“Let me guess,” he snorted, “I should take my chances with you instead?”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The alpha grew silent for a second and then said in the same even tone, “You have two choices. Stay, and fend off whoever did this to you, someone who most certainly will hurtyou, or come with me. Whether I turn out to be a friend or foe, see for yourself. What do you have to lose, really?”
Take the possibility for safety or risk it all on a known threat.
“The likelihood that you’re a good person is slim,” Shiloh stated.
“Why is that?”
“Because good people don’t really exist.”
“Maybe not in your world.” The alpha held out his hand. “But in mine they do, and I’m one of them.”
“Famous last words.” And yet… “I’ll enter full blown heat within ten minutes. Can you get me somewhere secure before then?” He would jump the alpha otherwise, and it didn’t matter how good this man believed himself to be, no alpha in existence could resist a dominant omega in heat. “If we end up fucking, I doubt I’ll make it through the night.”
“My hover bike is nearby. You’ll be safe, omega. Trust me.”
Shiloh was the notorious son of the Dominus of the Eumia mafia. He’d been raised on callousness and bloodshed. Had witness friend turn on friend. Brother turn on brother. You name it. Trust wasn’t in his vocabulary.
But as the sounds of engines in the distance reached his ears, Shiloh found himself doing the impossible.
He reached out for the alpha, and placed his fate in someone else’s hands.
Chapter 1:
“Prince, please.”
Shiloh barely registered the pathetic whimper, dagger flashing forward to slice through skin. The damage wasn’t fatal, but it’d sting like a bitch, which was his aim. He wanted the men surrounding him on the mat to bleed.
He wanted to hurt someone.
That darkness cloyed at his insides, scratching at his sanity until his focus was mangled and all thoughts of maintaining his carefully constructed persona were drowned out. What did his mask matter when it hadn’t been able to get him the one thing he desired most? Who cared if he was a good person, patient or kind?
Being good hadn’t gotten him anywhere.
Except into more darkness and frustration.
With a growl, he slashed again, the sharp blade carving through one of his sparring partner’s upper thighs.
There were nine of them in total, selected because they’d all made one mistake or another. Mistakes great enough to cost them their lives or the lives of those they held dear. Instead of outright killing them, they’d been given a choice.
Fight the prince, win and walk free.
Lose and suffer whatever fate he saw fit.
Thanks to that persona, Shiloh had known which option they would choose. It wasn’t his fault they’d bought into his crafted disguise. At the end of the day, their choices, all of them, were what had led them here, bleeding and broken in a pile of their own sweat and tears.
Shiloh refused to be like them.
No one had that kind of power over him, not even Kian, his older half-brother and the leader of the Eumia mafia.
HisEumia. The very group he’d given up, all for the sake of drawing in his prey.
It’d bitten him in the ass, like so many other things had these past four years.
