Page 15 of Reckless: Collision

He nods, not pushing further. “Well, complicated girl, you got a name?”

“Know what?” I pull myself together, piece by scattered piece, armor going back on with my clothes. “No, I don’t.” Because names make things real, and reality is exactly what I came here to escape.

He scoffs, shaking his head.

“Thanks for the fuck.” I throw him a wink, wearing my shamelessness like a shield. The ache between my legs matchesthe one in my chest as I head for the door, both reminders that some escapes are only temporary.

He laughs, a deep, rumbling sound that makes something in my chest tighten. “Anytime. Something tells me our paths might cross again.”

I sure as fuck hope not.

Chapter 3

Ryker

Six monthsof forced inactivity crawls under my skin like a fever as I pace the waiting room of Puritan Alpha Security. The empty space beside me throbs like a severed nerve, my fingers twitching toward nothing as if trying to grasp something only I can see. I press my palm against my sternum where Jinx’s absence creates a hollow ache, our pack bond stretched so thin I can barely feel the chaotic pulse that defines him. Like trying to hear a whisper in a hurricane.

“Where the hell is Jinx?” The words emerge as a growl that makes the fluorescent lights seem to dim. A passing omega freezes mid-step, eyes widening before he presses himself against the wall, throat exposed involuntarily. The air feels suddenly thick, harder to breathe, as if gravity itself responds to my frustration. I inhale deeply, muscles tensing as I pull the alpha pheromones back into my skin like retracting claws. Control. Always control. “We can’t fuck this up. This is the first assignment we’ve gotten since...”

The words die in my throat, replaced by the memory of blood and rage and six dead alphas.

I drag my fingers through my hair, feeling the strands Jinx’s episodes turned grey. The physical price of holding a fractured pack together. Of failing them all a little more each day.

“Well,” Finn’s calm beta scent cuts through my spiral as he doctors his coffee from the counter machine, “do you want my opinion?”

“No.” The word carries enough alpha command to make most betas bare their throat. Finn just raises an eyebrow.

“Should have brought Theo.”

“No.” Every alpha instinct flares at the thought of our omega outside our territory. Outside my control. “He stays protected. Safe.” The last word tastes like ash and wishful thinking.

Finn just hums, tapping at his phone with that deliberate serenity that makes me want to snap something. Probably my own self-control.

This meeting is a test. Has to be. Why else would they keep us waiting in this antiseptic hellhole where every surface gleams with the kind of clean that makes me think of hospital morgues and crime scenes? Hell, even the coffee tastes like it was filtered through bureaucracy and disappointment.

“Ryker Locke?” A woman in her late twenties leans out of a doorway, dark hair falling in waves to her shoulders. Her scent reaches me before her voice does—clean river stones after rain with notes of paper and ink, distinctly beta but without the usual undercurrent of submission. The kind of scent that enters a room without apology, that claims space without permission.

“That’s me.” My voice comes out like gravel over glass. I clear my throat and attempt a smile, but from Finn’s wince, I know I’m showing too many teeth. Too much alpha. Some days I wonder if I remember how to be anything else.

I probably look like every omega’s nightmare in dark jeans, shirt, and leather jacket. At least the outfit hides the pack marksetched into my skin like a roadmap of my failures. I grab my motorcycle helmet and give her a curt nod.

She raises a brow and kicks open the door. Lavender scent freshener floods out, artificial and cloying. Might as well have blindfolded me and tied my hands. Strategic. Professional. Exactly what I’d do in their position, and I hate them a little for being smart enough to think of it.

“We’re ready for you.”

“Fix your face,” Finn hisses, the muscles around his eyes tightening. “You’re radiating enough aggression to make houseplants wilt.”

My jaw locks tighter, teeth grinding against each other as I deliberately deepen my scowl until I feel the pull of skin between my eyebrows. Some days the only shield I have is this armor of intimidation, this deliberate projection of danger.

This is the face they fucking get.

The small woman—Willow, if I remember right—steps aside. The conference room hits me like a brick wall of competing alpha markers and pack bonds, all of it smothered under that suffocating lavender. Perfect. Because what this day really needed was a chemical headache.

The long table is full except for four empty seats that might as well have Pack Failure written on them in neon. At the head sits Malachi, my boss since the incident stripped us of active status. His mate Aria perches at his right, pastel pink hair knotted on top of her head like some kind of anime character. The rest of his pack surrounds her like a living shield.

Noted. Categorized. Threat assessed. Old habits die harder than most of my enemies.

Ginger, the Omega Guardian’s PR expert, sits near Willow, her tablet already out and fingers flying across the screen—probably doing damage control for whatever chaos this meeting is about to unleash. Smart. They’re going to need it.

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