Omega

by Susannah Sandlin

  He set Melissa down and collapsed to the floor, gasping. The cave-in rumbled along the tunnel they’d just exited, spewing dust over them until he put his arms around Melissa and pulled her face against his chest to help her breathe.

  Will had designed the exit rooms with a separate infrastructure, anticipating this very scenario. They couldn’t stay here long, though. He had no idea if Matthias knew the other half of that tunnel exited in Aidan’s greenhouse, but he couldn’t gamble.

  Finally, the rumbling stopped, the dust settled, and the silence pressed in on them.

  “Let me go, Cage.” Melissa struggled out of his grasp and looked around. “We’re under Aidan’s greenhouse?”

  “Yeah.” Cage wiped the grime off his face with his forearm. Guess he wouldn’t be getting that sweater and leather jacket back. Better them buried than Melissa and him. “And we have to go. If I don’t get you to Omega by three, Aidan and Mirren are going to walk into a big mess.” Plus, for all he knew, Matthias and Shelton were racing toward the greenhouse with a horde of hired guns and fangs.

  Melissa struggled to her feet and managed a few wobbly steps.

  This would be an arduous trip. And as Cage stood up, he realized how arduous. His leg threatened to give way, but he forced himself to put weight on it. He hobbled to the stairs and turned to Melissa. You climb ahead of me. I’ll catch you if you stumble. Just go slowly, and keep your balance.”

  Melissa nodded, shoving her hair off her face and tugging up the jeans that had grown loose over the last week as she’d gone through both transition and starvation. She placed one foot on the steps and stalled. They were steep and narrow.

  “Here you go.” Cage grasped her waist and lifted her, then held on while she got her feet under her. The next step she managed alone. When she’d made it to the fourth one, he started up after her, pulling his weight up each step with his good leg.

  Finally, they reached the top. “Spring the hatch, wait a few seconds so we can listen and scent, then when I say so, climb out.”

  “OK.” Melissa turned the release lever on the hatch and lifted it a few inches. A few inches more. Cage closed his eyes and scented the air, the cool dampness, the warm, sunny smell that lingered on the plants in the greenhouse. It seemed like a hundred years since Matthias had attacked and they’d fled their homes, but it had been only a week. Aidan’s blooms still scented the air with sweet, heavy perfume.

  What he didn’t smell was vampire. “OK, crawl out. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Melissa needed a boost to make it out of the hatch. Cage could have done with one himself.

  He looked at his watch, but the face was cracked. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.

  Krys had given Will the second double dose of morphine at about 1:00 a.m., along with a lot of snark about how men couldn’t tolerate pain and how Dr. Slayer was going to be in charge of his drug rehab if he got addicted.

  Fine with him. After the last shot, he didn’t know if he even still had a fucking leg and didn’t much care. Mirren could come in and twist it six ways to Sunday, and he’d just float through it.

  The holes in the acoustical-tile ceiling had quit dancing in swirls, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to even play games on his laptop.

  His thoughts were still clear, just trapped inside the attention span of a gnat, so he lay in a drugged stupor and thought about his father, about how they might get out of this crap-pit situation, about Melissa, about how Mark would react when he saw her—and if she’d feel the same about him as before she was turned. Krys’s bond to Aidan had held after she became a vampire, but it didn’t always work that way.

  Vampire mating bonds were some seriously weird shit. Who’d think Mirren and his battle-ax would fall for a sweet Georgia girl? Although, Glory was far from ordinary.

  And then there was Randa.

  Veranda.

  Memoranda.

  Randa-Panda.

  Randa Thomas was fun to think about while stoned.

  The door whispered open, and Will wrested his eyes from the acoustical tiles and looked at the woman standing in the doorway. Not Randa, which was too damn bad.

  “What kind of panties you wear?” he asked Krys. “You know what kind of panties soldiers wear?”

  Krys shook her head, took his pulse, and tried to shine a flashlight in his eyes—no, a damned tractor beam. “Your pupils are the size of dinner plates.”

  “You didn’t answer me about the panties.”

  She laughed. “Nor will I. There are some things in life, Will Ludlam, that are just flat-out none of your business.”

  He pondered this, and he could see her point. Aidan probably wouldn’t like Will knowing his mate’s underwear secrets.

  “How’s the leg?” Krys uncovered it and studied it with clinical detachment, which was kind of insulting. He had great legs.

  He arched his head up and took a look. The color was almost back to normal. “I think it’s ready to be untaped from the board.”

  “I don’t think so.” Krys pulled the sheet back over it. “I don’t want you moving until after daysleep. I just came to prepare you—you’re getting a new roommate.”

  Will suddenly felt a lot more sober. “You got word on Melissa?”

  Krys shook her head. “Not yet, but Aidan gave Cage until three a.m. to get her here. We’ve got another”—she looked at her cell phone—“hour. But we might need to put her in here, depending on what kind of shape she’s in. Even if she’s relatively healthy, Aidan won’t let her and Mark stay together alone for a while—she might not have enough control not to drain him when she feeds. I think Aidan’s going to ask Randa to stay with them.”

  Will’s sobriety ratcheted up another notch, to the point where he was aware of a dull throb in his damned leg. “I don’t think Randa’s a good option, Krys. Be better if you stayed with her.”

  Randa had shown a lot of facets to her character in the last forty-eight hours, but he still wasn’t sure nurturing a new vampire was the right role for her.

  Krys looked surprised. “Why? I mean, I’m so new myself I don’t think I could answer all her questions. I’ve only been turned a few months, and I thought a woman might be more comfortable for Melissa as a mentor.”

  Will stared up at his favorite acoustical tile for a few seconds. It had holes in the shape of a B-57 bomber if you looked hard enough. He didn’t want to sell Randa down the river, but the counseling Melissa got now was too important. “Randa hates being a vampire. She didn’t get a good indoctrination herself—I’m not even sure who got her through her transition.”

  “The asshole who turned her, I think. Still, she’s been turned five years. She knows more than I do about what to expect.”

  Will thought about her dislike of feeding and how surprised she’d been to find feeding from him pleasurable. “I don’t think she does. She only knows what she needs to stay alive. She hasn’t embraced anything. I don’t think she’d be a good person to counsel Melissa, and more than that, I don’t think she’d want to do it.”

  She’d feel obligated to try. She’d want to be the good soldier and please Aidan. But it could be disastrous for both of them. Will was as concerned about the impact on Randa as on Melissa. He wanted to show her how to embrace her nature, not just tolerate it.

  Krys remained quiet as she busied herself putting away the tape and bandages she’d pulled out while treating Will and Randa. Finally, she snapped her case shut. “We’ll play it by ear, then. Maybe we need to move you so that Aidan and I can both stay with Melissa in here. Mark too, if Mel’s in good enough shape. We can get Mirren to take you back to your room with Cage.”

  Will could think of no scenario where Mirren taking him anywhere was a pleasant option. “Define take.”

  Krys grinned. “How do you think you got from the cave-in to this hospital bed, macho man?”

  It had never occurred to him to ask. He’d envisioned a scenario where three or four scathe members wheeled him down the hallway on…a
golf cart or something. “Please don’t tell me Mirren picked me up and carried me.”

  “Clasped in his arms like a baby.”

  He would never live this down. Never in his immortal life.

  Randa watched Liv stuff her few clothes into a backpack. “Who’s this person you’ve hooked up with?”

  Liv stopped packing and sat on the bed. “Jeremy? He’s one of Hannah’s feeders since her fam parents left. We’ve been spending a lot of time together down here in Omega and found out we have a lot in common. And he’s cute.”

  Randa smiled at Liv’s blush. She was happy the woman had found someone, although it seemed awfully fast. “I thought you and Will…” She shrugged. She wasn’t sure what she thought Will and Liv had, or at least what Liv thought they had.

  “Will’s never going to settle down with somebody like me. I’m not…” The girl paused and picked up a tablet computer. “He gave me this, you know, to play with. I don’t even know how to turn it on. Not that I can’t learn, but I just don’t care about the stuff he cares about.”

  She knew it was an inappropriate question, but she asked it anyway. “What does Will care about?”

  Liv laughed. “If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know. He doesn’t let anybody inside, which is another problem. I know more about Jeremy in two days than after six months as Will’s fam. He’s hot as a habanero in bed, but the man is an ice cube upstairs, if you know what I mean.”

  Randa didn’t answer. She did know what Liv meant, although she hadn’t experienced the habanero part—and was more than a little jealous that Liv had. A day ago, she would have agreed about him being an ice cube. Now she knew better. Will wasn’t emotionally unavailable; he just protected a heart that had been hurt too often and too badly. She liked the man she’d been stuck with in the exit room. She wanted to see more of him. Not the face he showed the world, but the one he kept hidden.

  “You’ve already fed, but if Will needs to feed, come and find me.” Liv picked up her bag and opened the door into the hallway. “Jeremy’s got a room by himself, so I’m going to be staying there and we’ll see if we have something. His is the last room on the left.”

  After she’d gone, Randa changed into her favorite daysleep wear—a black T-shirt with ARMY stretched across the front in gold block letters—and settled into bed with the tablet computer Liv had left behind.

  What had Will put on it for Liv? She’d expected mostly games, and there were a few. There was a reading app, and when she opened it, she was surprised to see more than a hundred books he’d downloaded. And not for Liv, she suspected. History, architecture, military strategy—they were the books of a man bent on learning as much as he could. Maybe for the love of learning. Or maybe to prove something to himself.

  A commotion from the hallway roused her from bed, and before she got to the door, someone knocked. Maybe they’d found Melissa.

  Krys stood outside the door, looking down the hallway toward the hatch. “We’re having to shuffle some folks around—think you can put up with a new roommate? Has Liv already gone?”

  Great, another new person to break in. “Sure—Liv’s gone.” She hoped it wasn’t Melissa. She loved Mel to death, but Randa knew she was the last person a new vampire needed to be bunked with.

  It wasn’t Melissa who came through the door, but Mirren, carrying Will in his arms.

  Will appeared to be unconscious. His head lolled against Mirren’s shoulder, and his arms dangled at his sides. Did he have a setback? But his leg looked better, and it had been removed from the two-by-four. It had stripes of reddened skin where the tape had been jerked off.

  He wore a pair of black boxer briefs and nothing else, not that Randa noticed.

  “Which bed is yours?” Mirren asked, and Randa pointed to the one on the left. Mirren held Will over the other one and dropped him from a height of about four feet.

  He landed with a grunt, followed by a string of curses. “What an asshole. And if you broke my damned leg again, I’m going to kick you to India and back.”

  Mirren looked at Randa and shook his head. “Good luck.”

  Before Randa could ask any questions, Mirren had gone and closed the door behind him. Will struggled to sit upright and examined his leg.

  She tried not to stare at the expanse of tanned skin sprawled on the bed in front of her. He seemed a lot bigger in her little room than he had in the medical ward. “Why were you pretending to be unconscious?”

  “Because it seemed…” He looked up at her, his words trailing off as he took in the T-shirt, the bare legs, and what probably looked like a bad case of bedhead since she hadn’t done anything with her hair after her shower. “Damn, I like the army. Did I ever tell you how much I like the army?”

  Uh-huh. “How much morphine did Krys give you?”

  “Not enough. But I won’t be whining for more. Only a couple of hours before daysleep.”

  Randa sat on her bed and tried to figure out why Will was here. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re bringing Melissa in, and Cage was injured, so they need all the beds in the ward. Krys wants me to stay off the leg until after daysleep, but other than that, I’m off medical care.”

  Randa sprang to her feet. “Is Melissa OK? What happened to Cage? Has anyone told Mark?”

  She started toward the door, but Will grabbed her wrist on her way past and pulled her back, almost falling off the bed in the process. “They want as few people as possible right now, which is why they kicked me out. Cage hadn’t made it back by his deadline, so Aidan and Mirren slipped out and went into town, dodging Matthias’s vampires all the way.” He shook his head. “So damned risky.”

  Randa agreed. If either of those two were killed, the rest of them might as well march down Main Street and turn themselves over to Matthias. Aidan was Penton’s heart, and although he’d chafe at the title, Mirren was its soul.

  And Will, she realized with a start, was its mind. So much of what they’d accomplished here had been done because he’d figured out a way to make it happen.

  “So they rescued Melissa and found Cage hurt?”

  Will bunched the pillow up and lay back down. “No, they intercepted Cage and Mel coming from Penton. Cage was shot in the leg trying to get them out of the tunnel from the clinic, and Mel’s weak from being tied down so long. She needs to feed.”

  “What about you? Do you need to feed?” Randa’s heart sped up before the question was out of her mouth. She wanted Will to feed from her, to know what it was like to feel his mouth at her vein.

  Will grew still. “Only if you’re not talking about Liv.”

  Randa kept her eyes focused on his. Neither of them blinked. Neither looked away. “She moved in with her new boyfriend.”

  “Good.”

  Randa walked slowly toward the bed. He didn’t answer, but slid toward the wall to make room for her.

  She stretched out beside him. “How should we do this? You don’t need to move your leg.”

  “I don’t need my leg.” Will cradled her face in his hands and pulled her toward him, touching his lips lightly to hers. He slid a hand to the back of her neck and turned the kiss into a military assault, straight down the front lines, thrust and counterthrust. Randa felt a foreign heat wash across her skin as his hands traveled into enemy territory—or created friendly fire. She wasn’t sure which.

  Oh yeah, definitely friendly fire. She trailed low, slow kisses along his jaw, then eased her body on top of his.

  “This position’s starting to feel familiar.” Will smiled as she kissed him again, then tilted her head, baring her throat to him. Thanks to her tonsorial experiment, she didn’t have to push her hair out of the way.

  He gripped her waist with warm fingers and pulled her higher on his chest. Randa’s heart pounded as he slid a hand through her hair and grasped a fistful of curls, holding her head taut. He swept his tongue along her shoulder, paused to nibble on her collarbone, then her earlobe.

  His left hand sti
ll held her head fast while his right slid around her waist and clamped tight. Her breath grew ragged as he sent his tongue on a leisurely route across her neck. “Are you ready?”

  “Please…” Good grief, had she just begged him to—

  The sharp pain of the bite disappeared in waves of pleasure as he drew from her vein, each soft pull killing any rational thought. It was all sensation now, sweeping from her neck to pool between her thighs.

  As if following her thoughts, Will slid a hand between them and found her hot and wet and ready for his fingers to dip inside her, using her own body’s arousal to spread in and out and around her until she cried out for him.

  He withdrew his fangs and she turned to kiss him, but he jerked her head back into place, leaning in to bite a second time, then a third, a fourth. Each bite sent an almost physical thrust of pleasure through her core. Each time he pulled away, it was a withdrawal. The rhythm sent her spinning.

  He stopped feeding, replacing his teeth with tongue and lips. His breath puffed against her ear, his voice rough. “Come for me, Ran. Now.”

  With wicked, agile fingers, he took her over the edge. She cried out against his neck as he bit a final time.

  Shuddering, she lay in his arms, kissed him, took the skin of his throat between her teeth.

  “Don’t feed from me. Not now.” He worked his hands up to the tail of her T-shirt and began sliding it up. She pulled away and sat up.

  Will’s eyes were glassy, his lips red from her blood, his breathing as heavy as hers. He’d never looked more beautiful.

  “Why don’t you want me to feed from you?” He’d enjoyed it before; she’d felt him grow hard beneath her, even in the less-than-romantic confines of the caved-in exit room.

  Slowly, he ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, capturing the last drops of her lifeblood. Then those lips lifted in a smile. “Oh, I do, believe me. But do you know how much morphine Krys pumped into me tonight? I don’t know what it would do to you.”