6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
Zane
A drian’s scent spikes. Alarm, recognition, and something deeper reverberates through our connection. He’s taken two steps into the foyer, just as we do every day, and stops short so fast I nearly ram into his broad back.
Then the most exquisite scent I've ever encountered hits me. Sugared lilac, sweet and delicate, like crystallized flower petals melting on the tongue. It twines perfectly with the earthy, smoky notes of vetiver, creating a complexity that squeezes my heart. Sweet liquid drips onto my tongue, the distinctive taste of bonding venom making my eyes widen in shock. The scent leaches into every surface, every corner of the space, and sends a message straight to my cock. The combination is intoxicating. The recognition is instant .
Perfect.
Omega.
Mine.
I peer around Adrian at the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. She's tiny, fragile, drowning in a cleaner's uniform that does nothing to hide how thin she is. Too thin. Long auburn hair falls in waves around a face that stops my heart—huge green eyes glazed with fever and fear, lips swollen and pink, cheeks flushed and shining.
Cole's scent explodes around us, too, sandalwood and rain blending with my own urgent citrus. Recognition hits all three of us: she's ours . The knowledge is not just instinct or biology. It's a fathomless understanding that we’ve just found a piece of ourselves we didn't realize was missing.
This can't be happening. Not here, not now, not in our offices at dawn on what should be a completely ordinary day. And yet her scent calls to us, confirming she’s the one being on this planet who will complete us.
Every protective instinct I possess roars to life. She looks exhausted, desperate, and yet there's a fierce defiance in the set of her jaw that makes something in my chest tighten. She’s used to fighting her own battles. And she’s…unbonded.
The confusion hits next, trying to pierce through the fog of alpha instinct and recognition. What is an unbonded omega doing here? In our building? At dawn? The scent of heat pheromones grows stronger, and I realize she's very close to going into heat if she isn’t in it already. Here. Alone. In the headquarters of Pinnacle Therapeutics.
Nothing about her being here makes sense.
Her uniform marks her as one of our office cleaners, but why is she a cleaner? If she’s unbonded, why isn’t she at Haven? And why does it feel I've been waiting for this scent my entire life?
None of it makes sense, but my body doesn't care about logic right now. Every instinct I possess is screaming to claim, to protect, to possess. She's ours. The certainty is in my bones, in the way her pupils dilate, in the way her scent harmonizes perfectly with our own, creating something new and perfect and right.
There's also terror in those huge green eyes.
Fear and desperation and everything I don’t want to see there.
“Omega!” Adrian’s bellow echoes around the foyer.
The sweetness of her scent is blasted with bitter terror as she drops whatever she’s holding and bolts away from us. I don’t think as I run after her, past our offices and into the service corridor. The need to pursue, to catch, to claim, is overwhelming.
“Omega, stop!” Adrian's voice carries a desperate edge I've never heard before. “Please! We won't hurt you!”
She can't possibly miss how our scents call to her, how perfectly they harmonize with her own. She must recognize ours as we do hers. Why is she running from us? The thought disturbs me deeply… what has happened to make her so afraid?
My heart slams against its cage as I lose sight of her, then everything hangs in suspended time when I round the corner to see the service elevator doors closing with her panting and trembling against the back wall, her wide eyes staring right at us. The doors seal shut, taking our omega away just moments after we found her.
“Fuck,” Adrian snarls, slamming his palm against the closed doors. He drives his fingers through his hair and stares at the closed doors as though they’ll open again through willpower alone. “ Fuck !”
I don't fare much better than him. I start pacing because I can’t keep still while I watch the elevator numbers slowly tick down to see where she’s getting off. “Why did she run? Did you see her face? She was terrified. Of us.”
“If we scented her, then she’d have scented us. Surely she must have recognized that she’s ours,” Adrian says. His dark eyes burn as they drag over my face.
“I never thought… that is, she’s… she’s ours. Our omega!” It’s fantastical that today is the day we come face to face with our future. Our destiny.
Cole's expression is shuttered, pain and old memories warring across his features. His turmoil is rife in our bond. Seeing this omega has opened the wound that never healed but there's no time to help him process this. Not when our omega is running scared through the city. I clamp my hand on his shoulder to stop him spiraling.
“She's scents like she’s in heat,” Adrian growls, his eyes fixed on the elevator's floor indicator, watching numbers drop with agonizing slowness. Where will she get out? His knuckles are white where his fist lies against the wall. “Her scent will draw every alpha within miles. If another pack claims her...” He doesn't finish the thought. He doesn't have to. We all know what happens to unclaimed omegas in heat.
“I’ll fight any bastard off if I have to. They won’t get to her.” My words come from somewhere certain, deeper than conscious thought. Recognition pulses through our bond. She belongs with us.
The elevator moves as if in slow motion, each floor taking an eternity. Our combined scents fill the space thick with urgency and need. When it finally stops at the basement, Adrian barks, “Service stairs!” and we move as one, racing down forty flights in the service stairwell that will take us directly into the basement. Our footsteps thunder against cinder blocks, echoing our pounding hearts.
We burst into the basement. I stalk over to the elevator, slamming my hand on the open button and hoping against hope she’s inside, but when the doors open all I inhale is the sick scent of terror-stricken omega. I swirl around and cast a frantic gaze at the empty car spots, looking for any place she could have hidden, but she's gone.
“We’ll have more luck finding her if we split up,” Adrian says, already moving toward the street exit. “Cole, take the west side. Zane, east. I'll check the service entrance. She can't have gotten far, not in her condition.”
I sprint down the empty streets, the freezing dawn air burning my lungs. My shoes slip on the icy sidewalk as I check every alley, every doorway, every possible hiding place. The city is just waking up, delivery trucks making their rounds, early commuters hurrying to catch buses, street cleaners pushing their carts. None of them have the slightest hint what I'm looking for, what we've lost before we had a chance to claim her .
I grab the arm of a passing beta on his way to work, demanding to know if he's seen a small woman in a cleaner's uniform. He shakes his head, frightened by my intensity, by the pheromones I'm pumping out in my desperation.
Her scent trail keeps disappearing and reappearing, confused by the wind and the morning traffic. I catch traces of burned, bitter sugar, but it’s growing weaker, mixing with exhaust fumes and the general stench of Canton. Each time I lose the trail, panic claws higher in my chest.
“Where are you?” I mutter, scanning the streets. She's so small, so vulnerable. The thought of her out here alone, in heat, in this freezing weather... The thin uniform she wore wouldn't protect her from anything, not the cold, not other alphas, not the dangers that lurk in every shadow.
I check another alley, finding nothing but dumpsters and scattered trash, but the streets remain empty of what matters, and her scent grows fainter with each passing minute.
Adrian's out-of-body frustration, Cole's reopened pain, and my own wild panic create a perfect storm through our bond. She's out there somewhere, in heat, alone. Vulnerable to any alpha who might catch her scent. The thought makes my blood run cold even as it makes my alpha nature rage. We reconvene in the front of our building after Adrian’s terse text message.
“The uniform,” Cole says, his voice rough with suppressed emotion. His fingers trace the bond mark on his neck. “She was wearing a cleaning company uniform. Which company does our cleaning?”
I shake my head, frustration welling. Why don't we know this? I run our research division, oversee millions in funding, but I can't tell you who cleans our offices. The oversight is massive, now unforgivable. I should know every detail about our company, down to who empties our damn trash.
Adrian already has his phone out, his movements sharp with tension. His fingers stab at the screen. Despite the early hour, he's calling Elliot, our admin manager. At least one of us is thinking clearly through the haze of desperate need.
Adrian presses the hands-free button, so we all hear the phone ringing three times before a groggy voice answers, “Mr. Blackwood? Is everything all right?” Elliot sounds like we've woken him from a deep sleep, but there's an edge of alertness creeping in. He knows Adrian wouldn't call this early without good reason.
Cole and I crowd close to Adrian to better hear both sides of the conversation. Adrian's jaw is clenched so tight I see the muscle jumping.
“What cleaning company do we use?” Adrian cuts straight to the point. He struggles to remain professional when every instinct from all three of us screams to tear the city apart looking for our omega.
There's a pause, then, “Oh, uh, I actually switched companies recently. The previous one raised their rates, so I've been trialing a new service.”
“The name, Elliot,” Adrian growls. “I need the name of the company and their manager's contact information. Now.”
“Of course, of course. If there's a problem, I’ll terminate—”
“The cleaning was fine,” Adrian interrupts, his patience visibly fraying. His free hand clenches into a fist at his side. “I need to track down the female cleaner who was in our offices this morning.”
“This morning? The cleaning crew should have finished hours ago,” Elliot says.
“I don't care about that. The company name and manager's contact information. Now,” Adrian says.
“Oh, um, yes, of course. It's Squeaky Clean Cleaning Service. The manager is a beta named Stacey. I'll text you her number right now.”
The phone pings with an incoming message just as Adrian ends the call, cutting off Elliot's stammered apologies. Adrian stabs the screen again and puts the phone back to his ear, the morning light as the sun rises casting shadows in the worried grooves in his face.
The phone rings once, twice, three times. Each unanswered ring ratchets up the tension until I taste copper in my mouth from biting my cheek. Cole paces behind us, his shoes scraping against the frozen concrete.
Finally, a click. “Squeaky Clean, this is Stacey.” The voice is clearly annoyed at the early hour .
“This is Adrian Blackwood from Pinnacle Therapeutics. I need information about your cleaner who was in our offices last night.”
A pause. “Mr. Blackwood? Is there a problem with the service?”
Adrian inhales through his nose and clenches his eyes shut. “The female cleaner you sent last night. I need her name and contact information.”
Through the phone, I hear Stacey's sharp intake of air. “Mira's one of my best workers, but if she hasn’t done a good job, I’ll send someone…”
Mira . Her name is Mira. At least we know something about her, even if it is only her name.
“No, that’s not necessary. I just need to speak with her,” Adrian says, his knuckles whitening around the phone. “It's about an important document she might have seen in the trash. It was stupid of me to put it in there and I’d like to ask where she emptied the trash before I dig through all our industrial skips to find it,” Adrian says smoothly, though I smell the anxiety rolling off him.
Cole has stopped pacing, his breath held as we wait for Stacey's response.
“I’ll ask her and pass along a message,” Stacey offers.
“I'd prefer to handle this personally. The document is important, and I’d like to maintain discretion. The more people who are in a chain, the more discretion is hard to control.” He chooses each word carefully, despite his inner turmoil.
“Well...” Stacey hesitates. “I can give you her number…”
“I’d prefer to ask her in person. I’m sure you understand.”
The long pause drags on my raw nerve endings, and finally she speaks. “Mira lives in the Fletcher District, in the big apartment block on Marx Street. Unit 3C.” She pauses. “But if anything happens to her…”
I cannot hide my recoil. My horrified glance locks on Cole. The Fletcher District is a cesspit of human scum. I hate to think of anyone living there, alpha, beta or especially omega. It’s not safe at all. In fact, it’s downright dangerous.
“You have my word I will treat her with the utmost gentleness,” Adrian says, though his free hand is clenched so tight his nails must be cutting into his palm. “This is purely about maintaining company information and keeping my own stupidity a secret. We can’t have the public finding out its CEO lost important documents because he filed them in the trash.”
Stacey chuckles. “Of course. Your secret is safe with me… although if you weren’t happy with the service, I have other cleaners—”
“The service was more than fine. I’ll have Elliot pay you triple to ensure this hiccup is kept to ourselves.”
I hear the sudden interest in her voice, “Of course, Mr Blackwood. Thank you, sir…and our cleaning contract?”
The woman is a shark.
“Consider your cleaning service to be Pinnacle’s cleaner of choice. I’ll have Elliot send you a contract as soon as he’s in the office this morning,” Adrian says.
“Thank you, Mr. Blackwood. You won’t be disappointed with our service,” the female says, clearly eager, the address of her employee forgotten in light of a lucrative contract.
Adrian ends the conversation politely to lessen Stacey’s doubts. The muscle works his jaw as he reins in his turmoil. “How can any female, let alone an omega, live there?”
I grab my keys from my pocket and head toward my car. “We’ll find out. Come on. We’ll drive and look for her on the way.”
My bond brothers follow as I make my way into the reserved undercover parking bays to my car and slide behind the wheel. The tires squeal on the smooth concrete as I pull out of the space and into morning traffic.
I take the turns too fast, and weave through traffic as we head into the Fletcher District. The neighborhood deteriorates with each block… broken windows, graffiti-covered walls, people huddled in doorways despite the early hour. The fact that our omega lives here, has been surviving here, makes dread pool low in my stomach.
“How long?” Cole asks from the backseat, his voice tight. “How long has she been living here?”
“And how?” I mutter. She’s clearly unbonded. And in heat. A beacon for any scum alpha to take advantage of her. Not for the first time, I curse our unjust system. It should be alphas behind bars. They should be the designation taught control. Not omegas.
Omegas should be cherished. Honored. Adored.
Not locked away behind bars and hidden from society.
“Black market suppressants. It has to be. Dangerous ones, unreliable…” Adrian’s voice trails off. It’s not uncommon. This is the crux of why we want to expand, or at the least allow more businesses to manufacture legal suppressants and other medications omega’s need, even if it does mean competition for us. We welcome the competition because Gods knows the supply we manufacture is not nearly enough for demand because the crippled legislation hasn’t changed in years.
“She’s not the only one out there risking everything, either,” Cole says.
Omegas should be able to visit a pharmacy and purchase over-the-counter suppressants, birth control and scent blockers, no alpha needed. No matter how rare they are, it’s their body, their choice. Not like the archaic laws we have today. If only it were like that. Omegas like Mira wouldn’t be cheating bad health. They’d be living openly. Freely. As they should.
We’re not stupid enough to think there aren’t omegas in hiding. That others don’t turn up dead because of black market pills that aren’t made to standard, cut with fillers that poison and kill. There are desperate families who can’t afford the mandatory government-sanctioned omega facilities across the country. No one wants to hand over their sixteen-year-old, vulnerable child to a faceless facility, but as hard as we push the Senator to relax the legislation, the more red tape she creates.
I slow down when we pass groups of people, searching for auburn hair, for that small frame. Our bond thrums with anxiety. An unmated omega in heat wouldn't just attract alphas, but every predator in this cesspit of a neighborhood.
“Where is she?” Cole rasps when it’s clear she’s not in that group.
The panic rises with each empty street we pass. She could be anywhere, collapsed in an alley, or caught by another pack, lost in the maze of this godforsaken district. In her state, she might not even make it back to her apartment. I keep driving. Keep searching because I must do something— anything —I can.
The Marx Street Apartment block looms before us, a crumbling six-story walkup that should have been condemned years ago. Mold creeps up the exterior walls, windows are patched with cardboard, and the front steps are crumbling. The smell of garbage and urine hits us as we pile out of the car.
“Third floor,” Adrian growls, already moving toward the entrance. The lobby reeks of stale cigarettes and despair, the elevator marked with an “Out of Order” sign that looks older than I am. We take the stairs three at a time, the concrete cracked and dangerous.
Unit 3C is worse than we imagined. The door has multiple locks, smart for this neighborhood, but a stark reminder of the danger she lives with daily. Cole bangs on the door, not that I expect her to answer. I press my ear to the wood but hear nothing inside. I shake my head at Adrian and Cole. “She’s not in there.”
A baby wails from somewhere in the building. Adrian’s expression darkens. He rips off his tie that was already askew as he looks around before pinning us with a thoughtful stare. “If she sees us waiting outside her door, she’ll run yet again.”
“And we risk her disappearing for good.” I don’t want to move from here, but he’s right. She wouldn’t have run from us if she wasn’t afraid. She’ll disappear for good, and we’ll never find her. We have one chance only.
“At least now we know where she lives. She’ll come back at some stage. At least, I have to believe that,” Adrian says,
“We’ll wait outside in the car. It’s the only thing we can do,” Cole says, his tangled fringe dangling over the side of his drawn face. His lips compress as he looks around at where she’s been living.
Not finding Mira is his worst nightmare, but he won’t risk an omega because of his own fears. Instead, he’ll distance himself if we do find her, but that’s a problem for another day. I have to hope that he'll be able to move past Lily's ghost, that he'll see Mira isn't just another omega to protect. She's ours, meant to complete our pack in ways even Cole's trauma can't deny.
But first, we have to find her. And pray we're not too late.