16. Seraphina
16
SERAPHINA
H enri bounced on an exercise ball, glaring at me. He wore his work clothes—a baby-blue dress shirt this time—and his platinum hair somehow hadn’t moved an inch from its perfect coif despite his agitated bouncing. “You accompanied three unbonded Alphas in breaking into your professor’s house.”
A statement, not a question.
“Yes,” I replied through gritted teeth as I thrust my legs forward, propelling the platform of the leg press machine upwards. “I told you Jere approved the arrangement. I’m working with them as a consultant. And you’re aware that I already know these Alphas.”
“Um, yes. Biblically .”
I rolled my eyes and continued with my set. “It’s not like that.” Except Loki’s talented fingers had found their way into my pants that one time, but that was just us spinning down from an unexpected armed confrontation. And I certainly couldn’t be blamed for what Hawk and Blaze got up to together. “You’re also aware that I care about this investigation. Whatever is going on here appears to involve buying omega girls from their parents and trafficking them across the state. Not on my watch, Henri.”
He ceased his bouncing and sighed the sigh of a long-suffering man. “Andrew and Rodrigo do not know about any of this. There’s no way they’d have approved it. You’re supposed to be on a super-short leash right now. So here I am, yet again keeping Jericho’s and your dirty little secrets.”
I rolled off the leg press and hopped onto the leg extension machine next to it. “If you don’t want to know these things, maybe you shouldn’t stalk me around the OFS and interrogate me. Just because Dad got you a guest pass that never expires doesn’t mean you have to use it.”
He huffed. “I came to check on you because you have not called me back since your stunt last weekend, and all I asked you was, and I quote, ‘How was your week?’”
I was happy to see him, even if he was pestering me during my evening workout. It was Friday night, so the OFS gym was deserted. There were no scheduled training sessions for the swim team, and there was only one lone girl strutting on the treadmill in the cardio room next door. Campus was usually quiet on the weekends, save the few times a year the OFS held an all-university campus mixer. A lot of the girls went home, or the ones that were officially courting would go out on dates with their pack. I used to go home on weekends when I didn’t have a swim meet or a test to study for because the dining hall was only open on the weekdays, and my parents’ weekend housekeeper made killer French toast.
But I was avoiding my family for obvious reasons.
So I would be doing a lot of swimming and weight training this weekend to keep busy. Maybe I’d go haunt the St. Jameses’ store or see if Dylan’s mom wanted to go shoot something. Anything to keep from climbing the walls from either boredom or frustration.
Because for now, the boys had been called back by their handler to wherever they and their team had set up their temporary headquarters in town, and they were chasing the leads we’d discovered at Hart’s house. They no longer needed to be on the OFS campus or have me assist in any further breaking and entering, nor was I required to blow someone else’s head off from the roof of a building.
Loki had messaged me yesterday morning to let me know all of this, and I’d been expecting it. I hadn’t seen them since Wednesday night when they’d dropped me off at the gates of the OFS with an offer for one of them to walk me to my dorm.
An offer I’d declined. The bickering had started immediately, so I’d decided it was better to avoid another brawl in a rosebush over who got to walk me back. Everyone was riled up and horny, and I didn’t trust us not to suffocate the entire third floor of the senior dorm in sex pheromones if any one of the boys made it to the vicinity of my room.
Also, I was a big girl. I didn’t need an escort.
“You asked me how my week was,” I said to Henri, “and my response that it was awesome without some backstory would've made no sense to you, given that you’re aware I hate this fucking place.”
“Fair enough,” he said, resuming his bouncing. “So, explain to me how your professor—one you conveniently dislike—is involved in this?”
I gave him the basics. The connection to the MC President and VP, the burner phone’s cell tower pings that the guys traced here, the convenient relevance of Hart’s medical specialty to the object of the original theft.
“And,” I went on, “he’s involved in some startup company with Russian backers that is promising to help beta couples have kids. This morning, Hawk told me they couldn’t find any documents filed anywhere in the US that established this company as a legally operating entity, so that’s fishy as fuck.”
“It’s cute they’re still keeping you in the loop,” Henri said, studying me. “Maybe this isn’t just a charade for three unbonded Alphas to get into your pants after all. Excuse me—get into your pants again .”
I arched a brow. “You doubted their motives?”
He shrugged. “I thought it was extremely convenient that they’d shown up here ‘chasing a lead’ after you’d all had dirty biker sex and they’d found out you were an omega. But from what you’re telling me, the lead is legitimate, and they are actually working with you. Color me shocked.”
I glared at him silently as I pushed out another set of leg extensions. When I’d finished, I trotted to the yoga mat I’d laid out nearby and began to stretch. Henri abandoned his ball and followed me. He sat on the floor in front of my mat and extended his hands. I sighed, caved to friendship, and let him tug gently on my arms to extend my stretch.
“I’m useful,” I said quietly. “I’m good at this. You know that.”
“I do, babe,” he replied. “It was not you I doubted.”
“You know I identified Hart’s co-investor in this sham company before the guys did? Candi Jenkins is a fucking tradwife influencer that all the girls here are obsessed with.” Blaze had purred his compliments down the phone at me when I’d called them midday yesterday to report that little tidbit. I’d been digging in my backpack for my notebook when the little pink paperback from my Omega Senior Seminar had jogged my memory. “Which is rich because she’s divorced. But the real kicker is that it turns out she’s also Hart’s cousin.”
A couple of bitter, divorced, childless peas in a pod, those two. Now they were in bed with rich Russians to make babies for betas like them by stealing experimental fertility drugs and also possibly buying omega girls from their parents.
I didn’t like it.
And Hart must not have been as spooked as we’d thought. He was still around, teaching class, going to work, and generally being a pompous dick. The guys hadn’t been able to identify the men that’d surprised us at Hart’s house, but the going theory was that they were working with Hart, not against him, which would account for his current hubris.
“Yeah, it all does sound sketchy as fuck,” Henri said. He released my hands, and I collapsed onto my back on the mat. “And I am glad you’re on this case, especially if there may be more omega girls unwillingly brought into this scheme. I’m still just shocked Jericho is allowing you to be involved, since he seems to be on the same page as the rest of your parents that your focus is supposed to be on getting to know the Montgomery Pack?—”
“Stop it,” I hissed. “We don’t speak their name.”
“—and yet he’s letting you run around with three Alphas you met in a motorcycle clubhouse, who I’m certain aren’t unattractive, given you risked life and limb to fuck them as an act of protest?—”
“My life and limbs were not at risk.”
“—though I guess Jericho doesn’t know that part of it.” He tapped his chin, considering it all. “Yeah. If your dad knew you’d slept with these guys he’s letting you consult for, he’d have never let you participate in this little arrangement.”
On that, we agreed.
“I’m sure he’s trying to placate me,” I told him. “To make me more amenable to this bullshit betrothal he’s going along with because the one thing Jere is incapable of doing is telling my mother no. And he knows better than the rest of my family that letting me break into houses and shoot at random dudes that surprise us in the backyard is one of the few ways to my heart.”
“On that note,” Henri said, arching a dark brow at me. “Maybe you should put forth an effort at next weekend’s courting event so that you stay in Jericho’s good graces. He might pull the plug on your special project otherwise.”
My brain said that was a logical and reasonable suggestion, but my stomach burned with the fire of a billion suns at the thought of giving my parents even an inch on a contractually arranged bonding they’d orchestrated without my consent or input .
And the thought of meeting any Alpha, who would hardly be able to resist imagining me stuffed full of his knot as I was presented to him as a potential mate, made me want to hurl. It was why I took great pains to make myself as unattractive as possible when courting packs were around.
Except for Loki, Blaze, and Hawk. I liked it when they looked at me like that because they did it even after watching me shoot a man in the head. They’d done it when they thought I was a beta, and it seemed like the only thing the discovery of my true designation had done was make them determined not to fuck me again.
There were stirrings. In my head, in my heart, in my lady parts. Flashes of imagining life as Loki, Blaze, and Hawk’s bonded omega. I wouldn’t have to run away and disappear after graduation. I could be like Dylan, working alongside my pack, who would treat me as a member of the team instead of a pretty jewel and a functioning womb.
But I shoved those little longings aside as soon as they manifested. I’d hung out with these men all of four times, and we probably shouldn’t count the first time, given that all of us had been pretending to be someone we weren’t. They certainly hadn’t made a single overture about courting—if that was even a thing for them. What did I know about courting outside the OFS? Maybe they were on the USDPU list, just waiting for their number to be up. More likely, they hadn’t put their names in yet, as Alphas had the luxury of waiting to bond whenever they fucking felt like it. They were young—Hawk and Blaze were twenty-three, and Loki had just turned twenty-four. They had tons of time.
And most importantly, they were here to work, and I was here to help them. We’d solve this case, and then they’d go back to wherever they came from. I’d vowed to avoid being forced to bond out of desperation, or because the laws required it, or because it was expected of me as an OFS girl. One day, after I’d dealt with my arranged marriage problem, gotten my degree, and was finally in the wind….
Maybe I would look the guys up.
But for now, while they were out doing their job, I could focus my energy on my other important project.
Derailing my engagement.
“I think you know that won’t be happening,” I said with my most evil grin. “I told you all—this is war.”
Henri tilted his head back and shut his eyes, groaning. “Why do I even try to reason with you?”
“I truly do not know.”
“It’s because I like my job and my head attached to my shoulders, thank you very much. At least, given my performance last time, your fathers won’t be tasking me with delivering you to whichever venue they’ve decided to risk you destroying.”
Still horizontal on my yoga mat, I reached out and patted his hand. “I forgive you for not assisting me in my sabotage.”
“I do not require your forgiveness for doing the bare minimum to avoid getting fired.”
I sighed and closed my eyes for a little meditation.
It was time to plot my next move.