What the fuck was wrong with him?
Apologize,he told himself, but the words never came.For fuck’s sake, apologize to the only person who ever gave a damn about you.
“Sid.” Roman inhaled, a hand rising to rub the front of his throat, but there was no hiding what Sidian had done to him. “It’s okay. It’s fine. Just take a deep breath.”
None of it was okay. How could he not understand that? How stupidwashe? “A deep breath isn’t going to fix any of this shit. They took my fucking daughter. I know you don’t care about that because she’s notyours,but she matters to me. And now I don’t know where she is.”
Sidian had to stop. He knew that. Lashing out at Roman was only going to make this worse and was going to cost him the only ally he had, the only person who loved him. The last two years of his life had been torment with only one light at the end of the darkness, and he’d come. Roman had saved him, and now what? Sidian was going to rip his head off his shoulders for something he couldn’t control? Because of someone else’s mistake?
Roman was too forgiving. Too understanding of a monster like Sidian.
“Your daughter,” Roman tried, his expression softening. “Goddess, I didn’t even… Why didn’t you tell me? Why wouldn’t you tell me they’d taken something so precious from you?”
Sidian’s jaw tightened, and he whirled away from his alpha, ripping at his own hair again as a furious growl rumbled up his chest. Why bother? It wouldn’t have changed anything, and Roman couldn’t understand. He could pretend to be forgiving, but he would never understand what Sidian was going through. Would never understand why he was so afraid.
Prime alphas didn’t have to be afraid of anything. They were above it all.
“I hate this,” he snapped, and because it was close, Sidian yanked one of the two chairs out from beneath the table andflung it at the door, the cheap wood splintering against the scuffed steel. “You don’t get tojudgeme for not telling you! She’s my daughter. What if you didn’t want her?”
Roman’s face crumpled. “What makes you think I wouldn’t want her?”
Sidian sank down onto the mattress, nails scrabbling at his own scalp as he tried to suck in air, his lungs so tight that it hurt. Everything hurt. Amey wasgone,and there was nothing they could do about it, if even the people who were supposed to know where she was had no idea. He’d never get to see her again. He’d never get to hold his daughter, to promise her she’d never be taken again.
He’d failed her. He’d failed her so completely. What if he failed his son, too?
A hand on his shoulder was slapped away, the floor beneath his feet shaky as he pushed himself away from the bed, away from Roman. Comfort from his alpha should have felt natural. It was all he wanted, all he needed, and yet the thought of letting Roman touch him sent a wave of unease through his entire body.Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t speak—
“Sidian.” Roman’s voice was low, soft, though there was an urgency in his tone he couldn’t disguise as he raised his hands, palms out, trying and failing to look harmless. How could an alpha of his size ever be harmless? Did he know what he was? “Talk to me. Let it out. Bottling it up will hurt you.”
“Fuck off. Stop pretending you understand. You don’t.” Every word trembled on Sidian’s tongue, and he hated it. Hated his own weakness, his own uselessness even in the face of the one person he wasn’t supposed to be afraid of. How was any of thisfair?
Roman tried again, voice even softer now. “You’re right. I don’t. But I know that holding it inside is bad for you. Just let it out. I don’t care if you yell or break things. Just let it out.”
He tried to take a step forward, and Sidian snarled at him in warning, hackles rising.
He didn’t want Roman anywhere near him, something that startled him because Roman was the only person he’d ever wanted at his side. The two of them fit together; Roman was the only person in the world who ever made him feel like he might be worth something. The only alpha who treated him with respect and consideration, who put his wants and needs first. Always over his own.
What makes you think I wouldn’t want her?He didn’t know Amey. Had never seen her or held her and would not know how he felt until he did. Sidianhadto lie to him; Roman couldn’t have known how he would have felt if Sidian had told him the truth. He couldn’t understand how important Amethyst was, how precious, how perfect, and how badly she needed Sidian to come and save her from her sorry excuses for fathers.
Roman didn’t even understand just how evil Pack Kincaid was.
“Get out.” The words tore themselves from Sidian’s chest, and his omega whined in protest, but he silenced it as he had so many times before, his hands clenching into fists to steady himself. “Get the fuck away from me until you can tell me how your buddies fucked this up. Until you know where my daughter is, I don’t want to look at you.”
“All right.” Roman lowered his hands, his expression blank as he took a step back. “I’ll go. Take a shower, get some rest. By morning, I’ll have an answer for you.”
The moment the motel room door clicked shut, Sidian pressed his back against the wall and slid down, curling into the smallest ball he could as his shoulders shook with silent sobs.
What was the point of it if he never got to see Amethyst again?
Chapter Thirty
Cold air stung his face and hands as Roman lowered himself onto a fallen log just behind the motel, the darkness encroaching on his senses as he took a slow, deep breath to settle himself. His alpha was in turmoil inside of him, raging against his ribcage, clawing at his heart, doing everything possible to escape his useless flesh and get back to their omega who needed comfort so desperately. Seeing Sidian fall apart at the seams like that had shaken Roman in ways he never had been before, and he wasn’t even entirely sure he could keep his promise to make things right.
The Mambas were the branch of Ouroboros whose information was most vital to their operations; even the Cobras could rely on the Internet and tabloids for juicy details about their political rivals. If the Mambas suspected Pack Kincaid were traffickers, they wouldknowwhere they lived.
How could they have gotten it so wrong? Roman had to tell them. If that information was flawed, just how much of the rest of their data was wrong in some way?
He knew Hadeon’s phone number only from memory and dialed it with shaky fingers, raising the device to his ear and listening to the comforting dial tone. Together, they could get to the bottom of this. Hadeon was smart, and there had to be more data within the Pit that he had access to. Something perhaps had been misfiled. Maybe that house was a former auction site, and the addresses were mixed up.
