2. Seventeen Years Old

Rex had tracked Olson down.It had taken him a long time.

Olson Halstead lived in Meadowfall, and he was the owner of a bar called the Wine Shack.

In the pictures on Facebook, he looked the same as Rex remembered: blond with gray eyes, freckled, and still sad. Mostly, he showed up with his brother Varrick—Varrick was the one posting these photos and tagging Olson in them.

Sometimes there were pictures shared by other people, too. Olson was always with other omegas. Never an alpha.

Knowing that gave Rex hope.

His dad had just bought him a used car for his seventeenth birthday, and Rex had saved enough for gas to make it to Meadowfall. The moment Dad got home, Rex was going to tell him his plan, and set off.

He was going to meet Olson and claim him for real.

My omega.

Rex squirmed in anticipation. He’d been dreaming of Olson. Claiming him, having him. Olson was the missing puzzle piece to his life, and he’d waited eleven whole years.

Everything about this screamed This is right. This is the way things should be.

He pulled up his favorite picture of Olson, the one where Olson looked relaxed, his mouth curved in a tiny smile. Rex growled and leaned in.

He couldn’t get enough of that omega. He would prove to Olson that he was an alpha worthy of him.

Dad hadn’t beenhappy about his plan. He’d said Rex was too young to be driving cross-country thinking an omega he’d bitten would welcome him with open arms.

But he’d given Rex the go-ahead, given him warnings Not to push Olson, and told Rex to text him updates.

Rex pulled into a gas station late that night, glancing at the group of cars parked in one corner. He didn’t think cars usually congregated this late at a gas station, but he wasn’t going to be here long anyway. He just needed some gas, and then he was going to keep on driving.

He got out of his car, heading into the store and pulling out the bills wadded in his pocket. There were more guys amongst the shelves than he was expecting. Also weird.

He stopped at the register. “I need thirty bucks of gas.”

“Okay,” the station clerk said, glancing over Rex’s shoulder.

Rex began counting out the cash. Except someone clapped a damp cloth over his mouth, and the chemical smell was so terrible, he was taken by surprise.

Someone hit him over the head. Pain burst through his skull. Then the cloth came back, except when he tried to struggle, someone pummeled him onto the floor.

His world went black.

Rex woke to pain.When he tried to get his limbs under himself, he realized that they were shackled to different corners of a dark, dingy cell.

Something whistled through the air. Then a line of fire cut open his skin, and he screamed.

“Welcome to the rest of your life,” someone said on the other side of some steel bars. “We appreciate your contribution to our research.”

He was in a prison cell, he realized.

He’d been stripped naked, and there was no sign of his phone. Or his clothes. Or his car.

Rex strained against the chains, but they were too strong for him.

“Knock him out. We’ll start the steroids. No time to waste.”

“Let me go,” he roared, panicking when terrible people in white coats opened the prison cell and approached him.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

He was supposed to end up in Meadowfall. With Olson.

He’d promised Olson he would marry him.

And now it felt like he was losing his omega.

All over again.

Olson.

Olson.

Olson.

Rex didn’t remember anything about his old life anymore. Most days, everything was too much.

He ate the food shoved through a flap in the cell door, crouched like an animal, barely even using his hands. He buried his face in the food and snarled when anyone got too close.

They always got too close. It hurt. He couldn’t remember anything for a long time whenever those terrible people in the white coats visited him. They put him through terrible things, and they always had those painful needles. Rex always fought them, and they always won. The steel bars of his cage were too strong.

Rex wished he was far away from here. He tried to find something good to hold onto.

He had something. One name.

Olson.