Chapter 25
Heat blasted him as soon as Elm stumbled into the cabin. A fire was roaring in the hearth across from the entrance, but his gaze passed over it, looking for—
There.
A laptop was left open on a desk by the window.
Elm ran for it, shoving the chair aside when he got there, fingers flying across the keys. He pulled up a chatting app he often used, and was in the process of signing in when pheromones licked against his skin.
Weak ones.
Elm spun on his heals and called on his own before bothering to see who was behind him, releasing them in a sharp whip of power that had an alpha he’d never seen before hissing and slamming into the wall.
The alpha had just exited from a side room, and did not seem happy to see Elm standing there.
“I—” Elm didn’t get the chance to finish.
The man moved faster than he could blink, lifting a blaster Elm hadn’t noticed he was holding. He fired off a single shot, but that was all it took.
The pain was instantaneous, the sensation like getting decked in the gut with a sledge hammer.
Elm crumpled to the ground, automatically clutching his side protectively.
The bullet had hit him somewhere on the left side, but there was already too much blood, and his mind was struggling to sort through the shock.
The alpha took a step closer, the gun still aimed.
Levi must have ordered them to shoot on sight.
The fact the guy outside had only been holding a walkie talkie had extended Elm’s life for a few more minutes.
His hand pressed against the wound, but his vision was already starting to blur. His side throbbed, and blood gushed from between his fingers, spurting all over his lap and onto the floorboards.
Karma must be working fast today.
In a minute, he’d look no better than the man with the arrow sticking out of his chest.
Adrenaline kicked in, Elm’s instincts taking control of his system, pumping the room with aggressive pheromones meant to hurt.
He pulled his teeth back and snarled like a feral animal, feet struggling to find purchase beneath him so he could stand, or at least get into a less compromising position and attempt to toss himself behind the nearby couch or something.
The alpha struggled against the pheromones, but he wasn’t as weak as Elm had first assumed. He hit the floor on his knees, teeth rattling, but managed to lift the gun. Another shot went off.
Elm jerked as it grazed his right arm. The burn still sucked even if the bullet lodged itself in the wood behind him instead of in him like the first one had.
He continued to shove his pheromones forward, knowing that if he faltered for even a second, the alpha would take the chance to deliver a killing blow.
But it was getting more and more difficult with each passing second. He could practically feel the energy zapping out of him.
The third gunshot had him wincing and curling in on himself, eyes squeezed shut.
He expected the worst, so it took him a second to realize he hadn’t been hit again and lift his head.
Elm gasped when he saw the soldier lying on the ground, blood pouring out of a hole straight through the side of his skull.
A growl cut through the confusion, and Elm’s head turned toward the door.
The Leviathan stood there, blaster in hand, eyes swirling silver.
Elm whimpered and tried to use his pheromones again, but the alpha was unaffected. It only occurred to him that aggressive omega pheromones didn’t work on their mates the same way after the bite once Levi had started moving toward him.
With his back against the wall, there was nowhere left for him to go.
Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he eyed the weapon as it got closer.
“How many of our people have to die before you’re satisfied, omega?” Levi demanded.
Elm shook his head, unable to get his voice to work. He was also worried if he did speak, he would beg, and he didn’t want that to be his last act in this life.
When the Leviathan reached the soldier’s body, he paused, held Elm’s gaze, and emptied the entire magazine into the man’s back.
Elm gasped.
“Zan was on his way here to warn him my omega was running loose,” Levi stated, stepping around the mutilated body to continue on his way to Elm, “but you just had to go and kill him before he could.”
The wound in his gut twinged and Elm sucked in a sharp breath, pushing harder against it.
That drew Levi’s attention to it, and the alpha crouched down. His free hand dropped over Elm’s, the other still holding the gun.
“Please,” Elm’s voice shook, and he instantly regretting giving into the fear. But having the alpha so close made it impossible not to. “Don’t.”
Levi frowned, some of the fury momentarily giving way to confusion, before he followed Elm’s line of sight. He released another growl and then tossed the gun away, fingers reaching out to capture Elm’s chin instead.
“Do you think I’d shoot you?” the alpha sounded pissed by that possibility. “After everything? That’s what you think of me?”
Elm didn’t know how to react to that, mind fading, so he merely shook his head slightly. “Please.”
Levi removed his hand from over Elm’s and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a syringe. When Elm panicked, he seemed to realize he hadn’t activated soothing pheromones and did so, somehow managing to take the edge off for Elm, even with the hole in his side.
“Don’t be afraid,” the alpha’s tone turned soft, cajoling, as he popped the cap off the syringe. “It’s just a sedative, treasure. I would never hurt you.”
The use of the nickname, even after all of this, cut through the fear better than the soothing pheromones, giving the alpha the chance to stab the needle through the side of Elm’s neck.
“You aren’t going to die,” Levi promised, administering the drug before pulling the needle away and dropping it to the floor.
“I will never allow you to leave me, do you understand? Not even through death.” He leaned in and delivered a chaste kiss to Elm’s brow.
“Sleep, omega. When you wake, there will be hell to pay.”
Elm didn’t even attempt to stay awake, welcoming the darkness. Assumed it must be better than the pain and the furious eyes of his alpha.
* * *
He felt like he was floating.
His body was weightless, and he couldn’t move, not even to open his eyes. There were voices in the distance, words too muffled to make any sense of. He tried anyway, felt like there was something important he was meant to be doing, but it eluded him.
Someone touched him then, lightly. Fingers combing through his hair. One of the voices drew nearer, but proximity didn’t make the jargon easier to understand.
As soon as the voice was done, Elm faded away.
* * *
There was pain all over. He was strapped down to something, but that was as much spatial awareness he could muster.
Elm clenched his jaw, pheromones flicking out of him.
“He’s waking,” a female voice said from somewhere in the void. He didn’t recognize it.
His eyes were sealed shut, and he had no control of his limbs. When a familiar hand brushed through his hair, he leaned into it as much as he could, sighing when soothing pheromones swept over him, and the smell of white lotus encased in frost had him emitting a pleading sound.
One meant to ask for comfort.
Safety.
Elm was too out of it to be rational, falling back on instincts. His body recognized his alpha, called out to him in a way he’d find pathetic and needy if he was fully awake and cognizant.
“Not yet, treasure,” Levi told him, continuing to pet him as he spoke.
“A little longer. Be patient. I’d rather you stay asleep for this and your punishment.
” His tone altered when he spoke to someone else.
“My Possessio is too strong for your drugs and my pheromones can only put him back under for so long. Hurry. Or it won’t just be the first doctor’s brain matter sprayed all over the floor. ”
Whatever that was about, Elm didn’t want to know.
He listened to his alpha and let sleep take him yet again.
* * *
Elm was lying on his side.
A burning sensation behind his ear had woken him.
It was sharp and hot, and he whined and then bared his teeth, instincts torn over what to do.
His body felt like lead, and he could do nothing when something poked at that torn spot.
There was a pressure followed by an odd scraping, and he was gearing up for a pheromone attack when soothing alpha ones coaxed him into standing down.
“I’m here,” his alpha’s voice cut through the pain. “Don’t be afraid. You’re strong. You’ll take your punishment like an obedient omega, and then we can go home. Isn’t that right, Elm?”
Elm?
Punishment?
Had…had the alpha ever called him by only his first name before?
“Sleep.”
Good omegas listened to their alphas.
* * *
Buzzing.
Annoying, never-ending buzzing.
It was coming from somewhere off to the side, irritating and disturbing him. Elm felt tired. Wanted to keep resting.
But the sound was driving him half mad.
It was familiar in a way he couldn’t put his finger on, a way that made him think he probably should be able to place the source.
“Should we give him the traditional crest?” a man asked, the question not directed to Elm.
“No,” Levi spoke, and Elm realized the alpha was standing over him, fingers combing through his hair again. “He belongs to me, not the White Frost. The only mark he’ll wear is my own.”
“Understood, Dominus.”
Lips brushed against Elm’s, there and gone in a flash. “Soon. We’ll be together again soon, omega.”
* * *
Bright light spilled in through the window and Elm groaned and rolled over, giving the sun his back. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, the soreness in his muscles slowly breaking through the heavy blanket of sleep.
He blinked, finding himself in bed at the lodge, and tried to process why things felt…off. Was it because the space next to him was empty? The clock on the end table said it was one. It was rare for Levi to allow him to remain in bed past noon.
Elm sat up, the blanket falling into his lap, and rubbed at his tired eyes.
The second he glanced down and saw the healed marks on his wrists it all came flooding back to him.
In a frenzy, he sprung from the bed and raced into the bathroom, moving to the floor length mirror. He was naked, on full display, but that made it easier to take himself in. To track the bite marks that had already hardened and scarred.
His fingers pressed against a mark on his side, above and to the left of his navel. The scar was tiny, hardly noticeable at all.
Had the bullet been that small or…?
No.
No, it was the alpha.
Levi wouldn’t suffer an imperfection if he could help it, and since it didn’t seem like he intended to kill Elm—
The panic attack hit him unexpectedly, bringing him to his knees. Elm clutched at his chest, sucking in air as he reeled from what that truly meant.
Pieces from when he’d been unconscious returned to him, enough to know the alpha had stayed with him throughout. That he’d overseen whatever Elm had gone through personally. There was the obvious medical attention, but what else—
Something dark caught his attention on his left hand and he turned it, blinking at the tattoo on his ring finger.
The one that had most definitely never been there before.
A snowflake.
The lights went out suddenly, startling him, but Elm stilled when the design on his finger began to glow.
In the same spot where the black snowflake could be seen in the light, a cursive L glowed in neon blue.
Elm was still staring at it when the lights came back on. Even when he registered the alpha’s presence in the doorway.
“Come out, omega,” the Leviathan commanded. “There’s nowhere left where you can hide from me. Not even in the dark.”