Omega's Run

by A. J. Downey

“We’ll talk later,” she muttered and disappeared before I even had a chance to roll over. I stared at the stairs, and the empty space where she had been, then looked down at the offending erection that had sent her fleeing, red faced, from the room.

  “Well, what am I supposed to do about you?” I muttered. With no answer forthcoming, I finished wrapping the bandage, pulled the blankets back over me and tried to settle down to get some sleep.

  Chapter 14

  Ava

  I cleaned up a little downstairs and resigned myself to another night freezing my ass off on the couch. I flopped onto the leather and huddled, fully clothed, on my side beneath the thin throw blanket. With Remus at the height of his fever, I had piled the blankets on him so he could sweat the sickness out of his system. The generator would be shutting off shortly to conserve fuel, and James had never gotten to finish the cabin. The potbellied stove sat in the corner but the stovepipe hadn’t been hooked up to the outside to vent properly yet.

  I lay staring vacantly at the defunct stove, my cheeks stinging with the heat of my embarrassment. I couldn’t believe I’d felt him up like that. I sighed out and closed my eyes. I can’t even claim ‘mystery solved’ on what he was packing either. I’d seen for myself it was an impressive specimen of the male figure when Helen had him hooked up to that… that thing. My face flamed all over again, for a very different reason, as the white noise of the generator outside ceased.

  I lay, breathing even and slow, hoping I would fall asleep before the chill seeped in and overtook me, but fuck my luck, it wasn’t in the cards. I could feel the cold seeping in, and my mind wouldn’t shut off for shit. All I could keep thinking about now was Helen, and what fuckery Mathias had her up to.

  She’d never struck me as being, well, insane. I mean, she’d always been normal to me; to my team. I closed my eyes as if it would help banish the awful memory of the sheer glee on her face as she’d spun the dial on that switch and sent Remus shrieking. I’d seen a lot of shit. Put down a lot of animals in my time, in more than a few heinous ways, but I’d never seen anything like that and it was going to haunt me. I hugged myself and shivered for two fold reasons.

  “Ava!” Remus’ deep baritone called from upstairs.

  “What?”

  “Come up here,” he ordered.

  “Why?”

  “Just come up here.”

  “Why, so I can make an ass out of myself again, or just so you can rub it in?” I muttered quietly under my breath.

  “Wasn’t planning on bringing it up at all, actually, but now that you mention it…”

  I froze. I had muttered, below a fucking whisper, and there he was responding to what I’d said like I’d been speaking clear as day. I swallowed hard. The more time I’d spent with him, unconscious or no, the more… human, he seemed to me. It was becoming easier and easier to forget just what exactly he was.

  “Ava,”

  I cut him off, “What do you need?” I called out in a normal speaking voice.

  “Just come up here… please.”

  I wasn’t going to go, but the please caught me off guard and sort of suckered me into it. I sighed with mock harshness I didn’t really feel. I was honestly tired. I’d been up, pretty much watching him, trying to help him get through the blood poisoning I’d inflicted on him with that shot, nonstop. I hadn’t had more than a couple of hours of sleep at a time in days. It took a toll.

  I dragged myself to my feet and up the stairs, stopping at the top.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Can you come here? I think this bandage has come loose and I can’t quite get it.”

  “Really?” I asked plaintively in a sardonic tone of voice.

  He looked right back at me, dark eyes neutral, giving nothing away before finally rolling them. I relaxed, marginally, and stepped to the bed.

  He threw back the blankets and I reached out. Big mistake. I shouldn’t have let my fucking guard down. He snagged me by the arm, lightning fast, and before I knew what was happening I was airborne and falling, swallowed by his massive arms as he tucked my back against his chest, the blankets falling in a heap over the both of us.

  “What in the absolute fuck!?” I cried indignant.

  “I’m never going to be able to crash listening to you shiver all night. Now shut up and go to sleep.”

  I struggled but he held me fast and I really didn’t need to set him back on his healing time.

  “Shh, relax Babycakes, you’re safe. What’s more, despite what my cock says, I’m not going to hump your leg or anything.”

  I choked, incredulous and started laughing as the image overtook me. A deep resounding chuckle reverberated through my back and chest.

  I held still so I wouldn’t hurt myself, or him, and waited patiently for him to fall asleep so I could slip away.

  “It’s not going to happen. You being all tense like that only serves to put my baser instincts on edge. You might as well relax and soak up some heat. It’d be nice if you kicked off the boots though. They’re kind of digging into my shin the way I’ve got you.”

  “I always sleep in my boots,” I said, and immediately wished I could take it back.

  He stilled his slight shifting to get comfortable behind me and drew me back further into him. There went my hope that my dumb assed admission would get him to loosen up enough I could Houdini out of his grip. I know, I know. Wishful thinking with his speed and strength.

  “Why do you always sleep with your boots on, Ava?” he asked me.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” I snapped.

  “You opened the door, Babycakes. Excuse the fuck out of me for walking through it. Might be a boon knowing a thing or two about each other in the long run though, don’t you think?”

  I scoffed and he pressed his nose into the side of my neck and breathed deeply. I froze.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You smell good. Like jasmine and gun oil. It’s nice on you. Uniquely you.”

  I made an incredulous noise. Did he seriously just compliment me on my smell?

  “God, could this be anymore fucked up?” I uttered to myself.

  “Yep. You know, this is the first time I’ve even remotely had the upper hand in this little arrangement of ours. It’s kind of nice. Gotta take the perks when they show up. I am now a firm believer in you might not get a second chance. You gonna tell me about the boots or not?”

  I thrashed and he chuckled, I wasn’t going anywhere and he knew it. I felt a hot flood of tears, an incandescent rage at myself for allowing it to happen. For being caught. I mean, I was sure he wasn’t going to do anything per se, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t do helpless.

  “Hey, easy. Breathe, Ava. Deep breaths. Nothing’s going to happen here. I need the information you got and you need the information I got. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Why you being nice all of a sudden?” I demanded acidly.

  “I can taste the salt of your tears on the air. I can smell ‘em. You don’t cry. Something about this has set you off.”

  “Aren’t you just so fucking perceptive?”

  He snorted, “Wish I’d been a fuck of a lot more perceptive. I might still have a pack. I might still have my b–” he snarled and snapped his mouth shut, with a dull, audible click.

  “Can I ask you something?” after we were silent for a time.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Fine. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  He was silent for a time before grudgingly, “Deal.”

  “James and I came up in foster care until we were both eight and the crusade found us. Some of the foster parents… You kept your shoes on in case you had to bolt from a perv, okay?”

  “Ah, so that’s it,” he stated flatly. I frowned. I wanted to ask what the fuck he meant by that, but I was born at night. It didn’t mean I was born last night. Yeah, him holding me against my will, in a bed no less, echoed back to some really bad shit. My brother and I had been lucky t
hat they kept us together, but there was really only so much James and I could do both being fucking four, six and eight in the respective homes where we’d been saddled with pervy fuckin’ foster parents.

  “Ask your question, Ava.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  He was silent and his grip on me relaxed, but I knew better than to test my limits. He was fast, even laid up.

  “He was my twin. Of course, I miss him. I don’t miss the fucked up shit he’d get us into. Rom was like a fuckin’ mad bull in a China shop for the most part. He was real ‘Hulk smash!’ always doing shit without any forethought. Still, he was my brother, he was my twin, and when he died it’s like I lost the other half of me.”

  We lapsed into a weighted silence.

  “James was my twin,” I finally confessed.

  “You guys were twins?”

  “He was older by nine minutes, but yeah.”

  More silence, and finally, he sighed out.

  “Can we declare a truce?” he rumbled and I closed my eyes. It felt incredibly good to be warm again and my tiredness was breaking down my resolve to remain a bitch.

  “You going to let me go?” I asked.

  “Not tonight, Babycackes. It’s cold, you’re tired, and I really wouldn’t be able to sleep with you shivering.”

  I sighed, and grated, “Yeah, okay, sure. Truce.”

  “What was that?”

  “Don’t pretend like you didn’t fucking hear me when you fucking heard me whisper from an entire floor away, smart ass.”

  I could hear him smile, “Yeah, okay, fair enough. Truce tonight, but would you be willing to lose the boots if I solemnly pledge to defend your honor?”

  “Don’t push it.”

  He laughed, a booming shock of sound that suffused me with a different sort of warmth. I felt myself blush, was glad he couldn’t see it, and I sighed out, closing my eyes and bedding down.

  Probably only took a couple of minutes before I was out.

  Chapter 15

  Remus

  Someone was going to die and it bothered me that I felt that desire. Seriously. She was a Hunter. I’d been over this a dozen times already. Not getting attached to the woman that tried to kill you just seemed like a rational and level headed rule to live by to me. But the story she told; the fear that obviously still clung to her… If she was as over it as she wanted to think she was, then she wouldn’t still sleep in her boots.

  So it’d left a scar. An invisible one, to be sure. But indelibly, there was a scar that her experiences had left on her person. And just the fact that she was afraid, the fear residing inside a person I had seen to be fearless, had me wanting to tear somebody’s arm off so I could beat them to death with it.

  For all her talk about not trusting me and thinking of me and my kind as nothing but animals, she’d fallen asleep pretty damned quick. So did she suddenly decide she trusted me? Or was it that she did, and she was just in denial? I sighed and would have raked my hands back through my hair but I didn’t want to move for fear of waking her. Instead I tried to settle myself more comfortably on the bed and pulled her carefully until she was settled firmly against my chest and my arm was wrapped around her waist.

  As much as I hated to admit it, it felt nice holding her so close to me. I felt protective of her for reasons I still couldn’t wrap my brain around. Maybe because she’d taken care of me?

  “You know, it’s pretty much impossible for me to get any sleep at all with you doing that.” I blinked, staring at the wall on the other side of the room for a moment before it sank in that Ava had spoken. I hadn’t even noticed that she’d woken up. Or, had she ever truly been asleep?

  “I’m not doing anything but breathing,” I blurted out, slightly confused and more than a little offended as well. What, I couldn’t even go to sleep correctly to her?

  “Quit jabbing me,” she grumbled and shifted her weight on the bed, grinding her ass back against me and the raging hard on that I hadn’t even noticed, so distracted had I been with my thoughts. A low groan slipped from my throat before I was able to clamp down on it and I turned it into a low growl.

  “If you want me to quit jabbing you, then you need to quit rubbing that hot little ass of yours against my dick.”

  There was a moment of silence before she moved again; grinding herself back against me even harder and I could hear the grin in her voice when she spoke. “But it’s so much fun, seeing the cracks in that hard assed exterior of yours,” she whispered.

  My arm tightened around her waist and I purposely shifted forward, my dick sliding into the cleft of her cheeks, nothing but two thin layers of clothing between us, as far as I could tell. I couldn’t feel any sign that she was wearing any panties under her tactical pants but I resisted the urge to slide my hand to her hips to check. She could still decide to kill me for touching her; I was pretty sure I was fast enough to prevent any serious bodily harm, but she was smart and had gotten the drop on me before. Calculated and patient, I liked that about her. It was another thing that called to me on a more basic level.

  Whatever game she was playing, tease the wolf-kind, or something, I could play along until it looked like she was done. Besides, it wasn’t much of a hardship on my end. Murderous bitch she may be, but I had come to learn that Ava was a woman of integrity as well, and wouldn’t likely start something she wasn’t willing to finish. If she had just ignored my erection we both would’ve fallen asleep eventually and that would’ve been the end of it. Still, by acknowledging it, and even pressing herself against me... the implications spoke volumes.

  I held still. As still as if I were out hunting and the prey suddenly looked in my direction. I didn’t want to spook her, I didn’t want to derail the uneasy truce and trust that we had been building. Seriously, when did sex become so damned difficult? It used to be if you liked someone you made a pass at them and if they responded we moved on. Nowadays a woman could seem completely willing to jump into the sack with you then suddenly they’re turning around and accusing a man of rape.

  With a woman like Ava I was pretty sure more bullets or perhaps sharp objects would accompany any accusations of dissatisfaction over my behavior.

  “Seriously?” she muttered a minute later and turned onto her back so she could more easily look at me.

  “What?”

  “I’m laying here rubbing my ass against your dick and you’re not going to do anything?” she demanded. “I’m basically telling you to shove that pipe you call a cock inside me and you’re not picking up the clues?”

  When I didn’t say anything I could almost hear her roll her eyes, “I don’t understand how you ever manage to get laid. Seriously, I’m trying to make what is probably going to be a monumentally poor life decision here, now would you get on board? I thought you men were all about that.”

  “Hey, in my defense most of the women that I find myself in such close proximity to haven’t shot me,” I protested. “Excuse the fuck out of me for being a little leery.” I moved my hand to her hip and pulled. She moved easily, throwing her leg over my body and I rolled with her until a moment later she was straddling me as I lay flat on my back on the bed, the blankets shoved to the side as we moved. I could feel the heat between her legs hovering just above my straining cock even through our clothes.

  She paused with the hem of her shirt in her hands and looked down at me.

  “You understand this doesn’t mean that I like you or anything, right? I’m just tired of fighting the attraction and it’s been a minute since I’ve been laid. This is just convenience.”

  I gave her an incredulous look and almost laughed but I bit it back and simply drawled sarcastically, “Duh.”

  “You might be a long time enemy,” she pointed out. “But you’re hot, and I really need to blow off some steam.”

  “Understood,” I muttered impatiently, “Lose the clothes already.” She grinned and her hands came up, taking the shirt with them until she pulled it over her head and tossed the ga
rment aside. My hands slid up her body, silken skin beneath my fingers until I was able to cup her breasts in my hands. As big as my hands were, her tits were still big enough that they spilled out of my palms, nipples already hard and wanting so I pulled her down with one hand on the back of her neck and brought my mouth to her left nipple.

  A quiet sigh escaped her as my lips and tongue slid over her skin and I sucked at the hardened nub of flesh, tugging gently with my teeth causing her to jump slightly; a strained moan slipping from her mouth.

  “It’s been too damned long since someone did that,” she muttered as I shifted my attention to her other breast, kneading both carefully in my hands. “I’m not here for the foreplay, big boy,” she moaned a minute later and I couldn’t help but grin against the soft skin of her tits. Gun oil and jasmine swirled around me like a cloud and the scent of her just turned me on even more.

  “Well if you don’t want foreplay you’d better lose the pants, and that means you gotta lose the boots. You’re gonna have to be on top since my leg’s still fucked up.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she drawled as she got off me, sitting on the edge of the bed, she pulled off her boots and let them fall. She stood and unzipped her pants. “Just an excuse to make me do all the work.”

  She shimmied her way out of her pants in that way that only a woman can manage and kicked them aside, revealing that she hadn’t been wearing any panties underneath, just as I’d suspected. I used my good leg to push my hips off the bed and pulled my sweats down as best I could. The bloodlust of earlier switched to just plain lust as her pheromones perfumed the air along with the jasmine and gun oil I associated with her.

  She grabbed the waist of the sweats and pulled, helping me get them off and tossed them on the floor by the rest of her clothes.

  I have never felt more exposed in my life, save back in that crazy bitch’s lab of terror, as I did when Ava turned to look at me, her jade green eyes sweeping over the length of my body. I know I’m a decent looking guy and that’s without being vain or bragging. I’m aware that I don’t have much to worry about in regards to my appearance, but somehow, under her scrutiny, I felt as if I wasn’t measuring up somehow. It was a new sensation and wasn’t helped by her slow walk to the foot of the bed. Fuck, it was hot watching her. I was already hard to the point of pain, and now we could add throbbing to the mix.