15. Teddy
CHAPTER 15
Teddy
I was not prepared for how it would feel to see Piper and have her turn away and run from me.
The mate bond was pounding through me, urging me onward, and I stumbled gracelessly toward her, my eyes locked on her lean, slim body.
“Piper!” I croaked, like I hadn’t used my voice in 100 years, and I shook Rook off, who was trying to restrain me.
I don’t even know if she heard me, because almost immediately I stumbled into a big display case of perfumes and they all smashed up, sending waves of unpleasant-smelling scent into the air.
There were shrill shrieks everywhere and I tried to roll out of the mess, all the broken glass pieces of the perfume bottles jabbing me in the stomach and chest.
Rook was shouting back his name as if they didn’t possibly know it, telling them to send the bill to us, but I was charging back to where our Omega had burst out the door.
Erain and I both tried to exit the door at the same time, which was designed for the much smaller Betas, and we crashed painfully into each other, pushing and shoving to be the first one out.
“Where did she go?” I howled, startled to hear a lupine whine in my voice, something animalistic there.
“There,” Erain pointed. “In that direction.”
“How sure are you?” I whimpered. “I don’t want to lose her.”
“I’m fucking sure,” he snapped, dragging me toward Rook’s Jeep. “You smell awful, by the way.”
“Go!” Rook ordered, and we leaped back into the car, Erain rolling down the windows so we could be sure to catch her scent.
She smelled amazing, and I gulped huge lungfuls of Piper as we headed after her.
I thought she might lead us to wherever she was staying, but the truck she was in headed straight out of town, hugging the boundary lines and then into the forest.
“Shit,” Rook said. “She’s headed for the Enclave.”
“The Enclave?” I asked stupidly.
My brain doesn’t seem to be working properly. All I can think is a steady dreambeat of:
Find Piper
Protect Piper
Bite Piper
I shook my head to try to clear it, but her scent drove me mad, throbbing through each cell in my body, my muscles aching at being apart from her.
My incisors scraped my bottom lip, and I couldn’t stop picturing myself making the claiming bite on Piper, tasting her under my tongue.
“Don’t you remember your school lessons?” Rook asks as Erain rolls down the window and opens his mouth because he can’t get enough of her scent and wants it on his tongue. I know the fucking feeling.
“Enclaves were placed outside the cities in the forest. They’re protected space where Omegas can go to flee feral Alphas. They’re rarely used but always maintained. And if she makes it there before us, it’ll be impossible to get to her tonight.”