by Lola Rock
Twenty-Nine
JETT
Long after Lilah leaves, I can sense her in my space. She taints my sanctuary, slender legs peeking out from under her oversized T-shirt. Her bare toes clenching and unclenching on the floor, and the dazed expression that sank her features while I poured poison into her elfin ears.
I feel like I’m spinning out.
Lilah doesn’t belong here.
She belongs in the past, my one pure memory.
My nostrils work as if I can pull in her scent, but it’s not there.
I gravitate to the security cams the same way I have every spare second since Lilah showed up in my home.
She’s already out of the house, sprinting barefoot. A growl rises at the back of my throat.
It’s cold at night, and our property’s as secure as I can make it, but we have too many enemies. Even a stray hunter wandering the edge of our property could mistake her fleet footsteps and rich brown hair for the flight of a fawn through the underbrush.
Lilah strips off her shirt and dives into the lake.
She doesn’t resurface.
I know exactly how long she can hold her breath. Three minutes is nothing. But I count the seconds, my blood pressure rising, every fiber focused on the screen until her head finally, finally pops above the water.
Lilah starts to swim.
I wish she’d cross the lake and never come back.
I can’t have her here, stirring shit, disturbing the carefully balanced status quo. Smiling and cozying up to Orion, making our pack house feel like a home.
Because what happens when she leaves?
She will leave.
I don’t for a second believe she’ll stay.
Why would she want to? With each of us more fucked up than the next.
And I’m the worst of all.
I want to scream into the night.
I want to hit the gym and punch the bag until it breaks, but then Hunter and Finn will want to talk.
I don’t want to speak.
I want to remember what it feels like to be powerful. To have the control that Lilah steals from me with every glance and breath.
I send the text, grab my keys, and head out in my Porsche, taking the country turns so wildly that Finn would be proud.
I blast the same rock song I’ve been listening to on repeat for more than a decade.
Engine screeching, I roar up to a shoddy pack bar where the sign says Diamonds, but the street says crime report.
I’m barely parked when the female figure flies out the side, wrenching open the door and throwing herself inside the car, already ducking down, half submissive, half terrified.
Her omega scent is a rotten, sickly sweet mocha. Coffee and skunk.
“Renee.”
“Al-Alpha.” She trembles, perching on the seat like a bird ready to take flight. “We can’t be seen here.”
I slam into reverse, shoving her against her seat and enjoying the way she bites back her yelp. I take us down the street to the dodgy parking lot of a 24-hour grocery store where working girls line up for customers. Seeing Renee in my ride, none of them pounce.
She fidgets, toying with her too-short hem. “You should’ve called. It’s too big a risk coming in person.”
Some days, I’d rather die than see her face.
Others, I crave her fear. I need to know she knows how easily I can ruin her.
Ruin her the way she ruined me.
“What have you found?” I pin her under my dominance, holding her captive in my gaze.
Renee used to be attractive enough.
Now her black hair is crunchy with hairspray. The makeup she cakes on to hide the broken blood vessels of her drinking habit gathers in the shallow creases around her eyes, her lurid purple eyeshadow smudged. That bodycon dress is nowhere near tight enough to hold together her shit.
“Dominik has a mole at Wyvern House. Someone who knew your pack made an offer to a new female. That’s why he targeted you at the ball. He wants Li—”
“Don’t say her name.”
Renee whimpers at my bark, hunching into herself.
I won’t allow her to taint the one precious thing I have left.
“What’s his next play?”
“The soldiers don’t know. I’m working on one of his higher-ups. I’ll have him in my bed before my next—Ah, soon.”
Diamonds is under the Redfang organization. It’s not where the power players gather—I have other, more trustworthy sources digging there—but it’s the perfect gig for Renee with her bullshit story about how she was fired from her cushy OCC training job. Her loud, well-documented resentment for my father makes a good cover.
And her real story is blackmail gold.
As she picks at her chipping manicure, uncomfortable under my attention, I take solace in the fact that I can kill her at any moment.
A bullet in the ear with the silenced gun under my seat. A slit throat. Or I could strangle her with my own hands and watch the life leave the eyes of the pedophile bitch.
The power settles the fraying parts of me.
I’m in control.
Even when the memory comes—the way the memory always comes—I can swallow it down.
“Have you ever touched an omega before, little Wyvern?” Renee grabs my hand, dragging it down her body to the heat between her legs. I freeze, half-hard and half confused. “Can you smell my scent? Do you want to taste it?”
I shudder, blinking away the past.
Renee fucked with me for a year before I got her fired. Now I own her, and watching her squirm is the only thing that keeps me from falling apart.
“If you like Lil-her,” Renee stutters. “Keep her safe. The Redfangs are out for blood.”
I snort.
Safe.
As if Renee can fathom what that means.
“I want to know the second you have more information.” The sooner we nail Dominik, the sooner we can safely send Lilah packing.
The sooner I can go home without feeling like I’m in freefall.
I need her gone.
I need her to stop reminding me of everything that might have been.
Even if driving her away destroys us both.
Thirty
LILAH
When I wake up, my arm itches in the bad way that says I tore my stitches and soaked my bullet wound in lake water like an idiot with a septic death wish. Footsteps and the scent of coffee warn me they’re awake upstairs.
Throwing off my covers, I grab my tablet and log on to work. Only this time, I log onto a different website.
Black market jobs don’t make me warm and fuzzy, but cooking books for gangsters is a lucrative skill, and I’m just as good at spotting money laundering as I am at washing cash.
I can’t afford to be picky with my awakening sinking in its fangs.
Jett’s bark still echoes in my nervous system, the sickly vibration making me want to puke.
We already have an omega.
I stay in bed for hours, tapping on my tablet, cursing that I don’t have a keyboard as I lean on my black market rep to hook up a few mafiosos who need help cleaning their accounts.
By the afternoon, my stomach won’t stop rumbling. The house is quiet with the alphas gone off to work or kill a few dudes or whatever they do for fun.
When I start to feel woozy, I give in to the need for food and creep upstairs. I’m definitely sneaking some back so I don’t have to risk crossing paths with Craig ever again.
I tiptoe to the fridge, ducking to rifle through the fruit drawer. I’m craving apples like crazy. Maybe I’ll have a piece of cheese as a treat. Anything I can snag before—
“Lilah?”
I whirl to Orion.
He lifts his hands with a smile as soft as his loose sweater and comfy sweatpants. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Are you making lunch?”
“Just grabbing a snack.” Empty-handed, I shut the fruit drawer with my knee.
“Thing is…” He scrapes
his skin, drawing my attention to his long, sexy forearms.
“Thing is?” I swallow, my pitch rising.
“I’m craving grilled cheese, but I turned them into hockey pucks the last time I tried.” He chews his lower lip, shifting foot to foot, cheeks pink with embarrassment.
Cute.
I open my mouth to say no, I’m working, and I’m not falling like that curl that falls over your forehead. What comes out is, “Should we make tomato soup?”
“Yeah.” Orion’s grin sets off fireworks in my gut. Big, sparkly, booming ones that have my insides going ooh ahh instead of drawing a line.
Can I not say no to him?
Am I that broken?
I brace myself as he steps closer, smelling like an apple cider donut. The scent is warmer today, more level and less needy. Even his muscles are a little looser. His hips worked out.
Guess that’s what happens when your alpha fucks you for six. Motherfucking. Hours.
Not that I was counting.
But when I came back from the lake at the crack of dawn, they were still going hard enough that I hear Orion’s soft, womb-melting mewls.
Looking deliciously well-fucked, Orion gathers the bread and cheeses while I start the tomato soup on the stove. We don’t speak, but it’s a comfortable silence as we dance in and out of each other’s space.
“For you.” I hand him the plate with the sandwich that’s exploding with cheese, way fatter than the one I kept for myself.
“Spicy ketchup? Habanero aioli?” He opens the fridge to sift through his sauce collection.
“Spicy ketchup,” I agree without much thought. I haven’t tried that one yet, but it has to be delicious.
Grinning, he carries our plates to the breakfast nook, and we chow down, inhaling the food.
I’m ready for a three-hour nap when the cheese and grease hit my belly, but I need to spend the afternoon working.
“What are you up to the rest of the day?” Orion asks as we bring our dirty dishes to the sink.
“Accounting,” I say casually. “You?”
“I was gonna work on code while my hormones aren’t making me a banshee. You want to come upstairs? We could hang in the living room…” There’s a bashful note to his voice, and he ducks his head, his ears turning red like he’s asking me on a first date.
As much as I should say no, I just…can’t.
I like being around him.
Too much. He’s so sweet. So fun. With our time together so limited, so what if I want to be in the same room as him for just a little while longer?
“I’ll grab my tablet.” I hurry downstairs and slather on another layer of lotion. The tiny bottle is seriously almost empty, and if I run out, I’m going to have to start spritzing with the hardcore industrial cleaner.
Anything to keep my scent hidden.
When I’m positive my perfume isn’t leaking, I head back upstairs.
Orion sits in the corner of the leather sectional sofa with his knees propped on a hassock, and his laptop propped on his knees. He frowns at his screen. I don’t bother him, sinking into the cushions on the far side.
It’s sinfully comfy, the leather ingrained with all the guys’ scents, and broken-in to perfection. I have every plan of working, but I’m so full, so lulled, so tired from all my workouts that my eyes start to fall, and I slip under before I can help myself.
“Fucking shit,” Orion’s mutter jolts me awake.
I panic, thinking I’ve scented in my sleep, but he’s not paying attention to me, leaning hard into his laptop screen.
I let out a heavy breath that has him peeking up from his work.
“Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“It’s fine.” I have no business sleeping in front of him, right in the living room where any of the guys could come home at any moment and catch a face full of my perfume.
“This project is killing me.” He lets the laptop slide off its cushion and rubs the back of his neck.
“What are you working on? Or is it classified?”
He makes a frustrated noise in his throat. “I’m not allowed on the Wyvern House servers. I’ve been coding a video game for fun.”
“A game?” I ask, suddenly interested.
I took a few coding classes at the OCC and I liked them for the same reason I like math—lines of symbols that just make sense. It was only a basic class though. An intro for omegas who want to mate engineers.
Nerd packs are sexy.
“You want to see?” Orion asks hopefully.
“Sure.” Interested, I crawl across the couch to him.
Orion clicks around before offering me his laptop. “It’s a resource management game. You have to raise a wolf pack. Help them hunt, breed, expand the territory. The graphics aren’t there yet, but I’m trying to get the mechanics fixed before I go all-in, you know?”
The wolves are super pixely, but the interface is fully programmed, with a pack of little wolves bouncing on screen. I snort when I read the selected wolf’s name. “Finn?”
Orion smirks. “Check his stats.”
Aggression: 5
Curiosity: 5
Intelligence: 0
“Zero?” I laugh. Orion has his whole pack represented in 8-bit wolves, plus a bunch of tiny wolf pup babes that make my heart hurt.
“Should we add a Lilah wolf?” He steals the laptop from me.
He’s not reading into this game as deeply as I am, so I shrug. “Just make mine smarter than Finn’s.”
He switches to a code screen, with the cutest mischief grin. “Omega. Female. Intelligence, five. Strength, two? Oh, and size. Maybe a point five? Shit. I have to reprogram it for itty bitty wolves.”
“Very funny.” I take back the computer when he hands it to me and can’t help grinning like an idiot over the little Lilah wolf who just joined their pack. She’s white and grey, and I can’t believe he added another character so quickly. “This is cool. Will you sell it when it’s finished?”
“Nah. It’s just a hobby. I feel useless if I don’t do anything.” There’s a longing in his voice that makes my chest ache.
“Did you want to work at Wyvern House that badly?”
“Not really. I was expected to because my dad does. My brother’s the perfect secret agent. Now I’m just the pack’s house husband.”
I wince like he’s shooting fire arrows into my deepest insecurity. “I get it.”
I’ve never wanted to sacrifice my whole self to an alpha pack. Still don’t. “Why don’t you start your own company? It’s not like the guys are keeping you barefoot in the kitchen. With them always gone, start an empire. Who knows? Maybe you’ll make more than them.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” he says, in this cute helpless way that makes me want to pat his head and fluff up his confidence.
“Finish your game, register your company. Maybe hire Atlas as your bodyguard.”
Orion’s eyes sparkle. “Imagine him standing behind my desk in a suit?”
I don’t have to imagine. I’ve seen Atlas in a suit. I’d put him under the desk and pay him to work overtime between my thighs. “Nevermind. You’d never get shit done.”
“Right?” He laughs and leans into me, not even a little bit territorial when I just admitted how hot I am for his pack leader. “What do you think of this?”
He shows me another feature, then another, and by the time I realize what’s happening, we’re pressed side-to-side on the couch, snuggled under the same blanket with his laptop balanced on a throw pillow that straddles our laps.
His game is amazing.
Orion is amazing.
And I wonder if this is what it feels like to have a friend.
An amazing-smelling, super molten hot omega friend whose scent makes me want to count how many licks it takes to get to his ooey-gooey center.
But yeah. A friend.
He has me giggling over the tongue-lolling animations on Finn’s zero-IQ wolf when we hear the front door open.
&nb
sp; I reach for the knife hidden in my bra.
Orion pulls a handgun from between the sofa cushions and flicks the safety. He holds the gun with this cold, casual confidence that says he knows exactly how to handle his weapon.
And I’m going to be replaying the way his forearms flex and his expression hardens during my private alone time in the shower.
“Omega?” Craig’s whine sets me shivering.
Orion makes a disgusted noise before stowing the gun in its hiding hole. He’s straightening our blanket when Craig walks around the corner.
“There you are. I—” His eyes bug when he spots us pressed together on the couch. I squirm under his icky gaze. “What are you doing?”
Orion answers the pointed question meant for me. “We’re working on a project. What are you doing? You’re not scheduled to be here.”
I don’t imagine the hint of a growl in his voice.
I definitely don’t imagine how it makes my thighs clench. I want to feel that growl against my throat.
“I came to check on you,” Craig says defensively. “And good thing.”
I open my mouth, ready to tear him down the way this creeper so desperately deserves, but I catch a hint of caramel.
My heartbeat skyrockets, and I realize my temperature is up, a flush stinging my cheeks.
How long?
Did Orion already notice?
I throw off the blanket, grab my tablet, and flee.
“You don’t have to go,” Orion calls behind me.
“Bathroom!” I call, singsongy and fooling no one.
I breeze past Craig, holding my breath, trying to will my pores closed. Downstairs, I fly into the shower.
My perfume keeps rising.
I toss my clothes and pad that needs to be sealed up and burned, then start to scrub.
A while later, I step out of the bathroom, lotioned, wearing nothing but a towel, and clutching my soiled clothes like they’re radioactive. I need to do laundry again, erase the damning scent.
I’m booking it to my room, already planning how to hide my latest slipup when I bump into Craig.
My brain’s a million miles away, and he snatches my wrist before I can dodge, pulling my entire arm as he lifts my dirty clothes to his nose.
