CHAPTER EIGHT- BIRDIE
I’m pondering that thought when there’s a loud flushing sound from the door directly behind me and I scramble to my feet.
I guess that explains where the bathroom is – and why Colt missed the briefing.
Not giving him a chance to step out into the hallway and catch me, I dash back into his room and straight over to the window.
My exit is about as graceful as my entry, but at least I’m out of reach when his wide-eyed face appears behind the glass.
Ignoring him, I try to clamber onto the balcony railing, but I lose my grip on his stolen clothes.
I make a swipe for the bundle, which throws me off balance, and the next moment I’m plunging towards the ground.
My life has flashed before my eyes too many times to count, but my food-starved brain can’t quite believe what is happening. I have a moment to wonder if the snowdrifts are as hard as they looked from the attic window and then iron bands are snapping around me, pulling me against a barrel chest.
“Shit!” I gasp, my stomach lurching up my throat. I grab my neck, but not even a warning buzz from the speech inhibitor can’t keep the air from hissing out of my lungs in a snarl. “Let go!”
Hog scowls down at me, then reaches over to pluck a pair of soggy sweatpants out of the snowdrift. “You don’t need to break your neck for a change of clothes. Just ask, Omega.”
I open my mouth to protest, but what can I say, even if the doctor’s device let me? I was looking for weapons, but the most I could come up with was sixty dollars and some of Colt’s cast-offs?
“Come on,” he mutters, turning and stomping towards the side of the house. “You need to warm up or you’ll get hypothermia.”
Unlikely, given the heat pouring off his barrel chest, but I bite my tongue as he toes open a garage door.
A wave of sawdust and resin wafts out to greet us, and if that wasn’t delicious enough, it’s also laced with the scent of gun oil and metal shavings.
I was looking for weapons, but maybe the weapons have come to me.
As Hog steps into the dimly lit space, I realize it’s a cross between a workshop and a woodshed, with a bunch of sanding and cutting tools on display.
Metal traps and leather harnesses cover one bench, while another is stacked with logs of wood.
My gaze skims over a bunch of snow skis racked in the corner, not far from a pot-bellied stove.
It glows with warmth, crackling invitingly as Hog plants me on the edge of a sturdy workbench.
“Let me check you over. You didn’t hit your head, right? ”
I shake it, but he doesn’t seem to take my word for it, running his hands over the back of my skull like he’s looking for cracks.
I flinch at the contact, and one hand cups my shoulder, holding me still as he takes my chin with the other.
He gently rotates my head, watching for a wince as I look left and right.
I put up with it for as long as I can stand, but as his hand brushes past my scent gland, I rear away from his touch.
“Okay. You seem to still be in one piece.”
He’s obviously shit at spotting all the glue and grit holding me together, but he’s already stepped away, pulling a blanket off a nearby chair.
He shakes it out, giving it a quick sniff before he wraps it around my shoulders.
It smells like engine oil and woodsmoke, with a familiar hint of cinnamon, and I think of that empty bed up in the attic.
Did Charlie sit here and watch Hog tinker with his traps and tools?
“You’re functioning, but you aren’t doing your feet any favors.” He scoops up my left one and wraps it in his giant palm, the calloused skin warm and rough against the frigid sole. I shiver and he cocks a brow. “Ticklish?”
I shrug. There are scars there – not the handiwork of the doctor, but part of the rehabilitation treatment at the compound – so it’s hard to know if I was ever really ticklish. Plus, there’s the not insignificant fact that my feet feel like frigid blocks of ice.
His thumb swipes gently over my anklebone before he plants his other hand beside my hip, his brow pulling down. “You only take someone’s shoes if you don’t want them to run. Who took yours, Omega?”
I shake my head. Not because I don’t want him to know my miserable story, but because it would take too many words to give him the whole picture.
There’s the treatment I endured at the hands of my stepfather and his goons, and then there’s the torture I suffered over the last six months in Reeves’ lab.
The first thing the doctor did was strip away everything I wore, but it’s not like my cheap, worn-out sneakers were worth fighting over, anyway.
My mother’s heart-shaped locket on the other hand…
“You have to look after them,” he growls, although his ire seems to be directed at someone else. “If you can’t walk, you can’t fight. Take care of them, and you can always run.”
I nod because I don’t disagree. But I stiffen as he takes a jar off the shelf behind him and scoops a dollop of something onto his fingers.
It smells both oily and musky and I grab his wrist when he reaches for my foot again.
“It’s just beeswax and lanolin,” he says in a calming rumble.
“I use it on my hands and lips when they get chapped.”
I pull a face at the thought of the smelly goop on his mouth, but he just smirks and grabs my ankle.
I feel kind of silly trying to kick him off, so I force myself to relax, but I don’t let go of my grip on the workbench.
There are plenty of tools within reach, and if he tries anything stupid, we’ll see how big and bad he is with a wrench-shaped dent in his head.
I’m glad that I’m gritting my teeth as his goopy fingers slide over my sole.
I’d rather spit my teeth out than moan at his touch, but my pride doesn’t last long.
Just as the medicine he stuck on my tongue filled me with a comforting heat, the balm works its way under my skin, melting the chill from my bones.
When he’s thoroughly coated my sole, he digs an oversized sock out of his pocket and fits it over my sticky foot.
Woodsmoke with wisps of honey floats up at me as he gives my other foot the same treatment.
“You want to tell me how you ended up barefoot?” He pauses, like he’s thinking over the obvious pitfalls to his questions. “If you could, would you share it with me? Because punishments like this, inflicted by someone you trust, have a way of burrowing in deep.”
I want to sneer at his woodshed philosophy, but there’s something about the pained edge to his scent that presses my lips flat.
Who the fuck hurt this alpha, and why do I feel like using the wrench on them instead?
I startle as he presses a big brass key into my palm. “This is for the attic. You come and go as you please. No one will bother you anymore.”
I think of Colt’s wicked grin and let him see the skepticism in my face.
He huffs and shifts his feet. “Yeah, I get it. Trust has to be earned. But that’s the only copy.
And that door is twice as thick as the one Axel kicked in.
” I’m still frowning down at the key in my palm when he tips up my chin with a finger.
“Omega, if you still wanna leave, lay out your plan. Convince me you’ll be safer down there, and I’ll consider it. ”
Consider it? Saving me from dying in a snowdrift doesn’t give him the right to my life choices. Hell, it doesn’t give him the right to my next orgasm.
I shake my head, my eyes narrowing in anger. There’s an order pad beside me on the benchtop and I grab a pencil from an old mason jar.
Not my keeper.
He reads the words, surprise furrowing his brow. “No, but I know what survival takes, and it’s not this.”
He gestures at my sorry state and I bristle. So, I’m good enough to get off in the basement, but too bedraggled to survive out in the world on my own? I know that’s not what he means exactly, but my pride is pricked, and I flare my nostrils as I write:
You seemed to like my slick.
He grunts as he reads my statement, a smile flicking under his beard.
“Best thing I’ve ever tasted. And if things work out between us and I prove myself to you, maybe I’ll get to enjoy it again.
” He folds his arms and gives me a stern look.
“But not when you’re prepared to kill yourself instead of being in the same room as us. ”
I don’t try to hide my sneer. The alpha wants me willing?
When zip ties and monster knives are part of your repertoire, consent is rarely on the table.
He nods at the pencil in my hand. “Tell me what I need to do to prove myself to you, and it’s yours.”
A dozen things flit through my mind, like bullets tearing through a paper target. It’s everything on my getaway list, along with a pair of those expensive skis in the corner thrown in. And why not? He’s never going to give me what I want, no matter how much he likes the taste of my slick.
But if he wants to dangle temptation under my nose, two can play that game.
Grabbing him by his belt buckle, I tug him towards me.
Surprise flashes in his honey-brown eyes before he slots himself between my thighs.
He’s so wide, it’s a bit of a stretch, and the flash of heat I feel at his proximity makes me pause.
This is about taking what I need, not some big seduction scene.
But try telling my hormones that with this smoky furnace of an alpha between my thighs…
I stiffen at the wisp of omega arousal in the air, but Hog doesn’t comment, and I focus on unbuckling his belt.
I’m pretty sure it’s his own handiwork, with a sturdy buckle and a flock of eagles engraved into the leather.
I ease it through the loops of his cargoes and place it carefully on the bench next to me.
He tilts his head, his dominance licking over my skin, and I wonder for a moment if I’m going to end up buried in a snowdrift after all.
Fuck it.
No guts, no glory, like the saying goes.
I scoot back as far as I can, lifting my socked feet and planting them in the middle of his chest. His eyebrows fly up, but he doesn’t try to stop me as I kick him back with all my strength.
While he’s still regaining his balance, I slither off the bench, ripping his knife sheath off his belt.
Gripping the attic key in my other hand, I twist past him and dash towards the door. I’m almost there when I glance back.
Instead of chasing me down, he’s leaning against the bench, his head still tilted like I’m a curious puzzle. “You think I wouldn’t have given you that if you asked?”
I shrug, because alpha gifts, in my experience, usually serve the alpha more than the omega.
Hurrying out of the workshop, I rush through a side door, finding myself by the kitchen. I spin on my heel, heading straight for the stairs. I make it the landing leading to the attic before Colt steps in my path. “What mischief have you been up to, Baggage?”
I peel off Hog's socks and hurl them in his face. He slaps them away with a drunken giggle. “Ah, some home-cooked healing, I see. Nothing says devotion like sticky socks.”
I try to dart past him up the stairs, but he’s too quick for a clean getaway. He traps me against the wall, his nose inches from my neck. “You smell... spicy, Omega. Does that mean you’re warming up to us?”
I have Hog’s knife under his chin before the smirk settles in his eyes. Instead of looking afraid, a dangerously seductive chuckle rolls out. “Hog must be nuts for you, if he handed over his second favorite weapon.”
I tilt my head, considering. Not about the nuts part. What goes on in an alpha’s mind on any given day is none of my concern. But if the knife isn’t his favorite, then I’m guessing he must have a really big gun.
“Sniper,” Colt informs me, pressing a finger to the tip of the blade. “You know what Hog means, right? Hunter of gunmen. There’s no better sniper in the Corps than that man whose knife you just stole.”
I shrug, because I assumed as much. The guy has lone gunman in the clock tower written all over him.
“Tread carefully, little bird,” Colt whispers, sucking the drop of blood from the tip of his finger. “Once the big man gets his bead on someone, it takes a lot to make him blink.”