Then I kissed her. Not long, not deep, just enough to soothe us both. To remind her we were here, and she was safe,mine.
Her lashes fluttered. Her lips, trembling and a little blue, curved the smallest smile. It cracked open something raw in my chest I didn’t even know I’d been holding.
“As much as I’d like to kill him,” I said against her mouth, “we won’t. Not this time.”
Her softthank youlanded somewhere deep, not just words, but a thread. Acceptance. Bond. She was in my blood, because of course she was. It was how we’d known she’d needed us before. Why we’d pursued the thread to find her even when we hadn’t understood.
Alpha. Beta. Omega. Her designation had never mattered to me. She was mine. She would always be mine. We would be hers. Today—we would seal that bond permanently. After we dealt with the asshole.
“Go,” I told Jay again, and this time my voice left no room for argument. He slipped an arm around her and started toward the cabin, both of them half-stumbling through the mud hardening with ice. It wasn’t quite the snowy landscape it had been, the rain had melted a lot but this storm would bring more to blanket the frozen landscape. Wipe it clean.
But even through the cold and the chaos, her scent was a slow blooming, molten sweetness curling through the air. Her heat was coming on fast now. Probably as triggered by us as we were by it.
Jay would handle it, for now. He’d keep her warm. Ease her. Rhett moved past me, caught Wren’s hand before she could leave entirely. He didn’t say a word, just bent, brushed his lips tohers. Rougher than mine. Fierce. Like he needed to taste her to believe she was alive. Not that I could blame him.
She made a small sound that was half sigh, half command. “Don’t be long.”
God help me, that tone nearly undid me.
Rhett and I exchanged a look, a silent agreement older than any team we’d ever played on.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I murmured.
Then we turned back to Rylan.
He was dragging himself up, blood on his teeth, eyes burning with something ugly and stupid. The kind of look a man wore when they’ve already lost but can’t admit it.
“Didn’t think you’d get here so fast,” he spat.
“Didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to come near what’s mine,” I said, stepping closer, cracking the ice off my gloves one finger at a time. “Guess we both underestimated something.”
Rhett laughed, low, dark, dangerous.
For a heartbeat, the forest went still. Just the wind whispering through the pines. In the distance, I could imagine the cabin door closing behind Jay and Wren. We weren’t that far if one took a direct route. Still, I trusted our beta with her. He would never let anything happen to her.
Standing there with my promise to her sitting heavy in my gut, I eyed Rylan. “Sheriff coming?” The question was for Rhett and surprise flickered over Rylan’s face. He spat out blood.
“Sheriff? You’re so?—”
I didn’t let him finish the comment, I just slammed my fist into his face with every ounce of my strength behind it. The feeling of bone crashing into bone vibrated up my arm. I probably broke a knuckle or three. But I absolutely broke Rylan’s jaw. He dropped like a sack of rocks, crumpling into a bloody, silent pile.
That was better.
Promising to not kill him didn’t mean I needed to listen to his bullshit.
“You’re sure we can’t kill him?” Rhett believed me, but his grumble almost made me laugh. I got it. I really did.
“If he ever touches her again,” I said, swearing it in blood. After we bonded her, after she wore our scent? “I’ll gut him without hesitation and we’ll be within our rights.”
Laws were strange things. Unbonded omegas had fewer protections than the bonded. As archaic as that was, I also understood that played a huge role in Wren’s choices. She wanted to live her life on her terms and not be dictated to by assholes like Rylan. That she chose to let us bond her? Invited us to?
That was a gift I would treasure for the rest of my life.
“Good.” Rhett nodded. “The sheriff is on his way. Soon as we scent him…”
Agreed. Once the sheriff was here, Rylan was his problem. As Wren’s soon to be bonded alphas, we could press charges against Rylan easily enough. This wasn’t team rivalry or league politics, it was just blood and consequences.
She was ours.
