“What are you thinking, Diego?”
“Well, I’m no Olly, but it seems suspicious. Those scars looked clinical.Surgical. I can’t fathom why someone would do that to an omega. What condition could she have to make them operate on her so much, and all over her body? It’s barbaric.”
He scrubs his face with his hands before answering. “Fuck. You’re certain?”
“Sí.She’s someone’s experiment. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Ugh. As if this job wasn’t complicated enough already.”
I lean forward. “We can’t give her back to the Orions, Gage. There’s no chance they didn’t do this to her.”
“And there’s no chance this has something to do with wanting to keep her for ourselves?” His intense gaze lands on me. “You didn’t get a whiff of cinnamon and peppercorn and suddenly change your mind about the mission, did you?”
Much as I love Gage, his accusation stings. “This isn’t about how good she smells. It’s about right and wrong, about protecting an omega in distress.”
Silence drags on as he ponders my words. I can tell he’s teetering on the verge of agreeing with me, but he needs one final push, one tiny tip to the scales in my favor.
“I know you’re bonded to her, Gage. I know because I feel it, too. I’m sure Em feels it, and for fuck’s sake, I think even Olly feels it. For whatever reason, she came into our lives because she’sours. She belongs here with us, where we can keep her safe.”
“Yeah, well, you ask her, and she’ll say we suck in the safety department.”
Gage and I turn to see Emmett standing in the doorway. His neck has red marks on it, almost like a handprint, too small to be Olly’s, but … what omega would try to choke an alpha, especially during her heat?
“Are you kidding me?” Gage rolls his eyes. “We fucking saved her ass.”
“Well, and this is a direct quote, ‘safety is not a fucking cage.’ She’s super pissed, and she’s got a grudge against all alphas, apparently.”
None of this makes sense. A pack of alphas harming an omega to the point of scarring her, an omega who runs from alphas and attacks them … It’s crazy. How did we get mixed up in this?
“Did you get any info out of her?” Gage asks. “Any clues as to what the fuck is going on?”
Em shrugs. “Not much. The gist of what she said is this: Alphas are bad. Cages are bad. Everything except our fucking beta is bad. If Olly’s not within her line of sight, that woman is possessed. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
An omega imprinting on a beta when there are three available bonded alphas around? I scratch my chin in thought.
“Diego? You look like you’re cooking something up.”
“Well, Gage, I’m just wondering if there’s any way we can stall the Orions. Get them to give us an extension on our deadline for returning Auryn.”
“Why would we do that? We extend the deadline, and they’ll delay payment.”
“True, Em, but I doubt they’ll pay us anyway. In fact, I think we should do everything we can to keep Auryn away from them. They hurt her, Em, I’m sure of it. Did you see those surgical scars?”
He frowns. “I might have been a bit distracted.”
Gage takes the ice pack off his lap and sits up. “Let me guess, Diego. You want to investigate our benefactors.”
“Yeah. I think we should find out if they’re even worthy of any omega, let alone Auryn.” I tap my hand over my heart. “I may have spent the least amount of time with her so far, but I can’t denymi corazón.The second I touched her in the cave, something snapped into place. I don’t care if she scratches me a thousand times. She could even gouge my eyes out. What matters more than anything is protecting her, and that means we can’t hand her over to the Orions without ample evidence that they won’t be a threat to her.”
“If we’re really all bonded to her, we can’t hand her over anyway.” Gage sighs and stands. “Okay. Sounds like we’re in for a rough ride.”
We discuss our strategy for a couple hours, so caught up in planning that we forget about Olly. Finally, Gage stops mid-sentence and looks towards the hallway.
“Emmett, are you sure she wouldn’t hurt Olly?”
Emmett scoffs. “He’s probably the only one of us who can come out unscathed. Why?”
“Because he hasn’t come back yet.”
