Chapter 33
Zachary
The ambulance driver takes another sharp turn as we close in on Madi’s location. A small, blinking red icon indicates she’s at the end of the street, and we pull in next to the building she should be inside of.
“I’ve updated the Omega Protection Services with our new location,” the nurse says, her ear to a phone.
We’re so fucking close!
A logo for Jensen’s Medical Shipping Supplies taunts us on the glass wall. The terror I’ve felt this whole drive shifts into rage. This man will regret the day he ever decided to hurt an omega.
My omega.
There’s a black car out front with the back door still open. She’s here, somewhere.
Alric is fucking terrifying, his facial features mangled with wrath like he’s about to go on a rampage. I get to the door first, but of course it’s locked. All the office lights are off, but at the very end of the hallway, there’s a small beam of light under one door.
The lingering scent of Madi’s distress burns my nose, and I can taste her terror in the air. Panic consumes me.
Alric slams his body into the door over and over again, but the glass doesn’t even crack, so I yank him away from it.
“Breaking a bunch of fucking bones is not gonna help her right now.”
He snarls, slamming his fist into it one last time, about to turn feral in the worst way.
“MOVE!” Hunter yells, and we turn to look at him. He scoops up a pair of keys left on the ground and races towards the abandoned car. Just as desperate to get to her as we are, he slams himself into the driver seat. “GO GET HER!”
He has enough good sense to strap himself in before he floors the gas pedal, sending the vehicle through the windowed wall. Glass shatters everywhere as he plows the car straight into the lobby of Jensen’s business.
An alarm blares to life as Alric and I run inside, not waiting another second to save our omega. We race down the hallway. The scent of her distress gets thicker with every step, fueling my fury and my unending need to protect her.
Shouts come from inside the room they have her in.
Alric’s bellow is my only warning to get the fuck out of the way before he smashes his body against the door.
The locked office door is no match for the brute strength of an alpha whose beloved fated mate is trapped on the other side in the clutches of evil men.
Alric barrels into one of the men behind the door, the other retreating in panic.
Madi is curled up in a ball, shaking in only her bra and pajama bottoms, one shoe missing. My relief that she’s okay, that we made it in time, is swept away by the man beneath Alric breaking a champagne bottle against a desk.
It shatters and the liquid pours out, becoming a weapon. He tries to use it against Alric, who easily overpowers the pathetic coward. My packmate grabs the bottle neck and swipes the jagged glass across Jensen’s face. Blood pours out while I rush to Madi’s side.
The other man takes his chance to flee and races out the door.
“Got him!” Hunter yells, followed by the sound of an impact and a pathetic groan.
Madi struggles to crawl towards me, tears streaming down her face as she stumbles, collapsing onto the mattress. It breaks my heart she had to go through whatever has happened in the past ten minutes.
I throw myself onto the bed and pull her limp body to me, covering her face with kisses. She tries to wrap her arms around me, still sobbing. Carefully gathering her up, I get off the bed.
Alric is covered in blood when I get to my feet. Jensen is sprawled in a bloody pool beneath him, his face destroyed beyond recognition.
“Alric!” Madi begs in a broken voice.
Shit. She doesn’t need to see that level of carnage right now. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you out of here.” I turn so Madi doesn’t have to witness the full extent of Alric’s feral retribution as we leave.
He looks up with the sharpness of a predator when he hears her calling for him, leaving Jensen’s corpse on the floor.
He’s within his legal rights to murder this man; a feral alpha defending his omega is protected by our laws.
Kidnapping an omega, especially during her heat, is a heinous, unthinkable act.
Men like Jensen can’t be redeemed. Evil like that can’t be rehabilitated, and he deserved to die painfully. I’d bet a million dollars Madi isn’t the first omega he’s hurt, and they deserve justice, too, even if they aren’t here to see this monster’s execution.
Hunter has the other man restrained on the floor with his belt binding his hands.
Blood drips down Hunter’s forehead from the shattered glass, but thankfully, he looks clear-eyed.
The bound man is unfortunately alive, though at least unconscious, so he can’t look at Madi when we get her out of there.
Hunter gets to his feet, leaving the man there, and Alric follows after us.
I want to light this whole fucking office on fire.
The nurse glances at Alric, her nose scrunching up at the sight, but faces me and Madi. “Bring her to the ambulance. I need to check her vitals.”
My heart beats so fast, I fear it will break out of my chest at any moment.
Madi writhes in my arms, whining and still crying when I try to settle her on the gurney so the nurse can check her over, but Alric snaps at the poor woman and grabs Madi from me with a snarl, hauling her against his chest. He growls at all of us when anyone tries to get near her.
Fuck.
“Damn it, Alric! She needs to be looked over by the nurse!”
His bloody arms tighten around her, but it does seem to soothe her a little. He’s gone feral—there’s no reasoning with him now. His only instinct is to protect our omega and I can’t fault him, but it’s going to delay us and we can’t have that.
Alric backs himself into a corner of the ambulance and slides down the wall with Madi. Cocooning her, his nose deep in her neck, he gasps in her scent. I hate that I can’t touch her right now, but my friend needs this to calm him down long enough to return to himself.
A feral alpha is a dangerous one.
The nurse turns her back to them and whispers.
“I need to give him a relaxation shot. It’s not safe for anyone to be in a locked, moving vehicle with an alpha like that, nor is it a good idea for her to go fully into heat at an active crime scene.
We need to leave.” She pulls out a syringe from a drawer, but before she can pull off the cap, I grab it from her.
“Hey! You can’t do that!”
“I was premed in college.”
“That doesn’t make you qualified to do anything!” she hisses at me.
“Watch me.”
I take a small step closer to them. “Alric, you need to let the nurse see her. She could be hurt.” When he doesn’t growl at me, I take another step. “No one is going to take her from us ever again.”
His dark eyes watch me.
“You did such a good job protecting her.” When I take the last step, I kneel in front of him, putting one hand on Madi to see his reaction. “She’s gonna be so proud of you.”
Madi starts to cry louder, reaching for me, and he turns all his focus on her again.
Now or never. I pop the lid off the shot and jab his thigh with it. He lets out a roar of rage before he slumps, his eyes returning to normal. Shit, that was scary.
He is still tightly holding onto her, but I can see the moment he comes back to himself.
Alric’s tone is gravelly when he speaks. “Sorry.”
The nurse cautiously comes closer to them. “Can you stand? You don’t need to let go, but I need you both on the gurney.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief when he rises from the floor and lies down on the gurney with our omega draped over him, allowing her to have her vitals checked.
He’s getting blood on her, but he’s still half-feral and needs to reassure himself she’s okay, so we don’t fight him.
We can all shower this horrific evening off soon.
Hunter and I frantically surround them, wrapping our arms around her, all of us purring loudly to try and comfort her, touching and kissing every part we can reach.
Madi still has tears streaming down her face when she turns her head towards me and I press our foreheads together, breathing each other in.
She starts to undo the buckles of Alric’s pants so I hold her hand to stop her, causing her to whimper, and the sound breaks my heart.
“I know, sweetheart. Let’s get you to Omega’s Comfort, okay?
Then you can have all the dick you want. ”
Madi moans, humping Alric’s thigh.
The Omega Protection Services finally arrives, the officers coming to the ambulance and trying to enter our space to ask us questions, but Alric snarls at them and they scramble back.
Hunter steps up to the edge, staring down at them. “The owner of that business kidnapped our omega during her heat. He’s dead now,” he says, then slams the back doors in their faces.
He returns to us, cupping Madi’s face for a passionate kiss. Alric and I breathe a collective sigh of relief once the nurse decides Madi is alright, and we start to move.
“Madeline’s stress levels are getting dangerously high.” The nurse presses a button and the gurney starts to lower to the floor. “Do what you need to do to calm her down, we will be at Omega’s Comfort in ten minutes.” She slides a plastic partition shut to give us the illusion of privacy.
Hunter and I collapse on the floor so all of us are together there, desperate to keep Madi close as we speed away.
Madi starts to kiss my face over and over again, trying to take off my clothes.
I slip my hands between her underwear and her pajama bottoms, rubbing the fabric where her clit is to try and give her some relief.
Her eyes roll back, hips rocking with pleasure as she moans.
Hunter sucks on her neck in the spot he knows she loves and cups one breast, massaging it.