by Lola Rock
Craig stumbles to them, clutching the stab wound that stains his shirt a super-satisfying red. “You can’t be here,” he hisses. “I was bringing her—”
“We’re not here for her,” the obvious leader says. He’s the biggest alpha, huge, bulky and bald, with bloodred gang ink peeking past his cuffs and collar.
Wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.
Or at all.
“I don’t need the money,” Craig whines. “You can have her. Just don’t touch Orion.”
I want to throw up.
He sold me.
Craig fucking sold me.
What did I expect? It’s not my first time being sold. It doesn’t even hurt that much anymore.
The alpha lifts his gun to Craig’s forehead.
The beta stills, his mouth dropping open in utter shock that a motherfucking drug cartel didn’t keep their word.
A bang cuts the night, hiding the sound of my intake of breath.
Craig’s body hits the ground with a soft thup.
“We take them both,” the alpha says tightly. His nostrils flare, and I swear he turns to stare straight at me. “Track the female by scent. I’ll handle the male.” He strides for the front door.
My heart squeezes like a lemon, dripping acid down my throat.
There should be a decision to make here, a moment of hesitation, but as soon as his feet start to move, I’m already sprinting through the trees.
Even through my heat haze, or maybe because of the heat haze, I know what I want to do.
I won’t let them take Orion. Hurt Orion. Shit, even look at Orion.
He’s mine, even if he doesn’t want me.
In a burst of speed, I cut across the garden and bust it for the basement steps before these assholes can surround the house.
I’m weak and barely functioning, barely able to blink through the mist that coats my vision and makes my body burn, but I’m going to do something, even if Orion wants to kill me at the first hit of my scent.
I’ll save him no matter what.
Then, my conscience will be clear.
Then, I can finally disappear.
Thirty-Five
ORION
I don’t know why I wanted to sleep in the pack bed instead of my own room. I never sleep well in here, always twisting and turning. Like even when I manage to drift, my body knows I’m alone.
Always fucking alone.
Tonight the guys are out scraping Finn off whatever ledge. Tomorrow, it’ll be a mission. Maybe the next day I’ll find them in Lilah’s bed.
I wish I was strong enough that I didn’t need them, but who am I fucking kidding, bed piled high with pillows and blankets like they’re the bodies that aren’t here. I need my pack. I need Atlas like I need air. Now when his attention drifts, I know exactly the omega on his mind.
Because I’m just as fucking gone for her.
This morning, I walked into the kitchen smiling. Smiling because I thought I’d see her and we’d eat breakfast together, talking through this omega shit. Lilah’s the only one who understands the madness. The only one who knows what to say and do without making me feel like I’m a straight-jacket away from a suite with padded walls.
She calms me like not even Atlas can.
She listens to me, cooks for me, makes me want to bite and claim her, which I can’t even fucking do because, oh right, I’m an omega, not a fucking alpha.
I’ve always torn myself up over my omega awakening. Seriously beat the shit out of myself on any and all occasion for ruining the pack and stealing them from the girl of their dreams.
Pretty sure that dream girl is Lilah, and that adds another layer of self-loathing, because I’m not just stealing them from some abstract idea of an omega.
I’m also keeping Lilah from her meant-to-be pack.
Maybe I’m the one who needs to leave.
Just gracefully grab my passport and bounce to another country. It’s easy as hell for omegas to get visas. I’ll spend the last miserable years of my life getting fucked on a beach, drinking straight rum out of coconuts, and pining for them and her like the mopey motherfucker that I am now.
Shit.
Is this really me?
I squeeze my body pillow, burying my nose in a pillowcase that carries the ghost of Hunter’s smoke. The alpha scent grounds me just enough to realize that my body’s too hot, my muscles tight and aching.
Pre-heat?
Shit.
That explains the heavy moping.
I have to text the guys and warn them to clear their schedules. I need all of them here if my heat’s about hit.
Finally.
It’s been too long since I had them all, and I’m praying with all my crazy omega energy that this heat strengthens the pack bonds that are just as frazzled and frayed as my brain.
I’m fumbling for my phone, trying to find it in the mountain of pillows, when I hear the gunshot.
I stop moving at the cellular level, even my heart icing, freezing.
It couldn’t have been…
Lilah.
Fuck, I have to get to Lilah.
I find the phone with laser focus and pull up the cams. Three cars sit in our driveway, doors swung open as more than ten guys creep toward the house.
With our silent alarms going batshit, I don’t bother shooting off a text. Jett’s on it.
I grab a gun from under the hallway table and stalk down the stairs, every muscle torqued, listening for breaking glass.
The kitchen doorknob rattles. I catch a shadow passing in front of the window. Padding silently down the hall, I slip through the gym door and lock it behind me.
The steps don’t make a sound under my soft footsteps. Thank fuck I spent all those years training for black ops.
On high alert, I cross into Lilah’s side of the basement. Her nest door hangs open, and my heart launches into my throat.
Did they already—
The cellar doors fly open.
I take aim but drop the weapon as soon as I realize it’s Lilah stumbling in from the yard. Her hair is wild, her shirt torn and bloodstained, and I fucking rage at the sight of her zip-corded wrists. “Lilah. What the—”
She doesn’t stop running, crashing into my chest. I grab her shaking shoulders to brace her.
And catch a face full of Lilah’s perfume.
Burnt sugar, sweet caramel, vanilla crème brûlée.
World-changing, best-dessert-of-your-life, irresistible sweetness.
My cock goes diamond hard, and I let out a strangled, ripping noise like air escaping a balloon. “Your scent.”
Her plush lips press my skin. She’s flame hot against my bare chest, making my temperature spike to match.
A bead of sweat rolls down my back, and my ass twitches with the familiar feeling of slick dripping to coat my tight balls. She says something frantic, probably important, but the words melt.
I fucking melt.
“Heat,” I choke out.
Hers. Mine.
Look at us, all synced up.
“Shit.” She lets out a ragged breath, swaying, leaning her weight against me like she can barely stand, and it’s all I can do to keep us on our feet with the hormones raging like I’m already buried inside her lush heat.
Her perfume slips down the back of my throat like molten caramel, smoking through every last piece of resistance.
She’s mine.
Ours.
Mate.
That’s why we’ve all been tied up in twisty fucking knots for Lilah Darling.
An omega-omega pairing shouldn’t happen, but I feel it when I scent her and I feel it when she leans into me like I’m the only thing stopping her world from collapsing.
Lilah belongs to me.
Yeah, the others belong to me too, but Lilah’s mine, just mine, in a way that snatches the air from my lungs and slaps my face with the fucking obviousness of how deeply she completes me.
I want to roar, call Atlas right the fuck now,
call all of them and lock us in her nest so they can bite her, mark her, and make our bond legally binding and brand it on her body so everyone who sees her knows.
As soon as the guys catch her scent, they’ll be all over her, and I can’t wait to fucking gloat.
“Those guys killed Craig.” Lilah shakes, her words finally hitting. “They’re coming for us.”
“Shit. We have to go—” I pull Lilah, tugging her toward the cellar door, but I stumble on nothing. My ankle rolls.
Lilah grabs my arm, holding me up as my vision flickers.
The dark room wobbles like it’s melting, everything smudged and blurry, my head a staticy fucking mess. My ass aches for my alphas’ knots, my belly already cramping, inner muscles squeezing and ready to coax a cock so deep.
Meanwhile, Lilah’s scent strokes my nose, sharp and needy, making me ache to splay her out and lick her until she’s grinding against my tongue, screaming.
A purr builds in my chest. It’s lower and softer than the sounds my alphas’ make, but just as soothing. When she loosens, yielding to me, it feels like I stole the moon from the sky.
I need to have her, need to—
Shit.
I need to stop.
We’re giving off enough pheromones to fry a chicken. The Redfangs will be able to scent us from fucking Jupiter.
“We have to run.” I tug her again.
This time, we both stumble, barely keeping our feet as we head up the basement steps. Footsteps rustle the grass.
I don’t look, just shoot.
A strangled, gurgling yelp says I hit flesh.
“Both targets, back side of the house!” a voice shouts.
Wobbling like I’m drunk, I take aim, but a third guy jumps me. He knocks Lilah down the steps, grabbing for my gun. I squeeze the trigger, but he wrenches my shot into the trees and snags the gun out of my sweating hands with a grip like a coked-up lumberjack.
He wrestles me to the top step, and I fight, fuck, do I fight with everything I have, but I may as well be roofied. Three, maybe four breaths, and the asshole has me pinned to the grass, thick thighs straddling my waist.
Thank fuck I can’t see the lust on his face, but I can feel his hot cock digging into my back. His sappy pine scent rises as he breathes me in, and his deep rumbling growl hits like sandpaper. “This one’s going into heat.”
“Her too,” says the goon dragging Lilah up the steps.
Frantic, I find Lilah’s eyes.
She looks drugged out, pupils blown, face flushed. It’s like looking in a mirror, both of us trapped in the same nightmare, our bodies dancing the same dance of despair.
After all these months, my heat has to show up now?
The guy’s weight teases my hormone-wrecked body. It craves any stimulation that’ll get me off. Anything that’ll loosen the pinch of these basketball-sized need-to-be-fucked blue balls, and hit that perfect spot inside me, hard and deep.
Disgust keeps me from rolling onto my back and whining for it.
Where the hell are my alphas?
I know they’ll be here soon, riding in to save my useless ass, but they need to be here five minutes ago.
“I have to taste her,” rumbles the sick fuck pinning Lilah.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I growl, the sound high and aggressive.
“Be quiet and we’ll make it good for you, Omega.” The guy grips my neck, mashing my face into the dirt. Shame burns through me as I taste soil between gritted teeth.
When I buck, he growls like he’s enjoying it, grinding his filthy cock against my ass. “Shit yeah, I’ll rut you so hard.”
Disgust rises up my throat. Or maybe vomit.
Lilah screeches. “Fucking! Asshole!”
Flailing with as little success as me, she looks ready to bite his dick off when her guy yanks her to her feet.
A red snake scale tattoo rings the wrists I’m going to snap when I break free.
The men around us still, their attention snapping to the soft footsteps approaching through the grass.
A pair of loafers stop in the dirt in front of me. Just the fucker’s stance drips dominance, and I catch a whiff of strong, bitter-ass coffee.
“Get the girl to her auction. Check her in on time and then you can do what you want. Hell, she’ll sell for more if you stretch her out and send her onstage dripping.”
A feral growl rips up my throat.
I buck, almost tossing the guy pinning me down.
The coffee-smelling fuck drills a foot between my shoulder blades, crushing the air from my lungs.
“Dominik can’t wait to see you again, Omega. And you’re in heat for him.” He shifts his weight, pushing the guy on top of me out of the way so he can sink his foot into my ass. “Can’t wait to bury my knot in this sweet hole after he rips out your mating bites and splits you in half on his cock.”
“No!” Lilah screams.
Two guys drag her away.
“Tie him up, get him in the car.”
Fuck no.
I’m not being dragged off for torture. Not leaving Lilah to be auctioned.
The second the weight lifts off my hips, I launch myself at the leader, kneeing him right in the fucking knot. He topples with a groan.
I lunge for Lilah, but arms grab me on both sides.
“Sedate him,” snarls coffee loafers on hands and knees.
I kick, throw my shoulders, but I can’t shake the two, then three, then four guys holding me from breaking free while Lilah’s hauled away.
“Orion!”
Her call breaks me.
Because I can’t protect her.
My impossible, beautiful miracle of a mate.
I can’t even protect myself.
There’s a pinch in my arm, and something cold and chemical takes over my veins.
Thirty-Six
LILAH
I know I’m about to die. Not fast, either. When we pass Craig, staring up at the sky through the bloody, ragged hole where his eyes used to be, I’m jealous he got out the easy way.
These bastards will rip me apart.
Unless I rip them apart first.
Two of them toss me in the back of their car. I hit the seat with an oof, face smashing into the leather. The one who pinned me makes a low, throaty growl. “Fuck, I need to taste her.”
He tugs at my pants.
I kick out in panic.
Sweat soaks every layer I’m wearing, and even though my stomach cramps like the period from hell, I’d rather masturbate with a rusty trowel than touch his dirty dick.
“Back off.” The second guy pulls him away. “We can’t take her ‘til we get to the auction. Then we can go ape-shit.”
“Shit, fine.” He throws off the guy’s arm.
They jump in the front, and the driver guns the engine because he’s not wasting a breath between now and when he gets to mount me.
Shuddering, I roll onto my side.
Orion’s out there alone, maybe off to a worse fate than I am.
Focus.
Save myself first, then I can worry about him.
I take a deep breath, as deep as I can while my body steams like a sauna.
I’ve been fighting every day of my life.
Now I’m fighting legit thugs instead of hormonal teen omegas, but even though this heat is wrecking me, making me want to curl up like a cooked shrimp, I have a powerful new weapon.
My perfume.
These balls-for-brains were so busy sniffing, they didn’t bother patting me down. Or maybe they just assumed a tiny, heat-drunk omega wouldn’t be carrying.
Either way. I lost Finn’s knife in Craig’s ribs, but I still have my trusty toothbrush shiv tucked in my panties.
The driver turns off the Wyverns’ long driveway, onto the country road that heads into the city and my personal future hell.
I can’t waste time hesitating.
I whimper, channeling every fucking drama class the OCC ever forced me to take.
Th
e guy in the passenger seat shifts to look. He swallows and stares like I’m already stripped, inviting him with spread legs.
I’m not taking this act that far, but his dumbass, puss-merized look is perfect. I whimper again, clasping my lower belly. “Hurts.”
“I’ll make you feel so good, Baby.” He reaches back, stroking down my hip with hot dog fingers, and I hope he reads my shudder as a needy shiver.
“Please, Alpha. It hurts so bad.” I spread my thighs and hide my disgust by biting my lower lip.
The second he catches the scent of my slick, his muscles cord, a vein popping in his neck.
His growl rips through the car.
“Rut, fuck, have to have her,” voice low and guttural, he unbuckles his seatbelt.
“Shit. Seriously?” The driver swerves as his buddy starts to climb into the backseat.
“Hurts,” I whine and sneak my bound hands toward the shiv. “Please, Alpha, please.”
Begging would hurt my pride if I had any.
All I have left are psycho hormones and the burning desire to stab this shithead through the eye socket.
He tries to wedge his linebacker shoulders between the seats, pinning himself like a beetle on a board. I lift onto my knees, lips parted like I’m going in for a kiss, and the idiot leans into me, leading with his fat, sloppy tongue.
I slip out the shiv, lift it high, and drive it into his throat.
Hot blood sprays my face.
He roars and gurgles, thrashing so hard he hits the driver.
The car swerves.
“Bitch!” the driver shouts. “You’re fucking dead.”
He brakes while his buddy drowns in his own blood. I’m shaking, sweating, but the only thing I’m upset about is the way the guy I just stabbed grips my shiv, blocking me from grabbing it back or jamming it in harder.
The car slows.
My panic rises. If he parks, I’m screwed. I can’t overpower him, and he won’t fall for the same trick.
As the dying man struggles, his jacket rucks up, flashing his gun. I pull it, flick the safety, and don’t let myself even think what I’m about to do.
I close my eyes, press the gun to the driver’s head, and—
Bang!
The driver slams the brake when the bullet goes through his skull. Momentum throws me against the seatback, and I fall to the floorboards stunned dizzy as the car rolls into a ditch.