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My whole body trembled with suppressed rage. “I want to go with my sister. I’ll sleep on the floor in her room if I have to. I go where she goes.”

“Not an option.” The guard’s face smoothed out. “State housing or make a call to a friend or family. Choice is yours.”

“I’ll call someone,” I said. “H-How will I find out about Sloane? When can I see her?”

“The agency will be in contact.”

As he walked away, the adrenaline crashed and I sank to the floor outside our taped off apartment. Somehow, I got a call through to Jude, although I could barely get the words out. “Sloane…omega…agency took her. Please come.”

His voice on the other end of the line telling me he was on his way was the only thing keeping me together. I existed in a vacuum, while the rest of the world was outside. I made my way downstairs in a daze. It was cold, but I didn’t care. It helped to shock me back to life.

My phone rang. When I saw who it was, I didn’t hesitate to answer. “Ryder!”

“I’m here, Emma,” he said, his voice the calm one that instantly settled the chaos circling me.

“They took her!” My voice was high, borderline hysterical.

“Who, baby?” Ryder asked. “The Dawn Agency? Tell me what happened, but first, are you somewhere safe?”

How did he know? Sloane was with an alpha, another alpha, his business partner.

No wonder he’d been ringing my cell off.

“I… Yes. Jude is coming to pick me up. I’m outside.

The apartment is in Sloane’s name, so they’ve taken possession of it.

There’s security tape over the door! She was going into heat or something.

She was in pain, so I called the Dawn Agency.

” My words come out in a rush. “I thought they would send like a doctor or something, maybe give her tablets to ease the symptoms, but they gave her an injection and she went limp. That was when they carried her out into an ambulance. They wouldn’t let me go with her.

Told me I would be contacted. The way they talked about her—” My voice broke.

“I didn’t know what to do. She’s always been the strong one.

I needed to help her, and now I’ve made everything worse. I’m so frightened for her.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Ryder said. “How far away is Jude?”

“He said five minutes.”

“Okay, you stay on the line until he gets to you. We’re going to get your sister out.”

“You can do that?” Hope surged. I didn’t have a clue how he might make this happen, but he represented a safe place amid the storm. I was in shock, reeling from the cruel words and the treatment of my sister at the hands of the Dawn Agency.

“Baby, you’d be surprised what we can do.”

Jude’s car came tearing into the apartment visitor parking lot. “He’s here!”

“Good girl, now go with him. We’re about to lose signal but keep your phone with you and charged. When I call you, I expect you to answer. We’re going to be having a long chat about your disobedience next time we meet. Don’t make that any worse.”

My stomach dipped. “Okay.” I didn’t care what he did to me or my ass, so long as Sloane was safe.

“What the fuck happened?” Jude demanded as I jumped into his car.

I held my hand up, pointing at my cell. “But, Ryder, you better get my sister.”

* * *

My anxiety skyrocketed as I waited for news about Sloane. She was my sister, the last of my family. It was like the day we learned about our parents all over again, only this time, there was no Sloane to hold me because monsters had turned up and taken her from me.

Jude sat me down on his couch and brought me a glass of water, but I was shaking so badly, I couldn’t drink a drop.

It wasn’t Jude’s apartment. No, we were at his boyfriend Derek’s place.

They had an off and on again relationship.

Derek was a bit of a commitment-phobe, so it hadn’t progressed very far.

I think Jude secretly loved him, although Jude also liked to play around and acted like he wasn’t bothered because Derrick wasn’t bothered, either.

As a result, I had not one but two gay men fussing over me.

“What exactly happened?” Derek asked Jude, which was for the best, because I couldn’t form words into coherent sentences. I keep seeing Sloane—first, the writhing creature, and then the lifeless version after they’d shot her up. She was alone. I couldn’t stand that she was alone and vulnerable.

“The Dawn Agency took her,” Jude said. “Fuck knows what’s going to happen now. You’ve heard the rumors about that place.”

I rubbed my temples.

“Now’s not the time,” Derek said, sending a pointed glance at me.

“You don’t need to hide it from me,” I said. “I’ve heard about them, too. I just… She was in pain. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Jude sat next to me and drew me into his arms. I let him, and all the while feeling a terrible guilt that I was getting comfort while Sloane had none. “I just want my sister back safe.”

“I know, Em,” Jude said. “We all do.”

Regrets swamped me. Why hadn’t I answered Ryder’s call? I couldn’t believe Jace would have let Sloane leave. I thought the alphas living in Desparion knew far more about the dark side of our society pertaining to alphas and omegas.

There was no easy way.

Which brought my mind to the riot at the gates when we’d picked Sloane up.

“She must have gotten scared when she revealed and fled.” I said.

“All those alphas at the gates…” I shuddered.

“She knew she was an omega. I laughed when she told me. It all seemed so silly and unreal. Why did she pretend everything was fine when she first came back? It’s not like you can hide your omega status. ”

“We do foolish things when we’re scared,” Jude said. “She probably wanted some time to come to terms with it.”

Sloane wasn’t the only one guilty of that.

The regrets kept on coming, only these went further back. I regretted pretending to be okay, when really, I was struggling inside. I missed my big sister. I missed the woman who’d cared for me as more than just a sister.

“Tell me she’s going to be all right?”

“She’s going to be all right,” Jude said. “Alphas, they’re not like us—they don’t see constraints and barriers in the way we do. If she connected with Jace, the alpha you mentioned, then I really think that he will stop at nothing to get her out.”

My tears came anew, even though I felt cold and empty inside. “How can they possibly get her out?”

“I don’t know, love,” Jude said. “But I suppose all omegas end up with an alpha one way or another. If you’re a strong alpha and you want something, you’re going to make it happen.”

“I just need to know that she’s safe.”

“I can’t believe the bastards kicked you out of your own apartment in your nightclothes,” Derek said.

“It’s all a land grab, if you ask me, just an excuse to fill the coffers from someone else’s toil.

We’ve been trying to run articles on this for months.

Every time we get an angle, the government swoops in and shuts it down. ”

“What do you know?” I asked. Derek was an editor at a small, independent news site.

They often posted exposés on corruption.

I also know they skirted closure often. They had a few wealthy benefactors who stepped in with a legal team whenever the government got too heavy-handed, but it was a fine line.

I’d never really thought much about such things before. Now I saw them in a different light.

“Not as much as I would like to,” he said. “It’s been hard to pin people down for interviews, even if it’s anonymous. What you’ve told us is typical of other stories. Society fears alphas and disdains omegas because propaganda tells us to, and all the while, we forget that they are people.”

My once orderly future was slipping through my fingers. There was no scenario where Sloane ever came back home. I didn’t even know if I still had a home for her to come back to. My expectations were lowering, but all I wanted to know was that she was safe, even if it wasn’t with me.

I couldn’t sit still, but I couldn’t move either. I was caught in a sphere of incapacitating tension mixed with sorrow, hopelessness, and despair.

“I’ve always felt sorry for them,” I said quietly. “The way they mysteriously disappear. There was a girl in college, and she just vanished.” I wondered if she was in Desparion now, one of the omegas that Ryder spoke about—the ones you didn’t see because they were under an alpha’s protection.

The enormity of what was happening hit me anew, only this time, it was my sister.

She was an omega, taken like the girl in my design class.

The dogs from the Dawn Agency had admitted she would be given over to a suitable alpha in Desparion.

Or a different alpha zone. “For all we know, they might not house them in the local zone. Maybe that’s the usual practice.

It makes sense that they wouldn’t, because otherwise, they might come into contact with friends or family on the days the zone is opened.

” The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that they would send her far away.

I looked toward Derek.

He nodded. “From what I’ve learned, sometimes they do. There are a few factors involved.”

“Well, once Jace gets Sloane, she will be taken to Desparion,” Jude said before I could question Derek on the mysterious factors. “We’ll be able to go and see her all the time!”

“When have you ever heard of anybody seeing an omega after they’ve left? When?”

“I don’t know, love,” he said. “Maybe they do, but they don’t talk about it.”

“Everybody shuns them,” I said. “Like they’re animals and a stain on the family.”

“That’s the alphas,” Derek said. “The omegas are more…pitied.”

Only pity wasn’t the word for how they’d treated Sloane. They’d treated her like she was a broodmare in heat, acting out until she was bred. Sloane had been in pain and hurting. They hadn’t shown a bit of pity or care.

Another sob bubbled up, and Jude rubbed my back.

A few feet from where I sat, my cell was plugged into a charger.

At my silent cue, Derek picked it up and checked it. “Fully charged. You want it back?”

“Please.” I nodded, feeling better at having it and being able to verify that there were no new messages and that sounds and notifications were on.

“Baby, you’d be surprised what we can do,” Ryder had said.

I clutched the cell in my hands like it was my personal lifeline. In a way, it was.

It rang, and I nearly freaking dropped it when I saw the name on the screen.

“Your sister’s safe, Emma.” That voice, that husky, ever calm voice, delivering those words was the sweetest sound to my ears.

“Where is she? Can I see her? Can I talk to her?”

“Not yet, baby. She’s with Jace. They’ve got…some stuff to work through. She’s in heat. You need to give them a few days, give or take. I promise she’ll call you as soon as she can.”

I frowned. The relief at knowing Sloane was safe changed to a different kind of emotion at his denial of my request. “I want to talk to her, for a minute. Can’t I have a minute? I need a minute!”

I could feel Derek and Jude’s tension rise in line with my voice, and for reasons that escaped my frantic mind, I thought they were about to intervene and try to calm me down.

“Not happening, baby.”

“Don’t ‘baby’ me! Put my sister on right now!”

He sighed heavily. “Look, Emma, I’m sure you think you know your sister, but right now, you don’t. She’s in heat. The only thing she needs is her mate.”

“Mate?!” If he’d slapped me across the face, the blow would have been lighter.

“Do you love your sister, Em?”

He’d never called me Em before, and his husky voice dripping down the line brought a shudder I didn’t appreciate. “Of course I do.”

“Then give her some time. Let her work through her awakening.”

“I can’t,” I said, the words ending on a sob.

“You’re going to have to,” he said.

Silence stretched between us, then was broken when he said, “I gotta go. A shit storm is coming after what we had to do. Take care, Emma.”

He hung up.

I stared at the cell. He’d dismissed me, again. Cut me off. Told me to wait while his friend rutted my sister. He was probably marking her and breeding her right now. Sloane would be so out of it, she wouldn’t even care.

“Take me,” I said to Jude.

Jude shook his head slowly. “I heard most of that… She’s safe, Emma. You can see her soon. I think we should wait, like he said.”

“She’s in heat,” Derek added. “From everything I’ve learned about them, you can’t stop that now. The only thing that she wants and needs is her alpha.”

“Take me! Please.” My eyes pleaded with them.

“What are you going to do when you get there? They might not even let you in. It’s not an open day.”

I huffed out a breath. “Deliveries and people go in all the time. They must. I need to be close, ready for when she—” I couldn’t bear to think about her in heat, being oblivious to everything but the need to mate. “For when she’s herself again.”

They tried to dissuade me, but I was having none of it.

And so, reluctantly, they took me back to the gates.