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“Her friend and her brother’s employee.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth.
“Is that all?” Sam asked, pushing, as if he could sense I was holding back.
“That’s all you need to know.” It was all I was going to give him right now. He hadn’t earned my full trust yet, either.
Sam looked frustrated, but he took a deep breath and tried to settle himself.
“Did you know she was an omega?”
“I don’t think anyone knew she was an omega, not even Lexie. Not for sure, anyway. Unless she was a brilliant liar, and that’s one thing Lexie’s not. She’ll tell you plainly what she thinks, especially if you’re being an idiot.”
Talking about her being an omega reminded me of the moment Lexie walked out earlier with that goddamn mouth watering scent pouring off her. It had almost made me lose my mind. I’d had to fight to stay still. Scent didn’t affect betas in the same maddening way it did to alphas, but it still packed a punch. At least hers did for me.
Focus, dammit.
“She started acting strange as soon as Maia showed up, and it got worse when you arrived this morning. Which makes me wonder if she suspected but told no one. Her house wasn’t somewhere you wanted to grow up as an omega. It would have been dangerous for her.”
“Dangerous? How so?” Sam asked with a growl. His dominance rose instantly and whiskey spiked the air.
“That’s a question you’ll have to ask her,” I replied.
“Just tell me, does it have anything to do with Leif or anyone currently in her life?” I could almost feel him vibrating as his rage threatened to burst free again.
I shook my head and Sam narrowed his eyes at me, but nodded and the pressure against my skin eased.
“There’s a more important question about Lexie you should ask me.” I said.
“And that is?” Sam demanded. He was watching me so intently I felt an irrational urge to check my forehead and make sure there wasn’t a hole burned through it.
I looked around at the dark forest again, feeling uneasy. No-one from the farm should be out here beyond the gates at night, but the number of fence alarms we’d had since Maia arrived worried me. Anyone else could be out there. The sound of the river should cover our voices from any betas overhearing, but I wasn’t sure about alphas.
Sam shifted impatiently, and I turned back to him.
“Can you scent any alphas nearby?”
He spun his head to look at the forest, then scented the air in all directions, knowing instantly where my thoughts had gone.
“The only things I can scent are dogs and cows. The herd is nearby. I’m assuming if anyone was out there, the dogs would alert us, the same way they did for Dio and I this morning.”
I relaxed slightly, but Sam was too impatient to wait for me to gather my thoughts.
“The question?” He bit out, trying not to bark at me.
“How are we going to protect Lexie from the Palace?” Sam just watched me carefully as his gaze turned speculative and his mind worked overtime. I could almost see the gears turning inside his brain.
“They’re hunting Maia because she hid on a remote farm, masking and subduing her scent until she was twenty-one and betrayed by your brother,” I said. Sam flinched at that, but stayed silent once again.
“What do you think they’ll do when they find out Lexie suppressed her scent completely until she was twenty-four, living openly in society as a beta?”
I kicked at the rocks uselessly in my frustration, feeling like I was the one out of control now while Sam watched me carefully. I rarely let my temper get the better of me, but the attack this morning and seeing Lexie hurt had rattled me.
I didn’t have the resources I needed to keep her safe, and all my connections were in the military. So I couldn’t trust any of them right now, even if we could reach them.
“She’ll be an even bigger target now than Maia or Ava. They’ll want to run tests on her and figure out how she did it and why she’s unique.” The thought alone made me want to punch things.
“I’ll die before I let the Palace grab any of them, but I can’t protect them alone. I don’t even know if Damon, Leif, Hunter and Max will be enough.”
I shot a look at Sam. “Having your team here will help, but we need more. We don’t know what resources the Palace can call up. We need allies.”
