Chapter 18
Gage
I stand as patiently outside Auryn’s room as I can manage, but I suspect anyone who gets a glimpse of me can see my rage. Smell it on me.
The fuckers in the woods admitted to hurting her. They admitted to–to …
My fist is embedded in the wall before I realize I’ve thrown it, and a deep, bellowing roar echoes in the hallway.
Did I do that?
Emmett comes out of Auryn’s room with one leg in his pants and one leg out, hopping as he tries to finish dressing. His shirt hangs from his mouth, and he takes in my walled fist with wide eyes.
Em knows better than to ask. He knows better than to come within ten feet of me right now.
Auryn takes longer to come out, and I don’t guess I blame her. I interrupted her … business, dumped two severed heads on her floor, and started destroying the building. I’d probably be less than plussed at the thought of facing me right now.
She pokes her head out the door, takes one look at my fist–still buried in the drywall–and frowns. “Was there a bug?”
“Sure. Two of them. But I squashed ‘em good,”
I grumble as I free my hand and shake the dust off of it. “Can I come in?”
“Could I stop you?”
I blink blankly at her, confused. “What do you mean? It’s your room; of course you could stop me.”
Some ghost of an expression crosses her face, something like surprise. Shock, maybe. Like the notion of having control over who enters her room is foreign. “Well. Okay. Come on in, then.”
She pops back in, and I round the doorway, shutting the door as I enter. I’m about to ask her some very personal questions, and she might not want anyone overhearing.
Before she can say anything, I point to the bloody heads on her floor. “I know what they did, Auryn, but I need to hear you say it.”
Her cute little nose wrinkles up, and she kicks one of the heads with her bare foot. She’s put a shirt back on, but that’s it. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
The air fills with that fresh lemongrass scent of hers, and she leans into me, rubbing my abs. “I could be convinced to talk about something else, though …”
Fuck. I guess Em didn’t finish his, er, job after all. I was hoping he’d get Auryn to cool off, rut the heat out of her, so I could have a level-headed conversation with her. From the smell of things, though, they didn’t fully do the deed, and now that the initial bewilderment of my arrival is wearing off, Auryn’s back to her omega roots, back to the haze and discomfort of her heat. She’s going to be hard to wrangle unless I give in, and knowing what I do now, it’s the last thing I want to do to her.
“Auryn, you’ve gotta focus. I need to discuss what happened to you at the Orion pack’s house. What they did to you.”
Rather than calming down, Auryn ramps up her efforts. She runs her hands over me, whining in the back of her throat and nuzzling my chest with her nose. “Please, Gage? You smell so good.”
This is … odd. Forward for an omega, especially one who’s not fully bonded to me yet. I’ve yet to rut her, yet to knot her. She shouldn’t be this eager. I wish Olly wasn’t busy. I could ask him to run some tests on her blood right now. I bet it’d show something … interesting. Or something. I don’t know. That’s his department.
I catch omegas. Bring them in. Occasionally take care of their heat for them. I don’t analyze them.
Before I can stop her, she hops up and wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. I grab her hips and try to pry her off, but it’s no use. She rubs her hot, wet pussy over my crotch and somehow emits even more fragrant pheromones. It’s a wonder I can breathe right now.
“Auryn!”
I need to regain control of the situation–fast. Turning around, I press her back to the door and lightly wrap a hand around her slender neck. Not hard enough to hurt her, but hopefully enough that she comes around a bit.
“Auryn. You have to stop. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Please, Gage!”
She grinds against me even more and tries to slide one of her hands down the front of my pants. “I know you want me. I can feel that you want me. Why don’t you admit it?”
Fuck. I can’t hide that from her, especially not with how physical she’s getting. “It’s not that I don’t want you, Auryn. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to do what those alphas on the floor did to you.”
She scoffs. “They’re not real alphas. They’re knotless fuckwads.”
Knotless? Huh? “Auryn, please. Tell me what they did.”
She gazes up at me and licks those plump, red lips. “If I tell you, will you fuck me?”
Shit. This is not how I want this. “Not if you say ‘no.’ I don’t care how far into your heat you are, the second you say ‘no,’ I’m out. Done. I’ll go back to my room and fuck my hand or find Diego and fuck him. I don’t do rape, Auryn, and if you can’t hold a simple conversation with me, then maybe you’re not enough in your right mind to even say ‘yes.’ Maybe I walk out either way.”
Her dark, dilated eyes flash with rage, and she scowls. “Fine. They fucked me. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“You know that’s not it.”
More whines come out of her, and she tries to pull my face to hers. “I answered your question. Fuck me!”
“Auryn!”
This time, I put all my alpha rage that I’ve been directing at the dead Orions into my voice, all my authority as leader of this pack. She freezes, and her whines change. They’re softer now, more docile. Less demanding.
“Tell me. I won’t think less of you. I just need to hear you tell the truth.”
By now she’s trembling, but I can’t tell if it’s from fear, her heat, or something else. Tears well in her eyes, and she buries her face in my chest. “Fine,”
she mumbles. “They raped me, okay? They tortured me. They used me. They shot me full of shit and tried to turn me into something I’m not, and I don’t know if I’ll ever really be me again.”
She’s rambling, not making sense, but it’s enough of the truth for now. I descend to her mouth and kiss away the sobs before they can escape. I thrust against her, letting my cock finally have what it wants more than anything. Even through the thick canvas fabric of my tactical gear, I can feel how warm and wet she is, feel how needy she is.
“Are you sure, Auryn?”
I mutter against her lips. “If you say ‘yes’–and only if you say it–I’ll fuck you. I’ll fuck you so sweet and tender that you’ll forget who you are, or who you were before the Orions. You might not remember your own name for a while. But I’ll take care of you. I’ll ease this heat of yours, take away the pain and discomfort, and I’ll give you everything you want right now. Just say it.”
Her breath hitches in her throat, and she tilts her head to expose her neck to me. “Yes, Gage. Yes, yes, yes.”
I lick the soft, warm skin of her neck. Nibble along her collar bone to her shoulder and back, and she moans. While she’s relaxed enough for me to get my hand between us, I quickly unzip my pants and pull out my cock, letting the fabric fall to the floor.
When I slide inside her, it’s like coming home for the first time ever.
Auryn sighs with contentment, and, as promised, I start to fuck her slowly. Sweet and tender. I let my knot build inside her, let my hands explore her body. The round curve of her ass. The gentle swell of her breasts. She cries out as I pick up the pace, and her pussy clenches tighter.
And tighter. And tighter.
Holy fuck, what is this?
It’s not bad … In fact, it feels fucking amazing, but–What is it?
“Auryn, what–what are you doing?”
Her legs squeeze my sides, and she whimpers. “I don’t know, but with your knot … Fuck! I’ve never done this, never–But I’ve never been knotted.”
She buries a hand in my hair and holds my head to her neck. “Fucking mark me, Gage. Mark me as yours.”
Does she know what she’s asking? If I mark her … I’ve never been that intimate with another omega. Never been bonded, never marked. That’s for permanence.
Even as I hesitate, my cock swells more in response to her pussy’s hold on it. I couldn’t pull out now if I tried. I’m locked tighter than Fort Knox.
Fuck it.
I growl and kiss her neck, preparing to mark her. To bite just hard enough to break her skin, hard enough to leave a mark that will rival the scars that pepper her body with reminders of the Orions’ torture. A new scar, a better one, one that tells anyone who sees it that she is mine, that she belongs to my pack. A scar to let her know she has a home now, a pack of her own, a place in the world beyond what value she holds as an omega.
When I bite down, I time it with a hard thrust against the door, hoping that the pleasure of my cock diminishes the pain of the mark. Her spicy-sweet blood hits my tongue like a hit of the most delicious, most addicting drug there is, and when combined with her fucking gorgeous screams, I know that’s it for me.
There will never be another omega for me. Another woman. I’ll never knot anyone else, never stray, never want for anything so long as I have this pussy to come home to.
So long as I have Auryn to come home to.
In the back of my mind, I wonder about Diego and Emmett, even Olly. They’ve all formed bonds of their own with this woman, and we’ve all had our own flavor of bond before she arrived. What will happen now? Will things change for the worse, or will they only get better?
Then I hear something that makes all my concerns melt away into oblivion.
“Gage!”
My name, my name on her lips as she comes undone on my cock, as her sweet pussy drenches me from the waist down. She spasms uncontrollably, inside and out, and I hold her close, chasing her orgasm with one of my own. I lick the blood clean from her neck and purr into her.
I don’t know how long we stay locked in place like that, how long before a soft, rhythmic knock on the door signals Olly’s arrival and wakes me from a light doze.
I fell asleep fucking? I never fall asleep fucking! What kind of alpha am I?
“What?”
I grumble, not wanting to be disturbed. I’m comfortable right here, surrounded by Auryn.
“Um, Gage, we’ve, uh … We’ve let you two be for–ahem–a while, but I think I found something you might want to see.”
Groaning in frustration, I pull back from Auryn–
–and she comes with me.
“Auryn, baby, you can let my cock go now.”
“Um … Can I?”
Oh, shit.
“Gage…”
Olly calls out and I glance at Auryn, her gaze full of concern. She moves and twists her hips, which is not helping the cock-lock situation.
“Auryn, let me go.”
She sucks in a breath and twists harder, and I cry out as she moves a bit too far for my trapped dick to follow–but it still tries. “I’m trying! I’ve never done this before! I don’t know how!”
“Just a second, Olly!”
I growl, but it’s no use.
I am officially…stuck.
Fuck.