“Princess,” Riot said, putting his hands on Cass’s shoulders and immediately regretting it when the contact sent heat racing through his palms, even through the fabric. Cass leaned into the touch like a flower turning toward sunlight, his whole body swaying closer, and Riot had to lock every muscle to keep from pulling him in. “Stop apologizing for existing.”
Cass looked up at him with those devastating eyes. “But I keep making mistakes—”
“You’re asking questions about how to stay alive. That’s called being smart, not making mistakes.”
“Really?” The genuine wonder in his voice made Riot want to burn Elysian to the ground. It made him want to find every person who had ever made Cass doubt his own basic competence and introduce them to creative applications of violence.
“Really. You should trust your instincts.” He forced himself to step back, putting safe distance between them. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t open the door for anyone.”
“What if my instincts tell me to open it?”
Riot paused at the door. “Your instincts told you to help a bleeding Berserker in an alley instead of running away. They might be questionable, but they haven’t killed you yet.”
Cass’s small smile was worth the risk of leaving, but then his brow furrowed.
“Riot? Why do you call me princess?”
The question landed somewhere between his ribs and detonated. Innocent. Curious and completely unaware of what it did to Riot when he asked things like that—simple questions delivered with absolute sincerity, no calculation, no agenda, just genuine desire to understand. His cock throbbed. Again. Because apparently he had developed a very specific and very inconvenient fetish for earnest confusion.
Because you’re untouchable. Because you’re too good for me. Because if I call you by your name too much, I might forget you’re not mine.
“Because you look like one,” he said instead, keeping his voice light through sheer force of will. “All that golden hair and those big eyes. Like something out of a fairy tale.”
Cass’s nose wrinkled. “Fairy tales aren’t real.”
“Neither are princesses, technically. But here you are.”
“I don’t think that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense, princess. It’s a nickname.”
Cass considered this with the same serious expression he gave everything, then nodded slowly. “Okay. I like it. No one’s ever given me a nickname like that before. Not even Honey.”
Of course they haven’t. They were too busy telling you everything was wrong with you.
“Well, now you have one,” Riot said. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Cass’s small smile made something warm and dangerous unfurl in Riot’s chest. He left before he could say anything else stupid.
The Neutral Zone’s morning market was the usual chaos of desperate commerce and barely controlled violence. Perfect camouflage for someone whose control was hanging by increasingly thin threads.
Stay calm. Get supplies. Get back to your—no…
Not back tohisOmega. Back to Cass. Who wasn’t his. Who was a tactical responsibility.
The lie was getting harder to maintain when his entire body was screaming at him to turn around, go back, and make sure Cass was safe.
He was examining prepackaged food, trying to find something that contained actual nutrients rather than flavored sawdust, when Mei’s voice spoke behind him.
“Looking a little tense, Riot.”
He turned slowly. She was flanked by the same bulky operative from before, plus a new addition: a wiry Beta with scars that suggested knife fights as a hobby. All three maintaining careful distance. Smart.
“Mei.” He continued examining nutritional labels. “Collecting strays?”
“Keeping an eye on our investments.” Her smile was sharp. “How’s your little missionary friend feeling? He looked a bit warm yesterday.”
Ice flooded his veins. Then rage, so fast and overwhelming that his vision flickered gold at the edges.
