Chapter 29
Olly
I groan as the beeping sounds on my watch to tell me it’s dinner time. I’m not hungry. I can’t eat, and I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. I don’t even want to leave this lab because that means the inevitable is coming. Time is moving, and all I want is to stop it, but I can’t.
When Gage told me his plan to rescue Emmett, I agreed with him if only because at the time, it made sense. And I guess in a way, it still makes sense, but…
He’d made me promise to keep his “idea”
a secret, because in the heat of the moment, he seems to think Auryn won’t risk something happening to me.
The more I think about it, the more I disagree. I’m not like him, or Diego, or Emmett.
I’m not as valuable. I don’t think for a second it will matter. That I will matter at that level. She might be tiny, but she is a stubborn omega if I’ve ever seen one, which means I have two options—defy Gage’s order and tell her the truth about the plan, or defy Gage’s orders and take her into the Orion house with me. Either way, I’m fucked because I’ll be disobeying my alpha.
I’ve never disobeyed a direct order before. That’s grounds for exile.
I rub my eyes and crack my neck. Falling asleep hunched over my counter was not the best decision, but after Gage left earlier, I had quite the mess to clean up. I lost myself in the routine, finding solace in making sure everything was clean and disinfected and back in its right place, but once that was done the ache and the gnawing truth still persisted.
I look at my door, knowing I’ll have to face them—face her eventually—but I feel safe here. In the lab.
In my bubble of no-time.
A knock on my door alerts me, and I look to see Diego waving through the small window.
I pull myself up from my chair, rubbing my neck as I make my way over. When I open the door it hits me all over again, but this time I think it hits harder.
His waist is still bandaged from where I’d removed the bullet from him. They shot him, those assholes. They shot him, and they took Emmett, and they tortured Auryn, and….
“You okay?”
he asks, and the tone is careful. I’m sure Gage told him I freaked out earlier, which makes me feel even worse.
I try to keep things to myself the best I can. I don’t need anyone to worry about me. I don’t want them to worry about me, because I don’t know how to respond to things like that.
I would do anything for my pack, and I know in theory they’d do anything for me, but I can’t ask them to make those sort of decisions where I’m involved. My job is to support the pack, not cause a wrinkle in it.
At least, that was my job before Auryn showed up, it seems. I’m not sure I know how to feel about that, either, to be honest.
Everything around me is…different.
I think I’m different, too, but if I think too hard about it, I feel like I can’t breathe. So I don’t.
“No,”
I answer honestly. Diego nods for me to step out into the hallway.
“Come with me.”
It’s not a question or a request. It’s an order from an alpha. Like before.
Too tired to argue, I step into the hallway, sliding my hands in my pockets. I need to make sure I get the laundry done today, but—
“Where are we going?”
I ask, but he doesn’t answer me. “Diego, where are we—”
He turns, placing one finger against his lips. “No talking.”
What? Why? It’s not like anyone can hear us, and even if they could, it’s not like we’re discussing anything important.
Whatever the case, I keep my mouth shut. I follow him down the hall, noting how quiet it is. It’s almost peaceful.
I follow him past the quarters to the training rooms. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Years, to be exact. Though Gage makes us all qualify every year just to keep up with the regimen and organization that comes with being an operation like we are, I don’t really come here like the alphas do. Not unless I’m running a test on something or unless I need to grab one of them for something. Emmett spends the most time here. He spends five days a week here.
Diego says nothing as walks me over to the target range. He says nothing as he hands me the gun that was perched on the ledge. I look at it in his hand, then at him. He raises an eyebrow at me, and I know I should probably just turn around and leave. Head back to my lab where it’s safe and comfortable, but—
If I want Auryn to be safe and comfortable, I need to be able to protect her like Gage asked me to.
At least, I can try to. I doubt she’ll let me do it very long before she realizes what I’m doing.
I grab the gun from his hand wordlessly, feeling the weight of it in my hand. He slides his hands in his pockets and leans against the back wall. I shift my stance, close one eye, and center my target. It’s not fresh; looks like there’s a few bullet holes already shot through, but it doesn’t matter. There’s enough sporadic shots that I can still aim for the bullseye, which hasn’t been hit yet.
“Come on. Fire away. Show me you’re not rusty.”
I scoff at his words, knowing he’s only doing it to agitate me on purpose. Usually, I’d ignore such things, but today I’m all out of sorts, so it only pisses me off. I snap off a shot, my lips pursed and my jaw tense. The smoke from the barrel slips into the air, and I fire another one. And another.
Every shot hits the bullseye until I empty the fucking chamber.
Diego grins.
“What?” I ask.
“Feel better?”
He asks, a smug grin on his face.
“No,”
I say. He laughs.
“Not even a little?”
I set the gun down, noticing my shoulders are still aching, but…
“Okay, maybe a little. Like….five percent.”
Diego turns, heading to the sheet to remove it, and I watch him casually put up another clean sheet.
“Where are Gage and Auryn?”
I ask as he takes his time sauntering back to where I stand.
“Outside.”
My eyes widen. He shrugs. “Running laps most likely. You know how Gage likes to drill.”
I nod. I do know. I try to avoid drills unless they are absolutely necessary because I hate feeling all worked up, and usually I get pretty worked up if I’m being tested.
I head over to the ammunition cabinet, looking for more ammo, and Diego doesn’t stop me.
In fact he kicks back against the cabinet, out of my line of sight.
“How are you feeling?”
I ask as I load the chamber.
“I’ve been better,”
he says with a smirk. “But I’m still here, thanks to Gage.”
I nod as I take my stance again.
“And you,”
he says coolly.
“I didn’t save you, Emmett did. Gage did.”
“Gage did not pull the bullet out of me,”
he says calmly.
“He could have if he wasn’t so…”
Diego looks to the ground before speaking. I lower my gun.
“Te debo mi vida.”
“You are just saying that,”
I say as I pick it back up and fire a shot. I hit just above the bullseye and purse my lips.
I should have been better. I should have shifted my weight, I should have—
“You are a part of this pack, too. You are capable of more than you think.”
He nods to my hands. “Again.”
I roll my eyes, but do as he says, because I actually do feel a little better.
I narrow my gaze and clear my mind. Or try to, but all I can think about is Auryn. What those bastards did to her. I let out my breath and pull the trigger. Bullseye.
Diego pats me on the back, and heads for the entrance, not saying a word.
I stay there, firing away until I empty the chamber again, and then I realize I am a sweaty mess, likely from standing in this heat box. It always gets super hot in the training room this time of day, since it’s technically a remodeled garage.
I clean up the equipment, even going as far as to disinfect everything. I lock up the ammo, checking not once, not twice, but three times to make sure I remember and know everything is in its right place. Finally, I head to the showers. It’s quiet, which gnaws at me.
I used to love the silence, but now it feels like the silence is anything but peaceful. I slip out of my clothes and fold them neatly. I set them on the bench, noting to myself that after I’m done here, I should throw a load in the wash.
Stepping into the warm spray, my muscles speak louder than my groan of relief. I feel like shit. From sleeping hunched in my lab, from the kickback from my back to back session in the training room, from the stress I know I’m carrying but which I have no idea how to treat.
I’ve never been the best at dealing with stress, period. Some would argue my job here is stressful, but to me, it’s the least stressful thing I’ve ever done. I do better in the lab than the field, purely because I can control my environment. Most of the time. Not to mention my field work usually consists of talking down omegas or pissy alphas. But I guess sometimes we don’t have a choice in the matter.
I go through the list of things I should do after this. Toss the laundry in the wash. Get something to eat. Check on my test results. I’d separated one of my salvaged blood tests to test for something I saw in one of my articles. It’s a long shot, a wild ass shot to be honest, because the odds of it being successful are seriously slim, but at this point I’m out of options. If this doesn’t work to isolate the protein, I will likely never get the answer, and neither will Auryn.
I’m so invested in my mental list, I don’t hear anything, or anyone, technically.
What stops me dead in my tracks is the heady smell of cinnamon and peppercorn. I turn, shocked to see Auryn standing there, completely naked and looking at me with dilated pupils. Her nose twitches, and I freeze.
“Auryn, I thought you were with Gage.”
“I was,”
she says cooly as she steps forward. Our lockers and showers are technically big enough to fit at least six or seven pack members, but most of the time we take turns in here. Well, I take turns. The alphas don’t give a shit about sharing the space.
I like my space. Always have. But lately I’ve noticed sharing things hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. Sometimes it actually feels kind of nice.
I like having Auryn in my space.
And it appears she likes that, too.
“He give you a good workout?”
I ask, trying to be humorous, but my voice sounds stiff as a board.
I’m vaguely aware that I’m stiff in other parts of my body, but I ignore it.
Auryn glances up at me as she stands before me. Something shifts in her eyes. The color changes, I realize.
Her natural shade of brown flickers gold for a moment. It reminds me of Gage’s eyes when he gets all alpha-y and starts barking orders.
The gold flickers again as she presses her hand against my chest.
“Yes,”
she says carefully. “But I don’t think I’m the only one around here who needs to relieve some tension.”
My cheeks heat because I feel strangely hot. Probably should turn down the heat in this shower…
So I turn around to do that, but her hand stops me.
“Why do you do that?”
she asks, turning me to face her.
“Do what?”
My eyes glance around, wondering what the hell she’s talking about.
“Why do you resist?”
she asks, and it’s curious, not judgmental. “Why do you get so flustered when I touch you?”
She slides her hand up my chest to my throat. “Why do you fight what you want?”
I look down at her, her words not completely foreign to me. I’ve been asked these things before. Not by omegas, but by Emmett.
He’d asked me a few times why I didn’t seem to “engage”
anyone. I tried to explain it then, but I just got upset and left instead.
But this time, for the first time, I feel the words a bit more.
“Because I don’t know how to give in. Things are…different when they’re messy.”
“Am I messy?”
she asks, stretching up on her tiptoes.
“A little,”
I admit. “But it’s just…I don’t know how to connect the dots sometimes. I know what I want to do. What I want to say, what I should do, or what the alphas do, but—”
“What do you want?”
she asks as she shoves me against the tile. “What do you really want, Olly?”
The words are dangerous, because what I want more than anything is to run back to my lab—with her—and hide from the world. So we can be safe and content. I reach a shaky hand out and push her wet hair back.
“I want you to be safe,”
I say honestly. “I just want you to be happy.”
“You want to make me happy?”
she says, and I feel her hand slide down my chest, down my abdomen. Water rushes down my skin, and I feel the twitch of my cock.
“Yes,”
I say, too quickly. Why is it so damn hot in here?
“I want you to relax,”
she says. “Think you can do that for me?”
The words are on the tip of my tongue. Tell her. The truth.
Tell her.
“I don’t know how.”
It’s the truth. I don’t know how to relax when Emmett is probably getting beaten and tormented right now, when Gage is freaking out, when Diego is still recovering from being fucking shot, and when Auryn is staring at me like she wants to devour me.
“I’ll fix that,”
she says, grabbing me by the throat. She brings my face to hers, looking up at me with a gaze that glows gold.
The strength in her grasp could rival any alpha, I think. My brain latches onto that.
“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop, okay?”
she says, searching my eyes.
The words fall out of my mouth of their own accord. “I don’t want you to stop.”
I like the grin that spreads across her face when I say those words.
“Good,”
she says, reaching between us. Her hand wraps around my cock, and my attention shifts. I notice that I’m painfully hard.
It’s like all of a sudden the lights turned on.
“Because we’re just getting started,”
she says, running her thumb across my cockhead.
I clear my throat. “What do you want, Auryn?”
She grins with one hand on my cock and one hand on my throat. She cocks her head to one side as she strokes me, that golden gaze as captivating as the sun. The room is thick with the scent of cinnamon.
“You like to give me what I want, don’t you?”
She says almost in a way that feels…dominant?
I blink, nodding in agreement. “Yes. I like it when you tell me what to do. What you like me to do.”
“Does that make you feel relaxed?”
she asks. She squeezes my cock. I watch the water run down her face, over her breasts. “When I tell you what to do?”
I nod, words suddenly difficult.
“You want to be my good boy, Olly?”
she asks, pressing her body against me until I feel her entire weight.
I know I could move easily, but…
I don’t want to move. I gaze down at her, at her dilated pupils. My breath comes in fast as I say, “Yes.”
Something switches in my brain as she bites her lip.
“Then turn me around right now, and fuck me against these tiles,”
she commands.
I swallow harshly, but do as she asks. I settle my hands on her hips, turning her around and pressing her against the wall. Step one.
I suck in a breath, lifting her just a fraction so that I can attempt to line myself up correctly. The angle needs to be right for maximum—
“Please,”
she says. “Don’t take your time.”
I blink, trying to understand the directive. I need to take my time or I will make a mistake, I will hurt her, I will—
Her hand slides back along my waist, and she pulls me close. “Just do it. Please.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say.
My words echo between us, and it’s a moment before she looks over her shoulder at me, and then I scent the strangest thing.
Lemongrass.
It exists for the faintest moment before the cinnamon returns, and I open my mouth in shock.
The alphas said she smelled like lemongrass and sunshine, but all I’ve ever smelled was cinnamon and peppercorn. Until now.
I’ve never smelled her omega scent until now. The disappearing act exists in her blood, in her scent.
Because Auryn is…
There is no time to process or think about such things when she digs her fingernails into my skin, breaking all trains of thought.
“You won’t hurt me,”
she says, backing herself up against me. “Now do as I say, Olivander.”
The command in her voice is what I latch onto.
I know no matter what happens, Auryn will guide me. She will lead me. And I will always be there to do as she says. I push aside all the ache, all the gnawing anxiety, and all the awful things that plague us to break apart this.
Because this—Auryn and me—it is the most natural thing I’ve ever felt, even disconnected.
I slide into her with ease, relishing in the sigh that leaves her throat. It takes a minute for me to remember to breathe. Time stands still, and I think it goes on forever until she tells me to move. So I move. She snakes her arm up behind me, pulling me against her neck.
I kiss her there, because I like the way her skin feels against my tongue. I like how she tastes.
It takes a moment or two for me to build a rhythm. But Auryn pushes back against me, leading me with her words, her touch, her scent. I set one hand on her hip, the other wraps around her front, and I try to replicate the things I watched the other night. I try to move the way Gage moved. I try to touch her breasts the way she tells me to.
Every movement is calculated, but it feels good. Better than it felt when I watched it happen. She pushes my hand down between her legs, and that, I do understand. I’ve touched her here multiple times, and she always seems to enjoy it, so that’s what I do. I lose myself in the sounds she makes and the warmth spreading through me.
Something tears through me, and I go faster. Harder. It feels like running, my heart in my chest thudding so loud I think it echoes in the room. The water isn’t hot. It’s cold, but I’m burning up. I think I’m going to spontaneously combust.
And then I smell them.
The undeniable scent of bourbon and spice.
A deep growl escapes me as some new beast forges forth.
Mine…
It’s not a thought, it’s a fact.
“Perhaps we should uh…”
Gage’s voice echoes, and there is no humor in it. Just pure shock.
Auryn whines. I blink, not wanting to stop, but also feeling strangely threatened. Not by them, but the emotions traveling through me are more than I’ve ever felt, and I am worried I’m going to lose everything.
Auryn.
Emmett.
My pack.
“No,”
I say, shaking my head. I don’t want to lose them, too.
Diego raises a brow at me.
“Are you sure…?”
Gage presses as Auryn whines.
“Do you want them to stay?”
I ask her. If she doesn’t, I will tell them to leave right now, but something in me says she won’t. It’s like that little voice, that little flicker knows.
Beyond anything else, I can’t explain it, but I just…know. She needs them.
I need them, too.
Maybe not in the same way, but they are my pack. They are mine, too. Just as Auryn is mine.
“Yes,”
she says. I run my hand over her swollen nub, kissing her neck once more. She clenches my cock. Tight. Tighter than before.
“Then they stay,” I say.
It doesn’t take Diego or Gage long to join us, and the minute they do, I feel a sense of relief.
I…relax.
Because my pack is here.
I close my eyes, not needing to see them. All I want to feel is Auryn. All I want is for this feeling to last forever.
I can hear the sounds of her moans and kissing. I hear the sound of Gage’s grunts and Diego’s moans. The water runs cold down my skin as I pick up my pace once more.
One thrust.
Two thrusts.
Three thrusts.
I count each one, losing myself in the feel. One, two, three. One, two, three.
My mind quiets, and then I feel the tightening pulse on my cock, and my orgasm hits me out of nowhere. It blindsides me because up until this moment, I hadn’t really been focusing on coming, but—
I groan into Auryn’s neck, relief flooding my body like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
My shoulders loosen. My legs feel weak. My heart is racing and my throat is dry and I feel like I could actually collapse. I try to slip back out of her, but—
I can’t.
I freeze as I try to pull out, but I’m—
“Auryn let go of me, please,”
I say with as much politeness as I can muster.
“I’m trying,”
she says, and then I look up. Gage stares at me with a wide grin.
“Not so fun when it’s you, now is it?”
he says humorously.
I blink. “What?”
“I believe you might be here a minute, Olly,”
Gage says.
I try to pull out again, this time realizing what is actually happening. I don’t have a knot, so I shouldn’t be able to do this. Auryn looks at me over her shoulder, those glittering gold irises flashing like neon signs.
I reach one hand round and stroke her clit, pressing my fingers into that space until I feel her soaking my cock all over again, and then I slide out with ease. I stumble back, bringing Auryn with me. We fall to the ground, and I catch my breath.
Auryn just locked me. A beta.
Only alphas should be able to knot her. Only alphas should be able to lock.
Fuck. Does this mean what I think it does?
I close my eyes, pulling her close, but a moment later she is out of my grasp.
And so is the truth.
“Come on Olly,”
Diego says, helping me up, and it is then I realize the water is no longer on, and Auryn and Gage are nowhere to be seen.
I let him pull me up, let him lead me to Auryn’s nest.
And when I get there, I pass out, feeling like I’ve more questions than I do answers.
But soon enough, I’ll have the answers we seek.
I only pray that we find Emmett in time.