Into the Fire: After

Chapter 1

One

Brea

Once, there was light, and lightness. The warmth of five people piled together in a lull of our omega’s heat.

Among the trees, there was no light. Only the one I carried, burning and whimpering, on my back.

In the dark, I couldn’t see Brooks’ dimples when he laughed, or Lin’s gaze that so often sliced me to pieces. Or Caine’s vulnerability he’d entrusted to me almost from the day we met.

Those memories didn’t matter just now. Neither did the sting of my bare feet sprinting through a rain-soaked wood.

Or the exhaustion that made my muscles scream.

Or how vulnerable we both were in our men’s drenched t-shirts and nothing else, a single knife our only weapon.

Or the cloudiness of my mind from a heat haze that wasn’t my own.

I forced it all from my mind. Only the path to safety mattered. Only the directions Caine had forced me to memorize before we all succumbed to the magnificent chaos of our omega’s heat.

Had to focus. Had to move. Had to save our omega.

Once upon a time, I was the only one who’d needed her. Now, I had to save her for all of us.

Many, many steps later, my legs finally gave out. I managed to twist myself so Taryn didn’t fall to the sopping ground, but we landed with matching grunts.

We didn’t move.

We didn’t speak.

I stared up at the raindrops, like so many silver knives pelting us from heaven.

If that was heaven, was this hell? The Underneath, the realm of unending toil and misery? That would be a sly bit of irony, if we stupid mortals told stories of a fiery hell when, in fact, it was nothing but black and cold and rain and fear. If it existed all around us, disguised in plain sight.

If this really was hell, then it wouldn’t be so sad that the guys were gone. Maybe they were up high, above the knives. Away from the fear and rain and cold and black.

Maybe they were where the light was.

Light!

Like I’d willed it to existence, a flash blinded me, making my dark-sensitive eyes squeeze shut right as the very air around me cracked with anger.

Light.

Lightning. Thunder.

Taryn!

I slapped my own face. And again.

The boys weren’t in heaven, and we weren’t in hell. I couldn’t say if either place existed. What did exist was the boiling, beautiful omega at my side, still suffering heat pangs that bent her double and pulled desperate whimpers from her.

I had to focus. Had to force my mind to stay on task. Getting Taryn to safety. Finding the little cave Caine had told us about, remote but well hidden, where we’d circle up once it was safe.

Exhaustion couldn’t defeat me. Rain and cold couldn’t. Taryn’s heat could try to sneak through the bond and addle my mind, but it would lose.

Because where my omega—our omega—was concerned, I would force myself to be invincible.

I loosed a breath and rolled to my knees.

I willed my legs to hold me upright. I stood.

I pulled Taryn with me, draping one of her arms around my neck as I hooked mine around her waist. She clung to me like I was a piece of driftwood in a roiling ocean.

My teeth chattered in the summer rain, but her skin was still so warm.

I gripped the knife in my free hand until my knuckles cracked.

Find a safe place. Tend to Taryn. Keep her safe. Await the others.

With a plan—a half-delirious plan crafted from recitation and necessity—we hobbled on.

Straight out the back, go for the trees. Walk northeast, go until you find the stream.

Some fucking stream. It was a goddamn river, dark and angry in the storm. Taryn and I stood at the top of a ravine, looking down at it. Even from probably thirty feet up, it roared.

Follow the water. If you’re going downhill, you’re going the wrong way.

No indication how long that would fucking take. Still, reinvigorated, I tightened my grip on my mate and dragged us parallel along the river.

We may as well have been running on a treadmill for all the forest around us changed. And we were definitely not going downhill.

The only consolation to that being we had to be on the right path. Even if not, maybe the bad guys would hate the incline as much as we did and give us up for lost.

Small comforts.

Taryn, goddamn warrior she was, stumbled a few times but kept her feet despite the pain I knew sliced her from the inside. The echoes of that pain through the bond were enough to bring tears to my eyes.

There was just enough light for me to make out her pale, trembling lips when I spotted a jagged gray wall ahead of us, a geometric slice in the night. We both limped now until I could press my palm against the cold stone.

Turn inland. Run your hand along the wall until you find the opening.

No indication how far. I didn’t care. We were to the last twist of the map. We had to be close.

Please, god, let us be close.

Fingers running along the rough surface of the mountainside, I counted our steps. It kept me awake. Kept me sane. Kept me from thinking about all the steps and threats and joys behind us.

Step five hundred twelve. Taryn keened and curled inward with a particularly strong cramp. I pulled her up again.

“We’re almost there, Teacup,” I whispered through chattering teeth.

I hoped I wasn’t lying.

Step seven hundred ninety-eight. The rain lightened, and my ears rang in the quiet. Mist hung between the trees like smoke. There was light enough for me to see the scrapes and scratches across our arms and legs, marring Taryn’s face.

Step eight hundred forty-two. My fingers skipped over a gap in the rock. My heart jumped to match as I looked closer. The opening was subtle, hidden by a rocky overhang and a canopy of tree branches. But this had to be it.

Gently as I could, I lowered Taryn to the ground outside the opening.

She was nearly catatonic with the pain. Still, I pressed my knife into her hand and wrapped her fingers around the hilt.

“Wait here,” I whispered, pressing her back gently against the rock.

Then I turned toward the opening and sucked my breath in to squeeze through.

It was a tight fit, jagged edges scraping my back, but I made it through.

The cave was narrow, barely wide enough for us to sit side by side.

Cold stone chilled my nearly numb feet as I inched my way along.

By the time I found myself at the end, the light from the opening was only a thin hazy line.

Good. Who knew how long my sanity would’ve survived in endless dark.

It would be dark, and cold, and hard, but at least no other creepy crawlies had made their home here.

Taryn was curled up at the entrance and whimpering when I returned. All her agony—the pangs that rocked her, the fever that refused to quit, the grief that threatened to smother her—were distant shouts through the bond we shared. I blocked them as best I could.

“C’mon, Teacup.” I bent down and lifted her up.

Some combination of stubbornness and miracle helped us to the depths of the cave. We settled on the cold ground, my omega immediately curling into me. She nuzzled into my neck, her hand raising to clutch at my breast through my drenched shirt. “Please, Alpha.”

We were miles from the cabin, our trail and scents hopefully obscured by the rain.

But Taryn’s scent was amplified enough simply suffering through the end of her heat. It would explode like a nuclear blast if we indulged it.

Now with the distraction of flight gone, though, her suffering intensified, and quickly. She rocked, thighs squeezed together, whining and writhing.

Her heat had nearly been through when the house was raided. If we waited, if she could manage to sleep, maybe it would simply fade away.

Or would not soothing her body’s wrath prolong the heat, her damned biology punishing her—us—for not caving to its demands?

In the end, it was no choice at all. There were risks either way, but I couldn’t stand to see my omega in pain like this. To feel it.

“You’ve done so good, Omega,” I whispered into her ear, my fingers stroking her cheek. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Can you help me now, Alpha?”

Slowly, I pulled her cold, wet shirt over her head.

It likely wouldn’t dry in here, but we’d both freeze if we left them on anyway.

“Yes, Omega. I’m gonna make it feel better now.

” I gave her a long, slow kiss before raising one of her own hands to cover her mouth.

Imbuing command into my tone, I added, “You keep this hand here like a good girl.”

Her muffled whimper this time was relieved, heated.

She scooted so she could lay down, her legs falling open for me.

A silent plea for to take the edge off the pain.

I fell between them without hesitation, immediately stroking between her slick folds with the flat of my tongue.

Taryn groaned, her palm doing little to hide the sound, but it was something at least.

Already, my alpha saliva soothed her aching need.

God almighty, I’d assumed I wouldn’t reach rut out here.

Soothing my sweet omega, bringing her release and relief, had been my only intent.

But as Taryn’s pulse ratcheted up, as she bucked against my mouth and rode my tongue, the heat of the rut rose in me.

Fear and pain faded away. Desperation replaced it.

I needed to taste my omega. To fill her. Satisfy her. Melt into her.

My last ounce of sanity admired my omega for having been able to follow my commands at all in her own need tonight; mine was eclipsing everything I knew, draining every bit of reason from my being. It demanded satiation.

Saliva and slick dripped down my lips and chin as I feasted on her. The tip of my tongue traced over her vulva, swollen and silky. I stroked up toward her engorged clit, giving it a flick right as my fingers slid into her. Two, then a third.

Taryn keened against her palm, but like the good little omega she was, she kept her hand in place.

The other one twisted in my hair, pulling some of the long red strands into my face.

Some of them ended up in my mouth as I continued to tease her throbbing nub and massage her G-spot, but I couldn’t care less.

I cursed the darkness that kept my favorite vision from me—my Taryn flushed and sweating and arching as the initial flutters of her climax clenched around my fingers.

She was about to come.

At the last second, I withdrew my tongue and fingers.

“No!” she begged, both hands grasping at my face and trying to return it to her sweet, sweet cunt. “Please, please—no—I need—”

I grabbed her wrist, tight enough for her to gasp. “Where should this hand be, Omega?”

“Please, Brea, I can’t take it.”

My heart clenched at her pleas. I brought her hand to my lips, giving her knuckles a slow, gentle kiss. “Who takes care of you, baby?”

Taryn choked on a sob, her fingers trembling in mine. “You, Alpha.”

I rose up on my knees, placing her hand back over her mouth. “Who rocks your world, Omega?”

“You.” Her answer was muffled behind her hand, but I could still hear her panting in the darkness.

Fire sliced through my being as I climbed to straddle her thigh, pressing our matching, sopping pussies together. My fingers brushed up the inside of her thigh as I braced myself on her bent leg. “Who loves you more than life, Teacup?”

“You do,” she breathed as I rocked against her. Lightning jumped from her sex to mine, my blood turning to lava in my veins. I kissed the inside of her knee, rubbing my aching clit against hers.

If the enzymes in female alphas’ saliva were a drug, then those in our slick were opium on steroids.

Strong enough that our omegas forgot all about the cocks and knots we didn’t have.

Taryn had once tried to describe the ecstasy of coming with my alpha slick coating her entrance like this; it had ended with a demonstration and very little description.

Her free hand scrabbled against my hip, my waist. Breaths exploded out of her, muffled behind her hand. I bit my own lips to hold back the sounds clawing up my throat as I coiled tighter and tighter, rocking faster and faster.

Taryn’s release came just before mine, her guttural cries pounding in my ears as I bit her thigh through my own orgasm. We flooded each other, trembling, spasming together. The cold was all but forgotten as we floated in our warm bond together, panting and—at last—sated.

Eventually, I climbed off her and lay at her side, pulling her body close to mine. I positioned us so my back was toward the entrance. Her breath in my ear was a metronome I used to slip into sleep.