Truth or Lie (PAPERBACK, LGBT)

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ONE

Leona

THE RED LIGHT on the video camera stared at me, unblinking. I stared back, keeping my voice strong and clear as I delivered the carefully scripted speech. My hair and makeup were perfect. My message was vital and just.

“In conclusion, I ask every single one of you who are watching this message to look inside your hearts,” I said. “Ask yourself whether allowing alphas and omegas the same basic human rights as betas in any way diminishes your own rights and freedoms. You may find that the opposite is true—that you are not truly free until all human beings are free.”

Lifting my chin, I willed the unseen millions of future viewers to think seriously about my words… challenging them to look into my eyes and believe I, as an unregistered omega, wasn’t as human as they were.

“That’s a wrap,” said the cameraman, in his heavy Russian accent.

The red light next to the lens flipped off, and my shoulders slumped from the straight, commanding posture I’d adopted during filming.

“You don’t want to do another take?” I asked, already second-guessing some of my choices in delivery and cadence.

A broad-shouldered figure stepped from the shadows, his gray eyes intent. “No, that will suffice. Thank you.”

If anyone had tried to tell me six months ago that I’d be looking for approval from Kostya Nikolayev, the Euro-Soviet chairman of the Committee on Alphomic Suppression, I’d have assumed they were off their meds. Of course, if you’d asked me about a lot of things six months ago, I would have given you answers considerably different from the answers I’d give today.

After a lifetime spent concealing my unregistered omega status and working my way up the ranks of the Foreign Service, I was no longer Ambassador Leona McCready of the UFNA. As far as the United Federation of North America was concerned, I was a fugitive. Somehow, I had also become the public face of the Alphomic resistance. It was a position that would ultimately be no less dangerous than hiding in plain sight as an ambassador had been, but it held more of a chance at making a real difference in the world during my lifetime.

I was hiding away with Kameron Patel, my omega packmate, and our three alphas—Flynn, Alex, and Jax. We were staying as guests at Nikolayev’s family estate, located southwest of St. Petersburg. Our host, a man I once would have counted as my people’s greatest enemy, had turned out to be our most valuable ally. Kostya Nikolayev was an alpha, and yet he’d somehow managed to infiltrate the highest levels of the worldwide beta organization dedicated to crushing our people underfoot.

His family, dedicated to the fight for freedom for generations, had spread its tendrils through the power structure of Russia and Eastern Europe via political maneuvering and strategic marriages within the great families. As an alpha in a public position, Nikolayev’s life would have been much simpler if he’d stayed unattached, or perhaps entered into a marriage with a prominent and trustworthy beta woman. Instead, he’d somehow ended up mated to Rhys Beckett, an omega prominent in the UFNA branch of the alphomic underground.

I’d sworn to myself that I’d get that story out of Beckett at some point. But, however it had originally come about, if it weren’t for that unlikely mating I’d be dead three times over. Nikolayev had provided intel and logistical support that had saved me on multiple occasions, all of it done from behind the scenes and presumably at great risk to himself.

Most recently, he’d provided soldiers and helicopters to execute a daring rescue of his mate and two of my alphas after Enoch Sloane, the head of the UFNA branch of the Committee, captured them for torture and interrogation. Sloane knew Nikolayev was hiding something, and he’d long held hopes of exposing his rival as an alpha. The Russian’s desperate rescue mission to retrieve Beckett, Flynn, and Alex ended up catapulting the hidden conflict between the Committee and the Alphomic underground resistance into the open—ultimately exposing the extent of the underground’s infiltration into worldwide beta institutions.

We weren’t ready for open warfare with the Committee—but that wouldn’t stop the war from coming if Sloane got his way. For now, our best chance was to turn it into a battle of public opinion, preferably before Sloane and his terrorist allies could turn it into a battle of bullets and experimental, alphomic-targeted chemical weapons.

That was where Kam and I came in. Before I was exposed as an unregistered omega, I’d been a high-ranking diplomat, and Kam had been my attaché. We had established connections in international circles. Not only that, but bringing people around to my side of an argument had once been in my actual job description. Beckett and Nikolayev had drafted us into their cause in hopes that we could bring those skills and connections to bear on the underground’s behalf.

So far, that meant recording videotaped speeches for release to news organizations worldwide while hiding away in Nikolayev’s heavily guarded family estate. In many ways, Kam and I were currently safer than we’d ever been in our lives. The answer to the question ‘How rich and powerful is the Nikolayev family?’ appeared to be ‘They own half of the property between St. Petersburg and the Estonian border, and can afford their own private militia.’

This dreamlike time-out-of-time wouldn’t last forever. Eventually, I would have to venture out from behind the protective walls and security patrols of Nikolayev’s estate, so I could meet with leaders on the world stage in person. After months of laying the groundwork, that time was fast approaching—but first, I would have to deal with something else that was approaching even faster.

My heat cycle.

Twice now, I had entered into a no-strings heat contract with my trio of alpha protectors. At this point, ‘no-strings’ was basically a joke, and we all knew it. Our relationship had more strings than an entire army of marionettes. I had high hopes that this would be the time when we all stopped pretending that we weren’t going to end up mated. As it happened, Kam and I had a meeting planned today to discuss exactly that subject.

For now, though, Nikolayev expected my mind to stay on the job… and that was fair enough.

Kam approached and handed me a glass of water. He eyed the Russian warily, a gazelle assessing a lion. “Has there been any further communication from Secretary Fouchet in Luxembourg?” he asked.

“Not directly,” Nikolayev said. “I have, however, received a letter from one of his underlings, requesting clarification of Ms. McCready’s status and my own position in the Committee.”

“To which you replied…?” I prompted, curious how he was spinning his ongoing brutal vivisection of the Euro-Soviet branch. Across the Atlantic, Enoch Sloane’s part of the organization was as rabidly bloodthirsty as ever. However, Nikolayev had managed to plant enough moles inside this branch to effectively neuter it with ousters and political infighting, once the shit hit the fan.

“I replied that the Committee is reassessing its objectives, and you are acting as a liaison to discuss alphomic interests with an eye toward normalizing relations with the beta power structure.”

That was as nice a way of saying ‘the lunatics are running the asylum’ as I was likely to hear. The reality was that we were all running around like headless chickens while we tried to stave off a catastrophic worldwide conflict.

“Fouchet’s halfway in love with you, Leo,” Kam said. “He’ll come through in the end.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we should start contacting all the attachés and assistants you’ve blatantly flirted with over the years,” I told him.

“Oh, please. I don’t flirt,” Kam replied. “I’m the picture of professionalism and decorum, and I always have been.”

“Maybe we should start contacting all the attachés and assistants whose blatant flirting you’ve failed to respond to, in that case.” I returned my gaze to Nikolayev’s steel-gray eyes. “What about Prime Minister Fairbanks’ administration? Any movement there?”

“Not yet.” The Russian’s expression remained impassive, revealing nothing. “They are in a somewhat difficult position after failing to uncover your unregistered status for so many years, while you were in a high-ranking position within the Foreign Office.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “I suppose I should be pleased that I didn’t end up bringing down the entire coalition government when things went bad. Still, Fairbanks has always been a bit of a sympathizer, at least in subtle ways. I can’t help thinking he could be the key. If we could somehow pry him loose, he might bring a lot of other leaders along with him.”

Levi Fairbanks, the head of the UFNA government, had risen to power on the back of good looks, charisma, and moderate policies. He’d never risked voter backlash by doing or saying anything overt, but he’d remained a quiet bulwark against some of the more extreme anti-alphomic policies that had taken root elsewhere in the world.

“Perhaps so,” was all Nikolayev said.

“How’s Beckett doing today?” Kam asked, changing the subject.

“He is currently on bed rest, following the advice of my private physician.” Nikolayev’s tone didn’t invite further inquiry.
During his capture by Enoch Sloane, Rhys Beckett had been drugged in a bid to loosen his tongue during interrogation. He’d reacted badly to the injections and gone into an off-cycle heat. Nikolayev’s forces had managed to rescue him before the worst happened, but emotions had been running high in the aftermath of the retrieval mission. Maybe Nikolayev had been too addled by heat pheromones to think about the need for contraception, or maybe he’d simply assumed his mate was already too old to conceive. They were both middle-aged, and Beckett was approaching estropause.

However, ‘approaching estropause’ wasn’t the same thing as ‘past estropause.’ Now, the Nikolayev family was a couple of months away from welcoming its newest member into the world… assuming Beckett’s pregnancy went to term. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a foregone conclusion by any means. The fact that he was only pregnant with one pup and not a litter was in his favor, as was the fact that the Nikolayev family had access to alphomic medical specialists. Meanwhile, Beckett’s age—especially given the stressful circumstances surrounding the conception—was very much not in his favor.

“Tell him we’ll visit later if he’s feeling up to it,” I said, wondering if the poor man was going insane with boredom yet. Given what I knew of him, he probably was.

“I will pass on the message,” Nikolayev said. “Now, though, I must take my leave of you both. I have a phone conference this afternoon with the Committee representatives from Kyiv and Moscow.”

I winced, not envying him. “Have fun with that.”

The slight twitch of his lips in response had more to do with irritation than any attempt at a smile. “Quite,” he said, and left us alone with the camera crew packing up their equipment.

Kam rolled his shoulders, releasing some of his tension. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to share a room with that man and not feel like he’s two seconds away from pulling a knife on me,” he said. “Sadly, today is not that day.”

I knew what he meant. There was no doubt in my mind that Nikolayev was on the same side we were. That didn’t make him any less of a terrifying bastard to deal with.

“Something to aspire to,” I told him wryly. “So, are you ready to beard the cheetah in her den?”

Kam’s deep brown eyes lit with purpose. “Yes, I bloody well am. This whole thing is getting ridiculous.”

“Hey, now,” I said, twining my arm through his and tugging him toward the door. “Be fair. Alex has a lot to process, and the kind of trauma she experienced doesn’t just disappear in a few months.”

Kam sighed. “Of course it doesn’t. But if you wall it up and ignore it, then it’ll never get better. Go on—ask me how I know.” The last few words were a low mutter.

I squeezed his arm. “We’ll find a chink in her armor. I don’t intend to go through another heat cycle with things still in limbo.”

Arm in arm, we headed toward the front doors of Nikolayev’s palatial manor house—silently girding ourselves to discuss mating bonds with a bereaved alpha. Specifically, an alpha who’d made it crystal clear that she never wanted to hear the word ‘mate’ again.