44. Joel
Chapter forty-four
Joel
An ominous growl rips through me and I rise, putting my body between my omega and the intruders. Jock catches my anger and barks, his yips instantly turning threatening. Mr Shares whines and thumps his tail on the ground.
“No, no!” Willow cries, trying to roll out of the bean bag.
I sweep one arm behind me to grab her and hold her in place. “Stay still,” I warn. How can I protect her in this tiny space? A beanbag isn’t going to stop bullets.
“Hands up!” one of the intruders roars. “Now!”
Authoritative, yes. Alpha command, no.
I skim the room for options, the instinctual need to protect my omega thrumming through me. The bag. That’s my only weapon.
I lunge, grasping the heavy duffel with both hands.
Using the inertia, I leap and swing at the same time, throwing the loaded bag at one intruder and tackling another.
We crash to the ground, me on top of him, fumbling for his weapon.
With a roar, I toss his gun behind me and smash his head down onto the floor.
The other two men shout as I pull a knife from his belt and set it under the intruder’s throat, holding him from behind. Alpha power floods my system, feeding me everyone’s positions.
“Drop your weapons!” I roar.
We all freeze for an instant, caught in a moment of uncertainty.
Willow throws herself at me, grabbing my legs from behind. “Stop! Please stop!”
Instantly I drop the knife, my desire to please her overwhelming even my raging alpha instincts.
She tugs, and I land hard on my knees, crashing into the back of the attacker’s legs. He staggers forward, out of reach.
“Shit, woman!” I cry, terrified I’ve stomped on Willow’s face in the process.
“Stand down!” she yells. “All of you!”
Her omega scent sharpens with fear and her fingers quiver against my ankles.
I spin and roll in a move I’m not sure I can physically do to get myself spread over her, to protect her with my life. I lift my head and roar at the intruders, every speck of alpha spirit and feral need to protect what’s mine mixed into the sound.
The three men fall back a step.
I growl in warning. Or I try, but the mouthguard slips and turns it into a throaty gurgle.
Willow hammers at me from below. “They’re sec-security! Stop!”
Her tiny fists feel like a massage, but the impact gives me enough of a pause to process her words.
“Security?” I ask, rocking back on my heels and sucking in heavy breaths.
Willow coughs and crawls out from the cover of my body.
“He’s my alpha,” she says, putting her palm up to the men blocking the doorway. “I’m fine.”
A purr settles in my chest as the omega identifies me as hers, but I’m still not happy with her being closer to these strangers than me. I drag her back to rest on my raised knee, sitting her where I can keep my hands locked around her.
One of the strangers also drops to one knee. “Ma’am, if you’re being held against your will, or forced to say—"
I growl. “Say that again, you fucker!”
“Joel!” Willow dives her hand into my hair and tips my head back until our eyes meet. “Stop it. They’re my security team, for real.”
I eye her for a long moment as the pieces settle into place.
“Why’d they come?” I hiss.
“You broke a window to get in, didn’t you?”
Oh.
“Ma’am.” One of the men steps forward, gun still in his hand, but lowered. “Please respond only to us for the time being. Step away from the alpha.”
“Trust me,” Willow whispers, rising.
I grab her wrist, shaking my head. I do trust her, but I don’t trust them. What if they’re impersonators? And what if they take her away from me?
“The storm.” I tuck my mouthguard back into place to whisper, “Don’t go out there.”
She nods, throat quivering with a heavy gulp. The brave omega turns to the strangers, stepping away from me but not forcing my hand off her wrist. “I’m all right. He hasn’t hurt me. I was panicking because of the storm, so I couldn’t get to the door to unlock it.”
I crouch, one knee down, rigid with anger.
Jock barks and comes to my side but Mr Shares belly crawls forward, tail slapping the ground as he greets the man on the left flank. The sound wakes me up a little. He knows these guys.
With a heavy sigh, I release Willow and lock my hands behind my head. Well, I fucked up real good this time.
“Sorry, gentleman. I genuinely thought you were a threat. But it doesn’t make sense anyone else could get into Willow’s panic room, does it?”
I drop my other knee to the ground.
Willow turns to smile at me, her relief softening her lovely face. I nod in response.
Still, I watch closely as she goes to the men and whispers some sort of code.
“Just following procedure,” one guard mutters as he approaches. “I’ll need to check you for weapons.”
“I get it.”
He pats along my arms and down my body. The touch sets my teeth on edge, but I keep my irritation locked away. Even his faint beta scent slices at me like an offence. Having another man in this small space with the omega I’m claiming—
My breath catches.
I can’t force myself to close my eyes and lose sight of Willow, so I count instead. Mark the seconds some dude on a payroll stands between me and what’s mine. Never in my life have I felt so primal, and it’s so perfect. And the same instinct begs me to sink my teeth into her soft skin.
I lick my tongue around the guard to confirm it’s still in place.
The security officer finishes patting down my thighs. “And open your mouth for me please, sir?” His brow furrows when he sees silicone. “What’s this for?”
“It’s a bond guard,” I cite from the package it came in. Over his shoulder, Willow hears and turns to look at me. I lock gazes with her as I say, “It’s to make sure I don’t bond her on the spot.”
I try to control myself, but the alpha desire rolls out, loading my words.
She shivers at the tonal pressure, eyes widening.
I drag my gaze back to the guard. I’m on dangerous ground, and it’s not because of three armed men in the room. “Are we finished here?”
He nods and steps back. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
I follow them out into the kitchen, but the moment I catch a glimmer of lightning through a window, I herd Willow back into her saferoom. “Wait here,” I order. “I’ll see them out.”
She stares at me for a moment, a question in her eyes.
I think I know what it is, but now’s not the moment. I drag myself away and walk the security officers out. They explain the call out’s covered by Willow’s monthly fee, but the broken window isn’t.
“I’ll get that fixed,” I promise, silently begging them to hurry up and leave. “And I’m sorry about the tackle. Are you all right?”
The man I threatened shrugs. “Part of the job. Glad it didn’t go any further though.”
“Same.” One word from my omega brought me to heel. I should be mortified, but instead it’s like I finally discovered my life’s calling.
When I eventually get the door closed behind the security team, I heave out a guttural breath. If I have my way, that contract will be cancelled in days. Willow doesn’t need them when she has me and Jerry.
Groaning, I lean my head on the door. And there lies the problem.
My heart already knows Willow’s a strong, independent woman who doesn’t want to rely on others. I can’t come into her life like a bulldozer trying to take over everything. But I’m not sure if I have the strength to be cautious.
Maybe if I bonded her, I wouldn’t feel so desperate, so afraid of her slipping through my fingers.
Willow’s back in her beanbag with Mr Shares draped across her lap. Jock’s on his side, pawing at their beanbag like this is some sort of game. I shake my head and close the heavy panic door, locking us in privacy and shadow once more.
Instead of settling beside her, I sit cross legged at the end of her beanbag and pull her feet into my lap.
While I’m still trying to work out what to say first, Willow speaks.
“I had a bond, once.”
My fingers twitch on her ankles.
“It was . . . one of the most awful experiences of my life.”
“Can I—” My voice breaks and I try again. “Can I ask why?”
Willow hugs her dog tighter.
“They were people I knew in high school. I presented a little late, so suddenly I was this big deal and the three of them were giving me attention. They called it love, but piece by piece they isolated me from everyone else. I had to be always at their beck and call. That’s an omega’s job, you know.
” She laughs harshly, the distaste in her voice clear.
I dig my fingers into her foot, quickly turning the reflex into a massage.
Willow settles. “His name was Bryson. An alpha, but he seemed to have a stronger . . .” She twiddles her hand in the air. “ . . . vibe, I suppose you could say.”
Her gaze falls on me, liquid with emotion and shadowed by pain.
I have extra vibe these days too, since meeting her.
She leans forward, offering me her hand.
When she turns the wrist over, the faint dimples of a bond mark catch my gaze.
I hold her arm and run my fingertips over them.
The divots press into the skin, a sign of a bite mark, but the skin’s healed almost completely over.
That doesn’t happen with an active bond.
“He . . . died?” I murmur, stroking her skin.
She shivers faintly under my caress. “No.”
“But it’s fading?”
She nods, one corner of her mouth tilting. “Weird, right? Guess I might as well tell you the rest.”
Even if she’s reluctant, a swell of gratitude rushes through me. “I want to know everything you’re willing to tell me,” I say, linking our fingers together. “But only if it’s not too painful for you. I never want to cause you harm, Willow.”
She nods and scratches her dog’s ears with her free hand while she sorts through her thoughts. “Well, the worst bit wasn’t the bond. It was after, when they kicked me out with nothing but the clothes on my back.”
My heart thumps heavily. Say what?
Willow continues. “I was homeless, sleeping in my car for nearly a year. The hardest part was that I’d dropped out of school and didn’t have any skills.
Thought they’d always look after me, you know?
But the actual worst thing was an active bond with the men who dropped me like a steaming pile of shit.
The bond still linked us.” Her fingers tighten in mine.
“Every time they laughed, or fucked someone, I felt it. And I knew that they carried on like I never existed.”
“Wait, hang on.” I hold up one hand, my head scrambling. “Are you telling me they abandoned you but didn’t reject the bond?”
She looks up, eyes shimmering. “They still felt the bond and knew I was suffering, but they didn’t give a damn. As in, it didn’t even affect them. That’s what their love was worth.”
Fury erupts in my chest, and a growl slips through my clenched teeth. What absolute fucking bastards.
Willow twitches, and she sucks in her bottom lip. “Wanna know how it ended?”
I know how I would’ve ended it, had I known Willow back then. I nod, unable to speak around the lump swelling in my throat.
She snorts, the huff filled with bitter amusement, and tugs her blanket up under her chin. “I got hit by lightning.”
I go rigid. Lightning? Holy fuck! The fear of storms makes sense, yeah, but more than that, I’m an electrician.
I did my apprenticeship reading cautionary tales of what happens if you don’t disconnect the power before working on a building’s power source.
Training included gruesome videos of third and fourth-degree burns, often resulting in death or partial paralysis.
Lightning carries 10,000 times the ampage.
Willow watches me process. “Crazy huh. Want to hear the kicker?”
No, I absolutely don’t want to hear that anything worse happened to her. My entire body tenses up.
She pushes Mr Shares off her lap and tugs down her pants, revealing swirling marks along her thigh.
“Just as I was recovering, I got struck a second time. By lightning.” She releases her waistband with a loud snap, lips pursing tightly. “And now it stalks me, and every time I hear the thunder, I fall apart.”
The fabric covers the scars, but I still see them in my mind’s eye, swirling like tribal markings, literally burned into her flesh.
What do you say to a woman who’s survived abandonment and being hit by lightning?
“How are you still alive?” I whisper.
And as the words tumble through me, I can’t help imagining that if it had killed her, I’d never have met my scent match, never have breathed in her Jasmine scent, or held her quivering body in my arms.
It’s too much to bear. I surge forward and pull her into my embrace, a desperate shudder running through me. I didn’t cry when my fiancé cheated on me, but the thought of this omega in my arms not existing breaks the dam.
Tears spill from my eyes.
All the uncertainty drains away. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure this omega’s never miserable, never left to fend for herself. I swear it silently, my alpha spirit quivering with intensity.
But to know how best to help her, I need to know what she’s feeling.
And with a story like hers, can I ever ask to bond her?