Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
“Is Manny behind us?” I shout as I run across the parking lot.
Gage, keeping pace beside me, shakes his head. “He’ll catch up.”
Prism is in chaos, and we didn’t notice it from the pleasure dens. Motorcycles fill the parking lot, and a line of leather-clad men with guns block off the entrance like renegade cops.
Where are the cops, now that I think about it?
Wouldn’t they be called out here?
Unless they were paid to look the other way.
Fuck, is the police force really that corrupt? I knew it wasn’t good in some places, but I, clearly naively, thought Lunarcrest was different.
I guess not.
There’s the faint ‘pop’ of gunshots within the building, and I wince with every single one.
We’ve got to get our Omega out of this.
“You good, Puck?” I call over my shoulder. The massive Alpha grunts, hiking a blanket-wrapped Crystal over his shoulder some more. He seems to be calming down a bit, growing clearer, but she’s definitely in a haze from the fizz and her heat spike.
As if on cue, she whines. “Shh, Crys,” Gage murmurs from beside her, “we’ll get you taken care of real soon.”
“Nest,” she sobs, her first word since she was found standing over a dead body. It breaks my heart in two.
We get to Manny’s sensible sedan, and he’s still nowhere to be seen.
“Fuck, what do we do?” I ask my Beta. “I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“He’d want us to get Crystal out,” Gage reminds me.
It’s sunset, pink and orange streaking the clear blue sky.
How is it only sunset?
How did my Omega murder someone during the day? Isn’t that something you do at night?
Take out your contacts, brush your teeth, take your meds, kill your captor.
It doesn’t make sense that she could kill someone during the daytime.
She moans in pain again, and Gage rips open the car door. “He knows where we’ll be,” he says about Manny, pushing Puck and Crystal into the backseat.
Just before I climb into the passenger seat, I see Manny’s dark hair bouncing as he runs towards us. “We gotta go, we gotta go!” he shouts, sliding into the backseat.
I don’t question him, and neither does Gage. We pile in and peel out of the parking lot.
But we’re stopped almost immediately by a massive ginger in leather. “Sorry, boys, no one in or out.”
“We’re allowed!” I shout over his words. “We’re with Pack Lupine!”
He narrows his eyes and leans into the car, nostrils flaring as he scents Crystal. “Why do you have an Omega in heat with you?”
“She’s our Omega,” Puck growls from the back seat. His voice is thick and heavy, and I’m surprised to hear him speaking at all. “Tell Harvey Puck needs to leave.”
The biker narrows his eyes and pulls his head out of the car. “Puck? Fine, yeah, go. That’s her, then? The target?”
“Yes,” he grits out. “Let us go, Quarter, if you value your balls.”
“Leave my balls out of it,” he mutters, waving us on as he directs several bikers to move and let us through.
“Nest, please, Alpha,” Crystal cries from the back seat. I spin around in my seat to watch as she clamors into Manny’s lap, the blanket falling to the floorboard. He winces but wraps his arms tightly around her, pulling her face into the curve of his slender neck.
“We’ll be at your nest soon, Omega.” His voice is gentle and calm enough that it also settles a part of me. “I’ll help you as best as possible, okay?” She whimpers and nods repeatedly. I watch as he slips his fingers between her legs and begins to stroke her swollen sex gently. I ache to touch her, to taste her.
I feel a bit like an asshole, wanting to be with her after the trauma she went through today, but when she smells like pure sugar and is making those noises, it’s hard to turn off the Alpha part of my brain that demands I bite her and rut into her.
She snakes her hand out and clutches onto Puck as she falls into a lazy orgasm at Manny’s hand. When Puck makes eye contact with her, his shoulders heaving as he breathes through his mouth, she lets out a soft, mournful wail before whispering, “You bit me.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice breaks, and, to my surprise, thick tears trail down his face. “Walter said it was the only way. You were… fractured. I never wanted to be another Alpha who took your choices away.”
Manny gently pushes her towards the broken Alpha, and Crystal climbs into his lap timidly. “It feels different,” she muses softly. “Doesn’t hurt like his did.”
“Because we’re scent matches,” he responds. I catch Gage stealing glimpses at them through the rearview mirror. “Our bodies want to be bonded. I didn’t want to take that choice from you, Crystal, but you weren’t there anymore. Walter said it would tether you. Bring you back to us.”
She hums discordantly as she strokes her hand up and down his chest. “Your shirt is stiff with dried blood,” she says dreamily. “Is it my blood?”
“You’re the cause of it, but it’s not yours,” he responds. “It’s Kierans.”
“So I didn’t dream that? He’s dead?”
“He’s dead,” Gage spits from the driver’s seat. “Thank you for taking out the trash.”
“But he’s your father,” she whispers.
I yelp. “Your father? What the fuck did I miss?”
“A lot,” Gage remarks with a wry laugh, squeezing my knee. “But I’m good. Never needed a dad.”
Manny groans a little from the backseat as he adjusts in the seat. “We can work through all of this later. Crystal, you seem lucid, are you?”
She nods and reaches out for his hand. “I am, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Puck bit you, we gave you fizz, and you were having a heat spike. We thought you’d be lost to us for a while.” I reach back to stroke her face, wincing at the heat radiating off of her. “But you are on fire, so…”
“It probably won’t last,” she replies succinctly. “I don’t know what’s keeping me lucid right now, but I’m glad it is.”
“Puck, are you with us?” Manny asks. His voice is tight, and I can’t figure out why.
Our final Alpha grunts and pulls Crystal tighter against him. “Yep.”
“A man of many words,” I croon. Gage smacks me on the chest with a laugh.
“I just want to make sure we know how you want us to handle things during this quasi-heat,” Manny continues, as if I didn’t speak. “We want you to be able to consent. Earlier, Puck…”
“Made you come on his fingers,” I supply.
Manny scowls. “I was in the middle of dealing with Tyler, and I couldn’t check in to see if you were okay with it.”
“I’m fine with it. He’s my Alpha,” she says dismissively. “What happened with Tyler?”
“You’re fine with it?” Puck says, startled. “I bit you.”
Crystal takes a deep breath, leaning back to better stare Puck down. Gage pulls into a parking spot at her townhome.
“Yes, you bit me. Did I consent? No. Did you have a choice? Also no. The important question you all need to ask yourself in situations like that is, do you think I would have consented? Would I have consented if I were lucid and had all the facts?”
Immediately, my gut says yes. I haven’t known Crystal for long, but it’s been enough time to see that she is pragmatic and understanding. She cares about us, about Puck, and wants nothing more than to be free of Kieran, whatever it takes.
Took.
Almost forgot the bastard is dead.
“But with me?” Puck’s voice is so small for such a large man. “You would have willingly taken my bite?”
“Puck, you’re my Alpha. I know things could’ve happened better between us, but you’ve always been good to me, even when I’ve been an ass to you. We were always going to end up here, ya know? We’re inevitable. Undeniable. You may have been on those suppressants, but you always smelled good to me. We were always drawn to one another.” She clutches his face in her tiny hands, pushing their foreheads together. “Yeah, we found each other in the trash, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make something beautiful. You should know that better than anyone else.”
Puck kisses her gently, making my chest ache when I see them together. It feels like our pack is finally coming together, that things are slotting into place. With Kieran dead and the five of us together, I have hope that we can make a good life together.
“Now, what about Tyler?” Crystal asks as she pulls away from her hidden Alpha. “What happened?”
“I’ll fill you in, but do you think we could go inside?” Manny says in a pained tone. Maybe he’s having a migraine? “I think I need a first aid kit.”
That makes my eyes jerk to the quiet Alpha, and I notice the blood soaking into the navy blue joggers he’s wearing. He’s clutching his thigh, and his face looks a little pale.
Crystal immediately yelps, scrambling to get off Puck’s lap and to Manny. He strokes her hair away from her face with his clean hand. “It’s just a graze,” he says gently. “Nothing to worry about.”
Gage slams the driver’s side door, and I pile out behind him. As he walks to the front door to unlock it, I hear him muttering, “Just a graze my ass. Fucking high pain tolerance.”