Page 53 of Truth or Lie

TWENTY-THREE

Kameron

THE INSTINCT TO sootheupset alphas was hardwired into omegas from the time we were pups. Some betas—and some omegas, for that matter—found the idea demeaning. Maybe it was my purebred upbringing, but I never had. Yes, the urge could rear its head at inappropriate times. So could every other ingrained biological urge one might care to name. That was simplylife, busily doing its thing at the cellular level while we weren’t paying attention.

Personally, I found a certain beauty in the way alphas and omegas meshed. Flynn’s reaction to not having thrown his life away in a doomed attempt to drag me to safety was basicAlpha 101. Honestly, I’d been surprised by the depth of self-awareness our three alpha mates had shown when discussing it. They understood—intellectually, at least—that getting themselves killed pointlessly and unnecessarily wasn’t helpful to anyone. However, understanding something intellectually wasn’t an instant cure for feeling like shit about it.

That was where omega soothing came in, and it wasn’t as though it was a hardship in this particular case.

I did, in fact, still feel like hell. If Leo hadn’t put her foot down, I was sure I could have successfully ridden in a car to the prime minister’s hotel and sat at a table for an hour or two. However, it wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable as lounging on the hotel bed with Flynn, bracketed by his tree-trunk thighs with my back resting against his broad chest while he fed me petit fours by hand.

“Ugh,mercy,” I said. “Seriously, stop. I’m stuffed.”

He set the tray on the bedside table without so much as jostling me, then started stroking my hair away from my temples like someone stroking an exceptionally well-fed cat.

“You don’t feel sick again, do you?” he asked.

“Not nauseated or anything like that, no,” I assured him. “Just tired, and like my body weighs a ton.”

“You didn’t eatthatmuch,” Flynn said.

I snorted. “I think it has more to do with the damned gas than the food. Give me a few days and I’ll be right as rain.” I shifted with a sigh, pressing my head further into the contact of his rhythmic petting. “Frankly, I’m more worried about the fact that I didn’t get a decent sex joke out of you in response the ‘stuffed’ remark. That opening was as wide open as my asshole after Jax finished knotting me.”

His chest shook with silent, surprised laughter. “Didn’t really seem like the time, Ginger Tea,” he said, his arms coming around me from behind in a hug.

I relaxed into it, thinking for the hundredth time that I’d never expected to have this much out of life. The past few months had been harrowing, but they’d also brought blessings beyond my wildest imaginings.

“Can we talk about something?” Flynn asked, surprising me.

“Anything,” I told him. “Always. What do you want to talk about?”

“You,” Flynn said. “I was gonna have a word with Beckett first, or maybe the Russian. But now I think that was wrong and I should ask you first.”

That sounded a bit alarming, but I only said, “What about me?”

His barrel chest rose and fell behind me, lifting my torso like a ship riding a wave.

“So... they make drugs and stuff for omegas, right? Heat blockers and pheromone suppressors and the like.”

“Yes?” I replied cautiously.

“I was just thinking—what if you could get, like, hormone replacement therapy, only for omegas?” he said. “Would you want that?”

I blinked. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. After a moment, I closed it.

“Hormone replacement therapy?” I echoed eventually.

“Well, you take testosterone now, don’t you?” Flynn said. “To keep that pretty beta physique. What if, instead, you took the hormones that your body would have been producing, if the beta butchers hadn’t caught you as a kid?”

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