33. Roman Osprey
Roman Osprey
Scarlet’s plea tears through the nest while the figure on the tablet slips between rows of medicinal plants below us, a narrow metal case in one hand and a pale glove on the left.
Wes’s knot still holds him inside her. His gaze keeps cutting between Scarlet and the screen, cedar and alpha musk sharpening every time she moves against him.
Every instinct in his body pulls in two directions.
His alpha wants to cover Scarlet, answer the heat pouring from her skin, and keep his teeth near the pulse fluttering beneath her throat.
The investigator in him watches the narrow metal case in the intruder’s hand move steadily toward the greenhouse’s rear workbench.
I reach for the phone beside the tablet and call Tom. “Active intrusion at Scarlet’s greenhouse,” I say when he answers. “One person, dark clothing, hood, carrying a metal case. Entered through the rear.”
Tom’s voice sharpens. “Units are moving. Don’t engage alone.”
“Scarlet’s in active heat,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Keep that off the radio.”
Wes’s head snaps toward the phone.
“Tom knows,” I tell him.
“No one else needs to.”
Tom answers before Wes can take the phone. “Understood. Private channel only.”
The figure turns toward the camera.
Rain gear hides most of their body, though no rain falls tonight. A black sleeve catches against the edge of the potting table, exposing the pale glove more clearly.
“Same courier,” I tell Tom. “Left glove. Possible match for Rusk.”
Scarlet claws at Wes’s shoulders. Her scent floods the nest, green sweetness ripening toward a fevered floral note that coats my tongue. She rocks against his knot, chasing pressure, while Wes tries to keep his attention on both her and the screen.
“Easy, little omega.” His voice comes out ragged. “I’m here.”
“It hurts.”
“I’ve got you, sweetheart.” He lowers his forehead to hers, but his gaze cuts toward the tablet again. The intruder reaches behind a stack of empty soil bags and removes a small black object taped beneath the workbench.
A camera. He didn’t bring the metal case to leave it. He came to collect surveillance equipment. The realization turns my stomach.
Motherfucker.
“Tom, he’s retrieving a camera from beneath the rear bench. We need the approach roads blocked.”
“Ruiz is coming from the county road. Bellamy has the drainage entrance. Two minutes.”
Two minutes is enough time for him to disappear into swamp and darkness.
I switch the tablet to the second camera angle. The greenhouse glass throws back distorted reflections, but the exterior feed shows a motorcycle parked beyond the rear fence. No running lights. Dark bodywork. The rear plate has been covered.
Wes sees it. “Old access.”
“I have it.”
Scarlet’s fingers slide into my hair and pull until my face turns toward hers. “Roman.”
The heat has widened her pupils. Tears shine along her lashes from the recognition failure, but she knows me now. My cinnamon settles the sour edge of fear in her perfume, and she drags me down until our mouths meet.
The kiss is hungry and unfocused. She needs scent, pressure, proof. I give her all three, kissing her while one hand closes around the back of Wes’s neck. His purr vibrates through both Scarlet’s body and mine. I press my mouth to his next.
Wes kisses me hard, his hand catching the side of my face while Scarlet moves between us. The knot anchors them. Her hand grips my shoulder. Mine remains wrapped around Wes, closing the three of us into one hot, tangled circuit.
The sensor alarm continues shrieking from my tablet. Scarlet flinches at each pulse of sound. I reach behind me and tap buttons until I manage to mute the sensor without disabling the exterior alert.
“Better?” I ask.
She nods and buries her face against my throat.
The intruder tears the camera free, shoves it into the metal case, then turns toward the greenhouse door.
“He’s leaving,” I tell Tom.
“Units are at the road.”
Wes tests the knot with a careful shift.
Scarlet whimpers and tightens around him.
“I know, sweet omega. Not yet.” His frustration fills the room with cedar and sharpened alpha musk.
“You stay with her,” I tell him.
His eyes flash toward me. “I need to go.”
“You are physically attached to our omega.”
“There is a man on her property.”
“She needs you here. Focus on her.”
His alpha answers with a growl that rolls through the nest. He looks toward the door, then back at her, agony cutting through the hunger on his face. “If I stay, he gets closer to her. If I leave to protect her, I abandon her during her first shared heat.”
“You aren’t abandoning her.”
Wes ignores the reassurance and watches the screen.
The figure opens the greenhouse’s rear door, pauses, and looks toward the cottage. Even through the grainy feed, the attention feels intimate. He knows which window belongs to the bedroom. Scarlet feels it too. Her scent turns bitter again.
I block her view of the tablet with my body. “Eyes on me, love.”
“He’s watching us.”
“He watched the property.”
“He knew when we went upstairs.” Her breathing quickens, and sour notes signal her distress.
Wes growls, his own musk clawing through the room.
I place her palm against my chest. “Feel me.”
My heart beats hard beneath her hand. She traces the familiar plane of my sternum, then reaches up and finds the scar near my chin. “Roman.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes close.
I kiss her the tears before another cramp rolls through her. The muscles beneath my hand tighten. Her back arches, forcing Wes deeper against the locked knot. He curses and gathers her hips, keeping her from hurting herself while the heat drives her body past reason.
She gasps. “Need.”
“We’re here,” Wes says.
The words don’t reach her.
Her thighs shake. Slick spreads beneath them. The heat has no interest in surveillance, warrants, or the stranger who has been watching her home. She needs pressure and scent. Her heat demands an alpha’s knot and a beta’s hands. Until her fever breaks, she needs every empty place filled.
Scarlet catches my wrist and drags my hand between her legs. Wes’s gaze finds mine, full of need. I touch her while he remains inside. Her body jumps against both of us.
“That’s it, love.” I kiss her throat. “Use my hand.”
Wes braces her hips as I work her through the next climb, our hands crossing over her body. He cups her breast. I pinch her clit. Scarlet grips his forearm with one hand and mine with the other, keeping us where she needs us.
The tablet shows the intruder crossing the greenhouse threshold. A wash of headlights sweeps over the rear fence, and the figure runs.
“Deputy coming in,” I say.
The motorcycle engine roars to life. Gravel spits behind the rear wheel as the rider cuts across the service path instead of taking the county road.
“Drainage route.”
Tom answers through the phone and gives another command. “Bellamy is moving.”
Scarlet shudders beneath my hand. Her orgasm catches all three of us mid-threat. She cries into Wes’s neck, her body tightening around his knot while her fingers lock around mine. Wes holds her through every contraction, his face pressed to her hair.
The heat scent changes again. For one breath, my scent vanishes from her awareness. I see it happen in her eyes. She looks at me with fear before recognition returns.
“Roman,” she whispers.
“I’m right here, love.”
Wes glances at me, then back at her. Scarlet pulls my hand to her mouth and kisses my palm.
The motorcycle engine fades toward the drainage road.
Tom swears through the phone. “Lost visual. Bellamy found fresh tire marks but no rider.”
“Preserve the track,” Wes says. “Nobody walks through it.”
“Already locking it down.”
A sound breaks from Scarlet as Wes’s knot softens.
Tom goes quiet on the line.
Wes reaches for the phone and ends the call. “They don’t get to hear her.”
The knot eases another fraction. Wes feels the change before I do. He shifts carefully, one hand supporting Scarlet’s hip while the other strokes her hair.
“Love, I need you to let him move,” I tell her.
Her legs tighten. “No.”
“He’s not leaving the room yet.”
“I need him.”
Wes kisses her forehead. “You have me.”
The knot eases further. Scarlet makes a broken sound when he begins to withdraw.
Her body tries to hold him. I press close behind her and fill the space his chest leaves.
Wes moves slowly, stopping whenever her muscles clamp around him.
By the time he is free, sweat dampens his hair, and Scarlet is shaking between us.
He wraps a blanket around her before reaching for his pants.
“I’m going downstairs.”
Scarlet catches his hand.
Wes turns back.
“Don’t leave me.”
Her plea strips every edge from his expression. Cedar thickens through the room as he looks toward the hallway, then back at the omega clinging to him. The rider escaped, but the house and greenhouse still need to be cleared before any of us can assume he left nothing else behind.
He kneels beside the bed and kisses her knuckles. “I’m so sorry, sweet omega. None of this is your fault. I’m not leaving you. I’ll be right back after I check the house and greenhouse. Roman stays with you.”
She brings his hand to her cheek and breathes him in. “Please, come back.”
“I will.” His promise is steady, though his hand remains around hers until the last possible second. He pulls on his pants, clips his holster at his waist, and kisses me before leaving. His mouth is brief but fierce, a transfer of trust and urgency. “Keep her with you.”
“Always.”
He forces himself through the doorway.
Scarlet watches the open space until another cramp twists through her. Her hand reaches for me. I strip off the ruined bedding and pull the waterproof pad smooth beneath her. She curls onto her side, drawing her knees up, every breath scented with need as she works her hand between her legs.
“Help.”
The word is soft enough to break me. For the first time, I wish I could give her a knot. Instead, I cover her hand with mine.
“More,” she whispers.
I give her more. Her hips move against our joined grip. I slide my other hand beneath her breast and hold her close, letting her use my body for leverage while her heat burns through another relentless rise.
Below us, glass rattles as Wes enters the greenhouse. The sound travels through the cottage.
Scarlet tenses.
“He’s safe,” I say against her ear.
“You can’t see him.”
“I can feel him in our bond.”
Wes calls through the secure line on the tablet and adds Tom on the call. “Greenhouse clear. Camera mount is fresh. There’s residue on the tape and a dropped object near the rear bench.”
“What object?”
“Metal tag, stamped with a bay number.”
The repair yard.
Scarlet hears him. Her eyes open, fever bright.
I press my lips to her neck. “We’re all safe. You’re okay.”
The courier has been watching the cottage from equipment hidden in Scarlet’s greenhouse, and the same network may have stored the device at the repair yard.
Tom’s voice comes through the tablet. “Photograph it in place. County tech is eight minutes out.”
Wes lowers his voice. “Keep this on the secure line.”
“Already there,” Tom says.
“Good.” He lowers his voice. “Roman, her temperature.”
I reach for the thermometer while keeping Scarlet tucked against me. She accepts it without argument. The display climbs before settling.
“One hundred two point four.”
“Fuck.” Wes exhales through the speaker. “Too high.”
“Below Cole’s transfer threshold,” I reply. “I’m logging it.”
Scarlet tenses harder. Her scent rises, fuller and sweeter, pushing my beta toward the edge of control. My cock aches against her lower back. She feels it and reaches behind her, then curls her fingers around me through my briefs.
“Need you now.”
I kiss her shoulder. “You have me, love.”
She turns in my arms, pulling me over her. Her legs open around my hips. Vulnerability softens every line of her face. “Stay inside me until he comes back.”
I press my forehead to hers. “I can do that.”
I shove my briefs down, then enter Scarlet slowly, bracing myself against her feverish need. I pull nearly free before filling her again.
“Again. Harder.” She squirms beneath me, her hips rising to meet every thrust.
I find a rhythm while cradling her close, sliding into her fast and deep. She makes a mess of my cock, her body chasing release as the heat burns through her. She takes everything I have, the two of us falling into the rise and fall of her breaths.
The bedroom door opens before the last tremors of her orgasm leave her.
Wes returns smelling of greenhouse soil, crushed leaves, and night air. He strips off the contaminated gloves at the threshold and seals them in an evidence bag before coming to the bed.
Scarlet reaches for him. He climbs into the nest and gathers both of us close, one hand spreading over my back and the other cupping Scarlet’s heated cheek.
“Sweetheart,” he says, his voice rough with relief.
She rubs her face against his palm. “Did you catch him?”
“No.”
Fear stirs through her scent.
“But we will.” Wes presses his mouth to her temple. “We will keep you safe.”
I shift beside her, and Wes’s hand follows the movement down my spine.
She turns and reaches for a kiss, catching Wes’s lower lip while my hand remains between her thighs. Three mouths. Three scents. One overheated nest.
Beyond the curtains, deputies move through the greenhouse with evidence lamps.
Scarlet’s body climbs toward another wave. She buries her face against Wes’s throat and catches my wrist.
“Need both of you,” she whispers.
Wes’s eyes meet mine over her hair. We close around her before the next cramp can take her alone.