Chapter 16
Sixteen
Caine
The door opening jolted us both from sleep. Limpdick Motherfucker stood framed in the doorway like a movie poster of hell.
“Up,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Lin sat up, standing cautiously from the bed. I didn’t move. “Go where?”
“Did I stutter?” Limpdick said between clenched teeth. “Both of you. Move.”
I looked for Limpdick’s backup, the muscle that would force us to do his bidding.
There was none.
Lin saw the same, and he shook his head. “Not until you tell us what’s going on.”
I expected our unlikely comrade to escalate, maybe pistol whip one of us or even cock the gun holstered at his waist. Instead, his stony expression softened. “The omega needs you.”
He could’ve been leading us to our deaths. To a room of spikes and fire and agony. We would’ve gone willingly if told it was to get to the omega.
Get to our omega.
Lin and I walked side by side, Limpdick behind us, his gun held in hand.
He guided us toward an elevator, wordlessly pressed the button for the fifteenth floor—out of fifty-six—then urged us through when the doors opened.
Five steps outside the elevator, he spoke, as though he’d crossed some sort of boundary.
“Cameras on the hallway don’t have audio. We can talk freely here.”
I rounded on him. “Where the fuck is she?”
“Keep moving,” the guard ordered. “There’s still video, dumbass.”
Growling, scowling, I did as he requested. Lin and I exchanged a glance, but the guard didn’t leave us in the dark for long. “I’m taking you to her. She needs you.”
“Why?” Lin asked, turning his head just a little toward the guard while keeping his voice low. “What’s happening?”
“She’s in heat.”
My stomach dropped out of my torso. I was surprised I didn’t trip over it. “That’s impossible. She just had a heat. We’ve only been here, what, two weeks?”
I swore to fucking god I heard him swallow as he guided us through another corridor to the left. “The doctors induced a heat state. All part of their research.” He sneered the word. “What they want from the omegas, they can only get when in heat.”
I held myself back from punching a hole through the cinderblock wall to my right, but only just. Limpdick scanned his badge and moved around us to open a set of locked double doors.
How fucking dare they touch her, take things from her she didn’t want to give them? Force her body into a brutal, unrelenting process that, without any partners, would be—
We passed through the doors, and a distant, gravelly shriek pierced me down to my soul. Choked and uneven, like the person making that abominable sound had been doing so long enough that their voice was giving out. My alpha reared.
Taryn.
“How long has she been like this?” Lin asked, speeding his steps. I sped mine to match.
“Six days.”
Six days. Six goddamn motherfucking days that she’d been in heat with no one to help her. In untold agony.
I’d kill every last motherfucker in this place.
He didn’t need to direct us anymore. We simply followed the screams to another door, pausing to let Limpdick open it up and allow us to enter.
As soon as it swung open, her scent bowled me over.
The heat, the terror and anger and agony.
My entire world shrank down to her, restrained to the hospital bed in the center of the room, soaked in sweat and trembling, limbs limp like she simply didn’t have the strength to do anything but succumb to gravity.
With a growl, I dove for her, stroking her greasy, sweat-matted hair.
“Shh, sunshine,” I whispered, my own hands shaking as I struggled to keep my alpha from going ballistic. “We’re here.”
She looked up at us, face tear-stained and flushed, eyes glazed. They didn’t focus on me, like I wasn’t quite solid in front of her. Or maybe just didn’t believe what she saw.
“Caine?”
Fuck, her voice was so small, so ragged voice that I choked back a sob.
I curled some hair behind her ear. “Here, baby. We’re here.”
Her hands reached for me, fingers scrabbling against my skin. The padded restraint wouldn’t let her get much further up my arm than my wrist. “Help me,” she sobbed. Her skin was feverish, overly warm even on just a grazing touch. “Please, make it stop, please, Caine—”
Lin stepped around me to stand above the head of the bed, lowering his lips to Taryn’s forehead. “We’re here to help you. We’re gonna make it feel better.”
“Yessss,” she breathed, the promise of imminent relief clearing some of the tension from her face.
Limpdick—okay, fine, Blondie—passed me a small key, which I immediately took to the restraints at Taryn’s wrists and ankles. The skin at her neck and chest were inflamed and covered in scratches, like she’d tried to claw it off her bones. Some had dried blood crusted on top.
My heart ached. My anger could wait. My omega could not.
Lin and I stood together, turned to look at the guard over our shoulder.
We didn’t need to ask the question. “Five hours,” he said, crossing slowly toward us.
A growl escaped my lips without my permission—our alphas were held at bay, but by a hair—and he stopped sharp.
With an awkward throat-clear, he leaned out to hand us a box.
I grabbed it before giving an ironic chuckle. “Condoms?”
“They can’t know you were in here,” Blondie said. “Only betas work here so they shouldn’t be able to scent you. Plus her scent is so heavy it’ll mask the two of you. But if you leave traces, they’ll follow up.”
“How are we here, then?”
He swallowed. “I’m head of security on shift. The attending doc has been incentivized to keep himself busy elsewhere.”
Only then did I notice the huge picture window just across from Taryn’s bed, and a sick feeling swam in my gut.
“I’ll stay out,” the guard assured us both. “And the cameras are not recording. I’ve looped the footage.
“I’ll knock twice at the hour mark, and once at the half-hour mark.” Without another word, he closed the door behind him. The lock clicked in place.
Fuck it. Still Limpdick, then.
I was at war with my alpha. The need to soothe my omega itched under my skin like poison ivy. It made my limbs twitch with the effort it took to stay rooted to the spot, to wait, to think.
My Taryn sobbed. Writhed. Whined and shrieked.
Sex in this moment felt so…so wrong. She was half out of her mind. How could we take her like this?
Lin met my stare, but he looked as lost as I felt. Neither of us wanted to cross a boundary or overlook her consent, but neither could we simply leave her in a state of such torment.
Her hand reached out for mine, fingernails scraping on my forearm. Her eyes were glassy, fevered.
Desperate.
“Please end it. Please.”
There was no longer a question in my mind. There was one way to ease my omega’s pain. I met Lin’s gaze, and we gave each other a resolute nod.
We’d comfort Taryn, do whatever we could to keep her out of pain during the time we had. And we'd keep our alphas in check to get it done.
This wasn’t about us. Only her.
The hospital bed—the same as what Lin and I had been squashed together on in our cell—absolutely could not hold all three of us.
We’d pulled the mattress off the frame and come to the floor, where it was easier to spread out a little.
Clothes, too, had been abandoned and lay half inside-out and tangled where’d they’d been stripped and tossed.
Taryn had finally reached a lull after five consecutive earth-shattering climaxes. She lay on the mattress in my arms, tucked against my chest. Lin, cushioned only by scratchy hospital blankets, lay on the floor on her other side, one of his hands clasped in both of hers as she slept.
Her skin already felt less warm; maybe, having had a heat so recently, this one would fizzle out quickly.
My throat felt thick with longing as I watched her sleep, her breaths at last slow and steady. I wished we were at home. Wished she, at least, were at home. What wouldn’t I give to send her back there? My life, my freedom. An arm or leg, my fucking cock if needed.
Take whatever you want, just let her go home.
Fantasies of simply hoisting her into my arms and making a dash for freedom played on an endless loop in my mind. Maybe Limpdick-slash-Blondie would help us. Maybe he’d stand in my way and give me a target for my wrath.
Half of me was ready to do it this moment.
But there were fifteen floors between us and the outside. What if the guards shot at us? What if they hit her? Killed her?
It was all so damn futile, so fucking fucked. Having to just sit in that cell and let them hurt my omega…it was agony all its own. And, fuck, Lin had felt it. Smelled her torture. I didn’t envy him.
Brooks, you better hurry the fuck up.
A single tear escaped her lids and fell down the side of her face. “I can’t lose all of you.”
“You won’t.” Lin scooted closer, pressing his forehead to hers. “We’re going to get out of here. All of us.”
“Brea wouldn’t have left me in here this long,” she said around a sob. “They’re taking too long. What if they—we c-can’t—”
I pressed my lips to the back of her head, then to her temple.
My arms tightened around her, like I could hold her mind together if I held her close enough.
“Listen to me, sunshine,” I murmured into her ear.
“Reach inside of you. Look for that bond—that beautiful, strong bond with Brea. Feel for it.”
Taryn swallowed, then breathed deep. Either to deal with a fresh wave of pain or to search for her mating bond.
Lin ran his hands up and down her arm. A touch so gentle my heart squeezed to witness it. “Can you feel it?” he asked.
Taryn pressed her lips together. “Too far away.”
“I know,” he said. “But does it feel gone? Or…or empty?”
She ran her teeth across her top lip, trembles growing in her body.
The lull was ending.
She gave a definitive, determined shake of her head. “No.”
Lin brushed her hair out of her face, tracing down the line of her temple to her jaw. “That alpha would burn the world for you, Omega,” he whispered.
“I bet they’re already laying the dynamite,” I said, a delighted smirk playing on my lips. “Lighting the torches, pouring gasoline.”
The image of Arsonist Brea must’ve been somewhat comforting for Taryn, as she gave a weak smile and a single wet chuckle. She let out a shaky breath. “What if the fire burns me up before she can get to me?”
Tears stung behind my eyes. I laced my fingers between hers, Lin doing the same with her other hand. My arm flexed around her, daring anyone to try and take her from me. “Then we’ll wrap ourselves around you, sunshine, until the fire dies.”
Lin kissed her temple. “We’re going home.”
“All of us,” I vowed.
Lin
Two knocks on the door.
Taryn’s sweat merged with my own. She straddled my lap, coursing up and down my cock like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
Damn, after four almost nonstop hours, maybe it was.
Caine sat behind her, hands gripping her waist as he filled her ass.
My fingers tangled in her hair. Caine’s dug valleys into her slick skin.
She was exhausted. I heard it in the frantic breaths that ripped from her as she bounced on our cocks. Felt it in the faint whine ever-present in the back of her throat. Our presence eased her pain, but the imprint of it remained, not so easily shaken off.
Her walls fluttered around my aching cock, and I groaned, leaning my forehead where her shoulder met her neck. She pulled me harder against her. She moved faster.
“Alpha,” she breathed into my ear. Fuck, she was so close to exploding. Her fingernails cut into my scalp as she sped her pace. “Need your bite, Alphas.”
My heart lurched in my chest. She’d already asked two or three times before, and each time it got harder and harder to resist. Crazed heat or not, my hindbrain didn’t care. All he heard was a desperate omega begging him to do what he was dying to.
I held him in tight reins as I kissed her cheek. “I’ve got you, Omega,” I choked out.
“No. Lin.” She sat up and met my eye. They were red-rimmed and bloodshot, but they were clear. “This is me. I need this. Please.”
My alpha pulled against its leash, a physical pulse in my chest.
“If you have to walk out that door”—Her eyelids fluttered as she spoke, like she was fighting to stay lucid enough to say her piece—“I need to have that piece of you with me.”
I rested my forehead back against her shoulder, so close to the tantalizing skin I wanted to taste. That I wanted to pierce. I swallowed. “Taryn…”
“Please, Lin,” she moaned. “Bond me. Claim me. Don’t leave me here alone when you’re gone.”
I tasted blood before I knew I’d moved. Her scent exploded in the room and she cried out as her pussy clamped around my cock.
Quick as lightning, she pulled one of Caine’s arms forward and sank her teeth into the middle of his forearm.
He hissed and fell forward against her back, and Taryn arched again as he sank his teeth into the skin beside her shoulder blade.
My packmate’s blood still painted her teeth as she darted to the cap of my shoulder and sank her teeth in there.
Caine and I came, hard and loud. We all bled. We all panted. Locked together on two knots to the most incredible, perfect omega I’d give my life to save.