Chapter 36
Holden
Ican’t breathe. All I can smell is cherry and vanilla.
I can smell her finally.
My Kismet.
I push past Josh, needing to get to her to make sure she’s okay, but he overpowers me, gripping my arms as I pass him, slinging me backward.
“Get the fuck off me; that’s my bond,” I scream.
“She’s mine too,” Nash barks.
“I don’t give a fuck. Until we know what’s going on, no one but us is getting near them.”
This can’t be happening. She’s not moving. I haven’t even had the chance to meet her. My heart feels like it’s being ripped to shreds.
“You’re not keeping us from our Kismet, I don’t care who the fuck you are,” Roman growls, his dominance pushing out to the men standing in our way.
“Let me make myself clear. You’re not getting near them.” Tav stands toe to toe with Roman, both men at a stalemate while our omega lays in the arms of another man, and we don’t even know if she’s okay.
My eyes stay trained on her, begging for her to move. But she doesn’t. She’s motionless as the man kneeling on the floor checks over both of them, talking to the man holding her, but his words are too low to make out what he’s saying.
Nash moves closer to me. “It’s her. The girl in the window.”
My eyes dart to him. Can she be? I never saw her face, so I don’t know what she looks like. But it would explain his obsession with her.
“Can all of you fucking shut up for a damn minute, so I can find out what happened?” The man kneeling turns and growls at all of us.
“Torin, come on baby, get it together and tell me what happened.” His voice is louder now, all of us hanging on his every word, wanting to know the answers. I want to know she’s alive. That there’s a reason she’s so still.
“Talk to me, Torin. How did they get in?” The angry tone is no longer there; replaced with a sweet, caring voice.
“I saw the car come through the gate. It wasn’t the one we expected, but they had the code, so I assumed car trouble. Then there was the doorbell and pounding.” Torin’s eyes drift back down to River, gently stroking her face.
It should be me, my brothers, holding her, not him.
“It happened so quickly. I was hit in the face and fell backward, hitting the floor. Another hit came, and then it was black. When I came to, I was tied up in the closet. They didn’t tie the knot well, and I was able to get free.”
Torin goes on, telling us the whole painful story. What was happening in this very room when he opened the door? What they were doing to her. Nash takes hold of me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, steadying not only me but himself.
But the pain doesn’t end with him killing the two fuckers who dared to hurt my omega, my pack’s omega.
“She started screaming, wishing that she were dead, and tore the place apart. I couldn’t calm her down. I had to do it.” His breath hitches causing the last word to come out in a gasp.
I can’t stand back anymore. I let go of Nash and step forward. “Get back, beta,” Tav says with his alpha bark.
“I should be with her. She’s my Kismet,” I yell back, fucking tired of alphas who think they know shit.
“Holden, calm down,” Roman orders.
“Calm down, just look at her.” I throw my arms in the direction of River, not understanding why he doesn’t want to be with her just as badly as I do.
“I know. But losing our tempers and fighting with the only people she knows right now isn’t going to help. At this point, until she confirms it for them, we are just another pack that’s a danger to her.” Roman’s words make sense, but it’s so fucking hard to keep my distance from her.
“Glad you’re seeing reason. At least one of you has brains enough to understand the situation,” Tav speaks, before turning back around. “Torin, baby, what did you have to do?” he asks, letting his alpha bark out.
“She was freaking out and I was afraid she’d hurt herself. That she’d…” He clears his throat. “I brought emergency shots with me, like last time. Enough so that she’d sleep through her heat.”
“Let me take her, Torin. We need to clean her up and make sure none of their scents stay on her. Then we need to check her for any injuries and get the doc here. Same as with you. We need to take care of you. That cut’s going to need stitches,” Callux tells him calmly.
“No, I’ve got her,” Torin snaps back, seeming to break out of the haze he was in. He repositions her in his arms, then slowly stands. “What are they doing here?” he asks, nodding toward us.
“Long story. We’ll fill you in later. Callux is going to go with you, and we’re going to have a chat with our new friends.”
Torin moves toward us, a sheet wrapped around our omega. She’s so pale my heart breaks. If the bastards weren’t dead, I’d kill them myself. I memorize her face, needing it to console me as I wait for the moment I can see her.
And I won’t be waiting long.
***
Tav
I look around the room after Callux and Torin leave with River, taking everything in. Torin’s right, we did fail her. We thought we had everything taken care of, then this happened.
“Tell me everything you know about these two. About the schoolmate who came to you. I want to know how they knew where she was. How they got onto the property.” I turn around and leave. I can’t be in here any longer, and I need to let Storm know what’s happened. But first, I need all the details.
I hear Josh talking before they fall in step behind me as I head to the living room.
“Sit on the couch and go over everything you know. Detail by detail. Nothing is insignificant.”
The three of them do as they’re told, and then Holden, the beta, speaks.
“She is my partner for a school project. We’ve been talking through the school messaging portal.
Henry, my schoolmate, kept asking about her, wanting me to switch partners with him.
He kept going on about how the one he was assigned wasn’t compatible with him or the pack he was trying to be a part of.
” He takes a breath as I pace in front of them. My body is too wired to sit.
“Keep going. I need to know how they got here,” I growl, gritting my teeth so I don’t just kill these fuckers claiming to be River’s Kismet bonds. Our search of them found nothing that had us worried. They were actually a decent pack.
“Give him a chance and he’ll tell you. We just want to know how she is. To see her,” Nash adds, and Roman cuts him a glare.
“I warned him about the pack, that they were no good. He said they were on their way to get her. Marcus had hacked into Heatwave and had been watching the packs you picked. So when the pack was notified with the information, they had it, then handled the pack.”
Fucking Heatwave. I am going to handle them myself. Their security measures should be enough to keep out anyone who tries to hack their system. An issue we will be sure to handle, once I am confident that no one there was involved in this.
“He refused to go with them so they beat the crap out of him. He came straight to us and gave us the information he’d seen.
We then rushed straight here. We didn’t know until he showed up that she was an omega.
She told me she was a beta, and that’s what’s on her records.
As far as being her Kismet, well that happened when we stepped into the room. ”
I pace back and forth in front of the couch, processing everything they’ve told me. Henry. If I believe what they’re saying, then he’s innocent. He just chose to align himself with the wrong pack. Then something they said registers.
“What do you mean when this Marcus said that she belonged to him?”
“I don’t know. Henry said that she was taken and should have belonged to Marcus and the pack he was supposed to join.” Holden raises an eyebrow in confusion.
“Fuck me!” Josh blurts.
I already have my phone out, contacts open as I hit the call button. He answers immediately.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, almost out of breath.
“Things didn’t go as planned. There was another member of the Hartman Pack. One we didn’t know about. He found her. Hacked Heatwave’s computer system.”
“Is she okay?” I can hear the panic in his voice.
“They got to her, knocked Torin out and…” I can’t even say the rest.
“Are they dead?” His voice is as cold as ice.
“They are. But she lost it, Storm. She talked about killing herself. Torin had to knock her out again until her heat passes.”
“I’m getting on the fucking plane now. I know she told me not to come, but I had a bad feeling. I should be there in about three and a half hours.” I can hear an announcement to begin boarding, and I know he’s at the airport. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait, there’s more. There’s a pack here. They say they came here to help her. They claim to be her Kismet bonds.”
“We don’t claim. We are,” Nash announces boldly. “Who is Storm?”
“Keep them there until I get there,” Storm tells me before ending the call.
“He’s her brother, and he’s on his way.”