Brooks didn’t answer. This was the first chance he’d had to check his phone since the raid, and he just about freaked when he’d seen the text from Becca. Outside the operations truck he and Carter were in, cops and crime scene techs were digging for clues. He ignored them, focusing his attention on the text and trying to read between the lines for any hidden messages.
After determining there was no ongoing threat at the auto shop, Brooks had sent everyone except Carter back to the SWAT compound. They probably didn’t need to be there, but Brooks didn’t feel right leaving. He owed it to Ray to hang around in case the techs turned up something that might be helpful. Besides, staying there gave him a chance to talk to Carter in private about Selena.
“No, it’s not from Selena,” he finally said, slipping his phone in a side cargo pocket on his uniform pants. “It was from her friend, Becca. She said I could pick up my truck in front of her apartment building. Becca wanted me to know Selena is okay and that she’s staying with her. She thinks Selena needs a little space, though.”
Carter lifted a brow. Two years older than Brooks, his blond-haired packmate had been a U.S. Marine before joining SWAT. “You think she knows Selena is a werewolf?”
Brooks shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Either way, Becca seems focused on protecting Selena. That’s the important thing.”
“What are you going to do?” Carter asked after a long silence. There’d been a lot of those lately. “This thing Selena is going through isn’t something she should handle on her own. Trust me. I tried to do it on my own for a long time, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
Brooks’s chest tightened. From the moment he’d realized Selena’s glowing blue eyes meant she was an omega, he’d feared the worst. All he knew about omegas was that they were unpredictable and on the verge of going psychotic at the best of times. The idea that Selena—and Carter—were omegas was hard to wrap his head around.
“How come you never told any of us you were an omega?” he asked, ignoring the question his packmate had asked about Selena for the moment, since he had no clue how to answer it. “Up until the Pack mixed it up with the omegas who worked for Frasheri, most of us didn’t even know they existed. You could have let us know what we were going up against. Hell, you could have at least clued us in that when an omega’s eyes glow blue, it means they’re on the edge. That info sure as hell would have helped this morning.”
Carter stared at the TV mounted to the wall of the ops truck, watching the news conference Chief Curtis was holding at that very moment. Curtis was talking about the current murders and the recent rise in gang-on-gang violence in the city. No doubt, the moron was making sure everyone knew it wasn’t his fault.
“And how would that conversation have gone, Brooks?” Carter said, abruptly turning to lock eyes with him, his jaw tight. “What would you and the others have said if I casually dropped the fact that I know all about how out of control omegas get because I’ve been there myself. That I spend a good portion of my waking hours worrying about keeping it together? That if I lose it the least little bit, I can go from growling to completely mental in ten seconds flat? Would you and the others have been comfortable having me cover your backs during a high-threat entry? Would you have wanted me on the team? Would you have wanted me in the Pack?”
Brooks opened his mouth to say of course they would, but Carter cut him off.
“Before you answer, seriously ask yourself whether you’d consider letting one of the omegas who worked for Frasheri in the Pack after seeing what they were like. By the way, you don’t have to answer. We both already know what the answer would be.”
“That’s a stupid question,” Brooks insisted. “Those omegas we fought were crazy, like they were on some kind of drug.”
Carter regarded him thoughtfully. “Crazy. Drugged. Yeah, that’s pretty much what it’s like to be an omega. And none of those omegas we fought that night were actually out of control, which is why you never saw their eyes glow blue. Still want to ask why I never told the Pack?”
Brooks thought about that for a few moments, then shook his head. “Has Gage known all along?”
Carter nodded. “Yeah. When Mike and Xander became squad leaders, we had to tell them, too, so they’d know how to calm me down if I start to lose it.”
Brooks frowned. “That’s still something you have to deal with? Losing it, I mean.”
Carter’s gaze went to the TV again. “The urge to give in and let the omega wolf inside me come out is always there. I’ve been working on control for a long time, so as far as completely losing it, that hasn’t happened in a while. But I’m like a heroin addict. I’m one slipup from starting all over.”
Damn. Brooks couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have a constant battle going on with his inner wolf. Knowing Selena might be going through that while he sat there in the ops truck made his own wolf want to howl.
“Is that why I’ve never seen your eyes flash blue?” Well, bluer than Carter’s eyes naturally were, Brooks silently amended. “Because you’ve never completely lost it around me?”
Carter nodded. “Pretty much. Most of the time, a male omega’s eyes glow gold like any other male werewolf’s. When they slip over the edge because they’re angry, afraid, or even extremely sexually excited, they glow blue instead. The bluer they glow, the further gone they are.”
Brooks remembered how scared Selena had been that morning and how her eyes had glowed bright blue. It only made him feel worse about letting her run away. She must have been so damn terrified.
“Do you think it’s possible for an omega to become an alpha the same way Jayna went from being a beta to an alpha when her pack needed her to be one?” Brooks asked.
Carter shrugged. “I’ve never seen it, but I guess it’s possible. Lots of weird crap has been happening lately, so who’s to say what we see next? It’s not like this werewolf thing comes with a user’s manual, you know?”
For some reason, the possibility that Selena might get better gave Brooks a feeling of hope. But then he immediately felt like shit for letting his mind even go in that direction. Selena didn’t need toget better. She was perfect and amazing just the way she was.
But as perfect and amazing as she was, there was no escaping the fact that Selena was facing the same constant uphill battle Carter did. She’d have to fight to stay in control, always terrified she’d lose it and hurt someone. While she seemed so gentle and angelic, the claw marks on Brooks’s back were evidence of how dangerous she could be when her omega side took over.
Brooks bit back a growl. Selena had already dealt with so much crap in her life. On top of her parents taking off when she was a kid, her brother had been murdered. Throw in the day-to-day burden of watching one kid in her class after another lose their futures to the gangs, and it was more than any person should ever have to face. Now, in addition to dealing with claws and fangs, Selena had to deal with uncontrolled rage, all because she was an omega werewolf. It all seemed so unfair.
“I still don’t get why Selena became an omega,” Brooks mused. “She risked her life to save a whole classroom full of students. Why isn’t she an alpha? For that matter, why aren’t you? You turned because you saved people from a burning vehicle.”
Carter didn’t say anything for a long time. Instead, he gazed off into the distance like he was reliving something from his past. After a moment, he looked at Brooks. “Was Selena angry when she stood up to that gangbanger in the classroom?”
Brooks didn’t even have to think about it. “I know she was. She hates the gangs and anything to do with them. After what they did to her family and the kids in her class, can you blame her?” That’s when it hit him. “Shit. That’s it, isn’t it? She’s an omega because she was so filled with hate and anger when she turned.”
