30. Sage
Sage
“Check that footage again!” Roseland snaps.
“Aaron, we have been over it a dozen times or more. There is nothing.”
“There is something. She saw something. We need to figure it out.” He leans over my shoulder, glaring at the computer, watching as I play the footage we’ve stolen from the intersection. His fingers bite into my shoulders, probably leaving bruises, but I don’t care.
Rolly rushes into the kitchen, holding his phone. “Did you bother to check this?”
“What?” Aaron turns, peering over Rolly’s shoulder.
“Look, you can see the moment she switches, the exact moment, you just need to compare the frames.”
Roseland takes the phone.
“See, Jay stops talking mid-word. That’s King asking if she’s okay. She mumbles, but her words are slurred, it’s like Jay’s still there but is being muffled, and then look, right there, see her expression turns. That’s Merle.”
“Okay, go back. What’s the time?”
“It looks like 3:23 pm.”
I rewind the footage a couple of minutes before that and watch it slowly. I can’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing there. There is something she can see. What are we missing?
I let out a frustrated grunt, get up, and open the fridge, pulling out a beer and whirl around to glare at the screen.
“What if it’s an object, not a person? What if we have no idea what we are looking for?” I suggest.
“We can figure this out, we just need to think like her,” King says.
“Okay, let’s write down all the people we see, all the things that we see.”
“What side of the car? Which way was she looking?”
“My way,” King says. “Because she was looking at a billboard before that.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Okay. So, in this picture, there are thirty people. Three dogs. Signs for perfume, a musical, and omega suppressants. There are five lights, all the ones we can see are red, and five trees.”
“What if it’s the place? What if she recognises it?”
“It’s possible, but judging from the way she reacted, I think it was a person,” I say. “It was too intense, too visceral. She saw something that really, truly terrified her, and there’s only one person that scares that omega that much.”
We all sit on that, quietly stewing in the rage and hate that her fear stirs inside us.
“All right. Thirty people. So, let’s see what we can find for each other, then,” Blaze says from the shadows.
He walks into the room in a loose shirt that billows when he moves.
It’s open down to beneath his pecks, and he’s got a pair of jean shorts that cut off at his knees.
It’s strange and adorable how he makes everything he wears attractive and somehow ethereal.
Blaze is gorgeous. It doesn’t help that he looks like he’s walked off the set of a historical drama, with black silken hair without a strand out of place.
“How?”
“Social media. Face scanning technology. Check the databases. Roseland, can you still access the database?”
“No, I’m locked out.”
“All right-”
“But there’s someone who owes me a favour. We need to narrow it down, though. There are too many people.”
“Okay. Well, rule out children and women.”
“That leaves ten. Seven of them are middle-aged, two elderly, and one is in his mid-twenties.”
“Rule out the one in his twenties.”
Pix leans in over my shoulder and squeezes the screen out so the pictures are blurry. He studies each person.
“Rule out this person.”
“Why?”
“He’s bonded. This person wouldn’t be able to hide that disinfectant smell from his significant other.”
“Which leaves eight.”
“That’s enough,” Roseland says and pulls out his mobile phone. He walks out of the room with the tablet, while King pads back to the room where she is sleeping.
I stand up and stretch.
Our omega walks out, head up, eyes bright, she glances around almost coldly. It’s amazing how quickly I narrow down who she isn’t. Jay, Dove, and Merle are out. Kestrel always wears humour and softness in her eyes. Which means this is Raptor or Raven.
She looks at Pix and smiles widely.
Raptor.
It took me five seconds. Is that how quickly we’ve adjusted? I think if someone had told me before that I would be living with someone with a disorder like hers, I would have struggled to see how it could work, but it does. Easily.
All those personalities, though all different, are part of her, and I love all of her. Why wouldn’t I accept them?
We’re a strange pack.
But it works.
I stalk towards her. She clocks me in seconds, turning to face me, watching as I move towards her.
“Sage.”
“Raptor.”
She backs up, but I grab her hips and pull her to me, slamming our hips together.
“I want you.”
“Ah, is that what you want?” she teases.
“Yes.”
“I could make you wait.”
“You could make me kneel.”
Her eyes brighten and grow heavy with lust. I love that look on her. I love that Raptor is so confident in her sexuality.
“You could convince me.”
“Kneel, Alpha.”
It’s not the words, it's the way she says it, all breathy with excitement and the lust and laughter in her eyes.
I sink down to my knees and stare up at her.
“It’s cold down here.”
She laughs.
I surge up, grabbing her around her thighs, whirling and slapping her body on the kitchen table, pinning her with the weight of my body.
“I want to hear you moan my name.”
“Get that tongue busy, then.”
I grip her hair, pulling her head to the side, finding the bond. Do they all feel the bond?
“Do you feel this?” I ask, running my tongue over it. “When you aren’t fronting? Can you feel me?”
She arches, writhing restlessly. “Yes, we can all feel you, Alpha. Raven, Merle, Kestrel, and I.”
“Huh, oh, now I have an audience, I’m going to have to make this really good.”
“Alpha, I think you are just talking shit,” she whispers.
I growl and suck hard on my mark. She pushes up against me, until she’s almost hovering above the table, a taut, almost vibrating tension that screams of need calling to me as she tries to force our bodies even closer than they already are. She arches her neck in surrender, giving me more room.
I lose time, just torturing her through that spot on her neck, until I finally come up for air. Her eyes are unfocused, her hair is a mess, and her skin is deliciously flushed.
“First, you all watch. Then, when I’m satisfied I have all of their attention, you can come and play,” Sage says to our pack.
I grab her top with two hands and rip it off her body; the sound is loud in the kitchen. She gasps and lifts her hands reflexively to save her modesty? I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but her body is mine to worship.
I just grin, pulling her up and ripping her clothes off until she is completely naked and panting for me.
With a scan of her face and scent, I establish that she’s still with me and okay with this.
I hoist her up and drop her on the kitchen table again, but this time, she’s spread out like a feast. Before she can protest, I loop her wrists into my belt and secure it to the table leg.
“Now, where should I start?”
“Do you need a map? Are you lost?”
I slap her pussy.
She swears up a storm, but she gets wet, so wet.
I focus on her, forgetting everything else. Hours pass in bliss.
But I made sure it was good. For hours, all we feel is good.