“That’s not the proper way to care for your pack members,” I said.
“You may think that depriving yourself of what you want is necessary for the good of the pack, but I don’t. I want what I want, Mercury. And there are only two people I’ve ever wanted. You, and Leighton.” He paused, then muttered, “Maybe three.”
I wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole right now. My heart was wrenching apart as I tried to figure out what to feel. I was angry he didn’t have the same opinion as I did—should I be? He was allowed to be different. I loved that he was different. He wasn’t an anxious caretaker like I was.
More than anger, I was upset he’d let me put a stop to our relationship while he was still actively engaging in a relationship that would hurt Dash just as much—no. More.
“You need to move on and tell me the rest, or I’m going to start yelling at you,” I said.
He sighed, his hands coming down to rest on my knees. Knees were about the least sexual place ever, but in my touch-starved state it was making me hard. I hadn’t touched anyone since we broke it off.
Was I a little bitter that he had someone else the whole time?
Absolutely. No matter how irrational it was.
It had been my choice to break things off for Dash’s benefit. Ambrose never would have suggested it, and as much as I took shots at him for not caring about our pack lead’s feelings, it made me happy.
I came before Dash in Ambrose’s mind.
I was the only one struggling with my inability to keep both of them happy and mentally intact at the same time.
“Leighton called me last night and asked me to come over and help her with something, so I did. She had an omega on her couch, one who had turned up on her doorstep and begged her for a bond.”
“She can’t bond an omega. A bond wouldn’t stick. She’s not silver status, is she?”
Had I been keeping tabs on the Winston family? Yes. Sue me. Being scent matched to Leighton’s brother drove our pack to the ground. While I could admit it wasn’t his fault, I still wasn’t keen on any of them. Especially since we’d had to deal with them a few months ago. Seeing them again had been hard on Dash.
“Dark bond,” Ambrose said.
I stiffened. “Is the omega gold pack?”
A gold pack omega was one who hadn’t gotten the injection the Institute recommended within a year of perfuming. That injection bound omegas and their children to our laws—things like not being able to kill your alpha. Gold pack omegas weren’t forced to comply with rules like that, and neither were their children, rogue alphas.
Because of this danger they posed, they didn’t get the kind of protections omegas who got the injection were given. It was legal to dark bond them, against their will or not.
“She’s a normal omega.”
“Why not just get a bond from a normal pack, then? Is she crazy?”
Ambrose growled and my eyes widened. He was protective of the omega. What kind of situation had he gotten us all into?
“Move on,” I demanded. “Tell me the rest.”
“The rest of the story is simple. I stayed the night, Kiara stabbed me because she thought it would force Leighton to dark bond her, and then she fled. Leighton called a doctor and went after Kiara once I was being treated.”
I stared at him blankly, then down to the bandages. I needed to cover the wound again, because it was still exposed from when I’d looked at it.
“The omegastabbedyou? And you’re protective of her?” I asked coldly. “She needs to be put into goddamn custody.”
This growl was loud enough that I returned it with a rumble of my own. “I almost choked her to fucking death, Mercury. She’s been through enough.”
That was the rage I’d felt from him. He’d been stabbed and he’d fucking lost it. The people who’d burned his house to the ground had used knives on him too before leaving him for dead.
“If she stabbed you, she had it coming,” I said.
Ambrose glared, fighting to keep his aura under control. The intensity of his hot iron scent was almost cloying, the smokiness of it making me desperate to cough.
I was trying to keep myself together, too.
