Page 5 of Reckless Consequences

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Statistically improbable. But if incorrect, we proceed to secondary extraction at dawn.” Her eyes meet mine, calculation giving way to something surprisingly gentle. “Your friend has approximately twenty-seven hours before viral progression becomes irreversible.”

It’s 4:17 AM. I should sleep, but adrenaline hums through my system. The pack bond stretches thin, Finn’s presence flickering like a low signal. My bones ache from the distance—another change I never expected.

“Did you ever wish for siblings?” The question slips out before I can censor it, born of exhaustion and the strange intimacy of this filthy motel room where we’ve patched each other’s wounds.

Mona pauses her surveillance arrangement, head tilting like a bird considering an unusual insect. “Siblings were not variables I had permission to consider.”

“But did you want them?” I press. “Before you knew I existed. Before Alexander became... whatever he is now.”

The memory of his face flashes through my mind—not the cold killer who shot at us, but the fraction of a second before he pulled the trigger. That momentary hesitation. The almost imperceptible widening of his eyes when I chose Mona over the case.

Mona sits beside me on the bed, careful to maintain space between us. “I used to catalog potential siblings based on scientific compatibility.” A small smile plays at her lips. “You exceeded parameters.”

“Is that Mona for you’re not the worst sister I could have had?”

“It’s Mona for you present uncommon alliance potential despite suboptimal designation.” Her smile widens fractionally. “But the emotional translation is also accurate.”

I laugh despite everything—the pain, the fear, the knowledge that we’re deliberately making ourselves targets. “How did you turn out so different from him? From our father?”

“Choice,” she says immediately. “Biology is circumstance. Designation is assignment. Choice is everything.”

She returns to the window, fingers automatically arranging and rearranging cough drops into patterns only she understands. “I chose chaos as camouflage. Alexander chose obedience as armor. You chose freedom as identity.”

“You think he had a choice?” I ask, remembering the split-second hesitation in his trigger finger, I just can’t get that moment out of my head.

Mona’s hands go still, candy forgotten. “Alexander had more choices than any of us. He was daddy’s perfect alpha prototype—everything I wasn’t.” Her voice drops to something barely audible. “But sometimes, when daddy wasn’t watching, he’d warn me which labs to avoid. Which scientists had been... reprimanded.”

The revelation lodges beneath my ribs, complicating the neat categories of ally and enemy I’ve tried to construct. “You think there’s still something of that boy left in him?”

“Probability indeterminate,” she says, but something in her tone suggests she’s calculated this equation many times. “He’s been broken and remade too many times to predict.”

The stinging in my arm where his bullet grazed me argues against hope. But the pack has taught me that people are rarely just one thing. Even monsters can choose differently, given the right variables.

“And Finn? The pack?” I ask quietly, the ache of separation throbbing beneath my sternum, an empty port missing its connections. As I speak their names, my scent shifts subtly—a physiological response to emotional stimuli that feels foreign in my changing body. Another sign of my designation in flux.

“They chose you,” she responds, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “Very statistically improbable. Much fortunate outcome.”

We fall into silence—Mona monitoring the lot, me checking weapons. The booster for Finn sits secure, a vial that might decide if he lives or dies. I wonder if we made the right call—leaving him when he needs us most.

My hand drifts to my neck, finding the place where Jinx marked me. The claiming bite has fully healed, but something about it still feels unfinished—a program waiting for the final lines of code, a circuit missing its connecting wire. My skin heats beneath my fingertips, a physical memory of belonging that makes me acutely aware of my isolated state.

And I’m pretty sure I know exactly what pieces are missing.

Chapter2

Jinx

The cabin wallsfeel like they’re closing in, saturated with Theo’s pre-heat pheromones.

Every breath feels like inhaling liquid fire—dark vanilla transformed into something that claws at me, makes my alpha instincts snarl and rattle against my self-control. His scent floods my system like a designer drug I couldn’t fight if I wanted to—my cock hardening painfully against my zipper, my gums aching where my canines threaten to descend, ready to claim, to mark, to own. To fuck.

I can’t sit still. Can’t think straight. Can’t do anything but alternate between checking Finn’s oxygen levels and watching Ryker’s iron control fracture hour by fucking hour.

As I move, my shoulder deliberately brushes the doorframe leading to where Finn lies—an unconscious marking behavior that leaves my scent behind. I’ve been doing it for hours, creating an invisible barrier of alpha pheromones around our vulnerable beta. The cabin’s small space means Ryker and I have overlapping territories, our scent markers competing along windowsills and doorways. My hackles rise every time I cross into his claimed space.

“His temperature’s up again,” I report, pressing my palm to Finn’s forehead. Our beta’s skin burns beneath my touch, sweat-soaked and feverish. The virus is winning, destroying him from the inside out. “Over 102 and climbing.”

---