Page 10 of Captive Omega

I’m nearly past the store when five words penetrate my desperate, frantic thoughts.

“No alphas can enter. Ever.”

I stop.

Backing up two steps, I swivel my head to the TV in the window. The owner or sales assistant is looking at me, probably wondering at my white dress and ripped sleeve.

I press my nose to the window. I watch and I listen to what looks like a recording.

The three alphas are standing at a lectern, talking about a free heat clinic—the only one in the city—that denies entrance to all alphas, even them, and they own it.

Ever Safe.

Two minutes.

That’s how long it takes to learn everything I need to.

Pack Ashe, billionaire investors, gave up their business to start their own free heat clinics. I’m downtown, probably streets away from their now open location.

I don’t trust it. Not the clinic. And not an alpha's promise.

But I need to not be on the street and right now, I’m close to one place I can buy myself a few hours of privacy. All I have to do is say my heat is coming.

Dare I risk it?

Movement pulls my attention back the way I came. Dark suited alpha is holding a brown paper bag as he talks with two men in black combats, tees, and steel boots. He’s probably telling them all about the insane omega in a nightdress who just screamed in his face.

Can’t tell if it’s O’Brien or the other guards, but only they wore black like that.

I think of that downtown free heat clinic… Ever Safe, and I think, yes, I dare risk it.

It would be stupid not to risk it.

Head down, I hobble on with no idea where I’m going. It’s not like there were any instructions about where this free heat clinic is, so I hope to hell I’m not going in the wrong direction.

Either the universe suddenly decides it likes me, or something else is at play, but I turn a street corner and suddenly it’s right there. Brightly lit, in all its red-bricked, brand spanking new building glory, on the other side of the road. It even has a sign at the top so big I couldn’t miss it.

Ever Safe.

I’m poised to run when a black truck with tinted windows swerves in front of me, the back door swings open, and a man steps out, blocking my view of Ever Safe.

It’s one of Nathaniel’s security men. Not O’Brien. This guy is a redhead and younger, with a nasty twist to his lips. O’Brien is probably back at the factory, scraping Rupert’s body off the ground or calling Nathaniel back from his gala.

That’s good.

O’Brien wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in my brain after what I just did.

Another man slips out of the front seat, leaving the engine running. This man has shaved dark hair and a full-length tattoo from wrist to neck. As he steps out of the driver’s side, he immediately reaches for a gun tucked into a leather holster.

I back up.

I can’t go back the way I came and risk running into the two men speaking to the red wine alpha.

They train unblinking stares on me as I keep backing up. Slipping past them isn’t an option with the way they’re coming at me head on.

Please don’t let me be walking into a dead end.

A handful of steps down the foul-smelling alley and it hits me that I’ve just made a mistake. Perhaps a life ending one.

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