3. Liam

This was a fuckingshit show and a half.

I couldn't help but blame myself as I cradled Lucy to my chest and carried her down the stairs to the basement. If I'd woken up when she'd left the bed, this never would have happened. I was supposed to be a legacy alpha, but this damn omega of mine had run me ragged.

Thirteen days.

I've never heard of a heat lasting that long without causing some serious medical issues, but we sent blood samples to the doc when we could and aside from a bit of dehydration, she was perfectly fine.

Obviously, there was more to it than that, but we haven't had the time to worry about it when Lucy only slept in two-to-three-hour increments. Some of her naps were even shorter than that.

For the first time since settling into my designation, I'd struggled to keep up sexually. It was really fucking embarrassing to be honest, but since it was Lucy who'd outlasted me, I couldn't help but feel proud.

My omega could give just as much as she got and the thrill that gave me was unhealthy. She'd fucking kill me if she went into heat like that every three months, but I wasn't mad about it. I honestly couldn't think of a better way to go.

Despite how badly we'd fucked up, Cassius looked like he always did – somewhere between furious and bored. He shoved the shelf all the way open and kicked the keyboards to the side. They skittered across the floor and slammed into the wall, making enough noise I tensed.

If Lucy woke up before we tied her down, she'd beat the living shit out of us.

Why I'd been so surprised to see she could fight, I didn't know.

She'd been taken in by a legacy pack and worked in a dangerous field. My omega was clever—a fucking genius. There was no way she'd put herself in a dangerous situation without ensuring she knew how to take care of herself.

Not for the first time, I realized how well Frankie had done as her alpha. She'd given Lucy the safe space she'd needed without trying to squash who she was, and if she trusted Lucy that much, then she had to know what the omega was capable of on her own.

Ever since she'd come back into my life, Lucy had turned everything upside down. My boring, predictable life was in shambles and I couldn't be happier, but this shift was really starting to fuck with me.

Arturo tried to mumble something when he saw us, but Cassius gagged him and then unlocked the chains from the chair. He yanked him around like a rag doll and I watched with narrowed eyes, wondering what he was so fucking pissed about.

This was bad news for both of us, not just him.

"I fucking told you," Cas growled, tossing Arturo into one of the open cold lockers – built just like a morgue. "I fucking told you she'd find this place, but you were so sure she wouldn't."

Cassius grabbed the two bodies slumped against the wall and tossed those in the cold lockers too before heading to the massive drawer system along one of the walls. He went to work, cleaning up one of the metal interrogation chairs, but left everything else the way it was, including the blood pooled under the chair and the fragments of bone scattered across the floor.

"Now what?" Cas demanded, tossing the bloody rag into the biohazard bin. "We kill her?"

A deep growl escaped me before I could stop it and the bastard just leaned back against the wall and raised an eyebrow at me.

We both knew I was being ridiculous. If Lucy wouldn't listen to reason, there was no other option. Either she learned everything and accepted it, or she didn't. We couldn't allow for outsiders to know what Valor did in the shadows.

Most of our pack didn't even know what we were up to until they hit a certain rank, and even then, they had to pass the tests.

"We won't kill her," I promised, carefully setting her on the chair. Then I pressed her shoulder back to make sure she didn't fall over while Cas cuffed her wrists and ankles to the metal chair.

He didn't believe me, but I knew Lucy better than anyone. Even Frankie.

That alpha might know what she'd gone through over the past fifteen years – she might know everything I'd missed out on, but I highly doubted she was familiar with the kind of girl Lucy used to be and how deep down, she hasn't really changed.

No, my omega has always been a little crazy.

The main difference between the girl I knew and the woman she was now, was how cold she's become. Lucy wasn't as expressive as she used to be, but she was still super fucking weird. She just hid it better now.

I dropped into a crouch in front of her and studied the mess of curls hanging in front of her face, obscuring the sharp cheekbones but highlighting just how full her lips were. She'd hit her head pretty fucking hard, but if the marks we'd made on her skin were already gone, then she'd wake up soon. Lucy healed faster than any omega I've ever heard of.

She was delicate and feminine, but nothing about her was fragile. Lucy was so much stronger than any other omega I've ever met. A little bump on the head was nothing compared to how rough we were when we fucked her.

Reaching out, I brushed her hair aside so I could see the spider lily tattoos on her neck – delicate needlework that worshipped her skin, sprawling up her throat to her jaw. These tattoos were probably the biggest change.

She'd never given off the same vibe as the rocker chicks or alternative girls I'd known in high school, but here she was, all tatted up like a badass.

Most omegas didn't get tattoos since it lowered their chances of mating with a legacy alpha. The old-fashioned preferences of legacy packs meant they would never want their legacy omega looking like some kind of delinquent. That's what my mother would say anyway.

Personally, I thought the perfectly groomed omegas all kitted out in designer brands and couture were so fucking bland and boring I couldn't stand it. None of them seemed to have a single original thought either.

At least, the ones who were interested in me were all the same. Omegas from working class packs never bothered to try to get my attention. They all assumed I had no interest in them and up until now, I hadn't.

Lucy was the only person I've ever been interested in.

Releasing her hair, I studied her from head to toe, keeping my hands to myself other than to tug the hem of the hoodie down so it covered more of her. Her potent scent made it very fucking clear she was wearing nothing under it and I couldn't risk touching her right now. I'd lose my mind all over again.

I tried not to be mad that she was wearing Cas's hoodie and not one of mine, but the possessive alpha in me couldn't help it. I wanted her covered in my scent – even more than she already was.

Lucky for them I found her scent mixed with his fucking mouthwatering.

I ignored the way Cas watched me and studied Lucy's bare legs, seeing the freckles that formed a triangle on her right leg were still there, but now her left leg had tattoos wrapped around it that complemented the shape of her body.

Everything about her was the same, and yet, different.

Now that I wasn't fucking her brains out, I could admire the artwork that I knew went all the way up her side to join with the piece on her hip, bleeding into her back. It was all connected and I almost reached out to trace the delicate line work of the branches on a cherry blossom tree. But instead of a tree trunk, the branches sprouted out of a very realistic looking heart.

My eyes traced what I wouldn't allow my hands to touch, following the lines to see a pretty snake wrapped up in the branches and just below her hip was a large blacked out circle framed by the branches and cherry blossoms.

I had no idea what it symbolized, but it was too perfect for her to have picked it just for the aesthetic.

Lucy had always made other people uncomfortable, even back in middle school. She had a reputation and people had called her a bitch behind her back whenever they could – at least, until I'd started hanging out with her.

For a long time, it was only during lunch. Everyone had avoided her, so I'd taken advantage of that.

The first time I'd sat down at her table, the entire cafeteria had gone silent. It was strange enough she'd looked up from the book she was reading to stare at me with the same cold look she'd given Cassius after he'd openly doubted her skills.

Back then, it hadn't been about designations, but even still they all assumed I'd become an alpha and they all wanted to get in my good graces – sucking up to me at every opportunity.

My mother had given me the rare opportunity to live like a normal person. She'd made sure only the most trusted in the pack knew what her children looked like. Then she'd sent us to attend public schools under fake names to give us what we'd never experience otherwise.

Before we settled into alphas, we could mingle with everyone else without risk. Not that we didn't have bodyguards waiting outside the school dressed as parents, but still. We were allowed to be normal for eight hours a day but I hadn't been able to make friends – all of us sensing the difference between me and the rest of the population even back then.

Everyone was the same. They wanted to be close to me, to beg for my favor in the hopes that I would take them under my wing when I became an alpha.

But Lucy? She'd demanded to know why I was sitting with her. That girl hadn't trusted me at all, and the smile I'd flashed her hadn't cracked her prickly exterior either. She'd straight up told me to leave until I'd confessed why I was sitting with her.

Somehow, she could sense when someone was lying to her, and she never backed down until she knew the real reason behind someone's actions.

That she'd become a private detective as an adult wasn't really a surprise. The only reason she'd been so into archeology before was because she wanted to understand why empires fell – what their culture and society used to be like and why that had led to their downfall.

Lucy wanted to know why they worshipped gods and what it was about their society and culture that fed into the idea behind their religion. It couldn't just be coincidence, she'd insisted. There had to be something that confirmed their beliefs the same way the repetition of the seasons had confirmed the idea that spring always came after winter.

I've always wondered how a ten-year-old girl could be bothered to think about stuff like that, but the environment she'd grown up in was completely different from mine.

After we had lunch a few times, I'd found out she was part of the wrestling club. She was one of the best wrestlers on the coed team but I had no idea her dad had trained her in other fighting styles.

Even back then people assumed she'd settle into a beta thanks to how tall and strong she was.

Once I found out she was on the wrestling team, I tried out like the lovesick idiot I was, using the excuse of following my mother's orders to ensure I had impressive extracurriculars on my transcripts so I'd be accepted into the best universities.

For almost two years, we were inseparable.

When Lucy had found her alpha mother in that bloody bathroom, she'd asked me over and over why her mother would do something like that when she'd seemed so happy. Why would she abandon her daughter?

Her feverishly desperate questions had scared me pretty bad. Lucy wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep—there was nothing that could distract her from finding out why and it wasn't until I'd explained her mother might have been depressed that Lucy had calmed down enough to eat and sleep again.

For my omega, the reason why was more important than anything else.

I'd experienced it myself when she'd matter-of-factly explain the most horrifying things to me.

To her, everything was either a fact, or an opinion and opinions didn't hold any weight unless they were based on something tangible – logical.

That she'd become a private detective instead of a cop was probably for the best. Lucy didn't follow rules if they didn't make any sense, and that would have gotten her into a lot of trouble. I really should thank the Lopez pack for opening the Genesis Agency otherwise my little omega would have ended up in jail, or worse.

That little girl was still in there somewhere and that was why I wasn't as freaked out as I probably should be.

If we explained to Lucy what we were doing and why, she'd accept it because it made sense. She'd understand why I'd done everything I had up until now, and why we had this bloody basement.

The only thing I was worried about was the fact that there wasn't any hard evidence Cas hadn't killed Gideon. There was also a small window of time where it was possible for me to have killed my own brother, especially if I'd hired an assassin to do it for me.

What might save my ass was that I was arrested so soon after his death.

Though I guess she could assume I'd done that on purpose to shift the suspicion off of me.

If I wanted to convince her, I needed hard evidence and since I didn't have enough to rule out any possibility I didn't kill my own brother, I would have to explain why I'd done all this.

I would have to tell her who I was.

It was time anyway.

But even then, she might not believe me. She might think I was lying just to convince her not to turn us in.

Thankfully, I had evidence I was that boy who'd wormed his way into her life until we were inseparable. I just had to go get it.

I really didn't like having to do it this way – with her tied to a chair while Cas and I were barely functioning after thirteen days without sleep but what else was I supposed to do when she hadn't given us a chance to explain?

Finally, Lucy lifted her head and those gorgeous, grey eyes met mine.

This time, I didn't try to smile. I just studied her.

A chill went down my spine at the sheer depth of her rage.

She wanted to claw my eyes out and honestly, I'd let her if we couldn't come to some kind of understanding, because this was my fault. I had to do my best to fix it or I'd really lose her and that wasn't something I would allow.