Page 20

Jace

I’d hung on to my temper for Sloane’s sake, but as soon as the door clicked shut on the three of us, I unleashed hell.

“What the fuck was that about? You guys know better than to act like dicks with a new omega.”

Ryder moved toward a seat at the long table, behind which the wide window offered views across the zone. It wasn’t pretty like the fancy beta cities. Here, the buildings were mainly weathered and worn. There were pockets that looked fine, like the main strip. Had to be to get the betas in, but the rest? They were half derelict. Contractors weren’t exactly lining up to enter the zone. Inked was one of the few places that were on the upmarket side.

Ryder lifted both hands in a snarky version of surrender before he slumped down into a seat and leaned back in the chair, eyeballing Dane and me like he was getting ready for a fucking show.

“I was only looking,” Ryder said casually. “Too soft and sweet for me. You know I like a bit of fire.”

“She’s new to her dynamic, arsehole,” I said.

“Well, I want it on the record that not marking her is a bullshit thing to do. Mark the fucking woman,” Dane said. “Or let one of us do it.”

“No!”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Dane snarled. Unlike Ryder, he made no pretence of being relaxed and stood, feet planted wide as he stared me down. “You’re going to start a fucking riot, and we don’t need this shit coming down on us. You know what Snake is like—one whiff of an unmarked omega, and he’s going to be all over us like a fucking rash. She’ll be a virtual prisoner. Fucking mark her already. We both know it’s what you want.”

Ryder chuckled softly. Yeah, he wasn’t getting involved.

“I can’t fucking mark her, arsehole.”

“You and your fucking bullshit. Have you ever asked Ella if this is what she wants for you? Living like a fucking monk?” Dane asked. Stalking across to the table, he dragged out a chair and slammed his arse down.

As I raked a hand through my hair, my eyes went to the door, and I wondered what the fuck was going on out there. Ma was with her and she would take care of Sloane, but knowing that didn’t stop me from tensing, my beast demanding that I open the damn door and go check that she was all right. All of this was superfluous to him, the stuff that got in the way of what was important.

Mark, breed, claim.

“It’s five fucking minutes,” Ryder said, reading my mind all too easily. “Ma is with her, so chill, for fuck’s sake. We need to know what the plan is if you’re not going to mark her…which I agree with Dane on, by the way.”

Great, the two of them never agreed on shit, so it was usually me acting as the middleman. Now, I found myself on the wrong end of both their censure. It didn’t help that I knew they were right.

The trouble was I liked the idea of marking her more than I was comfortable with. Mark, claim, breed—it was a slippery fucking slope, and I knew exactly where that led. I saw Ella, tied to that bed by a chain around her ankle, a looming figure about to?—

“Plan?” Ryder encouraged.

Jesus, I needed to get my head on straight.

“Just because I won’t mark her doesn’t mean I can’t protect her. Not every omega needs to be marked.”

Ryder shrugged, and his lips tugged into a smirk. We’d marked every other omega we’d come across to keep them under our protection. I was going against my own prime directive, and he knew why.

“You can feed yourself whatever bullshit you like, but we all know what’s true. She has to have a mark, something to indicate that she belongs to our crew, which you always make us do. Something, anything, because if we don’t, someone else will.”

I sucked a deep breath in, still standing beside the door, still barely rational, and there was the issue. The marks the omegas in our place wore weren’t mating ones, more temporary indications of where they belonged. You tried to force them? You’d have the combined might of every alpha, beta, and shit, even the other omegas that belonged to our crew, on your back. Lucky for them, that meant a lot in the zone. So marking Sloane as one of us made perfect sense.

So why didn’t I?

MINE! he roared, answering that question.

The reality hit me hard, like a fucking gut punch I hadn’t seen coming. I didn’t trust myself not to turn into a caveman. With her in my arms, my teeth at her neck, my knot buried inside her? There’d be no dispassionate temporary mark left. I’d own her, plain and simple.

She’d be my mate. The first and only omega I’d ever take.

I shifted on my feet, looking at the door. Standing here wasn’t helping anything, especially when I felt like I was being ripped in two, just by being in a different room from her.

“We need a plan,” Ryder said again. “This is our place. Sure, we can stick some more guys on the boundary, no one in or out. We’ve not gotten eyes on Snake for a while. He’s been lying low after that last incident at the centre.”