Chapter 45
Emmett
My head is a mess, and I’m exhausted from the onslaught of tonight’s mission. I’ve been in a lot of scenarios, but never one quite this personal before. And I know it’s not just because of what Sneed did to me. It’s because of what he did to Auryn and all the other omegas.
The women and the men.
It’s because he tried to hurt my mate and our baby.
Our baby.
I’ve barely had a chance to grasp the news, and as I sit in the car, I think it’s finally hitting me.
Diego looks at me for a moment, as if he wants to say something but thinks better of it. Then he gets up and heads for the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts, my emotions.
I suck in a breath and let it out slowly, closing my eyes. When I open them, I notice the light in the doorway, notice the figure standing there against it.
My gaze meets Auryn’s and the relief that hits me mixes with a string of fear. I freeze as she takes two steps forward and shuts the door.
I want to get up, I really do, but my legs feel like Jell-O.
Somehow, I manage to move them, though. I slowly get out of the car and lean against it, sliding my hands in my pockets as she approaches me. My blood runs cold, and I can’t take my eyes off of her.
“Hey,”
she says softly. She leaves a bit of space between us, as if she, too, is nervous. There’s a long moment of silence as I swallow harshly, focusing on those dark, warm eyes.
My Auryn.
My mate.
In a lot of ways, she doesn’t look any different than the first time I saw her. Her hair is a mess, dirt and blood smeared on her like little specks of glitter from a darker place.
She stands tall, fierce, like I remember.
But she’s different, too. Dressed in tactical gear which has seen better days, but it’s not just her clothes that are different. It’s her.
Gone is the anger and the rage I felt when we brought her here. Gone is the feral terror that was five-seven-six.
Standing in its place is Auryn.
If she can stand here, surely I can, too. So, I push myself off the car and take a solid step towards closing the gap between us.
“Hey.”
She slumps her shoulders, biting her lip. I watch as she flashes her gaze up at me. She takes a step forward, closing the gap another inch.
“You uh…”
Her voice falters for a moment, and I can hear the adrenaline ringing in it still. I know it’ll take a while for it to leave her system. I look down at her hands. Covered in blood.
Sneed’s blood, but also the blood of our enemies and allies, too.
My brain decides that this is the perfect time to replay the worst fucking sight: Auryn with that blade, slicing through my stolen skin.
I wince at the memory, and I hate that I do.
I know Auryn would never hurt me. On some deep level, I know that, but my brain isn’t rational right now. All I know is it’s tearing me apart from the inside.
Sneed is gone. Dead. I watched him die at Auryn’s hand. So how is it he still haunts me like this? Why can’t I just let go of this?
Auryn’s hand strokes my jaw, and I open my eyes immediately.
“Want to stretch our legs?”
she asks, her voice shaky.
I know without a doubt we need to talk about this, but I’m not sure I can put words to what is going on right now. But I know I need to move, or I’ll crumble, and I don’t want to do that. So I nod.
“I could use a little stretch, sure.”
She nods in understanding before looking back at the compound. I can see the light emanating from the few windows, and I wonder what they are all doing. Gage and Diego. Olly.
How are they handling what happened? Are they freaking out, too? Or are they stronger than I am and kicking back to drink in celebration?
Do they notice Auryn is gone?
Will they come looking for her, will they—
Auryn’s hand slides into mine, pulling me from my momentary spiral. I look down to see her small, bloody fingers intertwined with mine, and suddenly I realize how much I missed it.
Her touch.
How can you crave something and not know it? Is it even possible?
Auryn makes everything possible. At the same time, it’s impossible to know anything else.
I squeeze her small hand, running my thumb along her soft skin. The blood there is dry, but it stains her all the same. My hands are not without blood either, and I think that they will never be truly clean.
If this job with Auryn, with Sneed, has taught me anything, it’s that good and bad aren’t so simple.
I never questioned my orders from Gage before I met Auryn. And now, I feel like everything I’ve ever known has been a lie.
Having been in the cage Auryn and the others were in, having been on the other side of things…
I tug her hand softly and take one step towards the woods. Then another.
Auryn follows me. She lets me lead her into the woods, and something about that makes me feel both emboldened and sad at the same time.
My fighter, my warrior…
She’s tired. She’s spent, just like me, and perhaps even more. For she was the one who was threatened, who had endured Sneed’s experiments and torture and lived only to stand before him and have not just her, but her child threatened.
“Are you okay?”
I ask when we reach a clearing. The moon shines down on the water beneath the cliffs, and I think back all those weeks ago. When Gage said she’d jumped off that cliff into the waters like she had nothing to lose.
“You’re asking me if I’m okay?”
she says, a dark chuckle escaping her lips.
“I mean, you killed a guy. That alone will fuck up a person.”
I say humorously.
She drops my hand, and my smile fades.
“I’m not sure,”
she says honestly. She steps into my space, and I don’t think twice about wrapping her in my arms. I just do it. I pull her close, and she lets me. I close my eyes, breathe in her sweet lavender and lemon scent. There’s a hint of cinnamon and peppercorn, but it’s not strong like it usually is. It’s there, but it’s not overpowering.
Because my mate is complex. She’s not an omega or an alpha or innocent or guilty.
She’s everything. She’s the blade and the flower, and she’s a fucking miracle.
Her body sinks against me, and then I feel it. The wetness against my shirt. It’s fresh and warm.
Her body shakes, and the sobs commence, and the dam inside of me breaks too as I bury my face in her hair and breathe deep.
I try to keep my own sobs in, but it’s useless. Her body pressed against mine, her scent, her frame, and knowing what was done to her—what was done to us— and that we are somehow, still alive…It’s a lot.
And then those terrifying images creep up into my psyche, and I grip her a little tighter.
When I pull away, I grab her face and make a point to stare into her eyes. They are glassy, dark, and full of understanding.
The unspoken words between us will stay that way, I realize.
We’ll bury them here.
I brush my thumb along her cheek.
“You’re okay,”
I say breathlessly. “Sneed can’t hurt us anymore.”
Auryn closes her eyes, leaning into my palm. I move one hand to her hip, gliding it over her small frame. My thumb brushes the side of her stomach, and a whole new wave of terror and fear hits me.
He could have hurt her and our baby. He could have taken them both from me and my mates.
Because I know now Gage, Diego, and even fucking Olly…
That’s what they are. That’s what they’ve always been, but I didn’t understand that until Auryn came into our lives and showed us all the truth.
“You both are safe now,”
I say, my voice shaking.
I’m not stupid enough to think that somehow this baby is mine. After what Sneed did to me, I know the chances are probably slim to none considering I only just started the path to actually working my cock again. To be able to come and not feel immense pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if he screwed up my ability to have kids, period. He screwed up my ability to come. Screwed up my fucking psyche.
But regardless of whether or not this baby is mine or Gage’s or Diego’s or…
God, what if it’s fucking Olly’s? I shudder at the thought. Because that would be… Well, I don’t know how I feel about that, so I’m not going to dwell on it for now. Though I know deep down, the truth is, I would still love our baby no matter what.
No matter who gets to claim their DNA, the fact is this baby is Auryn’s and it’s ours. All of ours. And that makes me feel a strange pang of relief.
Auryn looks up at me with glassy eyes. “He can’t hurt you anymore, either.”
Her words settle on me, and I let myself feel the enormity of them.
I nod just as a splash pulls both of our attention. I look to the stream that cuts through the clearing, noting the rushing water, and I get an idea. I grab her hand, tug her towards it.
“Come here,”
I say, feeling on the edge of a cliff.
Once again, she lets me lead her. She doesn’t fight or argue, and I wish I could say I wanted her to, but a part of me knows I need this.
I need to know I can lead her. And that she’ll let me.
That she still wants me and my fucked-up cock and forever-altered brain.
When we get to the stream, the first thing I do is remove my shirt. I watch her reaction, note the way her pupils dilate, and the scent of lemongrass and sunshine is prevalent. Her omega is front and center. My alpha responds to this, knowing this is the way it’s supposed to be.
There’s the omega I want.
I smirk, but then she smiles and licks her lips.
“Like what you see, princess?”
I tease. She nods.
“You smell good,”
she says, her voice husky and dark, and suddenly I get a whiff of peppercorn. A thick cloud of cinnamon.
There’s the alpha I want.
“Oh yeah? What do I smell like?”
I ask as she carefully starts to undress herself, but I stop her.
“Ah-ah!”
I hold her hand in place. “I didn’t say you could do that.”
She smirks, batting her dark lashes at me, and then she growls. “You smell like vanilla and burnt cherries.”
I squint, my eyebrows furrowing. “What?”
Before I can protest, because I thought my omega scent shit went away, her hands are on me. She rips at the belt of my pants, and it’s like a switch is flipped. I grab her and kiss her as she tears at my clothes, and my own hands make a fight to remove her from hers.
Everything is a blur. Of cinnamon and sunshine and lavender, of blood and flesh, of lust and love.
Love.
I realize as that one word lands in my brain that nothing will ever erase that. The love I have for Auryn, our child, and my pack.
I meant for us to bathe in the stream first, had this grand idea I could wash the blood off of her, and it would be super romantic, but we don’t make it to the stream.
Auryn knocks me down, and I don’t fight her. We fall to the ground, and within seconds I can feel her heat sliding along my hardness, and nothing else matters.
The cloying, terrible thoughts try to push through.
The ones that try to poison this can never really poison this.
Auryn slides herself over top of me, and I grab her ass, sinking my fingernails into her flesh hard enough I know it will leave a bruise. She slides one hand up around my throat and kisses me. My knot feels tingly, and it still hurts. But I know it won’t hurt forever. I roll us over in the mud, leaves and sticks falling from our bodies as we find comfort in one another’s touch.
I settle on top of her, knowing this moment is monumental. As an alpha, submission is burned into our brains. It’s what we want, what we crave from our omegas.
Sunshine and lemongrass perfume the air, and I smile as she stares up at me with understanding. She doesn’t fight it. That itself is a victory.
I slowly thrust into her, waiting for the moment she will tap out. But it doesn’t come.
“Are you okay?”
I ask, pushing some matted hair out of her face. Cinnamon and peppercorn perfume through the air but she makes no move to shift me off of her. Instead, she wraps her legs around me and draws me closer, until my knot breaches her completely, and then I feel the tightness of her lock.
“Never better,”
she says as she grabs my throat tightly and pushes up against me. She bites at my bottom lip, and I lose myself in her ferocious kiss, in the warmth of her wrapped around me.
The world is nothing but bliss as the sounds of the night echo around us while we both chase our impending pleasure, a relief long awaited.
Together we push past the pain, the blood, the truth.
When we come, it’s like a bliss I’ve never known before. It’s full, it’s warm, and it feels so damn good. Me and my alpha. Me and my omega.
Me and my mate.
I bury my head in her hair, my lips grazing her neck as I slide two fingers between us and stroke her clit like Olly does to help her release me.
She purrs in contentment as I wash her skin in the stream, the crimson streaks flowing away from us with finality. I don’t bother to get dressed, and she doesn’t either.
Instead, we walk hand in hand, back to the compound, and head straight for the nest.
When we get there, I can’t help but grin because the nest is already full.
Olly lays on his side reading a book of all things—naked, of course— while Diego and Gage look like they’re already pretty engulfed in one another. But the minute we step into the room, everyone looks up.
Warmth rushes over me as they look at me and then at our mate.
“‘Bout time, I was about to send a search party,”
Gage says with a chuckle.
“Well, sorry to keep you waiting,”
I say with a smirk of my own. Olly doesn’t look at me, and I growl.
Auryn chuckles as she drops my hand and heads straight for the center of the nest. She grabs the book out of his hand and throws it across the room. It lands in front of my feet. Seconds later, she’s crawling on top of Olly, and I pick up the damn book. Watching them is strangely arousing.
Well, watching Olly actually fuck Auryn is more than arousing. I could watch that all day.
I shut the book, noting the cover reads Expecting Omegas: 101 Topics.
I roll my eyes, but my heart warms a fraction. I set the book on the nightstand before crawling in beside Gage, since Diego is squished on the other side of Auryn, who can’t seem to get enough of her pain in the ass beta.
Well, our pain in the ass beta, I guess.
Gage’s arm finds its way around my hip, his fingers gently stroking the base of my cock.
“Good to have you home, Em,”
he says warmly. I purr in contentment.
“Good to be home, boss,”
I say, turning in his grasp. He smiles at me, and I don’t think twice about backing my ass against his cock. He takes the hint and doesn’t waste a second before sliding into me and covering my groan with his kiss.
Home has never felt so fucking good.