The frustration was hot and immediate. Of course Cass gave away his food. Of course he did. Because someone else was hungrier, and probably in Cass’s simple, maddening moral calculus, that was all that mattered. Riot wanted to shake him. He wanted to march over there and demand to know what Cass thought he was going to survive on if he kept giving everything away. He wanted to grab him by his shoulders and—
The fantasy unspooled before Riot could stop it. Cass’s back against rough brick, his head tilted back to bare that long throat,his lips parted in surprise as Riot leaned in and took what he wanted. The soft sounds Cass would make, confused at first, then desperate. The way his body would arch into Riot’s touch, inexperienced but responsive, learning pleasure for the first time…
Riot’s hand shot out and grabbed a market stall’s sign pole, gripping hard enough that the metal groaned under his fingers. The pain of the pressure against his palm helped, a little. Enough to break the fantasy’s hold and drag his mind back to the present.
His breathing was ragged, his jeans were uncomfortably tight, and he was standing in the middle of a crowded marketplace, white-knuckling a piece of metal to keep himself from doing something unforgivable.
Congratulations. You’ve officially become the cautionary tale they warn Omegas about.
Movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention—a flash of expensive leather near the salvage stalls. Riot’s focus shifted.
The Chimera Syndicate.
Not Ken. Mei, one of his information specialists. She was good at her job—unobtrusive, patient, and thorough. The kind of operative who could watch a target for days without being noticed, building a comprehensive picture from tiny details.
And she wasn’t watching Riot.
She was watching Cass.
Riot’s vision sharpened, his muscles tensing, every cell in his body screaming at him to cross the marketplace and show Mei exactly what happened to people who took too much interest in things that belonged to—
He. Doesn’t. Belong. To. YOU.
Riot forced himself to stay still. To observe. To be tactical instead of reactive. His hands shook with the effort of notmoving. Mei was just watching. She was probably trying to figure out why one of the Syndicate’s former best operatives seemed to have developed an interest in an Elysian missionary. She wouldn’t move against Cass directly—not yet, not without more data.
But she would report back, and Ken would start putting pieces together. Eventually, someone would decide that the best way to get to Riot was through the pretty, helpless missionary he couldn’t seem to stay away from.
This is why you should have left. This is why you should have walked away after the first night. Every moment you spend near him puts him in more danger.
The thought was enough to make him take a step back. Then another. Creating distance. Doing what he should have done from the beginning. He couldn’t protect Cass by hovering around him like some kind of obsessed shadow. All he was doing was painting a target on the kid’s back.
The afternoon wore on. Riot forced himself to watch from further away, to check for Syndicate surveillance rather than tracking Cass’s every move. Mei disappeared around two o’clock, apparently satisfied with whatever intelligence she’d gathered. No other operatives appeared to take her place.
But Riot couldn’t make himself leave entirely. He couldn’t stop his eyes from finding that golden head in the crowd, tracking those increasingly exhausted movements through the marketplace as Cass’s recruitment attempts grew more desperate. His voice got smaller, his approaches more hesitant, his recovery time after each rejection longer. The fever-flush on his cheekbones had deepened, and his movements had the careful quality of someone fighting to stay upright.
He should be in bed. He should be resting. He shouldn’t be out here killing himself for a mission that’s never going to succeed.
But Riot couldn’t tell him that. He couldn’t do anything except watch as Cass slowly ground himself down to nothing.
Around mid-afternoon, a hurried shopper bumped into Cass hard enough to knock his meditation bracelets from his hand. The bracelets scattered across the dirty pavement, skidding under people’s feet and under vendor stalls. The shopper didn’t even slow down. Cass dropped to his knees to gather them with shaking hands.
Riot took a step forward before he could stop himself.
You can’t. You’ll make it worse. The Syndicate is watching. Every time you get close to him, you put him in more danger.
He made himself stop and watch from a distance as Cass gathered his beads alone, his fingers trembling as he picked them out of the dirt. When he finally stood, his shoulders were hunched and his head was bowed. He didn’t try any more recruitment attempts after that. He just turned and walked back toward the hotel, his whole body radiating exhaustion and despair.
Riot made sure he got back safely, hating himself for not doing more. Hating himself for the fantasies that kept intruding even now, when Cass looked like he might collapse at any moment. Hating the suppressant shortage and the Syndicate and Elysian and every other factor that had conspired to put him in this impossible situation.
Mostly hating yourself,a small voice in his head pointed out.Since you’re the one who decided to follow him around all day like the world’s most pathetic guardian angel.
He watched Cass disappear into the hotel and waited five minutes, then circled around to the service entrance, wanting to avoid another hallway encounter until he was more certain of his control.
Back in his room, Riot stood at the window and watched the light come on in Cass’s room three doors down. The kid wasprobably collapsing onto that thin mattress right now, alone and exhausted and wondering why everyone kept rejecting him.
Tomorrow, Riot told himself.Suppressants should arrive tomorrow. You’ll get your chemistry under control, figure out how to extract yourself from this mess, and stop putting the kid in danger by hovering around him.
He’d keep his distance. He’d be smart about this. He’d stop letting his malfunctioning brain make decisions for him.
