“I…uh…will you train me to be a bounty hunter, sir?”

Konnor looked surprised. “A bounty hunter? No, Ethan.” He ran a big hand over his face and took a deep breath. “I need to explain some things to you, and I need you to listen carefully. I was going to wait until I got you on the ship, but I don’t like to see you looking so lost and worried. You need to listen to what I have to tell you and not get excited. Can you do that for me? ”

Ethan nodded and then remembered his alpha liked him to answer him out loud. “Yes, sir, I can do that.”

“Good. Blondie, do you know what it means to be…omega?”

Ethan glanced up at him sharply. “Omega? You mean a defective?”

His alpha shook his head firmly. “No, they’re not defective. They’re simply submissive. It’s unusual for a Lycan, but they do exist.” He reached for Ethan’s hand and held it firmly in his. “With what happened in the ring today, and from my examination…Ethan, you’ve been found to be omega.”

Shocked, Ethan’s first impulse was to pull his hand away sharply, but Balenescu refused to release him, pulling him back down beside him.

“No!” Ethan yelled, surprised at the sudden feelings of outrage and shame that washed over him. “I’m not omega!” He tried again to pull away, frantic to escape this room, escape what the alpha was saying.

Omegas were weak and unintelligent. They were useless for anything except the most menial work. Some of them, the better looking ones, were taken as love slaves, doomed to a life of sexual subjugation. He looked around wildly for someplace to run from this. To hide from what the alpha was saying. He was pulled down to the bench instead and the alpha held to his biceps, forcing him to sit still. “Settle down. You can’t run away from this. You’re omega, and you have to deal with it.”

Ethan’s eyes filled with scalding tears that spilled down his face. “But that means you all think I’m stupid! That I’m a mental defective. I’m not! I’m not!” He tried desperately to break hisalpha’s grip, misery flooding his body. “Gods, I’ll be sold as a slave! I couldn’t stand that. I’ll kill myself first!” He made a grab for the gun the alpha wore strapped to his thigh, getting a hand on it before Balenescu knocked it away and gripped bothof Ethan’s wrists in his hands.

“If you don’t want to be thought mentally defective, stop acting like it! Do you really think you can get this gun away from me? That I’d let you hurt yourself? Settle down, now, or I’ll put you down myself.”

Ethan’s adrenalin was churning through him and making him ill. He sagged in despair. He raised his gaze to his alpha, who was almost nose to nose with him. “Please,” he whispered frantically, not sure what he was begging for. To be told it was all a mistake? To be put out of his misery?

“There’s nothing to be so upset about,” the big Lycan said gently. “I’ll be taking over your training, and nothing at all will happen for at least a few months. After that, we’ll have to come back here for an auction, but Idon’t want you to worry about it. Leave it all to me. I’m taking care of things.”

Ethan barely heard anything he was saying to him. A few months? So he was to be given a kind of reprieve, a few months to be with the handsome Konnor before being sold as a slave for the rest of his life. For what? A sudden thought struck him and he glanced back up in horror. For sexual training? So he would be one of those pathetic sex slaves? That’s what this was all about then. The handsome man in front of him, the one he had such a huge crush on, was about to become his…master.

This couldn’t be happening to him. He shook his head in misery, remembering the look of contempt on the other pups’ faces when he came into the room.

“Have you calmed down some now so I can explain?” Konnor’s voice was gentle, and Ethan nodded slightly. Konnor stared down into his face for a moment and finally released him.

Right away, Ethan stood up and began backing toward the door. He had to leave this room. He had to get somewhere safe so he could think about what to do.

“Ethan,” Konnor’s voice was stern. Normally it would have frozen him in his tracks, but he was so sunk in abject misery, his only thought was to get away, to leave this room and this man who was saying things he never thought he’d hear about himself. “What the hell are you doing now? Sit down.”

He kept moving slowly backward, his thoughts a jumble in his head. He was omega…a defective…no wonder his parents had abandoned him when he was a baby. They must have known what he was…what he would become, and couldn’t bear to live with the shame.

Konnor stood up and took a step toward him. “Blondie, get back over here and sit down. Let me explain things to you.”

Explain? Explain what? How his life would be a series of degrading acts from this point on? How he would belong to someone, forced to perform whatever depraved sex acts they might wish him to for the rest of his life? No, death would be much better. He took another step backward, and Konnor came at him with an outstretched hand. Before he could even think about what he was doing, Ethan’s hands shot out and he pushed as hard as he could against Konnor’s chest. The big alpha, taken off guard, stumbled backward. He would have recovered had it not been for the sturdy wooden bench behind him. The backs of his knees hit the bench and he went over backwards, wedged between the bench and the lockers.

Seizing what might be his last chance, Ethan turned and sprinted for the door. He had it unlocked and open in seconds and was out the door and running down the hall, hearing crashing sounds behind him. As he reached the end of the hallway, he turned a corner and ducked into a side corridor that led to another exit. Instead of going out the door, he slipped into a closet beside it, desperately fighting to still his breathing. He was in some kind of janitor’s closet, surrounded by mops, brooms and bottles of chemicals. Quickly he opened one of the bottles and dumped it on himself, hoping to disguise his scent. He knew he had only seconds before the alpha would sniff him out otherwise.

Hearing Konnor’s shouts in the corridor, he shrank as far as he could back against the mops and brooms, praying the alpha would think he’d made it outside and look for him there. His luck held as he heard the outside door slamback against the wall, and the sounds of the alpha’s voice fade a little as he ran outside, calling his name. Acting quickly, before Konnor figured out the ruse, Ethan slipped out of the closet and ran back down the corridor the way he’d come. He’d seen another exit when he’d been brought into the arena area. If he could somehow reach it in time, he might be able to make good his escape.

His luck held, and he didn’t pass anyone in the hallway as he hurtled through, searching for the other exit. When he found it, he cautiously made his way outside, looking around him for any sign he’d been spotted. The large crowd of spectators was still leaving the stadium over on his left, so he ran toward them and shoved his way in among them. He received a few outraged glances as he jostled his way into the heart of the throng, but no one seemed to pay him much mind. He lowered his head as much as he dared, knowing that his bright blond hair would stand out among all the others, and he fearfully shuffled along with the slow-moving crowd.

When he finally got outside the stadium, he felt a moment of exultation. He’d made it. He was free. Then reality slammed back into him. Free to do what? To go where? That Konnor and the other officials would be after him, he had no doubt. His freedom would be short-lived unless he could somehow find his way off this planet. He turned his feet toward the only refuge he knew—the only person who might take him in and tell him what to do. He had to make it back home before it was too late.

“Damn it !” Konnor slammed his hand down on the table in front of him, rage and frustration almost choking him. “He couldn’t have just disappeared! Someone has to be helping him hide, and if I find out who, I swear to the gods…”

“I know you’re angry, but this isn’t helping,” Larssen said sternly. Konnor slanted a glance over to him. He wanted to shout and rail at him, but he knew Larssen was right and only trying to help. They were in a bar near the city center, having had a late supper. For the past week, they’d spent every day searching for Konnor’s mate, scouring the city, and had come up empty handed. Konnor was almost frantic with worry and self-loathing. Why had he not waited until he had Ethan safely aboard the ship before he told him that he was omega? If only he hadn’t looked so lost and confused sitting on the bench in the dressing room. Konnor had wanted to take away some of the hurt he’d seen in his eyes by explaining to him that even though he was omega, he had nothing to worry about. Konnor was his mate and would always care for him and protect him. He never got a chance to tell him any of that. Ethan had exploded in rage and fear when he told him he was omega, taking off out the door before he could explain further.

Konnor blew out a long breath. “I know you’re right, but I feel so damned frustrated. Lucas was waiting on us, counting on us to get back home for that shipment over a week ago. Now…”

“Now Blayde has cut short his trip and come home to take over. Lucas understands, Konnor. Everyone does. We all know you have to find your mate.”

Konnor glanced up into the steady eyes of his older brother. He didn’t know what he would have done without his support and help over the past week. “I have to find him, Lars. If I don’t…”

“You will,” Larssen said firmly. “Now let’s go over it one more time. Is there anything we’re missing? Any friends or acquaintances who might be helping him hide? ”

Konnor shook his head. “According to the doma in his group home, he was a loner. No real friends or buddies he hung out with. He seemed to gravitate toward the younger children, she said.”

“And he helped her out a lot, right? Didn’t she say he worked around the home, helping her in the kitchen?”