by Grey, Aspen
“Two days?” I groaned, reaching out and taking the glass. My fingers felt weak, and the strange hippy kept his grip tight, making sure I didn’t drop it. I felt like an invalid as he helped bring the glass to my mouth, and used too much of my strength to shake him away.
“I can do it,” I told him, raising the glass to my lips. It smelled as bad as it looked, but Perry nicely clamped his fingers over my nose as I started to drink.
“I know,” Wendell chuckled as the taste hit my tongue. “It’s nasty, but it’s good for you. Get it down.”
Rather than have to suffer the ordeal twice, I kept drinking until the entire glass was empty. I must have been empty, as I could feel the cool concoction as it made its way through my throat and down into my belly.
“Here,” Roberto said, holding out a glass of water. “Wash it down.”
Wendell took the glass and I took the water from Roberto and drank eagerly, already feeling my strength beginning to return to me.
“Tell us what happened,” Perry said, taking a seat beside me on the couch. The warmth from his body was comforting, and as I searched my mind, I realized I was able to remember what had happened.
“Sasha,” I said grimly, the name like poison in my mouth. “It was Sasha.”
“Sasha?” Roberto asked. “Who—?”
“My ex,” I grumbled as the painful memories that I’d tried for so long to forget came back to me. It wasn’t something I liked thinking about, and did my best not to. After meeting Perry and Roberto, I’d figured that chapter of my life was finally behind me forever. Apparently not.
“The omega,” Perry said. “That was him, right?”
I nodded, taking another sip of the water to fight the horrible taste from Wendell’s green drink.
“Son of a bitch,” Roberto growled. “So—he’s like a stalker or something?”
“I guess now he is,” I replied. “Before he was just a controlling, emotionally manipulative crazy person. But I never thought he’d follow me…”
“He saw you with us and he lost it,” Perry said. He was speculating, of course, but was probably right.
“Following me…” I said, shaking my head. “That’s a new low, even for him.”
I was furious—raging even, but my body betrayed me and I felt the urge to sleep begin to overpower me. As I lay my head back, I felt Perry slide another pillow behind me and Roberto’s hands on my chest. I looked to my arm to see the IV needle sticking out of my skin, and saw Wendell eyeing me from the end of the couch and knew I was in good hands. But despite all that, I felt terrible about what had happened.
“Are either of you hurt?” I asked, terrified of the answer.
“Nothing serious,” Perry replied. “You worry about you right now. We’re fine.”
Sasha, I thought as I surrendered again to sleep. You son of a bitch.
Chapter Fourteen
Roberto
“This isn’t going to work,” Perry said for the seventh time as we sat outside of the coffee shop watching Sasha sipping his latte.
“Would you stop?” I snipped back. I was growing annoyed as Perry’s constant negativity was beginning to wear on me and make me think that we really were wasting our time.
For the last four days while Jedrik rested, we’d been tailing Sasha, looking for any information we could get on him that would help get him out of our life. Maybe he had a secret we could blackmail him with, or was wrapped up in organized crime or something, or was cheating on his current boyfriend and we could use that information to keep him away from us. There had to be something!
But so far, all Sasha had been doing was driving to La Jolla and parking his car in a parking garage, wandering around with his phone taking photos, then heading to the coffee shop and drinking coffee all afternoon. After that, he went back to his crappy apartment in Mission Beach and that was that. It was so mundane it was almost unbelievable.
“What?” Perry snapped back. “What are we going to find? Seriously? He’s, like, the most boring guy I’ve ever run into. Unless he’s like a split personality and randomly turns into the psychopath we saw outside of our apartment the other night, I don’t see how this is going to get us anywhere.”
“We have to do something,” I scolded him. “I mean—do you just want to wait around until he comes back with more guys? What will we do then?”
Perry grumbled and slouched down in his seat. “I just want to go home and be with Jedrik.”
I sighed and took his hand. “So do I,” I agreed. “But he’s recovering and needs his rest. And we need to do our part in this relationship too.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Perry snapped. “Do you know how terrified I was back there—fighting like that? I’m not supposed to be doing stuff like that, but I did!”
“We both did,” I corrected him. “We both fought alongside him and now we have to do more. We have to make sure we are all safe, and right now he needs to recover. He’s almost there.”
Perry opened his mouth to speak, but inside the coffee shop, Sasha got to his feet—and quickly.
“Here we go,” I said, sitting up and turning on the car. “He’s heading out.”
“Yeah, probably to go home and watch Netflix all night,” Perry groaned. I swatted him on the knee like a mother scolding their child, and gave him a look. I saw he felt bad about being such a stick in the mud, and sat up with a renewed vigor.
“Okay, okay,” he said, his eyes on the prick omega as he crossed the street to his station wagon. “Okay, let’s follow him. Maybe tonight’s our night?”
“Maybe,” I smiled, pulling away from the curb and slowly following behind Sasha as he made his way up the block.
He took a familiar route and I felt my optimism begin to wane as we followed him towards what I imagined would be his apartment again, but instead of taking his normal right turn, he hung a left and went up a road we’d never been up before.
“What’s this?” I heard Perry whisper, his enthusiasm rising. The evening sun was setting, and the purple glow came over the city as Sasha pulled up in front of an old decrepit building that looked like it hadn’t seen life in years. A large sign saying “BEWARE OF THE DOG” hung from the chain link fence and looked fresh, as though it had been bought from the store last week.
Sasha didn’t park out front. Instead, he turned off his headlights and pulled his car down a dark, overgrown driveway with no sign or lighting and disappeared into the shadows.
“Okay, we’re onto something,” I said as I parked down the block and quickly turned off the car. “Where are the pheromone blockers?”
“Here,” Perry said, snatching the small bottle from the center console and spraying himself down. Instantly, his scent vanished. He handed the bottle to me and I did the same.
“Okay, are you ready?” I asked him. I could see him shaking slightly and saw the nervousness in his eyes, but he nodded. As quietly as possible, we opened our doors and stepped out into the falling night, our scents temporarily masked, moving like silent ninjas as we stalked towards the old warehouse. I was sure this was the right thing to do. We had to help Roberto. But as I stepped into the shadows of the shady lot, I couldn’t help but think, this is a bad, bad idea.
Chapter Fifteen
Jedrik
“Not another, doc,” I joked as Wendell approached with another one of his green drinks in hand.
“Oh, yes,” he smiled like the evil doctor he was.
“Oh, no,” I replied.
“Oh, yes,” he chuckled, handing it to me. “You’re getting better, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, it’s been four days,” I told him. “Of course I am.”
“It’s not the days. It’s the drink.”
Begrudgingly, I took the glass from him and raised it to my lips. The heinous mixture was getting less and less disgusting every time I drank it, but it still was nothing I’d ever wish on my worst enemy—even Sasha.
Son of a bitch, I thought as I gulped down Wendell
’s potion and handed him the glass. I still couldn’t believe he’d actually stalked me and showed up at my apartment. It had been obvious he hadn’t wanted to talk either. He’d been shifted when he arrived, along with his goons, who had immediately attacked.
I guess jealousy had finally gotten hold of him, and seeing me with Roberto and Perry had sent him over the edge. He’d been “violent” a few times in our relationship, but I never thought he’d actually do something like that, and that’s what had allowed them to get the drop on me. Under normal circumstances I could have taken those scrubs. The alphas were barely alphas and the beta was an absolute chump. Of course Sasha wouldn’t do his own fighting either, but I’d thought he would have actually wanted to talk. Instead, he sicced his goons on me.
“Hey, where are Roberto and Perry?” I asked Wendell, who gave me a shifty look before turning away.
“I imagine they’re just running errands,” he replied, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was lying.
“Wendell,” I said sternly, swinging my feet to the floor. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know, Jedrik,” he replied as he moved to the kitchen and began washing out the glass. “And that’s the truth.”
He wasn’t lying—I could tell that much. But he wasn’t telling me the whole truth either. He was keeping something from me. So, I got up off the couch and walked over to him. The pain in my left side was considerably better, reduced to simply an ache like a sore muscle, and the pain in my face was completely gone. There would be scarring though, that much was inevitable, but my mates assured me it would look sexy, so I didn’t mind.
“Wendell,” I said again, lower and more firm. “You’re hiding something from me. What is it?”
Wendell kept his eyes on the sink as he washed the glass with a sponge and set it aside. I said nothing and let the uncomfortable silence hang in the room while he thought about what he should say. But when he finally raised his eyes to mine, I let him know with no uncertainty that he only had one option: spill the beans.
“They’re…out,” he finally said. I raised my eyebrows.
“Out?”
“They’re...looking for Sasha.”
“Fuck,” I growled. “What do you mean, looking for Sasha?’ Like—they want to kick his ass?”
“I think they probably would,” Wendell chuckled. “But, no. They want to try to get something on him.”
“Get something?” I asked, leaning against the counter and rubbing my leg gently. “Like blackmail?”
“Something like that,” Wendell replied, eyeing me with a glance that let me know he understood what I was feeling. I was concerned, of course—beyond concerned. If the boys had gone out looking for Sasha, that meant they could end up running into however many other goons he had with him, and that meant alphas—which meant trouble.
“Shit, Wendell,” I groaned. “How could you let that happen?”
“Those boys don’t take well to the word no,” he replied. “That’s something you should know about them. They want to help you. I couldn’t really keep them from doing what they wanted to do.”
“Yeah…” I sighed, heading back over to the couch to grab my t-shirt. I had to go out after them. I had no choice. I wasn’t in top shape—nowhere near it in fact—but it was my duty as their alpha. I couldn’t leave them out there alone. If anything happened to them, my life would be over. “Well, I’m gonna go out looking for them. Where do I start?”
“Honestly, I don’t know, Jedrik,” Wendell replied, and I believed him. “Do you have GPS locator on their phones?”
“I don’t think we ever had time to set that up…” I replied dismally. “Fuck.”
“You can track their scents, right?” he asked.
“All across the city? What time did they leave?”
Wendell hung his head. “This morning.”
“That’s gonna be tough,” I said as I pulled the door open. “But I have to try. I’ll see you later, Wendell. Thanks for the drink.”
But as I turned around, I saw Wendell sliding into his loose-fitting shirt and stepping into his flip-flops.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“As your physician, it would be irresponsible of me to allow you to go out like this alone in your condition,” he replied, stepping past me into the hallway. “Now come on. Let’s find your mates.”
Chapter Sixteen
Perry
This is going to work, I kept repeating to myself. It is, it is, it is…
I tried not to think about the fact that Roberto and I were both unemployed, or that my beautiful alpha mate was laid up on the couch recovering from life-threatening wounds, or the fact that we were two omegas, nowhere near tough enough to be putting ourselves in this kind of danger, stepping into the shadows of an old warehouse that looked like something out of a crime thriller where people went to do shady deals—or kill people.
But we have to do this, I reminded myself. Roberto keeps telling me that, and it’s true. Jedrik needs us to help out in this relationship. He can’t do everything.
The images from that night were burned into my mind: Jedrik’s back left haunch bleeding, the scarlet dripping from his cheek and my hands clasped over his wound as I wondered whether or not he was going to make it. I was like a steamer ready to explode from all the pressure inside of me.
As we approached the warehouse, we pressed more and more into the darkness. Trees and shrubs had overrun the place, the grass was high and clearly no one had come in to landscape in years. This was, for all intents and purposes, abandoned. But, for some reason, Sasha had gone inside, and we were going to figure out why.
I glanced over at Roberto as we crept forward, doing our best to keep the gravel and rocks beneath our feet from making too much noise. As we closed in on the old building, I was able to pick out Sasha’s disgusting scent from the scents of at least two other alphas, maybe three. Roberto curled up his nose and so did I.
“Sickening,” I hissed as we reached the exterior brick wall. I raised myself up onto my tippy toes and peered through the slats of one of the windows that had been boarded up a long time ago. There was still shattered glass in the frame, and I was able to peer through, but there was nothing visible besides old pallets and stacks of wood which had rotted long ago.
“See anything?” Roberto asked. I frowned and shook my head.
“No,” I said, looking around. “Let’s try the side over there.”
He nodded and we quietly made our way around to the left side of the building near the driveway Sasha had pulled down, but as I took another step, something crumpled loudly under my foot.
We both froze, and I looked down to see a discarded egg carton poking out from beneath the dirt. Someone had thrown it there obviously so long ago that the ground had almost swallowed it up, only to turn it into what basically amounted to a booby trap for me to step on tonight.
Shit…
We stood there like statues, noses sniffing the air, ears alert for any sound from inside the warehouse. My heart dropped as a gruff voice rang out.
“The fuck was that?”
“The fuck was what?” an even deeper voice replied.
“You didn’t hear that?”
“Probably a homeless bum,” another voice suggested.
“Yeah, well, when you’re the boss you can make those kind of decisions,” the deepest voice snarled—obviously an alpha. “Check it out!”
“Shit! Hide!” I hissed at Roberto. Thankfully, the yard was thick with vegetation, and I was able to hurl myself into a bush as blue light spilled out of the window above us. Roberto crouched behind the thick trunk of a palm tree as a grimacing face appeared from behind the window, a flashlight pointed out like a spotlight into the night.
“Hide that light!” the boss’ voice scolded. “This place is supposed to be vacant, numb nuts!”
“You told me to check it out!” the guy protested, but he withdrew the light and stepped back from the wind
ow. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and glanced over at Roberto who was doing the same.
“That was close,” I mouthed to him. He nodded.
“Probably a bum,” the voice said. “Or a goddamn possum.”
The voices faded slightly into the walls of the warehouse and I relaxed slightly. After a few more moments, I crept back over to Roberto and crouched beside him.
“You sure about this still?” I asked. “Sounds like a bunch of alphas in there.”
“We can’t turn back now,” Roberto told me, relighting the fire of determination within me. “We’re so close.”
“You’re right,” I told him. I leaned in and kissed him, feeling the security in his embrace as we joined hands. I kissed him long and deep before finally pulling away and staring into his eyes. “Okay. Let’s keep going.”
Chapter Seventeen
Roberto
That had been a close one, and Perry was right to be concerned. I was. But it was important to maintain my cool. If I broke down now, Perry would start to question what we were doing, which would get to me in turn and form a circle of confusion. That would destroy our confidence and end up with us inevitably retreating, and what was worse, failing Jedrik.
Seeing him wounded like that had been terrifying and absolutely broke my heart. In a strange way, Perry and I were responsible for what had happened to him. If he hadn’t gotten involved with us, Sasha would never have had a reason to attack him. I knew that realistically that wasn’t the right way to think about things. You can’t control other people’s behavior, but I still couldn’t keep the thought from entering my mind from time to time, and this was one of them.
It actually helped, though. My hatred for Jedrik’s psycho ex fueled me forward, overriding my fears and anxiety and doubt and keeping my mind focused on the task at hand.