Текст книги "Jace"

Автор книги: Hall Sam

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“That’s it, baby. Let yourself relax again. You’re doing so well.”

Everything was fluttering with little clenches and twitches as her hips jerked, trying to push back onto me, to get more of my finger and cock. I began to alternate pushing my finger in her arse with my cock thrusting in her pussy, swapping them over and over. One hand was on her hip to keep her still because she couldn’t be, too desperate for all of it at once. I kept my thrusts measured, driving her higher still. My spine tingled at the base, and my balls were tight to the point of imminent climax. It was taking a heroic effort on my part not to fucking come, but I wanted her there—the slow rising.

I wanted to blow her mind.

I wanted to show her what it was to be an omega.

I wanted to be that alpha who could guide her, who could show her the pleasures of her body and all it was capable of.

Mine… he growled.

This was only the beginning. There were many more experiences for her to have.

There was a prickle up my spine right then I should’ve taken note of, one at odds with all this drowsy pleasure. It was like insistent cold claws, creeping up my spine, but I couldn’t pay it any mind, not when I was so deep in her. So the cold, hard fear settled down in the back of my skull, waiting for its time.

“Relax for me, baby.”

I stilled for a few beats, letting her come down, taking her from the edge before resuming once again. She was so slick now that my cock made lewd noises as it thrust in and out. I began to pick up the pace a little, and her cries turned wild.

“I can’t… Jace, please. God please. Just let me come, let it come.”

I stilled again. “Relax, baby.” A sob stuttered in her chest, and I smoothed my hand against her hip. “Good girl. Relax, and I can start again. Deep breaths. That’s it.” She sucked air in, getting her spiralling emotions under tenuous control.

I began again, slowly but building steadily, until my cock was slapping in and out, my finger now holding deep in her arse. Sweat bathed my body, and we were both on the edge. A sharp cry tore from her lips, followed by low groans as her pussy made a vice around my cock and her arse crushed my finger, tightening, fluttering, then tightening and fluttering again, and then rippling into the intense contractions that demanded I come.

“Jace, please!”

“Come, baby,” I cried out. “Come on my fucking cock.”

She did.

Hers to command, my knot bloomed and I held deep, letting her sweep me up and over that carnal cliff together. The noises she made were inhuman, and they dragged me into the sensual underworld. I’d done this to her, driven her to this state, this rapture, where her whole body contorted, twisting, pushing back, seeking more. My balls tightened to the point of pain, my mind whiting out as a great spurt of cum ejected from the tip of my cock. There I held, growling low, head tipped back, feeling the chords of my neck strain as I submitted to the bliss.

Breed…

But I wasn’t done yet. Fingers reaching around her front, I began to stroke her clit again.

Her answer was another gush of cum and slick leaking around my cock, then trickling down my balls to saturate me and the bed.

“That’s it, baby,” I rumbled softly. “Come all over me again.”

And she did, pussy convulsing, wild groans pouring from her lips. I would never get enough of this, ever.

This right here, this hedonistic glory, was extraordinary and beyond my understanding of pleasure, but it wasn’t only that. An awareness shifted inside of me…a hyperawareness. I could hear our every ragged breath like it was amplified, skin and nerves sensitive and flaring over and over again.

My finger stilled over her clit, and I just held her, enjoying the sensation of her pussy clenching over my cock, squeezing me in a demand for more. I answered her call, balls emptying into her.

Suddenly, I needed to see her face, but we were locked tight. Leaning over, I took her chin, turning her face so that I could see the rapture contorting it. Jesus, when had I ever seen anything so beautiful?

“Look at me, baby,” I said

Her pretty eyes opened to meet mine, pupils blown to fuck.

This right here was everything an alpha and omega were meant to be.

6

Sloane

After we’d showered and got dressed, I floated downstairs at Jace’s side in a haze that was just…lovely. A small, uptight part of my brain screamed hysterically at that, this feeling of surrender so bloody alien, but as long as his arm, my alpha’s arm, was wrapped around me, I could shove those worries to one side and just be. People looked up as we emerged out of the elevator, not in the bar, but in a large communal living area. They were eating breakfast, a stout woman swinging out from between two doors with platters groaning with food, my stomach rumbling in response.

“Hungry, baby?” Jace rumbled, looking down at me with a warm smile. “C’mon. Ma makes the best breakfast with all the trimmings in the entire city.” And so I was shepherded over to a long table, wooden benches set up either side and the eyes of everyone sitting there on us. “Guys, this is Sloane. Sloane, this is…my family.”

Not literally, I assumed, as most of the people seated seemed to be in their twenties or thirties and they didn’t appear to have anything in common physically. Well, except for them. Two guys sat together, and there was no way to miss them, their bodies huge and hulking compared to everyone else. They also possessed an odd kind of stillness, especially him, with his grey blue eyes that seemed to stare straight into me, eradicating all my warm fuzzies, and mid brown hair that had gotten too long, scraped back from his face by a big square hand.

“Tone it down, Ryder,” Jace snarled.

“So she revealed as an omega.” Murmurs went up around the table. “And she’s unmarked.”

“She’s not to be marked.”

Jace’s voice, that famed alpha bark, was like a slap across the face of everyone here, silence reigning supreme. My mind was playing catch-up with the marking comment. This had all escalated swiftly, the hazy bubble holding me in its protective embrace wobbling a little.

“She has to be marked,” the darker haired guy sitting next to Ryder snapped back. Somehow, he was even bigger, with more than a five o’clock shadow across his square jaw. “A free roaming omega in the zone?” He shook his head, then glanced at the others. “We’re gonna have to lock the place down and assess what weapons we’ve got. No one goes in or out for fear of someone outside of this place getting a sniff of her, and if she goes into heat?”

I swallowed. I hadn’t even gotten to the delicious-looking food, and now my throat was dust dry. Part of me knew that Tall, Dark, and Super Grumpy was telling the truth. Everything I’d been told about omegas outside the zone was that our scents were potent, enough to drive an alpha insane. He’d be maddened by lust, able to commit superhuman feats to remove any obstacles between him and the object of his affections. A small whine escaped my lips, making me instantly flush, and Jace’s arms tightened around me, a faint rusty purr coming from his chest in answer.

He was purring for me.

I’d found the idea positively ridiculous when I was told about it in sex ed, but right now? I was nestling into his chest, trying to find a soft place in all that hard muscle, because that sound? It felt like it washed over all of me, like a big strong hand stroking my back and settling me.

“That’s it…” he crooned between purrs. “Good girl.” I was lowered to a bench, dimly aware that people were moving out of our way to give us a spot, but Jace, he didn’t let me go for a second, even when other people around the table seemed intent on intruding on our moment.

“Look, Jace, I don’t want to be a prick, but we have to put our heads together. Better that she’s marked like the others. If you don’t, Snake and his crew, they’d give their left nuts for someone like her, especially a classy piece of arse—”

“Shut the fuck up, Dane.”

“And what’s going on here?”

I forced my head up and off Jace’s chest, even as I felt the need to stay exactly where I was. The stout woman was standing by the table holding the platters up, looking up and down the table.

“You okay, love?”

Beta me would have bristled at that, at the sweet comment, at the warm tone, at all the sympathy and protective bullshit poured into those three little words, but omega me? I stared at her, and then god-freaking-dammit, felt my eyes begin to sting.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

The platters were put down with a clatter, people waved away, and the strange woman came and sat down beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and squishing me in her soft embrace. Part of me wanted to hate this, fight this, shove off this woman with her patronising bullshit and sit at the table, elegant as a queen, but that wasn’t the Sloane who was in the driver’s seat. I sank into her hug, taking a big breath before letting it out for a long, long time.

“That’s it, lovey, you just let it all out. And, you boys!” That was hissed viciously. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, talking such nonsense around an omega who’s just revealed? She’s probably feeling raw, crazy, like her life’s been tipped upside down and put back together all ad hoc.” A big hand stroked my back, then squeezed my shoulders. “Have something to eat, little omega—”

“Sloane,” Jace interrupted. “Her name is Sloane.”

“Then it’s time to have something to eat, little Sloane. I’m guessing that boy of mine has been running you ragged—”

“Ma…”

“Focussed on your body, but not what it needs.”

“Ma…”

“Turning your head until you don’t know what is what. I taught you better than this, Jason Mark—”

“Ma!”

I found myself jumping at the sound of his bark, my heart clattering in my chest. I wanted to roll my bloody eyes at that, but something, someone, had hijacked my body and its reactions. What was I now, some quivering little mouse?

“I kept Sloane safe, cared for her, looked after her needs, and made sure she stayed hydrated, even when she was fighting me about it. Does that meet with your approval?”

“Oh, well yes, that’s good then.” I was released from the soft, sweet-scented embrace and somehow felt lesser for it, but a big ceramic plate was placed before me. “Now, Sloane, do you have any foods you can’t eat or anything? You’ll need lots of protein to build your strength.”

“Hey!” one of the guys said as the platter of bacon was dragged our way.

“And carbs. You’ll need to load up for what he has in store for you.”

“God, Ma, stop!” the other guys around the table groaned.

“What? You think I don’t know why these strange girls appear around my table every morning? Not exactly for Sunday prayers, is it? But, Sloane…” I felt the woman’s gaze, her smile, and I turned towards it, like a flower turns to the sun. She was a picture of motherly sweetness, her name a perfect descriptor. “You’re an omega.”

Somehow, all I’d achieved in my short life seemed to come a dim second to that. Ma looked so damn proud of me, and for some reason, my heart swelled as a result. I wanted that, for someone to pat me on the head and tell me I was a good girl, even as I knew how asinine that was, but my usual spiky shell was gone and couldn’t protect me against her, against anything. Instead, I smiled up at the woman and pulled the plate over, nibbling on the delights piled there.

“Who’s an omega?”

My eyes flicked up, taking in the newcomers, a small group of young women, but they couldn’t really compete with bacon and eggs. I felt their eyes on me as my stomach clenched hard, letting me know how much I needed food right now, especially with all the extra demands I’d put on my body. So as the girls sat down at the table, looking at me, Jace, and the others, I didn’t really give it much attention.

“Sloane is,” Jace replied, getting to his feet but depositing a kiss on my head. “One we need to protect. Fellas, you’re with me.” A collective groan went up at that. “Blame Dane for this. He made some good points, ones we need to be ready for. Snake and his crew? They’d do a lot to get their hands on an unmarked omega.” He bent down to look at me before he went to go. “I’ll be in the next room, taking a meeting with the guys, but I’ll be back shortly. Have your breakfast. Ma’ll look after you.”

She might, but the other women around the table might not. I felt their collective gaze on me as Ma kept chattering on, piling more and more food on my plate.

“An omega…” one woman said in a hushed tone. “Jace hasn’t taken one since…”

“Since ever,” another said much more sharply as her green eyes, complete with beautifully executed winged eyeliner, looked me over. “He’s never voiced an interest in taking one.”

“And he’s not now.”

The last woman sat at the head of the table, fastidiously picking through the mounds of food to create a smaller approved selection on her plate. She wore her bright blonde hair up in a ponytail, had the kind of fresh-faced, dewy complexion one would typically expect from an omega, and coupled with the light blue baby doll dress, she looked exactly what I thought she was—alpha bait. Em used to follow the Insta accounts of high-end influencers who liked to descend on the zone, going trawling for alphas like a matador would bulls. She glanced up at me coolly, her crystal blue eyes narrowing as she inspected me closely now.

Only she wasn’t an omega wannabe, she was an omega, like the other women…like me.

“I’m Baby Doll. Jace is a good guy who’s gone out on a limb for every single one of us omegas.” She picked up a piece of super crunchy bacon and took a bite, the pause going on and on. “That’s what he does—he rides to the rescue, saving omegas left and right to try and assuage the guilt he feels about her.”

“You don’t know that,” Ma blustered. “Every alpha needs an omega. You know that. Everyone knows that.”

“But not Jace,” Baby Doll replied, smiling before taking the time to lick her fingers. “And before you come at me, I’ll say one word.” Her smile was perfectly and utterly radiant. “Ella.”

Who the hell was Ella? Why did the mention of her make me feel a little queasy? I glanced up and down the table, trying to read people’s expressions and not liking what I saw. Empathy, discomfort, awkwardness, even dislike. I’d experienced brush-offs and mean girl bullshit every damn day in the beta world, so why did it hit me so hard right now? Being an omega wasn’t like being thin-skinned, it was like being no skinned. Every response and reaction hit me physically, until all my muscles were tensed, ready to bolt.

You’re not safe here, my heart beat. Small, weak, prey. My eyes darted around the table, around the room, finding mocking expressions and escape routes, then a large clatter in the adjoining kitchen sealed my fate.

“What the hell have those silly boys done now?” Ma said, patting my hand and getting to her feet. “Have something to eat, and I’ll be back in a tick. And, you ladies…” She held out a finger, surveying each of the women that had arrived. “Leave the poor girl alone. Jace did help you out, and it’s time to repay that favour by being kind to his lady.”

Some girls blanched, obviously feeling ashamed of their earlier response, while others were mulish, arms crossed, backs jammed up against the seats.

“Sorry,” one said when Ma disappeared. “It’s just…Jace has always avoided omegas. He keeps us safe, and the alphas in this place give us a mark.” She held out her wrist, where I saw a small white scar. “It’s not a mating mark. They don’t do it at the height of passion or anything. It just indicates we belong…here, until we find our alpha.” The lot of them shuffled at that, eyes flicking sideways, like a restive herd. “It stops the other alphas from thinking they can just grab us and claim us, but…”

“Jace is a good guy,” Baby Doll said. “One of the best, but we’ve all been where you are right now. You come floating downstairs like you’re walking on air, feeling like no one or nothing can change that.” Then her face fell, and her expression was mirrored by the other women. “And then you’re treated to the sight of someone else doing the exact same thing the next morning, and the next and the next.”

Blondie’s eyes softened somewhat as she took in my clothes, my hair, and my jewellery.

“He won’t knot you, claim you, fill you with everything you need, and then sink his fangs deep into your skin, leaving his mark for everyone to see. He doesn’t, and they don’t.” I stared at her doll-like perfection and finally started to see the cracks. “They keep you at arm’s length, right when you need them the most. They ‘take care’ of you, finger you until you’re gasping, and then…”

She shoved her wrist out, just like the other omega had.

“Nice, neat, surgical bites. Ones that say fuck off to other alphas, even the ones you might find happiness with. Claimed but not claimed, and left in a godawful limbo.” She shook her head, her eyes shining now suspiciously. “You look like you come from money or something. Subtle pieces but expensive, will last you a lifetime.” She shook her head, as if dismissing that. “Hustle on back to whatever world you came from, that’s all I can say, because down in the zone?” Her eyes went wide and unseeing, because it wasn’t me she watched anymore. “It can be dog eat dog, omega, and you’re the perfect damn bone, but the guy you want sees you as a convenient snack and not the main meal.”

Of course this wasn’t real, that was what their words told me. Everything I’d felt, the fucking surge of heat, passion, but most of all, satisfaction was a lie. Last night, this morning, I’d finally, finally had enough. No more packing away my misery, my pain, my fear, my needs. He was there, he would see to them, all of them, and finally, I could…

This wasn’t real—none of it.

I was up and out of my seat, the other women making sounds in response, but I didn’t wait around to hear them out. I was striding across the room, up to the door, opening it and finding myself back in the bar that was empty now, but for a beta barman. Brown curly hair, medium blue eyes, the kind of face that could easily get lost in the crowd, he glanced up, then stared when he saw who it was

“I need to get out of here,” I said, slamming my hands down on the bar. “Out of the zone.”

“Out of… The gate is closed—”

“Now,” I said, then grabbed the bag I hadn’t even remembered dragging downstairs and rifled through it, looking for my card, only to see my phone was nestled in there and ringing. “Hello?”

“Hey, babes!” Em replied with a deafening enthusiasm. “So by the neatly made-up bed in your room, I’m guessing someone was a dirty stop out last night! Jude, Jewel, and I are doing a sneaky Macca’s run to soak up all the bloody alcohol we drank and then we’re coming to get you!”

“Change of plan,” I replied tersely, staring at the freaked-out barman. “Meet me at the zone gate, ASAP.”

“Okay… Is everything all right? Sloane, did he…?”

“I’m fine, just ready to go home. Sex is great and all, but does it really compare to a single origin bean caramel latte from Alphonsino’s?”

It felt like I was putting old Sloane on like a mask, plastering beta competency and decisiveness over…what? What exactly was an omega? A quick kaleidoscope of moaning, whining, biting, slick splattering, knotting sex, hit me like a gut punch, but I just took a long breath in and charged on.

“OMG, Sloane! At least let me keep my illusions. This alpha I met last night, Ryder… Damn!”

“Tell me all about it when you get here, Em,” I replied, much more softly.

“Of course. Five minutes, Okay?”

I ended the call, the phone, the bag, the bar, all of it feeling weird, alien, and ill-fitting, but that would pass, I was sure of it. Hormones had rugby-tackled me for a night, made me say and do things I never would have and never would again. I just needed to get home.

“A fifty if you get me out of the zone gate in one piece within five minutes,” I offered, holding up the crisp note. The barman snatched it out of my hand, but not before he looked up and down the bar.

“Through here,” he said. “We’ll have to go down the alleyway. If any of the alphas catch scent of you… Here, spray yourself with this.”

He handed me a bottle of what looked like Febreze and smelled kinda the same—synthetic and flowery. I doused myself liberally before handing it back to the barman.

“Nah, you keep it, love. That’s the good stuff, and it’s hard to come by outside the zone.”

I shoved it into my bag. He nodded, then took me out the back, through the storeroom, and out into a stinking alley beyond. He clasped my hand, the size and strength stirring something inside me, but I pushed that brutally down. Not here, not yet.

No, not ever again.

Then he hauled me up the alleyway, fishing out a set of keys and holding them at the ready as he approached the fence.

It all felt ridiculously cloak-and-dagger. There was no one around, no one to even watch us pass, let alone wish us harm, but the barman acted like he was some kind of secret agent man, slinking low, eyes everywhere. I was prepared to go along with it, until finally, we reached the gate.

“Oi!”

A harsh voice had me jumping in my heels. A mass of huge men off a way had spotted us and were approaching at speed, the barman swearing under his breath as he worked the lock open, yanking the chain out from where it was wrapped around the gate.

“Go!” the barman said, shoving me through the gap, following hot on my heels, wrapping the chain around the gate twice as the men surged up, slamming into the fence.

Alphas.

This, this was the kind of men I’d seen doing the perp walk to the dock on TV, a poster boy for keeping the zone separate. Meaty fingers pushed through the links of the fence, others grabbing the gate and wrenching it, but the barman clicked the lock shut before stepping back, hands in the air.

“Omega…”

He pushed his way through the mass of men, a picture of deadly elegance, even for his size, the overdone musculature of an alpha somehow looking right for him. He was powerful, lethal even, as he stared at me with pale blue eyes, cold as ice, sweeping a fall of white blond hair out of his face.

“Open the gate, omega,” he said, his voice a perfect purr, rubbing itself allll over me, making my bones and my will soften. “Walk forward and take the keys from the quivering little beta prick and open the gate.”

“Yeah, lure her in, Snake,” a meaty-looking alpha said beside him, fairly slavering at the idea, and for a second, I was treated to a glare of pure unadulterated menace in Snake’s eyes.

“Back the fuck up, Snake,” the beta snarled, which jerked my eyes sideways. The average barman façade seemed to have been slipped off as he produced a gun, holding it upright while he viewed the men at the fence. “I can have Alpha Control down here in seconds.”

“She belongs here,” Snake shot back, then looked at me, dragging his breath theatrically through his nose. “She belongs to us.”

The alphas all started carrying on at that, posturing and shouting abuse as the barman whipped out his phone, making a call.

“You better get out of here and lie low if you don’t want to be under one of these pricks before the sun sets,” he told me as he waited for the call to go through, frowning when I just stood there. “Go!”

The cheery toot of my car horn jerked me out of whatever spell I was under, tensing my muscles, sending me scurrying away, just as the beta said to.

“C’mon, girlfriend!” Jude shouted from the passenger seat window. “Time to do the walk of shame. Work it! You know you want to. Girl, I taught you how to walk way better than that, I know I did.”

I didn’t strut my way back to the car. I walked the swift robotic steps a mouse did under the heavy gaze of an apex predator, not able to fully breathe until I was back in the car, the wheels screeching as we took off.

“So, how was it?” Em asked, clinging to the side of her seat with wide-eyed glee.

“I…”

I had nothing, no words, not a titbit to give her, and as I saw her face fall, I knew she’d chalk it up to me being a stuffy old stick again. God, if only that were true.

Jace

I’d hung on to my temper for Sloane’s sake, but as soon as the door clicked shut on the three of us, I unleashed hell.

“What the fuck was that about? You guys know better than to act like dicks with a new omega.”

Ryder moved toward a seat at the long table, behind which the wide window offered views across the zone. It wasn’t pretty like the fancy beta cities. Here, the buildings were mainly weathered and worn. There were pockets that looked fine, like the main strip. Had to be to get the betas in, but the rest? They were half derelict. Contractors weren’t exactly lining up to enter the zone. Inked was one of the few places that were on the upmarket side.

Ryder lifted both hands in a snarky version of surrender before he slumped down into a seat and leaned back in the chair, eyeballing Dane and me like he was getting ready for a fucking show.

“I was only looking,” Ryder said casually. “Too soft and sweet for me. You know I like a bit of fire.”

“She’s new to her dynamic, arsehole,” I said.

“Well, I want it on the record that not marking her is a bullshit thing to do. Mark the fucking woman,” Dane said. “Or let one of us do it.”

“No!”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Dane snarled. Unlike Ryder, he made no pretence of being relaxed and stood, feet planted wide as he stared me down. “You’re going to start a fucking riot, and we don’t need this shit coming down on us. You know what Snake is like—one whiff of an unmarked omega, and he’s going to be all over us like a fucking rash. She’ll be a virtual prisoner. Fucking mark her already. We both know it’s what you want.”

Ryder chuckled softly. Yeah, he wasn’t getting involved.

“I can’t fucking mark her, arsehole.”

“You and your fucking bullshit. Have you ever asked Ella if this is what she wants for you? Living like a fucking monk?” Dane asked. Stalking across to the table, he dragged out a chair and slammed his arse down.

As I raked a hand through my hair, my eyes went to the door, and I wondered what the fuck was going on out there. Ma was with her and she would take care of Sloane, but knowing that didn’t stop me from tensing, my beast demanding that I open the damn door and go check that she was all right. All of this was superfluous to him, the stuff that got in the way of what was important.

Mark, breed, claim.

“It’s five fucking minutes,” Ryder said, reading my mind all too easily. “Ma is with her, so chill, for fuck’s sake. We need to know what the plan is if you’re not going to mark her…which I agree with Dane on, by the way.”

Great, the two of them never agreed on shit, so it was usually me acting as the middleman. Now, I found myself on the wrong end of both their censure. It didn’t help that I knew they were right.

The trouble was I liked the idea of marking her more than I was comfortable with. Mark, claim, breed—it was a slippery fucking slope, and I knew exactly where that led. I saw Ella, tied to that bed by a chain around her ankle, a looming figure about to—

“Plan?” Ryder encouraged.

Jesus, I needed to get my head on straight.

“Just because I won’t mark her doesn’t mean I can’t protect her. Not every omega needs to be marked.”

Ryder shrugged, and his lips tugged into a smirk. We’d marked every other omega we’d come across to keep them under our protection. I was going against my own prime directive, and he knew why.

“You can feed yourself whatever bullshit you like, but we all know what’s true. She has to have a mark, something to indicate that she belongs to our crew, which you always make us do. Something, anything, because if we don’t, someone else will.”

I sucked a deep breath in, still standing beside the door, still barely rational, and there was the issue. The marks the omegas in our place wore weren’t mating ones, more temporary indications of where they belonged. You tried to force them? You’d have the combined might of every alpha, beta, and shit, even the other omegas that belonged to our crew, on your back. Lucky for them, that meant a lot in the zone. So marking Sloane as one of us made perfect sense.

So why didn’t I?

MINE! he roared, answering that question.

The reality hit me hard, like a fucking gut punch I hadn’t seen coming. I didn’t trust myself not to turn into a caveman. With her in my arms, my teeth at her neck, my knot buried inside her? There’d be no dispassionate temporary mark left. I’d own her, plain and simple.

She’d be my mate. The first and only omega I’d ever take.

I shifted on my feet, looking at the door. Standing here wasn’t helping anything, especially when I felt like I was being ripped in two, just by being in a different room from her.

“We need a plan,” Ryder said again. “This is our place. Sure, we can stick some more guys on the boundary, no one in or out. We’ve not gotten eyes on Snake for a while. He’s been lying low after that last incident at the centre.”

“Yep, got his arse kicked,” Dane said with a smirk. “But you know what he’s like—that’ll just make him come out gunning for revenge. Bastard has gotten himself a little fucking harem of omegas that he farms out to hungry alphas. You going to even risk that shit?”

I growled in my chest, finally taking a seat at the table.

“It’s hard to keep information locked down,” Dane continued. “Shit always gets out. We all know if she goes back to the Beta Zone, they have ways of getting to them there too.”

“So let’s run by this one more time,” Ryder said casually before I could get a word in. “You’re not claiming her. Are you going to offer her up to anyone else?”

I snarled, my beast throwing himself against the bars inside me and bleeding through. Ryder smiled, slow and cocky, not cowed at all, and that made him mad. But the fact she wasn’t here, curled up on my lap, my nose buried in her throat, followed by my teeth…

“You’re marking her,” Ryder said, shaking his head, the smile fading somewhat. “When you get your head out of your arse, you’ll do it.”

How the fuck did I find myself trapped? Why the fuck did it feel so right, knowing I needed to do this? I was rationalising the monster in me. It’d never been like this with an omega. There was a part of my alpha side rising that I’d never seen, never even known was there. When I brought her in, when she softened for my purr, turning to me, instinctively seeking my comfort and protection, the only thing that had been missing was me beating my fucking chest and then tearing that bloody dress off, making her mine.