Chapter 7 Cain
Calliope’s heat was coming, and it was coming in strong. There were no two-ways about it. She had woken up in such a mood. Throwing the blanket around the room because it was making her too hot. She had moved in just the right way and bent in half from pain. When she finally managed to get up from the couch, she was especially prickly, snipping at Ayden and me over the simplest things. The only thing that calmed her down was our alpha’s knot. There was no way she was making it through the night. She had a routine she would follow like clockwork. Four weeks before, she would clean her claws. At three weeks, she would start to stalk her chosen victim. Two weeks before, she knew where she was going to commit the murder. We got a break seven days before, where she cleaned and reorganized the house.
Not even her library was free from the frantic cleaning. What system she used there was beyond me. I would find colors together one time, and the next it was by genre. Every time I went in there, I lost a little more of the sanity I had managed to hold on to. The week of her heat was always marked by her kill. She never did that alone; I went with her as bodyguard and voyeur. I treasured that time with her. From the night of the kill, we were lucky if we had five days.
This was day three. I just prayed that it wasn’t as bad this time. We might have to hire someone. Not that we would have any luck hiring alphas for her heat. Even in an emergency situation—which it would be if we went that route—there were still background checks. Ones that both Ayden and I would fail. Me, because legally I didn’t exist. There was a shadow over my name in government systems that made me unsearchable. There was no way anyone at Omega Services had the clearance to see Ayden’s background.
They would try to take Calliope from us ‘for her protection.’ That was such bullshit. She would gut any alpha that tried to come near her. Not to mention I would help Ayden tear the organization apart to get to her. Truth was, we might not have much of a choice. She had become increasingly demanding the longer she was on hormones. If I had known it would get this bad, I would have asked if we could find other treatment options.
No.
That was a lie. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her happy. I was just worried she might fuck one of us to death sooner than she intended. That led me to do a last-minute supply run. Grabbing my wallet, I headed out. As soon as I pulled out of the driveway, I spotted the tail. As I drove through the neighborhood, he stayed two car lengths behind me. That wouldn’t have been an indication of anything if he hadn’t taken every turn I did. I led him on a winding tour of the surrounding area before heading to the supermarket. Regardless if I were being followed or not, Calliope came first.
I parked and went into the store, sure that I wasn’t followed inside. I ran through the list in my head as I moved. Turning a corner, I headed to that aisle when I spotted him. He wasn’t even trying to hide what he was doing. Of course, it was hard to miss a man who was taller than I was, which was a feat when I had always been the tallest person in the room. The tattoos on display were also a dead giveaway. Alpha Reporter—Dax Grimes.
He moved past the opening of the aisle as I headed towards checkout. Taking my time, I chatted with the cashier for a moment. She was a beta, easily flustered by my meaningless flirting. Or maybe it was Calliope’s perfume that I wore like a badge of honor. Either way, she made for a great distraction. Keeping an eye on the door, we talked about nothing important while I tracked Dax as he left. I followed him outside and managed to pack the car in record time. Even after peeling out of the parking lot, it only took a moment for him to get back on my tail. He was for sure following me. It was what I had hoped not to confirm. Yesterday upon returning to the house, I slipped out the back through a door he couldn’t see. Coming up behind him from the woods, I studied him. At seemingly random intervals he would reach for a pair of binoculars and stare through them at the house. Then he would set a timer before running from the spot he had chosen to the back fence and returning. He was practicing. It was then that I realized who he was. I was looking at the other person who was dropping bodies in the area. Suddenly, my intense attraction to him made sense to me. I stayed there watching him until I needed to pick Calliope up.
That same car was following me now. My gut clenched as we passed under a streetlight. For just a split second, his face was lit. He had a determined look on his face, as if he were afraid of losing me. Flooring the car so I could put some space between us, I aimed the Hellcat for one of my warehouses. It was a five-minute drive that flew by. Reaching into the center console, I pulled out the remote for the double-bay doors. They opened as I slammed on the brakes and slid inside. He was less than a minute behind me as I rose from the driver’s seat. Pushing the door closed behind me, I slipped into the darkness.
The car drove through the open doors and parked right behind the Hellcat. Reaching my hand into my pocket, I retrieved my throwing knife and slipped through the shadows until I could see him in the passenger side mirror. His head was moving from side to side as he tried to find where I had gone. The shakes became more violent until I heard his growl echo in the room, and he reached for the door handle. Moving as quickly as I dared, I was at the passenger side door in moments. The light came on a split second before I pulled the door open. I was in the car, his hair gripped in my fist before he could move. I pulled his head back at an angle that should have been painful as I brought the blade up to his throat.
“Any reason you’ve been following my pack around?” I was too calm, going to that place I went when I took a life.
“So, you did see me.”
“You wanted to be caught?”
His laugh made me want to smash his face into the door. “I saw something I wanted.”
“And what would that something be?”
He grabbed my hand and spun, taking a slice to the neck as he did. But he had accomplished what he wanted and was now staring at me with those amber eyes. “I saw an omega who’s throat I didn’t want to slit, and a pack I didn’t want to destroy.”
That should have given me pause, instead it made me want to crash my lips against his. Made me ache to climb him like a tree and ride him until his knot was buried in my ass. Go to my knees and worship him like the death god he was. His scent was distinctive, but as it mixed with Calliope and my combined scents, it was delicious. I risked a glance down at his body, taking in the way his shirt was just tight enough to show off the swell of his pecs. His jeans were tight enough to let me know this was affecting him the same way it was me.
That was the problem, he should not be affecting me this way. But with Calliope’s heat and the bonding, anything was possible. Our bonding with Ayden changed things between us. I could feel her much more clearly now—sense her emotions. Right now, she was either fighting with Ayden or they were fucking. I could tell that much from the satisfaction and excitement that I was getting. Maybe she was doing both, our bedroom games did tend to be more deadly than most. If I really pushed, I could feel what was happening to her body.
Dax decided that he had waited long enough for me to answer his challenge, slamming his head back and pulling out of my grip on his hair. I pushed forward, following him with the blade still pressed to the skin. His head lay against the door, so he was draped across the driver’s seat. A smile crested along his lips when we came to rest. “Most people wouldn’t have been able to stay in control.” There was admiration in his voice.
“I’m not most people.” The change in position left me pressed against him. His cock was growing, with a thick knot developing at the base. I wondered what that would feel like stretching my hole. My thoughts were cut off by my phone ringing. It was Ayden, and I pressed it to my ear cradling it between my head and shoulder. “What?”
“You’ve been gone a while, when are you coming back?”
“Not long now.” Dax was quiet as I held the conversation, like he knew I would open his throat and go on with my day. “How’s our omega?”
“Asleep, but I think her heat will start when she wakes up.” He hesitated before adding, “We really need to find someone to add to our pack.”
“I might have a lead on that.” Dax’s eyes widened when he realized I was talking about him. “We were in the middle of negotiations when you called.”
“You’d better not have anyone’s knot but mine buried in that tight little ass.”
His growl made me smile and wiggle against Dax. Ayden had always been possessive of me. There was nothing that he wouldn’t do to keep me safe, including hacking into CIA databases and destroying files with my name on them. That was what had gotten him on the FBI’s radar. His protectiveness had only gotten worse in the last two days. “I suppose I shouldn’t tell you I’m currently on top of him with a blade to his throat.”
The resulting growl made my toes curl. That was not fair. I was on top of this delicious alpha while Ayden growled in my ear. The only thing that would make this better was if Calliope was with us. I had to fight back a moan from the thought alone. The nasty things that three of us could do to our omega…
“Don’t play with me, Cain.” His words were hissed through the speaker.
“Trust me.”
“You know I do.” That was when the line went dead.
I sat in silence for a moment, waiting for something to come to me. Some solution that didn’t involve the alpha I was currently threatening. We needed a third person in the room during Calliope’s heat. That was a fact. One that I had known for nearly a year. She hadn’t had a heat in eighteen months at that point. When it finally came, it had come with a vengeance, sweeping us off our feet in a storm of begging needy omega. For five days, Ayden and I had given into her every whim. Just when we thought it was over, she went right back into it again. Ten days of fucking and pampering her had been exhausting.
Every time they changed her dosage, her heat changed. Always becoming worse. It was just too much for two people. The last one nearly killed me—and I mean that literally. My heart had nearly gone out from the five-day fuck-fest. Ayden hardly fared any better, swaying on his feet for a week after sleeping for three days. There was only one way through… One solution that I could see.
That led me to look down at the alpha below me. He had the nerve to look peaceful, with the blood pooling around my blade. It was kind of sexy the way he was accepting it, sitting there waiting for my judgement. Deciding to trust my gut, I slid back into the passenger seat, the order slipping from my lips. “Get the groceries and drive.”