Page 69 of One for the Money
“Because that Omega is a survivor. She won’t give up without a fight.”
Chapter 25
Dexter fellasleep with his face plastered into the side of Alex’s bed, his hand loose in hers.
To say I’m shocked by the way my brother is behaving is an understatement.
I can’t help but wonder if this is a sign of him truly changing the way he views Alex, or if his instincts have taken over and he’ll be back to normal once she wakes up?
Of course, I want this to change the way he views her. I hope this marks the beginning of something genuine between the three of us. I can’t think of anything I want more right now, outside of her getting better.
My whole life, I’ve known that I was going to share an Omega with Dexter. I didn’t care what they said about us not finding our scent match and settling down with Betas on our own. That was never a possibility for me.
If someone isn’t a twin, it’s hard for them to understand the connection the two of us have. Dexter isn’t just my brother. It’s deeper than that. There’s no happy life for me if he isn’t by my side, and I know it is the same for him. Even as kids, we have always been two parts of a whole. Iwould crawl into his crib to sleep with him, and we shared a room until we moved out at eighteen. This circus is the first place we’ve ever “lived” apart, and we only did it because I wanted to get laid and felt weird doing that in the same bed as Dexter if we weren’t going to share.
All of that means that even though I want to explore things with Alex, I can’t if it makes him miserable. I would choose for him to be happy a thousand times before I put myself first.
I don’t ask the same of him. I can’t.
Dad’s death fucked him up. It’s interesting that we’re identical twins, and yet we had massively different reactions to the same traumatic event. It’s been one thing that’s hard for me to understand.
Not to say I’m not messed up by what happened. I am. But not like he is. Where his distrust and hate of Omegas runs deep, my need to please, to soothe, to diffuse any situation comes from being unable to help calm Dad when he was in Storm.
The room is quiet except for the soft beeping of a heart monitor, and Dexter isn’t the only one sleeping. Quinton’s got half his body thrown over Alex’s feet, and Matteo is curled up in an uncomfortable-looking chair. Jude was taken away by a nurse about an hour ago, because, of course, the doctor’s estimate of being ready for the infusion in two hours was wrong.
We’ve been here nearly five hours already, and I can’t help but wonder if this is fruitless. What if she doesn’t wake up?
Or worse, what if she does wake up and tells us to leave, that she doesn’t want us around her, and she’s willing to take the chance of her Forsaken Omega Syndrome getting worse to escape us?
Could I let her go?
I’m not the type of Alpha to push my will onto another, and I don’t want to be anything like her ex, but fuck, will I be able to let her walk away knowing that she may die without us?
I’m close to deciding it’s time to try to sleep, hoping the rhythmic noises from the heart monitor will be enough to lull me asleep, until Jude comes in with a cardboard carrier filled with coffee cups.
“Any change?” he says, his voice dropped low. He’s looking a little pale, and his hands are trembling. I hop to my feet and take the tray from him, knowing he won’t ask for help even though he clearly needs it. He immediately lowers himself onto the couch.
“No change,” I tell him, settling down next to him, close but not too close that I scare him off. “But they don’t expect one until after the infusion, right?”
He grunts, taking a swig from his coffee and grimacing. “This is the worst,” he mutters. “They said that my pheromones, if we’re truly scent matched, should bring her around pretty quickly. No guarantee or anything but…”
“But it’s our best shot.”
“Yep.”
I toy with the paper sleeve around the body of one of the cups. “What if you’re not her scent match?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You think I’m wrong? That I don’t know what I felt?”
“No,” I admit. “I’m just trying to prepare myself for it not working.” And for us not getting a chance to see if there’s anything between us.
But I don’t say that. It’s not the time.
“How is that going to make you feel any better?” He drains his coffee cup with a distasteful expression. “This is bad, even for me,” he mutters. After a moment of quiet contemplation, he rests his elbows on his knees, the coffeecup dangling loosely between his massive hands. “We barely know her, except that she’s our scent match and the small glimpses at her personality she’s shared with us. And now we’re faced with the fact that we may never get to know her. Nothing is going to be okay if this doesn’t work. If we don’t get the chance to know her.”
We sit in silence, staring at the Omega that could be ours if everything works out. A nurse enters with a small, wheeled machine that features several tubes and buttons. She attaches a small bag of dark blue, nearly black liquid to one of the tubes.
“My pheromones,” Jude says quietly. “It was one of the most painful experiences of my fucking life, and I’ve been stabbed several times.”
