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“Fuck!” The alpha released his grip on Theodore to clutch at his face, his knees still pinning Theodore to the floor. Theodore saw his chance and tried to punch the alpha in the nuts, then maybe hook a finger behind his eye. He’d be incapacitated long enough for him to run, grab his pistol.

Something.

Anything.

He might make it out of this yet.

The alpha grabbed Theodore’s shoulders and slammed him down before he got the chance to try.

Despair welled up in his breast. The hope, the shred of survival, slipped away before he’d had the opportunity to act. It was a lost cause to fight; it always had been.

Maybe while the alpha was tying him up for transport, Theodore would get another chance.

Maybe the alpha was just going to kill him now and leave his body.

“I’m not here to kill you or take you back to whoever the hell he is,” the alpha panted. His breath brought the faint smell of oranges to Theodore’s nose again.

Theodore wrestled. The alpha was too big, too strong. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Tears escaped his eyes as the gravity of this situation crashed around him. He was defenseless and weak. He always had been because he was just an omega.

The alpha stiffened. Taking both of Theodore’s wrists into one of his massive hands, his other pulled back Theodore’s turtleneck and removed his Coureque. Leaning down, he took a deep whiff of Theodore’s skin.

The alpha growled, and his eyes flashed gold.

Chapter eight

Royce

The omega screamed and yelled about not being returned to him. Him who, Royce had no idea. His main priority was ensuring the little shit stopped shooting at him. The omega had guts, Royce couldn’t deny it. After the pistol was wrestled from his tiny hand, he continued fighting, successfully headbutting Royce in just the right spot to make his eyes water and blood trickle from his nostrils.

To Royce’s utter horror, the omega had then started to bawl. That release of raw terror and unfettered emotion released a pheromone too strong for the suppressor. It was subtle and diluted, but Royce’s wolf caught an inkling.

Moving the omega’s wrists to one of his hands, Royce removed the neck guard, leaned in, and huffed. The scent was still too weak to get the full effects, but he could finally identify it. Chocolate. Chocolate was the undertone to the mint he hadn’t been able to recognize, and maybe a small trace of berry. It was pure bliss.

“Mate.”

Going rigid, Royce sat bolt upright. His canines elongated and his skin flushed as his chest tightened.

The omega tried to scramble away, tears falling freely down his round cheeks from behind his glasses.

“Mate. And you made him cry!” his wolf snarled.

Damn it all!

“Would you shut up? None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you,” Royce shot back at his wolf. If the furry bastard had told him why he was obsessed with the mint-smelling omega, he never would have handled it this way.

“You’re hurting him!” his wolf snapped.

Lifting his knees from where they were pinning the omega down, Royce carefully scooted back and sat down across from the doctor. To Royce’s utter horror, Doc scrambled backward until his back hit the sofa, then curled into a ball and started sobbing.

“You jackass! You behaved like a brute, now he’ll hate you and me by association!” Royce couldn’t argue with his wolf’s assessment.

“I didn’t come here to hurt you,” Royce said. “I came here because—”

The omega gave a derisive snort, sob combo. “Could have fooled me.”

Instead of putting his foot in his mouth, Royce removed the blister pack of pills from his jeans pocket. He slid them across the floor.

The omega glared at the pills, then at Royce.