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“Why is it her call?” he says, getting up from the table. “You think like them, don’t you? That omegas are in charge?”

I hesitate, because I don’t know if he’s right. “Well, we can’t make the decision for everyone.”

“The fuck we can’t,” he mutters.

I eye him. Yeah, that’s his modus operandi, isn’t it? Knight just acts. That’s the reason Acker is here with us at all.

But that’s also the reason we know this information, about Selene. If Knight hadn’t taken it upon himself to go and make contact with Theodorus, we’d have been blindsided.

“How would that work?” I say. “You think you’ll just bark everyone into submission?”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “If Lotus were to die, I would…” His face twists, and his lower lip trembles. He looks away, overcome. “I never felt like this in mylife.”

“No, I know,” I say, because I do, and because I’ve bitten her, and it’s all more crazy intense now than it was before.

She’s awake now. I feel it through the bond. I may have woken her with my intention to go and wake her up. I feel her soft, sweet presence inhabiting me in the way she can do through the bond, and it’s intoxicating. I can’t help but smile.

She’s up and entering the room in moments. “Why do you guys think I can’t take this Selene person?”

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I WAKE UPto the sound of voices.

“You got all that through the bond, huh?” comes Calix’s voice. “Even her name?”

I feel my omega in our bond, and it’s wonderful.

“You’re projecting it pretty intensely,” comes Lotus’s voice. “So, yeah.”

I need to go to her, because I can’t tell what’s being projected, but I can tell she’s reacting to alarm. I’m not dressed, so I pull on some clothes and join the others in the kitchen.

No one acknowledges me. They’re all just talking amongst themselves.

Lotus is insisting she can win some tournament, and Knight and Calix are saying they can’t risk that.

I amble over to pour myself some coffee.

“We need to leave,” says Knight. “I don’t care what you think. This isn’t up for debate. We are going.”

I turn around in the middle of putting creamer in my coffee. “Hold up, what’s going on?”

“We can’t leave,” says Lotus. “We will not all fit in one car, not with Acker to deal with.”

“Shoot her in the head,” says Knight. “While she’s passed out.”

“Well, to do that, we would need a gun,” says Lotus, glaring at him.

I finish doctoring up my coffee and go over to put my arm around Lotus. “Whatever you think,” I say to her. “But I’m really confused right now.”

“Besides,” says Lotus, “I don’t want her dead. I want her to fix you.”

“Not necessary,” says Knight. “I bit them, and that solved the entire problem.”

“We don’t know that,” says Lotus.

“We don’t,” says Calix quietly.