Benji
Abeta’s job is simple.
Keep the house running.
Make sure the omegas are cared for.
Keep the alphas from killing someone they’ll regret killing.
Be the glue that holds everything together.
Normally, I excelled at that job.
But for the past two weeks, I’d been in so much agony I could barely stand.
I hid it, of course. We had bigger problems, namely, figuring out how to get Violet home without getting her killed.
Without telling anyone, Vinny had bugged the bunny. A tracker. A camera. I hated it on principle, but when Violet vanished, that ridiculous stuffed rabbit became the only reason we knew where she was.
Serena insisted she’d monitor the feed.
Said she could handle it. Said Vinny would burn the city to the ground if he saw too much.
All we needed to know was that Violet was at the Stellar estate—and that she was alive.
At first, I believed Serena.
Especially because I thought I was sick.
Some kind of infection. Maybe stress finally devouring me from the inside out. I catalogued symptoms, ran mental differentials.
Nausea. Sweating. Dizziness. The sensation of razor blades carving through my stomach.
I nearly went to a doctor.
But then I noticed something.
The pain wasn’t constant.
At first, I assumed it was random. Then I realized it wasn’t.
Serena would shift in her chair in front of the monitor, and the ache would spike. She’d lean closer to the screen, and something inside my abdomen would pull so tight I’d have to brace myself against the wall.
The worst hit three days after Violet disappeared.
I was in the kitchen, chopping herbs, when a bolt of pressure tore through me so violently I dropped the knife.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
My vision bleached white at the edges. Down the hall, I heard Serena swear—not in anger, but in horror.
The pain pulsed again.
That was when I went to Vinny’s office.
That was when I learned First Chapter Heat Clinic was experimenting on Violet, and Logan had sanctioned it.
They’d injected her with something designed to exaggerate her pregnancy. Not necessarily the biology, just the presentation.
Bigger. Rounder. More visibly fertile.
Serena explained it in clinical terms.
Receptor stimulation. Hormonal amplification. Accelerated physical presentation.
All of it engineered to trigger alpha breeding instincts.
To make her irresistibly fertile. Undeniably claimed. So visibly pregnant that any alpha who looked at her would feel that primitive, possessive snap along his spine.
And if it worked?
What stopped them from using it on other omegas? Pregnant or not?
What stopped them from manufacturing that reaction?
That instinct?
I asked Serena.
She laughed it off at first.
But as the days stretched into weeks, I saw the way she looked at the screen.
I never asked to watch the feed.
Not once.
But the hunger on Serena’s face was unmistakable.
Vinny? I’d seen it in him.
Serena? Never.
Then one morning, I woke late, tangled between Skye and Vinny, and realized I felt fine.
No pain. No nausea. For the first time in weeks, I was hungry.
That was how I knew something was wrong.
I tried not to spiral. Maybe Violet felt better. Maybe the drug trial had failed. Maybe it had cleared her system.
I clung to that belief long enough to brew espresso before checking on Serena.
She hadn’t moved all night.
“Morning,” I said softly.
She didn’t respond.
The curtains were drawn. The only illumination came from the monitor’s glow, painting Serena’s face in a sickly light.
I had never watched the feed.
I told myself I was more useful elsewhere, cooking, cleaning, keeping Skye preoccupied, helping Vinny plan something that didn’t involve charging the gates like a martyr.
The truth?
I was afraid.
If what I felt through the bond was even a fraction of what Violet endured, I didn’t want to see it.
But that morning, I couldn’t feel her at all.
“Serena,” I tried again.
Nothing.
She stared at the screen like a starving animal. I moved behind her and looked.
At first, everything seemed almost normal.
The camera angle was poor. Violet stood with her head bowed, dark hair curtaining her face.
“Stand up straight,” Logan’s voice echoed through the speakers. “The tailor will be here soon. It’ll be humiliating if Mrs. Stellar can’t even hold herself upright. You’re pregnant, not dying.”
She tried.
God, she tried.
Her shoulders lifted, but the weight in front of her dragged her forward again.
She was naked except for her glasses, and everything else about her was wrong.
Before she was taken, she’d only just begun to show. A soft swell. Subtle. Something that fit perfectly beneath her palm.
Now?
She dwarfed Skye.
Her abdomen was grotesquely distended, skin stretched so tight it shone. Angry pink striations webbed across it where her body had been forced to expand too fast.
Her breasts were fuller, heavier, almost unnaturally so.
Milk beaded at her nipples. Not a ton, but enough to gather and trail downward in slow, glistening lines.
I pressed a hand to my own stomach and remembered the razor-blade pain.
My heart splintered.
Logan stepped fully into frame, a black silk dress dangling from his fingers.
“I can’t take you anywhere like this,” he snapped. “Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?”
“What happened?” I whispered.
Serena’s voice was rough. “Breakfast with his capos. When they came back, her top was soaked and her zipper was blown.” She swallowed. “Apparently, every alpha at the table tried to help her, and Logan didn’t like that.”
I stared at Violet’s swollen stomach.
“She’s still growing?”
Serena nodded.
Then why can’t I feel it?
And then I remembered.
The bunny.
Vinny’s scent soaked into it.
Bond rot worsens when an alpha is near, but not close enough for true contact.
And, I’d saturated her rabbit with Vinny’s pheromones, which meant I might have made it worse.
On the screen, Logan forced her into another dress, fingers biting into her sides as he dragged the zipper up.
She looked one breath away from collapsing.
And I felt nothing from her.
Nothing.
But I felt Serena.
The raw, animalistic need clawing through her. This was bad. This was very very bad.
“Can you feel her?” I asked quietly, trying to act calm.
Serena didn’t look away.
“I haven’t felt anything except how badly I need her in days.”
My stomach dropped.
“Days?”
She nodded.
“I thought the scientist from the clinic was exaggerating,” she muttered. “Benji… I feel like a monster. All I want is to keep her and Skye pregnant and useless and within arm’s reach.”
On-screen, Logan pressed Violet against him, hands possessive over her stomach.
“That isn’t you,” I said.
“It feels like me.”
“It’s instinct.”
“Which means it’s working,” Serena said through a humorless laugh.
She was right.
“First Chapter Heat Clinic should not have this kind of power,” she said.
“We’ll deal with them,” I promised. “After we get her back.”
I reached forward and closed the laptop.
The spell broke instantly.
Serena sagged and exhaustion flooded though our bond.
How long had she been watching?
How long had she been drowning in instinct?
She scrubbed her face with her palm. “Does Vinny have a plan?”
I nodded.
Originally, the plan had been reckless, storm the estate and accept the casualties. Then Reed found out and everything changed.
A Rossi appearing at the Stellar estate would start a war.
But Reed had known the Stellars for years.
He could walk through the front door.
And now that he knew where Violet was, nothing would keep him away.
“Vinny’s waiting for Reed to see her,” I said. “After that, we’re going to get our girl.”
Hopefully sooner rather than later.