Chapter Thirty-Five – Mercedes
The days go by. We have to extend our stay at Daniel and Laurie’s house for a few more days—I guess upgrading all the windows in the house to be shatter-proof and bullet-proof is taking longer than the guys initially thought. I’m more than okay with it, because it means I’m not alone during the day.
Nic, Warren, and Darius all take turns with me at night. The bed isn’t large enough to comfortably fit all of them, so it’s a rotating roster of who gets to cuddle with me that night. Never thought I’d be one of those omegas who needs their alphas nearby all the time, but sleeping with their strong arms around me… well, let’s just say I don’t have any nightmares.
It’s nice, honestly. It’s something I can get used to.
Sunday morning rolls around. What should be nothing more than a lazy day with all the guys at the house, our last full day here, the guys get called into work. Even Daniel has to go in.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I watch Nic, Warren, and Darius chug coffee in the kitchen like it will be their last time tasting the caffeinated stuff.
Nic and Warren glance to Darius, who speaks over his coffee mug, “There was a cyber-attack on the company’s files early this morning. It’s all hands on deck until we figure out who’s responsible and bring him, or them, in.” He sets the coffee mug down near the sink, now empty.
“Are we still going home tomorrow? Or will this take longer than that?” I have no idea how things like this are handled, and if I’m being honest, I still don’t quite understand the ins and outs of their business. I know they do security work, bodyguard work sometimes, but it sounds like they’re their own law enforcement agency.
“We don’t know,” Nic said. “It’s been years since something like this happened.”
Laurie strolls into the kitchen. “Go on. Your father already left. We’ll hold down the fort here, don’t you two worry.” She comes and stands by me, offering me her wordless support—she knows I was looking forward to spending the day with all three alphas.
Nic is the first to reach for me and pull me in for a kiss. I think he was going for a peck on the cheek in front of his mom, but I angle my head toward his and catch his lips with mine, and he doesn’t argue about it. His kiss is over fast, but it’s soft and gentle, just like Nic himself.
The next one to say goodbye is Warren, who smirks and doesn’t bother attempting to be chaste in front of his adoptive mother—he kisses me so hard and fast my toes curl and my stomach flutters.
Darius is last. He has to crane his tall frame down to reach me, and I help him out by standing on my tiptoes. His comforting scent fills my nose, all woodsy and musky, the kind of scent I want to bury myself in. His mouth claims mine as he murmurs, “We’ll be back as soon as we can.” He almost looks pained as he pulls away from me and straightens out, giving a nod to his mom.
The guys then each hug their mom goodbye, and Laurie and I walk them to the front door, waving as they go.
Once they’re gone, as Laurie closes the door and locks it, I say, “Cyber-attack, huh? That doesn’t sound good at all.”
“It’s not, but the company has its own tech guys, so I’m sure whatever security flaw was exploited will be fixed. Now, let’s get back into the kitchen. I’ll make us some eggs, dear.”
I follow her into the kitchen. As she cooks, I can’t help but think of the guys and how hurried they all seemed. None of them are tech guys, so I don’t know what they can do to help, but if it’s all hands on deck, then it’s all hands on deck. I’m not part of a company, never even had a job, so I can’t say I know what it’s like to be part of a team.
Once breakfast is on a plate in front of me and Laurie is sitting down across from me with her own plate, I grab a fork and ask, “Do you think an omega could have a job somewhere?”
The way she looks at me tells me enough, and her words mirror her expression: “Dear, you’re an omega. That is your job.”
“Yeah, but… being home all the time, by myself, seems kind of…” Stupid, silly, wrong? Why should I be locked in a house while the guys get to go out and experience the real world? It’s not very fair, but then again, life is anything but fair when you’re an omega. That much I learned young.
Laurie seems to think on it. “Well, if you were to get a job, even somewhere part-time, it would have to be somewhere with high security. Even if you had bond marks on your neck, there are still alphas out there who would love to kidnap you and never let you see the light of day again. It’d have to be with people you trust. Oh! Maybe I could ask Daniel if there’s anything you could do for Alabaster Security a few days a week—I’m sure the boys would love having you nearby.”
Hmm. I might not even like having a job. It would give a small measure of freedom, but at the same time, I’d still be watched, kept under constant supervision, and the guys would do nothing but worry about me.
No, I can’t get a job at their company, and I’ll never be able to find other people that I trust, so… it’s a pointless thought.
“That’s all right,” I say, and thankfully Laurie leaves it at that.
She cleans up breakfast, and I help her out even though she tells me not to. Once the kitchen is clean, she goes to the refrigerator and checks it. “What would you like for your last dinner here? What’s something you’ve always wanted to eat but couldn’t at Solus Academy? Ooh, or any desserts you’ve been dying to try?”
“Uh… it doesn’t matter to me.”
Closing the refrigerator door, Laurie looks at me. “How about stuffed peppers for dinner and… chocolate cake for dessert?”
I make a face.
“White cake, then? With homemade frosting?”
“That sounds good.”
“Okay, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll need to run to the store real quick for some chorizo. Is there anything else you’d like today? Maybe something special for lunch?”
It’s clear she wants to spoil me on my last full day here, but I’m not someone who’s ever been spoiled in her life, so all I do is shrug and say, “It doesn’t matter. Whatever you want is fine.”
She grins and says, “I’ll think of something.” She goes to grab her purse off the corner of the counter and slings it over her shoulder. “I’d invite you to come, but… without any of the boys or Daniel, it’s probably better if you stay here.”
I nod. Of course an omega so close to her twenty-first birthday shouldn’t be out in public without an alpha or two at her side. I’m sure my scent is only getting stronger as the days go by, a key sign that my heat is coming up.
My heat is coming up, and I’m still here. So crazy.
Laurie is gone within the minute, and I’m left to meander the house. I end up on the couch in the living room, surfing the near countless channels. Unlike the guys, Laurie and Daniel still have cable—and a heck of a lot of channels, too. Must be the biggest package you can buy.
When I find some nature documentary about the animals in North America, I pull a blanket off the arm of the couch and cuddle underneath it.
This was what I was talking about. Getting a job, or even finding a friend or two, would let me have a life outside of the house. Being a homemaker, constantly popping out babies left and right, cooking meal after meal for her pack; being a stereotypical omega isn’t what I want.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind cooking every now and then, but I don’t want my entire life to be about taking care of Nic, Warren, and Darius. They might have wormed themselves inside of me to the point where I may be falling for them, but they can’t be all I have. Realistically, I need more.
Hmm. I wonder what that other omega is up to now, the one I met at the Omega Garden. The one who gave me the dress and heels. Raeka Whittenhall. I wonder if she found herself a pack. It didn’t sound like she was really looking—to me, it seemed as if she was only there to make her family happy, to get them off her back. Just like me, she wasn’t a fan of finding her match.
I close my eyes during the commercials. Small, little cat naps every now and then. I don’t know how long it’ll take Laurie to go to the store, but she shouldn’t be gone too long. If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s being alone.
It’s during one of those cat naps that a strange sound fills the air. I open my eyes and sit up, my hand reaching for the remote and muting the television set so I can hear better if the sound happens again.
I don’t hear it again, but still, something gnaws at my insides, so I throw the blanket off me and stand. I walk through the house, not making a sound myself. Once in the hallway, something bizarre caresses my cheek: a breeze.
That’s odd, I think as I follow the breeze. Laurie is very particular about not leaving any window open thanks to the affliction that hits women they’re no longer of child-bearing age: menopause. She needs it cold in the house—which is fine with me, because I like to cuddle underneath blankets. I’d rather be cold than hot any day.
The source of the breeze and the fresh air inside the house is the front door. It sits wide-open, letting the breeze flow into the house and disperse as it travels. My first thought is that Laurie forgot something, so she came home to grab it. Maybe her wallet wasn’t inside her purse or something.
But, as I step under the open doorway, I don’t see Laurie’s car. No, the vehicle I see is the same vehicle I saw when a rock was thrown back at the house.
Shit. I need to get a knife. I need to call the guys. I need—
Anything else I might think fades away in the background when someone’s strong arm curls around me, pinning my arms to my side as he pulls me against his chest. The air suddenly smells sour and stale; I didn’t notice it before because of the way the breeze was blowing.
Pure panic sets in, but that panic has nowhere to go, nothing to do, thanks to what happens next.
The alpha behind me growls out, “I told you you were mine, Mercedes. Did you think I wouldn’t come for you? Did you think I’d let you play house forever? No. While they’re busy dealing with their little cyber-attack, I’m taking back what’s mine.” And then he holds a cloth over my mouth and nose.
He’s too strong for me to struggle, so I don’t. Just like that, like a flick of a switch, a snap of the fingers, hopelessness takes over me, and I go limp long before I breathe in deep and get a whiff of whatever liquid dampens the cloth. Something sweet and a little tangy, and the world around me goes black.
Oblivion is my only friend. The blackness of it, the coldness of its depths; it doesn’t want to let me go. It’s the only explanation I have for why I struggle to regain consciousness for so long. My eyelids are stone, refusing to work right away, and the rest of my body is no different. My limbs don’t want to play along. It’s a struggle to simply breathe.
In and out, in and out. If I focus on my breathing, I can get through this. I can get through anything. One day at a time, and soon I’ll be free.
It’s what I used to tell myself at Solus Academy, when Jay would pay me visits. All I had to do was survive and I had hope for a future where I could be free of him, and once I agreed to join pack Alabaster, I stupidly thought that I made my first step toward that freedom.
I was wrong. I was stupid. I should’ve known he would never let me go. There’s nothing more dangerous than an alpha’s pride, especially when said alpha is an über alpha that can lord his dominance over other alphas.
Why me? I think as I work on opening my eyes. Why not any other omega? Why not any other girl at the orphanage? Maybe they were all stronger than me, and even as a child Jay knew I’d be weak.
My eyelids finally crack open, and I stare at old wood above me. I groan as I manage to sit up, and when I do, I find I’m in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by concrete blocks, the only light in the place a single bulb that hangs down ten feet away, a pull string dangling near it. I can see steps on the far side of the room, and that’s when it hits me: I’m in a basement.
A basement that Jay put me in.
I work on getting up, my goal to race to the stairs and try to escape, but I only make it two steps before something cold tugs at my right leg and I fall forward, right on my face. The jarring sound of metal snapping tells me what it is, but still I roll around and glance down at my right ankle.
He chained me to the floor.
I scoot closer to the chain and try to pry it off, but all I end up doing is breaking a nail. The manacle is tight around my ankle, so tight even breaking my foot wouldn’t help me get out of it. It’s a wonder how I didn’t feel it when I first woke up, but I guess I can attribute that to the chloroform, or whatever the hell was on that cloth he held against my face.
That’s when the panic sets in, the true panic. The kind that grips my heart in its cold, unyielding hand and squeezes until I can’t breathe. The kind that makes my skin feel so cold even my bones are frozen. It’s panic I thought I was used to, the kind I always felt when Jay came around, but being with pack Alabaster must have made me soft, because I swear it’s never felt like this before.
I can’t breathe. My lungs are tight, not letting me fully inhale to their true extent. My heart beats so fast in my chest, as if it’s trying to burst. Every nerve in my body is screaming for me to get the hell out of here, but because I know I can’t, I’m frozen.
I’m right where I never wanted to be. This is the exact fate I was trying to avoid. Finding a pack with an exit clause was only supposed to be my first step away from Jay, but what did I do? I squandered it. I wasted time. I played house with three alphas, let them sway me with their actions and words, even started to love them, and where did it get me? Right back at the beginning.
It was a lie. It was all a pretty lie I let myself believe, let myself hope for, all while knowing, deep down, my fate would never change. I was destined for an ending like this. How depressing.
I sit against the concrete wall, leaning my head back as I wait. It’s right then that I see a camera installed against the upper wall to my right, angled down at me. If Jay’s watching, then he knows I’m awake, knows the full weight of reality has come crashing down upon my shoulders once again.
He’s toying with me, making sure I know I’m as good as helpless here. He never cared about my happiness, never cared for me as a person. I was always his, and once I became an omega, I was his omega. Just an object, really. Something he could own, control, and abuse.
Just like that, each and every scar, both physical and emotional, rises to the surface, shattering me all at once. Everything I tried to overcome, everything I fought against… what’s the point? I feel like dying, and it’s only been minutes.
It’s only been minutes, and Jay hasn’t even laid a hand on me yet.
It’s like he hears my thoughts—that, or he can’t help himself since he saw I’m awake—because I hear a door open, and then a thick figure comes walking down those stairs, step by step, the wood creaking under his weight.
And then I sit there, staring up at the alpha I never wanted to see again.
Jay, though only a year older than me, has hard lines on his face already, at the age of twenty-two, no doubt from the constant scowling and growling he does. His brown hair is a dirty color, three inches long on the top of his head, long enough to hang over his forehead in a cowlick. His blue eyes are the opposite of warm: they’re ice-cold and full of malice. He may only stand at five feet and ten inches, shorter than most alphas, but he makes up for it with how thick his arms are.
And that über alpha dominance? It comes off him in waves. My inner omega squirms, and I barely resist the urge to tuck my chin against my chest and scoot into the corner and hope he doesn’t see me.
His lips are slow to curl into a smile, but that smile only cuts me. It does nothing to comfort me; comfort is not something he knows, not ever something he gives. “Hello, Mercedes. Did you miss me? I missed you.” He takes a step closer to me, cocking his head at me as he licks his lips. “I thought about you every single day while you were gone.”
His voice is grating; literally nothing about him sets off my omega instincts. All I want to do is hide. Hide and wish I was someone else, someone stronger. Not an omega. Everything about him I hate.
When I don’t respond, he smirks. Unlike Warren’s smirk, his makes my stomach queasy, the opposite of handsome in every way. “Did you even think of me once? Before I swung by to let you know I was watching, I mean. Did you ever stop to think about the alpha who claimed you long before you stumbled upon pack fucking Alabaster?”
Jay chuckles, an ugly sound that grates on me and makes me recoil. “Did you think of me at all while they were fucking you, hmm? While they were having a taste of what’s mine?” He moves closer to me, slow to kneel down beside me, his fake mirth replaced by fury in the blink of an eye. His hand shoots out, his fingers curling around my neck so hard I have to gasp.
Still, I gaze into those blue eyes—eyes that have haunted me and my dreams ever since I was a child—and wish I was strong enough to pluck them out.
“I know you’ve been with them,” he hisses out. “I can smell them on you, you dirty whore. How many times did you let them between your legs? How many fucking times did you hand out what belongs to me?” As he asks, he squeezes my neck harder, so hard it becomes impossible for me to keep breathing, and I struggle for air, hating how weak it makes me look.
“Did those fucking alphas even care that you were marked, or were they too busy fucking you to use the head on their shoulders and realize you already belong to someone else?” His fingers loosen around my neck, finally allowing me to breathe.
I find my voice and manage to say, “They care.”
His face looms near mine, and the hand around my neck drops to mycollarbone. “Do they? If they care so much, why didn’t they come find me and try to eliminate me? Maybe they don’t care as much as you think they do.”
He’s only saying this stuff to get in my head and make me doubt their intentions, try to pull me onto his side. He mentioned the cyber-attack when he found me at their parents’ house, so I can reasonably assume it was all a ploy on Jay’s part, so he could get me alone—or relatively alone, seeing as how he had no way to know that Laurie would head to the store shortly after the guys left—and then take me.
If Laurie would’ve been there, would he have killed her? My stomach recoils in response.
I can’t let him win.
“They care,” I tell him, trying to match his sneer with my own, something that’s difficult for me to do, given the way nature tugs at my inner omega, making me want to play the meek and quiet role, as I always did when it came to this jerk.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. They said they’ll rip out every single tooth of yours and give them to me.” Darius said that, specifically, and I was too ashamed in the moment to fully comprehend the violence behind his words, but now… now I can appreciate them. Jay would look a lot better without a single tooth in that mouth.
My words anger him further, and he lets me go by pushing me aside. Thanks to his strength, my top half is pushed toward the floor, and I barely catch myself in time. Thankfully, I stop myself from face-planting again.
“I’ll remember that when I go after them next. Right now I’m focused on you, you omega slut.” He starts to pace the direct area in front of me, shaking his head. “I thought you and I had an understanding. I thought it was understood that you’re mine—so when I heard you snuck out and sought a match at the Omega Garden, I got pissed. It took me too long to find you, and now that I finally have you, I’m not going to let you go—but I know the Alabasters have friends everywhere. I know how influential they are. They’ll find you, and when they do, it’ll be too late. You’ll be mine, and they’ll walk into a trap.”
“A trap?”
“I made lots of friends once I got out of Kellogg Academy. These friends of mine don’t mind lending a hand and helping me even the odds. It’ll be my pack of alphas against yours. Spoiler alert: mine will win, but don’t worry,” he says, pausing to give me a wide, toothy smile. “I’ll make sure those three alphas all see you claimed, with a bonding mark on your neck, before I kill them.”
My heat isn’t for another two weeks. There’s still time. Maybe I can get out, or the guys will find me—maybe Jay is underestimating them. There’s no way a pack of alphas off the streets can possibly take on pack Alabaster, especially if my guys have their whole company at their side. There’s no way. No possible way.
But as I think all that, Jay’s smile deepens into what I can only describe as a sick, twisted grin. “I know what you’re thinking, because I know you. I know you better than anyone else. You and I, we’ve known each other our whole lives. You think there’s still hope for your precious new pack to come save the day—which is exactly why I’m not giving them a chance to.”
My eyebrows furrow. But he just said…
Jay reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a syringe full of some kind of liquid. It’s not very much, but even so, I don’t doubt its potency, whatever it is. Is he going to hop me up on drugs, make me lose my mind? Get me so lost in the high that I’ll accept any bite mark, any claiming?
“I’ve made some friends underground. The black market, I guess you can call it. These friends are highly interested in stimulants, things that can make an omega’s heat last longer—” He twiddles the vial around his fingers. “—or induce heats whenever an alpha wants. It’s still in the trial phase, very hard to find omegas to test these things on, but first results are promising… and the results are even better the closer the omega is to her natural heat. Two weeks away is pretty damn close, in the grand scheme of things, don’t you think?”
The more he talks, the more my stomach sinks into my gut and refuses to leave its cowering position. That syringe is full of a black market drug that’ll induce my heat early? Shit. Fuck. No amount of swear words is enough. It’s ridiculous to the point where it doesn’t sound real, but if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s in the hunger of alphas, alphas who want nothing more than to take whatever they want whenever they want.
“Jay, please,” I start, not knowing where to go with it. I learned years ago that begging does nothing. Why would that suddenly change now?
“I’m going to shoot you up with this,” he says as he pulls off the syringe’s cap. “And then, when your body is so desperate for an alpha, I’ll knot you. Don’t worry, I won’t make you beg for it too much. And then, when I’m knot-deep in you, I’ll sink my teeth into that tender neck of yours and bond us together forever. After all these years, you’ll be mine, and you’ll never run from me again.” He holds it with the needle up, and he flicks it and then pushes out a bit of the liquid—maybe to get the air out of it—before he kneels at my side.
What he’s describing is torture. Sheer, undeniable torture. To take my freewill away, to force this whole thing on me… it’s exactly what I feared, what I don’t want.
I’d rather die than give myself to this alpha. He’s not mine. He’s not my match. I’m not his omega. We were never meant to belong with each other, but he’s too pigheaded to realize it.
“No,” I whisper, and I try to scoot away from him, but one hard look from him stops me. His every pore oozes alpha dominance, even without saying a word, and I freeze up. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t move a muscle as he takes my wrist and spins my arm. He aims that needle at the vein in my elbow.
My eyes watch, a sinking horror settling on my spine, as that needle pierces my skin and the vein underneath. He injects me with it, and once the syringe is empty, he pulls it out of me. Into his back pocket it goes, and the look on his face is one of pure triumph, of a man who is about to get what he’s always wanted, what he believes he deserves.
“It should kick in soon,” Jay tells me. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you stew in it for a while before I come visit you again.” He lifts his head and inhales deeply. “Your scent is already deepening.” A low rumble echoes from his chest, and it must be due to the injection racing through my bloodstream, but I feel my panties dampen from the sound.
Fuck.
“I’ll be knotting you soon enough. Until then, get nice and wet for me, will you?”
Normally I’d hate hearing words like that come out of his mouth, but my breathing becomes stilted, and I shudder and writhe against the wall as I glare up at him. At least, I think I glare. I hope I glare. I probably look as stupid as an angry bunny, all puffed up and squinty-eyed but no real threat to a wolf like Jay.
All he does is laugh as he leaves, but as he goes, he walks with a bit of a limp, like he’s fighting a hardening dick—which he probably is. If my scent is that much stronger seconds after the injection, it has to only be growing.
And, fuck it all to hell, I feel it. I feel it even after he’s out of my sight and I’m once again alone in the basement, wherever I am. My blood feels like it’s boiling in my veins. My mind grows hazy, to the point where I can’t think straight. Everything I am I lose: all of my wants, all of my hopes, and even all of my fears. Everything I am fades away until I’m nothing but a body.
A body with a mind of its own.
I claw at the manacle around my ankle; I don’t like that it restricts my movements. I can’t get up and go somewhere comfier, somewhere warmer. This place, this fucking basement, is too dank and cold. There aren’t enough blankets. There aren’t any comforting smells.
Through the haze, I think about my three alphas and their scents. I imagine their strong hands, their purrs, the way they make me feel—especially their cocks. The way their knots fill me up, oh, I need them. I need them more than I need anything else right now. A nest wouldn’t matter if I had my alphas with me.
Minutes pass. Or maybe hours. I can’t tell time. I don’t have any clock with me, let alone a phone. Hell, even if I did have my phone, I doubt I’d be able to call or speak. This induced heat is coming on much faster than a normal one, all the hormones hitting me full-force with the weight of that stimulant behind them.
My body is primed and ready for an alpha knot. My panties are soaked with slick, my core clamping down on nothing, and every time my pussy doesn’t feel a knot inside it, a sorrowful, hollow feeling fills me. I end up curling into a ball in the corner, holding my knees against my chest and rocking back and forth in an effort to distract myself from the way my body feels.
It’s impossible to think about anything other than an alpha’s knot. Being full with one would be enough to calm me down, help me to regain some semblance of control, but even now, I fear the only alpha that will answer my body’s prayers is the one alpha I don’t want.
My throat lets out a strangled cry, a whimper, the saddest sound I ever made in my life.
Where are my alphas?