by Kathryn Moon
Tension melted slowly from Tornado’s shoulders, gaze softening. He leaned in, jaw against mine, the light scruff of his beard scraping against my cheek.
“Okay,” he said in my ear.
I straightened, delight bright and bubbling in my chest. “Yeah?”
“I’ll talk myself out of it again, just warning you.” He leaned back with a sheepish smile and eyes crinkling with humor. “I’ll let you talk me back in.”
“I can do that,” I said.
“I’m worried I’m being too selfish to—“
I’d never liked it in the movies when the man kissed the woman to get her to stop talking, but I committed the crime guiltlessly, swallowing Tornado’s worries with my lips and then coming back for more until he growled. His hands lifted from the table, wrapping around my ass and tugging me against him, and I withheld a triumphant giggle, holding tight to his shirt as I conquered his mouth. Tornado’s hands tugged my skirt out from under me until his jean covered erection was against the seam of my underwear, thighs exposed. He was winning the lead of the kiss as I wiggled against his front, ready for him to spread me over the table.
“Let me guess; omega. It’s what’s for dinner.”
Motherfucker.
Tornado snarled, pulling away from my lips abruptly, fingers digging into my hips as he growled at the intruder over my shoulder.
“What? You’re in the kitchen,” Cole answered.
I pressed my face to Tornado’s tense and vibrating throat, kissing over his pulse softly and running my hands over his chest until he eased.
“Out,” he barked.
Cole snarled lowly in answer, and I shot him a look over my shoulder. “What did you expect? Give us a minute.”
Cole huffed and rolled his eyes, turning for the door again. “You better hope he takes more than a minute.”
Tornado didn’t rise to the bait, and honestly the suggestion was laughable. The door swung shut, and I sagged into my alpha.
“Maybe we need to ask him to just go back to the Plaza,” I said.
Tornado shook himself, lifting my hands from his chest up to his lips. He left soft kisses on my palm and then untwined my legs from around his hips. “We’ll talk to Bullet about it,” he agreed. “For now, let’s get this garlic in the pot so I start thinking about something other than how warm your pussy is and how good you smell.”
I laughed and he tucked his grin away, snatching garlic from the table and going back to our dinner prep.
“Fanny Price was a doormat,” I said flatly, shrugging. Ryan snorted at my back, only vaguely following the argument.
But Mackenzie, my lovely, nerdy, delicious alpha, gasped—gasped—in offense. “She was constant!” he protested, looking up in sudden shock from his laptop screen.
Well, that at least grabbed his attention. He’d been deep in his work for days now, and while I was glad he seemed to be having some success on a recent trail, I was missing his attention. Greedy omega.
“She was constantly abused, and neglected, and passed over,” I listed.
“She knew her pack was hopeless without her, and she waited for them to realize it!”
Ryan slipped out from behind me, kissing my temple. “Gonna go talk to some plants,” he said, hands slipping over my shoulders and down my arms. He’d become touch greedy since we bonded, and I was five-thousand percent into it.
“Kiss first,” I murmured, tipping my head back.
He grinned briefly, gaze knowing, but he delivered the kiss with a brief sweep of his tongue over the scar on the swell of my lip. I whimpered and sighed as dazzling sparks shivered through me in response.
“Be good,” he whispered in my ear before rising and leaving me to torment Mackenzie.
I twisted onto my belly on the couch, peering over the arm at Mackenzie in his armchair. His laptop was open, but his eyes were on me.
“I just think she could’ve given herself the benefit of the doubt and considered looking for a pack that knew how good they had it with her,” I said, picking up the discussion where we’d left off. “I mean, I’m biased, but she didn’t get half as lucky as I did.”
Mackenzie’s smile grew. “I’ve been thinking about where I want my bite.”
My jaw dropped, and my sex clenched at the very suggestion. Mackenzie hadn’t mentioned bonding at all since I’d come downstairs with Ryan’s bite still healing. I’d caught him staring at the mark, watching Ryan as he kissed me or thumbed the spot, making me shiver.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, voice too high.
“There’s extra sensation on the spot?” I nodded, and Mackenzie’s smile turned predatory. I wonder if even Tornado knew how wicked his friend could get. Not that I didn’t encourage every second of it. “Does it get you off?”
I swallowed. Ryan had tested this theory the night before, hovering over me and focusing completely on the mark with tongue and teeth and lips and even a soft scratch of his fingernail. “Yes.”
Mackenzie purred and nodded. “Good to know.”
“Have you been thinking about this a lot recently?” I asked, totally unashamed of the hopeful tilt to the words. My legs were kicking in the air behind me, and I was wondering exactly how hard I’d have to try to start another game. Except with Cole still lurking around the house, the only safe places were up in the nest or behind a locked door. Which was a shame, because it would’ve been a riot to play hide and seek with Mackenzie or all my alphas. Maybe when Jonah and Seth got back, I’d suggest it.
“Constantly,” Mackenzie said, and then glanced at his computer. “Well, almost.”
I pushed myself out of the couch and slid over to his seat, pleased when he lifted the laptop and offered to let me sit with him. I curled up on his lap and pulled the computer to my own.
“What’ve you found so far?”
“Bad bookkeeping mostly,” he said, his hand sliding up to my neck, pushing my hair aside so he could touch more skin. “Suspicious bookkeeping, maybe. Also, a lot of open threats tossed around on social media. And…”
I glanced at him, caught the wary fold between his brows and scratched through the coppery stubble on his jaw. “And?”
“And a lot of rumors about betas going missing around him. Women,” Mackenzie said, checking on me over the rim of his glasses.
My chest clenched and went cold as if I’d just stepped out into a freezing wind. I’d been texting with Lola regularly since we’d gotten to the house and I knew she was still with her cousin, but she could’ve been one of those women. And I would’ve been too busy getting knotted to realize until it was too late.
“So far, I can’t get anything to line up into the kind of proof we need, but it’s something I’m keeping an eye on. Collecting,” Mackenzie said, a weary edge in his voice.
I tipped his chin up, finding his pulse warm and reassuring under my fingers. “It sounds like you’ve already found a lot of new information. Don’t get discouraged. If the Hangmen are the reason these women are missing, then you’re absolutely their best chance of being helped. Can you talk to the police about it?”
“I was hoping to find something concrete, but yeah, if I get stumped I’d rather pass it to them. Chef has guys from the force comin’ into the diner on their late shifts, so we have a few trustworthy people we can tap.”
“My knights on shining steeds,” I said, and grinned at Mackenzie’s light blush. I curled up tighter onto his lap until we were face to face, leaning in for the kiss I craved.
“Our damsel in distressed denim,” Mackenzie answered, and I laughed before he caught my lips with his.
For as serious as he could be when it came to studying new subjects or working on research, Mackenzie was all play when it came to being alone with me. As he pressed languid kisses to my mouth, he shifted beneath me. The laptop shut with a ‘click’ and then landed gently on the carpet. I pushed for more but Mackenzie paused me, hand cupped around the back of my neck and eyes hooded behind his glasses.
“On the co
unt of three I want you to run as fast as you can to the nest, kay?”
I sucked in a breath, body tensing.
Oh, fuck yes.
36
Bomber
It was late Friday night so the bar was packed, the music was loud, and the taps were flowing. The crowd was turning into white noise around me as I poured drinks and read orders off lips. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, but the room seemed dead to me like I was watching the whole night through a screen.
I missed Baby.
I was prepared for Scorch’s moping—and holy shit, was he—but I’d thought I could take a handful of days back in the city and away from our girl. Apparently not. Hell, even Dusty seemed to be a little sour, and I knew he had to be enjoying having his garage to himself with Coal out of his hair.
Even the beta girls were less cheerful.
Baby was right, they were part of the pack. Most of them had been around for years and now that Baby was as good as one of us, it was probably only a matter of time before the guys were bonding them.
My eye snagged over the heads of customers as the office door open, Scorch’s black curls just visible above the crowd. His eyes checked the clock on the far wall and he wove his way through bodies to slide behind the bar and up to me.
“Time for last call,” he said. “I’ll help with the rush.”
He jerked his head in Brody’s direction near the entry hall, and the lights overhead flicked on and off in warning, cheers and moans mingling as everyone realized the end of the night was near.
It was too busy and too loud to talk, but I was looking forward to the slow rush of people heading out the door to get a chance to speak to Scorch. It’d been four days since we’d gotten back to the Plaza and he was becoming…intolerable. To put it lightly. He’d been quiet on the drive back to the city, but since then quiet had turned to snarling and snappish. And brooding. Brooding like something out of one of Baby’s old books she loved. Not that I planned on pointing it out. I had a better idea entirely.
At two am, when the lights were on and we waited for the last stragglers to leave, cutting tabs off and packing glasses to be washed, I took a moment to get in my alpha’s ear.
“What do you think about calling Coal back early?” I asked. “We can put him on the bar and head back up north.”
Scorch looked up from the credit card machine, brow furrowed. “We said we’d do a week here.”
“Yeah, well, it’s been a boring week. I miss our girl, don’t you?”
Instead of the snarling purr I expected to come out of his lips, Scorch only swallowed, throat bobbing, and avoided my gaze.
What the fuck?
“We should give her time with Coal,” he said.
I frowned. Scorch was certainly a fair Prez to the club, but I didn’t honestly believe he’d be so self-sacrificing to not jump at the suggestion of turning ourselves right back around and heading home to our omega. Because that’s where home was now, with her.
“Bullet texted that Baby’s not feeling him anymore and Coal’s being a shit about it,” I said.
That at least got a reaction. “What?! What kind of a shit? When did he text?”
“Earlier, while you were in the office.” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and passed it to him before turning back to the bar to give the last few lingerers my best discouraging glare.
Brody was escorting a couple out of our bar bathroom, the male beta’s pants still unbuckled with his alpha’s lipstick smeared over his mouth. Yeah. Fuck. I missed Baby. And as happy as I would be to be back in the mansion, I really wanted her here with us. Because I could just imagine having her up against the wall in the bathroom, right under the vent so Scorch would have to listen to us from his office. And because it was where she belonged, driving everyone a little crazy with her scent, making all our alphas smile with her sweetness, tellin’ off anyone who annoyed her.
The bar was clear and I was getting ready to clean up as Scorch joined me, fists clenched on the edge of the counter, my phone face up.
“If he did something. If she changes her mind—“
I laughed, and Scorch flinched and stared at me, eyes wide. “Are you fuckin’ serious right now? There’s nothing that’s shakin’ our girl out of this pack.” I frowned as Scorch paled and his gaze avoided mine. “What’s goin’ on with you?”
“Baby and I fought before we left,” Scorch whispered, wiping down a glass repeatedly.
My jaw dropped. I’d noticed tension, but I assumed it had to do with Baby not wanting us to leave. “What kind of fight?”
“She wants me to bond her.”
You stubborn shit. I pinned my lips shut before the thought could escape. I knew Jonah was determined not to rush our girl, but to let it turn into an argument?
“Is that not what you want?” I asked. I crossed my arms over my chest and spoke again before he got the chance. “Is Baby not the omega for you? Have you not been stressing this whole time about taking advantage of her heat? It’s over, Scorch! She wants us. We want her.”
I twisted into his face, forcing him to look at me and not at the rest of the bar. “The heat just ended,” Scorch whispered.
“I’ve never been in heat. What’s your excuse for not bonding me?” I asked, eyes narrowing. “Because to be honest, I always thought it was ‘cause you were waiting for someone like Baby, but if you’re not even sure about her… Would you really bond me?”
His head whipped to face me, eyes wide. “Of course I would! You know I would.”
“Because it’s been ten years, and you haven’t,” I said. I released a slow breath in the silence of his shock. “Would you bond me because I’m a beta, or because it’s been so long?”
“Bomber,” he said slowly, voice breaking. “She just…omegas are different.”
“Quit fuckin’ thinking of her as an omega!” I snapped. “She’s Baby. She’s our person. If you don’t get your head out of your ass she’s gonna—“
“Leave,” he said, a mournful ache in his voice and brow furrowed.
I huffed and rolled my eyes. “No dickhead. She’s gonna bond everybody but you.” I was gonna stuff my fist in his mouth if he kept leaving it hanging like that. “You think if you wait, she’ll leave. But you’re not the only alpha she wants, Scorch. Bullet’s not giving her up. Green would sooner eat glass. Brody’s a fuckin’ heathen so he’d probably lock her up, and Mackenzie would let him just so he and Tornado could keep her. You’re alienating Baby from you, not the pack.”
“They wouldn’t bond her without a fucking pack agreement,” Scorch said, but he sounded doubtful.
“You’re the only asshole stupid enough to refuse that woman something she wanted so um…yeah, they probably would,” I said, shrugging. “Fuckin’ honestly. I’d bite her if she asked me to, and it wouldn’t do shit.”
I stood there, staring at him, long enough to see the gears start to turn in his head. I loved this man so much, it made me forget how ridiculously narrow-sighted he could be sometimes. Leaving him to work out the puzzle of the hole he’d dug for himself, I elected to check on the bathroom situation for the first time ever since I started helping manage the bar. The only thing worse than a bar bathroom at closing time was the man you loved being a damn fool.
I was surveying the damage in the stalls—nothing a mop couldn’t handle, at least—when I heard the slam of the back bar door. I slid out of the bathroom, expecting to see Brody dealing with an end of the night fight, but instead it was Chef, eyes wild and teeth bared.
“She’s fucking missing!”
“Baby?” Scorch growled, back bunching with tension as he raced out from behind the bar.
“Emmy! She went out with the trash before I noticed her leaving,” Chef snarled. “Who was in here? Who just left? Everyone out there’s sayin’ they didn’t see shit.”
“Take a deep breath and hold it together,” Red said, stepping up to Chef whose teeth gritted and body hunched. “I’ll go out now and quiz s
ome folks.”
“The fuckin’ Hangmen,” Chef hissed at Scorch.
“They weren’t in the bar tonight, I know that much,” I said. “We’ll lock up and ride together.”
“We can’t leave the betas here,” Scorch murmured, jaw flexing. “We’re too short-handed.”
Chef growled again, hands clenched around the back of a chair, so tight either the chair or Chef’s knuckles would have to give up. “Are you saying—“
“I’m saying the girls will have to ride with us,” Scorch said. Sudden calm and command washed over my alpha, the perfect proof of why he’d not only inherited his position in the club from Nine but done so with every member’s blessing. “We stay together as a family. I’d rather lose the Plaza than a pack member. Chef, go, ride out now. I’ll get everyone together, and we’ll be following before you’re out of earshot.”
Chef released a whooshing breath of a sigh and charged for the back door, leaving Scorch and I alone in the bar.
“Call Bullet,” he said. “If Emmy… if it was the Hangmen, and they’re focusing their attention here because they can’t find Baby, then we’re gonna need more hands on deck.”
I swallowed and nodded. “I’ll be ready to ride out.”
Scorch sighed and nodded. “Lock up. I’ll see you out there.”
Not one person had seen a rope noose, a Hangmen cut, or even an unfamiliar bike in the lot around the time Emmy vanished. Three people loitering and smoking saw her walk out, head around the corner to the dumpsters, and not one of them heard another sound. Thumb and I canvassed the border between our territory and the Hangmen’s, but there was no sign of them so much as slipping a toe over the line.
