Pack Dutton, Part 2

Chapter 1

1

Hazel

It’s amazing how the body responds to trauma. After all, I wasn’t a stranger to it. When my fingertips and toes started buzzing with a telltale numbness, I didn’t start to freak out. When my stomach threatened to upend all its contents on the floor of the SUV, I didn’t start to hyperventilate. Taking deep breaths, I tried to find something to use to ground myself.

Looking outside of the SUV was pointless. I wouldn’t find a focal point in the blur. Since turning onto the highway, the truck had been hurtling down the road. It was almost like the Shepherds knew physical distance was the only way to keep my pack from chasing us down.

An image of Jude floated into my mind, and all I could see was him lying unconscious on the hardwood floors of the foyer, blood pooling around his head. Numbness crept into my arms and ankles as I roughly shoved the visual aside.

I couldn’t help Jude now, and he definitely couldn’t help me. Neither could Bowen or Calla, both of whom had been present at my abduction, but also incapacitated in their own way.

No, I was on my own. And that meant I had to survive until my pack found me, because they would find me.

In less than a week Crew, Kellan, Rhett, and Jude had become my world. They claimed it was because we were a scent-match. And while that was something of a unicorn in real life, I knew they were right.

Call it fate, destiny, or just plain old luck, but I’d found the people who made me understand what was worth fighting for. They’d convinced me that I’d have a life and a future.

And fuck if I didn’t want that. I refused to settle for anything less.

But I was also trapped in a moving vehicle with six alphas who would have no problem beating me into submission if I stepped out of line. So, I gritted my teeth and listened as they congratulated themselves on rescuing me.

“We’ll have you home soon, omega,” Donovan promised from the front with a rough growl. “And then you’ll be mine.”

To my right, his brother Hayden cleared his throat, sounding annoyed.

“Ours,” Donovan corrected.

I was pretty sure my body was tapped out of adrenaline, but a fresh surge swept into my veins. “What?”

Hayden’s hand clamped around the back of my neck and squeezed. “You forget your place, omega. You don’t ask questions.”

“I suppose there’s a great many things we’ll have to retrain her on,” a Shepherd named Daryl spoke up. He turned from the middle row seat in front of us to shoot me a grin full of saliva and rotting teeth.

I recoiled before I knew what was happening.

Daryl’s face twisted as he lunged between the seats, his fingers finding one of my nipples with unerring accuracy and twisting until my eyes watered. “You’ll be grateful for every look I give you, omega.”

It was a struggle to mask my emotions, but I eventually managed what passed as a respectful nod. Only then did Daryl release the pressure, which sucked all over again as my nipple throbbed with the returning blood flow.

“She’ll learn,” Hayden promised, his breath whispering across my skin as he kept a firm hold on my neck. “Won’t you, omega?”

Another nod, and I was starting to remember how much I hated the word omega .

I blamed Crew, Rhett, Kellan, and Jude. When they called me by the term, the amount of affection and respect infused into the three syllables was palpable.

Tears stung my eyes again, but this time it was because I missed my guys. My pack.

I sniffled before I could catch myself, a tear rolling free. My hands trembled with the need to wipe it away, but I kept them clutched in my lap.

Hayden leaned in and licked the droplet of weakness from my cheek. “Fuck, your tears taste divine. I’ll be needing them every day.” The hand not bruising my neck pushed between my thighs, prying my legs apart. “I wonder what else you taste like.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks until I tasted blood, the coppery tang filling my mouth. I tried to press my legs together, but Hayden was relentless and so much stronger.

“Open your fucking legs,” he barked.

I braced myself for the immediate omega response to an alpha bark, but my legs still stayed together. The urge to obey the command hovered like an incessant fly, buzzing in my head, but I could ignore it.

Well, that was new.

Maybe because I had a pack now, other alphas weren’t as… potent?

Daryl snickered. “Losing your touch, Hayden? Need a real alpha to show you how to bark at your omega?”

Hayden’s fingers dug into my thigh as he leaned in, and I knew I’d have bruises for days to show for my defiance. “Open those thighs or I’ll break your legs. You don’t need legs to take a knot and bear children. In fact, I rather like the idea of you being confined to a bed. On your back. Where you belong .”

I flinched as chuckles rumbled in the air around me. The other alphas leaned in, their scents becoming thick and syrupy as they tasted the bitter bite of fear wafting from me.

More tears burned the backs of my eyes as I loosened the muscles of my thighs so Hayden could wedge a hand between them. His knuckles brushed against my pussy, and even with my underwear and leggings acting as thin barriers, I felt a piece of my heart crack and flake away.

Pressing his fingers against my core, he ground his knuckles into the tender flesh before lifting them to his nose and inhaling with a growl.

I wanted to close my eyes. To let myself drift away into a familiar state of dissociation that would enable me to survive whatever was coming next.

But I couldn’t.

Not when I knew that my pack would be coming for me, and I needed to be alive for them to find me.

Tiny embers of hope kindled in my soul, ready to catch fire.

I could survive this.

I would survive this.

And I would be with my pack again.

Still keeping my head lowered, I took stock of the situation. Things had happened so fast at the house, I hadn’t really been able to take a moment and think.

Be calm, love.

I could practically hear Rhett whispering the words to me.

Peering up through my lashes, I looked around the inside of the SUV. I’d been shoved into the third row of seats, beside Hayden, who still had a vise-like grip on the back of my neck, and I knew I had to tread carefully with him.

Well, him and Daryl, who was sitting in one of the two captain’s chairs in the middle row. The Shepherd sitting to Daryl’s right was Blake, an asshole who was known to punch first, ask questions never . Even now, he was trailing his fat fingers up and down the barrel of his gun like he was caressing a lover.

The driver was another Shepherd. A massive alpha named Vince who was covered in scars and tattoos that proclaimed alpha superiority. I knew him from my time at APA. Knew he had a thing for younger girls and blood.

And in the passenger seat was the reason for my waking nightmare: Donovan.

Five alphas against one omega.

Yeah, I didn’t like those odds either, which meant I had to be smart. I had to keep myself calm and my mind focused.

I was so focused on staying calm that the shrill ring of a phone through the interior of the cab almost gave me a heart attack. I jerked with a gasp, and Hayden shoved my head down farther with a snarl.

“Stay fucking still,” he snarled, pinching my thigh.

Daryl leered at me. “Bet she’d be quiet if she was choking on my knot.”

I went deathly still, the idea horrifying and revolting, as Donovan answered the phone over the car’s speaker system.

“Was wondering when I’d hear from you, Carter.” Donovan’s tone was cold as ice and just as smooth.

A low growl ripped through the speakers. “Fucking hell, asshole. I didn’t give you the bitch’s location so you could gun down an Omega Services recovery team! Are you out of your fucking minds?”

Shit, he was right.

Donovan and his guys hadn’t just taken me—they’d killed OS agents. Federal agents.

“I did what was necessary to protect my omega,” Donovan hissed.

“Except she isn’t your omega,” Carter snapped, and I got the feeling he was seriously close to losing his shit while Donovan seemed more amused than anything.

Like murdering federal agents was a totally normal thing.

“Doesn’t matter,” Donovan replied. “We’ll be over the border in a few hours. The omega will be just another missing girl and you’ll have all those guns you wanted, plus a little something extra.”

“Ask about the boy,” Hayden demanded, his cloying scent of mildewing leaves turning rotten with excitement.

Donovan twisted to glare at his brother, but asked all the same. “Any luck with the other one?”

“He’s been taken to a state facility,” Carter answered, sounding a little smug. “Sorry, boys, but you only get one omega to play with this time.”

Boy .

One omega this time.

My heart squeezed. They had to be talking about Logan. Hayden had always been borderline obsessed with him. While I knew my uterus made me a little more valuable in their eyes, Hayden wasn’t a guy who did well when others took things he thought belonged to him.

And he definitely thought he owned Logan.

Hayden grunted his annoyance, squeezing the sides of my neck until my vision went spotty and I was gasping.

“This is a shit show,” Carter went on. “I can’t just cover this shit up, and you left fucking witnesses .”

“We killed them all,” Donovan said slowly, like he was thinking while speaking. “We didn’t leave a fucking body alive, and you said Pack Dutton had been called into the offices to deal with your father and Henry.”

I stiffened. Uncle Henry? The rat-faced asshole who’d basically kidnapped me and sold me to a cult? What did he have to do with this or my guys?

Carter scoffed. “Please. We all knew Henry Reed was a fucking idiot. And my father might be the Special Agent in Charge of Billings, but do I need to repeat the part where you killed OS agents?”

Donovan was silent, and I could practically hear the wheels turning in his head, calculating odds and computing outcomes.

I was more hung up that Carter had just revealed his father was my pack’s boss. That jerk Martin they’d mentioned a few times.

“And, like I fucking said, you left witnesses.”

Donovan snarled, the sound making me shake. “No, we?—”

“Two unconscious betas inside and another damn omega in the other SUV,” Carter interrupted.

Everyone in the SUV went silent.

I wasn’t sure what Donovan and his quack-pot followers were thinking, but all I heard was unconscious betas and another omega .

Not dead betas.

Not shot or dead omega.

Jude, Calla, and Bowen were alive.

I mashed my lips together to keep from shouting or weeping. Squeezing my eyes shut, it was all I could do not to go off like a live grenade. The knowledge that my beta and my best friend were alive was like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart.

Donovan finally found his voice. “If we go down, you and your father are right there with us.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Carter sneered. “That’s why I’m giving you the heads up. Get your asses over the border and disappear. Hell, if I were you, I’d kill the omega and cut your fucking losses.”

All eyes settled on me, and Donovan’s rough growl seemingly spoke for the group. “Not fucking happening. She’s mine. Ours .”

“Good luck with that,” Carter chuckled.

“Don’t need luck,” Donovan replied. “Canada’s laws aren’t the same as the States. One of my pack has citizenship, and he’ll register us and our omega, making things formal and legal.”

Daryl grinned, his chest puffing up. “You’re welcome, boys.”

My heart sank as I looked around the cab and realized this was worse than just being kidnapped by the APA. Donovan wasn’t just taking me to some off the grid compound like before.

He had turned the Shepherds into a pack. His pack.

And they were hell-bent on making me their fucking omega.