Page 55 of Roulette Rodeo
Her scent is even stronger in the enclosed space of the jet. It mingles with the leather and recycled air until every breath is a reminder of what we've done. What I've allowed to happen.
One hundred million dollars for an omega who might not survive the night.
Ridiculous…insanity. She might as well be deemed as bad luck.
The thought should make me angrier, but instead, I feel something else creeping in.Fear.Not of losing the money—we have more than we could spend in ten lifetimes.
But fear of what happens if she does survive.
If she wakes up with those garnet eyes and that defiant spirit.
If she looks at my brothers the way she looked at Shiloh in that penthouse.
If she smells like cherries and rebellion and everything I've trained myself not to want.
"You're thinking too loud," Talon says, dropping into the seat across from me.
"Someone has to think," I respond, not looking away from Red's still form. “Cause none of you are thinking with your brains, clearly.”
"You know, you could try not being a dick about this."
"About what? About Shiloh dragging us into a hundred-million-dollar impulse purchase? Or about you all losing your minds over an omega we know nothing about?"
"About the fact that she might be exactly what this pack needs," Talon says quietly.
"This pack doesn't need an omega. We tried that, remember? It ended with a funeral and a war that cost us everything and forced a rebuild."
"That wasn't our fault."
"Wasn't it?" I finally look at him, let him see the guilt I usually keep locked away. "We pushed too hard. Demanded too much. We broke her, Talon."
"Sophia made her choice."
"Because we didn't give her any other options."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with shared guilt and unspoken truths.
Sophia had been beautiful, sweet, perfect. Everything an omega should be. And we'd destroyed her with our intensity, possessiveness, and inability to be anything other than what we were—dangerous men playing at domesticity.
"This one's different," Talon finally says.
"How? Because she can throw a punch? Because she's got a smart mouth? That doesn't mean she can handle us."
"Maybe it does," Shiloh interjects from where he's standing guard over Red. "Things are different now. Different environment. We’re no longer in a world that buzzes in desperation. She could adapt...and so can we."
"Or maybe," I counter, "it means she'll fight until she breaks, just like Sophia did. Only this time, she'll take us all down with her."
"You felt it," Corwin says quietly. He's checking Red's vitals again, but his hazel eyes find mine. "In the penthouse. You felt what we all felt. She's not just any omega, Rafe."
I want to deny it.
Want to lie and say I felt nothing, that her scent is just pheromones and biology, that the way my chest tightened when she collapsed meant nothing.
But they know me too well for lies.
"It doesn't matter what I felt," I say instead. "Feelings don't change facts. And the fact is, we're not equipped for this. For her."
"Maybe we could be," Shiloh says, and there's something vulnerable in his voice that I haven't heard since before his last deployment. "We could try."
