by L. V. Lane
He pulled out and turned me onto my back where he splayed a big hand over my stomach. His fingers were gentle as he played, but his emotions were intense and dark. Scooping up the escaping slick and cum, he forced it back in. “Naughty girl. I’m going to have to fill you up again now.”
I could not take anymore, and was relieved when he lay beside me and drew me over his big, warm body where I could press my lips to his chest.
He shifted, jostling me, and I felt the blunt tip of his cock nudging at the entrance to my pussy. I whined when the swelling breached my slippery entrance, but once that was done, it nestled inside perfectly, and I let out a contented sigh.
“There, that’s better. Stuffed full of cock and knotted.” He offered the gentle rumble that soothed me, and I rubbed my cheek against his chest. “You’re going to have a rest now while my cock is inside you. Your pussy is going to tighten up again the moment I take my dick out, and I want to enjoy the feeling of you all soft and open for a little while longer.” He stroked a hand over my hair, my shoulders, following the curve of my back before covering my ass.
“You’re going to start on your nest later. And I’m going to fuck you in it once it’s done.”
I was tired and sore, but the inner fullness brought a sense of completion, and I rubbed my face against his chest where the vibrations were strongest and sank into a contented sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
I HAD VISITED the corner office belonging to Tsing on several occasions since my arrival in Chimera. I had seen Lilly’s expression turn guarded whenever we came here, and I knew it had once been hers.
Ethan thought Tsing was behind her disappearance. I was sitting on the fence. I didn’t want to believe she had left, but it was the most obvious explanation. If Tsing was involved, I was confident Ethan would terrify the fucker into confessing within minutes. Tsing would be uncooperative whether he was involved or not; he probably expected Ethan to behave himself because of where we were.
Ethan wouldn’t behave himself, but if he did, I was ready to step in and strangle Tsing a bit until he spilled everything he knew.
The door to Tsing’s inner office was closed, but his assistant was sitting at his arty, all-glass desk in the windowless reception room. There were several pieces of bold artwork on the walls that looked like someone had eaten too much artificially colored food and then thrown it back up.
Art was a bit of an enigma.
The assistant sent us a haughty glare like we were the deviants here. Seriously, he sat in a room with artistic vomit hanging on the walls, and he was giving us his Theta death-glare—go figure.
“I need to talk to Tsing,” Ethan said without a hint of polite preamble.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Tsing is not available today. I could make you an appointment at the end of the week,” he said, consulting his console. “How does—”
“Today and right now,” Ethan said, cutting him off.
Yeah, Tsing was about to get a beating. I hoped he had someone in there with him when we barged in—this was going to be fun!
The pinched expression on the assistant’s face was all too reminiscent of Tsing at his worst…definitely another Theta with a superiority complex. “That isn’t possible. As I was explaining,” he continued, voice clipped. “Doctor Tsing is away on business. He won’t be back until the end of the week.”
“Like fuck, he is,” I growled. Ethan put his hand on my shoulder, and our eyes met. I shrugged. Fine, I was only going to beat him about the head with the nearest example of artistic-regurgitation until he told us what the fuck was going on.
When I turned back, the Theta assistant wasn’t looking as smug…which wasn’t a bad thing.
“He had an appointment with Doctor Brach this morning,” I said. “How did that go?”
No need to disclose that she was missing. If she wasn’t found swiftly, we would need to get creative to cover it up—if we covered it up. And not covering it up would lead to her father finding out, and Ethan was right, better to avoid that minefield.
He shook his head and indicated his console. “Doctor Tsing hasn’t been in his office today, and his schedule is clear. This trip was planned several weeks ago.”
Trip?
“I see,” Ethan said. I was impressed with Ethan’s lack of reaction—I was ready to grab the little shit by the throat and shake him. “I’ll be in touch about the appointment.”
Ethan nudged his head toward the door, and we left the room.
“He’s lying,” I said the moment the door closed.
Ethan nodded. “Yes, I thought so too. But about what? Tsing’s whereabouts, the appointment, or both?”
By unspoken agreement, we headed back down the corridor and came to a collective halt outside Lilly’s office. Had she waited this morning, she would be in here with us, where she belonged. I didn’t like the feeling I was experiencing one fucking bit. If we didn’t find her soon, I would go on a fucking rampage.
“Can I trust you to talk to Merry?” Ethan asked.
“Yes,” I said, feeling deeply insulted that he had to ask. “But that’s going to take me all of five minutes. Where are you going?”
“You’re better at faking pleasant than me,” he said, lips forming a flat line like he wasn’t happy about making this admission.
I grinned. “I knew you would warm to me eventually. I can be very fucking charming when I need to be. Ask my therapist!”
“Don’t fucking go there,” he muttered and pushed open the door.
When we entered Lilly’s office, we found Merry in her usual place at her desk, bright pink hair, and a dazzling smile on her face. I liked Merry. It was hard not to like someone who was that level of happy all the time…and she had done her best for Lilly over the years, so that sealed the deal.
When Ethan closed the door on us, her smile faltered, and she muttered, “Where’s Lilly?”
“A good question,” I said. “Gone. This morning.” I pinned her with a look. “You know anything about that?”
She shook her head quickly, and her big blue eyes widened as they darted between me and Ethan. “No…What do you mean gone?”
“What do you think I mean, Merry?”
Ethan took up a casual yet looming stance by the door—making good on his promise to let me run this one.
Merry shook her head again, and this time, I thought she might be about to cry. “Please stop, you’re frightening me.”
“Good, you should be fucking frightened. Lilly left the apartment this morning. Left a note to say she was meeting Tsing. She didn’t meet Tsing. And her tracker has been disabled.” I stabbed my thumb over my shoulder at Sasquatch. “Ethan thinks she hasn’t run, but—”
Ethan gave a warning growl.
“She hasn’t,” Merry said with such conviction that I believed she wasn’t party to whatever had unfolded. Her eyes darted briefly toward Ethan, who had at least stopped his growling—we weren’t going to get anything out of the little Beta if he acted all menacing like that. “And she did have a meeting with Tsing this morning. It was on her calendar.” As she tapped her interactive console, she frowned. “It’s gone. It was there when I left yesterday, I’m sure of it. We even spoke about it during our lunch in the research center park.”
“She canceled the meeting last night,” I said. “According to Tsing’s Theta assistant.”
“That’s—I don’t know,” she said, tapping on her console furiously. “There is nothing here to suggest she canceled it.” Her face suddenly lost all color and in her rush to stand, her chair toppled over. “We need to tell her father! He instructed me to call immediately if anything should happen!”
“Sit the fuck down!” Ethan pointed at the chair.
So much for me handling this.
Visibly shaking, Merry righted the chair and sat.
“We don’t need to tell her father,” I said, shooting a glare at Ethan because he was coming on a bit fucking strong. “Telling her father will fuck this fucked-up si
tuation beyond all recognition.” If it were a simple choice of telling her father to keep her safe, even if it meant losing her, I would take it. But Ethan was right, telling her father would complicate the matter, and we couldn’t allow that until we knew more. This was going to need delicate handling. I wasn’t convinced I was the man for such a task, but it was time for me to raise my game. “Is it possible she ran?”
Ethan growled again—I ignored the fucker.
“No…No she didn’t run.”
I expelled a slow breath and rubbed the center of my chest. It felt like ants were nesting in there. I didn’t want to believe she had run, but it was the most obvious conclusion. Lilly was an independent woman, far more independent than any Omega had a right to be, and she was about to have that taken away. While I thought she was growing less hostile toward her life changes, I’d be as delusional as Ethan to presume it was all going to be happy from here on out. We had pushed her fucking hard last night. I had pushed her hard.
Maybe too hard?
No, I wasn’t buying that. Lilly had come apart, clinging to us like she was drowning, and we were her next breath of air. An Alpha instinctively knew what their Omega needed. My therapist had assured me that my unique personality wouldn’t prevent me from having a normal bond with an Omega. If anything, it would improve it because I wouldn’t let my emotions get in the way of giving them what they needed. “She never thought about running? Never discussed it with you?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and her delay was telling.
Her gaze skittered away. “No, she never mentioned it.”
“Yeah, but you knew she was thinking about it.”
Her head snapped up, and her eyes flashed with surprising vehemence for a Beta addressing two Alphas. “Of course she did. Before…You don’t know what it was like for her when she revealed. I never trusted Tsing with her. He has made her life a living hell over the last three years. She wouldn’t tell her father because she knew he would immediately take her off the program. All those forced flushings.” She shuddered. “Watching her rush for the bathroom after, so she could be sick where no one would see. But I saw—all of it.”
Okay, so none of this was quite what I was expecting, and now I wanted to hunt Tsing down and batter his head into the nearest wall.
Ethan had set to growling again, and I didn’t blame him.
“I was worried for her,” Merry continued eyeing Ethan. “And long before the incident with the drop door. She was caught square between the Tsing nightmare and a life with the kind of Alpha her father might choose. She’s not a pretentious woman, despite coming from privilege, and a life as someone’s bauble would have been a different kind of death. Then, yesterday, she told me that Tsing had said he was doing it to help her. That he was trying to find a way to manage the flush chemically so she would never be forced to find an Alpha. She lapped it up, wanted to believe the best in him. Although she likes to think herself different, she is still an Omega, and still far too trusting, especially of Tsing. He’s selfish. And if he was trying to help her, it would be so he could help himself in some way later on. She thinks he cares.” She rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know Tsing as well as you,” I said. “But I think the guy is a nut job with a mile-wide superiority complex. I wanted to snap his neck the first time I found him shoving tubes into her veins. Now I want to peel his fingernails off and stick needles into the bloody stumps before I get to the neck-snapping part.” I sucked a deep breath in and tried to bury the alluring fantasy of Tsing writhing in pain. “But we’ve got bigger problems to deal with. She’s gone. Left us a cute little note to say she was meeting Tsing and then nothing. No recordings. No tracker. We have literally nothing to go on. We went to see Tsing. He’s away on a business trip and won’t be back until the end of the week. His little Theta lapdog was certain Lilly canceled it.”
Her eyes flashed again. “He’s lying. Lilly was happy—the happiest I’ve seen her since the day she revealed. If she left you a note to say she was meeting Tsing, then I believe she met with Tsing—or went to…What are you going to do?”
“We,” I said. “What are we going to do.”
Her desk communicator suddenly buzzed, and she glanced at it with a frown.
“Who is it?” Ethan asked, his tone bristling with aggression.
“Eloise,” she said slowly. “It’s a message saying she has been trying to get hold of Lilly.”
I shared a look with Ethan; all Lilly’s communication was supposed to come direct to him. While it was the kind of dick move I’d come to expect from Ethan, he was a Controller, and we all went about it in different ways.
His face, though, said he hadn’t received any communication from Eloise. I nodded, my brain churning over a conversation I’d had with Merry back on the ship. Wasn’t Eloise connected to Lilly in some way?
“She can track Lilly?” Ethan asked, pushing away from the wall, and coming to join me.
Merry shook her head. “Not unless she’s here. But she was able to feel strong emotions over long distances on occasion—Tsing testing type of emotions.” Her blue eyes glistened, and the ants in the center of my chest ramped up their activity. “Eloise is on Ridous, and due to go into heat imminently. I know because Lilly was discussing it with her only a few days ago. It’s not unusual for them to talk…”
Ridous was three days away, and I wanted Lilly found today.
“How imminent is her heat?” Ethan asked.
“A day—two at the most,” Merry said. “Do you think she knows?”
“Only one way to find out—call her,” Ethan said. “Now.”
“And what if she has felt something?” Merry asked, lips trembling. “Lilly’s gone,” she said softly “What if Eloise senses her pain?”
The ants ceased their crawling, and I leveled Merry with my game face. “Then you’re going to lie like a pro,” I said. “She can’t help us. She’s too far away, about to go into heat. Telling her anything could be dangerous for her at such a time. I want to hear what she has to say first. Afterward, I’ll talk to Logan.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AFTER MY MELTDOWN in the tiny shower room, I picked myself up mentally and physically and returned to the bed. Here I sat, knees drawn to chest, determined to be ready for whatever would happen next. I was on a ship bound for Lyus, I was sure of this. Maybe they would leave me like this, unattended the whole journey?
Or maybe they wouldn’t.
I rubbed absently at my chest. Then I realized what I was doing…My head stilled as a cold flush swept the length of my spine.
I pressed my palm over the place where my heart beat as fresh tears trickled down my cheeks.
They are here, inside me.
Terror, joy, and confusion wrapped me up and then shook my world apart.
I contemplated that burgeoning connection, my many mistakes, and what would happen next.
My flush began.
Minutes ticked into hours, and soon hours began to blur.
I tried to stay awake. Tried valiantly. Was sure my fear, my flush, and the burgeoning hope would keep me alert. But monotony and time were not my friends.
I had fallen asleep. My mind shot from fuzzy ignorance to terrifying clarity in an instant, and my eyes popped open.
It was a white room. Not the strange featureless cot-room. And not my bedroom in the apartment, which was a subtle blend of white and palest gray. This was a stark clinical white. I had seen far too many such white rooms in my life.
I tried to lift my arm. And never had I experienced such terror as the realization that I could not.
I still wore my blue dress and was secured to a bed with black straps bound so tightly around my arms, legs, and torso that only my head could move.
The scent hit me before I could alight on the source. An Alpha…and female.
She was a tall, striking woman, with dark hair and brown eyes. I had always thought brown eyes to be warm, but hers were dead and cold.
“Awake,” she said. Like her eyes, there was no warmth, fake or otherwise, in her words. “Make a note,” she continued, and it took me a moment to realize that she was addressing a Beta on the opposite side of the room. “Fifty percent of the standard dose. We don’t need her unconscious for more than an hour.”
My body was suffused in a sickly web. It felt like ants were crawling under my skin, scratching like they were trying to rip their way out.
I hadn’t fallen asleep, I had been drugged.
“It will pass,” she said coldly, her focus once more on me. “The serum we use to clear the remnants of your flush has some unpleasant side effects.” She smiled. It was as unwelcoming as her voice and did nothing to soften her stony facade. “But it’s better than infecting an Alpha to see to you, hmm?”
Patting my arm, she smirked like she was privy to a private joke. I didn’t want her hands or anything associated with her touching me. She was right though, I’d take anything rather than suffer the unwelcome connection to an Alpha. The thought of someone else biting over the membrane—those places that belonged to Ethan and Ryker—made me want to empty my stomach.
And the connection; the muted thread of psychic awareness that now existed between the three of us? I didn’t understand what was happening, but my inner room was full, and there was no place for additional guests.
Tsing didn’t know about this potential side of the gift. I had told no one, and he had no reason to suspect. A connection had formed once before with a Beta—one of ten candidates. Ethan and Ryker had taken higher quantities of my blood over a shorter period—I had already seen the forest, and that represented the first shared dream. I had no way of knowing if the connection would happen for everyone or whether it required some other level of compatibility.
I had no desire to test the theory on anybody else.
“What will happen to me?”
I wished the question unsaid the moment it left my lips. My nightmares had plenty of material; no further input required.