TEN
Heath
AFTER THE BETTER PARTof a day spent watching Knox struggle on a ventilator while monitors and alarms beeped and chimed endlessly, I wasfucking done. Gage was still walking around with his alpha hindbrain hanging out, cosseting this sweet-smelling would-be murderer because her goddamned pheromones matched ours.
And now it looked like Tony was marching right along next to him in the ‘be nice to killers’parade.
“You!” I barked, funneling every ounce of alpha rage into the command. “Stand up.”
The omega—whose name was apparently Jez—gasped and stumbled to her feet, trembling. Christ, she looked like a baby deer... all long legs and jutting bones and huge eyes. Her caramel coffee scent soured with fear, and I clenched my jaw against the urge to fall right in line with Gage and Tony.
Fawning over the fawn.
“Heath...” Tony said uncertainly.
“Shut it,” I said, aware on some level that Tony hadn’t done anything to deserve my ire. I didn’t have time for more mollycoddling, though.
This time, both of them flinched.
The muscles of my jaw clenched tighter.
“Tell me the name of the person who hired you to kill Knox,” I snapped, crossing to loom over the girl.
She made a soft, whimpering noise in the back of her throat, visibly swallowing the word that had almost escaped.
“Now!” I roared, directly in her face.
She staggered back a step, hitting the edge of the bed and collapsing onto it when her knees gave way.
“Adrian!” she choked out, as though the name had drawn blood on its way up.
“Fuck’s sake,” I muttered, stomping on the ridiculous ache in my chest. “Adrianwho?”
“I don’t know!” she yelled. “I didn’t ask, okay!”
Christ on a crutch.
“You didn’t fucking ask,” I echoed. “Of course you didn’t,Just Jez.”
She glared at me, her fingers clutching handfuls of the rumpled blankets as though she were desperately trying to think of a way to turn microfleece into a weapon.
“Short for Jezebel, is it?” I guessed. “Appropriate, I guess. While we’re at it, whatisyour last name?”
“I don’t have one,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“Bull fucking shit,” I told her. “Tell me your goddamned last name.”
She was shaking visibly under the effect of my bark, but she still managed to glare up at me with her huge blue-gray eyes for half a second before her gaze slid to the side.
“It was my father’s name,” she said with enough vitriol to dissolve steel. “He lost the right to keep his stamp on me when he sold me into sexual slavery. Excuse me if I don’t have a different name to replace it!”
