To claim and conquer. Worship and love.
One day. Soon. So soon.
It’s never been like this with any of the betas I brought home. All my life I’ve been searching for that missing piece, the one that would complete me. When I first met Violet, she made me think of a puzzle just waiting to be solved.
But as it turns out I’ve been the puzzle this whole time.
And she was always my one missing piece.
VIOLET
Kissing Miles is bringing me back to life. It’s filling that hollow space that I always believed was meant to stay empty.
I know it’s dangerous. And now I also know that leaving them will hurt me too.
But I’m here right now. I’m young. And free. And I just want to enjoy myself for once in my wretched life.
His is the final scent I had yet to unlock, and it’s here now, strong and overpowering, so unlike the man himself. Sandalwood and bergamot, and mine, all mine.
His lips. His body. Maybe even his heart.
I see the way Alpha Miles looks at me, the way he’s looked at me since day one. I feel how earnestly and fully he gives himself to me now.
And I can’t help but want more, want all he’s willing to give for as long as he’s willing to give it.
Yes, today I shall live to the fullest, because tomorrow I will die. Perhaps not in the literal sense, but oh.
Just as it was with my first heat, it’s so clear that I am meant for this life. That I am meant to be an omega. Miles’s omega. Muldoon’s.
But that makes it even more important that I break away before I’m too far gone. Fuck. I don’t want to lose this, but I know it’s also not mine to take.
Just as fast as it started, the moment is over. Not because I suddenly become strong, but because Noah’s voice booms in the quiet hangar.
“You did great for your first time.” His words are kind, but his voice gives away his anger. “Come give me a hug.”
“Yes, Alpha Noah.” I pull back and hop down from Miles’s strong arms, running a hand over my mouth to wipe him away. Perhaps it’s too much. Perhaps it’s cruel, but I can’t stop myself.
I both want him and don’t.
I am Schrödinger’s omega, a study in contradictions, both alive and dead. Both happy and tortured. A friend and a stranger.
It was all supposed to be an act, every moment with them. But even though my head knows what I must do, my body wants something entirely different. It wants all the possibilities I discarded the moment I fell pregnant. It wants more. Another.
But I’ve already had my baby.
My child was lost to me before I ever got the chance to hold her, but she was mine. Both a life I made and a mark against me ever being able to make another.
Most omegas only ever have one or two children. Some have none at all. Just because Mother had seven, that’s no guarantee for me.
And this is the most heinous truth of all.
I’m actively trying to prevent pregnancy, when there’s a good chance I won’t be able to conceive again anyway.
Fertility rates are so messed up in our world that they’re hard to predict, no matter how strong the genetics, no matter how sophisticated the science.
I’m taking my secret birth control treatments, turning myself into a dud, because that’s the only way I can gain any control over my life.
I’ve already lost my baby.