Chapter 17 – PLAGUE
Chapter
Seventeen
PLAGUE
"You think she's real," Whiskey says. Not a question.
We're huddled in an empty conference room, door locked, voices low. The rest of the pack is scattered and we took the opportunity to speak alone. Valek is at the hospital, Thane is off somewhere dealing with management again, Wraith is still missing after vanishing to god knows where.
"I think Valek stumbled upon something he shouldn't have," I reply. "Someone Wraith is protecting."
"The omega from the dreams."
"The one with honeysuckle scent. Yes."
Whiskey's knee bounces, restless energy radiating off him. "So what's the play?"
"We find her ourselves. Starting with where Valek encountered her."
"The tunnels." He's already on his feet. "Let's go."
The maintenance tunnels are everything I despise—damp, dim, and crawling with bacteria I don't want to think about. But Whiskey navigates them effortlessly, and I need answers more than I need comfort.
He stops abruptly, raising a hand to stop me in my tracks. I slam into him from behind, but he doesn't even seem to notice, pointing instead to a dark stain on the concrete floor.
"Blood."
I step closer, examining the smear. It's relatively fresh. Dark red rather than brown, still slightly tacky where I carefully touch it with the tip of my shoe.
The hallway shows clear signs of disturbance. A fire extinguisher lays on its side on the floor. Chunks of drywall litter the floor where someone has punched holes into the concrete behind it. The damage forms a pattern consistent with a violent struggle. Two alphas, fighting in close quarters.
“This is where it happened.”
“Yeah. For fuckin’ sure.” Whiskey picks up the fire extinguisher, examining the slightly dented metal cylinder. "This isn't Wraith's style."
"No," I agree. "Wraith uses his fists, not weapons."
"So who caved in Valek's skull?"
A wry smile tugs at my lips. “Perhaps our mystery omega is less helpless than we assumed.”
Whiskey's eyes widen slightly. "You think she knocked him out?"
"It fits the evidence."
Whiskey approaches the doors to the old shower room, pushing one open carefully. The interior is dark and cold. No steam. But he inhales deeply, then looks back at me.
"Honeysuckle," he says, voice tight. "Faint, but it's here."
I tug the mask down despite the damp, mildew-tinged air and take in a deep breath. The scent is faded but unmistakable.
Whiskey turns to face me, and there's something raw in his expression. "Plague. We're both dreaming about her. The same omega. Same scent, same hair. That doesn't just happen."
I know what he's suggesting. The word sits heavy between us, unspoken.
Scent match.
"It's possible," I admit. "It would explain the dreams. The pull."
"And Wraith is hiding her from us." His hands clench at his sides. "If she's ours—"
“We don't know that yet,” I cut him off, even though my chest aches with the same suspicion. “We need to confirm it before we do something stupid.”
But even as I say it, I know we're both thinking the same thing.
We have to meet her. We can’t go off her vague scent clinging to things, however much it sings to us.
I follow the scent into the stalls. A collection of long dark hair with auburn roots clings to the drain. Did she dye it? Did our bizarre shared dreams show us the truth?
"They must have interrupted her shower," I say, reconstructing the scene mentally. “Perhaps Valek followed her scent, Wraith intervened, they fought, and during the struggle—”
“She brained Valek with the fire extinguisher,” Whiskey finishes. “Nice work, Sherlock. Then what?”
“I’m not sure about the rest,” I admit. “He must have taken her somewhere after dropping Valek off with us. He was in such a hurry, he didn’t even take another shirt with him.”
"The pack house," Whiskey says immediately. "She's at the pack house."
The certainty in his voice gives me pause. "That’s… a significant leap of logic."
"It's the only place that makes sense," he insists. "Wraith wouldn't leave her here after she was discovered. He wouldn't take her to a hotel where she'd be alone, not if she’s our scent match. And—”
“We don’t know that for certain—”
Whiskey holds up a meaty hand to cut me off. “And he specifically said he needed a new shirt,” he finishes. “She's wearing his old one to cover her scent.”
As much as I hate to admit it, his reasoning is surprisingly sound. “If she's at the pack house, she's hiding in Wraith's loft,” I mutter. “You realize if this is really what’s happening, he’s going to go fully feral and tear us limb from limb if we go up there, right?”
“Maybe you,” Whiskey says. “Not me. We’d be evenly matched.”
I blow a puff of air through my nose and secure my mask back over my lower face. “I sincerely doubt that.”
Whiskey turns abruptly, pacing the length of the shower room. His movements are agitated, erratic. The controlled energy I observed earlier has devolved into something more volatile.
"What doesn't make sense," I say carefully, watching his reaction, "is why Wraith would feel the need to protect her from us in the first place."
“You think he's protecting her from us?” Whiskey looks up, frowning. “We'd never hurt an omega. He knows that.”
“He might if she wants him to hide her.”
“Or he met someone and he’s keeping her for himself.”
“Wraith?” I say, raising an eyebrow. “Wraith is far too withdrawn to have gotten to know an omega the usual way. Something else is happening here. He deliberately avoid omegas. Acts like he’s repulsive to them.
Consider his history. His scars. His isolation.
Wraith’s relationships with people have always been. .. complicated.”
“I mean… true,” Whiskey says at length. “Bro’s so shy and aloof, he’s practically a cryptid. Unless he found one as feral and unhinged as he is.”
I sigh. “Perhaps.”
Whiskey’s already pacing again like a grizzly bear in a cage. If even I feel like the walls are closing in to the extent my skin is prickling with awareness, Whiskey is certainly feeling it too. It’s no wonder Wraith likes it down here. It’s practically a labyrinth.
“We should go,” I say, already turning to head back the direction we came from. “The energy is off in here.”
“Nah. I wanna keep looking.”
I frown at him. “For what, exactly? Didn’t you just say yourself Wraith must have taken her to the pack house?”
Whiskey shrugs his big shoulders, but the movement isn’t as casual as usual. He’s tense. “Clues and shit.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “We don’t need clues right now. We can come back later.”
He ignores me, lumbering off in the other direction.
“Whiskey!” I call after him, unable to keep the frustration from bleeding into my voice.
He flips me off.
Oh, for the love of—
I growl under my breath, jogging after him. “We have to go before this place makes us lose our minds. The darkness, the shadows, the scent—it’s all too much. We have to leave.”
“Wraith manages just fine.”
“Wraith is already feral, Whiskey.”
Whiskey still isn’t stopping. Against my better judgment, I reach out and catch him by the sleeve.
That does it.
Whiskey rounds on me and his body slams into mine, crushing me against the wall with enough force to expel the air from my lungs.
"You want me to calm down?" he growls, his breath hot against my ear as his furnace-hot body presses against my front and his thigh shoves between mine, pinning me in place like a moth to a board. "Maybe you should fuckin' make me."
The pressure of his thick thigh pressing against my groin sends a confusing jolt through me. I don't even think he meant to do that, but I'm afraid he'll notice how my spine goes rigid at the contact.
Fuck.
I try to shift away but there's nowhere to go. Just more Whiskey. He's a goddamn mountain of muscle beneath all the padding, and even though I’m not much shorter than him, he easily weighs twice what I do.
My heart hammers so hard I swear he must feel it. Heat prickles in my face, my neck, pools low in my groin like liquid fire where his thigh grinds against my cock.
I can’t be getting fucking hard from this.
This isn't—we don't—
"What exactly is happening here?" I barely recognize my own voice, strangled and stripped of its usual cool control.
His eyes lock on mine, honey-brown nearly eclipsed by black. His massive hands bracket my head against the wall, fingers splayed on the damp tile. For a second, his gaze drops to my mouth behind the mask, lingering there as if he can see through the fabric.
He wouldn’t try to kiss me.
Would he?
If he does, I’ll bite his fucking lips off.
He blinks, suddenly coming back to himself, then takes a step back, raking a hand through his messy brown hair. "Fuck."
It takes me a moment to remember to breathe. When I do, I straighten my coat and step sideways, putting more space between us. My legs feel like they’ve gone to jelly.
“We need to go,” I say hoarsely, hoping for once he fucking listens. “We’ll find her. I promise you that. But not by acting like feral alphas. We give him three days to tell us on his own, and if he doesn’t, we confront him together.”
He nods, the tension gradually easing from his shoulders. "Yeah. You're right."
"I usually am."
That earns me a ghost of his usual smile. "Fuck you, pretty boy."