Captured Omega

Chapter 37

Auryn

I lay in my nest, basking in the warmth stoked between my alpha and my beta. Mine. The word feels strange, because nothing’s really ever been mine. I barely remember my life before the cell. Before Sneed took me and made me his.

But I was never his. He was never my alpha, just an alpha. A bad alpha.

He poisoned me in so many ways, not all of them just physically.

When I saw Gage, Olly, and Diego that day I’d managed to escape, something shifted. In me, in the natural order of things.

Because I’m not just an omega, like I thought.

I’m an alpha. Like Emmett and Diego. Like Gage.

But I’m not sure I know how to be an alpha. I was never very good at being an omega, either but…

Almost as if he can sense my turmoil, Olly pulls me against his chest. He mutters something under his breath that sounds like a bunch of words mashed together. “Love”

is the one that stands out, next to “you.”

And then I hear voices outside the door. Outside my nest. My body stiffens, bracing for the terror I can’t quite escape, even though I thought I had.

They’re here. Sneed and his bastards are here to take you away. He’s come back to take what belongs to him…

Except when the door opens, it’s not Sneed or his knotless alphas. It’s Gage, being shoved in the room.

“Fix it, jefe.”

I sit up. Olly groans, his hand over my hip falling a fraction to my stomach.

“Gage…”

I say his name carefully, feeling strangely apprehensive. Gage’s gaze roves over me, and I suddenly feel self-conscious as he trails it down over my breasts, down to where Olly’s hand rests.

“Are you okay?”

Olly mutters sleepily.

“I’m not sure,”

I whisper, unable to take my own gaze off the alpha in my doorway. There’s a conflict in me. I want to whine, but I also want to growl. Olly shifts beside me but otherwise doesn’t move.

“Can we…?”

Gage’s voice warms the cold space between us, and I both hate and love how it sparks a fire in my soul. “Can we talk?”

he asks carefully. I tense as insecurities I haven’t felt in a long time arise. Not since I started getting my shots from Sneed. The shots Olly says made the omega part of me and may never go away…

“Talk to him,”

Olly murmurs against my back.

“I—”

I try to speak, but it feels difficult. The way Gage is looking at me makes me feel on edge. I worry this is it. Now that he knows the truth I will no longer be allowed to be here. This is his pack. He and his pack may have saved me, but that save was dependent on me being an omega. Something less than an alpha. What will happen now that I’m not some frail, weak thing that he can order around and fuck until he’s content? What will—

Olly shoves me with one hand. “Go, Auryn.”

I turn to look at him, noting he is, indeed, awake. His clear, dark eyes find mine, and he nods.

“You can take him. You can take more than you think you can.”

Something about his words, whispered to me, settle something inside of me.

“Okay,”

I say, my voice shaky. I’m not sure who I’m really answering. Olly. Myself. Gage. Perhaps all three of us.

I swing my legs over the side of Olly’s bed, noting as I do so, Gage’s gaze follows me. I grab Olly’s clothes on the floor and slide them on. The overpowering smell of rain and earth hits me, calming like a thunderstorm. I pad my way slowly over to Gage, never dropping his gaze. I meet him at the doorway, looking up at him questioningly. For a moment we just stand there, sizing one another up. I know a look of assessment when I see one. When an alpha looks at you, trying to figure out if you’re worth the trouble. Part of me thinks he will realize I’m not worth the trouble.

I’m a broken alpha who’s been hijacked with omega genes. Who should, according to Olly, on all accounts, not even be walking right now. I’m an escapee, a fugitive of sorts. All I am is trouble, and he would be right to tell me to leave. I’ve brought nothing but pain and blood to his doorstep.

But he says nothing. He simply steps aside to give me space to exit the room. Wordlessly, I take the invitation, hoping I’m not making the wrong decision here. I want to be in my nest. I want to be curled around Emmett, breathing in his sweet cherry-vanilla scent that I don’t want to lose. I want to be held by my kind beta who, despite being a beta, shields me and protects me from the vicious thoughts and mental enemies that threaten to hurt me from the inside.

A moment later, Gage motions for me to follow him. He doesn’t say a word, and I think perhaps someone should tell this man what talking actually means.

Part of me wants to protest, but it thinks this really is it. I’m being asked to leave. Olly was wrong.

I can’t crumble in front of Gage. I have to be strong. I can’t be weak, even though I want to be.

Weak omegas are cared for. Loved. Broken omegas give big strong alphas a need. They fill a void in more ways than one.

But Emmett told me once I was not weak, and I believed him. He told me I’m a warrior, and I fucking believed him, and now I think he’s poisoned me, too.

So, I let Gage lead me through the dark compound to the Jeep.

Yup, this is it.

There’s no way this ends well, and I sigh, feeling defeated as Gage opens the passenger door for me.

I stare at the seat, my chest tightening. I could race back in and grab my beta, my alpha. But Gage probably would retaliate, and I don’t want him to hurt them. They were here first. They don’t deserve his wrath because of me.

I push the threatening tears back, not wanting to show my weakness. God, I wish I would have kissed them goodbye.

Will they try to come for me? I should have told them to stay. Ordered them, but I didn’t.

Because I don’t know how to order anyone. I don’t know how to be an alpha. I don’t know how to be an omega either.

I don’t know how to be anything other than a survivor.

So that’s what I focus on: surviving. I step up into the Jeep, and Gage lifts me, giving me a boost.

How noble of him. Helping me to my demise. Probably so he feels better about himself in the long run.

Look how nice I was. I treated her so well. Too bad she wasn’t an omega.

I take my seat, and he buckles me in. I move to push him away, because I can do it myself, but his hand is stronger. He fights off my push easily and finishes buckling me in before shutting the door and getting in the driver’s side. My heart pounds away in my chest, and time moves slowly. I watch as he gets in his seat, buckles himself in. Shuts his door. Starts the car.

Neither of us say a word as he takes off, the crunch of gravel beneath the car an echo in the darkness.

I want to speak, but I can’t find the words. I watch him intently, for any small sign that will clue me in to how this will go.

To his nature, he doesn’t look at me. How can he now that he knows the truth?

Probably doesn’t want to do this anymore than I do. No, if I were truly an alpha, I’d understand. But all I understand is that I’m not enough, and I’ll never be enough.

I thought I’d found somewhere safe, somewhere good. But like everything else in my life, I just didn’t meet the criteria. To the Orions I wasn’t enough, which is why they tried to alter me.

To Gage and his pack…I thought I was enough, but turns out I’m not omega enough for them, either.

The trees hover over us as I realize when the car stops we are in the woods.

Fuck.

The moonlight shines through the forest, hitting the windshield. Gage quietly gets out of his driver’s side and opens my door. He moves to unbuckle me, and I growl, swatting at his hand.

“I can do it myself,”

I grit through my teeth, and he holds his hand up.

“All right,”

he says as I unbuckle the seatbelt. He tries to help me out, and I growl again. He moves back just the slightest, giving me room to jump down. I do, landing on my feet without a stumble. He shuts the door, nodding for me to follow him.

I don’t want to follow him. I want to run. I want to run away from my inevitable fate.

But I have no choice, not really. I could run, but where would I go? Back to Sneed? Over my dead fucking body.

Sure, I could find somewhere else, but…

What pack would take in a broken alpha-omega hybrid with a price on her head?

The scent of heavy bourbon fills my lungs, and stupidly I whine. I hate that I do. Hate that even now as Gage comes to stand beside me, that just the smell of him makes my thighs clench and my pussy wet.

That feeling of his looming presence beside me makes me want to throw his heavy ass against the nearest tree and sink my teeth into his skin.

He glances at me from his peripheral vision, breathing in the air deeply. His gaze drops to my mouth for only a second. Then he starts walking. He doesn’t wait for me.

I could run right now, but…

That broken, shattered part of me that wants to be near him, wants to soak in his bourbon scent and feel his towering frame over me, wins out against the part of me that wants to forget him and everything he’s done. Everything he’s given me.

God, I am so fucked up. Who falls in love with their captor?

Because, I realize as I race to meet his side, that’s the real problem here.

I love him. I love this pack. I love who I am underneath all of the darkness. Who I am with them. My pack.

But they aren’t my pack. They never were. They were his.

I was just a guest. A guest who fell for his charms and his scent, for his blue eyes and commanding tone.

“I’ve done this for years,”

he says, his voice even. He doesn’t look at me, just walks ahead of me. I fall in line next to him. He smirks at me.

“Taken strange girls to the woods?”

I bite. He chuckles, shaking his head.

“Hunt.”

It’s one word, one single word, but the weight of it is undeniable.

“I’ve always been a good hunter. Finding people, rescuing omegas, is what I’m good at.”

I scoff at him. “What, do you want a trophy for kidnapping people?”

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “Because you call it hunting, but what you do is kidnap people.”

“I rescue people, Auryn.”

“You capture and release,”

I say steadily. My heart beats so loud in my chest, I think for sure he must hear it. “I know what it is to be captured. You cannot tell me otherwise, because you don’t.”

The earth beneath my feet is soft, moist. The scent of rain hangs on the horizon, and it makes me think of Olly. My heart aches. Though the prevalent scent of bourbon seems to be getting stronger, I hate how it makes my mouth water.

“You’re right,”

Gage says solidly as we come to a clearing. A clearing I remember well.

The cliff stares at me, bathed in the bluish-white light in the darkness, of the overseer moon.

I stare at that cliff, my heart in my throat.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be a prisoner,”

he says, stopping at the edge. I don’t move to meet him, because I can’t.

Self-preservation and all.

It would be so easy to push him. He wouldn’t expect it, I know that. Though…maybe he would.

Maybe he’d fight me. But I could be swift. I’m smaller than he is; I could easily tumble away and….

“But I do know what it’s like to feel like you have no choice.”

He turns to look at me.

I stand frozen, just as I had before.

“But that’s the thing about freedom. There’s always a choice, but you never know if you’re making the right one until it’s done.”

He motions with one hand for me to go to him.

I shouldn’t. He could very well grab me and throw me over this cliff. Eliminate me as a threat.

Because I know he sees me as a threat. Because I’m an alpha. Because I’m not useful to him anymore. Because I’ve infiltrated his pack and poisoned them with my love.

My love.

But something deep inside of me tells me he won’t hurt me.

It’s something I haven’t really felt since that day. The day I saw him. On the edge of this cliff.

I ran from him then, and somehow…

Somehow he still found me. He still captured me.

I couldn’t escape him then, and I don’t think I can escape him now. I wish I had more time. I wish that I had more.

I take two steps forward, carefully. It feels like an eternity until I am beside him. We both stand there, bathed in the light of the moon as he looks over the water. I know how cold it is, how choppy. How heavy the waves are as they try to pull you under.

Could he survive them as I had? Or would his heavy frame sink to the bottom?

“I could kill you right now,”

I say. The words are simple. True. I could.

He doesn’t move or growl. “Of course you could. You could have killed me the moment you saw me, all those weeks ago.”

He turns to me, his gaze finding mine. “But you didn’t.”

I don’t want to meet his gaze, but I do. Because I have no choice. Not really. Something inside of me responds to him of its own accord, the same way it did then.

I just know. He won’t hurt me. He can’t.

Because he’s my mate.

“I could kill you, too,”

he says softly. He moves closer to me, his towering frame making me feel small. So many men have made me feel small, but Gage doesn’t make me feel small.

“You won’t,”

I say, my voice barely a whisper, “but you should.”

He reaches out for me, and I brace for the touch. I ready myself for the impact, his growl.

His teeth.

But those things never come. Instead, I feel his hand around my throat, his thumb grazing my throbbing vein. I feel the warmth of his palm as it rests on my neck, and he purrs.

“Is that what you want, Auryn?”

he asks. “Because the choice is yours, not mine.”

I look up at him, noting his eyes are glistening. I lean into his touch, into his palm, and I know death is inevitable.

I always thought it would look like blood and flesh. I never knew it would look so beautiful.

“I want…”

I close my eyes, feeling the warmth spread through my body. The air is cold, and my own chest rumbles with a deep purr. “To stop running,” I say.

Gage’s arms pull me in close, and I suck in a breath, keeping my eyes closed. I prepare for the cold water, but it never comes. The deep purr that vibrates against me makes me whine.

Without thinking, I wrap my arms around him, around his waist, and the tears come without warning. It’s like a dam breaks inside of me, unleashing my own treacherous sea of pain. I crumple to the ground with him. I sink my fingernails into his back through his shirt, clawing, holding on for dear life.

“I don’t want to leave…”

I say, the words falling out of their own accord. “Please, don’t make me leave.”

“Make you–?”

he asks, his voice edged in surprise. “Why would I ever make you do anything?”

I pull away, looking up at him. “I’m the one begging you to stay.”

I blink. “What?”

“That day I found you in these woods…”

he says, reaching a hand for my hair. His thumb brushes over the tears on my cheek. “I knew then that you were more than just an omega.”

He says the words, and they cut me like a knife. Because I’m not an omega. Not really.

“But I’m not,”

I say. “I’m not an omega, so I hold no value in your pack.”

“You think because you’re…different—”

His words settle on me, reminding me of Olly’s.

You’re just different.

“You think I don’t value you?”

I can’t meet his gaze. I don’t want to see the pain, the sympathy. The sadness there, because I know the truth.

Omegas are valuable. We’re the ones who keep the packs going, who keep the bloodlines alive. It’s we who are traded and given, purely because of what we can provide.

And it’s been clear since Gage brought me to the compound, that that is what made me valuable to the Orions. And I’m not stupid enough to think that every time Gage and I had sex he wasn’t trying to get me pregnant because I was an omega to him. I was a means to an end. An instinct.

“How can you?”

I ask. “I’m not—”

He grabs my jaw. Hard. Forcing me to look at him.

“You are my alpha. You are just as valuable as anyone else, if not more.”

I feel a tear run down my face. His grip loosens.

“You only wanted me when you thought I was someone else,” I say.

“Wrong,”

he says. The word is heavy. “I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you. Job or no job.”

“Because you thought I was an omega,”

I whisper.

“Because you stood like an alpha and told me your name was Auryn.”

His voice doesn’t waver. It’s strong. Stronger than I feel at the moment. “Because you fought for yourself. For your freedom. You fought for us. You brought Olly out of his shell. You tore those bastards up for Em. You sat by Diego’s side while Olly operated on him.”

He leans his forehead against mine, his mouth so close I could take his lips easily.

I want to. God, I want to, but there is a part of me, a larger part than I want to admit that wants him to kiss me. To prove to me I still matter to him now that I am no longer what he thought I was.

But as I wait with bated breath for him to kiss me, I realize maybe I am.

Maybe somewhere deep within me, I am an omega, even if it’s not natural. Olly said there was no telling if my omega alteration would stick. It could disappear tomorrow, like Emmett’s.

Or it could stay a part of me, forever.

“I want you because you’re Auryn. Because you’re my mate. What you are is my mate.”

I whine the moment his lips find mine. I whine so deep, I think it rattles the Earth. “But what if—”

I break away, but Gage swallows my words, pushing me down into the dirt, and something inside of me comes alive.

All resistance is futile. There’s no desire to run, no desire to fight.

The earth beneath me is soft, and his body is heavy and hard. His lips graze my jaw, my neck. His hands hold me still as he purrs. My pussy throbs, and I feel wet. Very wet.

Gage purrs like a running motor as I whimper beneath his mouth, his touch. I need more.

The warmth that spreads through me has nothing to do with heat, and everything to do with the alpha on top of me, igniting a spark within me. My mind tells me this is no different than before. That he only wants me because of some biological drive and not because he really wants me.

I tense because it’s conflicting. My body and my brain, it seems, are on two different pages.

“Why?”

I ask. My hand settles on his chest. His heart beats beneath my palm.

“Why what?”

he asks, his kiss-swollen lips catching my gaze. I want to bite them. Suck them, taste them until sugar and bourbon is all I know, but I need to hear him say it.

Stupidly, I want to hear him say he wants me because he loves me.

Not my alpha, or my omega, but me.

The broken parts. The sharp edges.

The soft, gooey center.

“Did you take me out here to fuck me one last time?”

I ask, insecurity filtering through the beauty, the warmth. “Before…”

He shakes his head.

“No,”

he says sternly. “This isn’t…this isn’t about you leaving, Auryn, because you’re not going anywhere as long as I’m alpha.”

And there it is. I tense, part of me wanting to push back. But there’s another part of me that fights against the challenge. That part whimpers like a fucking omega.

“It’s because you want to breed me, right?”

I bite, the words sharp on my tongue. His cock twitches against me at the mention of that word. Breed.

He looks down at me for a moment, that heavy scent of bourbon blanketing me and making my pussy twitch with anticipation. I expect him to move, to argue, but he breathes deep and says, “Lemongrass and peppercorn.”

I blink. He says it again.

“You’re perfuming.”

His voice is dark. “Tell me you don’t want me to breed you, and I won’t. I will never do anything you don’t want me to do.”

I want to tell him no. I really do, but…I can’t find it in me to say that one word.

Because I do want him to breed me. Or at least, part of me does.

“This isn’t about getting you pregnant,”

he says. “I don’t care about that.”

I bite my lip, the words climbing up my throat, threatening to spill out. His cock is heavy against me where it rests, and I hate that there are clothes preventing me from feeling every inch of him.

My fingers slip underneath the hem of his shirt, resting on his waistband. My breaths are heavy as I trail them down the side of his thighs. I stare up at him, the darkness of the star-spattered sky behind him lighting him up, and I think, natural or not, for better or for worse, this–Gage–is a part of me.

He challenges me. All the parts of me. He’s been doing it since he found me on this ledge, running for my life.

Gage has always given me a choice, and right now he’s giving me a choice. I only have to be brave enough to jump off the ledge.

“Yes,”

I say the word carefully. “I want you. I want you to breed me.”

The words are heavy, but the moment they escape me, I feel light as a feather. “I want my alpha to breed me.”

His mouth finds mine, and I am powerless to fight the wave of desire that takes me over.

It’s a blur of hands and tongues as we fight to tear one another’s clothes off. The crickets chirp, and the water rushes below, a contrast of peace and rhythm. Neither of us wait. The minute I have his pants around his ankles, his wet, hard cock is already pushing inside of me.

My back arches as I grab the back of his neck, pressing my breasts against his chest. His mouth latches onto my neck and he bites me. Hard.

No, he claims me.

Like an alpha claims an omega. Because somewhere deep down beneath my alpha, I am an omega too.

I am his omega. Just like I’m Diego’s omega. Or Olly and Emmett’s alpha.

I’m both. Gage’s hand finds my hip, and he pulls my leg over his hip, pushing me back into the dirt. His mouth caresses my neck, tongue licking where he bit me, and I whine. He purrs as he licks me, his warm tongue trailing down to my breasts. One hand slides between us, and he pulls my clit into his fingers, stroking as he stretches me with his inflating knot. The sensation is overwhelming. He sucks my nipple into his mouth, massages that swollen nub as his hips thrust into me. My body heats, and I know my orgasm is close.

So close I can taste it.

“Mine,”

he mutters. “My alpha.”

I shake my head. “No,”

I say, the words coming out high pitched. “Your omega.”

He growls, and I come undone.

My vision goes white as pure bliss hits me in a way I’ve never felt before. It awakens something dormant, something new. Something I feel to my core. I push against Gage, knocking him forward until his back hits the ground with a thud. He lets out a heavy breath, clearly not expecting the force. Still buried inside of me, I use my weight and pin him, thrusting against him through the spasms of my orgasm.

I hold his chest with one hand, staring down at him as I purr in contentment. He stares up at me, eyes dilated and kiss-swollen lips agape. I don’t think twice about claiming his lips. I kiss him. Hard.

His knot rubs against a bundle of nerves inside of me as I thrust myself against him. My mouth finds his jaw as I quicken the pace. I ride him faster, faster, until my breath catches in my throat. I trail my mouth over the throbbing vein in his neck. The desire, the instinct to rut, to claim, to make this alpha mine is prevalent and I don’t fight it.

I don’t fight what Gage does to me.

So, I bite him. I sink my teeth into his flesh, and he curses, and then I feel him tense.

“Mine,”

I murmur as he fills me with his cum.

Blood pools to the surface, and I taste him on my tongue. Sweet, sweet fucking bourbon that burns as much as it soothes.

Then I kiss him. I shove my tongue, with his blood, into his mouth.

He holds my hips still with force as he fills me, and he growls beneath me.

“Your alpha,”

he says. It’s the sexiest sound I think I’ve ever heard.

He curses, and I feel my insides tighten around him and his deflating knot. I’m locking him.

Because that’s what alpha females do. Lock the knot.

Which means we’re probably going to be here for a while.

A laugh tears from my throat, and his eyebrows furrow.

“What? What’s so funny?”

he asks, nearly breathless.

“Um…”

I chuckle, slipping a hand between us. “Probably should have thought this through.”

He laughs. Really laughs as he sits up, driving his cock deeper inside of me, inside the lock.

He wraps his arms around me, breathing in my scent, his lips playing at my neck where he bit me. His fingers that hold my clit shift position, and he starts to massage that spot Olly usually does, and I nearly collapse against him. He’s able to slip out of me, and then I feel the deluge of cum that escapes with him. I whine. I was kind of hoping we could stay out here for a bit.

“I love you,”

he says the words softly, kissing my bite. “All of you.”

Every bone in my body turns to Jell-O, my heart exploding into a million pieces.

I’m speechless.

“You don’t have to say anything,”

he says as he rights us, pulling up his pants and giving me a smirk. I’m sure I look dazed and confused right now, because I certainly feel it. “Just…I need you to know that.”

He helps dress me, his touch careful and sweet.

I nod, wanting to say it back, but I don’t know how. But the way he looks at me as he walks beside me, leading me to the Jeep, I think maybe I don’t need to say it. Not yet.

But when I’m ready I will, because I know he’ll be there to hear it when I make that choice.

Because being with Gage, Emmett, Diego, and Olly is a choice.

And I choose to stay as long as they’ll have me.

So, when we drive through the night in complete silence, I don’t try to fill the space. I just enjoy the truth.

I just enjoy the night for what it is, because when the sun rises, I know we have more work to do. Because I’m not letting Sneed get away with what he did to my mate. I will not let him rest for what he did to me.

I choose vengeance.

I choose death for the man who destroyed so many. And as I look at Gage and his steady gaze, I know vengeance will be ours.