18. The Danger Alpha Brotherhood

“Rex! Rex!” Emmy hissed, hurrying up to him at the bar. “I gotta dash off, but you need this.”

He slid a sheet of paper in front of Rex. Rex squinted at the scribbling. “What... What...?”

“It’s words you can use in bed.” Emmy wriggled his eyebrows excitedly. “They’ll get Big O sooo hot for you.”

Rex sat straight up. He did want to impress Olson, a lot. He wanted to impress Olson all the time, except right now he was sorely lacking in things he was better at than his omega.

But if he knew some good words in bed, Olson would be pleased, right?

So he pointed at the first line on the paper, looking to Emmy in question.

“These are all pickup lines,” Emmy said proudly. “And they’re guaranteed to work. You’ll just have to repeat them after me. The first line is, ‘My wriggly tentacle will wriggle into your body and we will wriggle together into a good mess on the bed.’”

It... didn’t sound very arousing. But maybe Olson secretly liked this?

“My... My...” Rex tried to get his mouth around the words.

“Here, I’ll record them for you and you can play them over and over. Give me your phone.”

Rex handed it over—it was a complicated thing that he barely knew how to use. Olson had said it was the simplest one he could find, but it didn’t feel that way.

Emmy poked at several buttons. Then he held the phone to his face and turned the sheet of pickup lines toward himself, covering his baby’s ears. “‘The color of your mouth is also the color of your butthole. But I think it’s also the color of my love stick. Should we compare them to see if we’re fated mates?’”

That actually made Rex blush. He imagined saying it to Olson, and Olson shyly agreeing to let Rex open him up.

By the time he pulled himself out of that thought, Emmy was already halfway down the page.

“‘Your butt is better than the best bread in the world. It wraps around my love sausage like a tentacle and it squeezes out all my love juices so we make a juicy sandwich.’”

Rex wasn’t sure about that one, either. But he had to practice saying multiple words in a row, and these would help, right?

Emmy finished off the list. “Here,” he said, handing the phone back. “I recorded them all as their own clips, so you can pick one, like this, and press this button to play it. Or you can drag this little bar to skip ahead to hear the juicy bits.”

He showed Rex how to use the phone, then patted him on the shoulder.

“I’ll come back to teach you all the bad words,” he whispered loudly.

The bad words? Rex really wanted to learn those.

He made sure the volume wasn’t too loud on his phone, then played through all of Emmy’s pickup lines to find two he liked best. The first, he’d practice with. The other, he’d use to court Olson.

Slowly, he tried to shape his mouth around those words. “In... In the day...”

Olson stepped out of the office, suddenly. Rex hurriedly folded Emmy’s pickup lines in half, then quarters, to hide them in case it ruined the surprise.

Olson stopped next to him in a rush of orchid. Was it Rex, or did he smell sweeter than before?

“Hey,” Olson said softly, pressing a kiss to the corner of Rex’s mouth. “Doing okay?”

Rex nodded, nudging the writing practice he’d been working on before Emmy’s interruption. “I—I’m writing,” he said hesitantly.

Olson beamed and rubbed his back affectionately. “You’re doing great, you know. I’m so proud of you.”

But Rex didn’t want Olson to be proud; he wanted Olson to be impressed.

“I’ll let you work on it,” Olson said gently. “I think Jag and his friends will be here soon.”

That made Rex nervous, but he hid it. “O—Okay.”

He watched Olson disappear into the kitchen, lowering the volume on his phone before playing the sound clip again. He tried to repeat all the words. “In the... In the day... your... your eyes... are like... big glass... balls... When... When I... shake my... big banana... your eyes... shake... along... with it...”

Rex played the clip again, trying to string more and more words together.

In the end, he managed to recite that line without pausing, and he was proud of himself for it.

Olson would be impressed, wouldn’t he?

Rex whispered it to himself just to make sure he’d remember it later, then moved on to the next line.

Emmy sidled back up to him. “How did it go?”

Rex recited the one line he’d learned.

Emmy’s grin lit up his face. “Yessss. Big O is gonna be so impressed.”

Rex’s heart skipped.

“Now for the bad words,” Emmy said, covering his baby’s ears. “Like ‘fuck’. You need to learn how to say ‘fuck’.”

Yeah, Rex had heard Olson say it a number of times. Olson had explained it, too.

“Fuck,” Rex said. It felt good to say it. Powerful.

“Good! Now, say ‘I will put my juicy alpha meat into your magic dick hole.”

Rex’s eyes grew wide. Olson would really, really love that. “I—I will...”

Emmy took Rex’s phone and recorded the line. “There. Practice it now. I want to hear you nail it like a cucumber.”

Rex listened to the recording over and over. “I will... I will put my... juicy alpha... meat... into your... your magic... dick hole.”

“Again!” Emmy did a happy dance.

Rex said it again, feeling more confident. Emmy grinned along with him.

“I’m thinking of selling my pickup lines at a shop,” Emmy whispered conspiratorially, producing more colorful squares. He handed some to Rex and gave him a marker; Rex knew the routine by this point.

He was getting better at drawing dicks, too.

“I’m gonna call my shop Emmy’s Match, and I’m gonna sell love popsicles with alpha jizz in them,” Emmy added, sticking his tongue out as he drew hairs on some balls. “So the omegas who’re looking for alphas can try some alpha popsicles, and if they like an alpha’s popsicle, I’ll sell the alpha a popsicle with the omega’s slick on it. Then maybe they’ll be a match and they can meet up! It’s a whole new way of finding your bouncy alpha.”

Rex wasn’t sure he liked how that worked. He wrinkled his nose; Emmy rolled his eyes, sighing exasperatedly.

“None of you appreciate my good ideas except for Aaren!” Emmy declared, grabbing his baby’s hands and twirling around with the baby carrier strapped to his chest.

More and more often, Rex had noticed Olson peeking at Emmy’s baby, a torn expression on his face. Had Rex’s seed not taken inside him?

Before he could hunt down Olson to ask him about Emmy’s son, the door to the Wine Shack opened.

Jag stepped in with a small omega by his side. The omega was thin, pale, his eyes darting around the Wine Shack before landing on Rex and Emmy.

“Oh, Niall!” Emmy sprang up, hurrying over. “Are you gonna write your about the big strong flagpoles today?”

Niall flushed bright red and peeked at Jag. “Yeah.” To Jag, he stammered, “I’ll b-be okay. Th-thank you.”

Jag nodded, giving him a fond smile. “Yell or call if you need anything.”

“Okay.” Niall hurried over to his booth. What Rex couldn’t stop noticing, though, were his hands. Niall had worn loose mittens, his arms wrapped tightly around a laptop. As Rex watched, Niall slipped into his booth and glanced awkwardly around, before biting into the mittens and pulling them off with his teeth.

Niall’s hands were... not normal. His fingers were shriveled and curled in on themselves, all of them bunched together like two giant claws. He struggled to open his laptop.

He looked around again, like he was making sure he was safe, and—

Rex knew that feeling. Did Niall also have numbers on his back?

He found himself getting to his feet. Yeah, he knew Jag was watching. But Rex had to know.

He prowled up to Niall’s booth; Niall startled. So Rex stopped where he was.

“You... num...?” Rex tapped on his own shoulder, trying to find the words to ask his question.

Niall blinked rapidly at him.

“Bad?” Rex asked, frustrated because even though he’d watched several hours of videos by this point, he still couldn’t string his words together. Instead he turned around, yanking at the collar of his shirt. It ripped. But he got his shoulder out, enough that Niall could see the numbers now.

Niall gasped.

When Rex turned back, he found Niall wincing.

“Yeah,” Niall said so quietly that Rex almost missed it. “Yeah, I have them, too.”

He shoved at his shirt and pants, pushing them clumsily apart to reveal some silvery, blotchy skin in the shape of other numbers.

Rex growled.

Niall hurriedly straightened his clothes, right before Jag appeared next to Rex. There was a flush to Niall’s face now, and he couldn’t meet Jag’s eyes.

“Something wrong?” Jag asked Rex shrewdly.

Rex looked at Niall, who shook his head quickly. So he shrugged at Jag. It wasn’t like he had the words to say anything.

Jag studied them suspiciously, then clapped Rex’s shoulder. “C’mon. The others are waiting in the back.”

Rex glanced back at Niall, who waved awkwardly with a hand hastily-stuffed into his mitten. Then Niall turned back to his laptop, and Rex focused on what Jag was saying.

“He’s a good man,” Jag said quietly. “But he refuses to ask for help even when he needs it.”

Was Niall the person Jag kept going home to protect? Jag had mentioned watching over an omega on and off, and he seemed particularly protective of Niall. Rex would be even more protective, if Olson had been that badly hurt.

There were four alphas standing around the back door of the Wine Shack. The moment Rex saw them, with their broad shoulders and muscular bodies, he stiffened, all his senses on alert.

“Relax. These are my friends.” Jag waved toward the closest alpha. “This is Storm. Bit of a youngin’.”

“Hey. Quit calling me young.” Storm narrowed his eyes and raised his middle fingers at Jag. He did look young, though. Maybe Rex’s age? Rex glimpsed a few scars on his face and arms, but he was more intrigued by Storm’s gesturing.

“Why...?” Rex raised his own middle fingers, curling the rest of his hands into fists.

“You—” Storm’s mouth fell open, his eyes growing wide. “Oh, Jag. You found a good one. He’s gonna be fun.”

Jag frowned. “Don’t teach him crap. He doesn’t need to be confused right now.”

Storm sidled up to Rex, nudging their shoulders lightly together. “This is called flipping the bird,” he said, doing the middle-finger thing again. “You show that to someone you want to piss off, because they deserve it.”

“And I deserved that, how?” Jag asked dryly.

“I’m not young. Stop calling me young.”

“I’m old enough to be your dad.” Jag rolled his eyes.

“Why...?” Rex still had his hands curled in that gesture. “Why...?”

“I guess it’s ‘cuz it makes your hands look like dicks. It’s like telling someone to suck your cock because you hate them so much.” Storm frowned. “No, I don’t get why that’s such a bad thing. But it’s fun to flip people off though!”

“Are you ever going to introduce us, or what?” one of the other alphas said. This alpha was all scowls, like he was ready to rip someone apart.

Jag flicked his fingers at him. “That’s Hades. Not sure why I invited him along. He’s such a grump.”

“I’ll be sweet to an omega, not you,” Hades scoffed.

What would that look like? Rex got the feeling Hades wouldn’t show them the side of him that he saved for an omega.

“Rex,” Rex said, tapping on his own chest.

The alphas nodded at him.

“And I’m Fury,” the last alpha said, giving Jag an exasperated look.

Jag lifted his chin at Fury in a greeting, waving to some rolled-up mats to the side that Rex hadn’t noticed before. “We’re going to go over some simple self-defense moves. Rex needs to get proficient, fast.”

Hades and Storm rolled out the mats across a quiet, shaded area of the parking lot, pushing the edges together so they had a larger space to work with. Jag beckoned Rex onto the mat.

“Show me what you’ve learned so far,” Jag said.

He lunged. Rex dodged him and countered with a punch of his own. He didn’t manage to land it, but Jag’s smile was proud. “Good work.”

Jag took Rex through all the moves he’d learned over the past months—how to get out of a headlock, how to disarm someone. How to create an opening with an assailant, and attack them to make them stay down.

When they reached the last of the things Rex knew, the other alphas showed him different moves for different situations. Rex realized that they all had different ways of fighting, and it was important that he learned it all.

The alphas made him repeat each move several times, testing him until he was familiar with what he had to do in those situations.

“You’ll need more practice to build your muscle memory,” Jag said, observing Rex and Hades from the side. “A lot of being good at fighting is being aware of your body, and having the experience to let you predict moves. Luckily, you have us around to help.”

He made Rex take a break. While Rex gulped down cool water from a bottle, Hades pulled out a dagger and lunged at Storm.

Rex froze, wanting to call out a warning except the words got stuck in his throat.

Storm turned with lightning-fast reflexes, sidestepping Hades and grabbing his wrist, twisting it behind Hades’ back. Except Hades somehow turned and flipped Storm onto the mat, pinning Storm’s arms behind his back, his knife glinting against Storm’s throat.

Storm grinned.

Hades leaped back just in time to avoid being stabbed by a flash of steel that came out of nowhere. Had he been any slower, he’d have gotten badly hurt.

Yet there was a confidence in their stances that said this was just a play-fight. That they’d faced down worse, and come out alive.

Rex gulped, awed and made nervous by their skill, their ruthlessness.

These men had killed people before.

At the back of his mind, he knew he’d have to practice a lot more, if he wanted to get anywhere near these alphas’ skill levels and keep his omega safe.

But what was stopping Olson from choosing them instead of Rex? Olson hadn’t wanted to give him a bonding mark.

“It’s okay, we’ll go over it slowly so you can see why that happened the way it did,” Jag said kindly.

Rex gulped and nodded, his throat tight.

He watched as the alphas repeated their movements, showing him where they’d left openings for each other to attack. Except some of it was them baiting the other into a move, because it was a trap.

It made Rex’s mind hurt. “How... How... better?” he asked Jag worriedly.

“How are you going to get better?” Jag clarified.

Rex nodded.

“By practicing with us. No one learns to fight in a day, son. Everyone starts from somewhere. Even these guys.”

“What do you mean, we started from somewhere?” Storm grinned. “I was born ready to fight.”

“No parent wants a baby that’ll give them a roundhouse kick straight out of the womb,” Hades said dryly. “You’re lucky you weren’t abandoned at birth.”

“I wouldn’t abandon a baby that can do a roundhouse kick,” Storm said.

“Is that how you’re going to court your omega?” Hades asked, almost mockingly. “I’m sure he’ll fall over trying to be yours.”

Storm flushed pink, and the other alphas smirked. “He’s gonna be mine soon,” Storm muttered. “I haven’t told him I’m here.”

“Yeah?” Jag asked. “You’re just going to show up in his office?”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Storm grumbled. “It’ll be a nice surprise.”

From the looks the other alphas were giving Storm, there was some joke that they were all in on, that Rex wasn’t.

“Bad?” Rex asked hesitantly.

“Considering he’s been secretly obsessing over his omega—” Hades began.

“Stalking him,” Fury said.

“I’ve just been keeping up with his Facebook profile,” Storm muttered, his cheeks pink.

“And showing up at his apartment,” Jag added. “You just haven’t broken in yet because he went home at the wrong time.”

“I just wanted a shirt,” Storm grumbled.

“Don’t lie. You just wanted his underwear so you can jerk off to it.” Fury smirked.

Storm rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah. That too.”

“That reminds me. I have to get back to searching for an omega,” Hades rumbled, dusting himself off. “Good chat, guys.”

“Wait. Give Rex your number,” Jag said. “So he can contact you if necessary.”

“Just add him to the group chat,” Hades said.

Jag’s eyebrows shot up. They exchanged a look, and Jag nodded. “Sure.”

“What... ‘group chat’?” Rex began slowly.

Storm opened his mouth, except Jag cut in.

“It’s a way of talking to many people,” Jag explained. “A group is when there’s a lot of something that belong together, such as people. A chat is when two people talk to each other. So a group chat is where people in a group talk to each other, usually on a phone or computer. Give me your phone, and I’ll show you.”

Rex pulled out his phone, poking at the screen. “Rex,” he said to it. “Rex phone.”

The phone screen unlocked to reveal a photo that Olson had taken of the two of them. In it, Olson was smiling, their faces pressed together.

That picture always made Rex’s heart swell. He couldn’t help rumbling, pleased.

Jag’s eyebrows quirked. “Olson made it voice-activated, huh?”

Rex showed him. “Send Olson text,” he said.

Green bubbles showed up on the screen, some from Rex’s side, and some from Olson’s side. They were all full of words that Rex couldn’t read.

“Ready for text,” the phone said.

“Mate Olson,” Rex told it. “Olson good omega. Send text.”

“Sending text,” the phone said.

A new green bubble popped up on Rex’s side of the screen. Olson had shown Rex how these worked—he’d get the same message in a bubble on his own phone almost immediately. It was amazing.

“Yeah, that’s good,” Jag said, looking satisfied. “I’m glad you know how to use your phone.”

The phone buzzed. “Text received from Olson,” it said.

Rex’s heart skipped. “Read text.”

“Rex,” the phone read. “I hope you’re not writing texts about mating me in front of everyone.”

That just made Rex grin. Storm snickered, and Jag and Fury both laughed.

“Send Olson text,” Rex said, enjoying this too much.

“Ready for text.”

“Mate Olson,” Rex told it. “Deep. Hard. Hard. Hard.”

Olson really, really liked those words.

“Send text,” Rex said, arousal stirring between his legs

“All right. That’s enough,” Jag said dryly. “We’re not listening in on your sex talk. I’m not sure Olson wants us to, either. Now, I’m going to show you what a group chat is.”

He pushed some buttons on his own phone and tapped on Rex’s phone. “I’ve added you to our chat. What this means is that you’ll see all the messages Hades, Storm, Fury and I send to each other, and you can send us messages as well.”

Rex nodded. Then he remembered that asshole back at the bar, who’d laughed at Rex for trying to write his name.

In front of all these capable alphas, Rex probably seemed little better than an animal. Did they really want him around? He winced. “No speak good.”

“It’s fine. You’re getting better with talking, and even if you don’t, you’re still welcome to hang around with us,” Jag said.

“Yeah,” Storm added with an easy grin. “You can be my accomplice in doing weird things.”

Jag narrowed his eyes. “Don’t.”

Storm held up his hands placatingly. “Just a suggestion.”

Fury caught Rex’s eye. “You haven’t gone to prison, but it looks like you’ve been somewhere similar. You care a lot for your omega. I think we’ll get along fine.”

Rex rubbed his chest. “Olllsonnnnn.”

Fury laughed. “Yeah. He’s just as crazy as you, Storm.”

Jag sent a text, and Rex’s phone buzzed.

“Text received from Danger Alphas,” the phone said.

“Read text,” Rex said, curious.

“Text from Jag. Welcome to our chat, Rex,” the phone read. “Here’s to a great friendship.”

Rex grinned, feeling like maybe he wasn’t a disappointment after all. “Thank. Thank you.”

Jag reached over and pulled him into a light, sideways hug. “We’ll see you again soon. There’s still so much for you to learn.”

Rex nodded eagerly. He needed to get better. He needed to protect Olson the best he could.

He helped with rolling up the mats. Storm gave him a shoulder bump, and Fury nodded at Rex. Then the Danger Alphas were gone, and Rex hurried back into the Wine Shack, buzzing with excitement.

“Better fight,” he told Olson, crowding Olson up against the wall.

“Mmm,” Olson said against his lips. “You’re fighting better now? Wait. Wash your hands first. I don’t know what you touched out there.”

Rex followed him to the employee restroom, where they both washed their hands.

“Training went well?” Olson asked.

Rex showed Olson the new group chat on his phone. Olson raised his eyebrows. Then he smiled, his face lighting up.

“I’m glad you’re making friends,” Olson said warmly. “Even though you had to let them all know what we do in bed.”

“Mine. No steal.” Rex hooked his fingers in Olson’s belt loops. “Mate now?”

“Later,” Olson promised, but he let Rex push his tongue into his mouth several times. “Lunch hour is starting soon. Speaking of. Did Jag and the others leave already? I was going to offer them lunch!”

Rex handed Olson his phone; Olson tapped a quick message to the Danger Alphas. Then Olson slid the phone back into Rex’s pocket, and tiptoed to press their mouths together.

“Just another minute,” Olson whispered.

Rex wanted to recite his pickup line to Olson. But between training and the text messages, he’d forgotten most of the words.

Later. He’d practice again, and impress Olson later.