Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Tatum
Holy headache from hell .
I blink, then blink again. It’s still dark, but I shouldn’t be this…foggy. This disoriented. What happened? Where am I?
That scent.
I reach for the light on my bedside table, but my arm flops oddly. I try to sit up, but can’t get my body to move the way I want it to. These aren’t my sheets. These feel too scratchy.
“W-wahhh…” My tongue doesn’t work.
Where am I? The thought hits me more urgently now.
A door clicks. Light floods…a figure standing before me.
Wet socks…ew.
“Shhh, I’ll take care of you, Baby . You’ll be mine, after all these years, no one will get between us now. I’ll be your–”
“What were you planning to do with me, exactly? Did you think I’d simply stand back and watch you harm her?”
“Easton!” Mr. Ferris? Why is he here? Who’s he yelling at? “Why are you in here! How–”
“How? I picked the lock. That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I-I…”
“You want her. You were going to rape her?” There’s a stretch of silence. “Do you know who Merzotto is?” Another pause. “My uncle.” More silence.
Things get foggier. Darkness blinking in and out.
“Take the money and get out.” Hissed words, but everything's so blurry in my mind.
“I will.”
“Great.”
Fuck, pain. So much pain… I really need to sleep…
The sunlight is so fucking bright that I move to roll away from it, but I’m stuck.
There’s a warm body under me. Warm, naked skin. I jump up, wincing from the pain as I stare down at the man.
“Easton!”
“Tatum!” he gasps, mocking my shock.
“Why? What? Why…” I stumble over my words, looking around us. I’m in the guest room at Mr. Ferris’s. I’m in a different shirt than the one I went to sleep in. Easton is naked from the waist up. There’s a bruise on his chin, bright purple blooms against his skin, and I gasp.
“Shhh, sweet Sparrow. I’m not hurt.” His words rumble with a low purr, trying to soothe me as his scent fills the air. Brownies… I lick my lips.
“But…”
“I’m going to tell you what happened, but you need to promise one thing?” He’s watching me so carefully, as he reaches up to stroke my hair. The way he watches me is so…intoxicating.
I nod.
“You must promise to stop wiggling this delicious body against me, I’m already hard, and you’re very tempting. Now is not the time for me to ravish you.”
I blink. Blink again… “What?”
I’m suddenly very aware of every inch of him that's under me, but he doesn’t repeat himself. Instead, he smirks, and I stare, mouth slightly agape.
“He drugged you. Once we came to bed, he locked me in my room and trapped you in here.”
“How…”
“Mr. Ferris offered me money to allow him to rape you after he induced your heat. I assume he was also planning to keep you extremely drugged and based off of some things I found…you’re not his first victim.”
My eyes bug out of their sockets, and I shake my head in denial. “No…” I whisper. Not because I don’t believe Easton. I do. But…victim?
“I recorded the conversation, so you could see for yourself. I can play it for you?” He pulls his phone out for me, showing me the screen. It’s a video. In the frame, I can see myself in bed, and at the side of the bed is Mr. Ferris, facing a shirtless Easton. With a shaking hand, I reach up and hit play.
“Take the money and get out.”
“I will.”
“Great.”
“So you’re planning to do what? Induce her heat?”
“Tatum is mine. What I am planning for her, is none of your business. That Omega slut has teased me since she was a student. I’ll get what's mine.”
“Mmm.” Easton nods, and moves as if he’s about to leave the room. Mr. Ferris watches him for only a moment and then turns back to me.
Easton locks his phone and pushes it back into his pocket.
“You don’t need to see the rest.”
“What happens after that? Did he…touch me?” Omega slut…teasing him… I was a child. A minor. He–he knew me when I was a kid, before I perfumed as an Omega the first time.
“No. I strangled him with my bare hands and watched him die. Would have shot him, but didn’t want to startle you. The drugs were already messing with your head,” he says it so casually, and I slowly blink at him once again.
Then I lose my fucking mind a little. I lean down and kiss him. Tears fall, dripping off my cheeks and onto his. Easton pushes his hands into my hair and tugs me back enough to look at me.
“Not the response I was expecting, Little Sparrow. I’ll be honest.”
He sounds as breathless as I feel. “He was going to rape me. You…killed him. For me. You protected me… I…”
I’m not sure if this is the correct response to murder…
“Something might be wrong with me,” I whisper. Easton scoffs, a teasing smirk tugging one corner of his mouth up.
“No more than me, Little Sparrow.” Easton pulls me back down, and presses his forehead against mine, closing his eyes. “You have taken everything I thought I knew and turned it all upside down. All I can see when I close my eyes is you.”
Kodiak
I walk through the apartment and frown. We only just arrived, but there’s a scent in the air. Familiar. Unmistakable. I follow it to her closet. The scent is stronger in here. I’m distracted for a moment by the sight of the bear we gave her, and the hoodies in her nest, when I realize what I’m smelling.
Fucking brownies.
Alarm bells go off in my head. My dominance is heavy in my scent as my heart races, and my body floods with adrenaline, ready to face this threat.
“The fuck?” Hayden growls, my head snapping to him as he walks into Tatum’s bedroom, spotting me in my half feral state. Hours ago, Dream was found unconscious outside a bar.
Bleeding and drugged. She couldn’t remember shit. Nothing useful. But just before Hayden was called away, he had been in that same bar with Tatum.
I meet his eyes, as his frown deepens. He winces as the cut in his brow cracks open from the movement. He was attacked too. Now, we can’t find Tatum.
Her phone was with Dream.
Locked.
We don’t know the code. Fucking rookie mistake.
“I knew we should have chipped her,” Declan snarls, as he steps around the other room, looking for signs of where she might be.
“It’s that fucking Omega that stalked us. His scent is all over this room,” I snarl.
“There has to be an explanation. His scent is lingering in the living room. It’s–”
“He’s been here more than once,” I cut Dec off, snatching the hoodie up off the floor that still holds his brownie scent and Tatum’s hint of blueberry. “She’s got him in her nest.”
“We take everything,” Hayden says. “Someone might show up here to make it look like she ran. Important stuff comes back to the house with us, the rest we’ll put in the apartment next door. We don’t know where she is. Who took her, or why. What they’ll want. We post our guys outside, and we follow every fucking hint of a lead until we get her back.”
“Agreed.”
“Handle her nest carefully. She’ll want everything to be exactly as it is in there,” Declan adds, nodding to the hoodie in my hand. “There must be an explanation.”
“They worked together, and she’s also plotting to kill us?” I offer, and through the bond, I feel their denial of that statement. Good.
Was worried I’d need to knock sense into them. Tatum is brilliant. Strong. A survivor. Not a killer.
Well. Not the kind that methodically plots out an elaborate scheme to trick us into falling for her, so she can slit our throats.
I have no doubt that Tatum could kill if she needed to. Or felt like she really wanted to…