Chapter 12
Under Cliff
Elowen
For a moment, the world sharpens a teeny bit, allowing me to breathe.
My heat is still crouching at the edges of my mind, patient and heavy, waiting to drag me back under. But right now, in this fragile little window, I can string my thoughts together.
The dim amber light of the tent. The smell of dust and cardboard and sweat. The cold, hard ground pressing against my back. My heartbeat thumps against my ribs in a rhythm I can actually count.
And I can think. Kind of.
There are guards outside.
I just mated an alpha I don't know.
And his knot is inside me.
It's a strange, overwhelming fullness that I wasn't prepared for. A deep, heavy pressure that sits low in my belly and radiates outward, stretching me in a way that hovers on the razor's edge between too much and exactly right.
"Help me get her dressed," Cliff says to someone I can't see. "We have to get her out of here."
Then he shifts his weight, lifting his hips, and I feel the knot pull, still locked in place.
I grunt, curling my hands into fists as Cliff reaches between us and he grips the base of himself, squeezing, trying to compress the swelling enough to ease it out.
The pressure changes and a white-hot bolt of pain shoots through my core.
My hands fly to his chest, pushing, grabbing, not sure if I'm trying to hold him inside me or brace against the hurt.
"No." The word tears out of me before the command can catch it. "No, don't. Don't take it."
"Easy." His voice is strained, sweat dripping from his temple onto my collarbone. "I have to,” he whispers. “We have to go. Breathe for me."
He squeezes harder and pulls again, slow, and the stretch is obscene.
The knot drags against my swollen walls and every nerve ending lights up in a confused scream of pain and loss.
Tears blur my vision. My fingers dig into his chest hard enough to leave marks, and a sob builds in my throat so fast I can't swallow it.
“Adam,” Cliff grunts softly. “Help me, baby.”
A figure appears beside us. Blond hair. Wide brown eyes. Shaking hands. He looks familiar but I can't place him. My brain is too thick with fog and fear and the sensation of being emptied out.
The beta kneels between us, his mouth pulling at the corners. His gaze drops to where Cliff and I are still joined, to the knot his alpha is trying to work free from my abused pussy.
The beta’s lips press into a thin line and his nostrils flare. For one second, I think he's going to stand up and walk out of the tent. But he doesn't.
“Adam,” Cliff whispers, and the beta’s eyes snap to Cliff’s face. “Please.”
“Okay,” Adam nods, the movement jerky, then he lifts one hand.
Moving slowly, he reaches between our bodies. A sharp, involuntary gasp escapes me as his cool fingers brush against my swollen, sensitive folds. They find the base of the knot alongside Cliff's own grip, and together they work it.
The touch is clinical, detached, a stark contrast to the feral claiming moments ago. Gentle, firm pressure, easing the swelling, creating just enough give.
Adam's jaw is tight the entire time. He doesn't look at my face. He doesn't look at Cliff's either. He focuses on his hands and breathes through his nose, and the steady, controlled rhythm of his breathing is the only thing anchoring me to reality.
Cliff shifts above me, a low groan rumbling in his chest as they apply more pressure. My body betrays me, clamping down, a desperate, instinctual attempt to hold on to the source of my pleasure, of my safety.
The stretch peaks, burning and impossible, a sharp, tearing pain that cuts through the warm fog of my heat. Then the knot slips free.
The loss is devastating.
It's a physical wrench, a hollowing void where there was blissful fullness.
A gush of warm fluid follows, slick and Cliff's release, coating my thighs. The sudden emptiness is an ache so profound it makes me want to cry, but then the air hits my exposed, oversensitive flesh, and I shiver violently.
I'm empty again.
Unprotected.
And the cold reality of what happened starts to seep in through the cracks of my fading heat.
Tears spill over, running hot down my temples and into my hair. A wail builds in my chest, raw and animal, pressing against my clenched teeth.
"Elowen." Cliff's hand cups my face. His thumb catches a tear. His voice drops into that low, resonant frequency that reaches the place inside me where words become commands. "Be quiet for me. Can you do that? Be my good, quiet omega."
My jaw locks and the wail dies.
I nod, shaking, biting down on the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.
The beta sits back on his heels. He wipes his hands on his jeans and stares at the ground between his knees.
"She doesn't smell like an omega." His voice is quiet and flat. It’s not a challenge, but a fact delivered by someone trying very hard to hold himself together.
Then he looks up at Cliff, and the hurt is right there, plain and unguarded, written across his face in a way that makes my chest ache even through the haze.
"She doesn't smell like anything, Cliff. "
Cliff reaches out and squeezes the beta's shoulder.
"I know." His voice is low, almost sweet. “And I promise I'll explain everything. But right now I need you to help me get her dressed, because we have to get her out of this camp before anyone figures out what she is. Can you do that for me?”
The beta's jaw works. His eyes shine. He blinks once, hard, and when he opens them again the hurt is still there, but it's been pushed behind something functional. Something that can move and act and deal with the breaking later.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "Okay."
Adam looks down at me. His gaze moves over my face, my tangled hair, the tear tracks cutting through the sweat and dirt on my cheeks, the bite mark on my neck still beading with blood.
The hurt in his expression shifts. Softens.
Something gentler moves in behind it as he takes in the full picture of what's lying on the floor of this tent.
I must look… Wrecked. Used.
Half out of my mind and shaking on the hard ground like a wounded animal.
The beta takes a deep breath. His chest expands, holds, and releases slowly through his nose. When he opens his eyes again, the softness is still there, but it's been tucked behind something steadier. He's pulled himself together.
Not all the way. But enough.
He leans down so I can see his face clearly. His voice is gentle. "Hey. I'm Adam." A small, tight smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm going to help you get up, okay? Can I do that?"
I nod, careful not to make a sound. Cliff's command holds my throat closed like a hand.
Adam hooks one arm under mine, his grip firm on my elbow. "On three. One, two..."
He lifts.
My knees buckle the second I'm vertical, and Adam catches me, steadying me against his side. The movement sends a cramp tearing through my abdomen, sharp and mean, and my whole body flashes hot for a second. Sweat prickles across my shoulders, and a fresh rush of slick slides down my inner thighs.
“Oh, shit,” Adam whispers. Then I feel him look at Cliff behind me. There’s a beat of charged silence, and Adam starts moving faster.
He grabs my scrub bottoms and holds them open at my feet, his eyes fixed somewhere around my knees, giving me as much dignity as the situation allows.
"Step in," he says, his voice low and careful, like he's talking to something wounded. "One leg at a time."
I let him guide my foot through the first leg hole, and the second the fabric touches my skin, my whole body recoils. Every nerve ending screams in protest.
The cotton is coarse and dry and wrong, scraping against skin that's flushed and oversensitive and begging to be bare.
It feels like putting on sandpaper.
My thighs twitch and my hips try to pull away and a silent snarl stretches across my face. Adam sees my reaction, and pauses, his hands hovering, his honey-brown eyes flicking up to mine.
"I know," he murmurs. "I know it hurts. I'm sorry. We have to be fast."
He pulls the pants up in one smooth motion, and the elastic waistband settles against my hips, and I want to claw them right back off. The fabric traps the heat against my skin, damp and suffocating, and every seam and fold feels like it's been designed specifically to torture me.
Adam reaches for my scrub top and holds it up. The front is ripped, a long tear running from the collar to the middle of the chest where Cliff tore it off me. “Shit,” he whispers, then voices cut through the air from outside.
They’re new, two, firm tones overlapping with the crunch of boots on dry earth.
“What are you two doing here?”
"This is a restricted area.”
Cliff goes still. His eyes snap to Adam across the dim tent, and something passes between them.
Outside, Perrin's voice cuts through the tension with a laugh. Bright and easy. “We made a delivery for Angelica. My packmate only needed five minutes in the shade. The heat out here is brutal.”
One of the guards responds. Flat and unimpressed. Perrin laughs again, louder this time.
Then another voice rises above the rest. It’s the alpha from earlier, the one who talked the first guard down. He's right outside the tent flap this time, and he's not speaking to the guards. He's speaking to us.
"Cliff. Move. Now."
My stomach cramps at the sound of his voice, making me want to groan, but I manage to hold it in.
“Coming.” Cliff says, then he picks his shirt off the ground.
Adam jumps back into action. He tosses my torn scrub top aside without a word. His jaw tightens and his movements shift from careful to urgent.
"Here." He grabs the hem of his own T-shirt and pulls it over his head.
His torso is lean and defined, more muscular than I expected, his pale skin is smooth and warm-looking in the dim light.
But my view is cut off as Adam bunches up his shirt in his hands, opens the neck hole, and guides it over my head gently, working my arms through the sleeves like he's done this before.
It’s clear that dressing someone who can barely function is something he knows how to do.
The fabric settles over my shoulders and against my chest.
And his smell hits me.
Sun-warmed cotton and salt. And underneath that, layered deep in the fibers, the faded but unmistakable traces of three other people. Cliff's chocolate and smoked cedar. Perrin's scent, warmer and softer. And woven through all of it are golden, sweet sunflowers.
My fingers curl into the fabric and I pull it up over my nose, breathing in so deep my ribs ache. The heat that's been clawing at my edges soften enough for my shoulders to drop and my jaw to unclench.
Then, without warning, pain erupts inside me.
My vision doubles and my skin ignites. Every muscle below my waist clenches in a rolling, vicious cramp that folds me in half against Adam's chest.
My legs give out.
I slide down his body. My hands drag along his firm chest before my knees hit the ground for the second time today.
The need inside me is instantaneous and total.
A hollow, screaming ache between my legs that demands to be filled, stretched, fucked until the pain stops.
My hips rock forward on their own, grinding against nothing, and a silent keen builds in my throat, trapped behind the command Cliff gave me.
Be quiet.
Be good.
Don't make a sound.
I press my face into the beta’s stomach, my nails digging into his hips as I shake. The cramps roll through me, each one worse than the last, and the slick is back, soaking through the scrubs Adam fought to get on me.
"What the hell do I do?" Adam's voice is strained. His hands are still hovering, still not touching me, even as I claw at his waistband. "Cliff, she's—I don't—What do I do?"
I don't hear Cliff move, but I feel his hand on my upper arm. “I’ll deal with the guards,” he says as he hauls me upright, pressing me against Adam's chest so I'm sandwiched between them. Then he leans in and whispers, “You get her the fuck out of here.”
The contact sends a jolt right through me. It’s so sharp I almost choke as my whole body lights up.
Every nerve fires at once, heat flooding from the point where his fingers press into my skin and radiating outward. My nostrils flare, pulling in their combined scents, as my thighs instinctively press together.
I want to bite and lick and suck and fuck both of them until my whole body is raw with pleasure.