Chapter 31
EMmett
Everything hurts, and I am hot as hell. My body aches from the pain below my waist. From where they cut me. My legs are like dead weight. I’m sweating, and my mouth is dry. I’m not all that convinced I’m not fighting some wicked infection. Given the state of this place, I can’t be certain they took the right precautions before slicing into my cock.
Before they took my damn knot.
My body shivers, and the scent of pungent death fills my nostrils. Great, now I’ve got chills.
I wish they’d just fucking kill me. It would be so much better.
The omega they shoved in here earlier is gone, but I can still smell her. I hate that smell—lilacs and honey aren’t what I want. It’ll never be what I want.
So why did it hurt when she took one look at me, wrinkled her nose, and scrambled back towards the bars?
I know why. I don’t want to think about it, because thinking about it makes the pain worse.
I wish they’d fucking kill me. I’m as good as dead, anyway.
The scent of lemongrass fills my lungs, and I think maybe I am dying. Maybe the infection has hit my brain. Lemongrass and sunshine fade into cinnamon and peppercorn, and my mouth waters.
And then it gets stronger.
“Emmett!”
I can hear her voice, shrill and terrified. Fuck, even my delusions are brutal.
But then the darkness fades, and I’m shoved into light. Strong arms hoist me up like a rag doll, the scent of bourbon hitting me like a brick. I’d know that scent anywhere.
Gage.
Why am I dreaming about Gage on my fucking deathbed?
“Grab him by the waist,”
Gage orders, and sure enough, I feel small hands wrap around my waist. My body is shifted, and I groan because I haven’t stood up in days. Not since they removed my knot.
It hurts, and I groan in pain.
I lean into that scent of lemon and cinnamon, and the scent is so strong I think I am surely dead. It smells too good, too close, too perfect to be anything but heaven. I try my hardest to pull it closer. I need to touch it. Need to breathe it, need…
“Emmett,”
the voice whispers, the terror edged with something else. Something I can’t quite place. Understanding, maybe? But that doesn’t make sense.
I struggle to open my eyes, but when I do, I see bright brown eyes staring back at me. Messy waves of chestnut flow about, and blood stains her porcelain cheeks.
Auryn.
My omega.
And all at once, the pain hits me tenfold.
She’s not my omega anymore, because I’m not an alpha anymore. I’m a broken, knotless thing that doesn’t deserve her. I’m like them.
I reach for her hair, but I can barely move my arm. I’m sweating buckets, and it takes so much effort to walk, to breathe.
“Death,”
I say. That's all I can say. Words are hard. I know how to speak, but my brain is muddled from the scent of lemongrass and peppercorn, my body not moving of my own accord.
I close my eyes because I can’t keep them open.
The same strong arms guide me, picking me up when I nearly fall to the ground.
“Is he going to be okay?”
Auryn’s voice is high-pitched.
My delusions are meaner than they should be, because Auryn would never speak like that about me. Usually she wants to murder me. The way her voice sounds is so full of pain and concern, it makes my body twitch. I’m set down on something. No, someone.
Rain and thunderstorms. Smells like dirt.
“We won’t know for sure until we get him back to the lab,”
Olly says, and then I feel his cold touch on my neck. I want to bristle and fight his touch because it’s not what I want, but I can’t deny that it feels good against my hot skin. Then I feel the softest touch on my arm. Small fingers squeeze my flesh, nails sinking into me hard, but the pain is welcome. Because this pain cuts through the rest. I know that touch.
I moan from the relief, one word, one name etched on my tongue.
“Auryn.”
“Pulse is high,”
Olly says. He doesn’t ramble. His fingers splay over my neck, his cool touch a balm to the heat. “He’s burning up. Probably an infection.”
“You’ll get it when we get back, though, right Olly? Some antibiotics, some rest, and he’ll be good as new, sí?”
“We got you,”
Gage says.
“Safe,”
Auryn says, but I can hear the tears in her voice.
Don’t cry, baby, please…
“It’s okay,”
Olly says, his fingers splaying over my throat. He rubs my neck lightly, squeezing. My breath is heavy, and his touch feels good. I hate that I like it as much as I do.
“You’re okay now. I’ll take care of you,”
he whispers just before the darkness pulls me under.
My body is lifted, and once again I smell the heavy scent of bourbon. Footsteps echo, and familiar scents assault me. I’ve never noticed scents this much before, but I can smell everything. Antiseptic. Mate. Blood. Sweat.
My back hits a cold surface, and I groan.
Olly’s hands are back on my throat.
“He’s feverish,”
he says, the return of that calculating voice etching itself into my brain. “Auryn, step back.”
It’s not commanding or demanding, but a plea. I can hear the terror in his voice, and that worries me. If Olly’s afraid, it must be bad. So fucking bad…
“Auryn,”
Gage snaps. “Give your beta some room.”
Your beta.
The words cut what’s left of me. I want to be hers. A strangled whine leaves my throat. I want to be her alpha again. Before I ended up like…this.
I’ll never be hers again, not now.
Not after what they did to me.
“I will not leave him!”
she growls. “He is mine!”
“Auryn—”
“Cálmate, mi amor. He needs room to work.”
Olly’s voice is perhaps stronger than I’ve ever heard it. “You are in my way, Auryn.”
It’s weird to hear Olly of all fucking people speak like this. His hand on my arm is still cool, his thumb pressed to my wrist. Taking my pulse, even as he commands my omega.
His omega, now, too, I guess.
She whimpers. Fucking whimpers. For him. For his tone.
“I cannot help him, if you do not let me.”
I feel her small hand in mine for a moment as she whimpers again, a sob tearing from her throat.
No no no…no baby don’t cry…I’m not worth your tears anymore…
Her hand slips away, and I hear Diego muttering something in Spanish, and the smell of bourbon and lemongrass disappears. All that’s left is antiseptic and rain.
All that’s left is Olly and me.
I fade in and out of consciousness. The cool air on me is a relief. I’m vaguely aware that I’m naked, but I don’t care because the air feels good. Then I feel more wetness, but a cool wetness. A cloth. I groan as the cloth trails down my neck over my collarbone. I feel Olly’s fingers through it as he massages my aching muscles with each sweep. Dripping water echoes in the space, and it’s oddly soothing.
“You’re okay,”
he whispers, and I think he’s…crying? But Olly doesn’t cry. Over anything.
Fuck, maybe I really am in heaven.
I listen to the sound of his voice, focus on the cool rag he uses to wash me clean. I know that’s what he’s doing, and I wish I could tell him thank you, but I feel disconnected right now. Like I’m here, but not here. I focus on his touch, on my breath.
“Just a pinch, okay?”
he says warily. He sounds tired. How long have I been here?
I barely feel the pinch, but the wave of relief hits me fast.
The heat in my body flares for a moment, and I whimper. I need comfort. I need cinnamon and peppercorn. I need my omega, I need—
Olly’s hand finds mine, and he squeezes. “I don’t know if you can hear me right now, but when you wake up, we have a lot to talk about.”
I want to laugh because the way he says it through what sounds like sobs almost indicates it has nothing to do with my injuries.
My injuries…
“What the fuck did they do to you?”
he cries, and all I can do is squeeze his hand, hoping he understands. That if I could talk, I would.
That if I could do more than breathe and whine, I would.
The heat subsides, and the exhaustion hits me once more, pulling me under.
When I wake up, Olly’s hand is still in mine, and his head is on the table beside me. He’s passed the fuck out.
Machines whir and beep, and I glance around. My clothes are strewn on the floor, and panic hits me when I realize I’m in nothing but a damn dressing gown.
I scramble backwards, nearly falling off the table as Olly groans. “What the—”
His eyes widen, and he nearly knocks his chair over as he stands, lunging forth to catch me before I fall off the damn table.
“Easy, easy…”
he says. “You’ve got an IV in your left arm and—”
“Then fucking take it out!”
I yell. Olly narrows his eyebrows at me and sternly says, “Lie down. Stay still, and I will.”
Well, shit…looks like someone grew some balls while I was gone.
Interesting.
I want to argue with him, but…I also feel the strangest, deepest desire to listen. To do as he says, and maybe he’ll be happy with me or some shit. His rain and forest scent hits me like a fog, making my mouth water. God, he shouldn’t smell this fucking good to me.
I know that on some imperceptible level. I know it has to do with whatever those assholes did to me. They didn’t take my knot first. First, they tranqued me and shot me up with some weird chemical that made me practically soaked to the core. With sweat and precum.
I try to push the memories aside. They’re all hazy, but I remember the omegas they pushed in my cell. The ones I fought off. The ones who clawed at me, begging me to knot them.
The puddle of cum left on the floor after I knotted my fist because the pain of being so full without my omega to knot was too much. I hated that I had to do it. Hated that they watched me do it.
Then they grabbed me, shot me with those damn tranqs, and took my fucking knot from me like candy from a baby, and now…
I shake as I brace for the pain, but there is none. There is no pain where pain should be, and I suck in a breath.
“I’m taking it out,”
Olly says smoothly. “Eyes on me, Em.”
I look up at him. I keep my gaze trained on him as he slowly slides the cannula from my arm. My cock twitches, and I grimace. There’s the pain.
“How are you feeling?”
he asks, his voice warm. Not cold as it usually is.
“Like shit,”
I say, my voice hoarse.
Olly presses a cotton ball against the crook of my elbow, bandaging me up so fast I barely notice.
“Well, you look like shit, so I suppose that’s fair,” he says.
I laugh. It starts small but builds like a crescendo.
“What’s so funny?”
he asks, leaning back, crossing his arms. Tears come without warning as I laugh hysterically.
“Oh fuck, Olly. I missed you, you fucking asshole.”
Laughs turn to sobs, and before I know it, Olly wraps his arms around me and pulls me against his chest.
Olivander Montgomery is hugging me.
Suddenly the sobs take over, and I can’t breathe. I bury my face against his chest as he holds me tight.
“It’s okay,”
he says, running his hands up and down my bare back. I have the strangest desire to bury my face in his neck, and it’s hard to fight, so I don’t. I breathe in his scent, and it calms me just a fraction. It’s not the scent of death and cum or blood and shit. It’s the smell of Olly. Of home.
“No, it’s not okay,”
I say through a choked sob. “I’m not okay.”
Olly holds me away from him, capturing my gaze with his.
“You're alive, Em. You are okay.”
When he looks at me, I can see the sympathy. The pity.
I’m naked underneath this sheet. The reality hits me like a brick, and I grab myself through the sheet, noting I don’t feel gauze or bandages, but…exposed, soft flesh.
He removed my bandages. He knows what they did to me. He fucking knows.
“No, I’m not,”
I say through glistening tears.
Olly says nothing. He just squeezes my arms and waits.
He’s waiting for me to tell him what happened, but I don’t want to tell him anymore than I want to remember. I know I need to. He won’t let me out of this lab without briefing him first. I know that.
“They threw me in a cell. Tried to force me to breed omegas.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t because I’d never do that to anyone, but certainly not to my mate.”
Olly nods for me to continue. I hold my arm out. “They shot me full of some chemicals. I don’t know what they were. They made me hot and really fucking hard and wet. Then they threw the omegas in with me, and I barely escaped them…”
My jaw tenses. “Then they tranquilized me, and when I woke up it was to a scalpel on my dick.”
“Holy shit, Em—”
“They took my knot,”
I say, my voice barely a whisper. The sobs soften, and I can’t look him in the eye. He’s just a beta, but…I’m no longer an alpha.
How can I look at anyone, knowing what they did?
Olly lets out a soft sigh as he places one hand on my thigh. “It’s still there,”
he says softly.
I shake my head. “No, it isn’t.”
He carefully unties my dressing gown and opens it. The cool air rushes against me, against my nakedness, and I shiver with fear, with shame, with guilt.
I close my eyes.
Olly carefully runs his cool fingers over my cock, and I grimace. It hurts. It hurts like hell.
“Does that hurt?”
he asks smoothly. I nod, sucking in a breath. I want to die. I wish they had killed me.
“Scale of one to ten, how bad does it hurt?”
“Seven,”
I say, swallowing hard.
“Can you feel that you’re hard right now?”
he asks in that calculating tone that is somehow smooth and wonderful and soothing all at the same time. His touch is soft, cool. He doesn’t stroke me or squeeze but rather runs his fingers along my shaft gingerly.
“Sort of…”
I answer, because it’s hard to describe. I know I’m hard. I know I’m getting wet, too, and I know that I want to knot, but…
When I try, it hurts.
I grimace, my breath coming in fast.
“Take it easy,”
he says. His fingers stroke my head, carefully running over my slit. Precum trickles out, but I suck in air through my teeth because it stings. “Can you feel that?”
he asks, slipping his thumb through my precum. He gently massages the spot, and the stinging lessens a fraction. I nod.
He stops touching me, and the pain returns.
“It hurts,”
I cry. His fingers slide over the raised wound where they cut me. Where they mutilated me. I cry out a whimper as his thumb smooths over the long, raised scar that used to be a ring. “It’s gone,”
I croak out. “I can’t knot, I can’t—”
“It’s still there,”
Olly assures me. “If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be able to feel me touching you right now. You wouldn’t be able to feel pain.”
I look up at him, seeing the truth in his eyes. He lets go of my cock, wiping his hand on his lab coat. His heady rain and forest scent hits me again, and I have the weirdest desire to fucking kiss him and breathe him in again.
What the fuck? Maybe I’m just all warped and fucked up from what happened to me.
Yeah, that’s got to be it. Getting your meat mangled will do that to a person.
“I’m broken,”
I say. “I’m an alpha with no knot, Olly. How is she ever—”
“Hey,”
he says carefully, setting down a pile of fresh clothes next to me.
I look at it. I’ve worn these things plenty of times, but I find myself prickling at the idea because the fabric looks scratchy.
I want something soft.
“Look at me, Emmett.”
I listen without thinking. I look at him, and that itself is terrifying. “You are not broken. You are still an alpha. You are just…”
He swallows, and I can see the glimmer of tears in his eyes as he says the word: “Different.”
I nod.
He opens the shirt and hands it to me. “Can you put this on?”
I grab it and slide out of the gown. Stretching my arms hurts, but I put it on easily.
“Okay, what about your pants?”
he asks. “Do you need help?”
I roll my eyes. “I think I can put a pair of pants on, doc.”
He smirks, helping me down from the table, though I tell him I’m fine. I’m not, and I appreciate him helping me, but I don’t tell him that. I brace myself against his shoulder with one hand as I hobble into my underwear and pants. It hurts like a bitch to have things pressing against my softening cock, but I manage.
I have to manage.
Because Olly’s right. I am alive.
And there’s going to be hell to pay for the Orion pack if I have anything to say about it.
Those fuckers should have killed me for sure.
“We’ll need to debrief the others,”
Olly says as I head for the door. I stop, looking over my shoulder.
“I know,”
I say. Then I open the door and head towards the scent of cinnamon.