Page 19 of Omega Alliance

If Dani notices my false enthusiasm, she doesn’t show it. Instead she reaches for my hands and pulls me to my feet. “C’mon. I’ve got some nice clothes for you to change into.”

I follow her up the stairs, watching her strong legs and the ample curve of her backside as she ascends. I’m much thinner than Dani and am not sure whether I envy her curves or simply wish to touch them. I don’t know, because my body doesn’t tell me. It remains shockingly silent when she’s near. Not like with the alphas.

“They’ll probably be a little loose on you, but should be comfy,” she says, tossing me a purple sweatshirt, skinny jeans, and a lacy pair of underwear. She sucks in a deep breath and hooks her thumb toward the door. “I’ll just… uh, give you some privacy.”

I’m not entirely sure why, but I reach out and grab her wrist.

She pauses before drawing closer.

I feel my mouth go dry and my heart pound against my ribcage as I begin to wonder what it might be like to kiss her. I've never been kissed. Not once in my entire life, but I've often pictured Dani's lips on mine, a fantasy I never believed would be within reach. Now that it is, I can't help but question whether it's what I really want or simply what I reached for because I had no other outlets.

Still, she’s here with me now, a friend if not also more.

“I would rather you didn’t go,” I say when her eyes meet mine. The feel of her skin beneath mine sends a jolt straight through me. Finally my body is beginning to react to her as well. I don’t know if I can ever get used to this, but I want to.

She’s gaping at me, waiting for a response. So I say, “It’s just that I was almost always on my own in there. Being alone out here makes me feel…” My words drift off and I shrug, not sure how to describe it exactly.

But Dani nods her understanding as she leans back against the closed door and shuts her eyes. Not watching but with me. This feels intimate in a good way, not like the alphas watching me from the other side of the glass box. Dani is here for me, not my body.

I tug off my shirt and pull the new one over my head, then move to my lower half. As I shove my pants and underwear down, the photo I pocketed earlier flutters to the carpet. I glance toward Dani to check if she’s seen, but this secret remains my own for now. It feels good to have something that’s just mine, even if it’s only a meaningless photo of people I’ll never know.

“Okay, I’m ready,” I tell Dani after I’ve finished dressing and tucked the photo between the mattress and box spring of my bed for safe keeping.

She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes, smiling bright when our gazes connect. “So what would you like to do on your first full day of freedom, Sin?”

I sigh and slump onto the bed. “Honestly, I’d rather not decide. It’s all so much. Going from no ability to choose to everyone always asking what I want, what I need.”

Her expression remains soft, pliant. “I can help with that. If you want me to.”

I groan in frustration, which makes her giggle.

“Sorry. It’s just that we don’t really know you yet, and we’ve never met anyone like you before, either. This situation is new for us too.”

“You’ve known me for more than three years,” I remind her, pointing to my few tattoos that are still visible as proof. I won’t admit it, but her saying she barely knows me hurts, since I’ve long felt she is the closest thing I have to a friend.

This bothers me enough that I decide to back into it from a different angle. “How can you say you love me one second and that you don't really know me the next?”

She giggles again, and I enjoy the sound. It reminds me of her singing. “That’s a really fair question. I guess it comes down to the difference between knowing and feeling, you know?”

I shake my head, which is now starting to throb. Another side effect of abandoning the regimen of pills and processes the Alliance forced upon me. As the chemical effects wear off, I'm finding more and more of my true self laid bare, and I don't know that I'm ready for that. I wish I had more time, that this was a slower adjustment. But what's done is done, I suppose.

“You know from experience. You feel from your heart,” Dani offers, then sinks slowly onto the bed beside me, takes my hand, and places it to her chest.

The thump, thump, thump of her heart pulses through my fingers. For a moment, I sit in awe. But then I realize that my hand is also covering her breast and pull it away in embarrassment.

“It’s okay, Sin. There are no rules anymore. Not with me.”

Her eyes find mine and seem to ask a question, but I quickly tear my gaze away and mumble, “I need rules. Otherwise I don’t know how to act.”

“Who says there is any one way to act? Any one way to love?” She widens her eyes at me suggestively, and I swallow down the lump that has just formed in my throat.

I like being with Dani, much more than I enjoy being with myself, but she is a mated woman. She comes with a pack of three alphas who also love and need her.

Three alpha males.

And I don’t trust males.

JAX

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