Chapter 18 Ayden
Cooking for my omega was the only thing that distracted me enough to keep me out of the nest. Pulling the chicken out of the fridge, I moved to the stove and tossed it on with some butter and seasonings. Dax was watching my every move, I couldn’t tell whether it was annoying or endearing, but either way I felt like a specimen in a cage. There was something deadly about the way he studied me.
I tried to ignore it as much as I could, but I finally couldn’t anymore. “We need to come to an understanding,” I growled, spinning around.
“I don’t see why that’s necessary.”
“You don’t get to come in here and try to take my pack from me.” I couldn’t take his cockiness a moment longer. “Especially when I’ve been here since day one.”
“Is someone feeling insecure?”
My hands shook from rage, knowing he was baiting me but unable to stop myself. “It’s not insecurity, it’s just a fact. You come in here with no deference to me or anyone else in the house and obsessed with Calliope. Which is creepy as fuck by the way. Then proceed to manipulate everyone around you. Making the two people who are the center of my world fall in love with you.”
“They don’t love me.”
“Have you seen the way they look at you?”
He shrugged. “Not really, but I have seen the way they are with you. They’re so comfortable with you, so vulnerable. And don’t think I don’t see my death in your eyes every time you look at me. Tell me have you ever killed anyone?”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“So, you have.” He looked entirely too intrigued.
“No, Cain says I’m not allowed to kill anyone.”
“Since when does a beta have such pull over an alpha?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You need to figure out what you’re doing here.”
I spun without waiting for his reply and started to plate everything. Three plates later, I was carrying them up to my mates in the nest. There was something surreal about bringing them food in bed. We did it every heat, but this time was different. Pushing open the door to the nest, I slid inside. They were propped up in the bed in the lower nest, their eyes widening when they saw me coming. At least, I thought it was for me. It became clear I was mistaken when Dax brushed past me. Their eyes tracked him as he moved, my heart aching at the observation. He came to me, taking two of the plates and setting them in front of Cain and Calliope.
I stood there for a moment, taking in the scene where Dax sat at the base of the bed with his back to me. He was feeding Calliope while Cain watched them. My heart broke as I realized there was no space for me there. Turning, I headed to my office, pulling the door closed behind me and booting up my system. The screens filled with images from the security cameras throughout the property. I watched them and ate while I debated my next move. Dax was much more my pack’s speed. Everything about him was more compatible with Cain and Calliope than I was. He could go hunting with my omega and talk shop with Cain. He could do all the things with them that I just couldn’t do. It was like the alpha-sized space in our pack was a spot I was only just filling as a placeholder. Dax was the one that fit so easily, whereas I had to fight every step of the way to make it work. Cain hadn’t wanted me at first. Calliope couldn’t stand to be around me. But with Dax… they were so comfortable.
My fingers flew over the keyboard, coding as I went, there was only so much I could do from here. I needed to get into the secure files, the ones that only team members and local police saw. Every line of code brought me closer to getting what I wanted—needed. I had a bad feeling that someone was closing in on my omega, and I needed to know who it was and why. Moments passed as I let the program do its work, scanning through personal devices and hacking into the Wake County Sheriff’s files. An alert went off telling me it had found something. My eyes moved over the files, but they didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Clicking to the next page, my heart seized in my chest,.
Images from a phone recovered in the Pack Annihilator case—Dax’s murders. Photos of my omega coming and going from her murder scenes.
I clicked through the files until I was able to see they only went back about a year. Coding a quick kill command into the page, I backed out, removing any trace of my presence in the systems. That phone was now useless, the command frying the hard drive. I sighed, realizing what I needed to do.
“Calliope’s asking for you.” Cain’s voice from my shoulder made me jump.
“I’m coming,” I sighed. “We need to talk to Dax after she’s asleep.”
Two hours later, Calliope was resting curled around a blanket that smelled like the three of us. She looked happy, and I hated to do anything to jeopardize that. But I needed to get to the bottom of what was going on.
Cain
When Ayden said we needed to talk without Calliope, I knew something major had happened. My alpha had become more withdrawn the longer Dax was here. It certainly didn’t help that Calliope was enamored with him. I wasn’t far behind, but I refused to have it at the detriment of my relationship with Ayden. It was more complicated than I wished to admit. My alpha was sitting in an oversized chair, so I went to him and slid into his lap. He hesitated for a moment before wrapping his arms around me. I couldn’t get enough of that woodsmoke scent of his. Pushing my head against his chin, I got him to turn his head enough so I could get to his neck. Running my face along it made me release a sigh of relief.
“You smell so good,” I said.
“Are you okay, baby boy?”
I pulled back so I could see his eyes. “I’m home.”
“Is this new?” There was hesitation in Dax’s voice when he asked that.
“It is.” Ayden’s voice made me shiver against him. “It may be a side effect of me bonding the both of them. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
“Enlighten me.” The other alpha seemed sure that he had done nothing wrong, and that made me suspicious.
“You left your phone at one of your crime scenes.”
That brought my head up to look at Dax, he seemed unconcerned. “They’ll never get into it.”
“No,” Ayden said. “But I did. Care to tell me why you had images of Calliope leaving those sites.”
“I think me and Cain covered that quite well before he brought me to the house.”
“No, we didn’t,” I snapped. “You told me it was a recent thing.”
“I told you me following the whole pack was recent. You didn’t ask how long I was interested in my omega.”
He had me there.
Ayden sighed, “You’re lucky I cracked your phone before they did.”