by Aspen Grey
I followed his scent up the block. It was like torture, being reminded of what this psychopath had done—of what would have happened to my angels had I not been there to protect them. But it was a burden I was willing to bear for them and for all the other boys that might fall prey to him in the future.
I passed the usual pedestrians and a couple moving into one of the new condo buildings that had gone up this year, but I was in no mood to chat. I was on a mission. I kept moving until the trees of the park came into view. It wasn’t dangerous during the day, and of course as a cop I didn’t have to worry much, but I was a bit on edge as I stepped off the road and ducked beneath the cover of the trees. I wasn’t dealing with a rational person here. I was dealing with a killer. I had to be careful.
But as I stepped into the park, something happened that I could never have expected. The killer’s scent was there for sure, as it had been, but another scent slid into my nostrils, one that should not have been there.
Sasha’s scent.
No!
I spun around, my eyes searching the trees for him, but all I saw were trees, trash, a few blankets and a couple of homeless men lying in a spot of sun a few yards away. I looked around me, frantic, trying to figure out why Sasha’s scent would suddenly be here, and then I finally saw it.
A few feet ahead of me was a set of pawprints, ever so faint, pressed into the dirt beneath a tree. They were Sasha’s, the scent told me that, and I realized what was happening. Sasha had taken this route from my house to Jedrik’s when he ran off, and his feet had been bleeding from racing across miles of San Diego asphalt. He’d left his blood, and therefore his scent, here in the park.
“Phew,” I muttered, relaxing a little. But then a horrible thought entered my mind that was even worse.
If I picked up his scent and recognized it, then so would the killer!
I sniffed the air in a panic, trailing Sasha’s scent across the park, and what was worse, the killer’s scent was right with it.
No…I thought as my legs carried me forward, faster and faster as I chased the scents to the other side of the park, but when I came out the other side, I already knew where he was headed.
Home.
“Shit!” I shouted, barely able to resist the urge to shift and race back to my car. I couldn’t be seen like that in broad daylight, not around all these humans. I ran as fast as my man-legs could carry me and pulled out my phone as I raced towards my car.
“Pick up!” I shouted as the phone rang. “Pick up, damn it!”
I didn’t have either of their numbers, of course, and was calling the landline I had installed at the house when I moved in. Neither of them knew that it was downstairs by the stove, though, and if they were in the bedroom there was a real chance neither of them would hear it.
“Hey, you’ve reached Arnold Irons, please leave your name and a brief message…”
“Shit!” I hung up and raced up to my car and threw myself inside. I gunned the engine, burned rubber, threw my light on the roof of my car and turned it on. Technically it was a police emergency, and I had to get home as quickly as possible.
As I weaved through the North Park traffic, I picked up the phone and dialed again. It rang and rang and rang.
“Damn it, Sasha! Answer the phone!”
My tires squealed as I pulled onto the freeway and floored it towards home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sasha
“Do you hear something beeping?” Jace asked from beside me as we lay in Arnold’s bed in our post-orgasmic bliss, sharing a moment unlike any we’d ever shared together. I listened but didn’t hear anything.
“No? Are you going crazy on me?”
Jace shrugged. “I dunno, maybe. Crazy about you.”
“Corny!” I blurted out, laughing as Jace poked me in the side in the way that he knew made me tickle. I tried to wriggle away from him, but in the process, slid completely off the other side of the bed and tumbled onto the floor.
“Are you all right?” he cried out, standing up to look over at me.
I burst out laughing. “I’m fine. Don’t do that to me, jerk!”
Downstairs, I heard the front door burst open.
“Sasha! Jace!” Arnold called out.
“Up here!” I laughed. I heard his footsteps pounding the stairs as he ran, and as the door to the bedroom swung open, his scent washed over the room causing me to salivate.
“Hey, babe—,” Jace began to say.
“Oh, thank God,” Arnold blurted out, interrupting him. “You’re okay. I didn’t smell him when I got home, but I was still worried…”
“Smell him?” I asked, confused.
“Smell who, Arnold?” Jace asked, but then he realized. “Wait—the killer? Why would you smell the killer here?”
Arnold came over to me and lifted me to my feet and set me onto the bed beside Jace. He took both of our hands in his and held them tight like he was afraid we might just float away if he gave us the chance.
“What is it, Arnold?” I asked him. When he brought his eyes to mine, there was something in his eyes that he couldn’t hide—something that let me know that whatever had happened, it was somehow my fault. “Oh, no…what did I do?”
“It wasn’t your fault, Sasha,” he told me, but he was just being nice. It was my fault. “But the killer—he picked up your scent in the park when you ran over to Jedrik’s. And he’s tracking you.”
“Oh, God…” I moaned, dropping my head and placing a hand over my eyes.
You did it again, you idiot! This is what you do! You ruin everything! Everywhere you go, you make things worse!
“I’ll leave,” I told them. “Bring me a pheromone blocker and I’ll leave. I’ll go to Los Angeles or Tijuana. He won’t be able to track me there.”
“You will do nothing of the sort!” Jace scolded me, slapping me on the arm with his free hand.
“I have to!” I shouted. “You two are in danger if I’m here! I can’t be responsible for you two getting hurt.”
“You are not responsible,” Arnold told me, taking me by the chin and forcing my eyes to his. “He is responsible—the psychotic killer—not you!”
I knew that what he was saying made sense, but only on a purely rational level. It did nothing to assuage the guilt I felt in my chest. I’d brought Cash and his goons down on Jedrik and he’d barely survived it. Now I had led San Diego’s insane serial killer right back to the house I shared .
“It is my fault,” I protested. “If I’d never run off like the idiot I am—”
“Then he could have still found us,” Jace told me firmly. “He’s crazy and he’s got our scents. We’d have gone out in the city again, Sasha, and he could pick it up any time.”
“Yeah, but this time it was my fault…”
“Sasha, you need to stop this,” Arnold told me. “You can’t continue blaming yourself for the way the world is. It took me a long time to realize this too, but once I did, I was able to move on and be the man you see today.”
“You don’t know what this is like…” I protested.
“I do,” he said. I looked at him, trying not to degenerate into a blubbering, hysterical mess. “When I was seventeen, I lost both of my fathers in a home invasion.”
What?!
His confession shocked me. Jace and I were right—he was wounded too.
“Arnold, that’s terrible,” Jace whispered.
“It’s the reason I became a cop,” he said. “So I could stop men like the one that killed my fathers. I blamed myself for their deaths.”
“It couldn’t have been your fault,” Jace said. “You were just a kid.”
“Not in my mind,” he replied. “In my mind I was an adult. I was downstairs in the basement with my headphones on when they broke in. I heard the shots and by the time I realized what was happening and got upstairs, they were dead. I blamed myself for years. If only I hadn’t been pouting down there. If only I hadn’t had my headphones on. I could have done
something.”
“But you can’t plan for something like that,” I told him.
“Exactly!” he replied with a smile. “And you can’t plan for something like this. There’s a crazed killer on the loose and what he does has nothing to do with you. The world’s a shitty place sometimes, and you can’t go around blaming yourself for things that are completely out of your control. You made up with Jedrik and now you need to stop being hard on yourself for every little thing. You need to accept that there are some things you can’t change so you can move on.”
He was right, and his words began to sink in, but it was going to take some time for them to really penetrate. It would be a journey, but as I began to relax and looked around the room at the beautiful men beside me, I knew it was one I was now willing to take.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath and pushing away my tears. “So what do we do?”
“Right now? Nothing. You don’t have to do a thing. I’ll go back to work and hunt this bastard, bring him in and we’ll all be safe.”
His words were like a warm wind against the chill that had invaded my insides. I felt the ice that had formed around my heart start to melt as he looked at me with eyes that told me everything he said was true.
It isn’t your fault.
You’re not worthless.
You’re not terrible.
The killer is the psycho—not you!
“Sasha, Jace…” Arnold said slowly, as a new look came over his face. I instantly knew what it meant.
“Yes, Arnold?” Jace replied.
“What is it, babe?” I teased. Now that he was sure of our safety, Arnold was letting his guard down and listening to his other senses—specifically his sense of smell. He was smelling our heat.
“You—you’re both—”
“Yes, we are,” Jace replied. I simply nodded. In response, Arnold closed his eyes, tilted his head back and inhaled deeply, coating his lungs with the beautiful smell signaling we were ready to be bred, to bear his children and be bound to him forever.
Take us. Take us now!
“Fuck,” he growled, opening his eyes to look at us. His hand slid to his pants and unbuttoned them. I felt my mouth begin to water and looked over at Jace with excitement. Arnold moved closer. I felt the warmth of his body as he leaned in and whispered, “I hope you are ready for this.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jace
“Fuck, that’s so hot,” I groaned as I lay back on the bed and stroked my cock, watching Arnold and Sasha go at it beside me. Arnold was possessed by the scent of our heat. I knew what the smell could do to an alpha, so I could only imagine what the effect of two omegas in heat would have on him.
Arnold’s body flexed as he knelt by Sasha’s head as he lay on his back, completely naked, sucking on the enormous alpha cock presented to him. I knew why Arnold had positioned himself the way he had; it gave him immense control over Sasha’s mouth, but it also allowed me and him to stare at each other as he did so.
Our eyes were locked to one another as he held Sasha by the jaw and thrust his erection between his lips. Sasha was stroking his own cock, which stood up straight from his cute little tuft of public hair, glistening with precum that coated his hand.
“Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm,” Sasha groaned with each thrust. I envied him, being able to taste Arnold’s precum that was surely spilling out of him
“You like that?” he asked. His question was directed at Sasha, but I knew it was meant for both of us. I nodded and shifted closer to them on the bed, enveloping me more in their warmth and their scent.
The lights in the bedroom were dim and the daylight outside was beginning to fall. I felt like I’d wandered into a romantic movie or a romance novel. My senses were heightened, as though my mind wouldn’t allow me to be anything less than a hundred percent present in this moment, solidifying it in my memory forever—which is how it should be.
I was already on the edge and had to slow my strokes to keep myself from coming too soon. It wouldn’t surprise me if I was able to go for round two right away, but if I held out and came at the same time that Arnold came inside of me, it would be so much sweeter. I wanted that alpha cock—I wanted it desperately—but so did Sasha, and for now, I was content to watch.
“Baby,” Sasha moaned, pulling his mouth away from Arnold’s enormity. “Put it inside of me.”
“Yeah?” Arnold asked.
“Breed me, baby,” he said, almost pleading. “Breed me. Make me yours.”
“Put it in him, Arnold,” I said, piling on. “Put a cub in him.”
“Get me pregnant,” Sasha moaned. “Give me that alpha seed.”
“Fuck, yes,” Arnold growled, maneuvering around on the bed and grabbing Sasha’s legs. He pulled them apart easily and then bent them back over his shoulders, exposing his hole to him. From my perspective, I couldn’t see what was about to happen, so I got up onto my knees and made my way over to them, just as Arnold pressed his swollen tip against Sasha’s hole.
“Take it, baby,” I told him, running my hand across Sasha’s chest as Arnold pressed forward and slid inside.
“Ah!” Sasha gasped as Arnold penetrated him. He tried to arch his back up off the bed, but Arnold pressed down on his stomach with one hand.
“Hold him down,” he told me. Salivating all over myself, I pressed down on Sasha, keeping him at the perfect angle for Arnold, doing my job as a good omega, serving my alpha but pleasing both of my mates. “That’s it,” Arnold groaned as he began to fuck. “Thaaaaaat’s it.”
I watched in awe as Sasha took Arnold’s massive girth, his sweet, glistening hole expanding to allow all of him to enter. It didn’t seem possible, but I knew that my hole had looked the exact same way when I was taking him. Not only that, but I’d be in the same situation soon.
“You’re so big, baby,” Sasha cried out, clutching the bed sheets with both hands. “Knot in me! I want to feel it!”
Arnold leaned down and kissed Sasha, using his chest to pin his legs back against his shoulders. I was watching the whole time, and when all of Arnold’s length disappeared into Sasha, I got so close to coming that I had to completely let go of my cock.
I began kissing Sasha’s ankle, then worked my way to his knee and thigh, then up Arnold’s strong arm to his shoulder and finally to his chiseled jaw and lips. But Arnold was so into fucking Sasha that he didn’t even turn to kiss me—and in a way—that was so hot.
He’s focused, I thought. And soon, he’ll be focused on me.
I licked at his lips like I was hungry for food.
Hungry for something else.
Arnold’s muscles were unbelievable and I marveled at his strength and ran my hand down his back, feeling all the hard lines and taut bulges of his body. He was beginning to sweat, drenching the room in his scent, overpowering every other smell. My fingers reached his lower back and I looked down at his ass, strong glutes like an athlete, as they flexed and contracted with each stroke.
Then, Sasha cried out.
“Fuck! I feel it!”
I looked to him and saw his eyes go wide and knew it had happened.
The knot.
Arnold let out a deep rumbling growl and leaned in and kissed Sasha’s neck, changing his stroke slightly into more of a grind than a thrust.
“You feel it, baby?” I whispered as I leaned over to his ear. “Feel him knotting inside you?”
“It’s—it’s—it’s—”
He couldn’t even get the thought out, he was so taken by what was happening. Hell, I could barely even process what was happening.
“I’m going to give you my seed,” Arnold hissed.
“Give it to me!” Sasha moaned.
“Aaaah!” Arnold cried out. Every muscle in his body tightened as he came. He was like a God, an Adonis, a Greek marble statue come to life. I was so turned on, so jealous that Sasha was being filled up, but so fucking happy for him.
It’s my turn next!
“Breed me!” Sasha
cried out. “Breed me, baby!”
“Take it,” Arnold growled. “Take it!”
This is it, I thought as Arnold slumped down on Sasha, who wrapped his legs around his torso. They were both breathing heavily, but Sasha looked as though he’d just checked out of consciousness for a few minutes. He lay there still, reveling in what had just occurred, and I realized I was quivering with anticipation of what was about to happen to me.
After what felt like ages, but couldn’t have even been longer than a minute, Arnold managed to slide out of Sasha, his knot having subsided. But his erection was still there, triumphant and gleaming with slick and cum, and as Arnold turned to me, I felt my heart start to race.
And as if he was reading my mind, he smiled and said, “Your turn.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Arnold
That orgasm almost killed me, I thought as I stared at Jace, whose eyes were pleading with me to do what I’d just done to Sasha to him. I was beyond turned on. I’d entered a realm that was nothing but pure alpha, my nature taking me over, the urge to breed the only thing on my mind as the heat scents of my mates wrapped me up in their spell.
I’d never felt such power over me until that moment when I’d come down from my panic about their safety and realized what had happened when I was gone.
The heat.
Its effect on me was undeniable. I’d traveled back in time to some primordial soup inside my brain whose only desire was to breed, breed, breed—bring children into this world and further my genetic line with the mates whose love would insure the survival of our family.
My cock was throbbing with the leftover sensations of my orgasm. Sasha was lying on the bed like he’d passed out, but I knew he was just floating through the sky of bliss like a puffy white cloud. He was spent. It was my time with Jace now.