Page 7 of Alpha's Second Chance

“It’s in my car.”

“Good. We’ll leave it there. If one of his men find your abandoned car, and phone, maybe we’ll hold them off for a little bit.”

Eve

The first motel we found was what you’d expect along a deserted highway in rural Colorado. Because things were going so well for me, the lady announced they only had one room, with one bed. Then she winked at us.

“Disgusting,” I muttered. “Now we know why there aren’t any rooms.”

Sure enough. There was one bed. Lumpy, with a dingy orange bedspread. “We’re lucky shifters don’t get hepatitis. Or worse,” I said.

Owen kicked the bed frame. “We aren’t immune to bed bugs”

I shuddered.

“I’ll take the floor,” he said.

“No. It’s fine. We both need to be rested.” I raised my eyebrows. “I’ll try not to paw at you.” As angry as I was, it wasn’t smart for me to keep picking at Owen. It was best if I acted as though we had no history.

Owen groaned. “Your jokes are still bad.” He said something under his breath. It sounded like, “There was a time you wanted to paw at me.”

I wasn’t going to touch that one. I had loved Owen. I had found him gorgeous, sexy, and smart. I’d dated a few humans here and there, but none did anything for me. After being engaged to a shifter bear, whether it was my choice or not, human males just didn’t measure up.

I snuck a look at Owen. As many males did, he had improved with age. Without the veil of anger, I could see him clearly now.

However, this was no time to get lost in ruminations. I sniffed my shirt. “Ugh. I smell like a frat boy who overdosed on body wash. I’m going to shower.”

“Thank you. I was contemplating finding a bag to put over my head.”

“I didn’t exactly have a lot of options. It was that or spray on some fire extinguisher foam.” I wandered into the cube-sized bathroom and shoved the shower curtain aside. “I’m going to have to use something else.”

“Now that Bull knows you’re a shifter, you could just let it go.”

“Right. And invite every shifter within a fifty mile radius here. Not to mention the clan coming after me.”

“I told you, I won’t let that happen.”

“How exactly would you prevent it?”

“I’m the Alpha now.”

“You can’t tell me the elders don’t still hold a lot of power,” I said. They’d never let go of that much control.

“They think they do. But they’ll listen to me.”

They might do as Owen commanded. But that didn’t mean the system was any different, not in ways that mattered to an omega. “You have no idea what it’s like.”

“So tell me.”

“I was born an omega,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. If I could present evidence to a jury, then I could keep from screaming at Owen. “I had no control over that. I wanted choices. I had none.”

He frowned at me. “I would have let you do whatever you wanted.”

I dropped into the ratty arm chair shoved in the corner. It was probably covered in lice, but I was too tired to care. “Do you even hear yourself? You’dletme? You’re part of the problem.”

“And humans are so much better?”

“Yes. They aren’t perfect. And they have their own screwed up history. But now, things are a whole hell of a lot fairer for women than they are for shifter omegas.”

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