I don’t mean anything to them. Not unless I’m strapped to a table being pumped full of drugs so they can torture me, among other things…
Things I don’t want to think about when escape is so close.
“I have a name,” I tell him, my voice heavy and full of pain.
Mr. Blue Eyes stops, his hand between us steady and unwavering. I’m well aware he could grab me.
But he doesn’t. He only looks back at me with pity.Like he feels sorry for me. “What?” he asks, blinking as the sound of clicking safeties settles in the glen around us.
“I said, I have a name,” I growl. The voice in my head snarls, pushing me into this man’s space. I bare my teeth, my omega pining from the sickly-sweet scent rolling off of this alpha.
She wants nothing more than to roll over and be fucked six ways from Sunday, wants nothing more than to be knotted and filled with this alpha’s cum, but I am not so easily swayed by Mr. Blue Eyes and his sweet, smooth scent.
That vicious voice, the one driving me right now, is chomping at the bit to challenge the alpha in front of me. To show him it ismewho they should fear. Not the other way around.
But the human part of me wins out. Freedom is worth more than whatever these bastards think awaits me in that cell.
I take one step closer, close enough I could kiss this man if I wanted to. I don’t miss the way his gaze flashes to my mouth, nor do I miss the deep rumble emanating from his chest.
Then again, that’s what’s supposed to happen to an alpha in the presence of an omega, just like the moisture blossoming between my thighs is a natural reaction to knowing this alpha wants me.
I am so much more than a vessel. I am so much more than a hole to be filled.
“My name is Auryn,” I bite just before I take one step back, “and you’re going to remember it for the rest of your pathetic life.”
Then I run until the cliff gives out, until I am flying like a bird through the darkness towards the unknown.
And when the obsidian waters catch me, the fire in my lungs spreads.
All that’s there is the darkness, but at least I’m free.
For now.
Chapter 1
Gage
“The crazyputajumped!”
Diego’s choice of language notwithstanding, he’s right. That bitch is crazy for jumping off the cliff into the river below. What kind of omega pulls a stunt like that, especially when there’s an alpha standing right in front of her? Her first instinct should have been to run into my arms.
Something about this mission doesn’t sit right with me. First, the pack who hired us–the Orions, led by an alpha named Sneed–wouldn’t give us details into why they had the omega captive, then they gave us a designation instead of a name for her. If she has a name—the way her lips formed it flashes through my head—why not tell us? It would go a long way towards gaining her trust.
The alpha in me rages at losing his target, but he rages even more at losing a mate. There’s no doubt the omega’s body reacted to my presence; I could smell it on her. So why run? Why jump off a cliff instead of jumping my dick? By rights, she should have been all over me. Instead, she was bold. Defiant.
I growl with frustration and turn around, stalking away from the cliff’s edge and back to Diego and Olly. “Come on,” I snarl, crashing past them through the underbrush. “Let’s get to the compound. I have some thinking to do before we give up and limp back with our proverbial tails between our legs.”
Since we hunted the omega on foot from the edge of the forest, we have to hoof it back to our car. The slow trudge through the woods is all the more maddening with the knowledge that we failed. We’re coming back one omega short of our intended goal of, well, one.
My thoughts churn darkly, like the frigid waters Auryn jumped into. If she survived, we still have a job to do. If not …
The alpha in me whines at the thought that he might have lost his omega mate. As he mourns, I try to remind him that she’s not exactly his. She belongs to the Orion pack, the one that hired us.
She’s ours,he counters.She smells like lemongrass and sunshine, and I need her back.
That’s not going to be easy. The waters in that river run hard and fast. Even if she didn’t drown, she could be miles away by now. We’ll have to widen our search grid, spread ourselves thinner, if we’re going to find her again.
“Hey, Gage.” Diego, my second-in-command, trots up to walk next to me. “I gotta know, man … Did you smell the same thing I did?”
