“Just calm down—!” Sin was saying, trying to settle me.
Me.
It wasmewho was making Karma upset.
But I didn’t even know how to calm down. “I can’t… you… you…” The words were spilling from my mouth in a panic. “You don’t understand. I’m going to damn you?—”
“Damn us?” Sin sounded startled, his hand closing around my chin as he held me still. “Back up a little.”
“I’m a gold pack,” I choked out.
How come they didn’t know what that meant?
I felt alone, and my heat was coming.
Ihadto make them understand.
There was an odd silence, and I saw Sin exchange a look with Phantom, who’d got back to his feet, and was beside the set of drawers.
“If you…” I tried to find the words to make them see. “If you have sex with me, you’ll end up like… like Karma.”
Phantom cocked his head, sparing me a curious look.
“Let’s pretend I’m a heathen—” Sin cleared his throat—“and I have no idea what you’re talking about. Help me out.”
I wrung the blankets in my fist. “I’m not really… the best person to explain. But… but alphas can’t just go aroundwilly-nilly fornicating with gold pack omegas or they’ll corrupt themselves.”
Sin stifled a cough.
“Corrupt?”Phantom, who was tugging a locked box from the bottom drawer, glanced up at me, disbelieving.
But… he could see it—right there. In his pack brother.
Would he ever wake up?
“Without a bond…” I went on. “It’s too risky.”
And those bonds had to beapproved. Gold packs couldn’t just go and get with any old alphas. If my pack wasn’t pious enough, I could damn them even with the bond.
“A… what?” Sin asked.
“A bond.”
There was a long pause in which Phantom tugged off a necklace, upon which was a key.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” I replied.
“And that’s… your… lifestyle?” Sin asked.
Lifestyle?
I nodded, though it wasn’t how I’d put it.
It was just how the world worked.
“Uh. One small problem, babe,” Sin said, voice cautious. I swear I heard the first genuine waiver of uncertainty. “I don’t see any bond marks on your neck.”
