Page 57 of The Omega Princess

“I haven’t,” I said, taking the helmet.

“Liar,” he said with a grin.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“You’ll see,” he said.

I fastened the helmet under my chin and climbed onto the bike behind him. He made me wrap my arms around his waist and press my torso into his back, and I was engulfed in the scent of him, which smelled good, very good, but also like something flammable, something dangerous, something wild. Maybe he just smelled like smoke.

My heart beat too fast as we pulled out onto the road.

The motorcycle roared and he drove us around the house. Then, facing down the gates that were closed over the exit, he sped up.

There were people in suits at the security check point next to the gate. They were waving at us, trying to get us to stop.

Sinclair didn’t stop.

The gate was getting closer. He was going to run us straight into it.

My heart thumped in my throat, at my temples. I shrieked, “What are you doing?” in his ear.

But at the last second, the men in suits scrambled to open the gates, and they did, slowly, an inch at a time, and then we slid through, barely making it, and my heart flipped over as we took to the open road, and I was flooded with a sensation of… what had he said before?

Freedom.

Wide open spaces, the blue sky, the summer breeze.

I threw back my head and whooped.

rohan

“SHE’S NOT WITH you?” Devlin was visibly upset as he poked his head into the car that I was sitting in. I was waiting to leave the luncheon. It was always a clusterfuck trying to get out. Too many cars, only one exit. We’d have to queue up and that meant sitting around for a long time.

“Who?” I said.

“Eleri,” he said.

“Wait, you lost our omega?” I said, climbing across the car towards the door. I realized too late I’d called her ours, but he didn’t react to that.

“Yes, for fuck’s sake, and I don’t even know what I was thinking,” he said. “I was talking to the Queen, and I shouldn’t have prioritized the Queen at all. I’m realizing now that Eleri’s the most important thing, and I can’t bear to go against that. It’s killing me right now that I was bowing to the Queen’s desires instead of putting my omega first.”

I pushed past him and onto the sidewalk. “Well, let’s retrace your steps.”

“I did that,” he said.

“Was she upset?”

“Yes,” he said. “The dress thing?”

“Yeah, what the fuck is up with that, anyway?”

“That dress, Eleri wore it because it was her grandmother’s,” he said. “It was meant to be emblematic of the fact she’s the commoner omega. And, of course, the Queen doesn’t want that.”

“Right,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.

“I should have told the Queen I’d talk to her later and stayed with Eleri,” he said. “Hell, I should have stood up to the Queen.”

In the distance, we heard the sound of men yelling. Something about the gate?

---