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“Who…who is she?” an Alpha female asks. It’s the same one who was walkin’ out of the coffee shop earlier with her Beta kid. She’s got a hopeful look on her face, too and it makes me realize that I didn’t need to be so chicken shit. I didn’t need to wait for Echo to challenge me to make this change. Some Alphas will be pissed…but others, some that give birth to Betas, at least, will support me. They want more for their kids, too. If it were me and Echo’s kid, I know I would.
I nudge Echo forward, slightly in front of me so that she’s surrounded by an arc of Alphas, me at her back, the Beta males behind me. Traffic in the streets has stalled. The world feels utterly still as she swallowsaudiblythen says, “I’m the Dark City Omega.”
As talk on the sidewalk explodes and Alphas fight each other to introduce themselves to the Dark City Omega, Sierra drives the Beta males home — or wherever the fuck — leaving me to fight off the throngs and Echo and I to grab a cab. It’s dangerous, and I ordinarily would have waited for Sierra to come back, but after hearin’ her openly acknowledge her position beside me, I fuckin’ can’t. And not just because of the Beta kid holdin’ his momma’s hand, starin’ up at my Omega with fuckin’ awe and adoration.
It’s ‘cuz I’m in awe of her, too.
We don’t make it through the front door of the garden house before I shred her fuckin’ annoyin’-ass tank top off her body. Echo shocks the shit out of me by pouncin’ on me right back. She throws herself at me and I catch her against the stairs. She kisses me hard, pullin’ on my hair, trying to pull me into her body. She’s kissin’ me somethin’ fierce, so fuckin’ desperate it scares me.
“Wh…what you thinkin’, Echo?” I say, breaking away from the seductive taste of her mouth long enough to ask.
It’s dark on the staircase. None of the lights are on. Her tank is torn down the front already, revealing her black bra. I yank it down until her tits spill out the top. They’re begging to be suckled, my eyes trying to look everywhere at once. But then she sniffs and my heart stutters.
“Talk to me, baby.”
“Stop it,” she whispers, her breath mingling with mine as she rakes both of her hands back through my hair, holding it out of my eyes.
I freeze. “Don’t need to fuck you if you’re not feelin’ up for it.”
“Not that, you big idiot.”
I bark out a dry laugh, “Then what?”
“You…what you did for those guys. What you said…”
“I meant it.” I swallow hard, pull one of her hands away from my face and pin it above her head. I lean in and kiss the center of her forehead. “Spent so long tryna fight for power and then spent the rest of the time livin’ in fear of somebody takin’ it that I never thought once about what todowith it.
“But you’re right. I can do better than fuckin’ Shadowlands.Wecan do better. What the fuck’s the point of ruinin’ the lives of Betas? Why the fuck should they live like they’re less than? Why the fuck did we? If we hadn’t — if we’d had good Beta parents in nice Beta communities — I’d probably be a lot smarter and you’d probably be a lot nicer than we turned out to be.”
Echo doesn’t laugh like I thought she might. Instead, she rebels against my grip, grabs the side of my face and wrenches me into a kiss. She bites both my lips, wraps her legs around my hips, pulls me in close…
And then she pushes me away, just a little, just enough to brush the most breathtakingly tender kiss between my eyebrows. She kisses me again right there, in the same place, and then harder. Her lips brand me. They’re so hot and I can feel that heat travel all the way through my body down to my toes. It sears through me. It sears me. It brands me and binds me and I know that everything Ward and Loveless said was right, is true…
I didn’t fuckin’ bond this woman.
She stole my soul and bound it to her.
“Stop it,” she whispers. “Just stop, Adam.”
“What?”
“Stop trying to make me fall in love with you.”
My heart hiccups in my throat and I rear up and back and meet her gaze and then explode. I just fuckin’…combust. Her clothes are gone and so are mine and I take her on every stair, every surface, everything, until I completely unravel. And it’s got nothin’ to do with her heat or my rut and everythin’ to do with her thorn-covered vines and the cage they’ve built around my heart.
I fuck her somethin’ fierce until flowers fall from the rafters of the garden house like rain that chases away all the ghosts.
21 | Echo
Dragnovic Manor
Iclench my teeth together so hard, I’m surprisedI don’t break them.I’m pissed. I’m beyond pissed. I glare at Adam so hard I’m surprised he doesn’t wither beneath my stare, and I hate that I’m a little impressed he doesn’t. Vines rise from the floor of his room and latch onto his ankles.
He lets them and watches me dully as he says, “Omega, gotta wear it.”
“What happened to changing outdated and fucked up traditions?”
“Doesn’t happen overnight. Besides,” he shrugs. “Kinda like this one.”
