Jace

I sprinted along the corridor, weaving through the beta orderlies as I went, somehow empowered when we went ru

“Stop her!” came familiar voices down the hallway.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” someone called.

Where? I had no idea, but something told me that the swinging doors in front of us might have the answer, so I put on speed, getting closer and closer until…

A strong hand slapped down around my wrist, stopping me mid stride and yanking me to a stop, pulling me out of the flow of rushing bodies. My eyes jerked up, seeing him for the first time.

10

Sloane

I looked up at the beta man. Brown curly hair, medium blue eyes, the kind of face that could easily get lost in the crowd. Those eyes appeared sensitive as they shot from me to the corridor I had just come from, but these, they were familiar.

“You really shouldn’t have run,” he said, grimacing as the alarm blared around us. “And hitting the alarm? I’m guessing it was you who set it off, because no other chump here would be that stupid. That sends the whole place into lockdown and gets the cops around here, poking their nose into things that they really don’t need to.”

I blinked up at him, trying to work out if he was the friend I needed or the adversary I did not. The barman? What the fuck was the barman from Jace’s bar doing here…wearing an orderly uniform? I shook my head, trying to shake the feeling of foreboding off. Maybe he’d gotten another job? What were the chances? It was possible, right?

Yeah, my adrenaline flooded system wasn’t buying that.

“Okay,” he said, swiping his hand down his face. “You’re really baked, I can see it. So I’m go

He released my wrist slowly and turned his hand over, palm up. He wasn’t forcing this. He was waiting for me to decide. Betas were supposed to be calm and clear-headed, but omegas were supposed to have a greater sense of good and bad. My instincts, such as they were in this heightened yet weakened state, were telling me I could trust him.

I had trusted him once and he’d gotten me to safety, but him being here was all kinds of crazy wrong.

A great cry from the corridor behind told me I needed to decide and quickly.

I put my hand on his and prayed my instincts were not leading me astray. Further astray, I amended, given I’d asked Em to call the Dawn Agency when I should have called Jace.

“Right call,” he said. “Now, we need to run.”

He hauled me with him down a side corridor, my bare feet slapping against the cold linoleum floor in a rapid patter. So fast did I move that it felt like I flew.

At the next corner, he turned left, up to the nearest open door, and hustled me inside. It was dark until he flipped the light switch, then I saw it was some kind of storage room, with shelves brimming with containers, bottles, boxes, and jars stacked from floor to ceiling with neat labels stating what each of them was.

Here, he dragged out his cell phone and began typing furiously on the screen, muttering to himself about getting fired, again.

“Jace,” I mumbled, arm shooting out to brace against the wall, because I was suddenly sure I was about to throw up, pass out, or throw up and then pass out. It was almost like I could…sense him. “I need Jace.”

The beta barman-turned-orderly stopped what he was doing and stared at me, grabbing my shoulder to steady me.

“Jace?”

I nodded. “I need Jace. Do you…?” He worked for Jace. Did he know how to contact him? He must.

He huffed out a breath and threw a look up to the ceiling. “Last I saw, you were doing the walk of shame and hightailing it out of his life. Not all alphas are bad, but not all of them are good either.”

“Please,” I said. “Jace isn’t one of the bad ones.”

“No, he’s not,” the beta agreed. “But he’s definitely not a good one either. You sure about this? You better be, because if I make this call and you change your mind, it would take a fucking army to get you away from him. And you’re go

I wanted to dispute the last part, but I thought every word leaving his lips was based on an understanding of Jace that was far deeper even than mine. Yet I did trust Jace with my life, and I trusted him not to dump this man’s body in an alley for helping me to leave.

The alarm was still blaring, and the clock was ticking.

I tried to process the facts, but they were getting harder to grasp. Was the guy giving me another option? Was there another option?

“Make your call, omega. I won’t offer again.”

Jace

My phone was vibrating. I’d put it on silent so it was just an incessant jiggling in my back pocket. I dragged it out glanced at the screen… What the fuck? I frowned.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ryder hissed, scowling at me. “We have got bigger problems to deal with.”

We were standing a block away from the Dawn Agency, poised to move in, when a chaos of screaming sirens erupted.

“This isn’t us,” Dane said, interrupting our glaring. We needed a way to cut the alarm cable, create crazy, bring the police down on the place, and get the fucking rats ru

“Another two carloads of the coppers just turned up,” Dane added, pausing to peer around the side of the alley where we’d parked and unloaded. To our left a few buildings away, in the heart of the vibrant Business District, was the austere Dawn Agency. “Fuck, the slack bastards decided to do their job for once. Looks like we’ll have company. We’ll need to try and do some evasive shit to take custody of the omega and get her the fuck out of there.”

“No shit?” Ryder said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Observational skills must’ve been high on the curriculum at your drop out, dead-beat school.”

“Fuck off,” Dane said. “Just because I didn’t go to a prissy, pretty boy school doesn’t mean I can’t beat your arse to a pulp when this bullshit is over.”

“Shut the fuck up, both of you.”

Something told me I need to pick up this call. I hit accept and lifted it to my ear. “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve,” I snarled into the phone. “An Alpha Control agent in our midst all this time.”

“I’ve also got your omega,” Art said. “And trust me when I say you’re go

“How about no agents in my fucking bar,” I snapped. “That’s my preference.”

“Not go

My mind was whirling at a thousand miles an hour, trying to work out what the prick’s angle was, why he wanted to give me my omega back. What he said about Alpha Control, that was no great shock, but him…? “Name your fucking price.”