is capable of the same.”
“I know.” It was hypocritical of Hyatt to assume Dorian was like his sire, when Hyatt’s own was also a serial rapist who’d been involved in the same horrible actions as Dorian’s. “This is just not how I imagined meeting my bondmate.”
“I bet. I mean, I never imagined meeting my bondmate walking across the lobby at Light House, but at least that didn’t end in a fist fight.”
Jax let out his familiar, wheezing version of laughter. “If we’re playing that game, I met my bondmate when he was supposed to be arresting me for burglary and vagrancy.”
“Yeah, I think you win, Opa,” Karson said.
Hyatt had barely been able to believe the story of how Jax and Karter met when he finally got all the details. Jax had escaped the fight ring two weeks after giving birth to Karson and, for a month, the pair had lived as vagrants in an abandoned house in River Row. Karter had been investigating a local break-in and burglary when he tracked down Jax’s location. Instead of arresting Jax, Karter took his bondmate back to division and began unraveling the story of the fight ring. And they’d mated after knowing each other less than a week.
Mating. Hyatt had roughly two months before that was even an issue, since omegas only went into heat every three months, but still. If he didn’t mate with his bondmate, Hyatt would feel the emptiness for the rest of his life. He might never meet another alpha with whom he felt the mating bond. He also flat-out did not trust Dorian. At all.
“Look, it’s been a crazy night,” Karson said. “Hopefully, we can collect Rebel and all go home. Look at this whole thing again tomorrow with a fresh perspective.”
“Yeah.” Hyatt rubbed the chilly water bottle against his forehead. “I hope so too.”
Dorian prowled the length of the interrogation room he’d been led to, desperate to speak to Hyatt again. Okay, so his plan to drag Hyatt into a private room for a conversation had backfired spectacularly, but he didn’t completely understand why. He only knew surface facts about the three Lee siblings: they had been children of the notorious fight ring twenty-one years ago; they were not blood related but were raised together; they’d been abused by their guardians. Were not taught to read or write until their rescue at age eighteen.
He had not expected his attempt to talk to Hyatt to end with the younger omega having some sort of panic attack, or for Hyatt’s alpha brother to burst into the room and attack Dorian. Dorian had been so stunned he hadn’t managed to properly protect himself from Rebel’s solid punch, and then he’d gone ass over tea kettle over a chair and thumped his head on a bookcase. His fall had broken an antique lamp he absolutely planned on paying for.
Once Dorian had righted himself and caught a glimpse of the way Rebel was comforting Hyatt, he’d begun to realize the depth of his mistake in engaging Hyatt. Rebel’s fury had been a living thing in that room, but Senior Porter’s home security had stopped a second potential brawl. Dorian would allow a single sucker punch for inadvertently scaring Hyatt, but he was absolutely capable of defending himself physically if Rebel had come at him again.
Dragging them all down to division, though, seemed a bit excessive when they could have sorted this all out at the Porter estate. Especially since Dorian had been forced to leave his own goddess-damned fundraiser over a misunderstanding. But he had also disgraced his generous host with his actions tonight, and he didn’t blame Senior Porter for wanting them all off his property.
The door finally opened, and Senior Constable Jenks stepped inside, his expression perfectly blank.
“Is Hyatt all right?” Dorian asked. “I swear to you I did not mean to scare him.”
“Hyatt is safe and with his family.” Jenks indicated the metal table nearby with one chair on either side. “Let’s chat.”
Dorian sat in one of the chairs, sure to keep his spine straight and chin up. The position was somewhat familiar after being interrogated for hours last year at the height of his omegin’s arrest and subsequent trial. Maybe Dorian had accidentally scared his bondmate tonight, but he’d committed no actual crimes.
“Go ahead and tell me your version of tonight’s events,” Jenks said. “The relevant points, of course.”
“Of course. I first scented Hyatt when he arrived with his escorts but I wasn’t entirely sure why. Not at