Page 4 of Sweetheart: Part One

Something cold coiled in my stomach. “Ebony’s a rogue.” I said, my voice weak. “Everyone knows it.”

Rogue alphas and normal alphas were indistinguishable at a glance—until one went into rages and people got hurt. Gold pack omegas and normal omegas—we weren’t that different either. Only for us, we could be identified by our golden irises. For us, society hated us because we’d chosen this, and to the rest of the world, choice was black and white and easy to blame.

But… hide my eyes for the rest of my life?

I’d done it before—despite the risk of the law if I ever got caught. But now my mates would want to hide them, too? A life of contacts, and the dread of being found out.

“Show biz loves taking pity on rogues like Ebony. Taming the rough edge of society—kids born to it without a say. But gold pack omegas? Filth thatchoseit—” He laughed—“You’ll destroy their career in a day.”

I hadn’t been able to respond to that, the best dream I had to hope for, now a dull and lifeless picture.

“Though, I am starting to look forward to our visits. You always look so lovely, waiting for me like that, Vex. You know, if you fail, I might not be disappointed to keep you.”

My fingers were white as I clutched the edge of the epoxy desk in the empty office, and a desperate low whine slipped from my chest, eyes burning. My fingers brushed the foul spot on the back of my neck. It had taken so much makeup to cover the dark poison of that bite...

My breaths were short and sharp, fear made of daggers puncturing my chest.

I had to calm down.

My job was to get this pack to fall for me as a beta. That was the most important part. But hiding my designation from them was something I would never dream of without my orders. If they fell in love with me, I would want it to be as I was, and nothing less.

But that, like everything else, had been stolen away by the bond on my neck.

Taking a breath, I steadied myself.

If they walked in to find me crying, I’d fail before I began.

I was dosed up on so many scent blockers it would take a hell of a lot of adrenaline to break through them, but that posed its own problem. If they wore off quickly, I’d need more sooner. Even before I’d been stolen from my home, I’d hidden as a beta for much of my life, illegal as it was. At the age of nineteen, I’d already used more drugs to hide or manipulate my designation than most omegas. My hormones and heats were erratic. I’d racked up chemical debts that my tired omega body was going to have a rough time paying back.

I did the only thing that ever promised a reprieve, and the first lines of a lullaby slipped out. "Close your eyes, and drift off to sleep..." The words were shaky through my thick throat.

I dreamed those words. Whispered them in the cold and dark of a cell when I didn't know what would come. My fingers found the cuff of my shirt, rubbing the blank fabric between my fingers.

"...Let all your worries and fears fade away..." I shut my eyes, clinging to the song. My mother would sing it to me every night, so far beyond the age at which most mothers stopped singing to their children.

Until that first night of silence.

And every one that had followed were nightmares and silence. Silence that only I was left to break. But never, not even when she had every right to tears, had my mother cried when she sung. The song deserved better.

I found my voice at last. "Fill your soul with joys and love... And I’ll stay with you until the first break of day."

My voice was one my mother had cherished, for it had come out bashful and quiet even around her.

"Singing is my strength in the dark, little one,"she'd told me night after night."Find your voice and find your strength."

My mates were coming. I was going to meet them, truly, for the first time. Therewasa spark there—warm and hopeful at the thought of them—a faint chance that I might still salvage something from today. The spark of innocent excitement of an omega meeting the alphas the universe had chosen for them.

THREE

EBONY

Another Sweetheart to play with.

I could practically feel Love’s eye-roll when Rob had sent the text.

Week-long Sweetheart visits were the only thing that kept at bay that ever-present boredom threatening to eat me alive. It was a challenge: unravel a person within a week without laying a finger on them.

And I never touched them.

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