“Yeah,” Bertram said. “I’ve heard about that, but I figure it’s all a load of hogwash. Trey is in contact with his folks.” He looked at Jackson. “And it looks like you are, too.”
“Only because we hid our son,” Elise Michaels said from the computer screen.
Leaning forward, I saw an attractive alpha woman with dark, wavy hair and dark-gray eyes like Jackson’s sitting next to an equally attractive man with lighter hair wearing a business suit.
“Hid him? Why?”
“Because we didn’t and still don’t trust the government,” Vaughn Michaels said. “Jackson, David, and Ben were never registered. They were hidden until their own parents could find them mates.”
Looking surprised, Bertram’s eyes went from Angus to Maddox to Carter. “That’s how you got with your mates? I knew something was going on with Ben because Angus asked us tokeep it to ourselves that he lived here, but I didn’t know it was because he was unregistered.”
“What about you, Nova? You said your nephew is a registered omega?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’ve been suspicious of this program from the get-go, but my sister won’t listen. She thinks the government is giving Dawson his only chance at a good life.”
I looked at Trey, sitting next to David in the oversized chair. They were holding hands, as though for support. David, Jackson, and Ben practically grew up together and had reason to be close, but Trey was new to the group. It was odd how quickly the other three bonded with him and he with them, almost as though he’d been with them all along.
“Angus?” Laura said, interrupting my thoughts, and I realized I’d been staring.
I shared what I’d been thinking.
Laura nodded. “Omega bonding. I began to notice it several years ago.”
“Omega bonding? Is that a documented occurrence?” Elise’s voice filled the room from the speaker plugged into the laptop.
“Well, as you know, so little is known about omegas. But in my limited studies, I’ve found them to form close relationships with one another. Remember the omegas I told you about that the SOS rescued from a kidnapping situation about five years ago?” Laura asked Elise.
Leaning forward in his chair, Colt said, “Whoa. What kind of kidnapping situation?”
“Seven registered omegas from different families who were getting close to their times of ripening suddenly disappeared from their homes. They were from different regions and walks of life. They had nothing in common except that they were omegas. When the culprits were tracked down and caught—three beta men and two beta women, none involved with the governmentand all with police records—evidence suggested they were planning on either selling the omegas illegally to alphas or trafficking them to alphas for sex. I was on the team of doctors who treated them, and in my observations of the seven boys, I found they had all formed a very tight bond with one another.”
“That could have been due to the circumstances, though,” Elise said.
“Yes, of course. But all seven with no exceptions? They were all equally close, and by that, I mean as close or closer than brothers.” She glanced meaningfully at David and Trey’s clasped hands and then at Jackson and Ben, who were seated close together on the couch, Ben fast asleep with his head on Jackson’s shoulder.
“I thought he said he just had a nap,” I said to Colt.
“He did.”
I hoped he hadn’t caught what Ollie and Jeremiah had been sick with, although it seemed to have been confined to just children.
“And these were omega boys at their ripening age,” Laura continued. “At the same age, when alphas get near their first rut, they do not exhibit this closeness. In fact, they become very solitary. With betas, who have no rut or heat, the age brings on a slight change in hormones marked by awkwardness and heightened sexual awareness, but no bonding with one another.”
“Hm, thatisinteresting,” Elise said.
“What, exactly, are the theories about what the government is doing with omegas?” Nova asked. I could feel her pheromones rising in the air.
Laura suddenly stood up and announced she needed a glass of water. When she left the room, Maddox answered the question for Nova.
When he finished, Nova was visibly irate and Bertram’s expression was a mixture of horrified and doubtful. Laura returned from the kitchen and sat down.
“Elise, we’d like to hear what you know about the missing omega mole the FBI placed in the government program’s office,” Carter sai.
“All right. I’ll give a recap for Bertram, Trey, and Nova’s benefit. Last year, in response to an inundation of letters and calls from the relatively new group PRO—Parents of Reintroduced Omegas—several senators called for the FBI to look into the Omega Reintroduction Program. The FBI planted a beta into the program’s office, then arranged for an omega to be brought in as unregistered. We recently found out that they’ve lost sight of the omega.”
“What do you mean, lost sight of him?” Trey asked.
“I mean that one day he was in the books and the next he was not. Today I learned that, upon further inquiry, the beta mole was told that the omega was assigned to an alpha. But the beta can’t find any paperwork about the transaction—anytransaction of omegas to alphas, for that matter.”