“I thought for sure you would fuck her.”

Legion glanced up to where his second-in-command stood in the open doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He returned his attention to the terminal on his desk where lines of code marched across the screen. “I don’t fuck Betas.”

“So you’ve said more times than I care to count. I thought you were insistent that this girl is not Beta.” Adrian entered the room and closed the door behind him. His expression remained inscrutable, but a trace of curiosity colored his voice. “Or have you changed your mind about that?”

“I haven’t changed my mind about anything and I‘m absolutely sure about the girl. However, I prefer to wait until the proof is irrefutable.” Legion touched a few buttons on the terminal before shutting down his feed. Certain things were meant for his eyes only. “She’ll have my knot in due time. You do understand the point of seduction, yes? The wait is part of what makes it worth it.”

Leather creaked from the gun holsters slung on both sides of his hips as Adrian shifted positions. The man carried his own weight in weapons, and that was when he remained in the relative safety of their compound. He carried a veritable armory otherwise. “You think you can make her come to you on her own?”

“Probably not. She’s spent too much time hiding for that. But the more she wants it, the easier it will be when I take her.”

“Take her? How barbaric.”

“Omegas have no rights. Even the strictest laws regarding personal freedoms are on my side. And if she were to be convicted of hiding her dynamic, I’m all that would stand between her and a lifetime in criminal detention.”

Adrian seemed unconvinced. “You almost marked her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Legion scoffed, narrowing his gaze on the other man. Alphas were quick to anger, and he was absolutely no exception. “And how would you know about it?”

“I mean no disrespect.” Adrian lowered his head as he spoke, a sign of submission. “I watched the vids as the girl left. I assumed the marks on her body were made by you.”

Legion drummed his fingers against the desk, annoyance written into every feature of his face. He didn’t want the other man so much as thinking about the girl, much less inspecting her body. “Have you done what I asked?”

A smile without humor briefly crossed Adrian’s face. “The girl is exactly what the report says she is. She lives with an older sister and a younger brother in the slums, neither of them are able to work. The sister has a facial deformity, and the brother is still young enough to be in mandatory education. The parents are dead which is what forced them into the slums in the first place. Credits appear to be her primary motivator, for obvious reasons.”

A growl emanated from Legion’s curled lips, his patience nearing its end. “Do you have anything else to add or would you prefer to keep wasting my time by summarizing the government report?”

“I did find one thing that was very interesting.”

Legion glared at his second. “And what would that be?”

“The sister buys alterants in outrageous quantities, mostly hormone suppressants in whatever strength and amount that’s available.”

“What do you mean by outrageous?”

Adrian shrugged. “Approximately ten times a normal dose. More than any one Beta female, even two, would need. The question is why.”

“Do you believe that the sister is Omega, as well?”

“Doubtful, two in one family would be virtually unheard of. But perhaps she makes the purchases on her sister’s behalf. If it ever arouses suspicion, and she’s turned in to the guardians, it would be a simple thing to prove her dynamic and be released.”

Head cocked to the side, Legion regarded the other man with an air of deadly seriousness. “So how do we prove that my little Beta is lying?”

Face contemplative, Adrian described the plan that he had already set into motion. “Replacing the alterants with placebo would be the best option, but that would involve gaining control of too many sources to be workable. The sister buys product from nearly every shopkeeper in the lower levels. I’ve done my best to shut down as many sources down as I can, but it’s impossible to circumvent them all.”

Legion had enough experience to know that his second-in-command was already five steps ahead of everyone else. “So what did you do?”

Adrian smirked, clearly pleased with himself. “Posed as a peddler in the slum markets and sold the sister false alterants. It‘s actually a potent fertility drug. It will stimulate a hormonal response instead of repressing it.”

“That won’t do much good if she’s taking hormonal suppressants from a dozen other sources.”

A sinister smile curved the lesser Alpha’s lips. “Which is why I had the lab create a purified form of the fertility drug that is significantly more potent than anything available on the market. Your girl must have had the first dose by now. If she’s capable of an estrous cycle, the medication that I supplied will ensure she enters it. And soon.”

A maniacal gleam shone in Legion’s gaze, his anticipation obvious. “How long?”

“Days, maybe less. I’d say three cycles at the most.”

“Then it’s important that we maintain surveillance. Have you had any difficulties following her?”

Adrian scoffed. “Everyone in the slums is too wrapped up in their own suffering to worry about one unfamiliar face. No one suspects a thing.”

Legion reopened the terminal screen and navigated to the camera feeds, which between all of them covered most of the city. It would only be a matter of time before he claimed the girl and when that happened she would never be out of his sight again.

His people had not installed the cameras, but it was a simple enough thing to hack even the feeds. The Central Command had contracted out too much of the infrastructure work needed in the city to maintain complete control over much of anything. Legion was not the first to take advantage of the relative chaos, but he was particularly good at it.

“Have you had word from the Crown?” Legion asked as he zoomed in on the girl’s apartment building. “Their deadline is rapidly approaching.”

The other man appeared slightly uncomfortable though his face remained expressionless. “I have had no word, Legion.”

His agreement with the King had been in force for more than a dozen years and the Crown had been trying to circumvent them for at least that long. The King and his underlings remained convinced that Legion could somehow be convinced to turn over control of the air processors. He had been offered titles, riches and women, even promises that he could claim one of only a dozen Omegas born in the city each year. But none of that had ever been enough to tempt him. Because in the end, what Legion wanted more than anything else was control.

And by controlling the air, he controlled every single life in the city.

“Do you think this is just some form of minor rebellion to soothe his supporters in the Senate, or is the King truly planning to test me?”

“There have been whispers…” Adrian hesitated as if carefully choosing his words. “I have heard you called a terrorist.”

Legion laughed, the sound of it dark and threatening. “The only terror that I hope to inspire is in crossing me. Will they pay, or not?”

“Eventually, most likely. Without additional leverage, what choice do they have?”

They had no choice. Legion had made sure of it when he keyed the master control of the city’s air processors to his own biometrics. If he were to die without disengaging the failsafe, the entire system would shut down. The King would have a difficult time ruling over a population dying of pollution sickness and oxygen deprivation.

That didn’t stop the toothless lion from roaring without the benefit of any bite to back it up.

Sullen, Legion tapped the screen to switch the view to one closer to the marketplace. “You’d think the Crown would be more focused on their missing prince than on a fight that they can’t possibly win.”

“Missing?” Adrian raised a sardonic brow. “Most would have said dead. They are executing someone for complicity in his murder later this week.”

Cracking his neck, Legion’s attention again switched to the feed. He was growing frustrated at not yet catching sight of who he was looking for. “Stranger things have come from the Forbidden Zone than a dead man. I’m willing to believe almost anything until they produce a body.”

His second-in-command almost seemed interested at that, pushing off the wall to take a step closer. “You think this execution is a set-up?”

“I don’t care enough to think about it all,” Legion answered with a sneer. “But I see a government scrambling to maintain power amid mass corruption. Castor had ideals, if you can even use that word in this city. I’m sure many people wanted him dead.”

Adrian flashed a sharp-toothed smile. “Are you including yourself in that?”

A sharp glint shone in the Alpha’s eye as he regarded his second. “If I had moved against the milquetoast prince, there would be no question of finding a body.”

The room had turned a shade colder and the slightly smaller man took a step back. Legion was well known for his preference for hand-to-hand combat. He wanted to feel the beat of his opponent’s heart in the gush of their blood spilling from open wounds before he snapped their necks. Something as craven as tampering with the engine of a skycar was beneath him. To even suggest otherwise was an insult.

Adrian lowered himself to one knee and bowed low, making a point to keep his gaze on the ground at his feet. “If there is nothing further you require, sir. I should return to the slums. It would not do for your woman to remain unmonitored at this point. The tainted alterants could take effect any time.”

“Go,” Legion snarled, teeth snapping. “And alert me the moment that anything changes.”

The other male backed out of the room, keeping his body low to the floor. He did not rise even as the door shut behind him.

With a growl, Legion swept the terminal off the desk so it crashed to the floor, destroyed. Waiting had him frustrated beyond belief, too distracted to deal with the upstart King and his bootlicking flunkies.

Handling the King would have to wait until he had his Omega. She would stay underneath him and filled with his knot until she repaid him for her part in this aggravation.

The girl would discover that there were consequences to her actions in the most dramatic way possible. He would prove that she had been hiding her dynamic and then he would destroy her.