Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Shade
The situation is spiraling.
Halley is screaming like she’s being murdered in the tent.
Viper is thrashing around in the back of the truck like a trapped rhino. Dents are forming rapidly in the metal walls as he tries to beat his way out to get to the Omega in heat. I guess we will see how ‘bomb-proof’ the truck really is.
Knox is holding onto his control with his usual iron will, but cracks are already forming. An Omega heat suppressant can take up to twelve hours to work. I don’t think even our illustrious Prime Alpha can contain his instincts to rut for that long.
I’m shaking from head to toe. My muscles quivering and convulsing.
Halley is in pain and distress.
The day has already been traumatic, and it’s about to get a whole lot worse for everyone.
Her heat has barely started, and it’s already the worst kind of torture I’ve endured. And frack, I’d know, enemy soldiers have tortured me twice. It’s nothing like hearing an Omega beg for Alphas who aren’t going to come. It slices me deeper than any rusty knife ever could.
It’s plain and simple. Despite how much we want to help her, they can’t answer her call. If they do, she’ll leave that tent sporting three fresh mating bites on her pretty mating gland. Fuck it, I’ll bite her too, even if a Beta’s bite doesn’t form a bond. My aching teeth don’t know that.
She didn’t ask for that when she came here. The mission from General Stone is clear. We are to train her to be an obedient, capable soldier. She’s a recruit under our care and I take that seriously.
We might be hardened soldiers with black souls and a trail of bodies in our wake, but stripping away the rights from a vulnerable Omega is a step way too far.
She’s crying again. Deep, howling sobs of loneliness.
“She can’t consent,” I repeat the words aloud, mumbling them under my breath like a mantra.
My heart breaks as I hear her begging in the empty tent.
I clench my hands into fists to prevent me from barreling into the bunkhouse to take care of her.
I’m not the one she wants. I’m a Beta. I don’t have a knot to ease her ache.
She only wants an Alpha, and she’s not in her right mind to see reason right now.
Her scent is… I’ve never smelled anything as enticing in my life.
I want to inhale her, swallow her slick, lick her until she comes apart for me.
It wasn’t so long ago that I tasted her and watched her fall apart on my tongue.
I could do that again for hours. Days. However long she needs me to tend to her.
But it’s not going to happen. I have to wait and listen. She needs protection, whether she knows it or not. I can do this. I can ignore the ache in my balls and stay in control. I can protect her. I won’t give in to her again. I already fucked up twice today.
I’ve got this.
Probably.
A flash of movement catches my eye and I react with reflexes honed by years of training. My hand snags Blaze’s shoulder as he is preparing to shimmy through his secret entrance under tent flap he thinks I don’t know about. Our stealth expert almost slipped past me while I sulked.
He’s breathing hard, quivering with restrained power.
“She’s calling for us. She needs us,” Blaze hisses furiously, struggling to get out of my arms. The color in his blue eyes has drained away, leaving an iridescent white sliver visible around his huge black pupils.
They glow with frenzied hungry, a shiny glaze betraying just how far gone he is.
Blaze is close to rut and once he dips into that state, nothing will keep him from breeding and mating the Omega inside the tent.
“Fuck this! I’m calling for an evac from base,” Knox snarls, his back ramrod straight and his fists clenched tight to stop them from shaking.
He’s fuming. It’s not because of Blaze or Viper losing their cool.
It’s because he’s close to losing it, too.
His biology is telling him to rut her, knot her, breed her, and bite her until she’s tied to him for life. Decidedly not part of the plan.
Knox hates when life doesn’t go to plan.
Our Prime Alpha strides across the training ground towards the tent with the radio. He’s going to request an exfiltration for Halley back to a secure location. It’s the only option. If she stays here, and the suppressant takes too long to work, it’ll send the entire squad insane. Me included.
I have it better than my brothers, but even so, it’s hard watching them losing their damn minds. It’s harder hearing Halley begging for us. I know I have to keep a cool head. I’m the only one without the biological urge to knot ruling my actions. I have to be rational and keep us all safe.
“Omega! Omega!” Viper shouts from the back of the truck.
I tug Blaze until he looks at me and level him with a stare.
Blaze isn’t hard to understand once you get to know him.
He’s a kid at heart. A deeply troubled kid, but still a kid nonetheless.
He never got a childhood and craves the attention of a parental figure, positive or negative.
Usually negative with his unpredictable behavior.
The brass has stopped trying to discipline him in conventional ways. The fucker likes it too much. Now, they threaten to take him off missions. It works to a certain degree, but if he doesn’t get his violent urges out on the battlefield, it comes out in other ways… usually involving fire and rope.
If I have any chance of keeping him from entering that tent, I have to give him something he wants more.
I deepen my voice and take on a steady cadence of authority. He responds the best to firm instructions.
“Blaze, it’s time to leave Halley. She needs some alone time right now.” I reach out and ruffle his hair fondly.
I don’t usually use my Squad Daddy role, as Halley has dubbed it, so blatantly. Our squad works because our relationships are strong. Adding anything ‘extra’ to the mix might upset the balance. Yet, desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ll be Blaze’s Daddy if it keeps everyone safe.
The younger Alpha turns his attention back to me, his eyes wide and his lips parted, and eagerness for attention overpowering his need to rut.
Well, that worked like a charm. I smile at him.
“I won’t hurt her. She’s in pain and I can make it better,” Blaze argues, but the fire is out of his words and his tone is bordering on desperation. He doesn’t want to do anything Halley would be uncomfortable with, but his instincts are riding him hard and Blaze isn’t known for his self control.
“I know you won’t,” I say quietly in a warm, fatherly tone. “You’re so good with her, bringing her breakfast and making sure her belly is full. Such a good Alpha to your Omega, aren’t you?”
Blaze frowns deeply and his gaze turns back to the tent. His scent is tormented with spikes of desire, concern, and shame.
I ignore my raging arousal. I’ve wanted to play with Blaze this way for years, and it’s hotter than I expected. I’ll evaluate it at a later time. Right now, I have my hands full with an Omega in heat and a team full of Alphas on the verge of rut.
“You’re being a good boy, Blaze, such a good boy. You’re keeping her safe by staying strong and protecting her.”
“I don’t think I can stay away,” Blaze whines with a longing look at the bunkhouse.
“That’s okay, buddy. That’s okay.” I glance around quickly, eyeing up the surroundings and trying to think of a solution.
Viper is already in the back of the truck, and I don’t want to put Blaze in there with him in case he does fall into Blood Lust. He’d rip Blaze in half without even noticing it’s his blood-brother.
It’s the only place in camp with a reinforced door.
A tent flap isn’t going to keep an Alpha in rut at bay.
“Kevlar rope,” Blaze croaks through heavy panting.
My mind goes blank as I try to understand what he’s getting at. Blaze and I lock eyes, and he must read the confusion in them.
“Tie me up,” Blaze suggests in a husky voice. I almost lose it, but then his hazed expression breaks long enough to add a cheeky, “Daddy.”
It goes straight to my cock, and he grins knowingly.
Even in the midst of chaos, Blaze can make anyone smile. He beat the ever-loving-shit out of me not even an hour ago, and I still love the dickhead.
I snap my fingers and jut my chin towards the tree line. “Right, come on, you brat. Let’s tie you up.”
I choose a solid-looking tree across the clearing where I’ll still be able to keep an eye on Blaze, but he’ll be safely out of the way.
I gather a length of reinforced rope, and give it an experimental tug.
If Blaze really tries to break it, the rope will have no chance, but it’s the best we’ve got.
There is a loud crash and a shout of frustration from the tent with the radio. I grimace. Sounds like the call with base hasn’t gone well.
Viper pounds away on the inside of the truck, and it makes me twitch. He isn’t speaking anymore, only mindless roars, and I don’t let myself dwell on the possibility that we’ve lost him to Blood Lust for good.
I certainly don’t let myself feel the guilt eating at my guts. I caused this.
Blaze sits at the tree base and rests his back against the trunk.
His balled fists clench on top of his knees, and he scrunches his face up in determination to sit still.
It’s impressive; before Halley he never would have been able to contain himself.
The best we could manage was to point his violent outbursts somewhere productive.
He’s bit his lower lip and a trickle of blood dribbles down his chin. I catch the droplet with my finger, wiping it away.
I wrap the rope around the tree and Blaze’s middle, and then around his neck. It’ll deter him from pulling too hard, choking him to encourage him to relax. I hate doing it, and the rope creaks ominously as Blaze tests its strength.
I step back, admiring my handiwork. It’ll hold.
I clench my hands into tight fists. I hate this. I don’t like restraining Blaze and Viper like this. It feels wrong, yet I can’t let them near Halley. Besides, this is all my mess to clean up. Guilt is eating me alive.
“Fucking comms are down!” Knox shouts as he storms towards me with murder in his eyes.
I approach him with more than a little trepidation. He looks like he does before he does something particularly violent on our missions.
“Did you even check the comms tower today, or were you too distracted by Omega pussy?” Knox sneers with a scowl.
I swallow.
No. I didn’t check the temporary antenna on the top of the nearby hill. We were on our way when…
Once again, guilt floods through me like a tidal wave.
I’m never this incompetent. Not once in all our time as a squad have I fucked up this bad.
I’ve always been aware that I’m the weak link.
The Beta among super soldier Alphas. I work hard to prove my worth, and in the span of one afternoon, years of flawless trust building has gone down the drain.
I watch his tensing muscles for the punch I know is coming. I don’t dodge or block the blow that lands in my ribs.
Something cracks, followed by an explosion of pain.
“You did this. She was fine before you got your hands on her.”
Halley screams in response to Knox’s raised voice. It sounds so mournful and I briefly wonder what the consequences of such a brutal sounding heat is. Nothing in my research suggested it would be this harrowing.
The Omega goes silent, and that worries me even more.
Knox is right. I did this to her. She was fine before I touched her.
Okay, so she wasn’t fine. She was a rubber band ready to snap, but it’s not a coincidence that she went into heat right after I made her come on my tongue.
The scent of her heat permeates everything in camp. It’s heavy, rich and fragrant. Like the finest of perfumes, a seductive scent that teases my nose and makes me want to breathe deep and swallow it down until I taste it on my tongue.
The effects of it are making me tremble, shake, and sweat. My cock is a throbbing, heavy presence between my thighs.
Knox has ripped his t-shirt from his torso to cool down.
He shakes out his hand, shoots me one last look of disgust, and snarls, “Your mess. You clean it up.”
Turning on his heels, he strides off into the pitch black of the forest.
Apparently, I’m on my own. Knox must be in a bad way to leave me in charge, especially with his current opinion of me.
I don’t have another length of Kevlar rope, or a locked door to shove the Prime Alpha behind, so it’s for the best that he gets as far away from this camp as possible. The temptation is almost too much for me to endure, let alone an Alpha.
I drag a chair behind me as I clutch at my broken ribs, prodding them to make sure they’ll heal in the current position, and settle in front of the bunkhouse door.
I don’t have to sit so close and taunt myself with her moans, but I feel like I deserve it. Every minute of this torture is my punishment.
Each hour feels like an eternity, slowly ticking away. With not a single cloud in sight, the stars dot the night sky, appearing one by one.
I don’t look at Blaze, but I can feel his heated gaze burning for her.
We don’t sleep. We don’t talk. We do nothing except listen.
Halley cries through most of the night. Soft wet sounds of her hands desperately attempting to bring herself relief are punctuated by screams of frustration.
They pierce through the darkness and cut me in two.
She cries for Knox, Viper, and Blaze, screaming for their knot to ease the emptiness inside of her.
It’s when she calls my name that my strength’s tested, but I remain steadfastly glued to my station.
After Knox disappeared hours ago, I used my tablet to watch him through the surveillance system as he hikes the perimeter and guards our territory.
It’s for the best that he’s taken himself away from camp.
If Knox goes off the rails, then our entire team goes to shit.
He’s our Prime Alpha. If he snaps, the rest of us will follow.
Finally, when the soft glow of early morning light filters through the trees, Halley quietens. The suppressant worked.
Except I don’t feel relief.
Her heat might have broken, but so has the squad.
Even when Viper fell off the deep end into Blood Lust, at least we still had each other. This time, I don’t know if I can repair the damage I made.