He presses a chaste kiss to my lips. “Stay here. Don’t leave, no matter what you feel, understand? Disobey me and I’m going to be giving you an ass fucking you won’t forget… after I’ve brought a pretty pink blush to it under my belt.”
I gulp. “Um… what?!”
He smirks. Then it fades, and something dark, dangerous, and mixed up with emotions I can’t readily place, settles in. “I’ll see you after.”
Then he smiles, turns, and jogs out of the warehouse.
I stare after him, adrift and sore in the best way.
God help me, I’m in love with him.
I mean, I’ve fancied myself in love more times than I can count, but those pale beside this.
My hand settles on my chest. Love, this fast? How is that even possible?
Easy, I realize. So damn easy, it’s not even funny.
A stupid grin lights my face. He’ll see me after.
Zeb
I keep to a fast jog as I follow the cleared corridor betweenbuildings to the front line. My enhanced physiology lets me maintain this pace nearly indefinitely, within reason and the limits of a human body… And then some, because, you know, I can tweak things. I once broke down an entire kidney just to get extra cellular matter to work with after a particularly serious wound.
Don’t recommend it. Growing it back hurt like a motherfucker. Which is when I found out some parts of the body are off-limits to my manipulation. Ignore the rules and pay the price.
My visor glows with a tactical overlay. I see Ethan and Ryker’s locations, blinking steadily, along with the rest of the team. The map updates in real time. I’m closing in.
Usually, I’d be focused on the mission. But leaving Esme is like ripping open a wound I didn’t know existed. She didn’t want me to leave. I’ve really fucked up, gone too deep into the role too fast, gotten emotionally invested, and, worse, made her emotionally invested in me. The pain of separation sits like a stone in my gut weighing me down. Every step away and it only gets heavier and harder.
Fuck.
If nothing else, this particular undercover mission has given me a newfound respect for the alpha-omega dynamic. I should cut myself some slack. Alphas are trained for deployment from the day they reveal, ripped from their everyday lives at thirteen, sometimes younger, sometimes a little older. From there, they’re molded. Refined and turned into something the Empire can dump on a battlefield. But controllers? They’re not just alphas. They’re the elite of the elite. They get extra training. Training in omega control.
I didn’t receive any of that training, not even the basic combat stuff, until I was eighteen. At first, they thought I was a theta, then a beta, then they decided I was a delta. By thetime they’d finished with me, I was just plain confused. I was seventeen when someone realized what I was, and that’s when a fast track into training began, none of which involved omegas.
Off in the distance, a transport ship lifts into the air, trying to escape.
BOOM.
A rocket streaks upward from our flank to blow it out of the sky. A fireball blooms above the rooftops, and a cheer goes up.
Good. That will keep them nervous about fleeing. They will send in reinforcements. Probably already on the way. But maybe we can do this. Maybe Jenda was on that ship, and my work has been done for me.
I’m delusional. A part of me is wallowing in a happy scenario where I go back to Esme.
Only she’s not for me. She deserves an alpha, not a fraud. Better if we never meet again, that way she won’t have to deal with the blow of learning I faked everything and played her.
Yeah, she’s going to hate my damn guts.
I don’t blame her. If I get out of this alive, I’m going to just go ahead and shoot that recruiter, or better yet, whoever it was in command that felt an omega, any omega, was a good idea at all, that my cover needed an extra layer.
I catch sight of Ryker hunkered down behind one of our armored vehicles outside the Uncorrupted’s base. Weapons fire arcs in both directions. More armored vehicles offer cover for our men.
Our enemy has a building to hide behind.
The front door is still closed and sealed tight. We haven’t breached it yet.
Ethan’s pinned on the opposite flank, protected by the wall of a neighboring building.
