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“What happened?” I ask, stepping back to make room for him to pass with Elliott. “Where’s your board?”

“I’ll go back for it later,” he says without stopping.

I hurry up the stairs after him, catching a contact high from the wind wafting their combined scents toward me. My cock fills, and I readjust it down my pant leg. I need to get my shit together.

At the top of the stairs, Tyler slows and waits for me to join him.

“Why are you carrying him? Is he hurt?” I reach out, unable to help myself, and stroke an auburn curl. The omega whimpers softly and nuzzles his face deeper into Tyler’s chest.

It makes me jealous. So fucking jealous. But it’s the same strange sense of jealousy I felt whenever Niall flirted with Tyler. I’m not just jealous that Tyler’s touching my omega. I’m jealous that someone is touching Tyler.

There’s something wrong with me. Obviously.

“He’s fine. Just tired,” Tyler explains, and starts walking again.

I widen my stride to catch up, then stop. I smell something else, something that has saliva filling my mouth. It’s cum, too sweet to be Tyler’s. Tyler has a ton of wet dreams when he’s in rut, and there’s no confusing that with Elliott’s.

What the fuck happened? Oh my god, did they hook up on the beach? The revelation is a punch to the gut, one I can physically feel as vague nausea and heartache fills me.

A driver taps their horn. “Get out of the road!”

I jump. My pulse thunders in my ears. Tyler stops, hazarding a quick glance before he continues up the hill.

“Sorry.” I wave at the driver and hurry across Pacific Coast Highway with ringing ears.

By the time I catch up with Tyler, I’m sweaty, out of breath, and have a stitch in my side. Today is the most annoying day ever. “Tired himself out how? What exactly happened?”

“He wanted to find you so badly, he followed your scent down all those steps to your board shorts, and thought I was you. Then he almost drowned.”

“Almost drowned?”

Elliott stirs, but Tyler hushes him soothingly, the same way he once consoled a wounded pigeon he’d rescued from seagulls.

“Don’t talk so loud,” he whispers to me.

I clench my fists. Adrenaline floods my bloodstream, and my alpha instincts are screaming that my omega almost drowned, and I need to protect him. “Tyler, if you don’t tell me everything right now, I’m going to fucking lose it.”

Tyler glances sideways at me.

“Sorry,” I add.

“Anyway, I ate shit,” he continues where we left off. “He called out to me from the shore, and I was so distracted by his scent, I got my shit rocked by a wave. He thought I, or I guess you, needed rescuing.”

“Did you need rescuing?”

“Nah,” he smiles ruefully. “It sounds worse than it was. He got stuck in the rip current, and I got to him quickly.”

I exhale, and click my tongue. “Poor little omega.”

Tyler looks down at Elliott fondly. “You’re going to love him. He’s brave, and he likes you enough to rescue you. He’s scared of sharks too.”

“So that’s it? That’s all that happened?”

“No, but we can talk about that later.”

“Ty…”

He shakes his head. “Later,” he says with the dominant role in our relationship. Ordinarily, it soothes me, but not right now.