4. Seraphina
4
SERAPHINA
“ I still just cannot believe you .”
Henri was using his shrillest whisper as he berated me through my earbuds. This was par for the course from my fathers’ assistant, who I’d made into my co-conspirator and friend over these past few years as I’d learned my dad’s trade.
“ Like it’s not bad enough that you and Jericho have made me complicit in your schemes?—”
“My training and missions are not schemes , Henri.”
“— such that I have to lie to my real bosses, your other fathers ?—”
“No one told you to lie?—”
“ But no, now you have also made me complicit in you, an omega from one of the most powerful packs in the entire state, having a dirty fucking foursome with some random Alpha bikers! ”
I sighed, making my last nick in the fence with my wire cutters. “I checked in with you multiple times, and I never took my watch off. You know I would’ve sent the emergency signal if something had gone wrong.”
But I’d been confident it wasn’t going to. That MC bar had been full of slimeballs, but I’d known my three were different, somehow.
“ Oh, yes, sure ,” he hissed. “ You would’ve sent the signal, and I would’ve had to send in Jericho, the world’s scariest man, who is also your father, to murder some Alpha bikers you decided to bang because you’re angry .”
I pulled the piece of wire fencing away, creating a small hole just wide enough for me to squeeze through. “Angry does not even come close to what I’m feeling, Henri.”
“ I know, babe ,” he said, gentling his tone. “ I wish things were different. But to be fair, you haven’t even looked at the dossier on the M ?—”
“Don’t say their name,” I snapped. “I don’t care if they’re movie-star hot and spend all their time and money saving puppies. My parents are trying to sell me to them like a broodmare, and the pack is fucking complicit in it. They are nothing to me.”
Dad had not come to his senses over the summer about this bullshit betrothal. In fact, he’d only dug his heels in further. I whined to Jere about it—surely he could see that I was no longer bonded-omega material, and he definitely had the smarts to figure out how to get me out of this—but no dice. He only pointed out that he didn’t think I was the type to let a little something like bonding keep me from doing what I wanted to do, or had he overestimated me?
Fair, but not the point.
So, yeah, with the start of my senior year and all the bullshit that came with it now a week away, I had been feeling a little testy .
A little reckless.
Okay, a little more reckless than usual.
I’d located my mark, ticked the first task of my mission off the list, and decided to indulge my curiosity for a night in an honest-to-God one-percenter motorcycle club bar.
I couldn’t wait to tell Dylan about it.
In all honesty, I’d just been there to gawk and party with the girls, but fate had dropped the three most dangerously gorgeous, delicious-smelling men I’d ever encountered right into my lap.
I’d never wanted something so badly.
Fuck being an omega, fuck this arranged marriage, and fuck my parents.
With Jere’s blessing and Dylan’s help, I took the still-very-illegal suppressants that smothered my omega biology completely and let me appear to be a run-of-the-mill beta woman just long enough to get me through my summers working for Jere. He’d agreed that I’d be safer while I was out and about alone if I wasn’t pumping boozy cherry Alpha-nip into the air everywhere I went.
Dylan had never dared hook up with an Alpha back when she was on the black market suppressants. She’d said it was unpredictable—what if sex with an Alpha revved the omega pheromones so much, they overpowered the suppressant? What if you found yourself knotted and bonded without your consent all because you wanted one night on a fat Alpha cock?
Dylan had a lot more to lose than I did, hiding from the government with plans to be a beta forever—until my brothers crashed into her world. I, on the other hand, was a known omega—I had no cover to blow in the grand scheme. And if I’d gotten any inkling that my bikers had picked up on what I truly was, I had a very sharp pin in my hair that could nick a carotid artery with little effort if they’d tried to take advantage.
But my first—and maybe only —Alpha experience had been… pretty wonderful.
Hawk—so precious and sweet while also walking this earth looking like my dirtiest fantasy. He’d smelled of clove mixed with something decidedly male, and the harsh dichotomy of those nerdy glasses and floppy brown curls alongside a body covered in tattoos and piercings had really done something for me.
His wicked tongue had also really done something for me, and I’d remember it for the rest of my life.
Blaze—also hot as sin, with a killer smile and hazel eyes that had seemed so kind despite the rough edges of the rest of him. His scent had been woodsy and spicy, like relaxing by a firepit on a rare cold night in Texas. His kisses had made me feel like the center of his universe, and he’d fucked me so good that I’d ascended to heaven before floating back down.
And Loki— Jesus, Loki. Smelled like vanilla-bourbon omega crack. Pack leader energy in spades, and I usually hated that bullshit. I had the sense it wasn’t about power for Loki, though, but real and genuine love for Blaze and Hawk. It was a little unexpected to find amongst a group of motorcycle-riding criminals, and I’d jumped right into the middle of it with no hesitation. The way he’d let me lead when we had sex, the way he’d watched me with intensity and devotion with those ice-blue eyes while I made myself comfortable on the biggest cock I’d ever seen, and the way he’d made sure I was taken care of all night long….
It almost made me want an Alpha.
Almost.
My inner omega, asleep all summer but just starting to wake up as I coasted off the suppressant in time to return to school, had the time of her fucking life last night.
Despite my objections to joining a pack, it turned out she could be a slut for a hot Alpha when she wanted. Parading a group of rough biker outlaws in front of her instead of the entitled rich boys that courted at the OFS had been the thing that broke us both.
I was only sorry I hadn’t made a dirty sex tape of my gorgeous bikers as they played my body like a symphony, both for my spank bank and so that Henri could email it to my betrotheds . They’d be horrified that their bride had been so thoroughly sullied, they’d cancel whatever deal they’d made with my dad, and I’d be left alone once again.
I skirted through the shadows, moving toward the back of the rundown motel. My boots met broken asphalt, clumps of tall, dry grass escaping through the cracks.
“Are we still only showing the two people in the front parking lot?” I asked Henri.
I’d had the extreme good fortune of my mark going out on his own only twenty-four hours after I’d stuck a tracker to his motorcycle, so I’d ordered Henri off the couch and away from whatever gay Korean drama he’d been indulging in. He’d tracked my mark via a fancy Bryce Solutions drone from a secure room back at our HQ while I followed in my vehicle.
It’d been a good thing, too, because the asshole had ditched his bike for an unassuming sedan about ten miles into his journey.
“ Yes ,” he replied. “ Just our mark and whoever he’s meeting, but I think there may be a third person waiting in the shitty minivan they’re standing next to .”
Who my mark was meeting didn’t matter. I had one job and one job only. In and out, and then I’d hit the 24-hour cantina I’d passed on the highway a few miles back.
Killing made me hungry for queso.
“ I can’t believe you had three cocks last night ,” Henri said, now sulking instead of lecturing. “ I haven’t even had one in months. Months , Seraphina .”
I shifted my rifle to hang it over my back as I hopped the short metal fence surrounding a swimming pool that’d seen better days. The strap cut into my cumbersome omega boobs, which I’d wrestled into a sports bra for this outing.
My bikers sure liked my boobs . It was one of the rare times I was happy to have them.
“Cheer up, babe,” I said to Henri. “I heard you managed to have an entire sixty-second conversation with Cam last week without drooling or clamming up even once. The boys on Grindr don’t stand a chance now.”
He sniffed. “ I did, actually. Thank you for noticing. You know as well as I do that it should be illegal for that man to be out in public. It’s unfair to the mortals .”
I paused to take in the two stories of rooms that made up the backside of the motel. “Where’s Jere right now?”
“ Parked at a cantina down the road. I’m sure he knows that’s where you’re going after this .”
“Can’t get anything past him,” I muttered.
“ You’re right, and you’re so unbelievably lucky he was out taking care of his own stuff last night when you slinked back to the hotel, stinking of Alpha sex pheromones .”
I did not have a response to that because he was extremely correct. In the moment I’d told myself I didn’t care if Jere knew what I’d been up to.
Oh, did you all think I’d just march into this bonding you’d arranged without putting up a fight?
Look what you made me do.
But in hindsight, I was pretty damn glad I didn’t actually have to deal with the consequences of my actions.
Taking care to tread silently in my boots, I made my way to the side of the motel and climbed the staircase to the second floor. The rooms that faced the pool and the back parking lot were dead silent—no lights, no sounds, no movement. Henri’s quick research on the location after we’d confirmed my mark had stopped here hadn’t made it clear whether this place was even still operational.
“Two minutes,” I said as I eyed the railing in front of the rooms.
“ Get a move on ,” Henri replied. “ I think money just exchanged hands, so our guy is probably out of here in short order .”
“Did he give or receive the money?”
“ Gave it .”
Interesting. But still not my concern.
I climbed the railing and latched onto one of the support beams. It only took a quick shimmy before I was able to grab the lip of the metal roof. What little strength I’d been able to build with Dylan’s guidance after I’d gotten serious about being in shape for more than just inter-OFS swim meets served me well, and I pulled myself up onto the roof with a big heave.
Silently, I army-crawled my way to the front of the building, the lip of the roof giving me just enough cover as I pressed my body into the unforgiving metal. When I was finally in position, I set up my rifle and slid the barrel just over the edge.
There you are, asshole .
Arnold McKinney. Road Name: Stone.
President of the Piney Woods Chapter of the Texas Dark Knights.
Soon-to-be-dead rapist.
His smarmy fucking face was now in my crosshairs. Through the scope, I watched as a middle-aged man with thinning dark hair and a pearl-snap shirt handed Stone what looked like a key.
“Am I clear?” I whispered. The trigger was hot under my gloved finger.
“ The huge pines block the view from the road ,” Henri replied, also whispering. “ And I’m seeing no cars. None approaching the motel, none really even driving by out on the highway .”
“Good.”
I pulled the trigger.
My shot cracked through the night and found its mark.
Stone dropped to the ground, and the guy with him shouted in alarm.
I was already packing up my gun.
Margaritas, here I come .
“ Oh shit, Sera, incoming down below ?—”
“Freeze!” a deep voice boomed.