Chapter One

People weren’t supposed to try to cross the bridges they’d already burned, yet there Farrah was, tromping right over the ashes she’d made fifteen years before.

They’ll turn me away.

No, they wouldn’t. She knew it, even after so many years apart. Her childhood friends would be angry, but they’d never say no to her. Plus, she had money. She could pay well for their services, and, from what she could tell, they were worth every penny.

The heels of the receptionist clicked against the tile as Farrah followed her down the hallway. The large office said the trio had done well for themselves, though her own research had told her the same.

She’d love to say it was research she’d done earlier that same day, but she didn’t need to lie to herself. Those nights when the chill was too strong, when her bed was too cold and empty, she’d been known to spend an hour or two doing what any self-respecting single thirty-two-year-old did—stalking old flames.

Unfortunately for her, she only had the three alphas to stalk, and it never ended well. It only deepened that ache inside her, the one that missed the closeness, their laughs, and their smiles and their voices.

And their lips. And their hands. And their—

She shook her head. Walking into their office smelling of desire would be a horrible idea.

“They don’t normally take last-minute cases like this,” the woman said, the fabric of her skirt pulled tight over her ass in a way that said she dressed for the attention of the three.

Do they take her up on it? Share her between them?

Farrah dug her nails into her palms, a sting of pain before she loosened her fist and chastised herself. “Well, I’m glad they made an exception for me.”

“They didn’t.” The woman cast a conspiratorial smile over her shoulder. “I did. They try to take a few pro-bono cases a year and yours seemed like a good one. Since I do their schedule, they pretty much show up for the cases I tell them to.”

So it wasn’t Farrah’s money but rather her sob story. Well, whatever got her through the front door was worth it. She’d already been run around by the police, who didn’t consider a missing fifteen-year-old an emergency.

Despite her explaining that he’d never done such a thing before, they’d kept reassuring her that he was likely just out having fun. She’d called each morning only to hear that they’d found nothing yet.

Farrah doubted they were looking.

The door to the office at the end of the hallway was large, with a metal plaque that bore three names—Pax Sterling, Blake Cooper and Ryder Shane.

Farrah’s toe caught a corner of the tile, pitching her forward a quick step before she righted herself.

Sure, she’d seen their names, had searched for them, but seeing them on that door was so official. It was really happening.

After fifteen years, she was going to face the alphas who had broken her heart.

* * * *

Fifteen years earlier Heat spread over Farrah’s skin and she didn’t understand why. It wasn’t warm in the forest that time of year. In fact, she should have been freezing.

Instead, she wiped her forehead to clear away sweat.

Pax was getting firewood while Ryder and Blake argued about what to cook. Their sendoff camping trip had been going for three days and had another four before they planned to drive the three hours back to civilization.

It wasn’t much, maybe, but it was all they had.

The alphas were leaving for college in a few weeks, and Farrah, a year younger than them, had to stay behind. It chafed, the idea that she wouldn’t be part of the group they’d made since meeting when she was eight and they’d caught her sneaking over a fence while they’d been playing at Pax’s house.

Still, it was the sweating that got to Farrah, that and the roll of her stomach. She hadn’t eaten that day and hadn’t had more than a few bites the day before. Her appetite was shot and she just felt…unsettled.

Was it them leaving? Fear of the future? Of being alone, without her best friends?

A tremble in her hand caused the cup of hot tea Pax had made her to slip free. It spilled down her leg, soaking into her jeans.

Before she could fully gasp, Pax was in front of her, patting the front of her pant leg as if that would dry her. “You are a disaster, kid.”

Farrah rose, shaking her foot so the wet, scalding jean fabric could cool. Her stomach rolled again, worse than before. It felt like the top of a rollercoaster, when her stomach would seem to lift to her throat.

Pax caught her before she even realized she’d started to go over.

“Woah,” he muttered, her weight nothing compared to his size.

The three guys had grown in a way that annoyed her, filling out and turning into the alphas she knew they were. They’d told her, there being no secrets between the four of them. As they’d sprung from tall, gangly kids into young men, as they’d gained muscle mass while she’d stayed that scrawny little girl she’d always been, Farrah had pouted.

Partly because it wasn’t fair, and partly because of the new attention it garnered them, and how damned much they liked it.

Pax seated her in the camping chair by the fire. He checked her eyes, as if that would tell him anything.

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. This is what people do.”

“Unless my eyes are missing, I don’t think you can tell anything from them.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, the childish action familiar. Except this time, her gaze locked on to his wet, pink tongue. She shook her head at the wildly inappropriate response of her body.

What the hell?

“I just need to lie down.”

The humor drained from Pax’s face, as though her quiet words alerted him to something really being wrong. “Maybe we should get you back.”

She shook her head. “A three-hour drive for a little lightheadedness? I’ve just been staying up too late and not getting nearly enough good sleep. I’ll take a rest and be fine.”

He helped her into the tent and perched by the door with a frown across his normally smiling face as she fell asleep.

She woke hours later, a fact she knew only because the sun had gone down. Instead of feeling better, though, she felt worse.

Far worse.

Fire licked at her skin, her breath quick and shallow, her body oversensitive so that even the slight imperfections of the air mattress aggravated her.

“Hey there,” came Ryder’s sweet voice.

Something smelled delicious. She didn’t know what, only that she needed more of it.

“I don’t feel good,” she whispered.

Fingers carded through her hair, and she realized the strands were drenched with sweat. Ryder’s face came into view, his brown eyes so light they were nearly yellow. “I bet you don’t. Do you know what’s going on and didn’t tell us?”

His words seemed like they mattered, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that scent, wanting to find whatever it was and wrap herself around it. She could only shake her head.

A soft curse drew her gaze past Ryder to where Pax and Blake stood, the inseparable pair far too serious. She needed them to laugh, to make a joke, to force her to roll her eyes in response.

Instead, their eyes held a glint of something else, something so intense it made her want to draw backward.

Maybe they saw it, because both alphas looked down.

“You’re in heat,” Ryder said.

Heat. The word hit her like a blow.

She wasn’t the beta she’d always assumed. A heat meant she was an omega, one of the rare females who could bond with alphas. She didn’t care what title she had, but the future she’d imagined, the cracking of things torn away, that was the blow.

Omegas didn’t have choices. They settled down fast, driven by hormones and instincts, usually claimed by some alpha who thought them his due.

Before she could freak out fully, like she wanted to do, another wave of pain rolled through her, dragging a broken cry from her dry lips. It wasn’t the slight discomfort from before, but rather full agony.

“Easy,” Ryder whispered, bringing his lips to her forehead.

That scent. Farrah inhaled. It was them she was smelling, something she’d never noticed on them before, a comforting scent that made images of rainstorms over ancient forests spring up in her head. A scent masculine and wild and hers, no matter how little sense that made.

“We can get her back to town,” Blake said, his voice strained.

“It’s a three-hour drive,” Pax argued. “If she’s this bad already, do you really think we could make that safely? Because I don’t think I can make that drive in a car that smells like…her.”

Ryder spoke, and it took her a moment to realize she’d buried her nose in the heat of his throat. “There’s no way we can put her in a car. Being around our scent will make it worse, and I don’t think any of us could resist her in a closed cab. Pax, why don’t you drive down? Hit the gas and you could make it to somewhere with cell service in two hours, maybe less, and get an ambulance here. They could put her under.”

An immediate response bubbled from her throat. “Don’t leave me.”

Pax’s face softened, as though her plea helped the strain that showed in his expression. He came forward and fell to his knees beside Ryder, taking her hand in his. His blue eyes were dark in the dim light of the tent. “I don’t want to leave you, kid, but you need help. First heats are rough, and we’ve got nothing to help you with here.”

“Well, not nothing,” Blake chimed in.

Ryder looked over his shoulder with a glare. “We are not doing that.”

“What other choice is there? Let her suffer?”

“I’m not taking advantage of her,” Ryder growled out. “And fuck you for even considering it.”

“You’ve got no idea,” Blake continued. “Give her an hour and she’s going to hurt like you wouldn’t believe. You really going to turn her down then?”

Pax and Ryder kept silent, and the only sound in the tent was Farrah’s harsh and erratic breathing.

“We have to turn her down,” Ryder muttered with less confidence than he had moments before.

However, an hour later, just as Blake had predicted, Farrah rolled on the air mattress, her head a mess of pain and desire. Everything inside her was consumed in flames, as though magma rolled through her and scalded everything in its path.

“Please,” she begged.

“I’m here,” Ryder said, the alphas having taken turns being inside. It seemed they needed breaks to keep their own instincts in line. “You need some water?”

Farrah grasped his shirt, her hands shaking as she held tight. “Please, make it stop.”

“I can’t, baby. Just hang in there.”

She pulled at his shirt, trying to draw him closer. “You can. I know you can.”

A deep groan left him as he cupped her cheeks and brought his forehead to hers. If he cared about the sweat, about the mess she was, he didn’t say a word. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You don’t want this, not really, and I can’t take advantage of you.”

“I love you,” she openly sobbed. The words were true, but hell, she’d have said anything right then to make the pain stop. “Please.” The begging continued as she repeated please over and over again, no other words coming to mind.

Another hand on her shoulder alerted her before Pax’s voice did. “This isn’t right, not like this.”

Before she could complain again, before she could start up with another round of begging, Blake cut in. “I’ll do it.” The growl of the other alphas filled the tent, but Blake kept talking. “She’s in pain, and I’m not about to let her keep on suffering. It’s the best of a lot of bad options, okay?”

Ryder tore his gaze away and dropped it to the floor. Pax caught Farrah’s chin and drew her eyes to his. “Do you want that, Farrah? You understand what we mean, don’t you? You’ll have one of us service you through your heat.”

Service. He said it so properly, as though that hid the meaning, that she’d have sex for the first time with one of them. That she’d go from never having been really touched to having one of the alphas she’d been around for so many years locked inside her.

Still, Farrah could only nod.

“Who do you want?” Ryder asked the question, and it helped.

She had choices. This was still up to her, at least as much as it could be.

However, there was only one right answer.

Her voice was harsh as she answered back. “I need all three of you.”

Present They hadn’t changed.

Or maybe they had, but Farrah could still identify each alpha without any help. Pax, with his blue eyes and dark hair that stood out against his pale skin. As a kid, he’d let his hair grow long, but now he seemed to keep it shorter, with enough length on the top that it could drop to his forehead.

Blake had his red hair pulled back, green eyes dancing with the same humor they had before, his beard thick and with that same reddish tint. He seemed to have picked up some extra freckles over the years, ones that sat on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

Ryder sat at the desk in the corner, staring at a screen, but the softness of his features, the subtle contentment he’d always had, was the same. He’d let his hair grow some as well, shaved on the sides but much longer on the top, long enough to look messy in an all-too-alluring way.

The biggest difference was in their sizes. If she’d thought them large at seventeen—now, as full-grown adult alphas, they dwarfed their younger selves. Ryder was the largest, with broad shoulders and a chest covered by a black polo that strained over his thick biceps.

“This is the pro-bono case I mentioned,” the receptionist said as she breezed into the office.

It was Pax who looked up first, who laid eyes on her. The weight of his gaze hit her like a sucker punch, so much stronger than she’d expected it to be. Nothing she could have done would have prepared her for it.

Tension in the room spiked as he rose to his feet, the scraping of the other chairs following until all three alphas stood.

The receptionist froze, her eyes wide. Hasn’t she ever seen this sort of reaction?

Well, at least they remember me.

“Is everything okay?” the woman asked.

Ryder answered, his voice deeper and rougher than it had been. “Yes, Stacy. Would you give us some privacy?”

She didn’t appear thrilled with the idea, but she followed the order without complaint.

When the door shut behind her, Farrah gulped and started to doubt her plan. Suddenly she was that sixteen-year-old kid again, and these were three very adult alphas surrounding her, staring at her with an intensity that made her stomach flip.

“What are you doing here?” Ryder asked the question with more bite than Farrah remembered from him.

“I need to hire you.”

“You write us off, don’t want a thing to do with us for fifteen years, but now you expect our help?” Pax huffed a laugh that didn’t sound all that amused.

“I’m not asking for a handout here. I can pay you.”

Blake tapped his fingers across the top of his desk, drawing her attention. “Not even a ‘hey there, how have you been? It’s been a long time.’ Just straight to business?”

Farrah licked her dry lips, reminding herself that she wasn’t sixteen anymore. She wasn’t a child chasing after the three alphas. She was a full-grown woman, damn it. She was hiring them to do a job. Nothing more.

She pulled her back straight, standing tall, as though that did a thing. She was still not even eye to eye with any of them. Regardless, it made her feel better. “This isn’t about us or our past. I need you to help me find someone, and you’re the best.”

Pax snorted as he crossed his strong, muscled arms over an equally firm and broad chest. “And what is it that has you willing to look us up after all these years? Who’s so important that you’ll sink to talking to us again?”

Farrah swallowed loudly before answering. “I need you to find my son.”