20. Seraphina
20
SERAPHINA
I paced the creaky wooden floor of the small cabin we’d appropriated for our battle station. The Sentinel team had located a vacation rental on the same inlet as Hart’s lake house, confirmed it hadn’t been rented out and that the owners were at their summer home in Montana, and proceeded to hack into the rental website’s server to pull email communications with the entry code for the door.
While that had been going on, I’d appealed to Jere for a ceasefire concerning my actions earlier this evening given the dire situation Paige was in, and he’d agreed to hold the line against my other parents and dispatched help immediately.
It had been real teamwork under pressure by the four of us, but I couldn’t bask in the glow of feeling competent and useful—or any of the other emotions roiling within me—while Paige was being held hostage, the clock ticking to the onset of the pain of a forced heat.
And with that, the threat of being sexually assaulted by a man she’d admired and respected above almost all others until an hour ago.
Loki held a pair of binoculars to his eyes as he stood at the sliding glass door that led to the cabin’s small back patio and the ramp down to the dock. He and the guys had lost their leather cuts and were now wearing tactical vests over their T-shirts. “I count three guards on the back patio, and the drone picked up another four out front. They’re wearing the same dark blue fatigues as the men who tried to ambush us at Hart’s house.”
Blaze sat on the bulky leather couch nearby. The yellow bulbs of the two lamps set atop end tables on either side of the couch cast a dingy glow over him, and it was all the light we would allow for now. He held a Sentinel tablet that’d been hiding in the center console of the SUV. “Heat signatures show two people in the main living area,” he said, studying it, “and another huddled in the bathroom on the second floor.”
Paige had done what I’d told her to. She’d made a break for it as soon as Hart had led her inside the house, but I suspected he’d wised up and taken her phone because I hadn’t heard a peep from her. Hart was likely waiting for this supposed mini-heat to kick in and banking on Paige being so desperate for cock that she’d come out of her hiding place.
Hawk watched me pace from his spot at the tiny kitchen table. He’d been cataloging what weapons they had stashed in the car for everyday use. A few standard handguns lay on the table in front of him, along with a rifle. It was not one with the long-range mods that I preferred, but I would make it work. We were sorely lacking in firepower at the moment.
“C’mere, Little Flame,” he said.
I directed my pacing his way. He held out an extra tactical vest, and I shucked my leather jacket before sliding it on.
He frowned as he strapped me in. “Too big, but it’ll have to do.”
“I’ll be fine,” I replied. “Fuck, we need to go . It’s been over an hour since he injected her, right? We don’t have much time.”
“Soon, Lamb,” Loki said. “How far out is our backup?”
“Any minute now,” I replied, checking my phone.
Blaze joined Loki at the door, his hazel eyes narrowed as he took in our target, which was about five hundred yards across the small inlet of the much-larger lake. “Is Jericho joining us?” he asked me.
“Um, not quite?—”
A loud knock sounded at the front door. I scurried past Hawk and flung it open.
“About fucking time. Get in here.”
“Oh, it’s nice to see you, too, sis,” Seth said, rolling his eyes. “You’re welcome for dropping everything we were doing on a Saturday night to rush out here to a random lake house with no fucking clue why except that you had an emergency and needed serious help.”
“Spare me your bitching,” I snapped. “Like you were doing anything other than Cam or Dylan.”
Austin stood next to him with Dylan tucked under his arm. He studied me with deep suspicion. “What in the hell have you gotten yourself into, Seraphina? We thought for sure Jere was sending us after you to drag you back to face the executioner for that stunt you pulled tonight, but apparently there’s real trouble?”
“Obviously! Do you want to continue to interrogate me out here or actually make yourselves useful?”
“Everyone, chill,” Dylan said, elbowing Austin. “Just tell us what you need, Sera.”
Cam grinned from Seth’s other side. As usual, he looked like someone ripped him from a painting of a Greek god and stuck him in tactical gear. His long golden hair was tied in a loose knot on the back of his head, which usually meant he was ready to work. “I, for one, can’t wait to get some action this evening,” he said. Seth smirked at him, and he grinned wider. “I mean some additional action of the non-sexual variety.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, rolling my eyes to the sky before marching back inside the cabin.
They followed me into the living room, where the guys stood waiting in a neat line.
“Guys, these are my brothers and?—”
Austin strode forward, suddenly pumping aggression into the air like a fog machine. “What the fuck is this, m?—”
Loki cut him a sharp, dangerous look. “Not now.”
They glared at each other, engaged in some sort of silent pack leader dominance face-off. Blaze and Hawk eyed Austin warily from Loki’s flanks. Seth stepped up next to Austin, aggro pheromones rolling off him in waves. The air around us became thick and cloying.
“Jesus Christ, cut it out,” I said, exasperated, waving a hand in front of my face. “Do your bullshit Alpha posturing when we don’t have an emergency. Guys, these are my brothers, Austin, Seth, and Cameron, and that’s Dylan, their omega. Brothers and Dylan, this is Loki, Blaze, and Hawk.”
Austin’s gaze remained glued to Loki, and his eyes narrowed. “Loki, Blaze, and Hawk?”
“Problem?” Loki asked.
Dylan gasped. “Oh my God . Are these the guys from the motorcycle clubhouse that you….” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
“Had a hot one-night stand with at the end of the summer as an act of defiance? Yep.”
Austin snapped his head in my direction. “You what? ”
“Well, I get it now,” Dylan went on, looking the guys up and down appreciatively. Blaze beamed his winning smile at her, and Hawk shot her a little wink. “And, um, you said they’re all together?”
“Blossom,” Cam chided, tossing an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s not be nosy.” He ran his deep blue gaze over the guys before leaning over to stage-whisper to me, “Is this a vers situation? Loki’s giving pretty serious top energy.”
“ Cameron ,” Seth hissed.
“What in the ever-loving fuck were you thinking?” Austin snarled at me.
“Do not speak to her in that tone,” Loki said, his voice low and threatening. “She was never in danger with us.”
Austin glared at him before turning to me again. “Seraphina?—”
I threw my hands in the air. “What the hell did you all expect after what this family did to me, Austin? Get the fuck over it because obviously these three fine gentlemen are not, in fact, bikers, but instead are operatives with Sentinel, which I found out the following evening when their mark turned out to be one of Jere’s and my special projects.”
Seth scrubbed a tattooed hand down his face, groaning like he was in pain.
Austin crossed his big stupid arms over his big stupid chest to glower at me like the disappointed older brother he was. “We— all of us—” Austin darted a sharp look at the guys, who to their credit, appeared unrepentant. “—will discuss the fact that you, an omega, decided to jump into bed with three unbonded Alphas you thought were bikers, at another time. For now, I’m going to assume that Jere has been actively involving you in his projects , and that’s why he decided it was appropriate to loan you out to these three, and that’s why we’ve found you here, wearing a ballistic vest and a rifle strapped to your back.”
“Yes, yes, catch up,” I said with a huff. “And now my best friend has been kidnapped by our shitbag professor, he’s injected her with an experimental drug that will put her into a mini-heat during which she will allegedly be fertile, and he plans to impregnate her because he’s butthurt that it’s so difficult for betas to have children while we, the Alphas and omegas, get to breed like rabbits. You guys are here to help us save Paige before that happens.”
Austin, Seth, Cameron, and Dylan all stared at me, dumbstruck. Finally, Dylan screeched, “What the fuck ?”
I pointed at her. “Exactly. Let Loki and the guys get you up to speed, please.”
With one last exchange of distrustful looks, the Alphas in the room all settled into professional mode.
Loki crossed his arms over his broad chest, surveying the room as he spoke. “We met Seraphina when one of your clients took out a hit on the man we’d been undercover investigating in the Texas Dark Knights MC. He was the hired muscle for a break-in at our client’s lab, where an experimental fertility drug was stolen. We’ve been after the organization at the top, and another lead at the MC led us to the South Texas OFS campus.”
“How convenient,” Cam murmured.
“Your father, Jericho, approved Seraphina’s role as our consultant in this investigation, and she has been instrumental in helping us surveil our suspect, who we believed was the connection between our target at the MC and the conspiracy at the top.”
Seth sighed. “I guess I’m not surprised. Sere, did you do one of Jericho’s hits? That’s how all this started?”
“I’ve done a lot of Jere’s hits. It’s been my summer job since after freshman year.”
Austin blew out a frustrated breath. “I knew it. We suspected he was having you do more than his paperwork, but…. Mom is going to kill him.”
“Can you jerks please focus?” I said, stomping a foot. “Paige is in serious trouble.”
Austin put his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. Please continue, Loki .”
Loki gave him a droll look, then went on. “Our suspect is Biosciences Professor Gerald Hart. He and a group of investors are involved in something called the Families for All Institute, which purports to assist beta families in having children.”
“Oh, they definitely stole your client’s drug,” Dylan said. “And, let me guess—it doesn’t work on beta women yet, so they’ve decided to just use omegas as baby factories for desperate beta families who also probably have boatloads of cash with which to purchase a child?”
Loki blinked at her. “We haven’t been able to uncover much information about the institute’s activities yet, but given what we learned about Hart’s plans for Paige tonight, your theory is entirely plausible.”
“It would make sense,” I added. “That’s why Stone was meeting those traffickers at the motel before I shot him—oh, don’t look at me like that, Austin—and poor Rosa and Alissa were on the way to being groomed as breeders.”
Dylan grinned. “Are those the girls you sent back with Daisy? She said they’re doing great. I talked to her yesterday.”
“Ooh, good. I’m super glad to hear that.”
Hawk shot me a smile that glowed with pride. “Seraphina was really great with those two omegas. We wouldn’t have had a clue how to handle that situation, but she took charge.”
“Thanks to Dylan and her family, our sister has had her eyes opened to the realities of being an omega without the privileges of wealth, just like we have,” Seth replied, giving Hawk a speculative look. “Seraphina takes that seriously, even if she doesn’t treat the issues that come with being an omega herself with similar… gravity.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, but also fuck you, Seth.”
Blaze smiled at Seth, but it was laced with venom. “Seraphina is perfect the way she is.”
There went my entire chest, about to cave in on itself again.
I braced myself for another fight, but Seth only exchanged an amused look with Austin. Crisis averted.
Loki had watched us all snark and bicker with the patience of a monk. “That brings us to the situation tonight,” he said. “We have confirmation that Hart’s organization stole our client’s drug, as he admitted to Paige while we listened on the phone that he’d used that prototype to create his own version. He injected Paige with the drug against her will about ninety minutes ago, and he stated that due to the heat-blocker suppressants the OFS omegas take, this mini-heat will take a couple of hours to hit. In an omega not taking the blockers, he stated that the effects would be immediate.”
Dylan grunted in disgust, and she looked at Austin. “Kill him please, my love?”
“He can get in line,” I said. “In fact, why don’t I just take my rifle up to the roof and see if I can get a clear shot right into that living room.”
It wasn’t a terrible idea—to just go up there and see if I could in fact line up a shot. I could take out a few of the guards before we even left our base.
I’d begun to stride toward the front door when a large hand closed around the back of my neck and yanked me nearly off my feet.
Loki pressed me against the wood-paneled wall of the cabin, then he leaned down until we were almost nose-to-nose. “Not happening, Lamb. While I understand the thought, we don’t know if they have a long-range shooter over there. You’d be exposed up on the roof, and I will not gamble with your safety.”
I huffed a resigned sigh. “Fine.”
“Thank you.” He released me and passed me over to Blaze, who led me to the couch and pulled me down with him. Hawk plopped down next to me and gave my thigh a comforting little squeeze. I settled in, letting the warmth of their solid bodies pressed against my sides calm my nerves.
Austin had watched all of this with a calculating smile. Seth was clearly fighting a laugh while Cam wore a grin so wide, you’d think this was the best day of his life. Dylan had a hand over her mouth and was shaking. I didn’t know what was up with them, but we all needed to get it together immediately. Paige was depending on us.
“Now, as Seraphina implied, our target is the lake house directly across the inlet,” Loki continued, gesturing at the view through the glass doors. “Paige has locked herself in a bathroom on the second floor as Seraphina was able to instruct her to do before we lost contact. We’ve counted at least eight armed guards at the house along with Hart. We think Hart is waiting for Paige’s heat to hit because he believes she will then be more amenable to his….”
“His intent to rape her?” Dylan asked, quirking a brow. “Let’s all call it what it is. I don’t give a fuck that in the moment, she may think she wants it.”
“Of course,” Loki said with a respectful dip of his head. “I would never mean to imply otherwise. We’re going to get in there and pull her out before that can happen.”
I looked at Dylan and Cam. “Can you two get her somewhere safe to ride out the heat? It sounds as though it will be like enduring a spike—several hours of pain if she’s not being tended to.”
“Of course, Sere-bear,” Cam said.
“We’ll take her to my room above the store,” Dylan replied. “We have sedatives on hand that should help with the worst of it.”
Austin strode to the back door. Loki handed him the binoculars, and he peered through them, studying our target. “I don’t understand the armed guards. Who are they, and why are they here?”
“We don’t know,” Blaze replied. “We ran into them briefly when we broke into Hart’s house, but we were only able to get a partial picture off his security cameras after the fact. But this institute has some big money backers out of Russia, and we suspect this is who they’ve brought in to replace the muscle they’d hired for cheap via Hart’s connection to the MC.”
“Right.” Austin handed the binoculars back to Loki. “Let’s settle on a plan of attack, then. It sounds like we don’t have much time left.”
And that was why, even with the Alpha posturing and overprotective nonsense they blew in here with, I’d been relieved Jere sent my brothers to help. They were dependable, deadly, and they had their priorities straight.
Loki and Austin got down to business. They had similar training leading small teams within organizations like Bryce Solutions and Sentinel, so they meshed easily despite the earlier idiocy. Cam and Blaze huddled together on the couch with Blaze’s tablet, and Seth enlisted Hawk to help him carry a giant crate full of weapons they’d brought from the car into the cabin. They piled everything onto the kitchen table, and when they were finished, I was feeling a lot better about what we’d be bringing to this fight.
Dylan and I stood together next to the weapons table, strapping guns and other accoutrements to our bodies while she continued to surreptitiously check out the guys. “They’re fucking hot, Sera,” she whispered. “The rebellious omega’s fantasies come true.”
“I can hear you, sweetheart,” Seth said drolly as he slammed a magazine into his handgun.
She ignored him. “So, I mean, are you still…?”
“Fucking them? No. That was just the once, and they thought I was a beta then.”
She squinted at me. “Really?”
“Really. We have an evil conspiracy to bust. This is a professional partnership.”
My words came out so sure, even I believed them.
“Okay, everyone, gather round,” Loki called out. “It’s time.”
Finally.
We’re coming, Paige. Just hang on.