Chapter 20 #2
“You’re not mated yet. And if you ever want to be, I suggest you don’t start planting ideas about acquiring her manipulation skills.
” No trace of humor now. This is a senior governor talking.
One with power and influence. He might be polished on the surface, but he’s ruthless underneath.
He wouldn’t lose sleep over ordering me to be taken out if he considered me a threat.
Well, he could try.
“Relax, Victor. If I were going to manipulate you, I wouldn’t tell you about it first. Just making you aware that I can.
The war’s not only against the Uncorrupted, and there may be times I need to do things that make ordinary men uncomfortable.
But you’re good with that, aren’t you? Doing whatever it takes to protect the people you love? ”
It’s a threat and a promise. It’s also a reminder that we’re not so different underneath.
Not a hint of emotion shows on his face. “I am.”
“Good. And since I’ve already picked up some of her traits, that must mean…”
“You’ve already bonded,” he grits out.
I nod, smirking now. “We’re not an alpha and omega, so it makes sense that things would work differently for us.”
Right from the start, I knew the cloning was going too deep, too fast. That something was off.. It wasn’t the cloning. No, it was our bond forming.
“If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say I bonded her from the first touch.” I shrug. “Sometimes you just know they’re the one. I’ve heard alphas have that same instinct.”
“She doesn’t know,” he says slowly. “That you’ve bonded.”
“Not yet. As soon as the official announcement is over, I will be rectifying that.”
As if on cue, his console lights up with an incoming message alert.
He fixes me with a look, switches off the privacy box, and answers it.
“Sir, the press is ready,” his beta assistant announces.
“We’ll be right out,” Governor Brach replies.
He turns to me. “I do find you refreshingly direct. I’m sure we’ll have many reasons to meet again, given our mutual desire to provide a safer Empire. Congratulations on your bonding. Now, let’s go and make history, Governor Thorne.”
Esme
“Tell me what you need, and I’ll do my very best to make it happen.”
Her words are still with me later that day when I take my book reader to the communal lounge at the omega community.
I told her I didn’t know what I needed. That was a lie. I do, only it’s an impossible dream.
The lounge is relatively quiet; I’ve got the sectional couch all to myself. On the other side of the room, three omegas are chatting and drinking coffee on another sofa in front of a huge wall viewer.
Ordinary life sucks. That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter. I’m home. Back in the Empire, safe. But I find it difficult to concentrate on anything.
He saved me. Fine, I helped him save me. Also, I was the reason he needed to save me. Yeah, we can’t miss that part now, can we?
There are days when I want to erase everything that happened. And other days when it feels like a wild dream or hallucination. Yet others, when the memories of it play out like a movie that happened to someone else.
But I don’t want to erase the events. Not when it helped to save dynamics, like Ashanti.
I saw her a few days ago. Lilly pulled some strings to get Dorian shipped in from a far-flung operation. That look on Ashanti’s face when we spoke about Dorian and her gratitude made me glad my crazy escapade in getting myself captured led to her escape.
She has a long way to go in her healing journey, but it’s a start.
Maybe an alpha will never be the right fit for her after her experience. Maybe they’re not the end goal, the one I always thought I wanted. Maybe we just need somebody to love, and who sees us.
“I know very little about them beyond their ability to change form, but I firmly believe that such a capability must significantly influence their personality,” Lilly said.
She doesn’t know half of it. I saw so many versions of Zeb that I walked away with mental whiplash, and it’s likely none of them were real.
He’s not an alpha, is he? And I still want him. Isn’t that ridiculous? He would never be my mate. What we shared was all fake.
I fucking hate that it was all fake, yet it felt so real inside.
I’ve been a fool so many times. Too old, overlooked, focusing on a distant dream without living in between. Yet those other alphas and what I shared with them pale beside the episode of crazy that unfolded after I met Zeb.
“Hey, Esme. How are you doing today?”
I look up from the book I wasn’t reading as Diana drops down onto the couch beside me, her sensitive eyes searching mine.
She’s been my friend for a few years now, and we’ve often been deployed on the same missions.
Pity they reassigned me at short notice without her for the last one.
Diana might have talked me down from the edge before I charged recklessly behind enemy lines.
I shrug and indicate the book reader. “Just reading.”
“Oh yeah? Anything good? You know, Avery Sinclair has a new book out.”
I grimace. “I can’t read romance at the moment.”
“Ah,” she says. “You know that makes me cross.”
“Yeah,” I say dryly. “He ruined me and ruined me for reading knotting and breeding romance. I don’t know which makes me madder.”
“Hell no, we’re not going to let any man ruin you or your reading habits. Maybe you need to get your training wheels back on. Get out in the field. A hot controller who can show there’s more than one man who can give you the O.”
I chuckle, but the humor fades, and melancholy hits me sharp and fast.
“God, please ignore me,” she says. “That was shit advice, by the way. What you need is a toy. You can get them with knots and everything. Make your damn eyes cross. It’s like a spiritual revelation.”
I snicker.
She shoulder bumps me. “You’re not buying into the toy idea, either.” I hear the smile in her voice.
“Quick! Put the news on!” An omega squeals as she dashes into the room, another girl following hot on her heels. “They’ve just announced a new member of the ruling council, and it’s not an alpha!”
I blink rapidly, already rising, as is Diana, hurrying over to the viewer, caught up in this unprecedented development.
“Tell me it’s not a theta,” Daina says.
More omegas come rushing into the room. On the big screen, an anchorman is giving a spiel about this breaking news.
“Turn it up!” somebody calls.
“Today’s breaking story. Our first non-alpha member of the ruling council. Replacing Governor Wilder, who retired last month. We can only speculate whether this appointment is a one-off or the precursor to yet more changes. Will we see an omega next? Who knows? Let’s go to Sia on the ground.”
The camera cuts from the studio to a scene outside Government Tower where a crowd has gathered. Governor Brach is on the podium. “Former Commander Zeb Thorne, now Governor Thorne, received his confirmation this morning in a unanimous vote.”
“Holy shit!” Diana mutters.
My hand goes to my throat, and every eye in the room turns my way.
They all know. Everyone here does. I returned in a blaze on a hijacked Uncorrupted vessel. The healer, who I now know as Aiden, told the whole community about Zeb carrying me into the medical facility in his arms.
Here it is, the news Lilly warned me about.
The camera cuts from Governor Brach to a man at his side.
Zeb.
The real Zeb.
The one I met only briefly but wished for so much more of.
I think about him—dream about him—far more than is healthy.
The camera zooms in close, and his handsome face fills the screen.
“Damn, he’s hot,” somebody mutters.
“Shut up, idiot!” another omega hisses.
I feel Diana’s arm sliding around me, and I lean into her support.
Damn it all. Zeb, my Zeb. Only he’s not mine anymore, is he? I thought I’d never see his face again. Having it up there on the screen, right in front of me, is like a fresh form of grief.
The camera pans to Governor Brach, who is smiling, and he’s a man who rarely does. He seems pretty damn happy with the decision. Then the camera shifts back to Zeb, catching him mid-smile.
My breath catches.
Dammit, seeing him hurts.
The suit he wears does not disguise the dangerous man beneath. Something almost predatory lurks underneath his polished facade.
Yeah, I’ve seen that side too.
So self-assured.
He belongs up there, I realize bitterly.
Standing amidst old money and societal elites.
A war hero. The operation we shared was just the latest in a long list of undercover missions, only now coming to light because he has retired from active duty.
Further, it probably supports the government rhetoric to emphasize his illustrious career fighting the Uncorrupted.
I can see why it’s made headlines now. Probably all part of the propaganda machine for the launch of his political career.
“Do you want to leave? Want us to switch it off?” Diana asks.
“No, leave it.” Looking at him hurts, but I know the moment his face disappears, it will hurt even more.
We’re on the same planet, but he might as well be star systems away.
I’m never going to see him again except on the news, never feel his touch… his kiss, him inside me… There’s a pull right in the center of my chest, drawing me in, luring me, closer to the screen and the only version of him I will ever get.
“Bastard cleans up nice,” Diana mutters beside me.
He really does.
I’m sure he was popular before he became a governor. Now women of all kinds will be vying for scraps of his attention. And all I can do is admire him from a distance… along with billions of other viewers.
Only the people watching on the screen don’t know him the way I do.
Don’t fool yourself that you had something special, I caution myself bitterly.
He looks commanding, powerful, a force to be reckoned with. What he doesn’t look like is someone who once held me, who whispered soft promises of punishment… and apologies between rough kisses.
He doesn’t look like a man who told me I was his… that he would never let me go.
Mine.
Well, that was a lie.
I miss him.
I knew he was going to ruin me right at the start, and I still walked blindly into the fire. And how it burned so brightly. How I loved every moment of it, and would do it all again.
The moment is steeped in tragedy; to understand, you must move beyond something you desire more than life itself. He’s now part of the ruling elite. He will go down in history and help shape the future of an Empire with many worlds and people.
My love and pride in him bloom anew even as my heart is sore. I knew he was extraordinary. This is only him proving it. He deserves this. How many people will look at him today, and in the days to come, and wish they could have his eyes on them, his touch, his lips, if only for a moment.
And I got that, didn’t I? I got more than most.
But this empty space in my heart still hurts… And when the screen cuts away to someone else, it feels like he’s being torn from me all over again.
I never told him I loved him. Probably for the best, with hindsight. One less opportunity to make a fool of myself.
This time, when the camera cuts back, there’s a young female reporter poised to ask him a question.
“What are your first plans, Governor Thorne?”
“My first plans are personal in nature.” He smiles and shifts his eyes from the reporter to the camera. That smile has a distinctly wolfish aspect, and it feels like it’s directed right at me. “I misplaced something after my last mission. So, you know, it’s time I went and collected her.”
Someone squeals on the other side of the room.
Someone else shushes them.
Her? I can’t breathe.
“This is very intriguing, Governor Thorne,” the reporter says, a laugh in her voice. “Can we assume that this mystery ‘her’ is important?”
“Yeah,” he says, “You definitely could say that.”