Chapter 13
Thirteen
Max
I was rock hard. My morning wood was more like a concrete pillar at this point, especially when I woke to the sweet sound of an Omega coming. And coming. And coming again.
At the first moans, I’d been up and moving before I was fully even awake, getting all the way to Llew’s door in a panic before my brain registered they weren’t sounds of pain, but of pleasure. And a lot of it, judging by the sounds.
I stood there for a long time, well into her second orgasm, to be sure that Llew had a hold on his Alpha. On his madness. The way he was talking her through it told me that he was not only in full possession of his faculties, but he might have actually been in heaven.
“That’s it, Omega. Come for me again. Give me one more—you taste so good…” he breathed, and I bit my knuckles to hold back a moan. I needed to move away. I was an uninvited participant in this.
I headed straight to the shower, glad that Rio’s room was on the other side of the house, so he’d be oblivious to what was going on in Llew’s room. Turning the water to frigid, I jerked off to the pretty Omega, who I had no business desiring the way I did, especially after everything she’d been through. I tried not to think about her big doe eyes or the way her lips pillowed when she frowned. I didn’t imagine her whispering my name as she came, or how she’d taste, or having her between me and the men I loved more than my own life.
My jizz created an impressionist painting on the shower tiles. “I’ll call it ‘Blue Balls,’” I muttered before rinsing it with the showerhead. I’d go make breakfast, make sure my Pack was fed. Because she was Pack now. The bond between me, Llew, and Rio was broken, but we’d chosen each other long ago, and I wouldn’t abandon them now.
I made quick work of cooking Rio’s favorite breakfast—because I was fairly sure Llew was already eating his favorite breakfast, if what I’d heard was correct—dicing up the vegetables I’d need for a shakshuka. I didn’t make it too spicy, because I didn’t know what Paloma’s heat tolerance was, but found myself excited to introduce her to the world, including its food.
I put some rolls in the oven too, then pulled out my phone to check my emails. I’d put out some feelers for the cult that had sold Paloma while Rio had been driving August home last night, both through official channels and… less official channels. I’d put in as much information as I could without outing that we had her, in case someone wanted their “merchandise” back. It might’ve stopped with Anthony Smalls, the guy who’d been selling rescue animals for baiting and testing, but you could never know how deep it ran, and I wouldn’t put Paloma in harm’s way.
There was a message from a hacker named simply J3wel, and I raised an eyebrow in surprise. She was part of a larger group that was all about global social justice, but she normally stayed out of the small stuff. A small-time cult wasn’t usually her thing.
On it.
That two-word response made me smile, because she was good. Well, I assumed she was a she, but you never knew on the dark web. It was the great equalizer. But if J3wel was on it, then I’d have answers. She was a much better hacker than I could ever be.
Nothing had turned up from my official databases, but that didn’t surprise me. They weren’t a terrorist cell, so they wouldn’t come up there unless they were considered extremists. From what I could tell from Paloma’s descriptions, they were just regular Alpha dirtbags. They might still be in an FBI database somewhere—at least, I hoped so. I’d called in a few favors, so hopefully someone could come up with something soon.
“Want a little rub and tickle, good boy?” Rufio crooned from the other room, and I went to let him out of his cage. He’d been locked away for a day, and that usually made him kinda mean. I’d let him out and put him back when Paloma woke.
“You’re a bit of a pervert, Rufio—you know that?”
“RUFIOOOOO,” he screamed and flew around the room, stretching out his wings. Doodles lay on his bed in the corner, his three legs in the air, and I walked over to poke at him. He kind of looked dead, but he looked that way even as he walked around.
I nudged him, and nothing happened. I nudged him again, and his body was completely lax. Oh fuck. I poked him harder, and his body just rolled with the movement. “Hey there, bud. Wake up now. Doodles!” I picked up his floppy body, and it just hung there.
Oh crap, he was dead already. More than one Omega was going to murder me if this ancient, decrepit dog was deceased. Otillie-James would be devastated, and Paloma… Paloma was using this dog as a security blanket, and he was dead.
I looked down at him. Where the fuck did I find a replacement zombie dog before breakfast? Laying him gently back down, I stepped away, and the fucking thing yawned and blinked slowly.
Relief washed over me. “You little asshole, I thought you were dead. Jesus,” I breathed, scratching him behind the ears.
“Fucking cocksucker,” Rufio added, and I had to agree.
“That was a dick move, Doodles.” I grabbed a handful of veggies from the container in the fridge for the parrot and a cup of kibble for the zombie dog.
I swear, he’d just shaved a year off my life. The idea of causing Paloma any more heartache soured my gut.
Rio was in the kitchen when I emerged, and he was looking down the hall at Llew’s room. It was silent now, thank god, but the scent of satisfied Omega permeated the hall like someone had sprayed it with Fuckbreze.
His eyes were filled with heat, but he turned away and pulled a bottle of juice from the fridge, downing half of it in one go, as if it could cool his blood. Good luck, buddy. I was hard again already.
“What the fuck happened down there?” he groaned, standing in front of me at the breakfast bar, his eyes constantly drifting to the hall.
I gave him a shit-eating grin. “Well, when an Alpha bonds an Omega, sometimes they fu?—”
“I know that, ” he grumbled. “I know that he wouldn’t hurt her, but…”
I nodded. The Alpha we’d known, who’d been the head of our Pack, would never have hurt a woman—Alpha, Beta, Omega, or Unshown. But that man had been broken by a war he never even signed up to, and we were all still learning who he was now.
“When I went to… check, he was talking her through every step, and she was enthusiastically onboard. She might be naive about the world, but she seems to know what she wants.” And from the sound of it, what she’d wanted was for Llew to feast on her for breakfast.
Rio nodded solemnly. “August thinks she’ll go into heat soon.”
My whole body locked up. My horny-ass brain supplied images of Paloma riding me as I satiated her heat. Images of her lips wrapped around my cock as I fed her my cum. I swallowed hard and bit back a groan. “We’ll have to talk to her about what to expect.”
“August said he’d do it.”
Thank goodness for that.
Rio had that look on his face that he always got when he talked about his VA therapist. He wanted him—had wanted him for a while actually—but didn’t think he deserved an Omega. Rio was fucked up; that was obvious. We all were, after what had happened. But if anyone could have handled his demons, it was August.
Now we had Paloma, and I knew Rio wanted her too. There wasn’t a choice anymore, and part of me lamented the loss of the possibility. The other part of me was excited that we had an Omega, even if she wasn’t exactly ours yet. I didn’t want to pin fixing our fucked-up bonds on her yet, but maybe one day, she could act as the nexus to our Pack, instead of Llew. Maybe one day, we could be whole once more.
We sat in silence until eventually, the door to Llew’s room opened and Paloma slipped out. She seemed to freeze when she spotted us down the end of the hall, caught like a deer in the headlights, until Llew came up behind her, scooping her up into his arms and cuddling her like she was his own personal teddy bear.
His grin was wide, his eyes sparkling with the satisfaction of an Alpha who’d bathed in the release of his Omega. I kind of hated him a little at that moment.
Rio cleared his throat. “Morning.”
Turning Paloma until she was wrapped around his body, Llew carried her down to the kitchen and set her on the bench beside Rio, his face alight with mischief. She smelled like heaven, and I watched Rio’s pupils dilate.
I frowned at Llew. “That’s mean.”
He shrugged. “Sharing is caring, and she smells delicious.”
Paloma’s cheeks flushed so red, I considered getting her an ice pack, but instead, I served her up a hearty helping of shakshuka. “This is a Middle Eastern dish. I thought you might like to try some different cuisines?”
She blinked up at me with those wide eyes. I scooped up some of the breakfast stew with a crusty bread roll, still warm from the oven, and held it to her lips. Something visceral flexed in my chest as she took a bite of the food I’d made. That I’d provided.
I wanted to feed her as I fucked her with my tongue.
Rio cleared his throat, giving me a hard look, and I blinked away the dirty thoughts. “What do you think?”
“This is amazing!” She went back for a second bite, and I wondered if I could convince her to only eat from my fingers from now on. “It’s so… flavorful? Nothing like we had at the Homestead.”
Rage washed over me, like it did every time I thought of where she came from, but unlike the Alphas in the room, I was better at hiding it. “Oh, what would you eat in the mornings there?”
“Only Leaders ate breakfast. We had a midday meal and an evening meal. Overfeeding was the first failing of hedonism.”
She was skin and bones, even now. She didn’t look like she’d ever been overfed, and Omegas were naturally more curvy than other designations.
“I see. Don’t worry, we believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In fact, there are no restrictions on food. If you’re hungry, you’re welcome to anything we own.” Our food. Our home. Our hearts. “On that note, I thought if you felt up to it, we might take you to the mall to get some things you need.”
She chewed her lip, and Rio pulled the soft flesh from between her teeth. “If you aren’t ready, that’s okay too. Max or I will go and get the basics. This is just a small step in discovering who you are, Paloma.”
I gave her another bite of her breakfast as she thought about it, chewing slowly. God, how is that so hot?
She looked up at Llew like he could save her, and I pushed down the jealousy that she didn’t look at me like that. Yet. One day, I would earn her trust and her bite.
“Can Llew come too?”
We all froze, her big Alpha included. Llew hadn’t been outside in over two years. No further than the backyard, at least. But just like with the Omega, I knew he was ready. Pushing him wouldn’t help, but maybe soon, he could manage it, holding her hand.
He reached out and stroked her cheek. “Not this time, sweetheart. I’m not ready, but you’re braver than me. And our Pack will be there every step of the way.”
Our Pack. It had been so long since we’d been a Pack. Fuck, I was going to cry if we didn’t move this along.
I squeezed her knee. “Every step of the way. And if it gets too much, we can turn around and come home.”
She looked at me, trust I wasn’t sure I’d earned in those big green eyes. “Okay. I’ll go and change.” She ran a hand over her head, and panic at the stubble crossed her face once more. “I need…”
Rio nodded reassuringly. “Whatever you need is yours. Go change; we’ll wait for you. Take as long as you want.”