I’m not going to make this easy for the Alphahole.
I tip up my chin. I don’t move.
Bird wraps his arms around my neck. He’s trembling, and his sweet scent is sharp with fear.
“Switch,” Ro whispers. “Stop him.”
I jolt.
Bird trusts that I will save him.
He believes that I can.
No one has held faith in me like that before.
I straighten my shoulders, growling at Mr. Baskerville.
Dr. Gill rushes to step through the open cell door and off the metal floor. She stands at the warden’s shoulder.
Mr. Baskerville still doesn’t look away from me as he reaches into his pocket. “I’m pressing the alarm on my phone to call Mr. Greco. This is your choice. I suppose that it will be a useful experiment to see how well the electricity works through the mattress. Then I may as well reward Mr. Greco for controlling his natural petty vengeance by allowing him to play with you for a while. His style of brutality is not my taste. It will be agood motivator for his hard work, however, to grant him the opportunity to be the one to put you down.”
I bare my teeth.
I will break every bone in Greco’s body, before I allow the asshole to hurt Bird.
My pulse is loud in my ears, as Mr. Baskerville’s gaze drops to the switch.
I suck in a breath.
“Wait.” Dr. Gill unexpectedly rests her hand over Mr. Baskerville’s to stop him. Bird lets out a sob of relief, tightening his hold on me. “You can’t be serious about this. What about the opportunities forscience? It’s fascinating that a Rogue Switch has not only saved Seventy-one from dying but has also pulled him out of his coma and stabilized his health. More than that, she has locked and bonded him! It is the first time that I have seen this happen between the two conditions.”
Mr. Baskerville narrows his eyes. “So? It’s unnatural.”
Dr. Gill taps on her clipboard in frustration. “Don’t you see? If Seventy becomes pregnant, then we would have an entire new study on our hands. Just think about the experiments we could run on the pregnancy, let alone on the birth. Who knows what the pheromones would be like in the child, Seventy-Two. We have never studied a Rogue from the moment of their birth…”
A fury rushes through me, which is like nothing I have experienced before.
She is talking about experimenting on my kid.
Bird and I leap to our feet at the same time. We’re snarling and growling in united protective distress and rage.
Instinctively, I switch into my Alpha dynamic.
I scream, as my body transforms. New pheromones flood through me. My scent shifts to a rich, buttery espresso caramel.
My rage burns deeper.
Rage against the threat to my Omega’s life.
Rage against the threat to my unborn baby.
Rage against these assholes who have trapped, hurt, and experimented on me.
My Rogue Power, combining both my Alpha and Omega sides, sweeps out of me in a protective wave.
I can’t hold it back and I don’t fucking want to.
I allow myself to ride the wave of fury and vengeance.