Chapter 27 Mate
Mate
Jake
Sabbies sits naked on the couch and reviews the radio channels as his team communicates.
The program transcribes it so he can visually see all the chatter at once.
Shadow has a highly intelligent tracker, so we can track him using x, y, and z coordinates, so it shouldn’t be long until they get to him.
I open another water bottle and drink half of it.
“This is a fucking disaster,” I say out loud.
Not about Shadow and his mission. But about Ondine falling into bond-sickness.
“We’ve failed that girl over and over. What made us think we could do this?
” I’m usually never this vulnerable and pitiful.
But he is my pack, and if I can’t be honest with him, then I’m a shit pack lead.
“Ok, enough of that.” I wipe my hands together in a few claps.
I collect a plate with a bread roll, cheese, and rolled up ham, and grab a plastic water bottle.
“Maybe she will eat or drink something. We should get back in there.”
He nods his head.
“Jake, everything is going to be ok. She’s already improving. She knows we want her. When we get back to our place, we need to tell her we want to court her. Properly.”
I nod. I know he’s right. Everything will be ok.
He stands and walks over to me. I open my arms and he hugs me while I hold the plate and water. He pulls away while slapping my back.
We head down the hall and open the door to the nest.
And reveal a fucking nightmare.
Ondine is being dominated by Freddie fucking Wong, whose jaws are open and moments away from biting her neck.
What the fuck am I looking at? All the blood runs out of my hands, preparing for a fight.
I’m angry. Furious. I’m going to kill him.
Before my next breath, the food has been abandoned, and I have my hand on Freddie’s face, pulling him back, and my arm around his waist, yanking him off of her.
I don’t even think about whether he has knotted her. But it’s obvious he hasn’t when I’ve got him pinned to the wall. Ondine screams belatedly.
“Did he bite her?!” I shout at Sebastian. He pulls open Freddie’s jaw and face, tipping his mouth towards him, investigating his teeth.
Ondine is screaming. Her short, panicked sobs aren’t stopping.
Sebastian gasps. “There’s blood! There’s blood on his teeth!”
My heart drops out of my chest.
I release Freddie and shove him in Sebastian’s arms and go to Ondine. My knees slide against the bed, and I pull her towards me. My hands search her pretty skin. There better not be a mark. THERE BETTER NOT FUCKING BE A MARK!
On her skin, right where her shoulder meets her neck, there’s a mark. It’s shallow. It’s slight. I’d pulled him off before he could sink them in too far. But she’s bleeding.
He’s bitten her. He’s bonded her. He’s TAKEN HER AWAY FROM ME!
And then a second thought, he’s bitten an omega in bond-sickness.
“You cannot bond an omega with bond-sickness!” I turn my head and yell at Freddie. “It’s unstable. It’s fractured. You could kill her!” It could also kill Freddie, but that would be the best outcome here.
Watching Freddie, I don’t see any signs he’s listening. I see things much, much worse. He’s in rut. He’s snapping his jaws at my Sebastian. His veins are popping out and visible across his body.
He just bonded with Ondine.
He’s feral.
And we are in his mate’s nest.
Ondine weeps below me. I stroke her face, pushing her hair out of it. I pull her up and lick her tears off her cheeks, whispering my promises that I will make this right. She moves closer to my chest, and I realize I’m purring for her.
I run my thumb over the apple of her cheek.
I’m a bad alpha. How did I let this happen?
Sebastian has wrestled Freddie to the ground and put him in a half-nelson.
I pull Ondine closer. She’s compliant. She molds into my body, seeking warmth. I sigh and wrap my arms around her, holding her in my whole body.
Sebastian asks, “Ondine, how do you feel?”
“I just want my alpha,” she mumbles into my chest. My heart breaks when I realize she doesn’t mean me. She grips my biceps so hard and cries, “I need Freddie. Why did he leave me?”
As much as I want her to need me, I’m not a monster. I lift my head up and shout at Sebastian—“Let him go! Freddie is feral and rutting and just bonded an omega with bond-sickness. We cannot keep them apart. It’ll kill them both.”
While I’m willing to let her go right now, this is not over.
She’s still mine. Freddie didn’t take her from me.
This is temporary. Yes. His bite is shallow.
Maybe they could break…no. That’s dangerous.
Jake, don’t hurt your omega. I have other options.
I always have more ways than one to get what I want.
As soon as he’s free, Freddie launches at me and Ondine. I let my arms fall.
Instead of ripping my throat out, a possibility because he’s a snarling feral alpha rushing his way towards me, he only goes for Ondine. And when he gets to her, he catches her before she falls. He backs away from us and takes her into a corner.
“Leave us! She’s mine!” Freddie snarls with a preternatural voice.
I grab Sebastian and pull him out of the nest and shut the door.
I crash onto the floor in front of the door and rake my hands through my hair.
“Fuuuuuck!!”
We left a feral alpha alone in a nest with her! I turn to my alpha, who stands above me, and howl at him. He doesn’t cower. My power and influence erupts, and my ears pop. Shit. Sabbies grabs at his ears.
Sebastian kneels down next to me. “Jake, listen to me. You need to calm down. We need to calm down. And we can’t go back in there. She’s his now.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
How did I lose her this quickly? I never even had her.
***
Ondine
I can feel him. There’s a cord that ties us together, from my heart to his hands. Invisible. Magical. Unreal.
And what passes down it is all his loud emotions. Right now, his only thought is of me. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. I can practically hear him think.
Freddie has laid me bare before him and is biting me, with decisive, exacting, fiery bites from my feet on up. I think he’s trying to cover every inch of me. I love it.
He’s not breaking the skin, but he’s leaving marks. He growls at my skin when the marks fade from my rapid healing. I giggle at him for it.
Freddie. My Freddie.
His smell is now unburied and everywhere. Earl Grey tea. Bergamot. Black tea. Orange. And this lovely olive oil quality to it.
“Kiss me,” I mutter.
No one ever kisses me.
He keeps biting, and I wiggle away from him. He growls at me and pulls me back.
“Freddie, kiss me,” I say louder. Can he hear my soft voice over his growling and panting?
He pauses and then lifts his head from my hip, where he just laid down another bite. “My mate wants a kiss?”
He’s so beautiful. The hard lines of his face. His thin, dark lips. He has pretty eyelashes fanning over his shiny brown eyes. I want to stroke and taste and marvel at all the parts of him.
“Please. Kiss me.” I say again.
He positions himself over me. His elbow on the side of my head. His hand on my jaw. “Of course, princess.”
Before I can finish exhaling, he’s kissing me. My being blooms open. It feels better than any kiss I’ve ever had. I can feel his gratitude. His lust. His desire. His love.
Love.
Is that what this is?
His tongue waves into my mouth, and my tongue meets his. Every press of our lips makes the bond between us sing.
This is wonderful.
And unexpected.
Of course, it’s unexpected. I’ve found my phantom alpha. The man in the woods. It’s been Freddie this whole time.
I deepen our kiss, wanting to consume him.
I wish I would have known earlier. Or even suspected. But I didn’t think for a second that what had happened that night was real. I thought it was a fever dream from perfuming. My entire body transformed. I spent days in pain as my body grew and changed.
My boyfriend broke up with me shortly after. He texted me and asked if I wanted to go to dinner with his parents before they drove him back home. I said yes, but showed up looking like death and obviously an omega. He was mad I didn’t cancel.
He was mad that I was always saying yes. Even when I shouldn’t.
My friends, which I had so many at the time, didn’t know what to do with me. They’d known me as a beta, like them. A few friends came over or texted, but it all just felt like a goodbye. It was bad timing anyway. Most of us had just graduated.
But none of that seems to matter now, with my alpha surrounding me. I’ve never felt more satisfied in my whole life than now.
Which isn’t saying much, actually.
I need more.
I manage to flip positions, so I’m on top. Freddie pulls us both towards the wall, and he sits up, my knees straddling him, our chests together and upright.
“Can I fuck you?” I ask.
Freddie throws his head back in a scoff. “Please, princess, please ride me. Do what you need to do.”
He’s hard and ready for me. I take some time with my hand, stroking him up and down between us, watching him react to me. He’s getting impatient because he sits up tall and grabs me like I weigh nothing and positions me over him. “Now,” he growls.
Oh, I like impatient men, I just decided.
I drop down onto his dick, and I am so damned jealous of myself. It’s a perfect, perfect fit. We both make horrendous noises. His arms wrap around me, and I lay my head on his shoulder.
Freddie doesn’t fall into a crazed rut. He’s not the animal he worried he’d be with me. Our hearts pump at the same beat. I move over top of him in small waves, our breaths synching, building our pleasure together.
It’s a joining.
He licks his mark on my neck, sending my entire body into both a solid and liquid state. I quicken my movements on him and whimper. So he does it again. I didn’t know you could do that. He licks my mark like he’s tending to it. Like it’s the most special thing to him.
I love my feral mate.
Our arms are both holding onto each other, wrapping us both in the vines of affection and acceptance. My mate. Mine.