Faith & the Dead End Devils (Sweet Omegaverse, #8)(7)

The betas I stood with followed at a more sedate pace. We knew we'd end up last in line for every damned thing.

Skid left and King waved Rider and Ghost out, but Bear didn't bother getting up. I started to follow the rest of the room when Bear raised a couple fingers and met my eyes. Rider was already halfway out the door, and I figured it'd take him too long to notice I was missing. Ghost glanced back at me, paused, and then vanished too.

The three of us—the prez, the enforcer, and the spy—waited until the room was empty. I closed the door on the last beta to leave and listened there to make sure I didn't hear any sly comments.

"She's talking now," Bear said, breaking the silence.

I had no right being curious about a battered omega, but I found my way back to the table. I was as curious about why Bear wanted me present, as I was to hear news about the woman we'd found.

"But I can see her going in and out of hindbrain when she gets nervous," he continued, frowning at his own hands. "No name. And she says no to the Omega Center."

King scoffed. "Too fuckin' bad. What does she think her options are?"

Bear's lips tightened, hands fisting on his thighs, and I stared at the fingerless leather gloves he was wearing. Riding gloves in church? Strange.

"She says the people who sold her will find her at the Center."

I frowned at that. Wasn't the Omega Center designed to protect omegas? To make their heats and packs their decision? But King didn't look so surprised by the news, his initial scorn fading into thought.

"They'd register her, run her DNA in the database. Big enough trafficking organization might be capable of tracking her down, I think," Bear said, and his shoulders shrugged in an awkward movement. He was trying to sound casual, but it had to be as obvious to King as it was to me that he'd already come to some kind of decision about the omega and he did not want to argue on the topic. But he would.

"Bear," King said. A single, firm reminder.

Bear looked up, dark eyes hard and holding our prez's. They were the definition of two equal but opposite forces.

"Give me some time, I can get more information," Bear said.

King arched a pale eyebrow. "And in the meantime, we just…fucking have an omega in the club? Around assholes like Skid and Numbnuts?"

"No. She stays in my room," Bear said firmly.

I cleared my throat and crossed my arms over my chest. "You're talking about one alpha or another. And King and I both saw the way she glued herself to you," I said.

"I can handle myself," Bear said, and I was surprised by how confident he was. He looked to King. "I know how to manage omegas, and I know how to manage myself. You know this."

King dipped his head, and I scowled at being left out of some vital piece of information in the conversation. "Doesn't change the situation. Still an omega in a club full of horny fucking alphas, half of whom wouldn't know impulse control if it bit them in the ass. She may not smell great now—"

Bear's expression twisted, and it gave him away. The omega's perfume was already clearing up. "I'll get her suppressants," Bear said. "I know how to work the system."

My eyebrows bounced at that. Had Bear been bonded at one point, or…?

"You have a job to do around here," King said, just an edge of a bark in his voice.

"I know," Bear answered, his eyes flicking to me. "And I intend to do it. I'll need time away from her anyway."

"Wait—" I said, already sensing the direction this was headed.

"If Chance will keep an eye on her when I'm busy—"

"What?" I laughed.

King's head turned back and forth, glancing between us. "You trust Chance?" he asked Bear.

Bear shrugged, and my head spun. "You do," he said to King, a slight challenge in his tone. "So you tell me. Can that omega trust Chance?"

King's jaw clenched, and we stared at one another through a brief stretch of silence before I realized he was waiting on my answer.

"Yes," I said slowly, frowning, sensing the walls of the trap go up around me. "But—"

I was the beta. As if that made me less of a predator, a danger, than an alpha.

"It'll be up to her," Bear continued, ignoring me. "But if Chance's loyalty is to you, I know he won't sell her out from under us. And he can't bite her."

My teeth ground in protest. I could bite her. It just wouldn't mean anything. Fuck this.

"Maybe I'd just rather not be a fucking omega's babysitter," I said, but the words sound weak and petulant to my own ears.

"If we can't take her to the Center, what are we supposed to do?" King asked.

Frustration blazed through my veins. I was being talked over, ignored. My dull fingernails bit into my own palms, and Bear shot me a wary glance, like he knew my anger was about to boil over, and beta or not, that warranted caution.

"Find her a pack that can keep her hidden," Bear said. "Get her a new identity. Quickly. We don't want to know what she's mixed up in. But we caught her before she was in the Wasted's care, which means we crossed the traffickers, not another MC. And if they do have a network that has influence with the Omega Center, then…"