Page 88 of Reckless: Collision

“How’d you sleep?” I adjust in the chair to face him, resting my head against the back of the rocker. The position should feel vulnerable, but something about Theo makes it feel safe instead.

He sips his coffee, those dark eyes studying me like he’s composing a symphony of my secrets. “Well.” A pause, measured and meaningful. “You’re bleeding.”

I can’t help but chuckle. “Auntie Flow decided to pay a visit.”

He nods slowly, and it takes me a moment to realize why his understanding feels so complete. The thought hits me like a system upgrade—male omegas, their biology both familiar and foreign to my beta-educated mind.

“Yes,” he says, answering my unspoken curiosity.

“I didn’t ask anything.” I try to hide behind my mug again, but he sees right through me.

He shrugs one elegant shoulder, completely unbothered by both the cold and my curiosity. “You didn’t have to.” His lips curve knowingly. “Your eyes tell a thousand stories.”

“So you get a period?” The question slips out before I can filter it.

“Of sorts.”

“That means you can get pregnant.” I furrow my brow, confronting the limits of my public school biology education. Private omega academies probably covered this in detail, while we betas learned just enough to know our place in the hierarchy.

“I can.” His voice carries no judgment, just simple truth. “Though I’m not sure that’s something I ever want.”

“Why?” The word escapes before I can catch it, my curiosity overriding my manners. “Sorry—you don’t have to answer that. It’s personal, I just?—”

“You’re curious,” he finishes for me, and something in his tone makes me brave.

Oh I am so curious but I don’t want to be invasive.

“It’s complicated,” he says, gaze drifting to the falling snow. “In Italy, male omegas aren’t just rare—we’re commodities. Family lines preserved through arranged marriages, heirs guaranteed through breeding contracts.” His accent thickens with memory. “My parents had my entire life mapped out before I could walk. Which alpha would mount me, how many children I’d bear, what songs I’d be allowed to play between heats.”

The casual brutality of it hits me like a system crash. “That’s why you ran.”

“Partly.” He turns back to me, and there’s something in his eyes that makes my chest ache. “But mostly I ran because I saw what happened to the others. The male omegas who did everything right, who gave their families exactly what theywanted. Empty eyes, empty music. Cages built of silk and obligation.”

I think about my mom then—how she worked three jobs to keep us fed, how she never let beingjust a betadefine her dreams for me. How cancer ate her alive while alphas and omegas sailed through life with perfect health and perfect babies.

“Sometimes I hate them,” I whisper, the confession burning my tongue. “The alphas and omegas with their perfect genes and their perfect lives. My mom—she was the strongest person I knew, but her body betrayed her. Like being beta meant she deserved to suffer.”

“And I sometimes hate the betas,” Theo admits softly, “for their freedom. No heats, no ruts, no biological imperative to breed. Just... choice.”

We sit with that for a moment, two people carrying different brands of the same pain. The snow falls thicker now, muffling the world until it feels like we’re the only ones left.

“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” I try to laugh but it comes out wet. “The omega who doesn’t want children and the beta who can barely have them.”

“The artist who refuses to create life and the hacker who creates chaos.” His smile holds understanding instead of pity. “Maybe that’s why you fit here, piccola. We’re all running from something, all breaking the rules society wrote for us.”

“What rules did the others break?” The question comes soft, curious. Here in this snow-muffled morning with my guard down, I find myself wanting to understand them—this pack of beautiful misfits who keep surprising me.

Theo’s laugh carries no bitterness, just fond recognition. “Ryker—the perfect alpha commander who’d rather protect than dominate. Jinx, whose chaos comes from caring too much, not too little. And Finn...” His smile turns gentle. “The beta whorefused to be ordinary, who keeps us all grounded while teaching us to fly.”

“Like today with the snow.” I gesture to the window, where the flakes dance like binary code rewriting the world. “He promised to teach me to sled.”

“Ah, yes. Our Finn and his addiction to adrenaline.” Theo’s eyes sparkle with mischief. “He does love showing off his more daring side.”

“Still can’t believe he base jumps,” I mutter into my coffee. “Seems so contrary to his analytical nature.”

“Mmm. The quiet ones always surprise you.” He stretches like a cat, all lean grace and deadly beauty. “That’s what makes us work, I think. We’re all pretending to be something we’re not, until we realize we’re exactly who we’re supposed to be.”

The words hit something raw inside me. All my life, I’ve been fighting—fighting beta stereotypes, fighting limitations, fighting a system rigged against me. But sitting here with Theo, watching snow remake the world, I feel something shift.

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