Great, the two of them never agreed on shit, so it was usually me acting as the middleman. Now, I found myself on the wrong end of both their censure. It didn’t help that I knew they were right.

The trouble was I liked the idea of marking her more than I was comfortable with. Mark, claim, breed—it was a slippery fucking slope, and I knew exactly where that led. I saw Ella, tied to that bed by a chain around her ankle, a looming figure about to—

“Plan?” Ryder encouraged.

Jesus, I needed to get my head on straight.

“Just because I won’t mark her doesn’t mean I can’t protect her. Not every omega needs to be marked.”

Ryder shrugged, and his lips tugged into a smirk. We’d marked every other omega we’d come across to keep them under our protection. I was going against my own prime directive, and he knew why.

“You can feed yourself whatever bullshit you like, but we all know what’s true. She has to have a mark, something to indicate that she belongs to our crew, which you always make us do. Something, anything, because if we don’t, someone else will.”

I sucked a deep breath in, still standing beside the door, still barely rational, and there was the issue. The marks the omegas in our place wore weren’t mating ones, more temporary indications of where they belonged. You tried to force them? You’d have the combined might of every alpha, beta, and shit, even the other omegas that belonged to our crew, on your back. Lucky for them, that meant a lot in the zone. So marking Sloane as one of us made perfect sense.

So why didn’t I?

MINE! he roared, answering that question.

The reality hit me hard, like a fucking gut punch I hadn’t seen coming. I didn’t trust myself not to turn into a caveman. With her in my arms, my teeth at her neck, my knot buried inside her? There’d be no dispassionate temporary mark left. I’d own her, plain and simple.

She’d be my mate. The first and only omega I’d ever take.

I shifted on my feet, looking at the door. Standing here wasn’t helping anything, especially when I felt like I was being ripped in two, just by being in a different room from her.

“We need a plan,” Ryder said again. “This is our place. Sure, we can stick some more guys on the boundary, no one in or out. We’ve not gotten eyes on Snake for a while. He’s been lying low after that last incident at the centre.”

“Yep, got his arse kicked,” Dane said with a smirk. “But you know what he’s like—that’ll just make him come out gunning for revenge. Bastard has gotten himself a little fucking harem of omegas that he farms out to hungry alphas. You going to even risk that shit?”

I growled in my chest, finally taking a seat at the table.

“It’s hard to keep information locked down,” Dane continued. “Shit always gets out. We all know if she goes back to the Beta Zone, they have ways of getting to them there too.”

“So let’s run by this one more time,” Ryder said casually before I could get a word in. “You’re not claiming her. Are you going to offer her up to anyone else?”

I snarled, my beast throwing himself against the bars inside me and bleeding through. Ryder smiled, slow and cocky, not cowed at all, and that made him mad. But the fact she wasn’t here, curled up on my lap, my nose buried in her throat, followed by my teeth…

“You’re marking her,” Ryder said, shaking his head, the smile fading somewhat. “When you get your head out of your arse, you’ll do it.”

How the fuck did I find myself trapped? Why the fuck did it feel so right, knowing I needed to do this? I was rationalising the monster in me. It’d never been like this with an omega. There was a part of my alpha side rising that I’d never seen, never even known was there. When I brought her in, when she softened for my purr, turning to me, instinctively seeking my comfort and protection, the only thing that had been missing was me beating my fucking chest and then tearing that bloody dress off, making her mine.

This was a mess. Jesus, save me from myself and my own demons.

My eyes went to the door again.

“So we keep her safe until dickhead here works through his ‘issues,’” Dane said.

“You’re right. Of course, you’re right—I have to mark her.” I looked down at my hands, flexing my fingers, feeling the need to form fists and fight what ailed me, but there was no fighting this. “She just needs time,” I said. “She needs time to work out how this goes. I’m not the right man for her, but I’ll do it to keep her safe.

“Hate to break it to you,” Ryder said, “but even omegas have a certain free will. What if she wants one of us to do it?” He finished up with a casual shrug.

And didn’t that really wind me up? My teeth ground hard. If Sloane was going to be attached to anyone, that someone would be me.

“And the way she was gazing up at you,” Ryder continued, “I’d say she’s imprinted on you pretty heavily. You might not get away with just a chomp on her wrist.”

Right then, I could picture it, feel it, how it would really go. Slamming her up against the side of the shower stall and fucking her like a savage. Watching her put her clothes on, my blood thudding when I just wanted to peel her out of every single piece as it went on. She was classy. She came from money, prim little schoolmarm, but elegant, same with her jewellery.

So yeah, she was out of my league, a rough alpha from the fucking slums. Nothing about my upbringing made me suitable for Sloane, but I still wanted her. I would be lying to myself if I said otherwise. Still, I could do this. I could be rational, give her time to get used to who she was and what she was and all the emotions coursing through her.

Then I would mark her.

“So what’s the plan while we’re all waiting on you to find your balls?” Dane persisted, a belligerent set to his jaw. Only Dane could get away with that. “She can’t leave the place.”

“I get that,” I said.

“And we need to be careful about who comes in and out,” Dane continued. “If we don’t, then somebody’s gonna tell. It’s gonna be a case of damage mitigation while you find your nuts. Anything out of the ordinary, and the workers here will start to talk. It’s not like we hire people who are in Snake’s back pocket. Most normal people hate the bastard. They want a job here because it’s a decent establishment, and we pay the fucking wages without harassing them at the same time. But you know, people talk. They tell a friend who tells his friend that security is suddenly beefed at our bar. Then that person tells another person who they trust, and they tell another person. Before you know it, Snake knows all about it. How long do you think it’s gonna take before he realises something’s going on?”

“I need some fucking time,” I rumbled.

“Well, then we’re going to have to go with plan B,” Ryder said.

“And what’s plan B?” I asked, surprised that he had anything sensible to add.

“Plan B is full-scale anarchy. Let the chaos begin.” Ryder chuckled, the arsehole.

I rolled my fucking eyes.

A great screech came from the room next door, and everything within me went rigid. I was up out of my seat and running for the door, eyes skimming the occupants. Ma had just dropped a tray of drinks over the floor. The omegas were all cowering on the other side of the table, clinging to one another, eyes wide, like they were all fucking terrified. Omegas… I passed over them one, two, three…What?

“Where the fuck is she?” I rumbled.

Baby Doll pointed a trembling finger towards the door.

“She left,” Baby said. “She didn’t want to be part of…whatever the hell this is. I wish I’d left with her.”

I just stared at her for a minute, looking into those pretty blue eyes, but rather than seeing someone I’d thought was part of our weird family, I saw a stranger. That same feeling of alienation, I got it from all the omegas sitting there, but as I grit my teeth, I knew I didn’t have time to deal with that now. Sloane was gone, but where?