Chapter 3 #2
"No," I managed, but it came out as a whimper. "Let me go. Let me—"
"Shh." Leo appeared at Caleb's side, his gray eyes soft with something that might have been concern if I didn't know better. "You're okay, sweetheart. We've got you."
"Carol," I gasped. "Where's Carol? She was supposed to—"
"There is no Carol." Caleb's arms tightened around me, and some traitorous part of my hindbrain purred at the contact. "There never was."
The words took a moment to penetrate the fog in my brain. When they did, ice flooded my veins.
No Carol. No friendly stranger who knew my mother. No innocent ski trip with old friends.
A trap. This was all a trap. I should have listened to my instincts when it felt like one.
"No." I tried to struggle, but my body wouldn't obey. The slick between my thighs had turned into a flood, soaking through my jeans, filling the air with the unmistakable scent of Omega arousal. "No, let me go. I won't—I can't—"
"You can." Leo leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear. "You will. You've been running for three years, Ava. Did you really think we'd let you get away?" Tears burned in my eyes. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.
"Please," I whispered. "Please, just let me go. I'll disappear. You'll never see me again. I'll—"
"Never." Caleb's voice was absolute, brooking no argument. "You're ours. You've always been ours. And now you're coming home." I opened my mouth to scream, to call for help, to do something—but all that came out was a whimper. A pathetic, needy, Omega whimper.
My body had betrayed me.
Again. They half-carried me out of the terminal, one on each side, their bodies blocking me from view of the other passengers.
To anyone watching, it probably looked like two men helping a sick friend.
Concerned. Caring. No one could see my tears.
No one could hear my protests. No one could smell the desperate arousal that flooded from me with every step, my body screaming yes while my mind screamed no.
The parking lot was nearly empty. A black SUV waited near the exit, engine running, windows tinted too dark to see through. My heart stopped.
I knew that SUV. I'd been watching for it, every day for three years, checking my mirrors, scanning parking lots, waiting for the moment when they finally found me.
Now, here it was. Here they were. Because I'd walked right into their trap like an idiot.
Leo opened the back door while Caleb maneuvered me inside.
I tried to fight, tried to dig my heels in, to twist away, to do anything, but my body was useless.
Every cell was screaming for their touch, their scent, their knots, and no amount of mental resistance could overcome six years of suppressed Omega instinct finally breaking free.
The interior of the SUV smelled like them. All of them. Not just Caleb and Leo, but—
Honey and sunshine.
Cedar and ozone.
Mason. Ethan.
My stepbrothers. The four men I'd been running from for three years. They were here. All of them. I started to shake.
"Breathe, little fox." Caleb slid into the seat beside me, his massive body taking up too much space, his scent overwhelming everything else. "You're hyperventilating."
"Because you kidnapped me," I snarled, finally finding my voice. "Let me out. Let me out right now or I swear to God I'll—"
"You'll what?" Leo dropped into the seat on my other side, boxing me in, trapping me between two walls of Alpha muscle. "Scream? Go ahead. No one's coming to help you." He leaned in, inhaling deeply, and groaned. "Fuck, you smell even better than I remembered. Like burnt sugar and sin."
"Don't touch me." I hissed at him.
"Can't help it, sweetheart." His fingers brushed my thigh, and I flinched like I'd been burned—not because it hurt, but because it felt good. Too good. My treacherous body arched toward him even as I tried to pull away. "Three years without you. Do you have any idea what that was like?"
"I don't care." My voice cracked. "I don't care what it was like for you. I left. I had every right to leave."
"No." Caleb's hand closed around the back of my neck, his grip firm but not painful. A claiming hold. A possessive hold. "You didn't." The car started moving.
I watched through the tinted windows as the airport fell away behind us, replaced by winding mountain roads and endless trees. Every mile we drove was another mile between me and freedom. Another mile closer to whatever nightmare they had planned.
"Where are you taking me?" I demanded.
"The cabin." Leo's voice was almost casual, like we were discussing weekend plans instead of my kidnapping. "Nice and isolated. No neighbors for miles. Perfect place for a little... reunion."
"Carol's cabin. Except Carol doesn't exist."
"She was an actress." Caleb's thumb stroked the back of my neck, and I shuddered despite myself. "Very convincing, wasn't she? Ethan wrote the script. He knows you better than you know yourself."
Ethan. Of course. The strategist. The planner. The one who saw everything, predicted everything, controlled everything from behind the scenes.
"This won't work," I said, hating the way my voice trembled. "Whatever you're planning. I'm not—I won't just—"
"Won't just what?" Leo's hand slid higher on my thigh, and a whimper escaped my lips before I could stop it. "Won't surrender? Won't submit? Won't beg us to knot you until you can't remember your own name?"
"I won't." But even I didn't believe it. My body was screaming for them, slick flooding between my thighs, my nipples hardening against my shirt, my core clenching with desperate, aching need. Three years of suppressed heats were crashing over me all at once, and I couldn't fight them anymore.
"Your body says otherwise." Caleb's voice was dark with satisfaction. "You're soaking through your jeans, little fox. I can smell how badly you want us."
"My body doesn't get a vote." I gave a small growl.
"Actually," Leo murmured, his lips brushing my ear, "it's the only vote that matters.
" I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks, and tried to remember why I'd run in the first place.
All I could think about was their hands on me.
Their scents surrounding me. Their voices promising things my body craved even as my mind rebelled.
Three years of running.
Three years of hiding.
Three years of building a life without them. It had all led to this. A black SUV on a mountain road, two Alphas pressed against my sides, and a heat rising inside me that I couldn't control.
I was trapped.
I was theirs.
Some broken, desperate part of me was glad….but I would never admit it…even to myself.
The drive took two hours.
Two hours of torture. Two hours of their scents filling my lungs with every breath.
Two hours of their hands on me, stroking my hair, rubbing my neck, trailing up my thighs—while I tried and failed to fight the arousal flooding my system.
I cried for the first hour. Silent tears that Leo wiped away with gentle fingers, murmuring soothing nonsense that only made me cry harder.
I raged for the second hour. Cursed them with every filthy word I knew, threatened them with police and lawyers and violence, promised them I would never, ever submit.
They just smiled. They knew. They'd always known. My resistance was pointless—not because they could physically overpower me, though they could. Because my body was already surrendering. Every minute that passed, every breath of Alpha pheromones I inhaled, pushed me closer to the edge.
By the time the SUV pulled up to the cabin, I was a mess. My jeans were ruined. My shirt was soaked with sweat. My whole body trembled with need, with fury, with a desperate terror that warred with an equally desperate want.
I still hadn't seen Mason or Ethan. That thought lingered as Caleb pulled me from the car, as Leo grabbed my bags from the trunk, as they marched me up the wooden steps to the front door of a cabin that looked like something out of a luxury magazine.
The other two were inside. Waiting. I could smell them already, their scents leaking through the walls, mingling with Caleb's and Leo's until I was surrounded, drowning, suffocating in Alpha pheromones.
"Welcome home, little fox," Caleb murmured against my ear. Then he opened the door.