35. Scarlet Sage
Scarlet Sage
The next wave catches me before we clear the repair yard. Roman has barely turned onto the county road when heat folds through me so hard, my fingers slip from Wes’s shirt. My body clenches around emptiness, desperate and furious, while the SUV fills with the heavy sweetness of my perfume.
Wes twists in the passenger seat. “Scarlet?”
“I need you.”
His cedar surges through the vehicle.
The sound that leaves him is too rough to be called a word.
Roman checks the mirrors. “There’s a service turnout ahead. Sheriff units cleared that stretch ten minutes ago.”
“Take it,” Wes says. His alpha fills the command until even my omega reacts, purring through the pain.
Roman turns off the county road and follows a narrow gravel lane between cypress trees. The tires crunch over shell and stone. Spanish moss brushes the roof as he drives far enough beneath the canopy to hide us from the road.
He stops the SUV beside an old drainage gate.
Wes is out before the engine settles. He opens my door and reaches for me. I climb into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist while Roman locks the vehicle and scans the trees.
“Safe perimeter,” Roman says. “Deputy at both ends of the larger road.”
Wes carries me to the rear of the SUV and opens the hatch. He lowers the back seats with one hand, then spreads a flannel blanket across the cargo space.
The morning air touches my overheated skin. Wes’s alpha scent crowds every breath. The swamp hums around us with insects and hidden movement. My heat wants my alpha all over me.
Wes sets me on the blanket, but I catch his shirt and pull him with me.
“Hard,” I whisper. “Please.”
His eyes burn down my body. “You’re in pain.”
“I’m empty.”
The words crack whatever restraint he carried from the repair yard. He pushes my sweatshirt up and drags my leggings down my thighs. Roman helps pull them free, then catches my ankle and kisses the inside before setting my foot against Wes’s shoulder.
Wes strips with brutal efficiency.
Roman stays beside us, one hand stroking my hair while the other slides over Wes’s back. “Take care of her,” he says against Wes’s mouth.
Wes kisses him hard. Their bodies press together over me, alpha and beta touching while my perfume winds around all three of us. Roman grips the back of Wes’s neck. Wes’s hand closes over Roman through his jeans, squeezing once before turning back toward me.
I open wider.
“Look at you,” Wes says, voice thick with his alpha. “You need me so much, we can’t make it home.”
“I can’t.”
“I see that, sweetheart.” His fingers stroke through my slick, scissoring the edges of my pussy. “You’re such a good omega for your alpha.”
The relief makes me sob. Wes strokes me once, twice, then drives two fingers inside. My hips lift from the blanket.
Roman settles behind me in the open cargo area and pulls my shoulders against his chest. His legs bracket mine while his hands spread me open for Wes. “Let him see you, love.”
Wes’s gaze drops.
A growl rolls out of him.
My body answers with another gush of slick.
He replaces his fingers with his cock and pushes in fast, one deep stroke that fills the ache before it can widen again. I cry out into the trees.
Roman catches my face and turns me toward him. His mouth covers mine while Wes fucks me hard enough to rock all three of us against the SUV.
The hatch frames the cypress canopy above. Green light flickers across Wes’s shoulders, and sweat shines along his chest. Roman’s breath warms my cheek while one hand holds my breast and the other finds my clit.
Every thrust drives me back into Roman. Every movement of Roman’s fingers tightens me around Wes. The three of us fall into a rhythm before thought can return.
“More,” I beg.
Wes grips my hips and gives it to me. His alpha has taken over. Cedar floods the air. His eyes stay fixed on where his cock disappears inside me, watching my body take him while Roman whispers against my mouth.
“That’s it, love. Let him use all that need.”
Wes looks up. “Tell me whose cock your heat begged for.”
“Yours.”
“Again.”
“Yours, Alpha.”
His control snaps. He pounds into me, fast and deep, the cargo floor shifting beneath the force. Roman holds me steady, fingers circling my clit while Wes’s knot swells.
The danger outside turns my every sensation sharper. A deputy could call. Or a motorcycle could appear on the service road. The courier’s tracks run through these same woods. My body focuses on Wes filling me and Roman surrounding me while the fever burns itself down.
Wes reaches over my shoulder and pulls Roman into another kiss without slowing.
Roman groans into his mouth. His hand leaves my breast and slides between their bodies. Wes’s hips falter when Roman grips him near the base, the knot still growing with every thrust.
“Give her your knot,” Roman says. “She needs it.”
Wes drives deep. The knot wedges inside and locks us together. My orgasm tears through me before he finishes swelling. I come with his name breaking from my throat, my body clenching around the impossible fullness while Roman keeps working my clit.
Wes shudders over me and comes hard. His forehead drops to my shoulder, and his teeth scrape my neck. I rock against the knot, pulling another pulse from him.
“Little omega,” he growls. “You’re going to kill me.”
Roman’s hand slides along Wes’s shoulder, grounding him. “She’s safe.”
It’s several minutes of heavy breathing before either of us can move.
Wes lifts his head and looks past us toward the trees. The alpha in his expression remains wild. “She should never have been exposed out here.”
“She asked for this,” Roman says.
“She was in pain.”
“And you answered.”
His attention returns to me.
I reach for his face. “You both gave me what I needed.”
Roman kisses Wes’s temple. “Your pack is okay.”
The words reach him by degrees. His breathing slows. His hand moves from my hip to my stomach, then covers the place where the knot holds us together.
A phone rings inside the SUV.
Roman reaches through the front seats and answers on speaker.
Tom’s voice fills the vehicle. “We found Rusk.”
Wes’s body tightens over mine. “Where?”
“Motel off Route 46. Left hand has an old burn scar matching the biological residue inside the glove. He had a burner phone and the keys to bay seven.”
“Alive?” I ask.
Tom pauses when he hears me. “Yes. In custody.”
“Did he talk?”
“Enough to put him at the greenhouse and both package deliveries. Claims he was paid to follow written instructions and collect the camera. Says he never met the person directing him.”
Wes looks at Roman. The case appears to snap closed around the courier. Van rental. Glove. Burner phone. Storage key. Deliveries. Hidden camera.
“Send the interview recording,” Wes says. “Make sure no one announces an arrest yet.”
“The mayor’s office wants a statement before noon,” Tom says. “Rusk confessed, and the festival committee is pushing to reassure visitors that the threat has been contained.”
“He confessed to transport. We’ve still got drugs and a missing stone.”
“I agree, but the evidence will look conclusive to anyone who wants this finished.”
“Then make them wait.”
Tom exhales. “There’s another detail. Rusk collected his instructions from the preservation shed behind Heritage Hall. He was given a temporary access code with each job.”
“That shed is restricted during festival month,” I say. “Preservation volunteers, committee officers, archive staff, and approved vendors.”
“Rusk says he never saw who left the instruction envelopes,” Tom replies. “They were placed inside an old document-transfer box. Typed directions, cash, vehicle information. No names.”
Wes’s gaze sharpens. “Preserve the lock records and access logs.”
“Already requested. I’ll hold the public statement as long as I can.”
Roman ends the call.
Wes’s knot softens, and he withdraws carefully. He pulls my leggings back over my thighs before lifting me against his chest.
Roman drives. Wes rides in the back with me curled across his lap, one arm around my waist and his nose buried in my hair.
The heat eases with each mile, leaving me heavy and tender.
At home, they carry my nest downstairs to the living room, so I can remain near the case without climbing stairs.
Roman brings cool water, clean towels, and soup.
Wes checks every lock, window, and camera before returning to sit beside me.
I drink while he strokes my bare leg.
Tom sends the first portion of Rusk’s interview. Rusk admits he delivered the arrangements. He collected instructions from the restricted preservation shed behind Heritage Hall and says he never entered the archive, never chose the targets, and never knew why Honey’s house mattered.
I set the water aside. “He delivered it, but he didn’t do this alone.”
Wes’s hand stops on my leg. “No. He isn’t the only one to blame.”
I look at the photographs from bay seven, especially the note beneath the picture of my kitchen window.
“Rusk knew where to put the packages because someone told him. He knew how to avoid the cameras because someone drew the route. He knows the road, the van, and the payments.” My heat-weary body sinks deeper between them. “But he doesn’t know me.”
Wes’s cedar sharpens.
Roman closes the interview file.
It looks like Cal Rusk has become the next easiest person in Sweetheart Haven to blame. The town is already preparing to call the danger over, but someone else is out there. And that someone knew where to hurt me the most.