Page 51 of Generation Omega: Claimed
Jameson will never love me.
That’s fair, but it’s also fair that I’ll never love him either. This girl knows never to fall for a bad boy.
His knot releases without warning and, for one second, I’m weightless, before Ethan snatches me out of the air and carries me back toward the cabin.
“I have no idea what just happened,” Ethan murmurs. “Are you okay?”
“I am, Ethan, as long as Kazimir comes back to us both, and brings Thatcher with him. I owe everyone an apology, but Thatcher most of all.”
CHAPTER 27
JAMESON
I don’t follow when Ethan carries Tillie into the cabin, with Mackenzie trailing them. I know from her thoughts that she’s nervous about the professor and Kazimir—busy blaming herself—but Mackenzie’s there to comfort her in ways Ory can’t, and I won’t. Ethan, as always, is close, and I’m certain Gideon will soon join our pack’s virtuously endearing faction.
I never thought I would miss the douchey professor or the vitriolic assassin, but apparently, I’m on their team. Lovers. Fighters. Asshats. Self-reflection be damned—I know where I belong.
I grip the railing when I’m hit by a barrage of Tillie’s thoughts and emotions. Her mind is a freaking freight train, and her heart is pumping powerfully, sending out shock waves of shame and regret, along with promises to do better. Is she really attempting to reach Thatcher and Kazimir? It seems so, and it’s damned annoying and destabilizing.
But who am I kidding?
My newly discovered pride was born in my ability to hold it all together and serve my mission. I provided the balance that’s allowing Tillie to be present without debilitating physical pain. She’s here to think and feel—even to summon her alphaswith her omega mojo—because I did my job. Dang, I have been installed in a career against my wishes, and I can’t quit or get fired. That’s some bullshit right there.
But the omegaversegivethand ittakethaway, because now that I’m not jacked up on alpha bravado, my limitless personal failings invite me to dance. Before I can decide whether I’m going to allow this skirmish with all I’m lacking, Tillie’s thoughts slam me again.
Jamie.
Fuck—she’s thinking about it again, replaying my mother’s voice in her head. I’m about to rush in there and roar at her to stop this torment, but then I realize Tillie’s using the tiny glimpse she caught of my early life to soothe her own worries. I can’t take that from her or punish her for it without revealing a truth about myself that’s entirely unhelpful to our bond and our pack. Tillie certainly won’t view me as her frosty, steadfast alpha if she ever learns the reality of who I am. So, I have to stand here and endure this torture like I’m in competition for the omegaverse’s employee of the fucking month.
I really wish my delusion had lasted a bit longer, the faulty belief that Tillie missed my life story because of the drama around our bonding.
Jamie. Tillie knows it’s the nickname my mother used for me, but it’s not just the name that’s wrecking my soul. It’s my mother’s voice saying it, swiped from memories I thought I’d escaped. I never allowed anyone else to call me that, especially after she was gone.Jamiedidn’t exist after his mother died, because he died with her, along with everything he could have been if love hadn’t abandoned him.
I honestly thought I’d erased him, as I tried to erase her. But my mother still lives in my memories—her voice still endures—or Tillie would never have heard it or remembered it so clearly. I’m more than a little disgusted, though entirely unsurprised,that my underwhelming work ethic led to this failure. With more conviction, I could have achieved success, fatally drowning every pleasant reminder of my perfect childhood that abruptly ended. One would think rivers of liquor and bad decisions could accomplish a simple task like that, but I guess not.
Jamie. It’s as though my mother is speaking to me through Tillie’s thoughts. As much as I pretend to be affronted by such a violation, I can’t lie to myself about what this really is. It’s like I found a well in the middle of a never-ending desert, the only source of water left on the fucking planet. I won’t walk away. I’ll fall on my knees and pray for one more drink of the rarest thing I’ve ever encountered. The sound of my mother speaking to me in a distinctly loving tone—I never had a single doubt about myself or my worth until her voice, like everything else, vanished.
So, here I am, buck-ass naked, standing on the orgy cruise line, listening as miracles play on a loop in my omega’s gentle mind.
I’m trembling and grasping the railing as Tillie catches another memory. It’s not just my mother’s voice now, but a scene from the movie of my childhood where her face filled every screen. Her warmth and whimsical sense of humor brightened every room. She couldn’t help it—she was a constantly swirling light at the top of a lighthouse, a guiding force no matter how rough the seas became. Only a foolish child could believe that a lighthouse would stand forever, not be swallowed by a sudden storm, its light extinguished forever.
I flinch when I realize Gideon is silently standing beside me like a fucking Secret Service agent—which he’s played twice.
I turn on him. “What?”
That obnoxiously distinguished face of his does the compelling eyebrow thing, and I’m suddenly ten again with my mom at one of his premieres. The stupid, muscle-bound actorwas my hero. I wallpapered my room with Gideon Blake posters, played with Gideon Blake action figures, knew every line of every Gideon Blake movie I was allowed to watch. Of course, I secretly watched all the rest that I wasn’t supposed to watch, though I lived to regret that. I didn’t sleep for weeks after witnessing the talented actor embody the dark soul of a serial killer, not that I would ever confess to that.
“No, really, Gideon—what?” Now, I’m thirteen. My mother is dead, and my father arranged for Gideon Blake to come to the governor’s mansion and treat me like one of his endearinglyassholish, teenage mutants.
Gideon stares at me through his perceptive eyes like he’s hearing my thoughts. I’m not an omega. What the fuck?
Gideon appears rueful. “Hey, this one is on you.”
I take a step back, colliding with the damn railing. “What’s on me? What the fuck is going on?”
“It wasn’t like this before you facilitated that little intervention with Tillie, but now…” He’s not affronted, like I am, but he’s reeling about something.
“Seriously, Gideon, what’s happening?”
