Page 66 of Hide or Die

We were always going to end up here, or somewhere very like it.

At least Beckett and Alex had managed to extract her before the worst happened. Meanwhile, Flynn and I had whisked Kam away from his apartment before anyone in the MPD had thought to go snooping around Leona’s closest colleagues.

From what I gathered, the terrorists still thought Kam was a beta. Even so, it wouldn’t be long before the wrong people started making assumptions, especially once they realized he’d disappeared at the same time she had. At least he hadn’t been swept up and charged before we got to him.

“I think she’s asleep,” Kam said quietly.

Adding omegas into our pack wasn’t something I’d ever really aspired to. Or at least, it hadn’t been something I’d aspired to until Flynn planted the damned idea in my head—and that had only happened recently. Dangerous for them; dangerous for us. Impractical on all fronts, or so I’d always believed. There was, however, no avoiding the fact that having the two of them tucked between us like this felt right.

“She needs the rest,” Flynn said. “So do you.”

Kam’s chest rose and fell heavily within the circle of my embrace. “Yeah.”

We stayed where we were until both of them were out cold with the kind of heavy, boneless lassitude that meant they’d sleep for hours. Leona snored softly, congested after crying her eyes out for everything she’d just lost. When I was absolutely certain that the jostling wouldn’t wake them, I met Flynn’s eyes and gave my head a tiny jerk toward the sofa.

After a reluctant pause, he nodded and eased himself out of the tangle of limbs while I did the same. We tucked the pair snugly into their nest of pillows and blankets, and then flopped onto the sectional nearby. I shook out my left arm as best I could, trying to ignore the shooting nerve pain. That and the damned headaches were the legacy of my stint as an alpha lab rat. It could be worse, obviously... but I chafed at not being at full strength now that the shit was hitting the fan.

“Beckett had better come back with the answer I want to hear,” Flynn grumbled.

“I think he will,” I told him. “It only makes sense. These two would be wasted hiding away on some remote island. And they’d probably go crazy there with nothing to do.”

Flynn shrugged one hard-muscled shoulder. “Wouldn’t mind seeing ’em in swimsuits, though.”

I stared at him. “Do you evernotthink with your dick?” I asked, without any real heat.

He grinned at me, a sharply dangerous slash of white teeth in his dark-skinned face. “Well, I mean—sometimes. But just look at them.” His avid gaze fell on the pair, still huddled together in sleep. “You’re right, though. They’d hate that, I guess.”

I sighed, and let my head fall back to rest on the couch. “This is going to mean complete upheaval, and not just for them.”

Flynn gave a low grunt. “Alex is barely keeping her shit together.”

Our pack leader’s hasty retreat earlier hadn’t escaped my notice. “She’s got reason,” I pointed out.

“’Course she does,” Flynn agreed. “But I told her we wouldn’t let what happened to Irina happen to them, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

“It almost did, though,” I murmured.

His voice hardened. “Yeah, but it didn’t. And it’s not going to.”

I let him have the last word on the subject, because there was no point in arguing. Flynn had a black and white view of the world that must make the inside of his mind a very straightforward place to be. We all had our pasts, and we’d all been marked in different ways. Alex had built walls of ice around her heart. I’d rebelled against my upbringing in the breeding pens by soaking up every bit of education and culture I could get my hands on, in an attempt to prove that I was more than a dumb animal with a moderately useful dick attached.

Flynn had handed the reins of his conscience to those he trusted, rather than trying to make complicated decisions in a beta-run world that he didn’t fully understand. This was, if I were being honest, the first time I’d seen him acting so rebellious aboutanythingin a very long time.

“Her next heat is due in nine days,” Flynn said.

And...yeah. I wasn’t exactly unaware of the fact. I hadn’t gone out of my way to mark the calendar date or anything like that, but it wasn’t as though I could forget it, either.

“You’re going to ask them again,” I said, with something like resignation.

“You bet I am,” Flynn shot back. “Are you sayin’ you’re not interested?”

I clenched my jaw. “Of course I’m interested, you ass. They’re the most amazing pair of omegas I’ve ever met. OfcourseI am.” A frustrated sigh escaped my control. “But unlike you, I’m not willing to spit in Alex’s face. She’s our pack leader, and this entire situation is driving a knife through her heart—even if she won’t show it openly.”

Flynn’s heavy brow furrowed, the gears visibly turning behind his eyes. “But... that’s an old wound, not a new one. You don’t get better by stitching something up while the infection’s still inside. You have to open it up. Get some sunlight and air on it so it can heal properly.”

Fuck. Why was it that every time I discounted Flynn, he came up with something like that? There was a reason I’d thrown my lot in with the giant asshole in the first place, and this was it.

“I’ll talk to her,” I said. “Actually, we should both talk to her. We need a pack meeting anyway.”

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