Because I'm about to commit treason.
I'm about to undermine the alpha to whom I should owe unquestioning loyalty, not just because she's my mother, but because she's my monarch. But how could I be loyal to the embodiment of evil? To selfish cruelty made flesh?
Knowing that I'm blood-tied to such a monster is the worst feeling in the world, and shame stains my cheeks.
Staring at the tiny lines around the edges of her eyes, I wonder how long ago she sold her sense of morality. I wonder if she ever had one.
Tears start to well in my eyes, though I don't want them there because I know she'll pounce on them as a sign of weakness.
Dad notes my wet eyes first, and he sets his cloth napkin onto the table and stands. "What's wrong, Brylee?"
He makes a move to come toward me, but Mom holds up her hand, and he freezes.
I swallow around the rocks suddenly crowding my throat.
My gaze finds my mother's and holds until she senses the challenge in it and rises from her seat.
"Why did you create Project Harpax?" I ask, tone low and surprisingly even given the fact that I feel as if my chest might explode.
Her head tilts, and one of her perfectly arranged spiral curls falls out of place. "Where did you hear that name?"
I keep my inhales slow and even, though I have to remind myself to do so because the alpha pheromones that waft in my direction are aggressive and angry in contrast to her placid face, and my instinct is to drop my gaze. But I will not.
"A little birdie told me."
"You're fucking childish," she states dismissively.
An arctic wind frosts my bones with a biting chill. She treats me exactly as I expect her to, though her coldness is still painful. My heart skips a beat as our eyes clash with raised brows and narrowed gazes.
"What's Project Harpax?" my father asks with such an utterly lost tone that it warms my heart.
I break off our stare to look at him.
But the way my mother blinks at him dismissively raises my hackles. "It's alpha business, dear."
That phrase is like a slap across the face with a paddle. How many hundreds of times have I heard that in my life? How many times have I been dismissed as a simplistic omega, an irrational but adorable omega?
Dad sits back in his chair with a soft, accepting smile and a nod, and it's all I can do not to yank the tablecloth out and strangle Mom with it for treating him like that.Melike that. The entire fucking world like that.
Alpha business. FUCK. HER.
"Is it?" I take a step closer despite the way the air vibrates, practically crackling with the electric force of her ire.
Her nostrils flare, but she still stands with such perfect posture, still loosely holds her wineglass as though I'm an irritation instead of a true threat.
Mimicking her casual pose, I cock my hip and toss out a lazy flick of my wrist. "Surely you don't mean that. Biological weapons that kill thousands are everyone's business, aren't they?"
There it is.
Her neck stiffens in the most satisfying way because my dart has hit the mark.
My father pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth.
I press harder, plunging on, because now that I've started this dive down the rabbit hole, the only option is to finish it. "If itwas just alpha business, why would I be kidnapped over it?Injected with it?"
Dad gasps, but Mom doesn't even blink.
She knew.
