been working on the road crew the week before. We’d met once or twice, though I didn’t remember his name. Danyal introduced him but by then, my exhaustion was enough to knock me down. We went a single round on the mat, and I managed to deflect his punches, but I couldn’t land a hit on him, and I wondered if I had somehow failed.

“You did fine,” Danyal said, easing me into the chair after the other Wolves left. “Your strength is diminished, but your reflexes are exactly the same. And…” he hesitated, making eye contact with his eyes flashing orange that now matched mine, “it wasn’t as terrifying as you thought it would be, was it?”

No. It was frustrating at the very worst, and I could handle that. “I really just want to lie down,” I told him. I wasn’t in the mood to bear my soul, and he was kind enough to accept that and escort me back to my little bed.

The second injection came just after my dinner, and it was a miracle I didn’t sick up the hospital food all over the floor. Danyal had been right about one thing—it was slightly less painful and a lot quicker than the first dose. But I wasn’t convinced it was going to ease up with enough time for me to make it to the city.

My only saving grace was that my doses were early in the morning and then at night, which meant during the day—while I was attempting to infiltrate ComTech—I could focus on that and nothing else. And when it was time for me to escape, I wouldn’t need to pass as an Omega anymore.

That thought soothed my frayed nerves as I rested, my arm slung over my eyes, and I didn’t move again until I sensed my Alpha walking into the building.

Kor showed once things had calmed down, appearing in the doorway with his hand on Misha’s shoulder, looking more tense than I felt. I sat up slightly and met Misha’s gaze, but I was grateful he didn’t try and make small talk because I was in no mood. He leaned in and grazed a kiss along Kor’s jaw, then left him there as I shuffled to the end of the bed.

“There’s a chair about five steps to your right,” I told him. He swept his arm to the side, finding it after a second, then he sat with his hands hanging between his knees.

“I hate this,” he said. I felt his guilt and grief pulsing in the bond, and being as exhausted as I was, it started to overwhelm me.

“Please, don’t,” I begged him. I dropped down to my feet and met him in front of the chair as he stood up and reached for me. Our heads knocked together as his claws pricked my skin, and he took in a deep breath of my scent.

“That’s new,” he muttered.

I flushed. “Yeah well…perks of this fucked up drug.”

“Orion,” he breathed out, but I squeezed him tight, cutting off whatever else he wanted to say.

“You know we don’t have another choice,” I reminded him. “It was this or nothing.”

“That’s not true,” he growled, and I tightened my grip on his arm. “I have a fucking city full of Betas, and if even a quarter of those are willing to take on this mission…”

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