“Tell Eros we don’t want her,” Asher stood next to the sofa now. The lighter was out. He leaned down and whispered the flame across the top of the leather back.
“Contractually, we have to accept her for a probationary period,” Xander said slowly, tone level. He was holding back his own anger.
“Fuck the contract,” Nitro snapped.
“We can’t take someone broken,” Kane breathed out, looking down at the car part he’d retrieved from the floor. “We got enough shit to fix.”
“Then we lose every goddamn cent we invested, and Eros is released of any obligation to try and find a new match,” I reminded them of the fine print. I’d poured over the contract for days last year. I remembered every word. “But if we fulfill the probationary term, then we can request a second match.”
“Goddammit,” Asher breathed out, echoing my own thought.
“So, we take her or look for another solution,” Xander added, driving the nail into the coffin.
Another solution.
There was no other solution.
A fragile Omega was coming.
We’d simply have to break her and send her back.
30
LUCY
{A month after matching with DemonX}
Leaving Seattle.
I didn’t wantto leave this room.
Or this window.
This view.
It hadn’t been nearly so hard to leave Brightfield. Maybe because there I’d been stagnating for so long. Here, I was moving again—like a toy left idle on a shelf for want of batteries, suddenly brought to life with a set of everlasting double A’s.
“You wanted this,” I reminded myself. “You were eager to leave.”
Now that the day had arrived, though, I felt like an elephant sat on my chest.
What if the Alphas of DemonX truly were devils in disguise?
I pressed against the thick glass with my entire body weight, as if tempting fate. Would I mind it so much, should the windowbreak through?Yes, idiot.I berated myself.Think about what it took to get here.
My gaze traced over the buildings I could see. The sidewalks below, layered in a dusting of snow. The trees that would probably explode with color come spring. The cart at the corner of a nearby block, steam rising from the espresso machine.
I wanted to remembereverything. Tomorrow, I'd be gone—trading this steel and concrete playground where I'd first tasted freedom for the desert heat of Las Vegas and five strangers whose pheromones matched mine perfectly. The thought sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. Five Alphas who courted death as casually as others might order coffee. Five men who, according to Doctor Swann, were the worst possible match for someone with my medical history. Five potential mates who made my pulse quicken and my skin flush with a heat I'd never experienced before seeing their photographs.
Behind me, a sleek silver suitcase was packed with new clothing, shoes, toiletries, and even a few pieces of jewelry. It was breaking protocol for an Omega to go to clients with her own things in tow, but Doctor Swann had insisted. Apparently, a while back, some Omega had demanded her cat stay with her—and she’d won that fight. So, arguing for a modest wardrobe was less problematic.
Within the suitcase’s internal zip pocket, I’d slipped memories. Memories, like a folded piece of paper containing a winter jasmine bloom. It had been so lovely, a bright spot of yellow in the wintery street. I’d picked it on one of my carefully curated outings with the nurses, a precious memento. There was a receipt from the first coffee shop where I'd ordered without anyone's help, touching the warm ceramic mug with bare hands that no longer needed protective gloves. Then the brochure from the museum; its front cover showcased the painting I’d loved somuch. There were other, silly little things too—an unused napkin from a hotdog vendor, a tab from my first canned soda, even a phone number from a Beta who’d thought I was pretty.
Then there was the bucket list that wasn’t a bucket list, because that’s what you want to do before dying.
What was that term I’d learned about the other day while watching the travel channel?
Ikigai. In Japan it means ‘reason for being’.
