Episode 30 Red Streaks and Revelations
Grieves
The wall behind Florence’s head explodes as the bullet strikes it. If I hadn’t seen the weapon, if Thayer hadn’t reacted fast enough, the little bits of plaster decorating the carpet would have been her blood and bones instead.
Someone just took a shot at my omega. At her goddamn head.
The knowledge pulses through me as the crowd in the theater screams and cries out, pushing against each other to escape. But there’s no need for that. The gunman is already on the run, using the chaos caused to flee.
My alpha urges me to give chase, but I hesitate, glancing down at Florence on the floor, tucked tightly under Thayer’s body, trembling, tears in her eyes and cheeks pale. Her hands are running over him, like she’s checking for injuries.
Forsythe, Court, and Piers crouch over them, scanning the crowd, looking for more danger, while I stand tall, gun in my hand, guards flanking me. My prime meets my eye, asking wordlessly if I want to go. If I want to chase the arsehole who would dare to do this down.
I do. God, I fucking do.
I want to rip and tear and pummel.
He gives a tight nod. “We’ve got her,” he reassures me. “Go do what you need to do.”
With that permission, my head snaps up and I’m moving. I should say something to Ren, should reassure her that I’ll be back soon and that feeling only grows when I hear her call out my name.
But I can’t stop.
I need to find the motherfucker who tried to assassinate my mate. Even if she wasn’t the target, she came far too close to a bullet for my liking. Far too close to no longer being in this world.
As I bound down the stairs and push my way through the crowd, I make a promise to myself that when I get back to her, when I return to her side, I’m going to hold her close and never let her go. My bond mark is going on her neck, and hers on mine.
We’ve already decided this.
Damn the queen and her expectations. Florence is ours. She’s fucking ours and it’s time for us to claim her.
“Sir,” one of our guards meets me as I burst through the doors.
“Where?” I snarl, my alpha dominance bursting through in my aggression.
He motions to the left and I take off at a run. Without hesitation he’s behind me, his words quick and precise. “Moss followed on foot. Fellows took the car to try to head him off.”
I don’t waste breath on a response, just keep running, blood thundering and heart pumping with the need to get revenge. My rage fuels me, my need to hunt this motherfucker down and rip him apart, rip apart any threat to my mate.
“Copy,” Mathers says. “They have him cornered.”
A grin spreads over my mouth at the news. “Where?”
Hours later, I stumble into the building where my mate has been staying. Not her home, I know. I can’t call it that.
My blood is still high. Even after a few hours spent on extracting information from the man who tried to kill her. By all rights I should be exhausted. It's the early hours and my muscles are trembling from overuse.
But I didn’t get the answer I needed. Didn’t get the name of the person who hired a hitman to go after Florence. He stubbornly stated over and over that he acted alone. That no one hired him. That he just didn’t like the way our pack was handling the Isadora situation.
I didn’t buy it. And neither did any of the men in the room with me.
Either the queen or Isadora did this.
After what happened this morning, I wouldn’t be surprised if they worked together to come up with this half-cocked plan. Even less surprised to find out it’s been a contingency for the queen ever since we brought Florence here.
We can’t exactly bond our mate when she has a bullet in her head.
A displeased growl rumbles out of me as I move into the hallway outside Florence’s flat. The two guards outside the door tense at the sound of the elevator but relax when they catch sight of me.
Good.
I don’t want anyone getting lazy while watching over my mate, especially after the bullshit that just happened.
They move aside as I approach the door, not batting an eye when I freeze with my hand on the knob. My hand, covered in blood that isn’t mine. I glance down at my shirt, which had been a pristine white when I’d left Florence at the ballet, but now is splattered in red.
Bollocks.
I should have gone to a hotel first, cleaned up and gotten new clothes.
She doesn’t need to see this.
But I’d been moving on autopilot, the need to see her, scent her, feel her driving everything else to the background.
I know she’s safe and unharmed. My pack made sure to keep me up to date on how she was doing, the same way I kept them up to date on what I learned. Which again, was frustratingly little.
I hesitate. Torn between getting cleaned up and seeing my mate.
She’ll be asleep, I tell myself. It's so late. Surely my pack tucked her into bed and cuddled her close to help soothe any nightmares she might have after the events of the evening.
I’ll just peek in on them to reassure myself that she’s well, and then I’ll shower and join them. She never has to know I spent hours brutalizing the man who almost took her from me.
Decided, I turn the handle and slip inside on silent feet.
Or as silent as I can manage given my size.
There’s a light on in the sitting room, and as I step inside, I draw up short again.
They’re all there. All five of them sprawled out on the sectional, still wearing their finery.
Forsythe’s head snaps up as I enter, his brown eyes running over me before he nods once and slides his gaze back to Florence.
She’s stretched out between Courtland and Piers. Her front half on the former, her legs draped over the lap of the latter. They’re both clutching her as though they're worried she might slip away.
Thayer pushes to his feet as quietly as he can manage, but Florence still stirs from her doze, nuzzling into Court’s neck.
“She refused to go to bed,” Thayer whispers when he reaches my side. “Said she needed to be sure you were okay before she could fully settle anyway. Wouldn’t even let us get her into more comfortable clothes.”
My throat closes up at his words, going incredibly tight as though I’m on the verge of tears.
I look at him helplessly, then back to Florence as she shifts again, murmuring something incomprehensible.
“I know, mate,” he murmurs, clapping me gently on the back.
“Believe me I know. She’s so bloody perfect. ”
“Grieves?” My name is mumbled, as she’s still half asleep, but it makes my heart throb.
Court cuddles her closer. “He’s here, love. You wanna see him? Verify for yourself that he’s okay? Then we can get you tucked up in bed, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she whispers. And then bolts up to sitting, like his words just fully registered. She jerks her head around until she’s looking at me with wide worried eyes. And a second later she scrambles up over the back of the couch, Piers and Courtland curse and hold her steady as she does.
“Grieves.” My omega lets out a relieved sigh as she rushes toward me, only to draw up short when I hold up one blood covered hand.
“Don’t, bubbles. Not until I can get clean. Don’t want to get your pretty dress dirty.”
She frowns at the red on my knuckles, the splatters over my shirt. “Is any of that yours?”
I shake my head. “The bastard tried to shoot me.” Ren makes a choked whining sound and I’m quick to reassure her. “Missed me, though, omega. I’m okay.”
She shifts on her feet, her eyes running over me, like she’s checking me for injuries in case I’m lying.
After a moment, she shakes her head. “Don’t care about the dress.
” And then she throws herself at me. I catch her helping her scramble up my body, her arms go around my neck and her legs around my waist, as my blood covered hands grip her tight.
She’s shaking and trembling and taking huge inhales of my scent, her nose pressed right against my neck.
“Shh, omega. I’m okay. I promise, I’m okay.” I hold her a little tighter, when a low keening noise pulls from her, setting my alpha on edge all over again, demanding that I fix it. “What do you need? Hmm? What can your alpha do to make this better?”
She pulls back and glares at me. “Don’t you ever fucking run after an armed gunman again.
Do you hear me? I won’t survive the stress.
You have guards for a fucking reason, bruiser.
You can’t put your life in danger like that!
I need you too much! I-I love you, Grieves, and I wouldn’t be able to survive losing you. ”
And I’m bloody done for. Not that I wasn’t already.
If I were to die right now, in this moment, after hearing this bloody glorious creature tell me she loves me, I think I would die a happy man.
But I’m not dying. I’m certainly not dead, and so it’s no surprise to me when my cock swells and kicks against the fly of my slacks, aching to be buried in the sweet heaven of my mate.
“Say it again.” The demand startles me, even though it came from my mouth.
“I love you,” she repeats, knowing exactly what I need, and my fingers dig into her fabric covered arse in response.
“I want you to know that. Whatever else happens. And this isn’t…
It isn’t because I was so fucking terrified of losing you.
I don’t want you to think that. It's a true, genuine feeling. One I’ve had for a long time.
I just wasn’t ready to say it… to any of you. ”
With those words, she glances over her shoulder at my pack, still lingering where they were when I came in. I can’t stop the growl that climbs up my throat, needing her attention to be on me.
Those pretty kaleidoscope eyes of hers flash back to me in an instant, but not from fear. Its amusement I see in the curl of her lips, in the arch of her brow. My alpha settles when she’s looking at me.
I shouldn’t keep touching her, shouldn’t slide my fingers into the heavy fall of her hair, not when I have the blood of the man who tried to take her from me on my hands.
But even as I have the thought, some primitive, feral part of me delights in it.
In marking her with the blood of our—her—enemies.
Like I’m showing her with every red streak in her honey blond hair, on her peachy pink skin, that I will do anything to protect her.
So I tighten my fingers in her hair, holding her attention on me, as her fingers lace into the short hairs on the nape of my neck.
“I love you,” I growl out, making sure she hears me.
“I love you so bloody much. You have no idea, bubbles.” Something loosens in my chest as soon as I say the words to her, as soon as she hears them, and it’s out there.
I love her. She loves me. It's nothing more complicated than that. It never has been.
The smile she gives me is pure sunshine breaking through the gray clouds. It lights up the room, my chest, my bloody life.
Her smile wrecks me. Absolutely wrecks me.
I lower my forehead to hers, breathing her in like I haven’t had enough, like I’ll never have enough, even with her wrapped around me like this. My grip on her shifts, one hand sliding up her back, the other still anchored at her arse, holding her flush against me.
Mine.
The word pulses through me, instinctive and absolute. The very foundation of everything in my life.
“Put me down?” she murmurs softly, tapping against my arm, but there’s no real demand in it. Just a gentle request that I can’t ignore.
Reluctantly, I ease her back onto her feet, my hands lingering at her waist longer than they should, like I’m not quite ready to let her go.
Like I never will be.
Thank god, she doesn’t step away. Instead, she reaches for me again, her fingers curling into the front of my ruined, blood-splattered shirt, dragging me down just enough that she can press her mouth to mine.
The kiss isn’t frantic.
It’s not desperate.
It’s… certain.
Warm, soft—claiming—in a way that settles something deep in my chest even as it stokes the fire low in my gut. I groan into her mouth, unable to stop myself, my hands tightening reflexively before I force them to still.
She’s been through so much tonight, I need to be careful. Always careful with her.
But she leans into me, like she trusts I won’t break her. Like she knows I never could.
I break the kiss with a rough exhale, my lips brushing hers once more before I pull back just enough to look at her.
Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes bright. Her mouth soft and swollen from my attention.
My mate.
Perfect.
“Need to clean up,” I mutter, though it comes out rougher than I intend, my gaze dropping briefly to the blood smeared across her skin, her dress, my hands. “Don’t want this on you.”
She glances down like she’s only just remembering, then huffs a soft laugh, shaking her head. “You’re ridiculous. It’s already on me.”
“Doesn’t make it right, bubbles,” I tell her, even as I hover my hand over her cheek. I want to touch her, hold her, never let her go.
“Go shower,” Thayer says, voice low but threaded with something sharper now. “We’ll take care of her.”
A possessive growl builds in my chest at that, but Florence’s hand slides up my arm, grounding me before it can take hold.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she murmurs, eyes locking with mine. “Hurry back.”
That does it.
That’s the only thing that gets me moving. Her soft but firm reassurance that she will still be here when I’m done.
I drag my gaze away from her with effort, forcing my feet toward the bathroom, even as every instinct in me screams to stay, to keep her close, to not let her out of my reach again.
I’m not going anywhere.
As I step under the spray, the hot water stinging against my skin, I can still hear them in the other room.
Soft. Real. Alive. Safe.
My mate.
Our mate.
I scrub the blood from my hands, from my skin, watching it swirl down the drain, and make myself a promise as the water runs red, then clear: No one gets near again.
No one even tries.