Hard determination sweeps through me. This is probably going to be a mistake, but I’ll be damned if I let this guy drag me back without putting up a fight.
Not tonight, motherfucker.
Chapter Twelve – Rourke
I didn’t know what to expect as I drove up to the Thompson’s cabin—though it’s more like a mansion tucked away in the mountains than an actual wooden cabin. Being on a mission like this normally would be thrilling, but not today.
Not this one, not with this omega.
I thought she’d recognize me, but she’s so shocked, so taken aback, I don’t think she does. To be frank, I’m just glad she’s all right. As I back away from the alpha that answered the door—Asher Thompson, her first and only contact—I have a good grip on her while keeping my focus on the alpha.
The one further in looks like an über, but Asher doesn’t have that privilege. His back was to me, but the moment Jessica came to me and I picked her up, he turned around to watch.
Backing up, I make it only five steps away from the Asher kid before I feel something sharp pressed against my neck, and I freeze. She must’ve grabbed one of my knives and now holds it against my neck, expertly placed just below my ear. If she were to push hard and deep enough, she’d hit my carotid artery and I’d bleed out fast.
I could use my dominance to tell her to stop; it’d be an easy way to end her feistiness here and now, but I’m also curious how far she’ll take it, so I don’t. Ultimately, just for fun, I decide to give her the reins of the situation.
I’m expertly trained. I can escape damn near any situation. Getting her home safely is my top priority, but at the same time… she’s obviously been safe here, which means there’s more to this story than I assumed.
What did I assume? A runaway omega and an alpha who agreed to help in a roundabout way. I didn’t expect a secondalpha to be here, and I certainly didn’t expect both alphas to appear so bothered by me taking her.
She doesn’t belong to either of them. They have no claim to her. The only person who has a claim right now is her aunt, and that’s who hired out my company.
And yet… at the same time, taking her back means handing her over and never seeing her again. She might not recognize me yet, but I feel that same pull I did at the Omega Garden, and for some strange reason, the idea of never seeing her again fills me with such dread that I don’t mind letting this assignment drag on for a while longer.
We might be on a time crunch here with her heat coming up, but we still have some time.
So, yeah, when I feel that knife pressing against the skin on my neck, I stop and don’t say a word even though I could easily diffuse the situation and force her to drop it. I wait to hear her demands, for surely she’ll find her voice and tell me off, just as she did the night we first met.
It takes her a few more moments before she says, “Set the gun down and slide it over to Asher.”
I have to resist my urge to smirk. I have more than one gun on my body, but I suppose the most important one is the one in my hand currently. I bend down and set it on the tiled floor, then I kick it over to the alpha across from me, who, after a few seconds of fumbling, picks it up like he’s never held onto a gun before in his life.
The whole thing is hilarious. In no world would this ever work, but I really want to see where she takes it now.
“Put me down slowly,” she growls out, sounding quite tough for an omega. “And don’t make any sudden moves.”
I put her down, and when she’s safely on her own two feet, she keeps that knife firm against my neck as she begins to unload weapon after weapon on my body. She pulls them fromtheir holsters and their sheaths, dropping them on the ground without a care. It’s a damn good thing the safety is on when it comes to the guns; dropping a fully loaded gun like that is asking for trouble.
As I stand there, letting her do her thing, the other alpha comes closer. I can see some resemblance to Asher Thompson, and I assume that means he’s his brother or some other familial relation.
One by one, Jessica only stops when she’s certain my body holds no more weapons. It’s actually kind of comical, the amount of assorted knives on the ground, with a few small guns mixed in. I am a walking, talking weapon of mass destruction, just as Alabaster Security trained me to be.
“Um,” she starts, glancing all around but still keeping that knife pressed against my neck. “Do you have any rope here?”
“Rope,” Asher says, aghast. “For what?”
“So we can tie him up or something.” She talks a bit awkwardly, and it’s clear she doesn’t normally do things like this. Still, even now, as strange as it might be, I don’t think she’s recognized me yet.
Can’t she smell me? She’s acting like she’s never seen me before in her life. I’m actually insulted, and more than a bit hurt somewhere I’d rather not say.
“No, we don’t have any rope,” Asher whispers, like it’s a secret or something.
The other one says, “Let’s just sit him on the couch while we figure something out.”
Jessica finally glances up at me as she says, “You heard them…” Whatever else she’s going to say must die in the back of her throat, because she doesn’t say another word. She tenses up all over, her eyes widening as her mouth falls ajar.
I smirk at her, and I voluntarily step over the small mountain of weapons on the floor as I head deeper into the house. I headstraight for the large couch and sit down in the middle, and once I’m seated, I recline back and set my arms on the upper cushions with not a care in the world.
