“Get out here, you useless cunt!” He roars, battering at the door again. Fear tugs at me, pulling a high-pitched whining from my throat, echoing in the sterile cube whilst I curl around my cold, wet body in the corner. Jingling keys sound outside, and I bury my face into my knees, hoping that I won’t see the punishment coming at least. Tears bead on my lashes, bracing for the barrier between us to open, “Wait until I get in there,Omega. I’ll make you appreciate a good Beta cock in every hole, you—“
“Mister Russell, is there a problem?” I never thought I’d be so grateful to hear the queen bitch speak, but my shoulders slump ever so slightly as I hear the Alpha bark. The worst she would do is beat me again, and the pain doesn’t scare me so much. “I assume you are not going to disobey my orders? Or shoot my stock?”
Shoot? He has a gun?!
How stupid can I possibly be?I can’t escape this place; they’d shoot me as soon as I tried. I would have died tonight on the floor out there if Anna hadn’t rerouted my panicked run.
“Of course not,” Russell huffs outside the door, the keys quieting, “I just wanted to scare her.”Fucking lies. He would have shot me and enjoyed every second of it.
“She will be punished for the damage caused, don’t worry. Especially since I’ll need to arrange new security now,” Anna says, voice level, “You are warned that this one is feisty, but don’t worry, she’ll be out of our hair by next week.”
The little letterbox window slides open, and I watch her eyes appear through the gap, dragging over me. Narrowing her gaze, she slides it shut again, and I shake as I crawl closer to listen to them.
“What idiot is crazy enough to take her? She’ll have their throat out in their sleep if she isn’t chained up or locked away.” Russell is growling softly, and I hope like hell that his hand is even half the pain over my broken toes, and he is losing blood. I don’t think I did enough damage to lose the hand, but I keep everything crossed that a little nerve damage and loss of movement will pain him for the rest of his days.
Though his words make me think of Fury, the way his eyes widened as he smiled, and I scent-marked myself against him. Atlas and his cute blush and stormy eyes, and however manyother pack mates they have.Did they talk about me tonight when they went home?Have they passed my scent around and felt the pull of a scent match, or did they ignore the draw for the trouble they knew I’d come with?I hadn’t exactly made myself the easiest person to get along with in the bar. Part of me so desperately wants it, my Omega needs it, my wolf lives for a pack to run with during the moon, but I couldn’t stand to be a trophy as my mother had been. Watching her fall into line like a good little Omega, giving up everything she loved and worked for, to be at the beck and call of her Alpha and the pitter-patter of tiny feet.
My grandmother would be tossing in her grave at the sight.
She is where my wolf came from, and she had her pack at her feet, worshiping her, though only her and Grandaddy Ward were left when I came around, and my parents didn’t like me spending time with them at all. Scoffing quietly, I rub my arms and wonder if they wished they’d sent me to her when they could, and made me her problem. At least I might actually know what the hell being a shifter entails.
Anna’s sharp laugh from outside makes me flinch as she cackles, a wholly unpleasant sound that echoes in the long, sterile corridors, “Oh no, she’s going to the perfect home.” Straining to hear, I listen for the name of whoever seems to be perfect for me.Would Fury’s pack even afford the entry fee?She continues before I can let the thought break me apart even further, “I’m sure you’ve heard that Butcher’s latest Omega has gone missing. That's the third one this year, but he’s on the hunt for another, and he so does love them with a bit of fight. Made him a nice little deal to take her off our hands, paperwork all included, so it’s nice and legitimate looking for the upper management. All the regulars have been warned off bidding for her, so it’ll funnel her straight to him.”
Butcher. Vincent Butcher.The blood drains from my face, the shivering starting in earnest, though it’s nothing to do with the cold. This is a name that struck fear into Omegas in this awful place. He’s purchased countless numbers over the years, and three whilst I have been here, only to return a couple of months later claiming they’d gone‘missing.’Nobody here cared as long as he kept pouring funds into the system, and nobody ever heard from them again. And I am his next little victim.
Fury
Having the entire pack together is an odd feeling; it’s warm and cozy, and makes my Alpha purr deeply, but so few and far between for such busy men. Clay and Atlas manage the activity center that Clay built on the far edge of the property, and occasionally sub in as instructors, teaching kids how to axe-throw and climb. Teddy is out on the ranch as much as he can be, dealing with the small lot of chickens in the barn, and his horses now that the cattle are long gone. Luc and I both work pretty unsociable hours as a trauma surgeon and on-call farm vet, respectively, though he is away more than I am. Thanking my lucky stars that I haven’t opened my own surgery, I let the second vet on staff know I am taking leave. Kayle is even more of a workaholic than I am, and I’m glad for it on days like this. Alphas are entitled by law to one day a month to visit the Omega auctions, and whilst I find it distasteful, or downright fucked that we trade people off like this, I appreciate that it led us to our Omega. From what I’ve heard, most of the facilities are meant to be luxurious, focused entirely on Omega’s well-being and setting them up to meet good matches, but the way Skye had looked at the bar tells an entirely different story.
Storming into the kitchen, Lucas is on the phone, his face pressed in tight lines, and I know how furious he is after enough years together. Yikes to whoever is on the phone with him.
“I’d like to remind you that it is part of the law that Alphas are allowed one day off per month for this, and that I have not taken a holiday in nearly three years.” He's silent for a moment before he turns even more thunderous, amber eyes turning to molten gold as he spits, “I can go play princess elsewhere, Alan, and leave you so far up shits creek you’d have to use the paddles as crutches. If you object to my taking time off so badly, then I will be taking the entire week, and you can pull my sparkling record in your office next week. Goodbye.” Hanging up, his head drops back, teeth gritted hard enough that there’s a tendon twitching in his jaw. He’s lucky as hell that he’s such a good surgeon, and the last few years he’s put in stupid hours working himself to the bone, despite the hospital having plenty of staff in his department. They won’t let him go. Director Riven, who’s several levels above Lucas’ boss, is an old friend and a shifter too; he appreciates his staff too much to let them go over a single week.
“That went well?” I chirp, leaning against the cabinets with a chuckle. Allowing one little twitch of his lips, Luc brushes off his suit. The gray three-piece suits him, almost too well, setting off his dark skin against it. Shame he’s not on board with this whole Omega thing, because he’s going there looking like some sort of male model, and he’s going to blow her away.
“About as well as can be. Alan is difficult at the best of times. He’s insisting that the whole department will fracture and fall if I’m not in for a night.”
“So you… Decided to take a week instead?”
Lucas shrugs, and whilst he doesn't smile, there’s an edge of humor to the crinkle at the corner of his bright eyes, “I might even take two.”
Mumbling from the hall disrupts our conversation, and I slide the easy smile as Teddy walks in. He’s in a charcoal three-piece, several shades darker than Lucas’, with a pale pinstriperunning through it. He’s huffing as he breathes in, tugging at the waistcoat and the straining buttons from where he’s a little thicker around the midsection. Teddy’s always been‘work fit’for a Beta, as I’ve joked, he’s not ripped and cut like an Alpha would be, but he’s got the sort of build that comes from actual hard labor out on a farm most of his life, though it’s softened a lot since his accident; something else that he’s found insecurity in.
“I just won’t believe that I’ve put on this much weight since I wore it last… It’s only been a year or so.”
“Hey, come on,” I shoulder him gently, brushing a hand across my own burgundy two-piece, the white shirt silky beneath the jacket, and the collar falling open a couple of buttons. Grabbing what the pack has dubbed the‘villain cane,’I hand the mahogany stick over to my Beta. He polished the brass handle to a glittering finish, the wood shiny and lacquered. I half expected there to be a sword inside it. “Besides, you lost a whole leg, that weight's gotta go somewhere.”
Usually, Teddy loves a good jab at his expense, giving it back twice as good—but it hits him somewhere soft and vulnerable tonight. He rarely bothers about the loss of his limb a year later, the wounds well-healed and having spent his fair share in therapy to deal with the physical and mental trauma, but clearly, something more is bothering him tonight.
“Teddy, I’m sorry, that wasn’t—“
“Do you think she’ll still want me?” So quiet, I thought I might have imagined it, he whispers, his voice fragile, like he's a cracked glass just waiting to shatter. “I’m the oldest in the pack, I’m a Beta… I’m not even a shifter, and I’m missing a leg. Not much I can do for her that you guys don’t have covered.”
To my surprise, before I can comfort him myself, Lucas steps in and pulls him into a hug. Embracing the other man tightly, he glares at me over Teddy’s shoulder. “Just wait,mano, until she’slaid out in front of that hearth you’ve built with your own two hands.”
Clay and Atlas come in, oblivious to the tension in the room, before stopping at the sight in front of them. Not only has Luc pulled his head out of his rear long enough to comfort another human, but he is talking about our dream here—the one he’d so vehemently rejected—the one where we lay our sweet Omega out and mate her by the roar of the fire on the thick plush carpet. I want to believe he meant it somewhere, deep, very deep, in the levels of his heart, and not just trying to cheer our Beta up, but he’s made it very clear that he isn’t on board for that.
Lucas had been our third pack mate, joining after Teddy and me had been together for half a decade already, stumbling into our lives when I had to take one of my clients in after the bull we’d been working on happily had kicked the shit out of her on the trip back to the paddock. With a damn buffet full of trauma and having lost two Omegas already, he slipped easily into our quiet lives out here. History had dealt him a rough hand, but I need to know whether he is going to hold the future liable for that, and let us—and more importantly, himself—be happy for a change. Hopefully, our Omega is equipped to deal with us all; goddess knows she’s going to have a job of it.
