Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

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I’m forced awake when a hand clamps over my mouth. I struggle against whoever is leaning over me until I hear Lex hiss out my name.

Blinking rapidly to clear the sleep from my eyes, I see my bodyguard’s wide gray eyes glancing from me to the door to my temporary bedroom-nest. It’s a violation for an alpha to enter an omega’s nest uninvited, something I know Lex would never consider unless we were in danger.

I carefully sit up, keeping as quiet as I can. My ears strain as I try to listen for movement in the house. Instead of hearing noise, I smell the faintest hint of smoke. “Lex,” I breathe. He stiffens beside me when he smells it too.

“There are eight men outside, two by their van and six spread out around the house. They most likely kept one on each exit with the other four heading inside.” Lex explains.

He’s leaning over so he can whisper the words against my ear so our voices don’t carry. I nod, my fingers digging into the blanket spread across my lap. The hits Fate keeps throwing at me never seem to end.

“Their goal is most likely to kill or incapacitate me, then grab you. I’m going to get us out of this house but you need to do whatever I tell you, Omen. If I say run you run. If I tell you to leave me behind, you will follow my direction without hesitation. I will use my bark on you if I have to. Nod once if you understand.”

I nod shakily. My heart hammers in my chest, all the way up my throat. I swear I can taste my heartbeat on my tongue. The thought of being separated from Lex, of leaving him behind, makes me sick. I know they haven’t admitted it yet but he’s important to Bea. If anything were to happen to him…

No. I can’t think like that. I need to focus on following Lex. He knows what he is doing and I trust him to get us both out of here alive.

“I’m going to cross to the door and check the hall now. When I give you the signal, follow me. Leave everything behind. We can’t have the extra weight slowing us down.” He doesn’t wait for me to reply, walking silently to the door and sliding it open. The silence is tense and makes the few minutes he’s watching through the crack feel like an eternity.

I hear doors on our floor slam open and can’t help but flinch. If they catch me, they’ll drag me back to my father and once he gets his hands on me…

Lex waves me to him so I slip off the bed. I keep my footsteps as light as I can, trying to move as quietly as he does. We hurry out of the room and to the left down the steps. He has me hug the wall closest to the living room where the bottom of the stairs is blocked by the curve of the wall upstairs.

We’re only halfway down when we see the first of the flickering flames in the kitchen. The small table is ablaze, the fire creeping across the wallpapered walls toward the counters. Who sets a house on fire when they haven’t finished searching it yet?

Movement outside of the front door startles me. Panic makes my hands shake as I press them to my mouth to hide the heavy sounds of my shuddering breaths. I tiptoe behind Lex as he rounds the corner into the living room and wraps around toward the back door.

We’re only three or four feet down the hall when the door opens. I barely have time to blink before Lex is lunging forward, a knife glinting in his hand. He catches the intruder off guard, slamming into his chest and knocking him to the ground.

I watch as Lex’s knife slices into the man's throat, blood spraying the wall when he pulls it back out. The relief I feel is temporary, ruined when a hand grips my hair and yanks me backward. My startled yelp draws my bodyguard’s attention and he lets out a menacing growl. Cold metal presses to my throat hard enough to still my fighting body.

I meet Lex’s eyes and nod imperceptibly. Whatever he needs to do, I trust him with my life.

“Drop the knife, lock yourself in the laundry room, and you’ll walk out alive,” the man holding me says. The smoke is too thick now for me to catch any hint of his scent but his threat lacks the power of an alpha so I assume he is a beta.

Lex must come to the same conclusion because he barks out a command for us to freeze. The bark only works for several seconds with this man fighting it, but it’s long enough for Lex to get close enough to grip the man’s arm. His knife nicks my neck as it’s ripped away.

I dive forward out of his reach only to be met by yet another of the mercenaries. “No!” I shout and bash my head forward into his throat when he raises his weapon toward Lex and fires. I hear my bodyguard grunt but he doesn’t go down.

My current captor chokes from the assault on his windpipe but tries to fire again. I jerk sideways, smashing his arm against the wall with my full weight. The second shot goes astray, hitting a lamp in the living room behind us.

I stumble when a blow connects with the side of my chin, black spotting my vision from its force. I’m being hauled away, my feet dragging through the blood of the dead man on the floor. I trip over the doorstep, using my clumsiness to my advantage and throwing my full weight against the man’s arm again. His wrist slams into the door frame and his gun is knocked to the floor.

“Fucking bitch,” he seethes. He doesn’t have time to find another weapon before we’re both slammed to the ground. The mercenary’s head connects with the patio with a sickening crunch, but strong arms pull me back before I can meet the same fate.

Shouting comes from the front of the house, footsteps pound down the stairs and I know our time is running out. “Run,” Lex orders, the command bordering on a bark and taking the action out of my control.

My feet fly across the patio and the grass in the backyard. I burst through the wooden gate but I don’t stop. Lex’s heavy breaths follow me.

“Left.” A shot rings out from behind us as I skid around the corner. My thigh burns with sharp pain, a scream escapes my lips, but I don’t slow down.

We run for what feels like miles, but is only four or five blocks. When we reach the car Lex has hidden in a mostly vacant lot, I jump inside. He follows, not wasting any time to buckle in before he has keys in the ignition and we’re flying out onto the street.

“Fuck.” My voice comes out with a hint of a whine as I inspect my bleeding leg. It looks like the bullet only grazed me, thankfully. Lex wasn’t so lucky. His bicep took the hit from the first shot fired in the hallway. “Are you okay? I can try to rip off part of my shirt if you need to tie it off?”

Lex actually laughs, the sounds deep and entirely too calm for the situation we’ve found ourselves in. “They make that shit look much easier in the movies. Just keep pressure on your thigh and don’t worry about me.”

I fight to keep my comments to myself. No need to add to his stress with my concerns. I imagine the weak scent of my distress is causing enough of a distraction for him.

“Open the glove box,” he orders when we reach the edge of the city and he’s sure we aren’t being followed. “There should be a burner phone in there. Turn it on and text Donovan. Do you need me to tell you his contact number?”

“No,” I shake my head. I memorized Donovan and Shelby’s numbers when I enrolled at Dillon Falls Omega Academy. They wanted me to have a way to contact them in case something were to happen.

Tapping in Donovan’s number I type out the message Lex relays to me. ‘Rocky Road is out of stock. I’ll stop by the Chestnut Street corner store to look there.’ It seems like an odd message to send but I imagine there is some sort of code behind it. After I confirm it's been sent he has me power off the device and remove the SIM card so it can’t be traced.

“What now?”

“Now we go completely off-grid. I’ll stop at a gas station to fill up the tank and we’ll use the first aid kit in the back to patch ourselves up. Then it’s a five hour drive to the next safe house I know is offline.” Lex explains the next few steps in his plan.

I lean against the window to watch the world outside fly by. Worry curls in my chest, tightening like a rubber band on a watermelon. If they went after me did they go after Hannah too? I wish there was a way to know for sure. To reach out to Shepherd or Foster and check in without putting their location at risk.

As if he senses where my thoughts are, Lex taps the steering wheel twice to get me to look at him. “The Wilsons would never let Hannah or her children get hurt. And honestly, not to upset you further, but I don’t believe Grant Montgomery would go after her. Not yet anyway.”

“Because I’m an omega,” I sigh. He’s right. My punishment will be a priority in my birth father’s eyes. I’m the thing he hates most in this world so he won’t focus on anyone else until I’ve been dealt with.

It probably isn’t a good sign that this knowledge brings me relief. I’ve spent so much of my adult life terrified of what would happen if he ever discovered my designation. Now I bear the weight of his hatred without fear.

I’m not bravely facing his punishment, I’m just indifferent to the outcome.

At the gas station, I get a crash course in treating bullet wounds. Luckily, the injury to Lex’s arm was a through-and-through he swears didn’t hit anything vital, so I don’t have to dig into his arm. Putting in stitches is nauseating enough. The graze on my thigh isn’t deep so we’re able to clean the blood away and patch it with butterfly bandages.

Lex’s training comes in handy once again when I find a bag with clean clothes for both of us stashed in the trunk. Walking into a grocery store covered in blood is a surefire way to get the cops called.

Lex fills the tank while I grab drinks from inside, hiding my hair and face with a ball cap, and then we’re back on the road. I can feel the adrenaline fading from my body leaving only bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. My eyes slowly slide shut as we leave yet another city to be greeted by dark highways and starry skies.

Morning light blinds me as I climb out of the passenger seat. Despite sleeping for the majority of the drive—and several hours before the attack on our last safe house—I feel as though I haven’t slept in days. The fatigue is getting worse. My energy depletes with even the simplest of tasks, like walking through a grocery store or washing my hair.

I’m starting to understand what Nebula meant when he said he had to watch his sister Elizabeth wither away after her rejection. The longer I’m apart from my mates the worse the symptoms of this chemical rejection get.

Some days when I’m lying in a nest of blankets I can almost feel my body slowly giving up. Or maybe my heartbroken, fucked up brain is supplying those imaginary feelings as a side effect of my depression.

I push the cart while Lex grabs enough food to last us until he can arrange for a drop from the DAU here in town. He asks for my input but I just shrug. I can see the concern in his gray eyes each time I space out. It doesn’t matter what he buys for me to eat when everything tastes like ash.

After stocking up on groceries he guides us through the clothing section to grab extra outfits. I’m surprised when he also stops in the home goods section and makes me pick out a few nesting blankets. I’m not sure what our budget is but I imagined it to be somewhere near ‘necessities only’.

“Nesting is a necessity,” he tells me when I voice my concern. “You need a nest to help combat the worst of the effects of the rejection.”

I pick three cheap but soft blankets and add them to our pile. I don’t argue with him, partially because I simply don’t have the energy to do so, but also because he’s right. Going without some semblance of a nest will make my downward spiral exponentially faster.

“Thank you,” I whisper when we are in the car again. The words packed with gratitude for more than the blankets. Lex saved my life last night. Even if those mercenaries wouldn’t have killed me, my birth family would have.

In classic Lex manner, he only grunts in response. I snort out a laugh and flip on the radio. The volume stays low so it isn’t too distracting. I switch to a pop channel and let the catchy tunes pull me back to sleep.

The car bumps over a driveway made of more dirt than gravel, parts of it still washed out from the heavy spring rains. I grip the door to stop myself from smashing against it each time we hit one of the dips.

I’m slightly concerned for the bottom of the car. It may fall apart when we finally get to the safe house. When we pull to a stop the car seems fine, though I question the vehicle's ability to handle a second trip out of here.

Stepping out, I take a deep steady breath. Soaking in the fresh forest air. The sun beats down through the tall trees growing around the small cabin. The building's exterior is faded with age, the door a weathered dark brown that may have once been burgundy.

Surprisingly, it looks like it's been regularly maintained with a sturdy porch and a decent stockpile of wood beneath the covered overhang off the right side. I grab some of our bags and follow Lex to the door. He drops his haul on a cute little outdoor couch. The kind handcrafted by someone with woodworking skills.

I peek out into the forest around us, not seeing anything of interest, while he fishes the key from its hiding spot and opens the door. The cabin’s interior is a little dusty but livable. It’s one floor with a small loft above what looks like a bedroom.

I sit everything in the kitchen and get to work putting things away. It’s all been sitting in the trunk for over half an hour and needs to be attended to before I explore. Lex walks back outside to check the exterior and bring in the rest of what we bought. We work together to put things away in the fridge and empty cupboards.

It doesn’t take long, maybe twenty minutes, but I’m left slumped against the counter. I sigh, frustrated with myself for always being so exhausted. It’s fucking stupid my body has convinced itself Pack Graves rejected me.

“Here,” I turn to look at my bodyguard and see bags filled with my blankets and clothes in his hands. “You’re taking the loft. It’s a little smaller and can function like a nest. It’s also not as easy to access as the bedroom.” I nod and accept the pile from his arms.

Climbing the ladder takes more effort than I will ever admit. Making it to the top is worth the trip. This small space is perfect. Dark wood ceilings cut at an angle to meet above the bed. There aren’t any windows, but there are giant curtains running along the front edge to darken the space even further.

The slightly musty smell I could do without. Maybe some air freshener will help. Glancing back down to the first floor, I quickly decide it is too much work to make the climb down and back up.

Lying in the freshly made and slightly better smelling bed, buried in fuzzy blankets, I stare at the ceiling. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this tired and been unable to sleep. I’m so drained of energy I doubt I could muster enough to climb downstairs and search for an old book or magazine to read.

The blankets become stifling so I strip down to my underwear. As I’m pulling my hoodie off I see words inked on the skin of my left arm. With the pandemonium of our escape, I never noticed the telltale signs of a message from one of my mates. They cover my entire arm all the way up past my elbow. The words increasingly frantic the longer I went without replying.

I glance around the small loft but don’t see a pen I can use. My chest feels tight imagining them worrying about me but they’ll have to suffer a bit longer. When I’m feeling a little more myself, I will venture downstairs and find something I can use to reply with.