Page 56 of Fallen Omega

“Where people put in money to gain a better standing with the Council,” Dante says. “Keep up. You should know this.”

“I wasn’t interested in any of this bullshit. I wanted to go to college and make a shit ton of money in some skyscraper that glitters and rains cash in a big, expensive city. Pack living wasn’t exactly front and center conversation in my home. I’m an anomaly.”

Thing is, I’m putting my best, cocky, asshole foot forwardhere. I have to. Dante’s the kind of alpha that makes most alphas wish they were betas. And Reaper is… well, he’s something else.

I’m up there when I need to be, but I prefer my place behind the scenes.

I just want them to know. As the new kid on the block. These two…they go way back. We’re past the new alpha in the pack bullshit, but my head still plays that game.

Because I know if I were with any other alphas, they wouldn’tbealphas. I’d be at the top.

The three of us are meant to be equal. And we are. It’s just good old Dante’s right there. At the peak of our triangle.

“I know. I know.” I hook an ankle up to the opposite knee and resist the urge to play with the dark denim edge of my jeans. “I fucked up. And I know the basics, but I didn’t study Advanced Council Studies. The bite’s going to reverse. I didn’t?—”

“Bites,” Reaper says, “are used to track, to control, and to bind.”

There’s a grimness about him right now that’s got zilch to do with the reaper part of his name. Or maybe it does. He’s hard to read, even for me.

The man isn’t a talker and when he does, he’s often just blunt. At first, I took it as him not being as smart as me because I’m fucking smart. I’m up there. So’s Dante, in a different sense.

But that aura of people misreading him is something I suspect he cultivates. Or allows others to cultivate for him.

They underestimate him.

Once.

The time I did, he could have killed me, snapped my neck. He didn’t. Instead, he taught me to kill, fight, defend, hurt. And he told me I never had to use the skills as killing isn’t in my blood, not like him or like Dante. But now I know how, and that’s important.

Even, he said, if I never utilize it.

Biggest fucking speech he ever gave me.

That moment changed our dynamic, and I went from the new kid to full on accepted. By him. And me accepting him.

Dante? Never an issue. He saved my ass, saw my potential, made me a partner when he could have just claimed the top job in our outfit and lives.

Which, I guess, is why I feel his displeasure like a fucking brand being held against my skin. I owe him, in a way.

“Yeah,” I say to them both, “but…” I turn my chair and clear one of the screens to type on my keyboard. “See? I didn’t mate with her and she didn’t mark me. She’ll be fine. She’s out of heat, she’s not bonded, not truly. And we can use it to track her when we let her go. At least until the bite fades.”

“If it fades.” Dante slides the laptop on the desk next to me. “We might have to look into getting it reversed. Somehow.”

“What—”

“He means, Knight, her scent’s potent. To us. You bit her and marked her, and since we’re a pack, we can feel the pull.”

Fuck, another long speech from Reaper. Maybe I’m unconscious and this is a dream.

“If we can track her through it, others can track us through her,” he continues. “He’s saying if it’s a soulmate kind of bullshit situation, or to put it another fucking way, if your pheromones are a particular and rare match, and you’ve gone and taken us along for the ride in pheromone matched hell, she can be used.”

“I’ve told you and Reaper’s told you, she’s clean.” I frown. She’s clean, a good girl, a good person. It’s as bright as day, that fact.

Liz just oozes sweetness and innocence. And goodness.

“And she sings,” I say. “I heard her.”

Dante stares like I’ve lost my mind.

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