Page 37 of Power Shift

“Ronan,” Dash warns, planting himself between us now. “Let’s just sit and talk. As a pack.”

Jasper is silent, and when I look at him, the reason why is obvious. He’s always been the smartest of us all. If there was one member of our pack who could have taken the leader position from me based on intelligence alone, it would have been him.

My stomach drops between my knees.

“Have you already met her? Do you know whose scent this is?”

Dash’s eyebrows fly up his forehead while Ronan seethes, hands buried so deep into his pockets that he’s sure to bust holes in them.

I don’t lie to my pack. They’re my brothers. My family. Everything I’ve gone through in my life, they were there to witness. Whenever I’ve faltered, it’s Jasper who ducked beneath my arm and held me up. Ronan’s protected me our entire lives. And Dash has listened to every complaint, every rant. He’s never judged me for anything. Not once.

But this? This isn’t a situation where I can trust Jasper to take his place beneath my arm and hold me steady. Ronan won’t ever forgive me for how I treated the omega he already sees as his. Dash’s beta instincts keep him more level-headed, but will that be enough to keep him from abandoning me too?

The lie tastes like bile in my throat. “No. I have no idea who this omega is. And I don’t want to, either.”

Jasper flinches. “You can’t possibly know that without meeting her.”

“It doesn’t matter who she is. She’s not for us. We don’tneedan omega,” I declare through my teeth.

“It’s not only up to you,” Jasper says.

I narrow my eyes on him. “You haven’t even met this woman.”

“No, but I can smell her. And she smells like she could be mine, Lan. Ours.”

“Don’t let your desire for an omega confuse you. She’s not ours.”

Ronan laughs again, this time making sure it’s loud enough to make us pay attention. My chest caves in when he shakes his head and walks right past me. His shoulder slams into my body with a strength that creates an ache deep in my muscle, not bothering to speak another word.

I stand in place, quieting my alpha when he demands I follow him. To make sure he’s okay and warn him to be careful.

There’s only one place he’s going, and I want to tell him not to go. Our conversation isn’t over. If he leaves now, I risk him slipping even further out of my grasp.

I stay silent.

Dash looks in my direction, a plea for me to speak up glaringly obvious in every twist of his features. I’ve grown so used to disappointing these men that it’s almost instinct to do it again.

“You’re going to let him walk out of here like that?” Jasper asks, his disappointment a knife in the gut.

“If he wants her, he can have her.” Every word tastes like poison.

Jasper doesn’t let it go. “You don’t mean that. I can see how off you’ve been recently. You might not think that we need an omega, but we do. The pack is crumbling, Landon. You’re just too stubborn to figure out how to go about facing it.”

The air is too tainted with her. Ronan’s gone, and she’s still all I can smell. All I canthinkabout.

I ache to follow Ronan so I have even a slim chance of seeing her again. My centre of gravity has been rotated, and everything leads to the woman I don’t even know where to find. I’ve never felt anything so manipulative. My own mind has turned against me, and now, my pack.

“I don’t want her. Not now, not ever. Have at it, Jasper. Find whatever it is you’re looking for because I want no part in it.”

Dash sucks in a sharp breath, and I’m moving, leaving before I have to deal with the repercussions of my words, both with them and myself.

I don’t stop until I’m stepping into the shower and cranking the water to ice-cold, letting it soak through my clothes. Teeth clattering, I tilt my head back beneath the spray of water, letting it rain down on my face.

Ronan will be fine. They all will be. I’ll protect them the way I always have, and when they realize that the omega they thought they knew was nothing more than the one person who could tear us apart, it’ll be me who gets them past it the way I did my father.

They’ll get past it because I’ll be here. That’s the one thing I can promise them.

13

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