Page 125 of The Omega Princess

“Submit,” I said in a voice that brooked no argument, a voice that would have made Rohan whine and show me his neck, a voice I wouldn’t have needed with Maguire because Maguire never fought like this.

He kneed me in the crotch. “Never.”

I howled, cupping my balls, the pain exploding all the way up my spine. I crumpled into the other side of the car.

The partition at the front of the car came down. “Do I need to pull over, boys?” said Jeffers.

“Yes,” I seethed. “Let’s settle this where we have more space.”

Jeffers caught my gaze in the rearview mirror. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Uh, well, all right. But not here, okay?”

27

rohan

MAGUIRE WAS STILL trying to talk me down, because I wasn’t pleased about the way they’d maneuvered Devlin and Sinclair together. We’d left the lights of the city behind twenty minutes ago, but I was still raging in the back of the car. Maguire’s voice was calm and insistent, and I knew he wanted me to let it go, but I couldn’t.

I kept threatening to get out of the car. “I’m going to call someone to pick me up and drive me to wherever they are and get into that car with the both of them,” I said. “Just see if I don’t.” But I didn’t do that, and Maguire and Eleri had stopped taking me seriously at this point.

“Look, Rohan,” Maguire was saying, “I think we all have roles in this pack, and you and me are the protectors. I protect from outer threats and I sort out the periphery. But you protect us from within. You’re the peacemaker, and you think you need to be in the middle of them, defusing them, and maybe, if you were there, you even would. But it wouldn’t solve anything, because they need to figure this out on their own.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not it at all.”

“Okay,” he said. “Well, maybe I’m wrong, but Eleri and I have been talking about it, and we both think—”

“Peacemaker,” I said, because my brain was catching up with what he’d said. When I was angry, I had a tendency to disagree with anything that anyone said, but I was realizing maybe he was making sense.

“Yeah,” said Eleri. “I feel it about you. You have a steadiness that’s exactly what we all need.”

I glanced at her. “Just not right now.”

“Okay,” she said, “well, I was thinking about this episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer—”

“You like that show?” I said. “Because I’ve seen every episode at least three times.”

She grinned at me. “It’s one of my favorites. It’s endlessly rewatchable.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s like, even though it’s incredibly over-the-top and stupid and the special effects are horrible, even for the time period, it’s, uh, real in this way.”

“Exactly,” she said, nodding.

“So, this is the Homecoming episode,” I said, nodding. “When they put Buffy and Cordelia in the limo together.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well, that’s a terrible idea,” I said. “That’s a fucking TV show, and this is real life.”

“Maguire thought it was a good idea,” she said, looking at him.

Maguire shrugged.

“Didn’t you?” she said.

“I said I was going to do whatever you wanted, princess,” said Maguire, smiling at her. “I figured you could be the brains and I’d just execute. I’m not really a strategist, you know?”

“So, you didn’t think it was a good idea?” she said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think it was a bad idea or anything,” said Maguire.

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