“And it wasn’t fake. I really like him.”
“Okay...”
“And Kai—” I exhale. “Kai already lied to me once, pretending to be his brother.”
She grimaces. “That’s classic Kai. Idiot behaviour. He used to do it all the time. Thought he’d pretty much outgrown that prank by now.”
“And Sol?—”
She glances toward the hallway. “WhereisSol in all this?”
“He wasn’t part of the bet,” I say quickly. “I know that.”
“How?”
“Because he wouldn’t be. It seems too…juvenile for him?”
Aisling studies me carefully then looks around. My nest may be hidden upstairs, but the little nods to each of the guys isunmistakable in daylight. I can smell their scents everywhere. Surely Aisling must too?
Aisling turns slowly back to me.
“Oh,” she says softly.
Heat floods my face.
“I didn’t mean to,” I mutter. “I have no idea how it happened, but I kind of like all of them.”
She breathes out slowly and sits carefully on the edge of the sofa.
Her gaze lifts to mine. “Lani, are you an omega?”
The word lands differently when someone else says it.
“Yes….maybe? Nearly.”
“This is new?”
“Yeah.”
She nods slowly. “And you didn’t know before?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I sit down opposite her and stare at my hands.
“My father didn’t want an omega daughter,” I say, the words feeling brittle. “My mother was an omega and I think now with hindsight, that from a very early age it was clear to him that I would be too. My father decided to stop that from happening, no matter what it took.”
Aisling’s jaw tightens. “That’s illegal.”
“Not if you own the doctors,” I reply flatly. “And work for the pharmaceutical companies.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to tell the guys this, but basically my father is an addict and a drunk. An all round bad guy with horrible morals and even worse political views. He believes omegas destabilise society and all women should be betas. When he lost his job, he took his research with him, thinking if he could prove it worked – that he could ensure omegas’ DNA could be altered to preventthem from emerging, essentially forcing their bodies to remain trapped as betas – that they would give him his job back, as well as prestige and fame. I was the experiment that would give him his life back. Or I would have been, if I hadn’t run away the first real chance I got.”
Silence stretches thick and heavy between us.