Teal had won. He’d earned more rights for omegas. Again. But instead of celebrating, he was unconscious, sweating buckets of poison out of his system.
“You won,” Sorcha leaned over to whisper in Teal’s ear. “You helped make the world safer for omegas. For Zayne. And all the others. Now you need to wake up.” Sorcha kissed Teal’s forehead gently.
Ronan huffed. All this effort and strife his family had gone through for almost a year. Teal fighting for the greater good. Only to end up in this bed.
Rage boiled inside him.
Without a plan, he opened the door to the hallway, still hearing the cheers from outside.
“Ronan?” Jax glanced over at him.
“Do you need something?” Sorcha asked.
“I need my husband. I need my children’s daddy!” Ronan growled, taking a breath as he looked down the corridor.
Sorcha rose, but Jax put a hand on the omega’s wrist. “Let him go.”
Ronan walked purposefully, his long strides bringing him to the hospital entrance in less than a minute. Heads turned as he marched loudly through the lobby. He burst through the automatic doors to find over a hundred people clustered outside them. Some carried signs spelling out things likeGet Well Soon TealorThank you Teal!
“It’s Ronan.”
“That’s Teal’s alpha.”
“He looks bigger than on TV.”
Ronan heard their voices humming in the back of his brain, but he couldn’t distinguish between the individuals in the crowd. They blurred together in a mass of color and sound. As his expression tightened and his chest heaved, the voices quieted, waiting for him to speak.
“As most of you know, Teal is my husband,” Ronan shouted to the throngs of well-wishers. “I appreciate that you are here now because you care about Teal—”
“We love Teal!”
“Is he okay?”
“Like I said, I know you care about Teal. And if Teal were awake right now, he’d be celebrating with you. But he’s not celebrating. He’s lying in a hospital bed because someone tried to murder him.”
A gasp rippled through the crowd. Schulman, Carson & Associates had put out a simple statement to calm speculation, alluding to Teal being ‘exhausted,’ but they hadn’t addressed the possibility of something more sinister.
Ronan nodded to the people. “Yes. The police don’t have all the details, but it appears that Teal has been poisoned. We don’t know who or why yet, but I think it’s safe to say it has something to do with the fact that there are plenty of people out there who don’t think omegas should have more rights. And while most folks want this progress, we’ve allowed the vocal minority to spew their hatred and be out of control in their fight against it.”
Ronan took a deep breath, determined to tamp his fury so he could better articulate his point. He didn’t want to be seen as an angry alpha. He wanted to honor Teal and Teal’s work.
Exhaling, he spoke clearly, but with less volatility. “I’m livid. The man I love is fighting for his life because he committed the grave sin of trying to make others’ lives better. Imagine being so hateful and wrong-headed, so stuck in the ways of the past, that you try to murder someone because he wants to make omegassafer. Speaking directly to the folks who wrote AINO on my car, who told their children not to speak to mine, and who hurled obscenities at Teal while he simply did his job—you are the worst of us. You are the reason we fight so hard, and you need to think about what you are teaching your children, especially your alpha sons. You will not win. Teal is lying in a hospital bed right now. But he won. You lost.”
Ronan took another deep breath before continuing. “Now I want to speak to the majority of you out there who aren’t filled with hate, those who haven’t sent my family death threats or snubbed me at my workplace or the grocery store. You must take action. No one can sit on the sidelines. The pro-alpha forces looking to keep omegas down will lose. But our wins for progress shouldn’t cost us our society. And—stars!—they shouldn’t have to cost my husband his life! My three boys need their daddy, and I need my husband. He’s not just a symbol of this struggle. He’s my everything. He’s a lot of people’s everything.”
Ronan put his hands on his hips, looking from phone to phone as the crowd held them up, eyeing the news crews in the back.
“I thank you for being here. And I hope the authorities will catch the people who did this to Teal. But we all need to do better. To fight this. It can’t just be Teal, Dayson, and the brave omegas who told their stories in High Court. It needs to be all of us. We can have differences of opinion but, for fuck’s sake,someone tried to kill my husband!If you’re here today because you were worried about Teal, or if you’re watching at home and you support the High Court verdict, then thank you for being on the side of equality and omega rights.
“I’m not eloquent like my husband, but I guess I’m just asking for Teal’s sacrifice here not to be in vain. Please remember that when we don’t pay attention, when we let the little snippets of hatred go unchecked, things like this happen.”
Ronan felt like he’d said what he’d wanted to. The crowd stood stunned. Then a slow clap began, and soon enough, it grew thunderous as the assembled men cheered Ronan’s words. Ronan hoped Teal would be proud. After one final plea to please respect his family’s privacy while Teal recuperated, Ronan let the crowd know that all further statements would come through Schulman, Carson & Associates. With that, he turned and went back into the hospital.
Ronan arrived back in Teal’s room to discover Jax with his arms around Sorcha. When Ronan entered, his young partner leaped into his arms. “We saw on the TV here.” He nuzzled into Ronan’s scent gland. “Teal would be so proud. I’m proud.”
Ronan held an arm out to Jax, inviting the beta into their embrace. After a moment’s hesitation, Jax leaned into Ronan’s side, blowing out a long breath. “You did good, Ronan.”
From the bed, Teal mumbled something. It was incoherent, and his eyes stayed shut, but it was the first sound Ronan had heard him make since his collapse.
