Page 39 of The Omega’s Nest

I take one last look at Leo. His eye is already swelling from where Benji cracked him on the side of the head. His breathing is harsh and his head is pushed back at a painful angle under the nozzle of the gun. But fury remains in his eyes.

I can’t breathe around that much anger pouring from him in my direction.

Something in the bond softens. It’s a pulse of love, of affection. I pull in a breath. I want to stay and make sure the police really do come. Make sure Benji doesn’t kill Leo as soon as my back is turned. But Leo’s lips lift in the ghost of a smile, a reassuring gesture in the midst of my fear.

Tears slide down my cheeks. Leo floods the bond with a caress. He’s telling me he’s going to be okay.

I nod with as much assurance as I can find for him, turn and stumble away.

Chapter 14

Leo

I’m a caged animal, prowling back and forth in my cell. All I can see is the red haze. The only light is Addie inside me. I’m trying to rein this in and send reassurance and love down the bond, but his feelings of heartbreak make it impossible.

His fear is worse. The spike of terror I’d felt once I arrived at the police station had me thrashing in my cuffs, feral with rage. What was happening to him? Was Benji hurting him? Touching him? But it receded as quickly as it came, replaced with an even deeper well of sadness.

I need the mental link to open. We’ll be able to hear each other’s thoughts once the bond strengthens, but we’re obviously not there yet. And without it, all I’m getting are his feelings. I’m inside him, like he’s in me, as if we were one, but without a mental link I can’t discern what’s causing the feelings. And I can’t talk to him.

I’ve been charged with bonding the property of another alpha. As if Addie were a fucking plot of land or a car. It carries a twenty year prison term if convicted. I don’t know whether I’ve got a case because Addie is my fated mate, but even if I do, I can’t think. My alpha is roaring at me to get to my omega. He’s in danger. We’ve just bonded and he needs me. Without my presence, he’ll be suffering bond withdrawals.

For all I know, I’m dealing with them—it’s hard to feel much amidst the vicious anger coursing through my body—but I’m pretty sure the effects on an alpha wouldn’t be as bad as they are for an omega. They never are.

“Ready to make your call?” the cop who brought me in asks.

I try to blink through the haze of rage. The cop is young, a beta, and he looks bored. Right, he’s a cop in Bell Harbour, he probably sees this kind of violent shit all the time. Though he’d whistled with surprise when Benji told him what I’d done—bitten his omega.

His omega. I’d snarled at him. He didn’t even have the right to breathe the same air as Addie, never mind call him his.

But a phone call? The logical choice is my father—he can no longer command me now that I’m bonded, and he’ll get me a lawyer, money for bail. He’ll also try to stop me from going back to the brothel to get Addie out.

Think, just think. I take a few deep breaths. My father won’t help me. He’ll probably argue against me being released on bail, hire some shitty lawyer and pay him to keep me here. He lied about Addie being bonded—I wouldn’t put it past him.

I know who I’m going to call.

Eight hours later, I’m walking out of the decrepit courthouse building on the edge of The Bell with Terry, my squad leader, on one side, and the exceedingly tall alpha lawyer he’d brought with him, Alicia, on my other, plus the civilian lawyer, Alex, she’d brought with her.

I’d pled not guilty at the arraignment, been granted bail on a ten thousand dollar bond and ordered to hand over my passport. I didn’t have my passport on me, but Alex said the police would collect it from my home. Which meant my father would find out what had happened soon enough.

“Thank you,” I say, and I really fucking mean it.

Terry claps me on the shoulder. “You’ll pay me back.”

“I’ll sell my car,” I say immediately.

Terry just shrugs. “Come on.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Alicia says to me as we part ways at the bottom of the steps. “Preliminary hearing is in three weeks. You’ve got a good case given you’re fated.”

Three weeks is too long. Another alpha could be fucking Addie right now—though it doesn’t feel like it. Addie feels like misery. He’s felt like this since I came out of my alpha rage, save for the moments when he sends bursts of warmth down the bond directly at me, as if he’s trying to calm me. And it’s costing him. I clench my jaw.

I don’t have three fucking weeks.

I nod anyway. She gives me an unimpressed look. She’s a military lawyer, around forty, her navy blue uniform starched and stiff in the afternoon sea breeze. She shakes her head and walks in the opposite direction without another word, Alex keeping pace with her, her grey pantsuit equally rigid.

“Come on.” Terry tugs me down the street.

I’m about to demand he drop me at the brothel, but he stops me.