Chapter 28
CLAIRE
“Miss me, doll?” His hand stays firm over my mouth from behind, and my scream dies against his palm. Louis is in my house is all I can think as panic shudders through me to my bones. “You’re mine now.”
I thrash against him, but he’s so much bigger than me, so much stronger, and he’s hauling me through the hallway and the living room. The lights remain out, the blinds pulled shut so the Alphas next door can’t see us, but I spot my phone on the living room table.
Without thinking, I wrench sideways against his grip, my elbow connecting with his ribs, and for a split second, his arm loosens and I’m moving, stumbling forward, reaching for the table.
My fingers close around the phone. I thumb the screen to life, swipe to the security app, and tap the camera icon, one frantic press to switch the recording on, hoping it notifies the guys to look at the live footage.
Louis’s hand smashes across my wrist, and I scream from the sharpness shooting up my arm as the phone spins out of my grip and cracks against the far wall.
Did it activate? One tap. Was it enough?
He whips me around and shoves me backward.
My hip catches the edge of the hallway table, and pain explodes through my side.
I’m stumbling, grabbing for the wall, a cry in my throat, and he’s on me.
A gag is pushed against my mouth, and he’s tying it behind my head so fast that I barely have time to respond.
I drive my hands against him, but he’s not budging.
He slaps both of his hands into my shoulders, pinning me against the plaster with his whole body, his face inches from mine, his breath coming in fast, ragged bursts that smell of whiskey and fury.
“Three fucking Alphas.” His fingers dig into my shoulders so hard I feel the bones shift. “You let them fuck you too?”
Tears are pouring down my face, terror choking my insides.
He yanks me off the wall and throws me toward the living room.
I trip over the rug and hit the floor on my hands and knees, the impact jarring through my wrists and up my arms. Just as I push myself up and reach for my gag, his hand fists the back of my shirt and yanks me upright, and he spins me to face him.
But I drive my knee up between his thighs, except he shifts out of the way and chuckles. “You bitch.”
I rip from his grasp and run, but he charges after me, both of us crashing into the wall.
“I built you.” He’s in my face again, gripping my throat. “Every time you froze up and couldn’t function in front of a camera when interviewed, who coached you through it? Who made you presentable? Who spent hours photographing your grandmother’s fucking chowder?”
His fist connects with the wall beside my head. The plaster cracks, and the sound is a gunshot in the silence. I flinch so hard my entire body convulses, and a whimper tears from my mouth.
“You think those men want you? They want the publicity, Claire. They want the views. The second the heat fades and the followers plateau, they’ll throw you away. That’s what Alphas do. We consume. We discard.”
I’m shaking, mouthing, You’re fucking wrong, into the gag, my words coming out as angry murmurs.
His hand squeezes my throat, his thumb against my windpipe, feeling me swallow.
“But I’m different.” His voice drops this time.
“I never discarded you, Claire. I left because you were too much for me and I couldn’t handle it.
But I’m back now, ready. And I’m going to finally give you what you wanted. My permanent mark, bonding you to me.”
His face dips toward my neck. My blood turns to ice as his mouth opens, breath on the sensitive skin below my ear. I thrash against him, pressing my palms against his chest to push him away, but nothing works. His teeth graze my neck.
I’m trembling terribly.
He’s going to force-mark me, and my body will respond to his mark for the rest of my life regardless of what my heart or my brain wants.
I’m screaming behind the gag in my mouth, and my hands are now shoving harder at his chest, my nails raking down his face. He rears back, cursing, three red lines appearing across his cheek.
“You fucking bitch—”
He grabs both my wrists in one hand and pins them above my head against the wall, then stands on my feet.
The weight is agony. Instantly, his mouth descends toward my neck again, and I’m thrashing, bucking to knock him off me.
His free hand grips my jaw and forces my head sideways, exposing my throat.
His breath hot on my pulse point makes my skin crawl. His teeth scrape skin, and this is the moment I lose myself. I’m screaming without sound as his teeth press down hard, painfully.
A loud snap cracks somewhere inside the house, but it could be my imagination, drowned beneath the thunder of my heartbeat and the sound of my world falling apart.
I writhe against him with my body as his sharp teeth force down against my skin.
But in a flash, he’s ripped away from me.
I stumble sideways, barely catching myself. It’s dark, and it takes me two stunned seconds to realize Louis has hit the floor, tangled with the single-seater couch he crashed into.
Three figures stand in the room with us. My Alphas, and I start crying harder because they came for me.
Jakob’s on Louis, hauling him upright by his collar, and his fist drives into Louis’s face with a crack that sprays blood across his face.
Brody and Corey are at my sides, collecting me in their arms, one of them removing the gag. I can barely stand, my knees weak, face wet with tears, and they hold me tightly. “We’ve got you,” Brody whispers. “Sorry we didn’t get here quicker.”
“You put your fucking mouth on her neck,” Jakob hollers, grabbing our attention. “What were you going to do? Mark our Omega, you piece of shit?”
Another hit. Louis’s head snaps sideways. Blood from his nose, and a split in his lip.
Corey kisses me. “You’re safe now, gorgeous, but I need to make him hurt too. Would you like that? Brody switched the camera off once we arrived, so no one else has to see.” He winks at me.
I’m nodding. “Very much.” I’m not a violent person, but right now, every strike Louis takes is music to my ears after everything he’s put me through.
Corey leaves my side, and Brody collects me in his arms and has me off my feet, cradled against his chest. “We’re moving in together after this, no more separate places. Fuck, if anything had happened to you, Claire, I’d never forgive myself.”
I hear him, but my gaze locks on Corey, who’s grabbing Louis’s shirt and spinning him, and his fist connects with Louis’s stomach so hard the air punches out in a wet gasp. Louis doubles over, and Corey drives his knee upward into his jaw, the crack echoing through the house.
“I want to kill you,” Jakob says simply as if he’s ordering coffee.
“I want you to know that and carry that knowledge with you for the rest of your miserable life. That three men stood over you in this hallway and every single one of them wanted to end you. And if we see you near Claire again, we’ll make good on our promise. ”
Louis groans, spitting out blood. “You can keep the bitch.”
Corey shoves his fist into his face, stealing his cocky grin, and Louis falls flat on his back.
Pressing myself against Brody, I finally breathe easily, not wanting to be anywhere else.
Louis is sprawled on the floor, bleeding from his nose, his lip, the scratches on his cheek from my nails. One eye is swelling shut. He’s curling onto his side, arms wrapped around his ribs, making small, wet gasping sounds.
The pair grab his legs and drag him out of my house.
I bury my face in the curve of Brody’s neck, where his scent wraps around me, and the world stops spinning.
“You’re with me now, and safe.” His voice cracks on the words. “He’s done. It’s over.”
“I couldn’t stop him. I tried—”
Brody pulls back enough to stare me in the eyes. “He didn’t hurt you badly or mark you. That’s what matters. Did he do anything else to you?”
“Nothing I won’t heal from,” I admit truthfully.
“You’re the toughest person I’ve ever met,” he says roughly. “You survived that fucker alone until we got here, and I swear to God, Claire, I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never have to be that brave again.”
He leans in and steals a kiss, and I melt into him. Soon enough, he’s carrying me out of the house and onto the front lawns of our homes, where the others are.
Brody gently lowers my feet to the grass, his arms still locked around my waist. And I glance up to find that, on the ground with his hands tied behind his back, is Kristian.
And Louis is being dumped down next to him, hands hauled behind him, tied as he wails from the pain in his ribs. Kristian is dead serious, face pale, and he gives Louis the filthiest glare I’d ever seen.
“Enjoy the company,” Jakob states, straightening up. “You deserve each other.”
“When did Kristian get back?” I ask, my gaze drifting to Trudy in the doorway, blanket clutched around her shoulders, staring at her former Alpha on the grass with a face drained of all color.
Sirens are wailing in the distance, growing louder.
“Caught the bastard breaking into our house,” Brody says, his arm still tight around me.
“That’s why we got slightly delayed getting to you, and we called the cops.”
“A whole two extra minutes I’ll never forgive myself for until we realized you were in danger,” Corey mutters.
I blow him a kiss because they saved me.
Jakob crouches in front of the two men. The moonlight catches the blood on his knuckles and the set of his jaw. He’s enormous from this angle, a wall of muscle, and both men on the ground shrink backward.
“So,” Jakob says, his voice so low it barely carries. “What exactly are you two doing here? Together at the same time and in our homes.”
Louis spits blood onto the grass and says nothing, his one good eye fixed on the sky with defiance.
Kristian’s head swings toward Louis, and the fury that twists his face is genuine. “This fucking idiot convinced me.” The words pour out bitter and fast. “He reached out weeks ago, said he had a plan to get revenge on his ex-Omega. I should never have listened to a word out of his mouth.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Louis snaps, jerking against his restraints.
“Nah, fuck you.” Kristian leans sideways, his face inches from Louis’s.
“You manipulated me into pushing Trudy away, told me to act like I didn’t care about her anymore, make her feel unwanted, so she’d run to these Alphas and destabilize things with Claire.
I was stupid enough to do it. I left footage of her past Alphas around the house so she’d see it and go to them.
I acted cold so she’d bolt, and for what? To get fucking arrested?”
Louis unleashes an unhinged laugh, his bloody mouth stretched into a grin.
“What are you talking about? You kept going on about how exhausted you were by her clinginess. How you didn’t find her attractive anymore, and all the other chicks you were screwing on the side.
Those were your words, buddy, not mine.” His grin sharpens.
“And trust me, if you can push her away that easily just because I suggested it, you never loved her in the first place.”
Kristian’s face contorts. He drives his shoulder into Louis so hard that the other man topples sideways onto the grass, wailing, his tied hands trapped beneath him.
“You used me the moment you realized Trudy used to date the Alphas your Omega chose. I should never have told you I knew them when you were showing me their videos. Wish I’d never met you at that damn Alpha conference run by Dr. Reed. ”
“Just fucking shut up,” Louis groans.
I’m grinning so much at seeing how despicable Louis has been.
“Trudy, baby.” Kristian’s twisting toward the doorway where she stands. “Come back to me. I didn’t mean any of it. He got in my head, but I love you. I’ve always loved you. Please—”
Trudy descends the porch steps. She crosses the garden in bare feet, the blanket falling from her shoulders, and she stands over Kristian on the grass, her chin raised and her hands trembling.
“No more.” Her voice grows steady and strong.
“You’ve ruined me twice. You bonded me when I was too young to understand what it meant, and then you threw me away when you got bored.
You isolated me from everyone I loved. You used the bark to control me in front of a roomful of people, and now I find out you pushed me away on purpose? As part of his scheme? You asshole!”
“Baby, please—”
“Don’t call me that.” She steps closer, her shadow falling across his face.
“I’m filing a restraining order. And I’m pursuing bond dissolution treatment, which I should have done the day you first rejected me.
You don’t own me, Kristian. You never did.
You just held the leash so tight that I forgot I wasn’t a dog. ”
“Trudy—” His expression falls.
“I’m done listening to you say my name as if it belongs to you. It doesn’t anymore, not ever again.”
My heart swells, as I’m so proud of her, and I rush over to embrace her. “You did amazing.”
She’s shaking in my arms. “Thanks. That felt incredible.”
Corey claps loudly. “Fuck yeah. Well said.”
I find myself moving toward Louis without a word as he lies on his side, trying to get up, and I say, “You’ll never show your face around me ever again, but I doubt that will be an issue from prison.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
Damien, however, has his own opinions as he pads out of the house and past me, directly toward Louis. He sniffs once. Then he extends one massive white paw and rakes his claws down Louis’s forearm in a single, deliberate swipe.
Louis howls. Jerks against the ropes as blood wells in the parallel lines across his skin.
Damien scuttles back, and Brody scoops him up into his arms. “Good boy,” Brody coos.
“Aww,” Corey says, crouching to scratch behind Damien’s ear. “Best boy.”
“He defended me,” I say, and he chirps loudly, all of us laughing—well, except the two assholes on the grass.
It’s at that moment that the sirens round the corner onto our street.
Red and blue strobing across the houses, painting the two men on the lawn in alternating light, and officers are crossing the grass within seconds.
Flashlights sweep over Louis and Kristian.
Jakob is first, detailing everything that happened, while Corey and Brody are close at my sides, my protectors, my Alphas.
By now, the neighbors are outside too, so there’ll be some explaining to do, but that’s the least of our worries. Especially since I’m going to have to give my story to the police, and I’m ready to tell them everything.
What began as the worst day of my life should have broken me, but instead, it became the day I finally stopped running.