Page 42 of Glass Omega

Edison’s hand slid out of mine and I found myself reluctant to let him go, but then Oona seemed to materialize out of thin air and gently linked her arm through mine. “Come now, love, let the men handle this while I make you pretty enough to put all these other hussies to shame.”

With one last look over my shoulder at Edison and Rhodes’ retreating forms, I let Oona pull me back towards the house, all of my curiosity about the appearance of Pack Ricci unanswered as I tried to focus on the rest of my wedding day.

Thirteen

Edison was not happy about his wedding day being interrupted. I could see it in the rigid frame of his shoulders as he sat across the stainless steel table from the four men that made up Pack Ricci.

There used to be five, once upon a time when Alessandro Amante Jr. was still alive. But after the heir to the Amante family caught a stray bullet that none of the five families would claim, it was just Elio, Dante, Ranieri, and Nicolo left.

They were all around ten years younger than us. So we’d essentially watched them grow up. I knew that Edison had a soft spot for them despite their belonging to the ever-irritating Italians. Young men didn’t survive long in our world if they didn’t toughen up and to see the four of them coming back together after the loss of their lead alpha was the ultimate test oftheir ability to live and eventually take over the Amante family—that was what the elder Alessandro was grooming them for after all.

All that sentiment seemed to have vanished now, though, as Edison eyed them critically, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he seemed to be trying to formulate his thoughts.

Elio had a black eye from struggling with me when my security guys brought them over to me while the wedding was taking place and the other three looked equally disheveled as they looked anywhere but at me and Edison.

“In what world,” Edison began, finally breaking the tense silence that had hung in the air since we’d come in, “Do you think you wouldeverbe able to sneak into my property and steal away my bride?”

“You did it to us,” Elio muttered, sounding more like a petulant child than the future head of the Amante family.

“I walked into a public venue and reclaimed the property that was promised to me. Don’t get it twisted. You are very lucky that you failed today as wars have been started for less.”

The four younger men stiffened like they hadn’t considered war to be a possibility. They probably thought that because Edison had lost so much in the last war that he’d be hesitant to threaten it again.

I was still stuck on Edison referring to Perrie as property. My mind was already conjuring the redhead’s snarky response about that and I had to fight to keep a smirk off of my face at the image. No, it had become very clear that Perrie was her own person—contract or not.

“You don’t even like Perrie, why are you fighting so hard to get her back?” Edison crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his seat.

“Isn’t it the same for you? What use do you have for a skinny omega when you have your pick of the litter?” Dante, who hadnever been known for his tact, cut in despite his pack leader shooting him a look that was clearly meant to shut him up.

Edison’s growl filled the room, quickly followed by an overwhelming pressure that made the rest of us start to sink down into a bowed position.

It was rare for any alpha to use his pheromones to make others submit—it was an archaic evolutionary trait that was used in the times of kings and kingdoms to make their people obey—but Edison never feared reminding people that he was, in fact, the king of the Keane clan and people should treat him as such.

His alpha pheromones were the strongest I’d ever experienced, and despite knowing him for the better part of my life, it still never failed to make my skin itch with the need to drop to my knees.

The four alphas of Pack Ricci had even less experience with Edison’s overwhelming pressure and I watched the four of them slump forward until their foreheads smacked into the metal table in a chorus of bangs.

“Care to repeat those words?” Edison’s voice was low and dangerous. “I am letting you four sit in my home relatively unscathed after you disrespected me and now you disrespect my new wife and omega. The mother of my future children. So, I ask, would you like to repeat those words so that I can tear you limb from limb?”

There was a heavy silence before Dante finally managed to gurgle out a response. “No.”

It seemed the hotheaded alpha had finally met his match in my friend and Edison kept all four of them there for another beat before the pressure finally eased and they were able to sit up straight in their seats.

“Now you four will go back to Amante and relay my message: Peregrine Keane isminenow. It doesn’t matter how many men you send or what promises Ethan Chandler made to you. So takeyour pound of flesh from him and not me.” Edison stood, the legs of his metal chair squealing on the smooth concrete floor of the interrogation room. “My security will see you off of the property. I hope I don’t see you here ever again or I’m afraid we’ll have to use you for target practice next time.”

Edison turned to sweep out of the room, but Elio’s voice stopped him. “He won’t stop you know—Amante, I mean—he sees it as a challenge now. A temporary stopper in his plans.”

I frowned at him, having trouble wrapping my head around why it was so important to Alessandro Amante to have Perrie in the first place. Edison’s desire to find a woman outside of the system with enough knowledge to survive made sense. The scars on his chest could attest to that.

But why did Amante want her so damned bad?

Ethan Chandler’s political power couldn’t bethatuseful. Especially in the city where we operated almost unhindered by the local and state law enforcement thanks to decades of corruption.

Edison and Elio stared at one another, the former seeming to size up the younger alpha before he finally nodded resolutely. “I’ll keep that in mind. Now get the fuck off of my property.”

Stepping into the long concrete hallway, we headed for the stairs that would lead us back up into the main mansion and back to where the reception was currently taking place over our heads.

I waited for Edison to give his directions to the guards waiting at the top of the stairs before I finally spoke for the first time since I’d interrupted Perrie and Edison’s moment in the garden.

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