Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
ORION
I woke aching and sore, but more sated than I had ever been in my entire life. The day before was hazy, but it didn’t take long for humiliation to creep up my spine when I remembered how shameless I had been. How the heat had crept over me, how I had rolled over and begged for Zane to take me.
I wasn’t sure how I’d ever be able to look him in the eye again—assuming he remembered what happened. But that, somehow, made it worse. Knowing he had no control, that he was all instinct and rut, and I hadn’t been able to stop my heat?
The humans had done this, of course. They had forced our hands and removed our choice, but I should have run. The moment I felt the heat creeping up on me, I should have lost myself in the woods until it passed. I would have left Zane undefended, but he would have remained undefiled, and I had to trust he could have taken care of himself in the few days it took for the heat to pass.
Now, I would have to live with this for the rest of my life, and if he ripped my throat out, it was the least I deserved.
Rolling onto my back, I realized I was still sticky with slick and covered in his scent. The last vestiges of the heat were fading, but not fast enough to stop me from burying my face in the pillow and breathing in a chest full of us . It settled something in me I hadn’t realized was worked up, and I forced myself to stand because it wasn’t fair to linger like that.
I felt a small pang of nerves when I realized Zane wasn’t in the room, but a quick hunt found him passed out in the bedroom at the far end of the hall. He was clothed, and he looked clean. No trace of my scent remained on him, and I wasn’t sure what that meant.
But he didn’t stir when I stood there, so I hurried to the bathroom and started the shower.
The hot water was a balm to my aching muscles, even if washing him off my skin made my gut ache. As I scrubbed, my fingers brushed over the curve of my neck, and I was hit with a sudden memory of his teeth there. Of him wanting to bite me, and me having just enough sense to stop him.
I felt hollow now, knowing what might have been, but I knew it was foolish. Even if I still had Omega in me now, it wouldn’t last forever. I couldn’t let Zane wake up from his torture to find himself bonded for life to a Beta. Even if he found it in himself to forgive me for the heat, he wouldn’t have ever looked at me again if I had allowed him to make it permanent.
He had knotted me, and I still felt stretched out, but that wouldn’t last. Eventually I would only have the foggy memories of what it was like to be pinned down and possessed by the only Wolf who had ever set my heart racing.
A small part of me wanted to send a letter to my ex-fiancé and tell her that I was sorry. That she was right to leave me, because I had never loved her enough. What she and I shared paled in comparison to the rush I got when Zane looked at me and that still wasn’t love.
Or at least, I didn’t think it was.
But I had fooled myself into thinking that I could have been content with her—settling for her, allowing her to settle for me. We had been at war, but it was still wasted time, and now that I knew what real desire felt like, I knew I couldn’t accept anything less. Even if it meant never tasting it again.
With a groan, I turned off the water, then dried off with perfunctory swipes of a towel. I hadn’t been brave enough to look in the mirror yet, and it was too foggy to see myself clearly as I rummaged through the cabinet and found a couple of unopened tooth brushes.
As my mouth filled with the taste of mint, though, the steam began to clear. I watched it rise from my chest to my chin, then to my nose, and eventually I could see myself entirely. My eyes were still shining orange, and I allowed the fear to overtake me.
My heart raced, my palms sweat where I was gripping the sink, and I felt like I was shivering from a fever.
How? How was I still not myself?
I jumped a foot in the air when a fist pounded on the bathroom door, and I spit toothpaste under the running water before turning it off. “Just a sec.”
As I fumbled for clothes, I heard the sound of Zane’s heart, an even thump. He said nothing, but I could smell his scent from under the door, and I realized he must have heard my panic attack.
“I’m fine, okay? Just…I’ll be out in a minute. I’m getting dressed.”
He didn’t say anything—likely he couldn’t. His only two words so far in the throes of my heat were a miracle in themselves. I listened for the sound of his footsteps, and the moment he was away, I slipped out the door and hurried to the second bedroom.
I would have given anything to have something besides sweats, but they were comfortable on my still-sensitive skin. As I dressed, I felt an overwhelming urge to call Kor and confess everything, but I could only imagine what he’d tell me.
‘ It wasn’t your fault. You had no control .’
I didn’t want to be absolved by him. That was too fucking easy.
Gathering what little courage I had, I made my way into the living room and found Zane sitting on the sofa. He was tense, his shoulders drawn up high, and his eyes were clear and flashed bright yellow, fixed on me as I took a few steps closer.
He stiffened a little, but not the way he’d been doing before. His lips parted on a breath, and I saw his fangs were gone. He tracked me as I sank down into the chair, and he folded his arms over his chest, looking very much like the Alpha I had seen last in Corland.
And then I realized he probably was.
“You’re back,” I said.
He swallowed thickly, his jaw working like speaking took effort. “Whatever they were giving me, it’s passing.”
I let out a breath of relief, though part of me—a sick, terrified part—was going to miss when he felt free to reach out and touch me, and want me, without reservation. “I’m glad. Are you…are you injured? Do you need…?”
“I’m fine,” he said, his voice tight, and I couldn’t help my wince. He didn’t soften though, but he didn’t stop staring either. “I spoke with Kor this morning. He said you need to stop taking that shit my brother gave you.”
I winched and glanced out the window over his shoulder. “I left that back in DC.”
Zane leaned forward over his knees. “When was the last time you took it?”
“The morning I rescued you,” I told him. I let out a puff of air, then reached up and squeezed the back of my neck in an attempt to self-soothe the writhing panic threatening to take over my body. “I thought it would wear off by now, but Danyal warned me that we didn’t know enough about the effects on a Wolf taking it long term.”
“And yet you decided to pump that shit into your body?” he asked on a growl.
I looked at him, my eyes narrowed, and I realized that in spite of his Alpha posturing, I felt no need to submit. I didn’t know if it was because the serum was wearing off, or because he had knotted me just hours before, but I was grateful for it, whatever it was. “It was the only way to get the information we needed and be able to drag your ass home,” I snapped. “A thank you might be nice.”
He stared with wide eyes. “You could have fucking died . You…” He stopped abruptly, and I desperately wished I knew what he’d been about to say. “You want me to thank you for this?”
“Yes,” I told him, lifting my chin. “Because we need your dumb ass. You were not expendable, Zane.”
His silence only served to make me angrier, and instead of picking a fight, I stood up and stormed out of the cabin. I snagged the phone on my way, and when I was a hundred feet from the door, I punched in Kor’s contact and listened to it ring.
Three, then four passed, and I was certain I was going to get a voicemail when the one person I didn’t want to speak to picked up. “Orion.”
I closed my eyes. “Misha. I need to speak to…”
“I know, but he’s with Francisco and Theo right now,” he interrupted, sounding actually apologetic. “He asked me to answer if it was you.”
I didn’t want to take my anger out on Kor’s Omega. The kid didn’t deserve it. Hell, no one did. “Look, I just need to talk to Danyal, okay? I know Kor didn’t want any communication going wild, but…”
Misha sucked in his breath, and I went silent. “I thought he told you this morning.”
“I didn’t speak to him this…” I stopped when I realized it had been Zane’s call. “That wasn’t me. Zane woke up from whatever fog the humans had him under.”
I heard Misha let out a tired sigh, and then the sound of something soft, like he’d sat down on a bed. “Right, I forgot.” He went quiet a long moment, like he was bracing himself for something. “Danyal’s missing.”
My heart immediately began to speed up. “I’m sorry, what?”
“We think Danyal went to look for Zane,” Misha said. “When we got word that Nadya had to light up ComTech, and you didn’t get to the burner Kor sent in the time he had anticipated, we all sort of assumed that you uh…were taken.”
It’s what I would have assumed. “So, he just went after Zane?”
Misha made a soft noise of assent. “We don’t really know. All we know is that left in the middle of the night. Mikael managed to tap into a traffic cam, and we saw the humans take him.”
“That stupid fucking bastard,” I spat. “Zane knows?”
“Kor must have told him this morning. He called a few hours ago.”
Before I woke, I realized. Zane had gotten up early—found himself tangled in me with the evidence of what we’d done covering his skin. It was obvious now why I found him cleaned up and as far away from me as he could get.
My stomach roiled, and it was a miracle I didn’t sick up all over the ground. “What’s the plan, then?” I hated asking Misha, but I appreciated that Kor kept him up to date because I knew it would be a while before I heard from my Alpha.
“Mikael went after Danyal. We have all the information now. It spread to the government, of course—both sides, but it was enough. Nadya’s got the code for all the labs and all the experiments the humans have been working on, and she’s going to call Kor when she’s safe and has it decoded.”
Relief hit me like a physical blow, and I staggered back a few steps. “She’s alive?”
Misha laughed. “Yeah. She’s alive. She called us about an hour before we heard from you. She was hurt, but healing, and she’s heading out of the country. It’ll be a while though. And you two…”
“I get it,” I told him. I didn’t need to hear it aloud—how Zane and I were trapped here, how it would be longer than we thought because everything had gone to hell and back at ComTech. And while the world knew at least some of the atrocities committed by the humans, we still weren’t safe to exist in public.
“There’s a lot more,” Misha said, “but I know Kor wants to be able to talk to you about it when he gets there. I promise it won’t be forever.”
I hadn’t expected that the human Omega could soothe me, but speaking to him calmed the storm in my gut in ways I couldn’t describe. Maybe that was his power. Maybe that helped Kor as he came out of the months of torment and still found himself capable of falling in love.
Or maybe, in spite of my never giving him a chance, Misha was simply a good and kind person.
It wasn’t a crisis I needed right then, so I brushed it aside. “Thanks. Just…tell that fucker to call me. I don’t want to be sitting on my ass here without some idea of how badly shit is falling apart.”
“You won’t be left in the dark,” Misha promised.
I said a quick goodbye, then glanced back at the house, unsure how I was going to manage living with the man I had taken advantage of. But it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.