10. Cayenne
Chapter 10
Cayenne
The day has delivered two lethal alphas—one feral and one controlled, a gothic omega, and a panic-prone beta into my life. Now, watching them move through their territory with lethal grace, I wonder if maybe Malachi knows exactly what he’s doing by sending me here. These men aren’t just protectors—they’re beautifully broken pieces that somehow fit together into something deadly.
Not that I’m intimidated. Turned on? Absolutely.
The heat between my thighs hasn’t faded since Jinx pinned me to the concrete, his fractured violence transforming into something almost tender. The memory draws his attention, those predator eyes catching mine with a knowing gleam that makes me want to test just how feral he can get.
The pack moves with an unconscious synchronicity that makes my skin prickle with alien recognition—when Ryker shifts left, Finn automatically adjusts right without even looking; when Theo reaches for something, Jinx’s hand is already extending to pass it. Their bodies maintain precise distances like satellites in stable orbit, communicating through a language of microexpressions and subtle scent changes my beta senses can only partially decode. I stand apart, watching the invisible currents that flow between them like magnetic fields I can almost see but can’t fully comprehend—and I wonder what happens when you introduce an unstable element into a perfectly balanced chemical reaction.
My stomach growls, breaking the tension that’s been building since the gatehouse. “So, what’s for dinner?”
They freeze mid-motion like someone hit pause on a nature documentary—Ryker’s foot suspended above the next step, Jinx’s hand arrested in its journey toward his knife, Finn’s glasses caught halfway up his nose. Their gazes ping-pong between each other in a silent communication system refined over years: widened eyes from Finn, a microscopic head shake from Ryker, Jinx’s almost imperceptible shrug. The millisecond-long exchange concludes with their collective attention swiveling back to me in perfect unison, their body language shifting from deadly predators to awkward bachelors so quickly it gives me conversational whiplash.
“Ah, well, see...” Theo trails off, running his thumb across his bottom lip in a way that shouldn’t be legal.
Finn adjusts his glasses. “What would you like us to order?”
“No.” Jinx’s pupils dilate as he steps toward me, all coiled tension and protective instinct. “No one enters.”
Something in my chest tightens at their awkward concern. These lethal men who can probably kill in a hundred different ways, brought low by the concept of cooking dinner. It’s almost endearing, in a completely dysfunctional way.
“Not even two hours here,” I mutter, shouldering past them into the house. “I’ll fucking cook. Please tell me you at least have ingredients.”
The kitchen that greets me is a travesty. State-of-the-art appliances covered in takeout containers, granite counters disappearing under what looks like weeks of bachelor living. It’s exactly what I should expect from a pack of alpha special operators and their artistically inclined omega.
“I’ll clean.” Finn sets his tablet on the counter, and for a moment, the tech-starved part of my brain calculates exactly how fast I could hack it. But Ryker watches me like he can read the code running through my head, so I just flash him my sweetest smile and head for the fridge.
Time to see what other surprises this pack has in store.
I open the fridge to a surprising abundance. For men who apparently live on takeout, they keep a well-stocked kitchen. Not that they seem to know what to do with any of it. The chaos of their living space extends into the fridge—premium ingredients tossed in haphazardly like they’re playing refrigerator Tetris.
“Can someone play music?” I ask, burying my head deeper into the cold as I consider my options. Chicken and dumplings? Maybe Korean fire chicken with cheese? Something about feeding these dangerous men makes me want to create chaos on a plate.
“On it,” Theo says, his voice oddly breathless.
The first notes of piano filter through the kitchen, and I nearly drop the cheese I’m holding. I turn to find Theo settled at a piano I hadn’t noticed before, tucked into what appears to be an indoor greenhouse. The moonlight streams through glass panels overhead, casting him in an ethereal glow that stops my breath.
He doesn’t just play—each finger caresses the keys as though they’re living skin, coaxing sounds that bypass my ears and strike directly at something primal in my chest. His eyes half-close, lashes casting shadows across cheekbones as his body sways slightly, each movement rippling through his muscles like water over stones.
The room’s temperature seems to fluctuate with the melody—warming during crescendos, cooling in the quiet spaces between notes. Around me, all movement ceases—Finn’s cloth frozen mid-wipe, Ryker’s breath suspended between inhale and exhale, Jinx’s usually restless body gone completely still as the music physically rewires our nervous systems.
I’ve always understood, intellectually, why omegas are considered nature’s perfect creation.
But watching Theo in his element, I finally understand what poets mean about beauty hurting. His eyelashes cast shadows across sharp cheekbones as his smile curves with private joy, and something in my chest physically constricts—an ache that spreads outward like ripples in still water. My skin pebbles despite the kitchen’s warmth, tiny hairs rising along my arms as notes penetrate deeper than sound should travel, reaching places inside me that have never known touch. Even with my dulled beta senses, I feel his omega nature calling to something primal in me, something that recognizes perfection and instinctively yearns toward it like plants seeking sunlight.
And that’s exactly why I have to look away.
Because I can see myself fitting here. Can see Theo being my omega, can imagine belonging to this pack of beautiful disasters. But I barely catch his scent—vanilla and jasmine so faint it might as well be a dream. I’ve never felt less than for being beta, but right now, watching him create magic while I can barely sense his omega perfection...
Focus on dinner. Focus on surviving. Focus on anything but how right this feels.
I throw myself into cooking, letting the familiar motions ground me. The chicken goes under hot water to defrost while I gather ingredients for the sauce. Garlic, cloves, cheese, soy sauce, rice—not everything I need, but enough to work with.
Jinx appears beside me, hopping onto the counter like an overgrown cat. He’s abandoned any pretense of cleaning, but that’s not my problem. I’m just grateful they haven’t locked me in the basement again.
“What are ya making?” he asks, eyeing the sauce I’m mixing. His fingers wiggle in a clear request for a taste.
Any other time, I’d play with him—dip my finger in the sauce and watch those predator eyes darken as I feed him. But it’s been a day of too many emotions, too many possibilities I can’t afford to consider. Instead, I hand him the spoon, focusing on the chicken sizzling in the pan.
He moans around the taste, the sound pure sin. “Oh hell, that’s good.”
“Keep praising me, Havoc.” I wink at him because I can’t seem to help myself. “Gets me wet.”
His lips twitch, voice dropping to a register meant only for me. “I know.” He taps his nose confirming what I already knew.
The kitchen falls into a rhythm—Theo’s music providing the backdrop as Finn and Ryker restore some semblance of order to their space. It’s peaceful. Quiet. The kind of domestic moment that makes me think dangerous thoughts about belonging.
I hate it.
“About that drive.” Ryker breaks the silence, because of course he does. I glance over my shoulder to find him leaning against the island, all controlled power barely contained. Finn slides onto a stool beside him, those clever eyes watching me like I’m a puzzle he’s determined to solve.
Jinx continues swinging his legs beside me, decimating the bag of cheese one handful at a time.
“What about it?” I keep my tone light as I work the chicken, but tension creeps back into my shoulders.
“I think it’s time you tell us what’s on it.”
The music falters, then stops. Theo materializes at the counter like a gothic specter summoned by secrets.
“That wasn’t the deal.” I inject some sing-song playfulness into my voice, but my hands tighten on the tongs.
“There was a deal?” Jinx’s eyebrows shoot up. “Holding out on us, boss?”
Ryker rolls his eyes, but it’s Finn who answers. “The deal was to build trust.”
“With high-stakes trust falls,” I snort, focusing on the chicken like it holds the secrets of the universe.
“Tell me more.” Jinx’s voice carries that edge of focused intensity that I’m learning means trouble.
“We build trust for her to tell us what’s on the drive,” Finn explains, like it’s that simple.
But it’s not simple. Nothing about this is simple. While I’m playing house with my deadly new roommates, betas are dying. Sterling Labs is hunting me, desperate to keep their secrets buried. If I could just access one computer, one phone—I could blast their data across every news network in the country.
“Your chicken is burning,” Jinx points out.
“It’s not burnt.” I bare my teeth in something approximating a smile, spatula clutched like a weapon. “It’s crispy.”
“Out!” The command slices through the kitchen’s chaos, carrying that distinctive omega resonance that bypasses thought and targets muscle response. My spine automatically straightens while goosebumps race up my arms. “All of you out. Go clean the dining room. Off you go.”
Jinx grumbles but complies, pressing a sloppy kiss to my forehead that I definitely don’t lean into. The others file out, leaving me alone with an omega who sees too much.
The panic I’ve been fighting all day surges upward like bile, coating my tongue with a metallic taste while my peripheral vision narrows to pinpricks. My skin feels too tight, nerves firing in random patterns like a system reboot gone wrong.
I rub my fingertips together—the calluses from years of typing feel hypersensitive, screaming for the familiar click of keyboards. Behind my eyes, lines of code scroll endlessly, solutions and exploits and backdoors I could implement if I just had thirty seconds with a connected device, just thirty seconds to breathe in the digital world where I’m not trapped in this limited physical form with its messy emotions and illogical reactions and?—
“I know that look.” Theo rests his hip against the counter, and sweet hell, those leather pants with his partially unbuttoned shirt should be classified as a weapon of mass destruction.
“What look?”
“Like you’re going to run.”
“I’m not going to run.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue.
“Liar.” He says it softly, looking away. “I once ran.”
Those three words from Theo— I once ran —carry enough weight to pause my hands on the pan. It’s not just the words, but the way he says them. Like each syllable costs him something precious. Like he’s offering me a piece of himself I’m not sure I deserve.
“Once?” I prompt, returning to the chicken because it’s easier than looking at the raw honesty in his expression.
“A long time ago.” His profile could be carved from marble, all sharp Italian features and hidden depths. “My parents expected an alpha. They demanded an alpha. From the moment I breathed into this world, they groomed me for it.”
I sneak glances at him between stirs. His eyes have gone distant, seeing something beyond the kitchen’s gleaming surfaces. I say nothing. Sometimes silence says more than words.
“I presented at thirteen.” A sad smile plays at his lips. “My family... they hated it. In one moment, I lost everything.”
“What do you mean?” The words escape before my brain can intercept them, hanging in the steam-thickened air between us as chicken sizzles and hisses in punctuation.
“I was no longer an alpha heir but an omega problem they had to solve.” His voice drops to a register that vibrates in my chest cavity rather than my eardrums. The temperature around him seems to plummet, goosebumps rising on my forearms even across the heat of the stove. His face remains perfectly composed, but the pain emanating from him hits my skin like cold rain, each droplet carrying fragments of memory too heavy for words alone. “They arranged my marriage at the ripe age of sixteen.”
The tongs clatter against the counter as rage floods my system. “The fuck they did.”
“They did.” His smirk holds years of defiance. “But without going into too much detail... I ran. To America. When Jinx found me and I knew we were a scent match, I ran again.”
“From a scent match?” The concept rocks me. In a world where compatible scents are rarer than winning lottery tickets, running from one seems impossible.
He shrugs one elegant shoulder. “I had my reasons.” The words come soft, measured. “The important thing is that I didn’t need to run. And I knew this. All I had to do was look deep inside and realize it was okay to allow others to have my back. I didn’t need to do it all alone.”
Tears burn behind my eyes and I turn back to the stove, pretending it’s just steam from the pan. But Theo’s words hit too close to home. I’m the strong one. The one everyone else leans on. Me.
“Will you think about it before you run?”
My throat feels too tight. “Maybe.”
“Good.” He pushes off the counter with fluid grace, entering my space with deliberate slowness. His nostrils flare as he inhales—not the predatory assessment of an alpha but something more artistic, as if cataloging notes in a complex perfume. The gesture should feel invasive, but instead warmth blooms beneath my skin like sunlight breaking through clouds. “Because even if you do run,” he whispers, close enough that his vanilla-jasmine scent wraps around me like silk ribbons, “I think Jinx would love the chase.”
The implications of that—of being caught, of being kept—send heat rushing through me that has nothing to do with the stove. “Dinner’s ready,” I manage to gasp out.
But as I dish up the food, I can’t help wondering—when was the last time someone chased me because they wanted me to stay, not because they wanted me gone?