Chapter 1 #2
“If the Eumia really is after you for stealing from them, you’d be better off fleeing the planet.”
“I’m an alpha.”
“Oh?” He rubbed at his bottom lip. “So getting omega hole is more important to you than your life. Noted.” There were planets out there with species who could mate with them at a satisfactory level, but they were few and far between, and if Sadie was hellbent on finding a true mate, one he could give the claiming bite to, it made sense he’d want to stick around.
It made sense.
But it didn’t make it any less stupid.
Whatever.
It was hardly Levi’s problem that the kid had a death wish.
“You won’t be so cavalier in a moment,” Sadie insisted. “I’m not the only one after an omega.”
Baal took a threatening step forward, but Levi held him off with a lift of his hand.
“Is that so?” He had an idea of where this might be going now, and was eager to see it through.
There was only one omega the Leviathan was rumored to have held any interest in.
The rumors were false, but that was neither here nor there.
“You even sent people to Glyph to retrieve him, everyone knows.” Sadie had bought the same story as every other fool it seemed. “They botched the job and the omega ended up miscarrying. Is that why you haven’t tried again? Because you were after the baby, and not the prince?”
“You have the Prince of the Eumia?” Baal sounded like he believed that as much as Levi did.
Which was not at all.
If the prince was missing, word would have made it back to them. They had enough spies to know that with absolute certainty.
But…
“Prove it.” Levi might not hold any personal interest in the prince, or the supposed baby he’d been carrying, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still have some minor questions he wouldn’t hate getting the answers to.
Sadie motioned toward the guard in the back, the one with the gun, and the man slipped through a doorway to carry out the silent order.
For a brief moment, Levi felt his earlier curiosity return tenfold, almost enough to have anticipation bubbling, but then the door reopened, and the man with the gun hauled a trembling body out into the open.
The assaulting scent of omega in heat was instantaneous.
Sweeping out to flood the large space in an impressively short amount of time.
The smell of orange blossoms and coffee filled the room, the fragrance conjuring images of standing on the back porch, allowing sunlight to warm his skin at the tail end of a cold winter.
Incredibly delectable.
And completely wrong.
Behind him, Koah coughed and covered his nose with a curse. Baal, who was already mated, gave no reaction. Once they took a claimed mate, they wouldn’t react to other omegas in heat.
Since Sadie was the only other person in the room who seemed affected by it, that meant the men surrounding them were either also mated alphas, omegas, or betas.
Levi kept his composure, giving no signs that he was bothered as the omega was practically dragged across the cold concrete, before being roughly deposited onto the red carpet at Sadie’s feet.
The omega’s head lolled, eyes mere slits. He remained on his side where they’d left him, fingers twitching slightly, but otherwise giving no other movement. He also didn’t seem aware of where he was or what was happening.
“What the hell did you do to him?” Koah demanded.
“Gave him a sedative to try and calm him down,” Sadie explained. “It only sort of worked. His heat cycle is too strong.”
Alphas and omegas both experienced mating cycles every couple of months or so.
For alphas, it was called a rut, omegas, a heat.
During this time, their bodies would revert back to primal instincts, the need to breed and reproduce strong enough to drive even the soundest of minds mad if those needs weren’t met.
Considering the potency of this omega’s pheromones, he was obviously a dominant.
His hair was messy, a deep black that didn’t appear to have been washed in days, if not weeks.
Smears of dirt and grime Levi didn’t even want to think about covered his bare skin, mixed in with the sheen of sweat that coated him and glistened under the dim lighting of the warehouse.
“He’s naked,” Baal stated stonily.
“That wasn’t us,” Sadie rushed to say. “Every time we dressed him, he tore the clothes off. Got redundant, so we stopped bothering.”
The omega would have been driven to find an alpha to mount him, a thing easier to accomplish when unclothed.
“Did he come onto you?” Levi asked, tipping his head as he took in the omega’s features.
Upper lip with a bowstring shape, slightly chubby cheeks, despite the shaped jawline. It was hard to tell the shade of his eyes, but he didn’t just need a bath, he was also due for a shave. There were no obvious markings on his skin, no tattoos or noticeable scars.
Admittedly, the omega was attractive. Probably spent the better part of his life beating off alphas with a stick. No doubt had a million prospects to choose from and a cushy life ahead of him.
Too bad.
Thanks to Sadie Jain, that once bright future was gone.
“He came onto everyone,” Sadie was saying, answering his question breezily, thinking that he’d struck gold when in reality he was standing on a landmine. “Even my beta boys. If they had a dick, he’d show interest. Pretty pathetic for the prince of the Eumia.”
“Yes, it would be,” Levi drawled, then tore his gaze off the naked male and set them back on Sadie, “if he really was the prince.”
Sadie faltered, and the truth of the matter shown clearly on his paling face.
“This is not Shiloh Sobu,” Levi continued. The one and only time the two of them had met, circumstances had been fuzzy at best, but he’d still recognize the prince. His smell, if nothing else.
He’d been forced to endure it for long enough the damn scent was ingrained on his psyche. Sometimes he even woke in the middle of the night with the taste of it on his tongue and bile rising up his throat.
“But you already knew that.” Levi flicked his wrist. “Kill them.”
“Wait!” Sadie leapt to his feet and held out his hands, panic palpable. “He may not be Shiloh Sobu, but he really is Kian’s brother!”
“Nice try, but everyone knows that Kian only has one omega brother. The other is—”
“A beta,” he cut Levi off, which honestly, was an offense worthy of death all on its own, but then his next words managed to catch Levi’s attention.
“He was a beta. When I found him. Look,” he blew out a breath and shifted on his feet, “I admit it, all right? He isn’t Shiloh Sobu. They look so alike though.”
“You grabbed the wrong brother.” It was becoming clearer with every passing second. “And how, pray tell, did he end up in this state?”
“Allen got…nervous.”
“Allen?”
The man with the gun who’d kept to the edge of the carpet after delivering the omega hung his head.
“Hold up.” Koah stepped forward, got another whiff of the omega, and retreated, but his eyes narrowed on the man with the gun. “I recognize you.”
“From?” Levi asked.
“He’s one of the old employees of the Wardrobe. One of the ones who made off with Michelle’s hidden vials.”
The Wardrobe was an auction house and breeding den business they’d recently obtained.
Its old owner, Michelle, had been running illegal experiments.
The successful ones were the real reason Levi had any interest in stealing her territory, but unfortunately, she’d been one step ahead and had entrusted the last of the drug to someone crafty enough to make a run for it.
“You’re saying you used Rebirth on him?” Baal frowned at the omega.
“Where are the rest of the vials?” Levi demanded. The whole reason he’d gone after Michelle in the first place was to get his hands on that drug. It was worth more than Shiloh Sobu. Worth more than a dominant omega. Hell, a hundred dominant omegas.
Rebirth was the twisted fruit of her labors.
Concocted in a seedy secret lab, perfected through copious rounds of illegal experimentation.
It was, in many ways, one of a kind. There were other trials in the works, of course.
Other companies secretly attempting to create drugs that could do what she’d successfully created.
Alter a person’s presentation at a biological level.
Including, apparently, a beta’s.