by Grey, Aspen
Little Billy was an omega, one of the smaller subset of shifter working boys in San Diego, so it was safe to speak to him in this way.
“Beats me, pops,” he shrugged. “Why’s a guy randomly attack people with a pipe? He’s a fucking nutjob.”
“The old arcade, huh?” I replied. “Anything else, Billy?”
“I dunno…”
“Spill it, Billy.”
“No, I really don’t know—it just—one of the boys said the maniac seemed like he was looking for something.”
“Looking for something?” I asked. “What would he be looking for?”
“Hey, you’re the detective,” he scoffed. “You figure it out.”
I scowled at him. “Anything else, Billy?”
“That’s it, pops,” he said anxiously. “Now, if you don’t mind?”
“Yeah, get outta here,” I told him. “And stay off the streets until I catch the guy, will ya?”
“Hey, some of us don’t get vacation time,” he replied as he brushed passed me and took the back exit to the alley.
Running into Little Billy always rattled me a bit. I’d busted him once but had given him a pass ever since. He’d snitched on a real terror of a dealer who was flooding the streets with tainted heroin and helped us put him behind bars. He’d never betray the other boys he worked with, but he helped me keep a close ear to the real nasty shit going on in the streets. I always got the feeling that there was more to him than what he was doing, and hoped that one day he’d find a way to get his life back in order.
But that was a thought for another time. Right now, I had work to do, so I set off in the direction of the construction site near the old arcade to see what I could find out about the most recent attack.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jace
We were doing our best to sleep, as we’d gotten none the night before, but it just wasn’t happening. Curled up together in Arnold’s bed, overwhelmed by his scent which was embedded in every fiber of the mattress and blankets, both of us feeling our heats coming on, it was impossible to keep our minds from wandering into that place.
“This is impossible,” Sasha groaned, twisting around beside me, one of his hands between his legs, nursing what I guessed was a pretty hard erection. Mine was there for sure, making it even harder to sleep, as I was a stomach sleeper. “He needs to just retire from the force and come back and take care of us!”
“That would be ideal,” I agreed with a smile, rubbing my cock through the pair of Arnold’s sweatpants I was wearing. The feelings of lust in the room were almost tangible. I felt hot and threw the blankets off me and peeled off my shirt and tossed it aside. I took a deep breath and looked over at Sasha.
He had his back to me, but was curled up in a way that showed off his nice round ass. I always knew he was hot and had a great body, but ever since the wall had come down between us, I was noticing it more and more.
“What do you think it will be like?” he asked.
“What do I think what will be like?”
“When he breeds us,” he replied, his voice a whisper lost in a fantasy.
I closed my eyes and imagined Arnold back on top of me, maybe pinning me down as I lay on my stomach on the bed, my butt arched up just high enough to make room for my hand beneath me as I stroked my cock.
What would it feel like when he knotted?
What would that enormous explosion of cum feel like inside of me?
I can’t wait.
“It will be incredible,” I told him, reaching out and cupping his ass with one hand.
“Mmmm,” he moaned, pressing back against me. If you’d have asked me even two days ago if Sasha and me hooking up was a possibility, I would have said no—absolutely not. We were working boys living together to survive. We were friends, the best kind of friends. But then we’d met Arnold and everything changed.
He’d swept us off the street and out of that life. That wall we’d had up between us no longer had any meaning to us and the feelings we’d had for each other came spilling out as he helped us dismantle it brick by brick. Now, there was nothing between us but love.
Sasha arched his back, causing his sweatpants to pull down ever so slightly, exposing the crack of his ass. I slid my fingers beneath the waistband and pulled down, exposing all of him. He moaned, encouraging me, and I pulled them down the rest of the way to his knees and tossed the blankets off of him.
Neither of us spoke. We simply communicated with body language, each of our subtle movements communicating volumes to each other. He rolled ever so slightly onto his side, which allowed me to slip a finger between his cheeks and play with his hole, which was beginning to drip with slick.
Like I’m the alpha, I thought with a smile.
But that wasn’t it. Sasha didn’t want me to breed him—he wanted Arnold, just like I did. But Arnold wasn’t here now, and two omegas in heat, both turned on by each other—well, let’s just say we couldn’t be stopped.
Roll over, I told him by gently tugging on his shoulder. He did, and he twisted onto his back, exposing himself to me.
He was nice and hard, and so was I. I slid out of my sweatpants and moved closer to him, close enough that our cocks were touching. Neither of us was circumcised, and I wrapped a hand around both of our cocks and pulled the foreskins back and began jerking us both off at the same time.
Sasha was breathing heavily and hid his face in the crux of my neck, his lips gently open as though he was giving me one long kiss. I held our cocks together and began thrusting as though I was fucking him, and with my free hand, reached around and inserted my index finger in his hole. He gasped and finally broke the silence.
“Fuck, baby,” he whispered. “I can’t stop thinking about what it’s going to be like.”
“Neither can I,” I told him. “He’s going to be bigger than this finger.”
“Mmmm…” he moaned.
“I’ll suck you as he enters you,” I explained, playing the fantasy of my mind out for him to hear.
“Yes…”
“And it will hurt when he puts it in, but just a little, because then you’ll be so overwhelmed by pleasure that you won’t know what to do with yourself.”
Sasha moaned again and pushed even closer to me. I was one knuckle deep in him, but pressed another inside. Our cocks slid against each other in a way that felt like we were almost fucking. Sasha reached up and grasped the back of my head as I started to thrust faster. It wasn’t going to take much to get us both there. We were both so unbelievably turned on already by the power of our heat.
“And then?” Sasha asked.
“And then he’ll knot,” I told him.
“Fuck, yes!”
“He’ll knot inside you and it’ll feel like you couldn’t possibly take any more inside of you,” I told him. “And you’ll feel the bond that you couldn’t escape even if you wanted to. And then he’ll explode inside of you and claim you as his forever.”
“I can’t wait…”
“And then, once his knot subsides, he’ll do the same to me.”
“And we’ll all be together,” he said softly as our orgasms swelled together like two pieces of an orchestra meeting for the finale.
“I’m gonna come, Jace,” he told me.
“So am I!”
Our lips met at the same time as our orgasms. I felt his cum spray out of my hand and mix together with mine. I pushed my tongue into his mouth as we kept coming, the sounds of his moans like beautiful music in my ears as we both shared a beautiful moment of fantasy with each other, dreaming of what was to come with our alpha.
Sasha slowly pulled his lips from mine. “I love you, Jace.” My heart filled with warmth and I smiled.
“I love you too, Sasha.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Arnold
The construction site by the arcade was spilling over onto the sidewalk in a way that shocked me. I couldn’t believe San Diego would let the company get away with driving pedestri
an traffic into the street, as there weren’t any sidewalks close by and nobody was going all the way up the block to cross legally. Not to mention the place looked like it had become a night spot for the homeless, as there were several blankets and sleeping bags strewn about, as well as a couple of needles.
As I approached, I saw the old police tape cordoning off the site of the crime. There was still a decent amount of blood staining the rough ground of broken concrete and dirt. There were no uniforms, though, which surprised me. I stepped over a low plastic divider fence and examined the scene. I wouldn’t find anything the boys missed, of course, but as a shifter, I had different methods of detection.
I inhaled, searching through the smells of the city: the smoke, the booze, the homeless, the smells of piss and shit that went along with this part of town, but then I found it—the scent of the killer.
It sparked an anger within me that I’d pushed away until now so I could focus on other things, but as I smelled it, images of the horrible attack on my angels came rushing back to me. I saw them, both in mortal danger, and my resolve strengthened inside me.
I’m going to catch you, you son of a bitch!
The scent led off down the street towards a residential neighborhood. Of course he wasn’t living in the area—a maniac like that would stand out if he tried to rent a home—but on the other side of that neighborhood was a park. At night, that park was filled with unsavory individuals, crazy people and worse, and someone like the killer might manage to go unnoticed lurking in the shadows.
I followed his scent up the block. It was like torture, being reminded of what this psychopath had done—of what would have happened to my angels had I not been there to protect them. But it was a burden I was willing to bear for them and for all the other boys that might fall prey to him in the future.
I passed the usual pedestrians and a couple moving into one of the new condo buildings that had gone up this year, but I was in no mood to chat. I was on a mission. I kept moving until the trees of the park came into view. It wasn’t dangerous during the day, and of course as a cop I didn’t have to worry much, but I was a bit on edge as I stepped off the road and ducked beneath the cover of the trees. I wasn’t dealing with a rational person here. I was dealing with a killer. I had to be careful.
But as I stepped into the park, something happened that I could never have expected. The killer’s scent was there for sure, as it had been, but another scent slid into my nostrils, one that should not have been there.
Sasha’s scent.
No!
I spun around, my eyes searching the trees for him, but all I saw were trees, trash, a few blankets and a couple of homeless men lying in a spot of sun a few yards away. I looked around me, frantic, trying to figure out why Sasha’s scent would suddenly be here, and then I finally saw it.
A few feet ahead of me was a set of pawprints, ever so faint, pressed into the dirt beneath a tree. They were Sasha’s, the scent told me that, and I realized what was happening. Sasha had taken this route from my house to Jedrik’s when he ran off, and his feet had been bleeding from racing across miles of San Diego asphalt. He’d left his blood, and therefore his scent, here in the park.
“Phew,” I muttered, relaxing a little. But then a horrible thought entered my mind that was even worse.
If I picked up his scent and recognized it, then so would the killer!
I sniffed the air in a panic, trailing Sasha’s scent across the park, and what was worse, the killer’s scent was right with it.
No…I thought as my legs carried me forward, faster and faster as I chased the scents to the other side of the park, but when I came out the other side, I already knew where he was headed.
Home.
“Shit!” I shouted, barely able to resist the urge to shift and race back to my car. I couldn’t be seen like that in broad daylight, not around all these humans. I ran as fast as my man-legs could carry me and pulled out my phone as I raced towards my car.
“Pick up!” I shouted as the phone rang. “Pick up, damn it!”
I didn’t have either of their numbers, of course, and was calling the landline I had installed at the house when I moved in. Neither of them knew that it was downstairs by the stove, though, and if they were in the bedroom there was a real chance neither of them would hear it.
“Hey, you’ve reached Arnold Irons, please leave your name and a brief message…”
“Shit!” I hung up and raced up to my car and threw myself inside. I gunned the engine, burned rubber, threw my light on the roof of my car and turned it on. Technically it was a police emergency, and I had to get home as quickly as possible.
As I weaved through the North Park traffic, I picked up the phone and dialed again. It rang and rang and rang.
“Damn it, Sasha! Answer the phone!”
My tires squealed as I pulled onto the freeway and floored it towards home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sasha
“Do you hear something beeping?” Jace asked from beside me as we lay in Arnold’s bed in our post-orgasmic bliss, sharing a moment unlike any we’d ever shared together. I listened but didn’t hear anything.
“No? Are you going crazy on me?”
Jace shrugged. “I dunno, maybe. Crazy about you.”
“Corny!” I blurted out, laughing as Jace poked me in the side in the way that he knew made me tickle. I tried to wriggle away from him, but in the process, slid completely off the other side of the bed and tumbled onto the floor.
“Are you all right?” he cried out, standing up to look over at me.
I burst out laughing. “I’m fine. Don’t do that to me, jerk!”
Downstairs, I heard the front door burst open.
“Sasha! Jace!” Arnold called out.
“Up here!” I laughed. I heard his footsteps pounding the stairs as he ran, and as the door to the bedroom swung open, his scent washed over the room causing me to salivate.
“Hey, babe—,” Jace began to say.
“Oh, thank God,” Arnold blurted out, interrupting him. “You’re okay. I didn’t smell him when I got home, but I was still worried…”
“Smell him?” I asked, confused.
“Smell who, Arnold?” Jace asked, but then he realized. “Wait—the killer? Why would you smell the killer here?”
Arnold came over to me and lifted me to my feet and set me onto the bed beside Jace. He took both of our hands in his and held them tight like he was afraid we might just float away if he gave us the chance.
“What is it, Arnold?” I asked him. When he brought his eyes to mine, there was something in his eyes that he couldn’t hide—something that let me know that whatever had happened, it was somehow my fault. “Oh, no…what did I do?”
“It wasn’t your fault, Sasha,” he told me, but he was just being nice. It was my fault. “But the killer—he picked up your scent in the park when you ran over to Jedrik’s. And he’s tracking you.”
“Oh, God…” I moaned, dropping my head and placing a hand over my eyes.
You did it again, you idiot! This is what you do! You ruin everything! Everywhere you go, you make things worse!
“I’ll leave,” I told them. “Bring me a pheromone blocker and I’ll leave. I’ll go to Los Angeles or Tijuana. He won’t be able to track me there.”
“You will do nothing of the sort!” Jace scolded me, slapping me on the arm with his free hand.
“I have to!” I shouted. “You two are in danger if I’m here! I can’t be responsible for you two getting hurt.”
“You are not responsible,” Arnold told me, taking me by the chin and forcing my eyes to his. “He is responsible—the psychotic killer—not you!”
I knew that what he was saying made sense, but only on a purely rational level. It did nothing to assuage the guilt I felt in my chest. I’d brought Cash and his goons down on Jedrik and he’d barely survived it. Now I had led San Diego’s insane serial killer right back to the house I shared .
&nbs
p; “It is my fault,” I protested. “If I’d never run off like the idiot I am—”
“Then he could have still found us,” Jace told me firmly. “He’s crazy and he’s got our scents. We’d have gone out in the city again, Sasha, and he could pick it up any time.”
“Yeah, but this time it was my fault…”
“Sasha, you need to stop this,” Arnold told me. “You can’t continue blaming yourself for the way the world is. It took me a long time to realize this too, but once I did, I was able to move on and be the man you see today.”
“You don’t know what this is like…” I protested.
“I do,” he said. I looked at him, trying not to degenerate into a blubbering, hysterical mess. “When I was seventeen, I lost both of my fathers in a home invasion.”
What?!
His confession shocked me. Jace and I were right—he was wounded too.
“Arnold, that’s terrible,” Jace whispered.
“It’s the reason I became a cop,” he said. “So I could stop men like the one that killed my fathers. I blamed myself for their deaths.”
“It couldn’t have been your fault,” Jace said. “You were just a kid.”
“Not in my mind,” he replied. “In my mind I was an adult. I was downstairs in the basement with my headphones on when they broke in. I heard the shots and by the time I realized what was happening and got upstairs, they were dead. I blamed myself for years. If only I hadn’t been pouting down there. If only I hadn’t had my headphones on. I could have done something.”
“But you can’t plan for something like that,” I told him.
“Exactly!” he replied with a smile. “And you can’t plan for something like this. There’s a crazed killer on the loose and what he does has nothing to do with you. The world’s a shitty place sometimes, and you can’t go around blaming yourself for things that are completely out of your control. You made up with Jedrik and now you need to stop being hard on yourself for every little thing. You need to accept that there are some things you can’t change so you can move on.”
