Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Knox
GAGE MUST HAVE HEARD Tony’s car pull up, because he was waiting when we reached the front porch. The door swung inward almost violently, and before I could get a word out, I was enveloped in a rib-cracking hug.
“I knew you’d be okay,” Gage said, his voice strangled. “Told everyone you would be—didn’t I, Tony?”
He was physically shaking in my arms.
“Yeah,” Tony agreed, from behind me somewhere. “Yeah, you were right, big guy.”
I patted Gage awkwardly on the back, and thankfully, he pulled away before my need to breathe grew impossible to ignore.
“I’ve got dampeners,” he said, nonsensically—once again cutting me off before I could speak. “Come inside.”
“Gage—” I began.
“I know,” he cut me off. “Knox, I know. And I’m so sorry. But seriously, you’re gonna want this dampener shot before anything else.”
Stymied, I let the pair herd me into the house... where I was immediately slammed in the face by a solid wall of pheromones. All the blood in my battered excuse for a brain fled southward. I wavered, my weakened condition making me lightheaded even as my dick swelled painfully.
Gage steadied me with one meaty hand and shifted me to lean against the entryway wall.
“Shit,” he said. “Sorry. Should’ve brought the shot with me and done it outside. Stay here for a minute, okay? I’ll run get it. Tony, watch him for me.”
“What?” Tony yelped—but Gage was already disappearing down the long hall.
“I’m okay,” I choked out, lying through my teeth.
Only the fact that I could barely stand upright kept me from barging after Gage to find the source of that intoxicating scent... burnt sugar and espresso that promised to wake up my weakened body in the most delicious of ways.
Tony hovered next to me, looking torn between putting his hand on my arm to support me and running for the hills.
“The same thing happened to Gage when we found them at the silos,” he said worriedly. “Don’t worry, though—a dampener shot fixed him right up.”
If I’d dared unclench my teeth long enough to speak, I might’ve pointed out that Gage was coming apart at the seams, and was very obviously not all right.
But it was all I could do to stand there leaning against the wall as flashes of memory zapped across my mental movie screen like scenes beneath a strobe light.
Pale hair.
Huge gray eyes.
Long satin gloves, and a little black dress hugging curves and angles in all the right ways.
Tony took a hasty step back, and a second later, I registered the rumbling growl rolling up from the depths of my chest. With an act of willpower, I swallowed the noise.
I pushed away from the wall experimentally.
Maybe if I took it slow, I’d be able to make it to my mate’s side without keeling over—
Heavy footsteps reached my ears. Gage jogged toward me, holding something carefully away from his body in one hand.
“Sorry,” he said, breathless. “I expect you’re getting’ sick of people jabbing you with needles.”
He shoved my sleeve up and stuck the needle into my arm, steadily depressing the plunger until it was empty. The cool sting of its contents spread slowly through my veins, distracting me long enough for the drug to start doing its work.
I panted through my nose until the overwhelming scent choking the house faded to manageable levels. My dick throbbed sullenly, but I no longer felt like there was a taut bungee cord physically dragging me toward the source of the pheromones.
“Jesus Christ,” I said hoarsely.
“Right?” Gage agreed, wide-eyed. “It’s fuckin’ mental, ain’t it?
” He turned to Tony, who was standing close to the door as though he wanted nothing more than to bolt and never look back.
“Hey, Tony—can you keep an eye on the lovebirds while me and Knox have a word? I don’t want to leave ‘em on their own for too long.”
Tony shrank back. “Goddamn it, Gage! No, I will not ‘keep an eye on the lovebirds!’ What the fuck do you expect me to do if something goes wrong? They murdered three armed alphas with their bare hands trying to get to each other!”
“Tony, they ain’t gonna hurt you,” Gage said, sounding surprised by the outburst. “They like you.”
“No!” Tony said again, louder this time. “Your pack alpha is back; you can deal with this epic shitstorm without my help!”
We both stared after him as he yanked the door open and disappeared through it, slamming it so hard behind him that the walls rattled. Outside, the old Volvo’s engine roared to life. Gravel sprayed as the car peeled out of the circle drive.
Silence echoed through the house for the space of several heartbeats.
“Gage,” I said, already feeling exhausted before we’d even properly begun. “What the hell just happened?”
Gage was still looking fixedly at the closed door. After a moment, he stepped forward and engaged the locks. When he finally turned to meet my eyes, he looked every bit as worn down as I felt.
“With Tony?” he asked. “It’s just a guess, and I might be wrong. But I think him and Heath might have a thing going.”
I filed that information away, along with all the other things I needed to yell at Heath about.
“And Heath just mated someone else,” I said, putting two and two together.
“Heath just mated the same girl who ran away and left Tony alone to deal with his murdered stepdad a year ago,” Gage clarified. “And who tried to kill you.”
I took a cautious breath—holding it for a moment to make sure the dampeners had fully kicked in. My shoulders slumped as I let it out.
“Gage.” I held his hazel eyes, reading the defeat in them. “Why in the hell didn’t you let the police take her? Tony said you caught her in the penthouse suite, practically in the act.”
The big alpha’s expression collapsed, deep lines adding years to his rugged face.
“It was...” He hesitated. “It was complicated, boss. She’s our scent match. But she’s also a homeless omega wannabe assassin. If the legal system got hold of her, they’d toss her in a dark hole and throw away the key.”
“Yes. That tends to happen to people who murder other people for money,” I said evenly.
“It wasn’t just that, though!” Gage went on quickly. “We needed to find out who hired her. She’s not the real threat.”
“Isn’t she, though?” I couldn’t keep the dryness from my tone.
“No, she’s not.” The words were forceful. “She’s a hurt, na?ve omega who found a way to lash out after her fuckin’ dad auctioned off her first heat and sold her to traffickers at the age of thirteen!”
It wasn’t like Gage to get this worked up over something—and definitely not with me. I made myself take what he was saying on board.
“Okay,” I said. “So, she had a rough childhood, and you feel bad for her. And Tony’s got a soft spot for her because she offed his abusive stepfather. After which she decided to start offing other people for money. Which is where we’ve got a bit of a problem.”
Gage’s jaw clenched stubbornly. “Do we? Because Heath snapped a couple of necks at the silos. And those necks belonged to alpha predators who were abusing kids. You gonna turn him in for that?”
I blew out a frustrated sigh. “No, Gage. I am not going to turn in my packmate for killing the people who kidnapped him and injected him with a rut-stim against his will.”
“Well,” Gage said doggedly. “That’s the same kind of alphas that Jez has been going after. You didn’t see her, Knox. When me and Heath caught her at the hotel, she was one-hundred percent convinced that she’d fallen into the hands of the same kind of people who made her childhood a living hell.”
“Which we aren’t,” I reminded him. “And that makes me wonder how many other mistakes she’s made over her short-lived career in vigilante justice.”
That shut Gage up. His jaw snapped closed, and the light of uncertainty flickered behind his gaze before once more being replaced by stubbornness.
“Maybe she did. And maybe she didn’t,” he said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s our scent match, and now she’s mated to Heath. The past is deeply fucked up, but right now I’m more worried about what happens next.”
“A glandectomy, at a guess,” I replied, not letting any emotion come through in my voice. Mating bonds were for life... unless you surgically removed the organ responsible for maintaining them.
Gage paled. “That’s our mate you’re talking about maiming.”
My temper flared. “For fuck’s sake, Gage! I meant she’ll want the surgery. Not that I plan on holding her down and hacking it out myself! This isn’t the goddamned twentieth century!”
He still looked queasy. “Yeah. I guess.”
Not for the first time, I was struck by how close my normally unflappable packmate looked to completely breaking down and losing his shit.
I wasn’t in much better shape after my stint in the hospital, but I was his pack leader.
.. and I hadn’t spent the last few days cooped up in this house with Jez’s pheromones.
“Go get some rest, Gage,” I said. “Those dampeners you gave me seem to be doing the trick. I’ll watch over Heath and our resident homicidal maniac for now.”
I watched him waver.
“You sure?” he asked. “I mean, after everything?”
“I’m sure,” I said. If nothing else, I wanted to see for myself that Heath was still in one piece.
“Okay,” Gage said reluctantly. Relief and worry warred across his broad features. “But you come get me when you need a break.”
“Of course,” I told him. “Really, Gage—I’m perfectly fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he said matter-of-factly... but he didn’t press the issue.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Heath’s room,” he said. “She’s between peaks. I’m hoping she’s about done, but it just depends on what kind of shit they injected her with.”
I nodded my understanding and trudged toward the stairs. Getting to the second floor felt like climbing a mountain, but I managed it. I knocked on Heath’s door, but didn’t wait before opening it and slipping inside.
My packmate’s growl cut off abruptly as soon as he saw and smelled me.
The gruff, flame-haired alpha was lounging naked on his bed, the unconscious waif of an omega curled half on his lap.
They were both smeared from head to toe with streaks of dirt and dried blood, not to mention covered in bruises and bite marks.
Heath stiffened in place, easing his tiny burden off of his lap and onto the rumpled pile of bedding.
In a flash, he was off the bed, stalking toward me and into my personal space.
I stood still as he snuffled along the side of my throat.
The tension went out of his body, and he rubbed a bearded cheek against mine. A purr vibrated up from his chest.
I couldn’t deny the release of tension in my own body in response to the confirmation that he truly was safe.
Giving in to the temptation, I lifted a hand and ruffled through his shaggy hair, trying not to think too closely about what kind of bodily fluids had contributed to the tangled mats and tacky patches.
Jez made a little noise of discontent on the bed, and Heath straightened away from me. I shooed him back over to her, setting my misgivings aside for now. They were mated. It was already done. There was nothing more to do about it until they were both in their right mind.
Gage had pulled a comfortable chair into the far corner of the bedroom.
I settled myself into it and let my mind drift, trying to ignore the magnetic pull toward the bed.
Dampeners or no, I could understand why Gage looked like he was one crack away from shattering after being stuck in here for days.
Several hours slid by in a languid haze.
The shot Gage had given me filtered out the worst of the involuntary physical reactions to an omega’s heat-scent, but I still thought I could detect a gradual change in the tone of Jez’s pheromones.
For that reason, it wasn’t a complete surprise when she groaned and stirred into awareness.
Heath paused in his obsessive stroking of her hair, but he still held the blank-eyed look of the artificial rut. Jez, on the other hand, whimpered and cringed as she tried to roll into a sitting position.
“Ow,” she said—a tiny little bleat of a word.
Omegas in heat didn’t say ‘ow.’ The aches and pains caused by days of often violent sex didn’t register until afterward.
I watched impassively as she registered my presence and bolted upright, the pain in her overused muscles forgotten.
She gasped and scrabbled for a blanket, yanking it over her torso to cover herself.
I smiled—not an ounce of humor in the expression. “Hello, Kit,” I said, purposely using the fake name she’d given me that night. “Looks like you’ve had a busy time of things the last few days. And now, you and I need to have a nice little talk.”