Chapter 18
Leo
Be at the exit in five minutes.
I stare at Addie’s text, force myself to stay where I am and remain calm.
See you soon, I type with shaking fingers. It’s a stupid message, a message that doesn’t come close to capturing the magnitude of what I’m feeling.
Terry messaged me when Benji went out the front. Then he left the building. He’ll be waiting for us on the other side of The Bell. He can’t be too close to this, and I don’t want him to be.
I watch the timer on my phone. The exit can’t be opened from the outside, so all I can do is wait.
The wind picks up on the other side of the old stone brick wall.
The exit backs onto a service entrance—a paved driveway with high walls, dumpsters, cigarette butts scattered around upside down milk crates.
The smell of the ocean rushes over the wall and mingles with the smell of rubbish, piss, and what I hope is seagull shit, except growing up in a coastal town, I know gull shit doesn’t stink so I try not to think about it.
A single light flickers over the loading dock as I stand in the shadows next to the door.
Two minutes.
I clench my fist at my side and focus on the timer.
I wanted to bring a handgun, but Terry put his foot down.
He reasoned that if I came armed and was caught, then I’d be killed for sure.
If everything goes south and I’m unarmed, then there’s a chance I’ll just end up back in jail.
I’m not so sure about that, but the thought of Addie in the crosshairs of a firefight is enough to stop me from wishing I had a weapon.
One minute.
I strain to hear through the old wooden door. It’s been fitted on the inside with a steel locking mechanism—I assume, since that’s what the other door was like—that can be opened from the inside, but not the outside.
Footsteps, light on the carpet. My heartbeat picks up. Addie.
Then a muffled voice—it’s deep, angry. An alpha’s voice.
The footsteps break into a run.
Adrenaline surges as I wait for Addie to come through the door. I prepare to grab him and run.
A loud thump against the door. Addie cries out. The growl of an alpha.
Red descends. My vision fills with it. Rage. Pure, vicious fury.
The voice is moving away, what sounds like a body being dragged with it.
I slam my hip and shoulder against the door. The wood gives the tiniest bit. I do it again. And again. The wood buckles. Growls and snarls rip out of me. I feel no pain as I hammer through the wood with the side of my body.
The door falls away under my next shove. I have a second to realise the alpha has opened it. I stumble forward and catch the laughing eyes of Benji looking down at me.
“You again,” he says.
I swing, clocking him under the chin and cracking his head back. He stumbles, not prepared for an alpha in a rage. I pounce on him, forcing him to crash to the ground. His hands come up, but I’m faster, my fists taking turns whaling into his face.
I’m fully in it now. I’m no longer human. The face beneath me is turning red, the pale skin splintering and running with blood.
Benji tries to buck me off, punches me in the kidney.
I roar and hit him again and again and again. I hit him until he stops moving. And then I keep on hitting him.
“Leo.” That’s Addie’s voice.
I inhale deeply. His scent is nearby, but faint. I blink through the blood smattering my eyelashes.
Addie stands in the hallway, dwarfed in my clothes, his eyes wide.
“Addie,” rumbles out of me.
He smiles, tremulous, relieved.
“Get out of here,” a voice comes from behind Addie.
I growl and leap up.
But it’s an omega. A petite, striking omega.
“I’ll take care of this. Go,” the omega says. It’s not urgent, but his tone has a steel to it I wouldn’t associate with an omega.
I yank Addie against my side.
“Thank you,” Addie says to the omega. The omega rolls his eyes and flicks his wrist in a shooing motion.
I lean down and nudge my face between Addie’s shoulder and neck, breathing in deep. That’s my omega. That’s my home.
“Fuck’s sake, go,” the omega says again.
“Leo,” Addie says and grips me by the nape. “Come back now, we have to go.”
I whine at him—I need to scent him.
Addie grabs me by the hand, yanks me forward, and I follow. I’ll follow Addie anywhere. His hoodie has fallen down, and the sea breeze catches his scent once we step onto the loading dock, sending it rushing back to me. I hook into it—a tether that can lead me to the ends of the earth.
Addie’s hand is easy on top of the steering wheel, the streetlights illuminating the swallow tattoo on the back of his hand in occasional bursts of light. The alpha rage is receding.
I drag my gaze up to rest on his profile.
He’s focused on the coast road stretching ahead of us—the darkness of the mountains hugs us on one side, the stretch of black ocean on the other, and the long, white line in the centre of the road an unbroken path to freedom.
His face is calm, gaze steady, and he smells like a gentle breeze coming off the ocean.
“Addie,” I croak.
He whips his head to the side and the smile that overtakes his face is sunshine breaking over the horizon after a night of endless winter.
“You’re back,” he says, voice brimming with that same joy.
I nod and push myself up with the hand I now realise is clenching Addie’s thigh.
“Sorry,” I mumble, caressing his leg.
Addie shakes his head, his smile and scent telegraphing happy-relieved-freedom.
“Is he dead?” I ask, because I might as well find out if I’m now going to be wanted for a murder on top of bonding another alpha’s property. A low rumble comes out of me at the memory of it. Addie is mine.
He shoots me a quizzical look but answers the question. “Yes.”
I nod. What else can I do? I beat a man to death with my bare fists, and I’d do it again.
“Erasmus will take care of it,” Addie says.
“Erasmus?” I ask, a vague memory of an extremely attractive and very slight omega floats through my mind.
He’s got nothing on Addie. Sure, the guy was beautiful in a conventional sense, like a model, but Addie has a warmth under his less conventional good looks that is unbeatable.
I know why Benji wanted to fuck him. Probably has fucked him.
Another growl threatens, but I tamp it down. He’s dead now. Good.
“Yeah, he kinda runs the show. I trust him. We’ll be fine.” He shoots me another smile. He’s so happy. He just watched me beat someone to death and he’s practically glowing.
“But …” I begin and rub my forehead. My alpha’s reluctant to let the human part of me take back control, which is understandable.
We’ve got precious cargo onboard here. Although we’re hardly running things anyway—Addie is driving, looks like he knows where he’s going too. I can’t help it, fondness floods me.
He glances at me and smiles, a question in it.
“Nothing.” I don’t know how to explain how much I love that he’s just here, that he’s okay, that he’s driving us somewhere, that he’s safe. “But he was kind of small?”
In other words, how’s he going to move the body of an alpha at least three times his size?
“Oh, the others will help. Seriously, Leo, don’t worry about it.”
“Do you omegas do this a lot, then? Make alpha bodies disappear?”
The thought of it sends an unexpected thrill through me.
But there’s shame too. I visited that brothel with the—very drunken—intention to sleep with an omega.
And now I’ve seen the reality of the lives of the omegas there, what they were going to make Addie do.
I’d never given much thought to how brothels operated, to what happened to omegas who’d been left in Addie’s position.
It was the kind of problem that didn’t happen in my world, and so, shamefully, I’d never considered the implications of it.
But Addie just laughs. “Well, this is the first time I’ve been involved in it, even if tangentially, but I wouldn’t put it past Erasmus.”
Wow, okay. That guy looked younger than Addie. I decide I don’t want to know any more. And then I recognise the vehicle we’re in.
“This is my car,” I say, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, Stephen said you could borrow it.” Addie smiles over at me again.
Jesus, the squad were too good to me.
“And Terry?” I ask.
“Dropped us off at a park near the base where Stephen was waiting with the car. Now we’re heading south. Will’s got a beach shack we can use until we decide where to go next, but you know that. We’ll need to keep moving, but we can probably spare one night to get, well, cleaned up.”
His scent spikes. A knowing smile spreads on my face, and I slide my hand further up his thigh, running my pinkie finger along the outline of his cock.
“Among other things,” I murmur.
Addie’s answering laugh is breathless.