6. Seraphina
6
SERAPHINA
J ere pulled the Bryce Solutions armored SUV to a stop in the middle of the parking lot. The boys lowered their weapons and watched him warily as he climbed out of the car, his heavy boots hitting the asphalt with none of his usual creeper stealth.
He wasn’t kitted out tonight and only wore a simple gray T-shirt and fitted cargo pants. His fire-red hair had only just started graying at the temples, and he had it in a rockabilly haircut these days that made my mom act very stupid around him. His ghostly pale skin was just visible between his myriad of intricate tattoos, and his ridiculous biceps flexed as he slowly and deliberately shrugged on his shoulder holsters, a Glock tucked neatly into each one.
He ambled our way.
“Your dad’s an Alpha?” Blaze asked, his voice a touch higher than its usual silky tenor.
Oh right, I was a beta right now. At least I only had one father on the premises, and he was the one I actually looked like. The other three would’ve blown my cover right out of the water.
“My mom’s a beta,” I supplied easily as my brain latched onto Dylan’s family. “Alpha-beta married couple. Met in the Army.”
Jere came to a stop in front of us, his boots just a few feet from the pool of blood that surrounded the bodies on the ground. He paid it no mind, instead running his cool gaze across the guys, who were looking at him like he was a snake that might bite their heads off at any moment.
I smothered a laugh. Jere was an unsettling presence on his best day, and Loki, Blaze, and Hawk had to stand there while he looked them over and pretend they didn’t do disrespectful things to his daughter last night.
Jere’s eyes widened the tiniest little bit as he took in the guys and their uniforms. He probably knew who Sentinel was and hadn’t expected to run into its men on one of our projects.
“Jere, this is Loki, Blaze, and Hawk,” I said, flapping a hand at them. “Guys, this is my dad, Jericho.”
Jere frowned at me before he wiped all emotion from his face—returning to his factory settings. “What’s happening here?” he asked me.
“These guys had been investigating Stone as a lead for a job, but I offed him before they could interrogate him and this other dead guy that he was meeting here.”
Jere just nodded like that made total sense. “Shit happens.” He looked at Loki, pegging him as pack leader. “Are you still working the scene, or can I get this mess cleaned up?”
Loki held up the key. “I just pulled this from Stone’s pocket, sir. Sera tells us she saw money exchanged for it, and our intel says he was here to pick up unknown merchandise and potentially deliver it to our target.”
“Ah, tough luck,” Jere said, and he glanced at me with the teeniest, tiniest hint of pride. “My daughter doesn’t miss.”
I preened. If only Henri hadn’t disappeared like a scared little bitch, he could’ve recorded Jere’s words so I could create an EDM jam out of them that I would play for everyone at the next Bryce Family gathering.
“Yes, it was unfortunate, though we were informed that Stone very much had that coming,” Blaze said before he quickly added, “sir.”
Maybe if they called Jere “sir” enough times, he wouldn’t figure out they’d all stuck their dicks in me last night.
Hawk snapped a few photos with his phone, then he bent over Pearl Snaps and dug around in his pockets. He pulled a wallet free and flipped it open. After a quick examination, he frowned. “No ID. And I wasn’t able to get the license plate on the minivan his girlfriend drove out of here like a bat out of hell either.”
“That’s all we need from the bodies,” Loki announced.
“Cool,” I said. “Let’s go see what’s in Room 203. Jere will call our cleanup crew, and they can coordinate with yours or whatever.”
Jere’s phone was already at his ear. “Go,” he grunted, waving us away.
I grabbed Blaze’s hand this time and began to pull him toward the east stairwell. He’d removed his helmet at some point in the last ten minutes, and his thick black hair was now stuck to his forehead. He was no less hot like this than he’d been last night with his sex-tousled hair as he’d stared into my eyes and pounded into me with brutal perfection.
As I linked our fingers, he shot me a look of mild alarm at such a casual display of affection in front of my father.
For me, it was a shot across the bow.
I snorted. “Afraid of my dad, Blaze?”
“Honestly, yes,” he replied. Loki and Hawk grunted in agreement as they followed behind us. “We’ve been in this business for a few years now. I know a dangerous Alpha when I see one.”
I chuckled. “Jere’s docile unless provoked. Or have you done something that might provoke him?”
Blaze swallowed roughly as we began to climb the stairs. That was a sexy throat if there ever was one. “You mean besides rail his daughter twelve ways to Sunday in a dirty fucking motorcycle clubhouse?”
“Shh,” Hawk hissed. “He might hear you.”
We came to a stop in front of Room 203, which overlooked the front parking lot and gave us a prime view of the bodies on the pavement below. Loki pushed to the front and produced the key.
“Excuse me, Lamb,” he said as he wrapped a large hand around the back of my neck. He shifted me to the side so that he could take my place in front of the door. “We don’t know what may be waiting for us in there.”
I huffed indignantly, but it came out as more of a squeak as Blaze pulled me into his arms and held me still. “Shh, Princesa. Let Loki be the hero for a second—he’s still coming to grips with the fact that our little spitfire is a better shot than him.”
“We have snipers on staff for that shit,” he grumbled as he turned the key in the lock. “I can’t do fucking everything.”
Loki also hadn’t spent every Sunday night for two years with Heather St. James, blowing holes in Coke cans from half a mile away, so he was forgiven.
As soon as he’d pushed the door open, the thick scent of raspberry dessert and rich chocolate blasted us in the face.
It was muddied by the stale air of the room, but the sour tinge of fear came through loud and clear.
“Stop!” I commanded, darting from Blaze’s embrace and throwing myself into the doorway in front of Loki. The boys stood stock-still, their pupils blown wide and their Alpha brains on overload at the smell of omegas in distress. “Do not move,” I growled at them.
“Sera, if there are omegas in there, we have to help,” Loki said through gritted teeth. “We aren’t a danger to them.”
I stayed right where I was. “Is this what your client is selling?” I hissed. “Is their stolen product omega girls?”
They frowned at me, Hawk looking particularly wounded. “Of course not,” he replied. “Our client is a pharmaceutical company. Stone and his VP broke into their lab and stole an experimental drug.”
I relaxed the tiniest bit. “Fine. But you’re still not going in there.”
Loki speared me with that ethereal gaze. “Why not?”
“Because there’s protocol here,” I snapped. That sexy frost giant wasn’t going to intimidate me. “Look, I have friends who’ve been rescuing omega girls and women from abusive packs for years, and I went on a raid with them once. I don’t know what the girls inside this room have been through, but I do know that we don’t allow Alpha males around them. Even the good ones. It makes them nervous.”
Loki eyed me for a few tense seconds, then he nodded. The three of them took a few steps away from the door. “Go on, then,” Loki said.
“Not that I needed your permission, but thank you,” I replied primly. “Stay out here unless I call for you.”
Blaze chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Stop encouraging her,” Loki muttered.
Inside, I found a queen-sized bed covered by a moth-eaten quilt, a stained carpet, and a thirty-year old TV atop a rickety dresser. “Hello?” I whispered. “Is everyone okay? I’m here to help you.”
A small whimper sounded from behind the bed. I crept closer and knelt on the floor, peering around into the narrow space between the bed and the wall. Two young girls huddled together there, clearly trying to disappear. Their bronze skin was ashen, their eyes wide with fear. One of them couldn’t have been older than twelve, while the other looked closer to mid-teens. They had matching curly dark hair, big brown eyes, and the sweet and striking pheromones of two maturing omega girls.
I unstrapped my rifle and set it behind me. “Hi,” I said softly. “My name’s Sera. What are yours?”
“Alissa,” the little one chirped, batting her tear-stained lashes at me.
“Shh,” the older one hissed at her. “We don’t know her. She could be with them .”
“I’m not with them,” I replied patiently. “In fact, they are dead.”
The older girl raised a brow. “The smooth-talking man and his wife? The ones that bought us from our parents?”
Ugh, fuck this hellhole of a fucking society of people who prey on little girls. “Well, the smooth-talking man is definitely dead,” I said softly. “My friend Blaze shot him. I shot the man I think he was going to, um, hand you off to. And we definitely scared his wife away.”
“They told my parents they were taking us to be nannies while we got an education like real proper omegas so we could meet a good pack someday,” the older girl said. “I don’t think that was true.”
“No, I suspect it wasn’t,” I replied gently.
“I think my parents believed them because there was a lady there playing the nice auntie. But also I think my parents just really wanted the money they offered for us.”
I sighed, disappointed in the world yet again. At least I knew what to do here. “Would you girls be willing to go on a road trip with me to get you somewhere safe? I don’t want to take you back to your parents.”
Alissa nodded, but the older girl narrowed her big pretty eyes at me. “How do we know we can trust you?”
I took my glove off and held out my bare wrist to them. “Come take a sniff.”
Older sister released Alissa and crawled tentatively in my direction. She hovered her nose over my wrist and sniffed, then she leaned back on her heels and frowned at me. “That’s weird.”
“I’m an omega,” I whispered conspiratorially. “But see, I have this job in the summers where I get to hunt bad guys, so I take the illegal suppressants so no one knows.”
“You aren’t bonded?” Alissa asked. “Aren’t you old enough?”
“I’m twenty-one,” I confirmed. “But I have an OFS exemption.”
They both stared at me like I had two heads, which I understood. OFS omegas—or any omegas—were not usually running around on suppressants doing mercenary work.
“My name’s Rosa,” the older girl said after a minute. “Where will you take us?”
“How does a center for woman and girls run by an Alpha lady and her wife in New Mexico sound? You can get an education and even decide whether you want to continue to be an omega or start taking suppressants so that you don’t have to bond with anyone, ever, if you don’t want to.”
Rosa perked up. “Yes, please.”
I clapped my hands. “Perfect. Let’s get you out of this dump and on your way to a new life.”
I helped them out from behind the bed. They gathered their ratty backpacks, which contained everything they’d been allowed to bring, and I escorted them to the door.
The guys waited for us there, all three of them leaning up against the railing in a neat little line of black-clad manliness. I kept my body in between them and the girls, though a glance over my shoulder showed the two of them eyeing the guys with more curiosity than fear.
“Girls, these are my friends Loki, Blaze, and Hawk,” I told them. “Gentlemen, this is Rosa and her little sister Alissa. Pearl Snaps and his wife purchased them from their parents with promises of a job, an education, and a way into a pack of a certain social status. Your boy Stone must’ve been in the process of procuring them for your target for unknown and nefarious reasons.”
“Shit,” Blaze said. “We had no idea.”
“Blaze, language ,” Hawk whispered.
Alissa giggled.
“I’ll take them from here,” I continued. “My friends have a network and a place they’ll be safe.”
“And where is that?” Loki asked, quirking a blond brow.
“The Eastern New Mexico Women’s Center.”
“Can we help?” Hawk asked.
“Yes, you can help by figuring out who the hell is trafficking omegas and stealing experimental drugs and what those two things have to do with each other.”
“Easy, Lamb,” Loki said, his nostrils flaring, but his heated gaze said he wasn’t that mad at being bossed around by me, a lamb . “We know how to do our jobs.”
I smirked, then I leaned over the railing. “Jere!”
He glanced up from where he was overseeing the two men in hazmat suits scrubbing the parking lot. “What?”
I threw my car keys down to him, and he snatched them out of the air. “I need to borrow your car. Mine’s parked at the Dairy Freeze a quarter mile down the road.”
The girls would probably appreciate the roomy SUV more than my little black Miata that I’d insisted on as my company car.
“Fine,” he said, studying the group of us as we stared down at the scene. “New Mexico?”
“I’ll see if Daisy can meet me in Sweetriver,” I replied. “I’ll call her on the way.”
He just nodded. My parents were in the circle of trust regarding the omega rescue network that the St. James family helped run, and they’d become huge supporters. The Center was now twice as big as it used to be thanks to a very large “anonymous donation” that had come from my father, Jonathan.
“That’s my dad,” I told the girls as I motioned for them to follow me down the stairs. The boys trailed a respectful distance behind us. I leaned in to whisper, “One of them.”
“Are Loki and Blaze and Hawk your boyfriends?” Alissa asked, a bit too loudly.
I winked at her, then just as loudly, I said, “They were for one night.”
Deep chuckles sounded behind us. “Lucky us,” Hawk said, and I could hear his smile.
We marched across the parking lot to Jere’s car, which was still running with the keys in the ignition. The guys looked on curiously as I loaded Rosa into the front seat and Alissa into the back. After unlocking the center console with my fingerprint, I dug through Jere’s various weapons and produced a tablet. Tongue between my teeth, I fiddled with the apps until I located an age-appropriate movie on a streaming app, then I hit Play and handed it to Alissa.
She snatched the tablet eagerly from my hands, and Rosa shot me a grateful smile from the passenger seat.
“Sit tight,” I told them. “I’ll be right back.”
Loki was on his phone, running his fingers through the strands of the white-blond hair that he kept long on the top of his head, a striking contrast to the shaved sides. When I’d met him last night, he’d had it in a little knot, which made him look like he truly had descended from Valhalla to please me with his giant dick.
Blaze and Hawk were listening intently to his conversation. I hopped from the car and trotted their way. At my approach, Loki ended the call and shoved the phone into his pocket, a smile curling his lips. “Have you come to tell us goodbye, Lamb?”
“I have, actually,” I replied. “I’m a little sorry I screwed up your investigation, but I’m not sorry to have gotten closure for my client.” My cheeks heated as scenes from last night flashed through my brain, and I couldn’t help but grin. “And I’m also not sorry to have gotten to see you guys again.”
“Mmm, could’ve fooled us,” Blaze purred. “With the way you snuck out this morning. We’d been a bit concerned for your safety, but I suppose that wasn’t warranted.”
I shrugged casually, still fighting my face to not look so fucking smitten. “I do okay sneaking in and out of places.”
Hawk glanced over his shoulder, confirmed Jere was occupied, and stepped closer to me so that he could sweep a tendril of my hair behind my ear. “I think maybe we’ll run into you again, Little Flame,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
My stomach gave a not-unpleasant flip at that thought. There was little chance they wouldn’t figure out Jere was Jericho Bryce, so it wouldn’t take much effort to find me if they really wanted to.
And woo, buddy, they’d get a shock if they did.
But they had better shit to do than chase me around the state—like a pretty damn important investigation to see through.
And I was headed back to my real life, where I wasn’t a steady-handed killer, a rescuer of omegas, or a carefree beta girl looking for a little fun with some sexy Alpha men.
Where I wasn’t just Sera . Or Loki’s lamb, Blaze’s princesa , or Hawk’s little flame.
I was Seraphina Bryce, youngest omega daughter to the Bryce Pack. I’d return to my prison at the OFS, and I would have to face the fact that my parents were shoving me into a bonding that I had no intention of seeing through.
My baggage was mountainous, and I didn’t want these boys to see any of it.
I wanted them to remember me as they knew me here tonight.
I tilted my head up and pulled Hawk’s lips to mine. He grunted in shock before accepting it for what it was.
Goodbye.
“It’s not a good idea,” I whispered. “I’ll think about you guys, though. Especially during my alone time.”
Hawk groaned under his breath before he stepped back to stand next to Loki and Blaze. There was a challenge lurking in Loki’s gaze as he watched me climb back into my car. Blaze winked at me, and Hawk gave me an adorable little wave.
I took a deep breath, then I shifted into Drive. Life was going to march on with or without me, and I had to just fucking deal with it.
But first, I needed to call Daisy.