If his tone was bad, the script was worse. Graham stood there right beside him as Jenard went on. How was he listening to this?
"Never fear. Roll Over is here! Our therapy centers offer a variety of resolutions for even the most angered omega," Jenard said. "Click here for more information."
A giant blue button appeared exactly where Jenard's dick would have been. I swore that he was thrusting at the camera, albeit slightly. I supposed he had to have plausible deniability. My finger hovered over the button. Something told me not to do it. If I let it go, I wouldn't have to get upset if it was as bad as it sounded. Nothing with Jenard was going to be satisfactory, but Graham wouldn't let anything that bad into the world. Would he?
I wiped a smudge from the screen, took a deep breath, and smashed my finger onto that little blue button as hard as I could.
The twirling buffering symbol lasted for thirty-two minutes. In that time, I washed the twenty-some-odd baby bottles that had come in the day before yesterday. I still had time, but I wanted everything to be perfect for the pups.
I came back just in time for Jenard to dance across my screen.
"Omegas are a fiery lot. With all their hormones, they should be! The hotter the omega, the better it breeds. We've all heard that saying," Jenard said. "But why deal with their lip when you can send them over to us? A quick round at any therapy center will have your omega submitting and bringing you your slippers like a good dog."
The camera turned to a screen. Jenard used a pointer to explain each part of the restraint table. He went over electro-therapy, hydrotherapy, compliance beatings--the list went on and on. It was nothing I hadn't seen at Talewah, though my husband's company representing it made me sick.
Then Jenard spun the camera back around to himself, beaming.
"And if that doesn't work? There's always lobotomy. It's the last hope, but even a lobotomized omega can breed. If your omega is attacking his pups or keeps running off, and our therapy doesn't stop him? We'll lobotomize him for free. It's a safe, easy procedure that--"
The rest of his words were cut off by the roaring in my ears.
At my request, Graham had finally purchased me a cell phone two weeks ago. I grabbed it, then hesitated. It was possible that Graham hadn't seen this new commercial. It would fall in line with trusting Jenard--and this was clearly a Jenard-sponsored program. I'd known that our pack alpha was at the top of the therapy side of Roll Over, but I'd never considered that he would do something so awful. How could he look his own omegas in the eye while he supported, downright encouraged, medical intervention like this if they mouthed off?
And if Graham did support it, where did that leave me? What about our sons? Would this extend to pups, or only mated omegas? God, what if people started doing it to their kids before they even left for camp? I almost preferred the idea of mass cullings, like the pack masters used to do so many generations ago.
No. No, Graham would never. I licked my lips, slid the open bar on my phone and hunted for his contact information. He'd programmed it himself, just in case I ever needed to call him. I poked his face and waited.
The endless ringtone was my own personal hell.
I looked at the clock. It was just past noon, which meant that Graham was almost certainly at his desk, munching down the curry I'd made him that day. I'd been up all morning perfecting the recipe, and he couldn't be bothered to answer his phone?
Settle down, Parker, I told myself. Maybe he was in the bathroom. Or maybe an emergency meeting had been called for some reason.
There was no way I was going to walk into Roll Over with this commercial playing all over the world. Bile rose in my throat at the idea that I'd ever tried to support my husband's awful company. How could I have been so blind? I was the token omega, encouraging everyone else to go along with whatever Roll Over said just by being there. I'd been a representative of my kind, my alignment, and I'd failed them spectacularly. Who knew how many omegas I'd just sentenced to what I'd just seen?
I tried Graham again and again. On the ninth call, I put my phone down and walked into the kitchen. My perfect, sparkling kitchen, with all those baby bottles lined up in the dish drainer. I stood where society said I belonged, barefoot and pregnant. Dinner awaited my careful hand, the meat already minced in the refrigerator. Our place shone with my careful cleaning, all for Graham and me to enjoy. And soon? Our pups would be crawling around on the floor, whining for their bottle or a toy. They'd be asking to be picked up, held, cradled. We'd tell them stories and tuck them safely into bed.
Then we'd ram a needle through their brain and scramble it up, like eggs, so they never told their alpha where to go get fucked.
Livid, I smashed the bottles aside. They shattered against the ground, glass spraying across the kitchen. I punched the fridge, stalked back into the living room and yanked my phone from the table. I lifted my hand to hurl it into a wooden corner. I would join Kyle or Rise, push for the defense of omegas in today's society and ruin Roll Over if it was the last thing I did. I didn't need a lying, cheating alpha in my life who did anything he could to demean my position further. As I flung my hand at the table, I realized that I needed a ride and fumbled all over the place to save my poor phone.
But who would take me in? I didn't have a job, a degree, money--sure, I had access to Graham's accounts, but that would all change when I left him. I could pawn the phone after I got somewhere safe, but that was only a temporary option.
Family didn't mean much in a world where you were stripped of it because of your alignment, but my brother was an outlier. He was Rise's secret companion within Roll Over. Maybe there was more than one out there. Hadn't I been some small part of Roll Over? That was over, but my brother would help me. I was certain of it. The problem was, I didn't have his contact information in my phone.
I sat down on the couch and started to browse. PACK made it easy enough to hunt him down. "Call me now!" got the same experience that all the other buttons had received recently.
"Scott Riggs," he answered.
"Scott, please," I said, too tired and too upset. "Can you come get me? Can I stay with you for a while?"
There was no response for a long enough time that I thought he'd hung up. I heard a door open, close, then lock.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "Did he hurt you?"
"He broke my heart. Did you see that commercial about the lobotomies?" I whispered.
"It came out yesterday. Rise is trying to get it pulled. Graham doesn't seem to know anything about it--or he's playing it stupid. I don't know which. We've been pounded all day in the call center. Even the moderate alphas think it's too far," Scott said.
A touch of coolness trickled down from my temples, along my neck. Relief didn't wash over me so much as it dripped, but it was a welcome sensation. The Graham I knew and loved could have never hidden his involvement with something like this. He would have bragged to the world about it, if it'd been his.
That left Jenard.
I rubbed my forehead with my hand. "I just need to get away while I sort this out. If Graham signed off on it, I don't know if I can do it, Scott. I don't know if I can stay."
"I'll be by in twenty minutes. Can you be ready to go by then?"
I looked around our house--our home. Every instinct told me to go hide under the bed and wait for my alpha to explain himself. He'd ask forgiveness and I'd give it, then that would be the end of it. Life would have been so much simpler if I just decided to go with the flow.
I could still make that choice.
I could roll over.
"I'll be ready when you get here," I told Scott, then hung up.
Resolute, I put my phone in my pocket and went into our bedroom, one last time, to pack my things.
15
Graham
I had no idea what I let loose when I told Jenard to make the commercial his own. Now? Now, I was rolling in my own sweet section of hell. Between Samantha interrupting my attempts to quell the issue with another 'cal
l on line eight' and the mounting screaming from the street, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Who the hell had given him the idea of lobotomizing innocent omegas? The first commercial had aired last night and I'd arrived to hundreds, thousands, of people ready to smash my car windows and tear me apart. Until I watched the damned thing, I thought Jenard had just been a little over the top. What he was suggesting was practically enslavement. I would not have my company drawn into that kind of horror.
The idea of an omega that required that kind of heavy handling was bad enough. I couldn't imagine the sorrow that an alpha would suffer through to lose his whole family and then his mate. We lived in a civilized world. If anyone was caught hurting children or, worse, killing someone, they were sent to the authorities. They didn't come to Roll Over for some cockamamy treatment!
"Has anyone found Jenard yet?" I buzzed Samantha on my intercom.
"It looks like he's still on the run, sir," she answered.
God damn it. I growled to myself as my phone lit up. I didn't have time to talk to every media jackass who wanted to flay me live, on their channel. I needed to find my pack alpha and settle this. By the end of the day, I'd have an apology or we'd have someone new in charge. He'd used me to further his own stupid ideal, and who knew what he was doing to his omegas behind closed doors. Was the man more monster than wolf?
OPS, the Omega Protection Society, had already been called into his house. I didn't know the status of that, yet, but they would do what they could to take care of his children and his mates. I'd done it personally.
If you'd told me, two years ago, that I'd call OPS on Jenard, I'd have told you you were a madman.
It was a struggle to keep myself from stomping through the hallways, screaming his name and raking the walls. There was no excuse for what he'd done. Instead, I busied myself with pulling the commercial and making statements.
A dozen or so alphas wrangled Jenard into my office. I rose from my seat, eyes intent on my vice president. He bucked against them, but their sheer mass was too much for him to bear.
"What the fuck did you do?" I asked him. The room fell silent.
"What was right," Jenard said from beneath the pile of men.
Heat boiled in my chest. I slammed a hand down on my desk, my phone and lunch falling to the ground.
"You're inciting a riot, encouraging the abuse of omegas, and trying to pull me down into this shitfest with you," I snarled. "I won't be made a puppet by you. You're fired."
His face turned ugly. "You can't fire me. I own you! I own this!"
"Pay him what his shares are worth and throw him to Rise," I snapped, then threw myself back down to my office chair. "It's damned well in my authority to fire whoever I please."
"You think I'll take that laying down from you?" Jenard snarled.
Then he surged forward, slid through his captors' grasp, and jumped my desk in a single bound.
He landed on my chest, a large tawny wolf that was all fur and fangs. If he'd hit me as a human, we'd have ended up out the window. My blood stained his fur in seconds, though I wasn't quite sure what he'd savaged. Everything hurt so much more than I thought it would. My essence begged me to submit to his wilder, stronger force.
But what if he hurt Parker?
The thought alone was enough. I shifted, my clothing a ruin, and was immediately bowled over by Jenard's heavier mass. I was still young, as alphas went. Jenard was heavier, faster, more experienced. This was suicide.
It was worth it. What kind of alpha was I, if I didn't protect my omega?
Jenard never let up. As he crunched down on my snout, I managed to get a paw under his jaw. I struck for all I was worth and, by some miracle, it worked. He broke away, coughing as crimson trickled to my carpet from his teeth.
I pitched myself to all fours, lips drawn and hackles up. I was cut to ribbons, but the adrenaline pulsing through my veins helped me ignore that. I walked in a half circle, turning Jenard.
As he pounced, I dropped. Jenard sailed over my head and went into the plate glass window.
It shattered in an instant and I watched as my pack alpha's surprised face toppled out of sight. When I looked back at the alphas of my pack, they were on their knees. Their throats were bare.
And I collapsed in a heap.
I awoke some time later lying on my office floor, a doctor carefully stitching what would take a while to heal and medicating what had almost fixed itself. I felt as though I'd been beaten by a hammer, or hit by a car. There was a power, a certain something that I couldn't place. Was this what it felt like to be a pack alpha?
I was probably the youngest in a century. And Jenard? God, what I'd done to Jenard...
How many children had I just made alpha-less?
"Easy," said Samantha. "You'll be alright. You've been out for a couple of hours and I've been fielding calls for you, sir."
I closed my eyes. Samantha was one of our greatest assets. I really had to remember to pay her more.
The doctor left without so much as a word. Slowly, painfully, I shifted back to my human self. Samantha supplied an extra set of clothing, ones from the house.
"Does Parker know?" I asked.
"Parker wasn't there, sir."
Parker wasn't what? Clothed, I growled as I leaned over to grab my phone. There wasn't a Rise meeting, I was nearly sure of it. Hell, all of them were outside.
There were twenty missed calls.
Adrenaline started to make a resurgence in my body. It made my head ache.
"Jenard's dead?" I asked.
"They didn't find him, sir. That doesn't mean Rise didn't carry him off," Samantha said.
If Jenard had my mate, who knew what he would do to him. Parker didn't know what had occurred. He'd trust the man he thought was his pack alpha.
The race home was a blur. It's most likely that I did it on auto-pilot, but I was in my office building one moment and walking in my door the next. The broken glass everywhere set a fist clenching my heart. I ran into the bedroom to find a mess of clothing and tipped over furniture. This couldn't be happening. This was supposed to be out of bounds. A pregnant omega was sacred.
My mate had been taken by a vengeful former pack alpha. And I had no idea where either of them was.
But I did.
Parker didn't know that his phone had GPS services enabled. He wouldn't have liked the precedent it set. I didn't care. He was carrying our children and I wanted to make sure I could find him if Rise had decided to try something shady. Too bad I'd been so blind as to not realize who was really trying to play the underhanded game.
I grabbed my laptop, flipped it open, and signed into the app in a matter of seconds. Parker's phone sat at 119th street and South Central, a perfectly posh side of town that was pretty liberal-minded about lone omegas. I frowned. Why would Jenard take him somewhere like that? Unless he planned to push him off a building, or something, to make an example of him?
The rest of the map loaded. My mate was at a bar. You didn't take your captor to get drinks, not that any bar would serve a visibly pregnant omega anyway. Something else was going on, but I was lost as to what it was. I took a quick picture of the address and headed out.
I followed my mate to a place called BARley. I rolled my eyes at the sign and pushed open the door. It gave a cheerful chime and I shot it a glare. The whole interior was incredibly bright and active.
And there, on a stood, sat my mate. He had a Shirley Temple in front of him, complete with a cherry and a serving of whipped cream. From the look of it, he hadn't touched it or the steak sandwich in front of him. There were tear stains on his cheeks.
"Parker?"
His head snapped up and his eyes narrowed the second he saw me. Lost as to what had him in such a bad mood, I walked over to sit beside him.
He took his drink and moved three spaces down. I followed him, and he repeated the same movement.
"Parker, what the hell?"
"You. You and your fucking company,
" he said, his voice full of venom.
"What?"
"Did you think I wouldn't find out about that commercial?" Parker asked. "Did you think you could just hide it from me? Why not ask the bartender for an ice pick, since I'm being so bad? I left the house by myself. Naughty omega. Shameful omega. Better ram a rod into my brain."
I gaped at him, useless. I should have expected it. I should have known that stupid commercial would be broadcast all over before I had a chance to stop this from happening.
"Park--"
"Don't. Just don't. You can't sweet talk your way out of this, Graham. You knew that was so far beyond... so wrong. So fucked up," Parker said. His hands were so tight around his drink that I worried the glass might break. I tried to take it from him.
"You want it?" he snarled. "You can fucking have it."
And the next thing I knew, my world was obscured by a fluffy white foam. I smelled like cherries. Never in my life had anyone thrown a drink in my face. I swiped my hand across my eyes to see Parker stomping for the door. I hurried after him.
"Parker!"
"Fuck you!"
"Parker!"
He ripped the door open and slammed it in my face. I slid in the sugary mess he'd sloshed everywhere and grabbed the door handle in time to see him jump into Scott's car. Together, the two peeled out of the area. And I was left in BARley, deaf to the laughter around me. For all the world to see, there stood Roll Over's CEO covered in his omega mate's drink.
I didn't have to look around to know that people were filming my misery. The fad had started ages ago and, like all good things, everyone loved to watch someone sadder and suffering more than they were. Catharsis hadn't left us when the humans had.
My mate was gone. I knew where Scott lived, but did I dare intrude to retrieve Parker and try to explain all of this to him?
I rested my fingertips on the edge of the door handle, caught between two angry sides of an internal debate. Parker owed me the time of day to tell him what had really happened.
Furbitten Falls Alpha's: A Wolf Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 45