by Jayce Carter
He’d claimed they hadn’t had sex. The idea had Marshall scoffing, since resisting an omega in heat was something few alphas could manage. Marshall could only because of years of training. Still, the omega carried the other alpha’s scent, a low level that supported his story.
They’d had contact, but it seemed he hadn’t knotted her. Had he, that scent would have clung to her in far larger amounts.
A petty part of Marshall liked that. It made his alpha side quiet the snarling when Kieran had stood in the room with him.
“How are you feeling?” Marshall lifted the clipboard from the foot of the bed. He didn’t need it, but his looking at it relaxed patients. His gaze could unnerve anxious omegas.
Being an alpha working with omegas had challenges, especially when he cared for injured and abused ones. Still, they’d found that nothing calmed an omega quite like the scent or voice of an alpha.
“Tired.”
He nodded, gaze down. “You’ll be tired for a few days. I’ll have food brought in to help. How much do you remember?”
A shudder ran through her. “Everything.”
Words perched on his tongue, something reassuring, something to tell her it was okay. Instead, he shook away the impulse. “The alpha who found you, Kieran, stated there was no sex, so no possibility of conception. Is that right?”
She nodded, her fingers running over the sling that kept her arm immobile. “Kieran?”
“You don’t know his name?”
“No. We’d never met.”
Marshall hung the clipboard on the hook at the foot of her bed. “Yes. His name is Kieran Elliot. He’s outside if you’d like me to get him.”
“He’s still here?”
“He never left. I think he wanted to make sure you were all right.”
She huffed a soft laugh that made her chest rise against the hospital gown they’d dressed her in. “I doubt he wants to see me. Let him know I am awake, alive and not his problem anymore.”
The hurt in those words caught Marshall. Not venom. Not fear and not anger, but unhappiness. What had happened to cause her to react like that? Marshall rolled his shoulders, telling himself to relax, to breathe in and out, like he told his patients.
He had no reason to believe the alpha had harmed her, but reason had nothing to do with the adrenaline that had started to work its way through his body.
“Doctor?”
Marshall snapped his gaze up. “Yes?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Nothing. Why?”
Her eyebrow lifted, and the vibration in his chest told him.
He’d been growling.
Wonderful.
“Sorry.” Marshall cut the sound off before leaning out of the door to order the food, giving himself a moment to collect himself. He didn’t go off like that, didn’t let his baser instincts free. No, not Dr. Marshall Brown. He’d always been the steady one, the thinker, the one no one would suspect of being an alpha.
After a few breaths, Marshall returned to the room, to the omega, to her scent and her temptations. “Are you in pain?”
She shook her head, but even that had her wincing. Her soft smile said she knew he’d seen. “I’m sore, but I don’t want painkillers.”
“Why not?”
She curled her fingers into the blanket as she pulled it up tighter around her waist. “I don’t want to feel out of control.”
Of course. After what she’d been through, she’d want all her faculties in order. “How about anti-inflammatories? They will reduce the swelling and pain, but they won’t make you feel drugged or loopy.”
A breath full of relief left her. “That would be great.”
Marshall added it to her chart, then sat in the chair beside the bed. It lowered him and gave her a position of height. “You can have them after you eat, since taking them on an empty stomach will make you sick. Eat something, take the pills and I’ll set up for you to see your friend.”
“Thank you, Dr. Brown.”
“Marshall.” He frowned at how quickly the correction came out, at how much he wanted to hear his first name fall from those pink lips of hers. “Call me Marshall.”
“Marshall,” she said with a smile.
And, damn, that smile was enough for him to pull in a rough breath and realize he was in over his head.
He liked the omega.
Chapter Two
Kieran wanted to pace. He wanted to move around the waiting room and snarl at anyone who passed too close.
Tiffany sat in a hospital room, and the walls separating them made him want to tear them down. Fuck. Where did that come from?
Instead, he sat in one of the chairs far too small for his size, his laptop perched on his thighs. He reviewed the bid for a job in Texas sent by the manager there. It was busy work to keep him occupied and not thinking about Tiffany, about what had happened, about how she’d looked stretched out in that hospital bed unconscious.
The way her lips had wrapped around his fingers, the way she’d swallowed down his cum—he couldn’t shake it. Her eyes, full of trust, were the worst.
She was too fucking young. After what had happened with Randy, she shouldn’t trust anyone, especially not him. Kieran was at fault for what had happened. He’d failed to see Randy for what he’d been, hadn’t recognized the monster in his employee and it had led to the deaths of too many omegas. It had led to what Tiffany had suffered.
After getting her settled, he’d checked on Claire in her hospital room. The other woman had given him some information on the girl, but she’d been tight-lipped. Smitten as she was with Bryce, Joshua and Kaidan, it seemed he wasn’t offered that same trust.
Tiffany was only nineteen. A barista at a local coffee shop, from what he understood. That didn’t shock him, though. Her sweet nature, and the way she’d pleaded so nicely?
That was the sort of voice he wanted to hear begging. He wanted to see her strip down and drop to her knees, to have her turn those blues eyes up to him and—
“You sure this is the place for that?” Sam’s voice cut into his thoughts.
A look down at his groin had Kieran groaning and adjusting the laptop to cover his erection. “What do you want?”
Sam only grinned before lowering into the seat beside him. How the detective managed to deal with all he did and still have that cheerful mood, Kieran would never know. “Wanted to check in on everyone. Besides, I brought Tracy and Karen to see Claire.”
A soft snort was Kieran’s only answer. Sam was the sort of alpha to settle down, so it didn’t shock him to hear he’d put some claim on the broken omega and her daughter. Sam was a family man, the sort who would fit well into the father role.
“How are you?”
“I don’t need a heart-to-heart, Sam.”
“You sure about that? Because you look even more glum than usual, and you’re usually pretty depressing.”
Kieran released a low, threatening growl.
Sam only laughed. “That won’t scare me off.”
He shut the laptop, giving up on the fake distraction. Sam was a hell of a pain in the ass when he wanted to be, and it seemed he wanted to be.
“I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“She was in heat. What the hell do you think happened?”
“You didn’t knot her. You wouldn’t be this wound up if you had.”
Kieran’s knuckles popped when he drew them into fists, then released them. “Fine, I didn’t. Can you blame me? She was drugged out of her mind, and it was her first heat. Nothing in that says she should have had sex with anyone, let alone me.”
“Let alone you?”
Kieran pressed his lips tight at the telling statement. “I mean that I’m not looking for anything long term, and that girl should be. So, no, I didn’t knot her. I helped her the best I could until she could be sedated, and now? Now I’m waiting here to make sure she’ll be fine. Then she can go on her way, meet a nice young alpha and have a handful of kid
s. Are we done?”
Sam’s chuckle only drove Kieran’s temper higher. The draw to knot the female had nearly overwhelmed him, and denying the instinct had left tension. “Oh, this should be fun to watch.”
Kieran shook his head, wanting to open the laptop and let the detective fuck off for all he cared. Being rude wasn’t something he’d worried much about in his life.
“There’s something else,” Sam said.
“What?”
“Well, when they brought Tiffany in, they fingerprinted her, ran her history.”
“She’s nineteen. How much history could she have?”
“More than you’d think.” Sam reached into the bag slung over his shoulder to pull out a folder. “She’s been in trouble a few times. She was pegged as an omega at fifteen because of a reaction to some medication. At that point, she rebelled a bit. Most of it was small stuff. Went joyriding in a few cars, a bit of graffiti, some breaking and entering.”
“Most of this looks harmless enough.” Kieran read through the reports.
Hard to think of Tiffany being such a troublemaker. Even the things listed weren’t outright destructive. She’d graffitied omega slogans on the wall of a newspaper that tended toward pro-alpha stories. The breaking and entering seemed to be revenge for an alpha who had groped her friend. The joyriding was pure fun.
“Most of it was. Then this happened.” Sam leaned across and flipped the page. “She got into it with this alpha. Broke his nose, gave him a concussion.”
“That little spit of a girl did all this to an alpha?”
“That little girl had a big bat and a lot of attitude.”
Kieran read over the details, his lips tipping down. “Says here she claims the alpha attacked her.”
“Yeah, and, judging from what I’ve found, he probably did. However, the alpha’s father is a congressman, and the last thing he wanted was this story in the paper about his son, so he made sure it fell on Tiffany’s shoulders. They put out a warrant to have her registered as a delinquent omega.”
“Fuck.” Kieran slammed the folder closed. “Tell me there’s something you can do about this?”
“The alpha’s father has a lot of pull, and he’s well connected. I’d guess he hasn’t let it go, because I ran her prints as soon as she came in, and I got a call within fifteen minutes about her.”
“You can’t let them register her for that. She’ll be given to whatever alpha has been sucking the dick of the council. She’ll be nothing but property.”
Sam slid the folder back into his bag. “I know, but I don’t have unlimited power here. Lucky for you, I have enough strings for one plan, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“And what plan is that?”
Sam’s smile, wide and full of amusement, didn’t bode well. “How do you feel about coming out of retirement to train one last unruly omega?”
* * * *
Kane sighed as the man struggled against his binds. Why did they always struggle? It wasn’t like the man thought he’d get out of the rope that bound his wrists, yet there he went, yanking and rolling.
Even calves gave up when hog-tied. Seemed cows were smarter than the fucker Kane had caught.
“Let me go! I’ll give you anything.”
“Don’t want shit from you.” Kane opened the desk drawer and rummaged through the items there. Snacks, a magazine, a billion paper clips.
What the fuck? No one used paper clips anymore, yet every desk he looked through had them in spades.
“Besides, you’d lie anyway.”
“I won’t lie. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, okay?”
“See, that won’t fix this. Someone hired me to find you and to get some important files. You being alive or dead at the end of it? Well, that’s a fun surprise for us all. I’m partial to dead, but not sold either way.”
That had the man struggling again, hard enough he rolled to his side and got stuck. Not the most dignified position.
The ringing of Kane’s phone had him sighing. Why did he give out his number? He hated when people called him when they wanted stupid shit. He should hire a secretary, someone to deal with the frustration for him.
He pulled out the phone, and the name forced a smile he tried to hide the moment it appeared. He gave a warning jab in the man’s direction then a shush before he answered it. “Hey, Tiff. Been a while.”
A soft background beeping came before she answered. “Hey, Kane. Sorry, I’ve been busy.”
He stilled, something on the edges of his awareness raising suspicion. “You okay, doll? You don’t sound great.”
“I’m fine.” The lie, even through the phone, could have been spotted by a blind idiot. “Well, I mean, I will be. There was an accident, and I got hurt, but I’m okay now.”
“Accident? You lying to me now?”
The hesitation from her was new. Hell, it almost sounded like she had to psych herself up to answer. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
His hand tightened around his phone until a crack warned him to ease off. “Fine. Sure. We’ll not talk about the fact I know you’re in a fucking hospital. You think that beeping ain’t distinctive? But, yeah, whatever you want. Why’d you call? So we could not talk about you being hurt?” The sharpness of his tone would have shut up most people, but Tiffany had never been most people.
A year since they’d started talking, since she’d hired him to do a simple delivery job, and he’d never been able to stop thinking about her. They hadn’t met, of course. Too tempting, too dangerous. She sounded like a fucking perfect omega, and him? He was scarred and tatted up and far too dangerous for her. Hell, the girl had no idea he was even an alpha.
Instead, their talks had turned from jobs to actual conversations. They’d laugh, they’d talk and he’d pretend there was something there. Her voice had gotten him through some dark nights, nights when that soft laughter of hers was the only light he knew of.
Her sigh came out soft and tired.
Don’t be an asshole.
She’d clearly had a hell of a day, so the last thing she needed was Kane acting like a bastard to her.
“Sorry, doll. What’s up?”
At that, the man on the floor shouted, “Help me! He’s going to—” A kick to the man’s stomach, then a hand over his mouth shut him up.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. TV was on too loud. What’s up?”
Suspicion colored the silence, telling him she was too smart to believe his shit. Still, she didn’t call him on it. “I wanted to know if you’ve made any progress. I don’t know how long I’ll be under this name, and in case I have to go, I wanted to make sure you send anything new you’ve found.”
“You planning on running?”
“Might not have a choice.”
The hell she wouldn’t. Kane wanted to ask her what the problem was, wanted to tear it apart. He wasn’t any good for her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fuck up anything that endangered her. That was what they had—all they could have. Tiffany got the good life, the happy life, and Kane got to watch over her. It had to be enough. “Tell me the truth, Tiff. Tell me what’s going on. I can help you.”
“You’ve done a lot for me, Kane, but even you can’t fix everything.”
“Wanna bet?”
Her laugh eased his chest, the resilience there. Stubborn, feisty little omega that she was, nothing much kept her down for long. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I’m going to have much to say about this. Text me that address when you find it, please.”
He nodded before remembering she couldn’t see him. “Sure thing. You keep my number, though, because if you drop off the face of the Earth and don’t bother to let me know you’re okay, I’ll track your ass down.”
“Promise?”
His answering growl came out feral against the teasing she always did.
How many times had she asked to meet? How many times had she’d begged him to stay at their drop-off location? Hell, he still recalle
d the time he’d scouted it out first, only to see the same car sitting there. A call and her laugh had said, yeah, she’d tried to outwit him.
Fuck, turning her down was hard. Didn’t matter, though. Sometimes people did what was right even when it was hard, and he hadn’t done much right in his life.
“Don’t push me,” he said.
Nothing but affection came through her words, as if his growls and threats meant nothing. “I’ll do what I can, okay? And, just in case, if things don’t work out and I can’t talk to you again, I want you to know—”
“None of that. You shut the fuck up with goodbye bullshit, you hear me?”
“There’s that charm of yours I love. Okay, fine, no goodbyes. I’ll talk to you later.”
“You better.”
The line went dead, leaving Kane still holding the man beneath him down, his hand over the guy’s mouth. Sure, the guy was a two-bit asshole who deserved the shit that was happening, but, even so, it all painted a picture, didn’t it?
No matter what Tiffany thought, the girl didn’t know shit, and they had no future. The best thing he could do for her was to stay the hell out of her life.
If only he was strong enough to do it.
* * * *
Tiffany shifted her arm, the sparks of pain causing her to grit her teeth but try again. It moved, but pain still spread through the joint.
The pills had taken the edge off the ache. Food had settled her stomach, and she could breathe easily again.
Kane’s voice brought a smile, though. That growl he let out and his subtle annoyance with her warmed her. If she had to run—and it seemed she’d need to—she’d miss him.
She couldn’t contact him after she cut ties. Claire had taught her enough to know better than to try it. The quickest way to get caught would be contacting anyone from her old life.
She’d miss him. How many people could she count as friends? He’d never been interested in anything, had refused to meet her. Because she’d gotten his number through a forger, she had to assume he knew she was an omega.
