Page 126 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

I nodded. “Do you believe in scent matching? Fated mates. Having a choice?”

“No, no, and yes.”

I blinked. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Why do you hide that you’re an omega?”

She sucked in a breath. “How do you know?”

“Honestly, I thought you were a beta at first. Your suppressants must be platinum grade.”

“Good. That’s how I want it.”

“Does anyone know?”

“You.”

I lifted my hand and made a zipping motion across my lips. “Then I’ll be unbearable about it.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

I laughed. “What’s your story? Because nothing can be as bad as a runaway mafia princess, who was married off to a man who married her sister, and then got pregnant by her ex’s dads.”

She whistled. “My life isn’t as exciting as that. I just want to be a person, Mary. Not an object of desire for an alpha, or alphas,” Sienna said slowly.

My mouth circled into an O. “Do you think I’m just an object of desire?”

“I never said that. I’m just not a normal omega. I don’t fit the mold.”

“What if you met him, or them?”

“Or her,” she replied.

“Ahh.”

“Female alphas are rarer than omegas.” She smiled. “And I believe in scent compatibility rather than matching. And I also believe trauma makes people confuse safety with fate.”

“That’s cheerful.”

“I didn’t say romance was dead. I said I don’t trust destiny.”

I looked out at the gray road. “I didn’t either.”

Sienna waited.

“I met Hudson and Lincoln in Boston. And they smelled like everything I’d been trying not to want,” I said. “Then I told myself it was my heat. Then pregnancy. Then fear. Then convenience. Then made excuses about age gaps and terrible timing, and Damien and every other reason a person can invent to not confront the truth.”

Sienna’s face softened slightly.

“And now?” she asked.

I pressed my palm more firmly to my stomach. “Now I believe in destiny. But I’m still scared. Scared of what happens when Damien arrives. Scared for these babies more than I was ever scared for myself.”

“Hence running to your sister instead of letting your alphas protect you?”

“My father would kill them.” I looked into Sienna’s eyes. “I can’t take the risk. I’m safer with my sister.”