11. Seraphina
11
SERAPHINA
O nce I’d returned my stolen vehicle and made my way back to my dorm room, Henri was gone. He’d left me a note on my desk in his loopy script.
WITCH. Paige found me and lent me a hairpin. You’re not the only one with tricks. You better not have killed anyone. —H
That turd stole my manga too. I probably deserved it.
My dads were probably having tons of fun cleaning up my mess right about now, and it would only be a matter of time before they tracked me down. Unfortunately for them, Jere had installed the highest-level locks available on my doors—including the bathroom, since my room could be accessed through Paige’s if a hypothetical attacker was particularly motivated. Using an app on my phone, I armed both doors and hunkered down for a siege.
My parents had done this to themselves. Sure, I could’ve walked in there and met the Montgomery Pack like they’d wanted me to. I could’ve given them a chance to charm me, to prove why they were Alphas that my parents found acceptable. I could’ve taken less-insane measures to scare them away the same way I’d put off every other courting pack at the OFS.
But there was this little sliver of fear inside me—this annoying little thing I’d never admit to anyone—that knew my omega instincts and needs left me vulnerable. What if these Alphas were actually hot and charming? What if they pretended to care about me as a person and not as a slick hole for their knots? What if the whole thing painted an attractive picture that also included me no longer fighting with my parents?
One where they were actually proud of me?
And then what if it all turned out to be a lie? Like it had been for so many of the girls and women Dylan and her family had to rescue from neglect and abuse? Like it had been for the omegas bonded to the VanHolts and other wealthy packs caught up in the scheme my family busted two years ago, in which they’d planned to buy underaged girls because they thought they deserved to have more than one omega?
I bet those packs had wooed their omegas and swept them off their feet once upon a time before it all went to shit. Those enticing Alpha smells, the needy omega hormones, the blissful fog of the heat and the begging for a bond because your body demanded it—all but impossible to resist. And then they woke up from the fog of their heat with an irreversible connection to a group of men who would turn out to be patronizing and controlling at best or sick and twisted abusers at worst.
So, no. I would not be meeting this pack that I’d had no say in selecting. It would be shock and awe until they tapped out and went back to where they came from.
Maybe this was the moment my parents finally cut me off? I had a nice little chunk of change socked away in a bank account only Jere and Cam knew about, but I’d probably have to kick my designer-coffee addiction and start drinking the drip crap in the dining hall that tasted like burnt asshole.
I’d changed into my softest T-shirt and tiny pajama shorts and was minding my own business, watching a sapphic Regency drama on my phone when the attack I’d anticipated didn’t come at either of my doors.
It came when a hulking figure appeared in my window.
My unlocked third-story window.
I was off the bed in a flash, my Glock in my hands and aimed steadily at the intruder.
The man jimmied it open and began to climb inside.
My senses registered the hit of vanilla bourbon a microsecond before I would’ve pulled the trigger.
“ Loki? ” I screeched.
He launched himself into the room, hurdling my desk before he was on me in two quick strides. His white-blond hair was back in the little knot on top of his head he’d had the night we met, and he wore a fitted black shirt with the Sentinel logo etched on the breast and dark cargo pants. Eager hunger flashed in those ice-blue eyes as he cornered me, his prey.
He yanked the gun from my hands, disarmed it, and tossed it on the bed behind me like an afterthought, his eyes never leaving mine. “Hello, Lamb.”
“What….” My tongue fought with the rest of my mouth to form words. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He scooped me into his arms and carried me to the wall next to the window. My legs wrapped themselves around his waist like that was the natural, correct thing to do rather than me screaming and clawing and hissing my way out of the clutches of an extremely large Alpha male who had snuck into my bedroom on the OFS campus .
An Alpha male who had to know who and what I was now.
My back hit the wall none too gently, and he let me slide from his hold just enough so that my feet touched the smooth hardwood beneath us. Loki pinned me there and buried his face in my neck, sucking in a few big pulls of my scent. “We found you, Lamb. It wasn’t hard.”
I melted into him—sue me. He was scorching hot, smelled amazing, and I was having flashbacks to how transcendent it was when his giant dick stretched me wide. “I didn’t doubt you’d figure it out,” I replied, my voice all breathy and stupid like the way the girls here talked around the courting packs. “But I didn’t think you’d feel the need to track me down and break into the fucking OFS just to see me again. It was a one-night stand, Loki.”
“It was a two-night stand,” he replied silkily. “We fucked you good that night at the MC, then you fucked us right back by offing our suspect the next night.”
“That one doesn’t count,” I said, biting off a moan as he pressed his big thigh right in between my legs. “I didn’t even come.”
He chuckled, pulling back the slightest bit so he could pin me with that crystalline gaze, another smile tugging at his lips. “We’re actually here at the illustrious South Texas OFS for our investigation. Being able to see you again and punish you for your reckless behavior is an extremely attractive added bonus.”
I frowned. “Your investigation? The conspiracy Stone was involved in? Here?”
“Mmhmm,” he replied. “I’ll tell you about it in a minute.”
“But—”
“I was just finishing up my meeting with the dean,” he went on, “when there was some ruckus up at the Main Hall.”
“Oh?” I asked innocently.
“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I blinked owlishly at him. “No?”
He smirked. “It was lucky for me, anyway, because it provided an opportune time to sneak off and scale the side of the senior dorm to come see you while everyone was… distracted. The dean gave us clearance to roam most of the campus, but there was no chance she would give unbonded Alphas access to the dorms, investigation or not.”
“Um, no. They will tase you and drag you off to jail if they catch you in here.”
“They can try.” He went back to rubbing his nose along the column of my throat, his big hands wrapped snugly around my hips.
My brain fritzed offline.
“Loki,” I groaned. “What are you doing?”
“Not what I should be doing,” he muttered. “I should be putting you over my knee, Seraphina Bryce, precious omega daughter of one of the richest and most dangerous packs in the entire fucking state. What the ever-loving fuck were you thinking, waltzing into a motorcycle clubhouse alone? And then deciding to jump into bed with three unbonded Alphas?”
I tipped my chin up, now nose-to-nose with him. “You are well aware that I can take care of myself. My suppressant worked—you didn’t suspect anything.”
“It was so reckless, Lamb.” He frowned, concern creeping across his gorgeous face. “What if it hadn’t been us? What if someone hurt you? Forced you?”
He meant forced me into more than just sex.
I sighed. “It only happened because it was you, Loki. I don’t go looking for Alphas to screw. I’ve never been with any others besides you, Hawk, and Blaze. There are some things going on in my life right now—things I have big feelings about. You guys were exactly what I needed, and I meant what I said. I’ll remember it forever.”
He shook his head, his sly grin returning. “You’re not getting rid of us that easily, babydoll. We have work to do around here, and you’re going to help us.”
“Me?”
My window creaked open again. Blaze’s dark head appeared, his thick hair disheveled from his climb up… the tree outside? These men were insane.
Hawk popped up next to him, his chestnut curls bouncing and his glasses a little skewed as he jostled with Blaze to be the first one to crawl inside my room.
“Seriously, Loki?” Blaze grumbled as he scooted off my desk and spotted our compromising position against the wall nearby. “You couldn’t wait five minutes before you started groping her? We are on an OFS campus, for Christ’s sake.”
Hawk landed on my rug with the grace of a feline predator and prowled over, his pretty brown eyes alight as he found me behind Loki’s massive frame. “Hey, Little Flame. Did you miss us?”
I swatted Loki’s shoulder, and he grunted before reluctantly releasing me. This situation was already bonkers to the fifth degree, so I let myself jump into Hawk's arms and squeeze him. He was just so sexy and adorable. I luxuriated in the feel of his hard muscles under his shirt and his delicious sage and clove scent before planting a quick kiss on his cheek. “I am kinda happy to see you,” I whispered.
Blaze peeled me off Hawk, who grumbled irritably at him, and carried me over to my desk chair and sat down. He positioned me comfortably on his sturdy thighs and wrapped his arms around me, his biceps flexing deliciously with the movement. “Did Loki already give you a talking to, Princesa?” he rasped in my ear. “The three of us were a bit scandalized to learn that we had sex with not just an omega, but an OFS omega, and didn’t even know it.”
Hawk flopped down onto my bed, making himself at home amongst the pile of pillows and blankets that was my very half-assed nest. He and Blaze were dressed just like Loki, so I supposed they really were here for a job. “Yes, clearly Loki was reading her the riot act just now,” he said, raising a pierced brow.
Loki sat down next to Hawk, and their thighs pressed together from knee to hip. He leaned back on his hands and stared me down. “Our lamb knows she’s in trouble.”
Hawk smothered a cough. “I’ll say.”
I settled into Blaze’s arms, his toasty campfire scent like a warm blanket tamping down the last of the lingering adrenaline from the night. “I’m not in as much trouble as you three will be if you’re caught in here. There’s also a slight chance one of my scary fathers will try to break down my door at some point tonight?—”
Blaze snorted in my ear. Yes, they now knew about all of my dads, I imagined.
“—so you better tell me what’s going on and how I can help you with it.”
Loki sat up on the bed and dropped his elbows onto his knees, his smile slipping away. “As you know, Lamb,” he began, “while we were undercover, we tapped Stone’s phones, both his personal and the burner we finally figured out he had near the end of our time there. We took possession of his burner, which was on him when he died, but his personal phone stayed with Onyx, his VP and biological brother.”
“Ah,” I said with a sage nod. “Did Onyx do something stupid with that phone?”
“He did, indeed, Little Flame,” Hawk replied. “He placed a call to the person we think acted as the intermediary between Stone and whoever set up both the theft of our client’s experimental drug and the exchange of the omega girls we interrupted at the hotel. He was unhappy that being the hired muscle in this operation got his brother and Prez killed and informed the person that they would no longer be doing their dirty work.”
“Naturally,” I said.
“The phone number he called was also an unlisted burner,” Blaze added. He was absently drawing little circles on my thigh with his thumb, and I was now hyper-aware of just how short my pajama shorts were. “But we were able to trace the cell tower pings of the two phone calls between them to this area.”
“This area?” I asked, still muddling through the shock that they were at my school for their investigation. “As in, the OFS specifically?”
“Yes,” Loki replied. “It is pretty much the only thing in our target area due to how much land it sits on.”
“So you think that this intermediary—your link from Stone to the money and the mastermind—is on the OFS campus?”
“He works here, most likely,” Blaze replied. “And yes, it is a he . We were able to discern that much through the calls.”
“But you must have pulled some more threads before you moved your operation down here,” I mused. “You would’ve had to make a solid case to the dean for her to give three unbonded Alphas permission to be on campus. Especially Alphas who look like you guys.”
Three hot, tattooed, pierced, unbonded Alphas who were not on the courting roster, and even those packs were only allowed to be here during sanctioned courting events.
Hawk grinned. “You don’t think we were the picture of professionalism, sweet Seraphina ?”
The sound of my full name from his lips gave me the tingles. “I have no doubt you guys are fucking good at what you do, but you still look like the slick-soaked dream of an omega going through her rebellious phase. The dean is not known for being particularly open-minded.”
Blaze groaned underneath me. “Could you not use the words slick-soaked in our company, please? It is hard enough sitting here, holding you in my lap while I breathe in fucking delicious rum and cherries at omega-level potency, Princesa. We did not climb through your window to fuck you, believe it or not.”
I gave him a wicked smile over my shoulder. “But you thought about it.”
“Of course we fucking did,” he griped. His hazel eyes flashed, and I admired the deep green ring encircling his irises that faded to warm brown around his pupils. “I have expended brain power on little else these past few weeks besides this case and thinking of your wet, perfect pussy clenching around my cock.”
I squirmed in his lap, biting off a moan. Any more of that talk and my words wouldn’t be the only things that were slick soaked.
“Blaze, goddamn it,” Loki groaned. “We talked about this.”
Hawk slid to his feet and crossed the short distance between my bed and my desk. He scooped me out of Blaze’s lap. “Privileges revoked,” he told him.
Hawk set me down on the bed next to Loki, who promptly wrapped his giant hand around my bare thigh like he thought I might escape. Joke was on him—I was actually giving serious consideration to rooting through my handcuff stash again and locking him to my bed so I could take him for another ride. One more for the road and all that.
I must’ve had some kind of look on my face, because Hawk smirked as he looked down at me. He tucked a gentle finger under my chin and tilted my head so he could peer into my eyes. “Were you one such omega going through her rebellious phase, Little Flame?” he murmured. “Did you hit us and quit us to spite your very scary Alpha fathers and the expectations for an omega of your station?”
My cheeks heated under his gaze even though I wasn’t ashamed of my behavior. Must’ve just been Hawk’s sexy superpowers. “Not exactly,” I replied. “But let’s not act like you three weren’t looking for a one-night fuckfest with a beta girl just like every other unbonded Alpha pack on the planet. We’re all adults here. If you truly need my help, we can work together and not… do that again.”
“Mmhmm,” Hawk replied, still staring intently down at me. “We should keep this professional, because it’s not a good idea, is it? Casual sex between an omega and an Alpha pack.” His eyes heated, and as he swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple bobbed under those pretty wings decorating his throat.
“Definitely not between an OFS omega and three grunts who work for a living,” Loki added, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Do you have a list of courting Alphas a mile long, Seraphina Bryce? If we work together, will you meet them smelling like us?”
“I like that idea,” Blaze said, his hot gaze pinned to where Loki’s hand was wrapped around my thigh.
Talk about some mixed signals in this room. Their mouths were saying one thing, but their pheromones said another. The air was drenched in Alpha lust, and it was delicious. I could usually wave that shit away—courting events were filled with it, and normally I found it oppressive and gross—but it appeared my omega hindbrain was super into it when the Alphas were men I actually liked and respected.
Who knew?
“There is no line to court me,” I told them honestly. Couldn’t be a “line” if there was only one pack in it. “You guys will find this shocking, but I’m not super into the idea of bonding. I definitely have no intention of becoming a trophy tradwife and breeder to a wealthy pack. I have not been particularly… cooperative on that front.”
Loki snorted. “You don’t say?”
Hawk sat down on the bed again, making himself comfortable on my other side. His and Loki’s scents harmonized around me. I wondered if their combined scent—spicy vanilla and clove—was so pleasing because they were together .
All three of them. A pack not just out of necessity to attract an omega or platonic brotherhood, but out of romantic love. It was so… special.
“Anyway,” Hawk said, swatting Loki’s hand away from my thigh. “Back to business. You are correct, Sera, that we have a lead beyond just cell tower pings from this campus. We focused our search on the faculty who have expertise or connections to people with expertise in certain pharmaceuticals because the experimental drug stolen from our client’s lab was designed to treat infertility.”
“Oh,” I said, immediately interested. “A drug that could help betas get pregnant? No wonder someone stole it.”
The odds of carrying a healthy baby to term were so low outside of Alpha-omega pairings. If someone had found a way to fix it, they would be printing money.
“Possibly,” Loki replied. “Our client has been pretty tight-lipped about the current state of their drug trials, but we know that their ultimate goal is to increase fertility in beta women. They haven’t made that happen yet, as far as we know, but they’ve apparently had success with creating a fertile window for omega women outside of their normal heat cycle.”
Dread creeped through my veins at that revelation. “Why in the world would that be necessary? The several days omegas have to spend getting fucked and knotted out of their brains every three months isn’t enough?”
“We couldn’t tell you, Princesa,” Blaze said. “We’re paid to find the thief, not question our client’s products.”
“At any rate,” Hawk went on. “That narrowed our search to four staff members who could possibly have some connection to the pharmaceutical industry. There are a few science professors with that expertise. There is also a guidance counselor with a spouse in the industry as well as a vice dean whose brother is on the board of a rival pharmaceutical company to our clients.”
I rubbed my hands together in excitement. “Okay, good. You want me to help you break into some offices? Go through their shit?”
Loki chuckled. “Easy, Lamb. You might just get your wish. And we have a prime suspect to begin with because out of the four staff we mentioned, there happens to be one who grew up on the same street as Stone and Onyx.”
Jackpot. “Who is it?”
“Biosciences Professor Gerald Hart.”
That mother fucker .