She was about to shrug it off and return to her soaking when the engine sound seemed to split in two directions. Darcy froze as she absorbed the implication: there were two engines.
Two ATVs.
Two men.
That wasn't Zeke coming toward her, but Robert and David…and they had her flanked.
Darcy didn't stop to think. She scrambled out of the pool and started running for the shack.
She didn't dare call out for Zeke—his cabin was miles away. Besides, if he was anywhere on his land, he'd be able to hear the roar of the engines.
Which meant either Zeke was too far away to hear what was happening…or he didn't care.
Or—Darcy nearly stumbled at the thought—they'd somehow managed to stop him. And the only way to stop an alpha was to kill him.
If Robert and David had figured out her exact location, that meant they had the department's equipment—the infrared thermal imaging and Range-R that was the envy of every department in the county.
Escape wasn't an option. She'd have to fight. But she wouldn't last a second without a weapon.
She made it back to the shed just as the first ATV crested the hill. Casting about wildly, she grabbed one of the boards left over from the shed's construction and held it out in front of her with both hands.
If she had to go down, Darcy would go down swinging.
The ATV shuddered to a stop a few feet from where Zeke had emerged from the woods that morning, and David yanked off his helmet and threw it on the ground as he dismounted.
Darcy considered bolting, but she knew it wouldn't do any good. Even now, she could hear Robert pulling up behind the shed.
There was nowhere to run.
"Hey, Darcy," David called. "Bet you're surprised to see us."
He took his time, swaggering as he strolled toward her. Darcy scrambled backward until her back was against the door of the shed.
David was toying with her just out of range, his hand hovering over the butt of the pistol on his belt, looking amused as she brandished her board. All he had to do was pull the trigger, and it would all be over. A man who was willing to fire on an alpha sure as hell wouldn't care about gunning her down.
"Fuck off, David," she spat at him, blinding fury overwhelming her fear. "You're trespassing on alpha property. There's no way you'll get away with this."
"I already have," David replied with an oily grin. "Your mongrel savior broke the treaties by aiding and abetting a beta fugitive. That's how we got a special warrant to stake out this property from neutral territory. The department even let us use the new scent blockers they got from the military."
"But this isn't neutral territory," Darcy said, gripping the board even more tightly. "This is Zeke's land. He'll kill you."
"He might," David conceded with a shrug, "if he was here. But we watched him drive away. We've been waiting three long weeks for that son of a bitch to finally leave so we could get justice for Scott."
"And now your time's up," a familiar voice said in her ear.
Darcy jumped. She'd been so focused on David that she hadn't noticed Robert creeping around the side of the shed.
She swung the board, but David easily blocked it and then yanked it out of her hands. Her weapon gone, Darcy tried to run, but Robert blocked her. He grabbed her arm, twisting it hard enough to bring her to her knees. She tried to fight and was rewarded with an excruciating jolt of pain when he yanked her up, making her scream.
Robert dug his fingers into her hair and pulled her head back, wrapping his free arm around her and trapping her arms against her body. He pressed his face against hers and her nose wrinkled at the smell of his foul breath and scrape of his stubble.
"Scott was right about one thing," he muttered against her ear. "You would have been a lively little fuck."
"I don't know about that," David said. "I've never heard of a woman so disgusting that even an alpha wouldn't screw her. Yet he's got Darcy in a fucking shack miles from his house. This bitch is so freaky that not even the goddamn curs want her."
"I'm still willing to try her out," Robert declared, grabbing one of her breasts and giving it a painful squeeze.
Darcy twisted in his arms, but he held her fast. "I would rather die than let you touch me."
"Oh, don't worry," David said with a cruel laugh as he pulled his gun. "You will. One shot, right to the gut. Just like you did to our brother."
To drive his point home, David poked the barrel of his pistol under her shirt, against the bare skin of her belly.
Darcy forced her chin up. If this was it, she wouldn't beg or cry. She'd die looking this bastard in the eye. "Burn in hell, David."
His eyes narrowed as his finger tightened on the trigger. "You first."
But no shot went off. Instead, something roared past them in a blur—and suddenly, David was gone.
Robert bit off an exclamation and crushed her against him—one arm cutting off the air in her windpipe, and the other holding her immobile around the waist.
But even though Darcy couldn't see what was going on, she could hear with perfect clarity. The brutal dull thump of something solid meeting flesh. The sound of wet, squelching ripping. And the screams—terrified at first, quickly becoming something that didn't even sound human.
She felt Robert beginning to shake. She didn't need to see his expression to know how frightened he was.
And that could only mean one thing—Zeke had found them.
"I told you he was going to kill you," she whispered.
Robert was too damn stupid to know it was time to retreat. His hold around her middle disappeared, and a cold, hard muzzle pressed against her temple.
A second later, Zeke stepped into her field of vision, covered in another man's blood, his face a mask of rage.
"S-Stay back, or I'll shoot her," Robert stuttered.
Somehow Zeke appeared even more massive, more primal than ever before. But even though explosive energy radiated off his body, he had the deliberate and focused gaze of a predator, one for whom violence was nothing more than a means to an end.
Zeke adjusted his stance very slightly, calculating how to get at Robert without harming her.
No—not without harming her. Without touching her.
Robert started to inch Darcy back toward the ATV, taking advantage of Zeke's hesitation, and she realized that it couldn't be done. If Zeke rushed Robert, he might be able to take him down before the bastard could pull the trigger…but Zeke wouldn't be able to avoid touching her.
If he came from in from the side, Robert would have time to shoot.
If he did nothing, Robert would drag her onto the ATV and hit the gas, and shoot her the second they were clear.
His brothers might be dead, but the stupid prick would get off without so much as a reprimand. Hell, the department might even hail him as a hero.
There was no way out. Either Zeke was forced to suffer his worst nightmare, or she died. And Darcy could tell from the look in Zeke's eyes that he knew it too.
But she'd made peace with what was about to happen the second she'd realized that Robert and David had come for her.
She looked Zeke in the eye and smiled. "It's okay. Really. You've already helped me enough. I know you don't have a choice. Just, once I'm down, don't let him get away."
"Shut up, bitch," Robert snarled, dragging her more forcefully, only steps away from the ATV.
Zeke closed his eyes briefly, his expression full of pain. When he opened them and gazed directly at her, Darcy was grateful that the last face she would ever see would belong not to David or Robert Baron, but to a truly good man.
Darcy let out the breath she'd been holding—and that's when Zeke made his move. He was so fast she didn't have time to process what he was doing, but she felt the full force of his body crashing into hers as he took Robert down.
Chapter Thirteen
Darcy's body slammed down hard. Not even landing against Robert's chest was enough to cushion the blow. The impact knock
ed the breath from her lungs, and she gasped for air as she struggled to roll onto her knees.
It wasn't working. She felt like she was suffocating. Darcy clawed at her throat, wondering if her windpipe was crushed, if she was about to die.
But then the desperation suddenly lifted, replaced by a strangely peaceful haze that momentarily dimmed her vision, filling it with a field of sparkling light. Even though she knew she'd been injured in the fall, her pain vanished, and she was filled with the sense that everything was as it should be.
Zeke.
He'd touched her, and though it had lasted only a fraction of a second as he slammed past her into Robert, somehow the sensation was imprinted on her—not just the soothing, tingling warmth where his massive shoulder had collided with hers, but all through her body. In her cells. Her organs. Her mind.
Her very soul.
The change was happening at breathtaking speed, and Darcy could barely keep up with the wonder of it.
It was nothing like she'd imagined. Until this moment, Darcy would have guessed that an omega's transition would hurt, like the growing pains of an adolescent as their bones and muscles stretched.
This felt more like a quickening, her entire body drawing in the energy needed to fuel feats she had never known she was capable of.
Though Darcy didn't know what came next, somehow she knew that her life would never be the same. She would experience it in ways she never imagined. Pleasure, pain, chaos, and joy—all of them would be different.
She could feel her old life fading away, sloughing from her like the papery husk of skin shed by a snake. She felt her hurts disintegrating, making room for something new and vibrant and lush inside her.
The fear was gone.
Darcy didn't care that she couldn't breathe, couldn't move, that she was still just the squeeze of a trigger away from death. She'd never be able to explain it, but even though she was sprawled on top of an armed man who wanted her dead, Darcy knew she was right where she was supposed to be.
Of course, that lovely sensation of rightness didn't last long.
In the next instant, Darcy felt another hard jolt as Robert was yanked out from under her. One moment he was beneath her—the next her ass was resting on a patch of sorrel.
This second impact freed her lungs from paralysis, and Darcy was able to suck in a couple of deep, sweet breaths.
She looked up just in time for Zeke to let out a terrifying bellow and hurl Robert against a redwood. Robert's legs took the full impact with the broad, unforgiving trunk, and a sickening crunch echoed through the trees. Screams erupted as Robert fell in a heap at Zeke's feet, and Darcy's eyes widened as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
Jagged white bone protruded from the bloody fabric of his pants at angles that made no sense. One foot was turned completely backward. Darcy's stomach roiled at the sight, and she turned away.
Robert Baron might have been a sadistic son of a bitch who wanted to do horrible things to her, but that didn't mean Darcy wanted to watch him die in agony.
But she couldn't avoid the sounds he made, his garbled screams as Zeke roared in primal rage. Then came the cracking of bones, the tearing of flesh, until all was silent except for Robert's last shuddering breath.
Then it was over.
Except she knew that wasn't true.
The last sliver of her beta identity, the part that even now she could feel slipping away, knew it was just beginning.
Blood dripped from Zeke's hands and landing in the carpet of pine needles below his feet. For a moment, Zeke stood still, sucking in giant breaths that reeked of blood, piss, and fear.
But underneath all that was her.
Darcy.
Zeke could feel her sinking into his body, into his heart, where she would be lodged until the day he died.
He had touched her, activated her nature, taken away her freedom and his own in one fraction of a second, dooming himself to be shackled to her forever. It was done, and he couldn't take it back.
He would never be free of her.
No matter where he went, no matter what he did, even if he pulled up stakes all over again and went where Darcy could never hope to follow, she would still be with him.
Haunting him, tempting him, teasing him.
He'd known how this would end from the moment Cade revealed that betas had driven onto his land.
Zeke had been terrified—truly goddamned terrified. He was painfully aware that he was one of only a handful of alphas who would ever experience that emotion, which always came from the same source: omegas.
To know terror, you had to have something to lose.
Well, Zeke was never going to lose Darcy.
He had denied this truth for too long, and, like a salmon throwing itself upstream, would have kept doing it until he died if these craven beta brothers hadn't come here begging for justice to be served.
Until he'd slammed into Darcy's body, Zeke had convinced himself that his reaction to her was the mindless result of biology.
But Darcy wasn't just any unawakened omega. She was a fighter with more guts than some of the alphas Zeke knew. She was a damned fool who worried about him when she didn't have to, who touched herself without shame—and called him by his full name when no one else bothered.
He wasn't about to let her die on his land.
But it wasn't until she'd given him her blessing to sacrifice her life—just so he didn't have to face his greatest fear—that he knew he'd do anything to save her.
Now, filled with the scent of her ripening body, his cock straining against the confines of his pants, Zeke still didn't know if he'd made the right choice.
He knew what Darcy could do to him—the pain she could inflict, the chaos she could bring that would tear his whole life apart.
But that was a problem for the future.
Four days from now, Darcy's heat would subside, and both of them would have to come to terms with the consequences of their new reality.
But until then?
Zeke slowly turned and took in the sight of Darcy's body, still wet from the stream, her underwear transparent and clinging to her skin. His cock grew even harder, the need to free it grew even stronger.
"Darcy."
She responded instantly to the sound of his voice, raising her gaze to meet his. Her nipples hardened against the thin, sheer material of her bra. Gooseflesh sprung up on her arms. As she licked her lips, a savage hunger filled her eyes.
Four days from now, there would accounts to settle. But until then, Zeke meant to do everything he'd been dreaming of since the moment this woman had crashed into his life. He'd tear those panties off, sink inside her, and not come out until reality broke down the door.
Chapter Fourteen
"Darcy."
She couldn't resist the sound of her name on Zeke's lips. She had to turn around.
At the sight of him, her lips parted, and a small sound escaped. In a reversal of the first day they'd met, he was the one standing there with ripped clothes and covered in blood.
She didn't care about the gore, though. She couldn't even be bothered to glance at Robert's mangled corpse. All of her attention was on Zeke.
On the face that was familiar but different somehow. On the magnificent body that flooded her with awareness. On the flinty green eyes that caused her nipples to painfully tighten.
Countless times, Darcy had fantasized about what it would be like with Zeke. But everything was different now because this wasn't a fantasy.
The inevitability of what was about to happen made her arousal a hundred—a thousand—times more intense.
Zeke’s chest reverberated with a low rumble, just like it had the night he'd ripped the door off the woodshed—a sound filled with longing and anticipation.
Darcy could practically feel the raw, carnal hunger radiating out of him...and her body answered with a rush of slick that poured down her legs.
Zeke inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring as he drank in h
er scent. Still, he didn't rush her. Instead, he moved toward her slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving hers.
When there were only inches between them, Zeke wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close.
And then he kissed her.
It was everything that Darcy had imagined: passionate and demanding, sweet and dangerous and intoxicating, laced with promise and also faint threat. The rumbling grew louder as his tongue swept over the swell of her lower lip, then claimed her mouth entirely.
Darcy was lost to the flood of sensation. The crash that had awakened her nature had been like an earthquake, knocking her off her foundations and leaving her untethered, but it was nothing in comparison to the overwhelming force of his kiss.
With each breath, she felt herself slipping farther into the unknown. Memories evaporated to make room for emotion. All the other men she'd known—the wild nights and awkward mornings, the broken promises and hurled insults and crushed dreams—disappeared like insubstantial dust.
There was only him.
Only Zeke.
Eventually, he pulled back to look searchingly into her eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was laced with pain. "I should have been here. I should have killed them the second they stepped foot on my land."
"Hush." Darcy raised herself up on her tiptoes, trying to reach his mouth again. "Don't look back. Just keep kissing me. I've wanted this for so long."
Zeke slid his hand up, plunging his fingers deep into her hair. He was pulling her in to kiss her again when he paused, his lip curled in disgust. He gripped her shoulders and looked her up and down.
"My hands are covered in the bastard's blood. I'm getting it all over you."
"I don't care."
Strangely, it was the truth. Right now, Darcy wouldn't care if Zeke was dripping with guts and gore as long as he kept touching her. The fire inside her raged, demanding more.
"I care. No beta prick gets to touch you ever again. Not even in death." Zeke hooked a hand under her knees, and suddenly Darcy was aloft in his arms, cradled against his chest. That same peace that had come over her in the seconds following his first touch—that sense of perfect rightness—enveloped her again.
Zeke: The Boundarylands Page 9
