Chapter Twenty-Four
The main building of each Pit contained both an office for the leader of that branch of Ouroboros and an office that belonged to the captain.
Roman had been in Jagger’s office only once, so it felt odd to lower himself into a chair across from the desk belonging to Captain Noel Nightingale, who oversaw the Mambas.
Office visits were often aligned with punishment; Jagger rarely had to speak to any of the Vipers unless they had done something he wanted to rip them a new asshole for.
Nightingale was nothing like Jagger, bulky and sharp.
The Mamba captain was slim and almost gangly, his near-black eyes shadowed by the soft chestnut waves that tumbled down to his shoulders.
There was a solemnity that cloaked him, which made Roman uneasy, though he couldn’t have explained how even if asked to.
Admittedly, it was hard to believe someone like this captained someone like Hadeon, but the same could be said about Jagger and Locke and Keay.
“I’m sorry to keep you away from your mate,” Nightingale said, hands folded atop a manila folder. “He’s with Hadeon, if you were concerned. They went off toward the dorms.”
Roman hummed. "I’d be more concerned about Hadeon if I were you.”
Nightingale did not smile. “You jest. I don’t. I wanted to speak to you in private because I was reviewing the footage from the interrogation, and I have questions for you.”
An interrogation following an interrogation? Perhaps just a debrief, then. Roman could handle that, though he wasn’t part of the debriefing back in the Vipers’ Pit. That honor belonged to Ghost and Mal. “Sure. What questions do you have for me?”
“Have you always been submissive where Sidian Vey is concerned, or is that something that’s only sprung up between the two of you following his stay in the breeding center?”
Roman’s mouth dried. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about our personal lives.”
“I would agree with you. However, in the current circumstances, I do not.” Nightingale flipped open the folder and extracted a photograph from it, sliding it across the desk to Roman. It was of himself, a close-up of Sidian’s name carved into his chest. “Is he the one who did this?”
So they were going there no matter what. “He did. It was something I consented to.”
“I see.” Nightingale studied him for a moment. “Have you tried to command him even once?”
“The Vipers are forbidden from using alpha commands during missions because we’re in proximity to traumatized omegas. Sidian, unfortunately, is one such omega. So, no, I haven’t.” There was no need to explain; he never would. It was implicit, tied up in everything he said and did for Sidian.
“And has he tried to use a command on you?” Nightingale spoke with such a flat, toneless voice, but the question sent a series of chills down Roman’s spine.
How could he have known that? “If there’s something you’re trying to get at, just say it. I don’t enjoy games. I work with people who are upfront when they want to know something.”
Nightingale studied him for a long moment before removing another photo from the folder and laying it out: a close-up of the lily carved into Roman’s chest. “I imagine this would have taken serious time and caused you excruciating pain even with an alpha’s pain tolerance. And you allowed it.”
“We have a complex relationship. That’s all.” And he didn’t see what the carvings had to do with the command. Whatever the connection between them, Roman couldn’t see it.
It made him antsy, though. There was something in the fact Sidian could command him, though Roman didn’t understand how or why that should have worked.
Though he could have written it off as tied to the fact he liked to hand Sidian control without a second thought, he knew that wasn’t all of it.
Couldn’t be all of it, as much as he would have been happy not to put any serious thought into it.
Alphas and omegas had deep, instinctive, biological ties to one another, and Roman had never heard of an omega being able to do what Sidian did with flawless ease.
There had to be more to it, and Nightingale saw that.
“You have a complex relationship if your mate can command you despite his omega status. It is not something an omega can do.” Nightingale pursed his lips, ruminating before he leaned back in his chair.
“I contacted your captain, and when dissatisfied with his answers, I went up one more link in the chain of command. What has Lorcan Devereaux told you about yourself?”
The boss’s name felt like a weight that dropped into Roman’s stomach. “What do you mean?”
“Did he tell you why he chose you?” Nightingale asked. “I mean the real reason. I would presume not, or you’d likely already know the answers to the questions I’m asking you.”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean? “I don’t speak to him very often. He’s a busy man, and the Vipers are a busy group. What was it he told you?”
“According to the police report…” Nightingale removed a sheaf of papers from his folder, and Roman saw his own mugshot on one of them as the captain flipped through the documents with an empty expression. “You killed two betas and one alpha during your presentation at nineteen.”
“That’s correct.” The records were supposed to be sealed, but of course Ouroboros had copies.
Nightingale fanned out several sheets of paper, including print-outs of the crime scene, the gore cataloged in vivid color that somehow seemed distant and sterile at the same time.
If Roman hadn’t been at the scene himself, if he weren’t the cause of it, it might have seemed unreal to him.
From a distant vantage point, the brutality of the crime surprised even him.
His memories of that afternoon were still limited, pieces flickering through every so often, though it seemed his mind had decided long ago that it was better for him not to remember every chilling detail of the moment his life changed for good.
“This is unusual even for a very protective alpha,” Nightingale explained, tucking a stray lock of hair behind one ear as his eyes swept across the photos. “Devereaux confirmed to me that was true.”
So they were talking about him behind his back. Fantastic. “What did he say?”
“He is a very… Eccentric man, though you’ve met him, and I’m sure you are aware of that.” Nightingale met Roman’s eyes, and something about his gaze was all-consuming. It was impossible to look away for even a moment. “And dangerous. Very dangerous. He likes dangerous people.”
“That still isn’t an answer to my question, Captain.”
“I had the distinct sense that while he understood the conversation was likely always coming, he didn’t want to discuss it.
Hard to tell with him. And here I would have suspected him to be excited to disclose the acquisition of such an effective killer.
” Nightingale said nothing for several moments, the tension between them stretching taut enough to tighten Roman’s chest. “But he did admit the truth to me. You’re a prime alpha, Roman Kane. I would assume you didn’t know that.”
A prime alpha? “Are you implying that Sidian is—?”
“I’m not implying that he’s a prime omega. I’m stating it outright.” Nightingale shrugged when Roman only stared at him, not sure how to take the information as his brain struggled to process the possibility. “It would explain why he could command you. Can you command him?”
“I haven’t tried. I wouldn’t do that to him.” Just the thought of it was alien, unusual, borderline very upsetting. Not all alpha commands were bad, but it still made Roman sick down to his soul.
Nightingale, meanwhile, looked pleased by that. “Because you can’t,” he stressed, stabbing one finger into the center of a crime scene photo. “But you can do this to protect him because prime omegas are so much more vulnerable than the average omega. You and I both know it to be true.”
That was putting it lightly. Prime alphas and prime omegas were both vanishingly rare mutations of the alpha and omega designations, though there were far fewer prime omegas than prime alphas.
Prime alphas were a step higher in the food chain, occupying a hierarchy that allowed them to shrug off an alpha’s command with ease while demanding submission and respect from the alphas within their own packs.
If those alphas refused, they were cast out or killed depending on how their prime took it.
But a prime omega was at the bottom of the hierarchy of designations, susceptible to alpha commands to a much more frightening degree than the average omega.
Alphas took advantage of that; there were implications that there may be more prime omegas than society recognized, but alpha packs snapped them up before they could be registered as what they were.
Locked away from the world, they would be at the mercy of their mates until the day they died.
And that difference was the root of what made prime alphas stand out from average alphas.
A prime alpha could not command a prime omega, and therefore could not force them into anything.
There was an almost guardian-like quality ascribed to them; they existed to protect their counterparts and had developed the ability to make alphas bow to them as part of it.
“I could be wrong, but I rarely am,” Nightingale continued while Roman sorted through every memory he had of Sidian, trying to match up the pieces to see if that even made sense to him.
“Your scent is harsher than any of my Mambas’ scents.
We know your reputation and what you do on missions, and of course, there’s your past. So I called Devereaux to confirm because if I suspected you to be a prime, then I knew he would have suspected it first. He had you tested after you were taken in. ”
“Why didn’t he tell me that?” No wonder Roman barely got along with the other Vipers, and no wonder it was only Mal—his sparring partner, someone who constantly lost to him—who could reach him on any personal level.
Nightingale hummed. “That, I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t care to ask. Your personal issues are your own. But for the next step of your mission, it was important that I know the truth.”
“You mean Pack Kincaid?” But what else could Nightingale mean?
“Sidian will be susceptible to their alpha commands to a much higher degree than he would be if he were an average omega. This is important as they can, and likely will, try to use him against you as much as possible.” Nightingale removed something from a desk drawer, setting it in front of Roman.
It looked like a small plastic case, nothing special.
“These earplugs should block just enough of their voices to protect him from that, but should one fall out, or should they notice him using them, he will be made vulnerable.”
Of course he would be. If everything Sidian had both said and alluded to was true, then Pack Kincaid would do just as Nightingale said. “I suppose that’s why he never ended up pregnant.”
“Pardon?” Nightingale furrowed dark brows at him, a frown tugging at his mouth.
“It was a breeding center,” Roman reminded him, and he let out a little ahh of understanding. “I thought it was odd he’d be there for two years and conceive no children, but prime omegas are prone to higher levels of stress. That might have been why it never worked out.”
“Likely so,” Nightingale agreed, rising to his feet.
“Thank you for having this discussion with me. I wanted to make sure that you and your mate were well-prepared for what came next. You have an advantage, Kane. As a prime, you’ll have an edge on them you do not want to waste.
Be careful to keep it from being revealed until the proper moment. You are dismissed.”
Roman pocketed the earplugs with a quick, curt nod of thanks and exited the office. He needed to find Sidian as quickly as possible.
They had a long, serious conversation ahead of them.