Wasn't it?
Felix opens our door and I follow him inside, both of us moving to our default positions, him on the bed, me in the chair, like we need the space to process what just happened.
"You knew," I say finally, not quite an accusation but close.
"I suspected," he corrects, picking up his book but not opening it. "The way they reacted to your scent once the suppressants from the club wore off. The way they've been treating us. It was... familiar."
Familiar because he knows what it's like to find your scent match and not be able to do anything about it. Because we found each other in the worst possible place at the worst possible time, and we've been trying to make it work ever since despite biology screaming that we're doing it wrong.
"What do we do?" I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
"Whatever you want," he says simply. "I meant what I said. You can make your own choices about this."
"But you won't."
"I can't." The admission seems to cost him something. "They're alphas. Real alphas. They'd expect things I can't give, want things I can't be."
I want to argue, to tell him he's wrong, that they've already proven they're different. But I understand. God, do I understand. The fear that lives under your skin, the constant vigilance, the exhaustion of maintaining a mask that keeps you safe but slowly suffocates you.
"We don't need them," I say, trying to convince myself as much as him.
"No," he agrees. "We don't." He watches me closely, his eyes seeing everything I try to hide. "But you want them."
"No, I don't," I say defensively, squirming in my seat.
He gives that soft, rueful smile again. I'd rather him just be angry. "It's okay to want them, Juney," he says softly. "I'm not going to stop you."
"I don't," I snap, my hands balled into fists in my lap. I grimace. "I don't."
He watches me for another beat, then opens his book and cracks the spine. "Whatever you say."
There's finality in his tone, no room for argument.
Because a part of me knows he's right.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
BANE
"Well, that could have gone worse."
Archer's voice carries through the war room like he's trying to convince himself more than anyone else. The door barely had time to close behind our two omega assassins before he opened his mouth, and now he's standing there with his hands shoved in his pockets like a teenager who just got rejected at prom.
"Could have gone better," I mutter, dropping into my chair hard enough to make the old wood groan in protest. My head throbs with the kind of headache that comes from wanting something so badly your bones ache, then watching it walk away like you're nothing more than furniture.
Which, to be fair, is exactly how Felix just treated us. Like we're obstacles to navigate around, not four alphas who'd burn the world down for him and Juniper if they'd just give us half a fucking chance.
The room still smells like them—winter and wildflowers mixing with gun oil from Carlisle's little weapons show. I cantrack exactly where Juniper stood when she pressed her face against that display case, pupils blown wide with the kind of excitement most people reserve for Christmas morning.
"Where'd Elias and Carlisle disappear to?" Archer asks, though we both know the answer. Elias probably went to bury himself in medical journals, researching omega psychology like the answers might be hidden in some dusty textbook. And Carlisle? Who knows. Probably sharpening his knives and composing sonnets about Juniper's homicidal tendencies.
"Does it matter?" I scrub my face with both hands, feeling every one of my thirty-two years weighing on me like concrete. "We just told our scent matches that they're ours and they basically said 'thanks but no thanks, we're good.'"
"Felix said that," Archer corrects, and there's something in his voice that makes me look up. Hope, maybe. Or delusion. Hard to tell the difference these days. "Juniper didn't say anything."
"She didn't have to. You saw how she looked at him when he made his little declaration. Like the sun rises and sets on his command." The words taste bitter as burnt coffee. "She's not choosing us over him."
