Chapter 2
Leo
Igasp, trying to catch my breath. Tipping my head up, I suck in as much of the sea-drenched air outside the brothel as I can. I can’t go into an alpha rage, I can’t. If I lose myself, I won’t be able to get Addie out.
Addie. My Addie. I found him. I finally found him. And he’s in a place like this. Alphas are putting their hands on him, alphas are … they’re …
I retch and drop my hands to my knees. Nausea wars with the red descent of an alpha rage.
Stop it. He needs you. Get it the fuck together.
“Hey, you need to move on, man,” a rough voice says from behind me.
Move on? I straighten up and just manage to stop myself from screaming, “Move on?! I’ve been in love with Addie since I was four years old! I won’t be fucking moving on!”
It’s a security guard. I blink at his calm expression as he stands in front of the soft glow of the door. He means it literally.
I’m not going anywhere. But I can make my presence more inconspicuous.
I stumble across the deserted street, through the wind whipping rubbish in whirlpools over the bitumen.
A warehouse that looks abandoned looms over the foul-smelling road.
I stagger up the steps to the alcove that leads to the door.
Slumping down, I sit on the cold, broken tiles and drop my head into my hands.
Breathe, just breathe. Society is big on breathing exercises for baby alphas.
We had them in high school, then special classes when I joined the military and went into basic training, and even more of them since I joined the Air Force.
Alphas need lessons on self-control since our default is to be out of control—being juiced on so much testosterone puts us on a hair-trigger for rage, for fucking.
No, don’t think about fucking, don’t do it, don’t go there—
But my Addie. My perfect omega, my Addie.
I was meant to be his first alpha, his only alpha.
He was—is, he fucking is, I’m getting him out of there—he is going to be my first, my only.
I can’t believe I almost succumbed to sleeping with another omega after all these years.
A moment of weakness and stupidity after my father dropped that bomb—“Adrian is bonded. You can stop this pathetic hunt of yours. Let him go. Move on. He has.”
And I let the alphas I know from basics talk me into coming up to the city, up to Celo. “A night out will do you good,” they’d said. “Christ, get laid. A twenty-one-year-old alpha virgin is not a good fucking look, man.”
There were drinks downtown. Bar hopping on the North Side until we ended up here, Bell Harbour—The Bell.
The worst part of Celo, it got its name from the bell that used to ring whenever a ship came into harbour, back when this was a new colony a few hundred years ago.
Now its home to a working port and the working poor, drug deals happening as openly as the violence that erupts between the drunks littering the streets, dive bars, decrepit apartment blocks, abandoned buildings, and this brothel.
I’d blinked blearily up at the neon pink sign flashing “The Omega’s Nest” and felt wounded. Blasphemy. But the guys were right. Addie was gone. He’d been gone for a long time. He’d never answered a single text, voicemail, DM. Just, nothing. When was I going to accept I’d been ghosted?
But my Addie was here, he was suddenly here to stop me breaking my promise to his ghost.
And now he’s in there, he’s working … Oh, God.
Some alpha is probably touching him right now. Sliding their filthy hands up his thighs, their fingers inside him, fucking kissing him.
A growl rips out of my throat, ricocheting around the desolate walls.
Stop it! I clamp my lips shut, clench my fists in my hair, and tug to ground myself.
I think of Addie’s fear—his scent when that other alpha came in.
He’d never smelled like that before, so petrified.
It was all I could do not to pick him up and run out of there, take him somewhere safe.
My instincts were screaming at me to hold him, to bury him against my chest and be the protective wall between him and the world.
That’s my job. That’s my only fucking job. And I’ve failed him.
What had he said? I don’t want him? In what fucking universe is he living?
I thought I imagined him presenting for me when we were seventeen. The enticing line of his throat as he tipped his head down and to the side, the arch of his neck, the way he’d flicked his eyes to mine shyly from under the fall of his sun-streaked hair.
One minute I’d been watching a football game on TV, the next I’d looked over and seen Addie like that, seen the rabbiting of his pulse under the skin of his throat, the arch pushing his mating gland out for me to take in a delicate kiss if I wanted to show him I accepted.
It was the most erotic and mind-blowing two seconds of my life. But he’d dropped his head down, tucked himself deeper into my hoodie and looked back to the game.
Did I imagine it? Or was it an accident? Was he just stretching? Okay, that’s an odd thing for an omega to do—accidentally stretch into a position inviting an alpha’s courtship—but Addie and I are, or we were, abnormally comfortable around one another for an alpha and an omega.
His scent, though … I’d replayed the image and the scent so many times, it was like the best two second highlight reel of my life.
Addie has the best scent in the world—clean, open air.
Addie smells like vastness. He smells like taking a hit of fresh air after being in a claustrophobic city, after being in the denseness and humidity of Celo in summer with its million inhabitants and then landing in the desert, or in a field on the edge of the wilderness.
To inhale Addie is to feel like you can breathe.
Sometimes it’ll be threaded through with something travelling on the breeze—a hint of pine needles when he’s content, a soft burst of cherry blossoms when something delights him.
But when he arched for me, it intensified, like I’d been hit in the face with so much open space all I could smell and feel was freedom. It’d been laced with explosions of perfumed leaves.
I’d refocused on the TV when he did, my body vibrating.
I’d had to sit on my hands so he didn’t see them shaking.
I’d wanted to do what I’d been wanting to do since we were fourteen—shove him down on the couch and blanket him with my body, kiss his throat, suck on his mating gland.
Ask him, “Do you want this, Addie? Do you want me? I promise I’ll be a good alpha to you. I’ll be so good to you.”
I didn’t see another second of that game, and I don’t think—especially now—that I imagined the charged atmosphere between us until the programming switched to golf.
Addie got up, mumbled something about cooking dinner for his alpha, and then practically ran out my front door.
I sat there with my mouth hanging open, listening to the sound of his bike tearing down the driveway and thinking … Did that just fucking happen?
He never said anything. I thought I’d imagined it. But Addie just said … He said he presented for me and I didn’t want it. He’s fucking crazy. I don’t think an alpha could’ve been more obvious than I was.
But Addie had options. You see, Addie is a literal perfect omega.
He makes you feel seen, heard. He can make an alpha feel like he’s the centre of the universe.
The number of times I agonised over getting into the Air Force, going on long-winded monologues about my shortcomings—I sucked at English and was borderline failing, I was fit but not mad fucking fit, and what if my eyes suddenly like, went colour blind—and he’d watch me, gaze relaxed, taking in every word.
He always listened like he hadn’t heard it all before.
He answered with that same care, his remarks as thoughtful as if he was contemplating it for the first time and not the tenth.
“You’re not that bad at English,” he’d say with a reassuring smile.
“Just get a tutor if you’re worried. And I thought it was a one-and-a-half-mile run?
Leo, you can do that, easy. And uh, I’m pretty sure colour blindness doesn’t work like that.
” He’d finish with a fond look, indulgent where anyone else would ridicule.
And he listened to everyone like that.
Every alpha in our class had wanted him.
Hell, I had competition from our friends.
We’d been knocking around as a group since primary school, and I didn’t miss the way all the guys who presented as alphas fell over themselves to get Addie a drink when we sat around the bonfires on the beach.
Asked him if he was warm. If he wanted to borrow their hoodies.
If it wasn’t for the way Addie drowsed against me, the sun setting behind us, the sand cool beneath us and flames licking in front of us, I might’ve challenged every single one of them. And these were my friends!
It’s not just his looks—huge cornflower-blue eyes set above his button nose, soft-looking lips that were always smiling languidly—though there is that.
It’s Addie. Being around him is like being dropped into a vat of marijuana, his lazy, hooded gazes, watchful but kind.
He made everyone feel chill, feel accepted.
Even the footy guys. The same guys who’d taunted him when we were in primary school for having an omega who’d run off would rush to open a door for him, would stammer out, “You’re welcome” when Addie said, “Thanks” with an easy smile.
Addie’s smile could make any alpha go to their knees—knowing smiles, laughing smiles, shy smiles.
They lit up his face, lit up the room. And his slender, tanned body, honed from the ocean, from the hours he lived surfing, literally turned fucking heads.
I’d seen alphas walk into open lockers when Addie deigned to come to school, when he wasn’t wagging to surf.
Dressed in his ripped jeans and faded surf-brand singlets, his bronze arms and the peeks of his sides tormented every alpha in our class.
He’s pale now, alarmingly pale. And skinny. His clavicles and ribs were pronounced under that tight singlet. It made my heart clench. Are they not fucking feeding him enough? Letting him see the sun? The ocean?
He’s still the most enticing omega in the world.
The same omega I’d been surreptitiously scenting since we were fourteen to ward off those other alphas.
I know, that’s like, beyond a faux pas, it’s bordering on illegal.
But Addie never said anything when I’d insist he wear my coat, my hoodies.
And besides, he never seemed to dress appropriately for the cold—what was I going to do, let him freeze?
And he never said anything when I ran my cheek along his neck when we hugged. He never told me not to spread out in his bedroom and get my scent all over everything. It’s not like he wouldn’t have noticed. He always stank of me.
But now he smells like … fear. And if another alpha is touching him, he’s going to smell like … Red fills my vision.
Breathe, just breathe. Make a plan. Like a military op. There’s one step, then the next. I’m still pretty green as far as airmen go, but I know it’s all about executing each step until I reach the end. Don’t worry about the big picture, just execute the next step.
I’m going to get Addie out of there. That’s the mission. Take the first step.