Page 8 of Truth or Lie

Two mates. It was two more than I ever thought I’d have... and somehow it still wasn’t enough.

FOUR

Alex

“GOOD GOD. YOU looklike you swallowed a beach ball,” I said, pulling up a chair to Beckett’s bedside. “Are you sure there’s only one pup in there?”

“So the ultrasound technician assures me,” Beckett replied with his usual brand of understated, self-deprecating humor. “Though I did have to sign a form stating I’m not allowed to sue him if it turns out I’m carrying sextuplets.”

I forced a smile. Being here at all required an act of will, and it took a surprising amount of concentration to shove aside the bone-deep disquiet I felt in response to the proximity of a pregnant omega.

Repressed trauma, a psychiatrist would say, and they’d probably be right about that. But this was Beckett—the man who’d hauled us out of the gutter and given us a life. Apurpose. I sat down, reflecting that he looked nearly as out of place in this palatial bedroom as I felt. Beckett’s left eyebrow climbed—I’d stayed silent too long.

“Something’s happened,” he said. “Is it anything that will require sedation to keep me in this damned bed once I know about it?”

I shook my head. “Nothing like that. It’s a private pack matter.”

He settled back, propped against the pile of pillows at the headboard. “Ah. Well, I suppose I can guess what that means. I’d offer to help, but I don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to dangerous and potentially inappropriate mate bonds.”

Looking at this fearless omega who’d mated the most powerful kingpin in the alphomic underground, I couldn’t disagree.

“Why did you do it, though?” I asked. “You must have had some idea what you’d be getting into? Or was it unplanned?”

A flash of memory assailed me—Irina, begging for my bite as she writhed on my knot... my momentary loss of control in the face of overwhelming instinct and need. Not for the first time, I wondered what was broken inside me that made me lose mastery over myself when other alphas didn’t.

“Not precisely unplanned,” Beckett replied. “But... ill-advised, maybe.” He took a slow breath, as though considering his words. “There’s risk inherent in the act of giving yourself freely to another, no matter the circumstances. We all try to delude ourselves that we can somehow control the future by taking certain actions in the present—or by not taking them, as the case may be. But that’s just a pretty lie we tell ourselves, mostly to keep from being paralyzed by the fear of what might happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.”

“By that argument, everyone should do as they please with no thought for the possible consequences,” I said, scowling. “Society would crumble.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Beckett agreed. “But the fact remains that walling yourself off from the world doesn’t magically prevent tragedies from occurring. It merely ensures you’ll always be alone.”

Somehow, I didn’t think that saying ‘yes, that’s the general idea’would go over terribly well, so I said nothing.

“Leona’s next heat is coming up,” Beckett continued, when it became clear I wouldn’t be filling the conversational gap. “Are you going to stop the others from mating her and Kameron?”

“I wanted to stop them,” I admitted, feeling my lungs constrict. “Why take that kind of risk now, when things are poised to become more dangerous than they’ve ever been?”

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