Page 72 of The Rejected Omega

"Lana—" Connor starts.

Cassandra slides off him and levels me with her icy blues.

"Hello, Alanna…Crane, wasn’t it? Fancy seeing you here."

Connor’s eyes are wild as he seeks mine. All the banked heat of last night is gone.

"This isn’t what it looks like," Connor says.

It’s like a punch to the gut.

My breath hitches, and my eyes slide away from his. The walls wiggle through the sheen of tears. I want to melt into the floor.

Cassandra beams up at Connor, her teeth big and unnaturally white.

“I trust you. What’s going on?”

My heart is doing a base dive off a bridge. It’s a lodestone sinking into a bottomless well.

I want to scream at him. I want to gouge her eyes out. How dare she come here, interrupt us?—

But he belonged to her first. He's never been mine. Only in fading dreams.

Connor’s gaze swings between us. “That’s not?—”

Cassandra turns to me. “Alanna. How have you been? You stayed in Crestwood after high school, right? I don't know how you do it. This town was always too small for us."

“I—I—” I can't formulate a response. All I can think about is how she's still touching Connor's chest.

My mind is a nauseating blend of jealousy and sinking hope. My omega is yelling at me to stake my claim on Connor, while the rational part of me wants to sink through the floor.

I step back through the doorway and shut the door, then bite my hand to stifle my scream.

Connor’s words of “Lana—wait—” follow me through the wood.

I lean against the wall and sink to the floor, trying to control my breathing.

“Connor, I need to speak with you,” Cassandra says.

My blood roars in my ears. I have to get out of here. Everything was so perfect, and now it’s so wrong. My severed mating bond rears its head with a vengeance.

My entire body shakes, and I think I’m going to be sick. I bolt for the bathroom and heave up last night’s dinner, then try to gather myself despite my panic.

I’m a fucking sitting duck without my phone.

I need to get out of Connor’s clothes.

I need to get out ofhere.

I pick up a pair of basketball shorts lying on the ground and tug them on over the boxers, yanking the drawstring as tight as it’ll go so they don’t immediately slide down my hips.

I spot Connor's keyring—expensive and minimalist and uncluttered, just like the rest of his life, next to his e-reader and glasses on the nightstand. Fragments of a dissolving dream.

I grab his keys and eye the window, lamenting that it sits over a thick holly bush. It's probably not even painted shut like the ones at my apartment.

Instead, I exit his bedroom and head straight for the door.

I try not to look at them, but Connor has joined Cassandra at the breakfast bar. His expression is pained. Cassandra is preparing coffee, moving through the kitchen in a familiar dance. She’ll know how he takes his. They’ve prepared it for each other for years.

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