Chapter 15: Chapter Fifteen

“You’re an idiot.” Mason tossed the insult Dylan’s way as they stood by the car, waiting for Sam and Tracy to deal with the storage unit office manager.

Dylan had thought the same thing himself since he’d first woken. He’d thought it when he’d seen the three walk out of Tracy’s room, and when he’d gotten a whiff of her scent and the way it held that of both the alphas’, and pretty much every second since he’d made the dumb decision to not join in.

I am a fucking idiot.

It didn’t mean he was wrong, though.

“If you and Sam want to line up for part two of the omega disaster, go for it. I personally got my share the first time on that ride.”

Mason leaned against the car, tossing a pebble into the air and catching it. “Just because it went to hell before doesn’t mean it will this time.”

“Don’t they say that the reason we learn history is so we don’t repeat it? Well, buddy, I learned.”

“Are you really going to say you don’t want her? Because don’t think I missed that little show you two put on on the deck the other night.”

Dylan offered a shrug, as casual as he could make it, trying to give nothing away. “She was there. She wanted it. No reason to turn down a pretty omega who offers. Didn’t mean a damned thing.”

Mason’s huff was all sarcasm. “Right. All those looks you’ve been giving her, they mean nothing, too. Just normal, everyday eye-fucking.”

Dylan gave a soft growl like a warning, not that Mason had ever taken those to mean shit. “How do you really see this going? You and Sam are gonna live all happily ever after like his parents did? That shit doesn’t happen.”

“It can.”

“Not for people like me. Why are you bitching at me, anyway? You three are all shacked-up, all fucking picture-perfect family. I’ve got nothing to do with that.” The words sat bitter on his tongue.

Even if he thought for a moment sharing an omega actually could work, it never would for him. Dylan had struggled for every damned thing he had, and even though Sam and Mason had taken him in as family, even though Sam’s parents had given him a home after his own had been torn apart, it didn’t change that he wasn’t like them. Good things didn’t happen for him, and if he tried, if he stepped up and tried to be part of that, the only thing that would happen was she’d see how different he was. She’d realize he was the one let in out of pity, and that would be the end of it, probably for them all.

Maybe if it had just been Tracy, he might have looked past the whole omega thing. Maybe he could have put aside his past and taken the leap, but with Sam and Mason?

Dylan had never lived up to them, and he didn’t need Tracy, or anyone else, seeing that.

Mason’s gaze was steady on him, that rock flying up then slapping down into Mason’s large palm. The other alpha could be intimidating as hell, between his large frame, his beard and his overall ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude.

Before he could respond, the bell above the door chimed, and Tracy and Sam came walking out.

The look on Tracy’s face said they’d had some luck, and why did that slight grin have such an immediate reaction in him? I want her to smile at me like that.

“Go well?” Mason asked, finally pulling his gaze from Dylan to Sam.

“Unit 456, near the back. Tracy played the part of the overwhelmed, bereaved mate perfectly.”

Dylan spotted the slight wince from the girl, as though she felt bad for not being that.

Then again, Richard didn’t deserve her fucking tears. He’d gotten too many of them when he’d been alive. Fucker didn’t deserve shit, now.

Mason snatched the key from Sam’s hand. “Come on, Sam, let’s check out the area first. Tracy, you stay here with Dylan until we’re sure it’s safe.” At the confused stares of Sam and Tracy, Mason only took a step in that direction. “Could be someone waiting, who knows? Just give us a minute.”

Dylan glared, the asshole not nearly as sneaky as he thought, but Sam either caught on or didn’t care. The two alphas walked off.

Tracy fidgeted, but each movement caused her scent to spill out. The other alphas’ smell clinging to her should have disgusted him. It should have had all his possessive instincts envious and prowling. Instead, it only made his shaft fill, made him want to add his own mark to her. He didn’t want to cover their scents—he wanted to add to them.

Tracy inhaled, then turned a look full of shock on him. Right, sometimes he forgot how good an omega’s sense of smell was.

“Like you don’t already know you turn me on,” he muttered, moving his gaze to the far mountain range. Safer than staring at her when he might do something stupid like kiss her, or fuck her, or tell her the truth about how badly he wanted her.

“So why do you keep pulling away?”

“You mean why wasn’t I fucking you along with the other two last night?”

Ah, the wince he caught out of the corner of his eyes made him lift his hand and rub the back of his neck. Couldn’t rub away the guilt, though.

When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “Sorry. Just on edge today.”

“Being with two alphas wasn’t my plan,” she said softly. “I didn’t wake up and go ‘oh, I think I’ll seduce a couple of alphas.’ I didn’t want even one after Richard.”

“And what changed?”

“I met Sam. I tried to ignore it, to tell myself I couldn’t get involved again, but he’s hard to forget. Then I thought, okay, maybe there’s something there. Then I met Mason, and I couldn’t believe I could feel something for him, too.” She shifted and slid her hands into her pockets as though she wasn’t sure what to do with them. “Then I met you.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, then you met me, and we really clicked, huh?”

“Maybe not in the same way. You…” She paused, dragging her tongue along her full pink bottom lip. “You don’t see me as broken. You don’t see me as weak. You don’t let me wallow. I didn’t plan any of this, Dylan, but I don’t know what to do now that we’re here.”

He wanted to pull her into a kiss. He wanted to whisper to her that he’d make things up to her the moment they were back at the house. Hell, he wanted to make them up to her right then, to open the door to the car, bend her over the back seat and fuck her right there.

Except, all that doubt ricocheted around his skull, blasting the sides when he tried to think about a future. If she liked them all, it was probably just hormones, and hormones lessened with time.

So instead of what he wanted to do or say, Dylan stuck with what he did best and scoffed. “That’s nice and all, Red, but pretty words don’t change a thing. You enjoy whatever the fuck it is you got with Sam and Mason, but us? You and me? Or me as a part of that mess?” He shook his head, his gaze down. “There isn’t a chance I’m stepping foot in that disaster waiting to happen.”

He risked a side-eye when she didn’t speak and found her staring at him.

It wasn’t hurt in those eyes, though. Instead, she studied him, just like Mason had. Having someone stare at him so intently didn’t sit well, especially when, no matter how much he scolded himself for it, he cared what the person thought.

“I’m not Nora, and I’m not your mother, either.”

Ouch. Dylan struggled not to show how deep those words cut, how she’d hit the exact right mark.

“Never said you were.” He tried for flippant, but fuck if he managed it.

“You’ve had some bad experiences with omegas. If anyone gets that, I do. Someone once told me that just because things have always been one way, it didn’t mean they always had to be. You just have to be brave enough to try.”

Dylan didn’t let the words touch him. He couldn’t. It was too risky to let him believe that bullshit, even for a second. If he believed it, if he really let himself think he could have more, he’d just end up hurt again. He’d end up at the ass end of another joke from the universe, fucked over by yet another omega in the endless line willing to screw him.

He opened his mouth to snap out a response, but for the smallest second, the thought found a way through his armor. A flash of a future came to him, threatening him. Tracy. Karen. Mason. Sam. Him. All of them together and…happy.

He shoved that shit into the smallest, darkest crevice of his brain he had before it could get a foothold, before it could do any more damage. Nope. Fuck that. Not going to happen.

Sam and Mason turned the corner, Mason’s lips pulled down in an unhappy line when he spotted the clear distance between Tracy and Dylan.

Fuck you, Mason.

Tracy walked off without a word, and Dylan stood alone.

It was what he wanted, right?

Sam couldn’t help load the boxes, so he stood with Tracy near the open tailgate. Annoyance nipped at him over his injuries. He hated being unable to do things, unable to help even load boxes. Hell, even the sex the night before, as amazing as it had been, had required specific positions for him to participate.

It wouldn’t last forever but that didn’t make it any less frustrating as he watched Mason and Dylan take all the work on their shoulders.

“That’s a lot of files,” Tracy said.

There were six large boxes, and another two full of different electronics and drives. It would take time to sort through all the items, and out in the open wasn’t the place. They’d drag it all back to the house where they could properly survey it.

He couldn’t turn it over to anyone until he had an idea of what there was. Clearly some police were being paid, which meant those files might let him know who was safe to give them to and who wasn’t. Plus, he didn’t need the embarrassment of dropping it all off only to find out nothing useful was inside.

Tracy leaned against him, her arm to his, the touch soft and yet moving. She rarely reached for him, rarely came out of her shell to touch any of them on her own.

The touch shifted as she lifted a hand to trail her fingers over his arm, against the bare skin below the sleeve of his T-shirt.

An inhalation told him what was up. Her heat was even closer.

She twisted, pressing her nose to his neck.

“Okay, honey.” He groaned at the closeness, at the way the smell of her heat drifted from between her thighs and intoxicated him, making harsh demands of his body. “We’re almost done here.”

He’d hoped they’d have until the next day before the heat struck, but it seemed time wasn’t on their side. Biology wasn’t something he could just ask nicely to wait until a more convenient moment.

Mason turned his head toward them, gaze taking in the position of Tracy who nuzzled Sam’s throat.

“Let’s get home,” Sam said, voice rough as Tracy’s hands tried to slip beneath his shirt.

Mason nodded, hefting the last box into the truck before slapping the tailgate closed. “Sounds like a plan. Dylan, you drive.”

If Dylan complained, Sam didn’t hear it. He pulled away from Tracy awkwardly as she tried to regain contact and got himself into the truck. Tracy sat in the large back seat, with him on one side and Mason on the other. It left Dylan driving and up front alone.

Sam didn’t bother with feeling bad or worrying about the other alpha, not when Tracy shifted again as Mason tried to get on her seatbelt. She breathed Sam in as though she needed him more than oxygen, and her hands curled in, nails digging into his side. It aggravated the rib, but his own answering hormones, the ones that rose in him in response to her heat, quickly drove all the pain away.

“Seatbelts are a must,” Mason muttered as he strapped her in. “No fucking in the car.”

That seemed to wake her up, shaking loose the desire in her amber eyes.

That was how heats were, though. As they started, a moment of insanity, of desire so strong it couldn’t be resisted before the omega regained her senses. Eventually, though, she’d fall headlong into it. Before long, nothing would break its spell except a knot and the hot, thick cum from an alpha.

She’d become mindless with need to sate the primitive part inside her that demanded she reproduce. She’d bury those nails inside her mate to keep him close and use his body to ease the demanding ache inside her.

And Sam was so in for that. He wanted her to use him to slake the want inside her. He wanted to fill her again and again, to let his cum give her what she needed.

Color warmed her cheeks as she pulled back. “Oh, god,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Sam set his hand on her thigh and squeezed to stop her. “It’s fine, honey. We’ll be back home soon.”

She took her bottom lip between her teeth in that damn, distracting biting thing she liked to do. He wanted to replace her teeth with his own, to nip at the fullness there, to have her so desperate that she had no room for fear.

He cast a look past her at Mason, whose predatory stare said he wanted the same.

And the scent filling the truck cab? That delicious mixture of feminine heat and desire and something uniquely Tracy?

Well, they couldn’t get back to the house fast enough for him.

* * * *

Tracy buried her nose in the soft pile of blankets Sam and Mason had left in her room.

They smelled of her alphas, and they soothed her heat. She’d set them on the floor, pushing the pillows and the bedding around until it was perfect. It took a long time, tiny adjustments as she made enough room for everyone.

The instinct inside her made building the nest mindless. Each place she shifted, each area she moved was created by the understanding inside her she couldn’t identify, one deeper than conscious thought.

It felt good. Natural. It filled her in a way her past heats hadn’t, not in a long time.

She worked to perfect it all, to make a nest that would see her through the heat, that she’d invite an alpha into.

Well, two alphas, she supposed.

Even that couldn’t make her panic, and her body only hummed at the thought of the two, at the memories of the night before when they’d spent so long pleasuring her, when they’d ensured each touch and stroke would drive her need higher only to satisfy her at the end.

Once she’d finished her work, when she’d gotten the blankets exactly where they needed to be, she snuggled into the warmth. She pressed her nose into them, trying to drown in the scents of the alphas, the only thing that helped at all. She even picked up Dylan, faint as it was. Had they included something of his?

Sweat had started to bead on her brow, and her pussy clenched with each growing wave of need. Still, she’d done this before—she knew that was just the beginning. These were the long hours she should rest, because once it really started, there wouldn’t be any rest.

Sleep came easily, though her dreams were as filthy as could be. She pictured things she’d never ask for, things she’d never imagined before. She saw Mason using his strong arms to hold her up against a wall, fucking her with a strength that was staggering. The dream was so real, so powerful she could feel the way his hips would snap forward as he forced his hard dick inside her. The dream shifted, and with Sam, it was different. Then again, Sam was a different alpha, and even in a dream, he showed it. He’d have her above him, urging her to ride him, his lips paying homage to her breasts, to her tight nipples. And Dylan? He appeared, too, even though she knew he didn’t want to be there. He’d push her thighs apart, no matter how sensitive or tired, and he’d lick her as though possessed until he’d made her come again and again. No matter how she begged for a break, he only drove her harder.

“Kitten.” A rough voice she’d heard in her dream drew her from sleep, though the moment it happened, she only snarled at the ache through her body.

How long was I asleep? She tried to roll over, to ignore the person bothering her despite the fact she knew the voice, and some still asleep part of her knew he could help.

Again, the voice came from closer. “Kitten, wake up.”

Finally, Tracy opened her eyes to find Mason crouched beside her.

He smelled…delicious. The moment she inhaled, it hit her hard, her stomach clenching and pain crawling out from that spot, spreading through her like an infection. She pressed a hand to her lower stomach as though to stem that hurt and curled around it.

“It’s time,” he told her, voice soft.

That was when it all came back, when even through her lust-filled mind she put all the pieces together. She was in heat, and currently curled up in the nest she’d made from items that smelled of her alphas.

And beside her, both alphas stood, waiting. They’d stripped down to nothing, just like she had, their bodies on display. Again, she was as fascinated by them as ever. The strong lines of Mason’s large frame, his longer hair that went to his shoulders like the mane of a lion. His eyes, bright with primal want. Sam’s darker skin, his brown eyes that, while always sweet, had a sparking fire inside them as he devoured her with his gaze.

They were waiting for her to invite them in. Richard had never waited, never followed that simple, ingrained rule. It should be her choice, her right to invite in any alpha she chose to service her.

And so, despite their cocks being hard, despite the tension in their bodies and the obvious desire, still they waited. They gave her the chance to decide.

One more inhalation did it, made the decision easy for her. Tracy scooted back, the feeling of the bedding against her skin almost too much for her highly charged body. “Please,” she said.

She needed the alphas to satisfy her.