Chapter 3
JESS
The first Alpha wears a charcoal tailored suit, jacket open, no tie, the easy confidence of someone who’s never had to tell anyone twice.
His shirt is ice-white, cuffs neat, a simple steel watch riding his wrist. Storm-gray eyes, short dark hair combed clean, a small crescent scar tucked at his jaw.
When his scent of rain on hot asphalt, warm amber underneath, hits me, my lungs stutter. It’s the kind of scent that makes you want to tilt your head back and submit, and I hate that my body knows this before I can build a wall against it.
He’s the kind of Alpha who can empty a room with a look and doesn’t need to prove it. And right now, he’s looking at me like I’m a puzzle he’s already solving.
The second is dressed for a different world: black field jacket, charcoal Henley, dark jeans, and motorcycle boots that have seen use. When he rolls his shoulders, the leather creaks that shouldn’t be intimate but somehow is, like I’m hearing something private.
His dirty-blond hair is a shade longer, pushed back with impatient fingers.
His eyes are whiskey-dark and warmer than his partner’s, but no less assessing.
He smells of leather and amber with black pepper flickering at the edges, a curl of warm leather that finds the soft parts of my mind and presses.
Even sitting, my knees go liquid. I press them together harder.
Eli doesn’t move to intercept. He just slides his tablet onto the table and goes very, very neutral.
My scent betrays me. Jasmine and vanilla bloom against my will, sugar-sweet and obvious, filling the small room like a neon sign screaming available Omega, come and get her.
Heat floods my face. I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper, using pain to keep from swooning in front of two Alphas who already smell like walking temptation is not an option. Even though my body’s already cast its vote.
“Jess Mancini,” Suit-and-Storm says in an even, cultured accent with that low Alpha resonance that vibrates in bone.
My name in his mouth does something to my Omega side that I don’t want to examine.
The other Alpha drifts a slow half-circle, close enough that heat reaches my back through the thin uniform. He inhales, and my whole body wants to lean back into that warmth even as my spine locks straight in defiance.
“Jasmine,” he murmurs, almost to himself. His voice is rougher than his partner’s, textured. “Sweet…and stubborn.”
My hands are shaking. I curl them into fists on my thighs, nails biting into palms.
“Easy shoulders,” Eli says quietly, not unkind.
I force my shoulders down, uncurl my fists. Not because he’s in charge, but because I need the anchor. The plastic chair squeaks as I shift. My pulse is a wild thing in my throat, and I’m terrified they can hear it or worse, smell the fear mixing with the attraction I can’t suppress.
Suit-and-storm glances at Eli. “You said she would be interested in a temporary provision with us.”
“She chooses,” Eli replies.
Something like interest cuts through the Alpha’s composure. Field-jacket’s mouth curves like a dare more than a smile.
He steps where I can see him again and takes his time absorbing the answer I haven’t given. Up close, I catch the thread-fine mending at his jacket cuff, the faint soot stain no cleaner noticed. Real life on a man in a room built for performance.
“Per Nexus protocol,” Eli tips his chin at me. “Jessica Mancini is eligible for a ninety-day probationary placement if the pack agrees. Final decision pending mutual consent.”
Ninety days, three whole months. The number lands like a brick. My lungs forget how to work. Not forever. A trial. But what happens at the end of these three months if I fail? If they decide I don’t fit or turn out to be abusive assholes?
“And if I say no?” The question comes out smaller than I want.
Suit-and-storm’s expression doesn’t change, but something sharpens in his thunderclap-gray eyes. “You’re returned here,” he says, each word deliberate, “and hope the next Alphas that show interest will cherish you as you were meant to be.”
The unspoken truth hangs in the air: And if they don’t show interest, you’ll end up in a roster placement, where some Alpha who needs an Omega but doesn’t want YOU specifically.
My stomach twists. That’s not a threat. It’s just reality.
“Wh-what’s to keep me from going into heat when I’m living with Alphas?” Not going to say how that all three are handsome enough to make me drool.
“You were given an inhibitor shot…a suppressant when you were brought in as protocol. With it, the average Omega’s heat is delayed eight to ten weeks. So you don’t have to worry about your biology making decisions for you until then.”
I give a short laugh that sounds nothing like one. “Is that supposed to be comforting? What about side effects—what if my heat hits and I lose my mind or something?” I shake my head. “Really, Nexus should’ve asked before shooting me up with whatever that was.”
“Do you want out of here, Jess?” Eli asks, eyes on mine, not the Alphas. His words are steady, but there’s something in his expression…almost like he’s asking for himself, not the facility.
The decision should be simple, but it isn’t because wanting something has never been safe for me. Wanting got me lectured by my father, dismissed by my mother, and pitied by Sabrina. Wanting led me to that party, to the bus, to this cell.
And now wanting might lead me into the hands of two Alphas who could break me just by deciding I’m not worth keeping and send me back here.
But the alternative is not taking a chance and going back to my cell. Waiting. Becoming a number on a roster, shipped to whoever puts in an order.
Wanting has teeth. But so does regret.
Field-jacket hooks a thumb under the chair opposite me and draws it back with a scrape. He sits wrong for a boardroom, right for a fighter: loose, ready, like he could move in a heartbeat if he needed to.
“We’re not here to break you,” he says, and his words have a rough-edged honesty that makes me want to believe him. “We’re here to see if you fit.” His gaze is steady, not soft. “With us.”
The word us presses against something tender I pretend isn’t there. Not a pack looking for an Omega—any Omega. But they’re looking for someone specific. Someone who fits their pack.
What if I don’t?
Suit-and-storm reaches into his jacket and pulls out something small, setting it on the table between us with a soft click.
A visitor badge. White stripe. One word stamped in black: TRIAL
It looks stupid and flimsy and more dangerous than anything I’ve faced.
“Ninety days,” Suit-and-storm says, in a measured tone. “You stay with us. No roster. No processing. You see how it works, if you’re compatible. At the end, if either side wants out, you walk. No marks on your record.”
“And if I say yes and it doesn’t work? What happens then?”
Field-jacket leans forward, elbows on knees, and the leather of his jacket creaks. “Then you come back here and try again with someone else. But you’ll have had ninety days outside these walls. Three months to remember you’re more than a cell number.”
“Ninety days to prove you can be more than stubborn,” Suit-and-storm adds, but there’s the hint of something that’s amusement or respect in his tone.
Eli hasn’t moved. He’s watching me like he already knows what I’m going to choose and is just waiting for me to catch up.
I look at the badge. At the two Alphas who smell like everything my Omega hindbrain wants and my rational mind fears. At Eli, who brought me shoes and is giving me a way out.
My hand moves before my brain gives permission. I pick up the badge. It’s warm from Suit-and-storm’s pocket, the plastic cheap and temporary.
Just like me, in this moment.
“I’m not promising to be less stubborn,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake as much as I thought it would.
“Good,” Field-jacket says with a nod. “We don’t want easy. We want you.”
The words hit me like a punch to the solar plexus. When was the last time someone wanted me—not the version I was supposed to be, not the daughter who followed rules or the Omega who tilted her head on command, but the messy, difficult, stubborn version no one else could handle?
Suit-and-storm extends his hand. “Rowan Hale,” he says. “And this is Cassian Douglas.”
I stare at his hand for a heartbeat too long. This is real. This is happening. If I take it, everything changes.
I take it, and the shock of contact steals my breath.
His skin is warm, heat seeping through my palm and spreading up my arm until I feel it everywhere.
Calluses drag lightly against my fingers, rough edges catching on something I didn’t know was starving for touch.
His grip is firm but not controlling, steady but not demanding, and God help me, I don’t want to let go.
For a second too long, neither of us does.
His gray eyes hold mine, and there’s something in them—recognition, maybe. Or a possibility I don’t dare believe in. Something that says we see you, and it terrifies me how much I want that to be true.
“Jess,” I say, even though they already know. “Jess Mancini.”
Cassian doesn’t offer his hand. He just watches me with those whiskey-dark eyes, and there’s heat in them…the kind that promises trouble. “Ninety days can change a lot, Omega.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “We’ll see if you can handle us.”
The challenge in his words should annoy me. Instead, it does something else entirely, something that curls low in my belly and makes my scent spike again, sweet and wanting.
Yeah, I think, meeting his gaze even though my heart is hammering. We will.
I’m walking out of here with a pair of Alphas who could destroy me or save me, and I can’t decide which possibility terrifies me more.