Page 6 of Truth or Lie

Kameron

IWATCHED ALEX go witha sense of numbness. Next to me, Leo cursed sharply. Maybe I would have done the same, but I couldn’t seem to call the right emotion to hand.

Leo rose and stepped behind my chair, wrapping her arms around me and resting her chin on the top of my head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, odama. Maybe she’ll come around when she’s had more time to think about things.”

Maybe she would. To be honest, I doubted it.

“We should go and tell the others,” I managed. “They’ll be relieved she’s on board with the rest of it, at least.”

I couldn’t imagine how awkward it would have been if Alex had been dead set against the others mating us. She was their leader, and Leo never would have forgiven herself if the conflict tore their pack apart.

Personally, I was more worried that the mating bond itself would end up tearing them apart. I’d been young when I was taken away from my purebred family, but notthatyoung. I was old enough to be aware of alphomic pack dynamics, and I wasn’t aware of any matings where one member of a pack cut themselves off from the rest by failing to join in the psychic bond.

Sure, it had probably happened at some point. For all I knew, it wasn’t even that unusual—at age twelve, my sample size was hardly a large one. But did those packs survive afterward? That was the question.

Leo brushed her cheek against mine, scent-marking me. Her lips pressed lightly against my temple a moment later. “Yes. All right,” she said. “Let’s go tell the others. Maybe they’ll decide to take another crack at her, too.”

I closed my eyes. “I’m not interested in harassing her into mating either of us when she clearly doesn’t want to. I just wish...” The sentence trailed away to nothing, a growing lump in my throat choking off the words.

“That she wanted it on her own?” Leo suggested.

That wasexactlywhat I wished for—but I shook my head dismissively and pulled away from her, standing up. We’d held Alex in our arms as she wept for her dead pups. I’d forced care on her when she wouldn’t treat her own injuries properly. None of those things obligated her to enter into a mate bond with either of us—especially not when she’d been wounded so badly by a broken bond before.

“It’s her decision,” I said, with more certainty than I felt.

We went inside, where we’d be warm, if nothing else. I could only imagine what it cost to heat this enormous house during a Russian winter... much less the main house. Good thing money didn’t appear to be an issue for the Nikolayev family.

As we headed downstairs, I berated myself for failing to appreciate what we had, simply because of what we couldn’t have. We had two alphas who adored us. Both of them would step between us and a bullet without a second thought.

The sound of grunts and thuds reached us from the area of the gym set aside for sparring. All three of the alphas had been struggling a bit during the long months without action, hidden away in relative safety and probably feeling a bit surplus to requirements. They’d all been injured to varying degrees. Flynn had fared the best, though ‘best’ felt a bit facile when it included being beaten to a pulp and undergoing hours of electrical torture.

Alex’s broken hand had healed well, considering. She was still undergoing rehabilitation for it, all these months later. I hadn’t seen the whip marks on her back recently, so I had no way of knowing how those had healed.

Jax’s bullet graze had ended up being far less of a long-term problem than the experimental nerve agent he’d been exposed to during our earlier capture in Romania. But thanks to alpha toughness, he’d finally overcome most of the intermittent muscle weakness on his left side. He still suffered from headaches, and he probably would for the rest of his life. However, over the last couple of months, he’d worked his body ruthlessly in an attempt to get back to full strength, in a way that made my own gym addiction look like a pleasant walk in the park.

The sparring area was bare except for thick mats on the floor. The alphas were, predictably, shirtless. I’d never been quite sure if that was their preferred way to work out, or if they’d adopted it after seeing Leo’s pupils dilate the first time she’d walked in on them.

Not that I was complaining about the half-naked alphas, of course. Omegas were hardwired to respond to alpha strength, alpha muscles, alpha...alphaness. And there was plenty of that on display with these two.

Like Alex on the balcony, they would both have been aware of us since the moment we entered the gym, if not before. Even distracted by their sparring session, Leo’s scent would be impossible for an alpha to miss—or to ignore. I adored the fact that she was finally off the blockers, maybe for good. And I was sure I wasn’t the only one to hold that opinion.

The pair on the mats puffed up, their muscles bulging as they grappled. They were putting on a show for us, and Leo and I were there for it. Bare feet scrabbling for purchase, they shoved at each other like two bulls locking horns.

Flynn had a slight advantage of both height and bulk. His dark skin gleamed beneath the overhead lights, sweat beading on his chest and arms. Jax had the edge when it came to flexibility. His muscle definition was also something to behold. Leo liked to call him her Viking, with his blond hair, blue eyes, and square jaw sharp enough to cut glass.

It was good to see him nearly back to full health.

Flynn readjusted his grip, aiming for better leverage, and Jax took advantage to duck down, lowering his center of gravity and shifting hard to the right. It should have been a perfect takedown move, but Flynn used his heavier weight to roll them, ending up on top. Rather than submit to the pin, Jax twisted his lower body and somehow managed to hook a leg over Flynn’s arm. In a flash, he’d grabbed Flynn’s wrist and trapped him in a submission hold.

Flynn grunted and tapped out. “Asshole,” he grumbled, as Jax rolled to his feet and offered him a hand up.

“Nice moves,” Leo said.

Flynn accepted Jax’s hand, pulling himself to his feet as well. He stalked Leo with a smile, backing her against the wall by the door and caging her in so he could press his nose to the base of her neck and breathe in deeply. “Is it next week yet? Because I’ve got some more nice moves I’ve been dying to show you.”

“I can hardly wait,” Leo told him, and tilted her face up for a kiss.

Jax grabbed a towel and used it to mop his face as he sauntered over to join me. “What’s up, you two? You’ve got this whole ‘good news, bad news’ vibe going on.”

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