13. Avery #3
I looked at Wade, who crossed his arms and stared at Graeme, and then I gave my mate my undivided attention as well.
“Why are you both staring at me?”
“That was some nice detective work there.”
He dismissed us both with a wave. “May we leave now? I believe we should return to Bridget’s home and watch the surveillance tape she spoke of.”
“Yes, sir,” Wade teased him. “Let’s go.”
Walking back downstairs and toward the front of the club, we made our way through a small crowd and emerged through an opening, where we suddenly found ourselves standing with a large group of people, all watching a man on his knees, face to the floor, hands cuffed behind his back, ass lifted, pants rucked to his knees, crying and begging and gibbering as he was fucked from behind.
It was startling to be confronted by such a needy, desperate, unscripted, seemingly unscheduled sex act.
The stations, those were obviously staged and expected, the alphas milling around them and reacting, yelling out encouragement and profanities, though they weren’t riveted and appeared almost bored.
That wasn’t at all the reaction to the scene before us.
Everyone here was spellbound, not moving, barely breathing. This act was shocking, striking, because the omega taking the pounding from the alpha seemed utterly lost in the sensation. For his part, the alpha doing the fucking had only loosened his pants enough to free his cock.
It didn’t last long, the alpha came, bucking inside the omega before another alpha yanked him off, still dripping, and took his place behind the omega, plunged his hand into the bucket of lube beside him, slathered his dick, and then shoved inside, to the hilt, in a single fluid motion.
The first alpha was still collapsed on the floor as a server brought him a bar towel that he used to clean himself up.
As I watched, alphas began to line up even as the one who was currently screwing the omega grabbed his hair in what appeared to be a painfully tight hold and slammed into him over and over.
When he finished, the next one took his place, not bothering to use the lube, crowing that he was slick enough, much to the clapping and whistling of the men in the line, as well as the crowd.
I couldn’t stop staring at the omega’s face. He wasn’t in pain. He wasn’t screaming at anyone to stop or get off him. In fact, the only word he uttered, over and over, was yes.
It was terrifying. My vision tunneled down to the omega’s face and the ecstasy on it, the tears and the mewling whimpers.
Everything I thought I knew, what I’d spoken to other omegas about with such conviction, with such hubris in my certainty, was obliterated by what I was seeing—an omega completely lost to his heat.
“Avery,” Graeme spoke my name gently, reverently, stepping in front of me, which allowed me to get my bearings as he became the only thing I could see or smell.
“What the hell,” Wade gasped beside me, taking a step toward the men.
Graeme put his hand out to keep him there. “That’s an omega in full heat, and you’ll hurt him if you stop it.”
“There’s no way,” Wade choked out, and Graeme moved aside, as I wasn’t the only one who needed him.
He had to make sure Wade stayed put as the third alpha finished, was handed a bar towel by a server, and another took his place, passing his drink to a friend so he could open his fly, scoop out some lube, and coat his shaft before shoving inside of the omega.
“He can’t know what he’s doing. We have to stop this. ”
“We don’t have the right,” Graeme stated, while a few feet away, a woman went to her hands and knees near the male omega, an alpha behind her, throwing up the back of her dress, dragging down her panties as a stack of bar towels and another bucket of lube was carried over by a server and set down beside the woman.
The alpha unzipped, pulled out his already fully erect penis, grabbed some lube, slicked himself, and then spread the omega’s legs and pushed inside of her.
“This is wrong,” Wade rasped angrily. Graeme turned him around so his back was to both the omegas.
“This is what these parties are about,” Graeme explained, his voice flat but still commanding.
“I know it’s horrifying to you, because this isn’t done at the clubs you frequent, but the displays, the different people having sex, the girl on the cross, for example, those are warmups.
Those are to make sure whoever shows up has something to look at, and stays.
Meanwhile, several omegas are having sex with the alpha who’s paying for all this, and as soon as they’re done, and he doesn’t mark them, they go into heat, at which point they stumble out here to the main area and have sex with whoever wants them. ”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes,” Graeme assured him, turning him around. “Look at them.”
I had been watching my mate as he spoke to Wade, and when I turned back to the two omegas, I was stunned to see six more, all with the stack of towels next to them, the bucket of lube.
“This is actually happening,” Wade gasped before Graeme flipped him around again.
“When an omega goes into real heat, not the mock heat Remy perpetrated, they are calling for an alpha to bond with. The small amount of pheromones produced during les fausses chaleurs is nothing in comparison to what an omega in a full, real heat is capable of. Only an alpha who’s truly mated can withstand the call. ”
Which meant that all the alphas bonded to omegas would succumb, as none of those were true.
Graeme turned to make eye contact with me. “Your brother, your father, my brother, your brother-in-law, hell, my grandfather, all of them could be here, just as I am now, and not feel the pull to go over there and get in line.”
I couldn’t find my voice. Before he and I, I’d never heard of a mating between an alpha and an omega.
And if it wasn’t real, if he wanted what he could get from me but didn’t want me , then everything I’d been, even for such a short time, building on and counting on, could be taken away.
But that was crazy. My family had kissed my mark, ours was a true mating, and I knew that, my wolf knew that, and I felt it when we’d been in bed together, that it was a true joining, like we were one thing.
But now, faced with what I’d never even credited as being real, the doubt was gutting me.
“Wade, I need you to excuse us for just a moment,” Graeme announced before he released him and grabbed me, pulling me after him through the crowd and out the other side where it was quiet and cooler, near the windows that looked out on the city.
Manhandling me roughly, he spun me around to face him, both his hands on my hips as he stared down into my eyes. “Listen now.”
I couldn’t do anything else.
“Your mind is reeling, but even if you question everything else, you can never question the promise between us, our union.”
I nodded, trying to swallow around the lump in my throat.
“It’s human to doubt, to worry and wonder, but the truth lies with your wolf.”
Yes, it did. My wolf knew I belonged to Graeme. I was given a mark, and that was forever and always. It was a vow, made in flesh, irrevocable.
“You are mine, I am yours, and that’s all.”
My eyes filled before I was even aware the tears were welling up. As quickly as I tried to brush them away, they returned.
“You didn’t believe omegas went into heat like this,” he told me.
“No,” I choked out, shaking my head.
“And now you’re thinking to yourself, that could’ve been me, because I’ve slept with a lot of alphas and none of them gave me their mark, so why didn’t I succumb to the heat? ”
“Yes,” I whispered the confession. “How did I—why didn’t I…do that?”
“Some of it, I believe,” he replied, grinning with a huff of resignation, “is your mother, actually.”
“My mother?”
He nodded. “Yes. She told me that first night she didn’t raise an omega, she only raised alphas.”
“Yes, but nature is––”
“You, my mate, were raised with the same confidence that your mother instilled in both your brother and sister. You wanted to be a police officer, and you became one. You know who you are, and that sense of self is not defined by someone else, so how could any alpha you didn’t choose possibly make a claim on you? ”
I couldn’t help myself and leaned into him, wrapping my arms around his waist, pressing my face into his chest.
“Your mother assured me that you would not, under any circumstances, go into heat. I thought her na?ve, and she is, a bit, as she based her belief solely on how you were raised when the other reason, the most important part, in my estimation, is that you are not a bonded omega.”
Leaning back but not letting go, I lifted my head to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry—what?”
He took my face in his hands. “I’ve seen hundreds of omegas in heat in my lifetime, which was why I was so worried about you being alone that first night, as I thought you would succumb.
Now I realize, of course, that you were never going to go into heat, because of what you are,” he explained.
“You’re a mated omega, not a bonded one. ”
It couldn’t be that simple.
“You were raised, just as every alpha, beta, and gamma is, with the potential to be a true mate. Heaven knows we don’t all find them, but the possibility for you was there.
Because of that, you weren’t going to accept a mark from any alpha but your true one, me, and so sleeping with other alphas posed no danger to you of bringing on a heat. ”
“But I was in pain the other night after we––”
“I know,” he interrupted me, not wanting, I was sure, to go back over the laundry room incident where he had shed all his inhibitions. “I was the same. I was supposed to put my mark on you then, so of course, when I didn’t, it was difficult for both of us.”
“So you’re thinking that was all normal?”
“I do.” His smile was lazy and sexy, and he brought his hands to my shoulders. “I think, after the blessing that was finding our true mate, we were supposed to stay together.”
“Probably,” I mumbled, leaning into him again, loving the heat rolling off his body, the smell of him, leather, and musk from the fur of his wolf, crisp pine and smokey sandalwood. “I should have stayed. I knew it was wrong when I was leaving.”
“But see, now I understand the reason you did, and could. You have a very important job, and your wolf knew, even if you didn’t, that leaving me might be difficult, but it wasn’t forever because I’m your mate, and you’d be in my den at some point.”
I chuckled. “Your den, huh?”
“Don’t tease your alpha,” he warned me playfully as he rubbed his chin in my hair, the scent marking important since we were surrounded by so many alphas.
I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed tight. “I kinda like teasing you, though.”
“Going forward, what I hope,” he rumbled into my hair, “is now that you’re mated you’ll stop fighting your nature every day.”
“I don’t fight my––”
“You’re strong and capable, but at heart, you’re still an omega,” he intoned, his voice low and gravelly. “True mate or bonded, you still need to nurture others and be part of a home.”
“I’m not going to quit my job and––”
He snorted, and my head snapped up so I could meet his gaze, which was surprisingly warm, as was the rakish grin that made my knees go weak.
“Love, I know you’re not quitting your job.
I just mean that I volunteer to be lavished with all the love and nurturing until you’re ready to start a family with me. ”
I was stunned. “You think I’m father material?”
“Without question,” he stated, and then gathered me in his arms and kissed me.
Amazing how everything unfurled in my chest, all the fear, all the doubt, all the questioning, everything that had been solid, then bent but not, as it turned out, broken and was now, suddenly, reinforced.
“You called me love ,” I murmured when he lifted his mouth from mine but before he eased back so I was still breathing his air. “Did you know you did that?”
“Did you know you called me baby ?”
“I did?”
He grunted.
“Well, you are.”
“As are you,” he whispered, “my love.”
I grabbed him; I couldn’t help it. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him with everything I had, and when he kissed me back, and chuckled as he wiped away my tears, I knew I was done with anything but being all-in.
He knew me. Really knew me already, like my family did. He knew when to laugh, when to call me on my bullshit, and knew when I was this close to falling apart.
I loved him kissing me, I needed him hugging me.
He was careful, but not too careful, because he recognized I wouldn’t break, and that was amazing.
Tender and gentle, but he grabbed and manhandled me too, like he saw the two distinct parts of me no one understood before him.
He got me, and it was so fast, scary-fast, hit-by-lightning fast, but that was how true mates worked.
And even if I didn’t believe it, even if I had never seen it happen to my brother, and then my sister, it wouldn’t matter because this I grasped, this I could feel.
“I can’t believe I’m gonna tell you this right here,” I ground out. “This is the worst––”
“It’s not. It makes sense that here, in contrast to the nature of omegas all around us, you would give me your nurturing self.”
The words had never passed my lips to anyone I wasn’t related to.
“Now,” he insisted. “Tell me now. It’ll be all right. I’ll catch you.”
Big breath, deep breath. “I love you, Graeme.”
His smile was luminous, but the fierce look in his eyes turned it into more of a glare. “And I love you back, you vexing creature. How dare you doubt our mating at the first test of––”
“Yeah, good, kiss me now.”
And he did.