44. CALLUM
Chapter forty-four
CALLUM
I t’s late afternoon when I finally get home. Captain Zhao agrees that what this case needs is perspective. The break-in patterns are random– machine parts; old data processing equipment that was slated to be recycled; blood .
I have my suspicions about who might be behind orchestrating such a wild scheme, but there’s not a rational reason for it. Not that I can see. Not yet.
I stalk through the house, pausing to look out the kitchen window. Loren is on the phone, pacing in the garden. It’s his sister, by the animated way he’s waving his hands. I shake my head. Loren’s family pack, Pack Bellrose, is a nightmare at the best of times. His sister is the one bright spot left. Now she’s shacking up with guns-for-hire. I pinch the bridge of my nose.
It’s not my problem–or anyone in Pack Murphy’s for that matter. Alfonze Bellrose made that clear the last time we saw him.
I bare my teeth in the empty kitchen. The anger and betrayal is still too fresh. The look of disgust when we told him a Beta had managed to steal classified documents right out from under our noses. My guts roil, the memory flashing bright in my mind.
“That’s because you boys weren’t thinking with the head that’s attached to your shoulders!” General Bellrose had roared, shaking a fist at the two of us. “This is what comes of letting a street-born Alpha lead a pack. Loren, you’ve had your fun, but it’s time to put aside your childish affairs and return to the family Pack. There are others that will happily take you. Like Hugo’s Pack– they’re traditional, and another Alpha would be welcome on their estate. Or you can start your own pack, as you should have all along.”
I grind my jaw side to side, the words still cutting despite a year of work to put them aside. Loren’s face, pale but unmoving as he stared his father– his commanding officer – down.
“Never. Pack is pack, sir. You taught me that.”
I thought I had loved Loren before–loved the way he was both tender and ferocious, loved his stoic strength. But it was that moment, watching the last shreds of goodwill between us and his family crumble, that I knew I would give my whole life for this man.
Loren could have walked away from me– kept his title and his fortune. Kept his command as the lead of the secret intelligence unit, and all the benefits that entailed. But instead, Loren turned on his heel, took my hand, and walked out of his father’s office.
Max had waited for us in the car, swearing the moment we opened the door. Max was pack, pure and simple. The General did not understand how sometimes Alphas could be both pack and lovers– but that’s because he was old-fashioned, and still believed that dominance was the only kind of strength.
The heat of the memory fades, leaving only the wounds.
My chest aches. We could have lied about my status as Alpha. We could have tried to force a change in the natural order of things just to appease the General. But Loren wouldn’t budge. Gods below be cursed, my stubborn packmate would not budge.
I still don’t have words for what that meant. For Max to stay through it all, a packmate bound, not by a common Omega, but by the kinship of being pack. That Loren refused to abandon me, time and again, even though he had so many other options.
Now we have a chance, a real chance to be a whole pack. A pack bound together by their central Omega. A pack bound by words, and care, and bond.
As if I conjured her scent just by thinking of her, Katie’s spicy-sweet perfume envelops me. I follow it, unable to stop my feet as they carry me through the living room, past the dining room, and into the back sitting room, tucked into the corner behind the stairs. Two sides are windows, with a wall of bookshelves flanking one window.
Katie is standing on tip-toe, her whole body straining to reach an oversized book on the top shelf. She’s too short to grab it, so she’s standing on one of the large cushioned footstools.
She hops, her fingers just brushing the thick tome, but as she lands her left knee buckles, then gives out and she loses her balance.
I dart forward, catching her before she crashes to the ground. She’s light in my hold, her body trembling as she twists to wrap her arms around my neck.
I feel the rapid flutter of her pulse, her instinct to grab at something to keep her balance. But in her frantic grab, she’s wrapped her arms around my neck– and her legs around my hips.
Fuck .
I haven’t held a woman since Genevieve. Haven’t held anyone but Loren in over a year.
Except Katie .
Because I’d already held Katie in my arms. The first day. Our first meeting I’d been so consumed by her, so drawn that every Alpha instinct inside me screamed to take her and claim her right then and there.
Mine .
I inhale, her scent strong all around us.
Not just her scent, but her and Loren’s, mingled together in a mouthwatering interplay of fresh and sweet, spicy and musky. They've been intimate, the scents too close together to be anything else.
Gods above, I want to fuck them both. I want to lay her out on my bed and fuck her and Loren until I have them both screaming my name. Because they are mine .
I swallow. “Are you okay?”
Katie’s legs loosen from my waist, and I immediately miss them. I ache to pull them back up around me, to press her against the bookshelf, and slide my cock from my trousers and into her wet cunt.
Because she is wet for me. I can smell her perfume filling the small nook around us. Not the burnt sugar smell of fear or panic. No, this is all arousal and desire.
I still hold lightly to Katie’s waist, steadying her, but I take a respectful step back. I’m still proving myself to her. Still undoing that mess of a first encounter.
“Th-thanks,” she says, withdrawing her arms from my shoulders. “Ah, that was a rush, huh?” She laughs. “I was just trying to reach an atlas.” She holds most of her weight on her good knee, carefully hiding how much pain she’s in. I can feel it, though. Under her arousal is a bright spark of discomfort.
“This one?” I ask, trying to redirect my own stubborn attention away from her perfectly tight body. I want to help her– to ease her pain. I want to be someone she can be honest with.
But we aren’t there yet.
She nods, and from the corner of my eye I watch her hobble to the armchair, sinking down with a grateful sigh. I grab the old black leather atlas, and hand it over to her. It’s not the most up-to-date of Loren’s collection, but it does have several impressive photographs of local interest sites.
“Thank you,” she says, her fingers brushing mine as I hand over the book.
“Do you need anything else?” My tone is harsher than I intend, my own need to control my desires forcing my voice to be stern instead of soothing. Fuck, how can Loren be so good about this? How does Max manage to always be charming?
“Actually,” she bites her lower lip.
Anything . I will give you anything, just ask .
Only, that isn’t true. I won’t–can’t–give her my heart. Not yet.
“Do you have any road maps– of Halvassa and the surrounding area? I’m really curious about how far away we were… found. It seems far, but I have no real concept the geography here for perspective.” She offers me a tight smile, one that doesn’t fully reach her brown eyes.
A road map. I nod.
“Give me a minute.” I jog up the two flights of stairs to my study. I have more than a dozen maps, most topographical from my overland navigation training years ago. But I do have a few from the rare trips we would take as pack. Of course there’s digital navigation, as Max always reminds me. But an old fashioned map means never getting lost if the digital network goes down.
I force myself to walk back more sedately. I’m just an Alpha taking care of the needs of my Omega. There’s no need to panic, no need to rush. Nothing more is at stake.
Only, something in my chest tells me there is something more at stake. Something more here that I don’t see, don’t fully understand.
I pause behind the chair, watching as she flips through the atlas, and scans a page, her finger tracing the title, before referencing a sheet of paper.
TRAVELERS CAVE AT BLOWING ROCK.
“This is a recent map of the roads in and around Halvassa,” I say, handing her the folded paper. She looks up at me, a real smile playing on her perfectly plump lips.
“If you wanted to visit any of the local sites, just ask us. You can’t go alone–it’s not safe for unbonded Omegas. But we’d be happy to give you a tour.”
All my words are stiff, unpracticed. But she nods at me anyway.
“Great! Callum, thank you.” She takes the map, then turns back to the article she’s reading.
I stand for a moment, wanting to do more. To bring her something to eat, or to get her some pain medication. But I don’t know what to say. She looks up at me briefly, a question in her eyes.
Why are you still here?
I grind my molars together tightly. Why am I still here like an idiot, where I'm not useful and unwanted? So I turn without a word, my chest tight with wanting and a gnawing sense of dread.
I run into Loren, who is grabbing a glass bowl out of the fridge, nervously picking at the end of a grape stem.
“What?” I ask, harsher than I intend. Loren doesn’t notice, his gaze distant as he absently plucks a grape and pops it between his lips.
All of my unsatisfied arousal returns. I want release, want closeness and intimacy. But asking for it, reaching out for it, feels hard, like every move is weighed down. I don’t want to demand from Loren what I want for Katie. No, I want them both to come to me willingly. Happily.
My lip curls in a sneer. Who am I to hope that an Omega would be happy with a street-born Alpha?
Loren blinks, then looks up at me.
“Celeste wants us at family dinner on Friday.”
The anger I’d kindled against myself cools to ash.
“Why?”
Loren shakes his head. “She said she’s telling Father something important and could use me there as moral support. She wants the whole pack to come, if we can stand it.”
Loren rubs his eyes under his glasses. “I told Pack Bellrose I wouldn’t return–not for anything.”
Except Celeste.
“Why is she even asking–she knows how the Pack feels about us.”
Loren walks to me, opening his arms, so easy, without a second thought. Of course I’ll hold him, though I know what he needs is to be soothed by our Omega.
“I think she’s going to bond with Pack Messina, and isn’t sure how Father or Rafe will take it.” He presses his forehead to mine, and I smell the sour edge of his usually fresh scent. He’s worried.
I take a deep breath.
“If you need to go for her, then we go together. Pack is pack.”
He swallows thickly, then nods, relaxing back from my hold. I press my lips against his, not a demanding kiss, but one that can say more than any words I might string together. Loren opens, letting the light press of our lips ease more of the tension from his body. He sighs as I pull away.
“Go find your Omega,” I say. “Let her soothe you.”
Loren hesitates for a moment, but I know he wants to be near Katie. He needs her serene presence, and the way an Omega’s touch calms a racing pulse. He needs what she can give him that I can’t.
I watch him pass, moving away from me and toward an Omega I don’t know how to reach, the weight of dread growing in my chest.