Riot shook his head sharply, trying to dislodge the thought. “I’m fine.”
“That’s the least convincing thing you’ve ever said, and I once watched you claim you weren’t bleeding while leaving a trail across my kitchen floor.”
Fair point. Riot had no defense for that one. His track record with accurate self-assessment was, he had to admit, not great. Somewhere between “catastrophic” and “clinically delusional.”
From the bedroom, he heard a sound. Small. Pained. Distinctly Cass.
Every muscle in Riot’s body went rigid.
The jealousy that followed was immediate and irrational and he was fully aware of both things and neither of them helped in the slightest. Dante was in there. Dante, with his sharp gray eyes and his competent hands and his Alpha instincts that were probably responding to every whimper, every shift of Cass’s heat-flushed body.
He knew Dante and Orion were solid. Committed. Genuinely in love in that irritating way that made other people’s relationship prospects look like failed corporate mergers. But he also knew what Alphas were capable of when an Omega in heat was involved. He knew whathewas capable of. And if Cass’s heat triggered Orion, and Dante was right there with two desperate Omegas—
He wouldn’t. He’s not like that.
But the darker part of Riot’s mind whispered,You don’t know that. You don’t know what anyone’s really like when control slips. You know what YOU’RE like.
“Don’t spiral,” Lilac said quietly. “Focus on something else.”
“Granny Lu.” Riot grabbed onto the anger because it felt safer than the jealousy. Anger, at least, had a target. “She had no right to talk to him like that.”
“She didn’t know—”
“She didn’tcareto know.” He couldn’t stop moving, pacing the small living room like something caged. “He was already terrified. Already in pain. And she just looked at his robes and decided that was enough to call him trash.”
The memory of Cass’s face in that moment—the way he’d tried so hard to stand straight, to be brave, even as his body betrayed him—made something in Riot’s chest ache with a ferocity that had nothing to do with his modifications.
He’s so fucking brave and he doesn’t even know it.
Another sound came from the bedroom. Cass’s voice this time, saying something Riot couldn’t quite make out. He took a step toward the hallway.
“No.” Lilac grabbed his arm. “Absolutely not.”
“I just need to check—”
“You need to sit down and get your shit together before you do something we all regret.”
Then the front door banged open.
Riot spun, violence coiling in his muscles, ready to put his fist through whoever had just made themselves a target—
Stave and Prepper filled the doorway.
For one horrible moment, relief and rage warred in Riot’s veins. His brothers. His family. The only people in the world who understood what it meant to wake up screaming from dreams of the lab, who knew how to talk each other down from the edge, who’d held each other through the worst of the withdrawal when the black market suppressants ran out.
But they were also the last people he wanted to see right now. They were reality—the life he’d been conveniently ignoring while he existed in that bubble with Cass. Their presence meant thebubble was done. Popped. Reality arrived and it hadn’t even bothered to knock.
Then Cass’s scent hit them both.
Riot watched it happen—watched Stave’s nostrils flare, watched Prepper’s pupils blow wide, watched their eyes catch the dim light and reflect it back in that familiar golden glow. Two more modded Berserkers, responding to an Omega’s heat. Three total, now. Because what this situation really needed was more Gensyn-manufactured predators in a confined space. Excellent. Ten out of ten.
Stave and Prepper had gone still in the doorway, both of them clearly fighting the same battle—instinct clawing at control, demanding they respond to the scent flooding the house.
But they held. They didn’t move toward the hallway.
Not like last time. We’re better than last time.
The snarl that tore out of Riot’s throat surprised him—low and territorial and not directed at the Omega scent, but at the two Alphas who’d just gotten a lungful of it.Mine. He’s mine. They can’t have him.
