**Anna's POV:**

The shorter man doesn't leave.

He looks at Alexander in the bed — the trembling arms, the pallor, the medical monitor — and makes a calculation. Then he looks at me, and the calculation adjusts in a direction I don't like.

"An Omega doesn't make decisions for an Alpha," he says. He reaches for my arm.

Nicole detonates.

Not outwardly — I don't shift, I don't lunge, I hold my ground in front of that ...