Page 98 of Generation Omega: Revealed
I pull my baseball cap down. “Put your hoodie up and don’t look around. We don’t want to be caught by the cameras on the boats or around the dock. I’ll grab the bags, and you hold onto this.” I offer the oven mitt to him and he takes it from me, looking at it like it means as much to him as it does to me, just for different reasons.
Together, we leave the van behind, with me carrying the two duffels and Ethan walking beside me, like we’re a couple of regular guys heading out to sea for the sheer pleasure of sailing. I wish that were true.
At my slip, I lead him toward my glorious heaven—namedHeaven on Earth—stowing the duffels before helping him aboard. “I’ll grab the lines.”
Ethan tries not to gape at every single thing about my tri-deck yacht, but fails completely, his giddiness bubbling over and landing inside me.
Once I join him, I grab the duffels and lead him up the stairs to the main level where we’re less visible. I drop the bags and turn toward him, finding him conducting a survey of the living room, dining room, kitchen, and view out of the windows.
“We need to get underway as soon as possible. Where do you want to be? You can explore. The rooms below us are quite nice. You could rest. The kitchen is stocked.”
Ethan stares at me with such confidence and pride. “I’ll explore later. Right now, I want to be where you are.”
Oh, my alpha heart. “Okay, give me a second.” I rush down the stairs to the cabins, frantically grabbing a bunch of supplies. Barely able to see over my haul, I return to him, ignoring his curious expression. “Follow me.”
I take the steps to the bridge and hear him behind me. Beside the captain’s chair is a large bench seat, long enough for Ethan to stretch out. On it, I set all the bedding I gathered, taking a few minutes to arrange the blankets and pillows into what seems like a pleasant configuration—though how would I know? I’ve spent my life rarely sleeping and always on cots when I finally succumb.
With obnoxious nerves heckling me, I turn toward Ethan and catch his quirky grin.
“I’m not an omega,” he murmurs softly.
Daring to risk it, I release a hint of the warmth in my heart that belongs to Ethan. “I know, but your memories are the only roadmap I have to show me what it means to be a decent, loving man.” My throat threatens to choke me—emotions are hazardous things. “So, you’ll have anestyspot, and you’ll deal with it,” I snap, my annoyance completely false.
Ethan studies me like I’m the unicorn and then steps closer, wrapping his arms around me. I stiffen, more concrete wall than man, but he’s warm and smells like fresh bread dipped in cheese, and I’m human, apparently, and the contact isnice. He waits and I eventually surrender, embracing him, while careful not to hold him too tightly.
“Thanks, Kaz… for everything.”
I can’t speak, and I don’t want to. I just want to capture everything about this moment before it ends, which it must. The pesky omega’s pull is strengthening, and Ethan can’t drive my yacht if I’m incapacitated by the impatient legacy.
Somehow understanding, Ethan releases me, which is good because not all the alpha power in the world could have made me let him go.
“Time to go?” he asks, that boyish enthusiasm so stunning.
“Yes.” Flustered, I step back and claim my seat, while Ethan settles onto the fluffy bench, instantly resting his hand on my leg.
As we begin to leave the dock, it hits me. I came to this city alone to kill, and I’m leaving it with the profound sense that I’m part of something meant to last forever. I don’t know what the future holds for the omega and me, but Ethan and I are at the beginning of something more beautiful than I will ever deserve.
But the pulls inside me are growing more unwieldy, the need to share with Ethan who I actually am and the omega’s fierce tugging for me to fulfill the role I’m meant to play with her.
They’re going to tear me apart, and I don’t regret it for a second.
CHAPTER44
THATCHER
Walking away from the guesthouse, my steps are heavy and my soul is dark. I’m literally unable to stop my progression to where Sage waits in the cheerful kitchen of a monster’s home. Every movement was commanded by the first alpha, and his bark demanded obedience. To be powerless in his presence was a page ripped from the story of my early life—too familiar, too abhorrent, a crime too shame-inducing to ever forgive or forget. The echoes of my screams still reach me all these years later—I can hear them even now.
I can’t feel the omega. I can barely feel anything but a rage, long suppressed, that’s been boiling over since I discovered the identity of the third alpha. I simply can’t find a way past my shock and disgust at what the omega legacy did to survive this round. Death would have been better than inviting the vilest man in the world into the life of an omega.
I don’t know how to tell Sage that the psychopath who shot me quite gleefully and is reported to have killed Sarah—the man with so much omega and alpha blood on his hands—is now an alpha with just as much right to Tillie as I have. My faith in the omegaverse has been irreparably damaged by this affront to everyone who ever believed or dreamed of a better world. What better world can be built by a killer like Kazimir Volkov?
It’s almost sickly comical, our fears of Kazimir hunting the newly revealed omega. Kazimir, thehunter,would have been preferable to this blasphemy to everything we hold dear.
I reach the enormous Spanish-style kitchen, with its colorful mix of tiles and designs, and find Sage leaning against the counter staring out the window. Her back is toward me and, from her posture, I already know that her tension is high. But, of course, it is.
“What did you trade for us to use this place?” I ask, selecting one of the knowledge grenades off the pile and pulling the pin.
Sage scoffs, still gazing at the lush greenery beyond the glass. This estate contains a vineyard, a gazebo, and all the refinements criminals enjoy when they take a holiday from creating gutters out of the rest of the world.
