Page 90 of Generation Omega: Revealed
“North—definitely north. I have a little surprise for you.”
CHAPTER41
GIDEON
The phone is still clenched in my fist, and my body is infused with enough adrenalin that I could tear this elegant guesthouse to pieces. I would do that and more to bring Tillie back to me, regardless of the shady villain I annoy in the process. I can’t look away from her, but the sight of her lying there… it guts me.
She deserves better than this—she deserves the world.
I roll my neck, attempting to release enough tension to deal with my next problem.Thatcher. He’s just outside the front door—clearly, my bark wasn’t specific enough. I should have commanded him to locate the heaviest boulder he could lift and take a long stroll in the ocean.
Bring the pack together, they said. I already want to thin the herd and the pack’s not even fully formed. I’m out of my depth and I’m flailing, and if it were just about me, that would be fine. But it isn’t. I’m failing Tillie. I’m also failing my budding pack, but a man needs to prioritize and they are miles beneath her in every way.
My heart can’t find its rhythm—it’s flailing too, desperately calling out to Tillie’s heart and receiving no response. The loss of that connection is like waking up in someone else’s body, only it’s my body before I met her. A lone heartbeat. A solitary state of mind. An island in a world of islands.
I’m bereft without her, experiencing a level of grief I’ve never known. The only comparison is the loss of my father. His death was like an abruptly unfinishable conversation with my favorite person. This is different because it’s the future that’s suddenly missing, my future with Tillie.
Help the woman, son. Do right by her. Be the man I raised you to be. Make the hard choices and never flinch.
My dad doesn’t need to be alive or in this room for me to know what he would think about this situation. He’d roll his eyes, like he always did about my fiction-based life choices, and then he’d remind me to be decent in a callous world, grateful for all the good fortune that came my way, and steady when life took me where I never wanted to go.
Always be true to yourself and those worthy of your time.
I force myself to walk toward the door, opening it just slightly so I can see Thatcher but he can’t see inside. “What do you want?”
Thatcher’s an agitated mess, but I haven’t looked in a mirror lately, so I’m not judging him for that. “I can’t feel her. Can you?”
I shake my head.
He scrubs his hand over his face and then drags his hair out of his eyes. “She’s rejecting bonds she doesn’t even have yet. She’s rejectingus. But worse, she’s rejecting the omegaverse. We have to do something.”
“What would you suggest?” I feel like a detective giving my perp just enough rope to hang himself.
Thatcher’s eyes are a little too bright for my liking, his twitchiness a tell in this round of pack behavior poker. “We need to bond her, force her to adjust to the changes, ease her through all that comes next. As her alphas, we can basically sedate her whenever we need. It wouldn’t be the first time that an omega required careful handling at the beginning. This is our job, ourduty.”
I find control at the oddest moments—my urge is to snap his neck, and yet my tone is completely neutral. “What’s our goal here? That’s what I need to know. I get it, Tillie’s acceptance is important, but long game, what’s our goal beyond just surviving?”
“Our goal, now and forever, is to build the strongest pack possible. Only with a steadfast pack can the omega become who she needs to be to change the world. But first, we must survive and surviving means we need to protect her, even from herself. Once we bond her, we’ll have control and we can ensure she accepts bondmarks from her other alphas when they arrive. That will give us the best chance to serve the omega legacy, which is the point of all of this.” He’s just so reasonable, isn’t he?
“And what is Sage’s agenda here?”
“To protect the omega legacy.”
I select my signature dubious expression, complete with a noteworthy raised eyebrow. “Heronlyconsideration is serving the omegaverse? Because she’s just asupercompassionate billionaire with her own private army, paid for by her heart of gold?That’swhat you’re telling me?”
Flummoxed now, he mutters, “Yes, she serves the omegaverse, but she would also like to know what happened to her sister. That’s fair, isn’t it?” Oh, look, we finally struck a vein of honesty.
“It’s fair forherto want that, sure.” My control is fraying. I’ve got to wrap this up and shut the door or we’re going to be livingprofessor freein the very near future. “Thank you for your enlightened guidance. I heard you and I’m officially rejecting most—if not all—of what you just advised.”
Challenging the professor’s wisdom—I feel like a gauntlet should have been involved—evokes a predictably histrionic reaction. Fury simmers just beneath the surface of this dude. He’s about to lunge at me to get to Tillie—good luck,Prof.
“Rejectwhatexactly andwhy?”
“You willnotbond Tillie anytime soon and certainly not without her permission—andmine.”
His flustered setting is seriously pinged. “But her survival depends on having a strong pack.”
“Yes, it does. I completely agree with you there, but how to build that strong pack is where I see things a bit differently. I believe our pack will only be as strong as Tillie’s faith in us. You want to skip ahead without earning her trust. I know you want to keep theomegaalive, but for you, this is about a whole lot more than the woman lying in there.”
