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“I scented suppressants so, yes, I’m confident she’s an Omega.”
There. Clean-cut. Factual. Precise. Nothing wrong with that answer at all.
Except, apparently I’m wrong, because Dax’s fingers still over his keyboard and his eyes snap to mine. “You were close enough to scent suppressants?”
Fuck.
“I was close enough to confirm,” I keep my voice even and my eyes on his.
He holds my gaze for a beat too long before dropping it to refocus on the screen of his laptop. “I’d like to find more information about her. She could be a part of this. I wouldn’t be shocked if she knows exactly what her father’s doing.”
Something inside of me snaps to attention, irritated at his assumptions that are based on nothing except her designation.
He doesn’t know her. None of us do.
“She does not.” My words are half snarl, half shout, but it’s too late to regret them. I should shut up after that, but something is heating my blood, pushing me to protect her even though she doesn’t even know I exist.
“Varenthrall came to her room and demanded she say goodbye to Alexander when he left. She didn’t want to go.”
I know the entire room is watching me, but I refuse to look away from Dax. If I thought my explanation might sway him, I was wrong.
“So, she’s friendly with Alexander. Close with a Severed.” He may sound calm, but I know him. I can see the calculation in his eyes.
“She was terrified,” I correct, leaning forward. “He had to drag her away with him. She didn’t want to go.”
I can still see the fear in her eyes. Can still sense her desire to tell her father ‘no,’ combined with the knowledge that she has no other choice but to obey him.
She’s afraid of her father. Afraid of Alexander. That, I know for certain.
Dax closes his laptop carefully and pushes it to the side. His movements are controlled. Focused. Only once he’s sure everything is in its proper place does he refocus on me.
“You saw all that, did you?”
“You know I did,” I snarl, seriously sick of whatever game this is.
“You were close enough to smell her suppressants. Close enough to hear a conversation between her and her father. Close enough to see that she was supposedly afraid. That’s awfully close for what amounted to nothing much more than a perimeter check.”
“Dax,” Vae’s eyes are full of concern, bouncing between the two of us anxiously. “What are you trying to say, man?”
“He’s not trying to say shit,” I snap. “He’s dancing around, refusing to get to the point.”
“You had your Bond locked down the entire mission,” Dax accuses, tilting his head to the side. “You rarely do that. Only during high-stakes missions. Certainly not during a perimeter recon.”
“I—”
“Now you’re defending some random Omega you’ve never even met, despite knowing jack shit about her. An Omega who has a personal relationship with a Severed. An Omega who—for all we know—is working with her father.”
“She’s not,” I slam my fist on the table so hard that Silas’s beer bottle tips over and rolls off the side, crashing onto the floor. The room is quiet aside from my angry breaths. I give up all pretense of playing it cool.
“I know what I saw. She was terrified of her father. Terrified of the prospect of facing the Severed.”
This is exactly why I didn’t fucking tell him about my reaction to her, and the more he pokes at me, the more confident I am that I made the right decision.
We may never be ready for a Fated Mate with the way Daxen feels about Omegas. I don’t know exactly what happened that turned him against them as a designation, but this shit isn’t healthy.
I realize at this exact moment that if I have to protect Idril from my pack… I’m going to. Right now, the thought of forcing her anywhere near a paranoid Daxen sounds like the worst possible decision if I want her to eventually agree to allow us to court her.
Holy fuck. When did I decide that courting her was a foregone conclusion?
