Chapter 23 Twenty
Twenty
Brea
Sunrise in Greysmoke National Park was a sight to behold. Or so I assumed. I couldn’t appreciate the pastels painting the landscape. I watched the brightening sky with only one thought in mind.
Well, three thoughts.
My pack. Who should be crossing over that horizon anytime. We stood hidden in the treeline at the northernmost tip of the park, eyes peeled.
“You’re sure this is where he said?” I asked for the fiftieth time. My fragile calm of the last three hours was slowly disintegrating to dust.
To her credit, Vikki only nodded again. Brooks squeezed my hand with a force that betrayed his own nerves. I returned the pressure, eyes never halting from their scan of the clearing ahead of us.
Just as the the deep orange of early dawn bled to pink, a new sound met our ears. My heart raced. Was this a good sound, or a bad one?
“There!” Brooks pointed to the sky, a speck no larger than a fly at this distance. Humming like one, too. Every second, though, it grew.
A helicopter. Heading straight for our clearing.
The watercolor sky blurred. A sob broke from my throat as I stepped forward, but Vikki snatched me back into the tree cover. “We don’t know who that is yet. We wait.”
Ten minutes. The longest of my life. My muscles cramped with the effort to stay locked in place as the helicopter approached, descended, and landed. Still, Vikki bade us wait. Not that it mattered. If those were enemies, we were dead already.
My blood whooshed through my ears in time with the slowing blades of the chopper as I watched one door open in the warm dawn light. As an alpha in blue scrubs with dark shaggy hair jumped out.
Caine.
Zero to sprinting in the space of a blink, with Brooks on my heels. Gods, they were so far away. Too far. Every inch was too far. I still couldn’t see her. I needed to see her. Why hadn’t she climbed out?
“Taryn!”
Caine’s head snapped up toward us as we closed in, still so many inches between us. My eyes homed in on the dark interior of the helicopter, on the shadows of two figures still sitting inside. One large, cradling one small.
My breath abandoned me. My heart stalled. My legs too. My knees crashed into the soft earth, my palms slid across it. My lungs caved in. I couldn’t breathe.
Close enough I should feel her. But nothing.
God no no no no please no—
Caine’s sharp citrus scent enveloped me just as his arms did. Vision blurred. Couldn’t see.
“She—is she—I—”
“Sedated,” he responded, one hand smoothing down my back while his other was outstretched, reaching toward something beside me. “She’s okay, Brea. She’s okay.”
An inhuman sound escaped me as I fought my way back to my feet. His caressing arm wrapped around my waist, restraining me.
“Brea—”
“Let me go! Taryn!”
“Brea, listen to me,” Caine said between clenched teeth. “Lin’s alpha is out, full force. He barely let me sit beside them. Wait—”
Like. Fucking. Hell.
If Lin wanted to take a swipe at me, he could bring it.
Lin
The noise grating my ears didn’t matter. The ache in my head didn’t matter. Not even the alpha next to me, with his familiar yet still unwelcome scent, mattered.
Only her. My omega in my arms. She mattered.
She was in danger. I had to protect her.
The other alpha kept his hand on my neck, a slow and steady massage. He didn’t reach for my omega, the only reason he still breathed.
Mine. Protect.
My ears popped as the loud sound around us changed. A small thump jostled us slightly. I grasped my omega’s limp body to mine, on high alert.
The wall opened beside me, the rival alpha finally leaving. But then he turned. He reached out his arms. Like he wanted my omega.
A warning growl rumbled through me.
“Taryn!”
A shriek from outside had me scouring the area for danger. Any threat to my omega would be eviscerated. Painfully. Swiftly.
An alpha. Sprinting toward us. Red hair swinging out behind. Her pomegranate and vanilla scent hit me like an arrow to the chest.
Brea.
Omega’s mate.
My omega.
My omega’s mate.
My mate.
No. Omega. Mine.
The two alphas met and spoke, their voices too far to hear. Then suddenly, she was there beside me, her hands reaching for my omega.
She shimmered, unreal. Rippled like heat. The air around me whined. I growled in warni—
I choked on the sound.
I blinked my eyes. Once. Twice.
I looked down in my arms, at Taryn’s face, peaceful.
Then I looked up.
Brea. My omega’s mate.
My mate.
My alpha was territorial, but he knew who belonged to him. And even he couldn’t so much as pretend to want to hurt Brea, any more than he could ever harm Taryn.
I let out a shaky breath and reached toward Brea.
She grasped my hand, kissing the back of it as she reached to stroke Taryn’s face, her own wet with tears.
She kissed her omega’s cheeks, murmuring sweet nonsense words to her.
I looked out the door to my right, watched Brooks and Caine, sobbing and embracing much the same way.
Then there was a warm hand on my own cheek.
“Lin,” Brea whispered, her glassy eyes now turned on me. Her bottom lip quivered as her thumb ran across my tender cheekbone.
My eyes fluttered closed as I leaned into that touch. I’d not let myself consciously consider the possibility I’d never feel it again, but the fear had still lived, deep in my soul. It split open then, fracturing over and over until it evaporated into dust.
My pack was here. All of us. Alive. Safe. Together.
“Hate to break up the reunion,” Sevrin’s voice cut in from the front of the helicopter, “but there’s about a one hundred and fifty percent chance that they can track this birdie. We should get going.”