Chapter Four

The lock on Farrah’s window made her claustrophobic.

Ryder had placed the small device, explaining that it would alert them if the window were opened or broken. More were placed on the other windows of the house, as well as one on the slider that led to the small porch off her bedroom, each one freestanding so it could be removed later.

The entire thing made her feel trapped.

An alarm on her window, three alphas between her and a door…

It had been years since she’d had to answer to anyone, and now she couldn’t even get fresh air without someone knowing.

Her heart beat hard, but as she paced her room, she couldn’t think of a way to resolve it. A shower seemed worse, the steam heavy and oppressive. She didn’t want to wake anyone, to let them know how strung tight she was, especially with the way their last conversation had gone.

Even going to the kitchen would mean sneaking past them.

When did I become a prisoner in my own home?

Her only option seemed to be a glass of water from the bathroom, since she didn’t dare risk a confrontation with the alphas.

The water rushed from the faucet, and she winced at the chlorinated taste of the unfiltered water.

“Can’t sleep?”

Farrah jumped, spilling the cold water down her front.

Blake didn’t look all that sorry as he grinned, as though it was the best thing that could have happened. “Wet T-shirt contests aren’t usually the way I’d go about trying to get some sleep.”

Farrah set the glass down and pulled the freezing, drenched shirt away from her skin. “I needed some air,” she explained. “But someone felt the need to secure every single exit.”

“Safety’s important.” Blake’s shrug said he wasn’t inclined to apologize. “But I’ll be your babysitter if you want a little outside time.”

I’m going to punch him. One good hit and I’ll wipe that smirk off his lips.

Except she knew she’d never do that. For some stupid reason, she still cared about all of them, and she wasn’t about to hurt them, even if they deserved it.

He turned off the sensor on the sliding glass door in her room, and she followed him to the small patio after she’d changed into a dry top.

Instantly, she felt free. The stuffiness of the house, the strong scents of the alphas, all drifted away in the gentle night’s breeze.

She sat on the swing and he took a spot beside her. Farrah brought her knees up so Blake handled keeping the swing moving.

“You know you can’t just scare us off again, right?”

“You forget, I’ve had fifteen years to perfect my terrifying mom voice.” She brushed his arm with hers, the heat of it almost scalding. It would be so easy to lean just a little, to accept what she knew he’d offer.

Only, she still had no reason to think he really wanted it. Offering because he had to, that was what had gotten them into this position in the first place.

She’d needed and none of them had been able to refuse.

Hardly the start to great love.

It killed any lust that had simmered, helped to leash that desire to reach out for him.

A bump to her arm drew her attention to Blake. “What’re you thinking? Because you sure pulled away fast.”

Farrah dragged her tongue along her bottom lip before reaching for a nice, safe lie. “I’m worried about Knox.”

“Liar,” he said beneath his breath, though he went along with her change in subject. “It’ll be fine. All we need is to find some dirt on the alpha, enough to convince him to let go of Toya.”

“And you have experience with this?”

“Blackmailing bad guys? No, not really. Usually we just haul them into the police station.”

“You’re not all that reassuring.”

He bumped her again with his arm, through this time he didn’t pull back. “So, you really didn’t settle down with anyone? All these years?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I had my hands full. Raising a kid takes a lot of attention, especially by yourself.”

“Don’t try to play that card, because I’m still pissed.” That warning tone in his normally easy-going voice seemed strange.

Instead of pushing that particular topic anymore, Farrah tried another route. “What about you? Fifteen years is a long time. Bet you’ve all broken plenty of hearts.”

“Probably. Had ours broken a time or two, also.”

Jealousy burned in Farrah, and she huffed softly as though it didn’t. “Not one of you found someone long term? I remember how many groupies you had.”

Blake leaned back and tossed his arm over the back of the swing. It was almost a cuddle, similar to the way that they used to sit back before it had all gone to hell. The familiarity shook her enough that she didn’t complain about the dangerous intimacy of it.

“Finding someone to work with the three of us isn’t such an easy thing.”

“The three? You mean…” She struggled to find the words.

“After you, we realized we preferred to be together. We tried a couple times on our own, but women tended to get jealous of our bond. We started pursing women together, but that’s not exactly an easy fit. It’s hard enough to match two people, let alone four.”

The idea that they’d taken women together hit her harder than she expected it to, as though she were replaceable. She hadn’t expected them to become monks after her, to turn celibate as she had, but the thought that they’d touched another girl as they had her?

It stung.

“Any girl willing to put up with the three of you has to be crazy, so I can’t imagine what could go wrong.”

He curled his lips into a half-grin, as though he heard the jealousy in her voice. “Sharing women isn’t easy. The girl would get attached to one of us a lot of times, or wouldn’t take to one. Turns out it isn’t so easy to find one woman who meets the needs of three different alphas, and even harder to find a woman who wants that sort of life, one who actually wants all three of us.” He let out a soft sigh, sliding his hand to tug her closer to his side.

And she let it happen. It was dangerous and stupid, but she couldn’t quite pull away.

“So, are you telling me you haven’t had a good seeing-to since that one time?” A chuckle in his voice made the vulgar statement less insulting.

“That is none of your business.”

“So that’s a no. What a shame. Long time to go without, especially for an omega who has had so little experience.” The way he spoke was a tease of its own, his words a promise. A promise of what, she wasn’t sure.

Memories of the last time, of her heat, when he’d pressed those teasing lips of his against her hip bones, tracing the points with his tongue, struck her. Much of it was a blur, one of their touches melting into another until it was a string of feelings more than anything.

It meant that she couldn’t really picture it, only recall how overwhelming it had been.

His laugh loosened the tightness of her chest. “Relax, Farrah, I’m not propositioning you. Just making conversation.”

Of course he wasn’t propositioning her. They’d never actually wanted her.

Before that hurt could take hold, he tugged her impossibly closer, melding her against his strong side, the weight of his arm sliding from the back of the swing over her shoulders, removing any doubt about the not-so-subtle move attempted by all awkward teenagers.

And instead of pulling away and arguing, instead of building up her walls and going back to her empty bed, she let herself rest against this side.

She knew it was a bad idea, but it felt too good.

* * * *

Having breakfast with the three alphas was beyond strange. Farrah had woken to the alluring scent of bacon, which was a surprise as she never cooked bacon.

Farrah tended to be more of a health fiend. She preferred vegetable-based meals, with chicken added every once in a while. After having Knox, she’d decided eating healthy was important.

So when she walked into the living room to find Ryder facing the stove without a shirt on, she’d all but fallen over her feet.

He sure had grown up. The muscles of his shoulders shifted beneath his bronzed skin as he moved, flipping bacon in the large pan on the stove. His hair, long and messy on top but neatly shaved on the sides, was such a light brown it was almost blond in the morning light.

Why exactly is he shirtless? She pretended the question had something to do with the questionable hygiene of the act, and nothing to do with how badly she wanted him in that moment, how tempting she found the lines of his strong back, and how she had to fight the urge to trace her fingers along them.

A sting to her ass had her jumping. Blake passed her after having smacked her, his lifted eyebrow and not-at-all subtle grin saying he’d caught her ogling.

“I didn’t have any bacon,” Farrah said as though that were a smooth transition.

“I picked it up.” Pax walked in from the back yard, tendrils of steam escaping the top of his coffee cup. “You had nothing in that fridge.”

“That fridge is full of food.”

“Rabbit food. You might be able to live off it, but we can’t.”

Farrah narrowed her eyes at Pax, whose face still seemed to hold a lot of anger. He hadn’t quite gone back to the jovial man she knew him as. “Well, don’t complain to me when you all end up six hundred pounds and have heart attacks.”

“Deal.” Blake pulled out a chair from the table and set a cup of coffee in front of it. His gesturing told her to sit.

And, as seemed to be the way of things recently, Farrah did it, despite all the good reasons not to.

Ryder continued working at the stove, the only alpha without a shirt. At least it made for some nice scenery while she waited.

“Out with it.”

She turned back to Pax, his sharp words drawing her eyebrows together. “With what?”

“About Knox. Don’t you think we deserve to know about him?”

“Didn’t we have this argument already?”

“Oh, we are nowhere near done with that argument, but I’m not talking about why you decided to hide my kid from me. I’m talking about him. Tell us about him, about his life, about what’s happened over the fifteen years since we saw you last.”

Oh, that.

Farrah took a sip of the black coffee, having to admit that it was much better than when she’d attempted it last night. “Well, I mean, you saw him. He’s actually fifteen, and what more is there to say?”

Pax dropped into the seat across from Farrah but only folded his arms over his chest.

Ryder set a plate down in front of her. “Let’s start at the beginning, huh? Everything good with the pregnancy? Birth?”

Farrah grimaced at the plate of food with sunny-side-up eggs and more bacon than any one person needed. Over the clatter of plates as Ryder served the others, Farrah answered. “Everything was fine. No problems.”

“You lived with your mom?” Blake asked.

“No. She wanted me to put Knox up for adoption to save her the embarrassment of having an unmated teenage mother as a daughter. I stayed with my aunt until I had him, but when it became clear I wasn’t going to give him up, she cut me off.”

Pax’s anger didn’t soften, but for a split second, it at least changed focus and landed on her mother. “So you were seventeen then? And she just cut you off? What the fuck did you do?”

“What anyone does. I figured it out.” Farrah dipped the bacon into the eggs, because while she didn’t normally eat this way, it provided a nice distraction from the uncomfortable retelling of her past. “I took odd jobs at first, lived in a single room I rented from an empty-nester who felt sorry for me. I cleaned, waitressed, whatever I could to take care of us, and the lady who rented me the room babysat for next to nothing. They weren’t easy years.”

“You should have called us.” Ryder took his own seat after serving everyone. “We could have helped, made sure you had a good place to live, at least.”

“We aren’t going to have that argument again already, are we? I made it work. Eventually, I got into a manager position at the restaurant and started making good money. As you can see, we’re doing fine.”

Blake glanced around the house, not a bit of snark in his expression. “You’ve done well, I’ll give you that. Impressive.”

The praise did uncomfortable things to Farrah, as though it melted her right from the inside. She’d never cared about praise before. When district managers or anyone else told her she’d done well, she didn’t puff her chest out. She did what needed to be done and didn’t need people offering tidbits of praise to her for it.

However, when Blake did it, when he looked at the life she’d built all on her own and seemed proud of her?

She shifted in her chair, pinning her knees together. She might not have a lot of experience with alphas anymore, but she knew damned well they could pick up the scent of an aroused omega, and she had gone a very long time without the touch of one.

No one could blame her for reacting. She might not be a child anymore, not some perky eighteen-year-old, but she wasn’t dead, either.

And Ryder still hadn’t put his shirt on.

Pax snorted softly, the corner of his lip drifting up ever so slightly into a ghost of a smile. If he’d caught her scent, he didn’t say a word. Probably still too angry.

“He’s like you, you know.” Farrah kept her voice low and her gaze down. She shouldn’t say it, but somehow, she felt like she owed them this. The fact they didn’t speak let her keep going. “Knox is so hardheaded some of the time. He’s a sweet kid, don’t get me wrong, but he always thinks he’s right. I’ve ended up at the school more than a few times because he decided to take up some cause and right some wrong, more often than not with his fists.”

Blake laughed, a hard burst that was almost a coughing sound. “Oh, Farrah, that ain’t us. That’s all you.”

Farrah looked up, her mouth gaping open. “Excuse me? I recall you all getting in more than your fair share of fights.”

“They were always because you started something. The issue with Tommy because he cheated on his girlfriend? You. The fight with Jacob and his buddies over one of ’em saying Ryder’s mom was a whore? You.”

“Oh, you just like to blame everything on me. What about Scott Gillian? Pretty sure that one wasn’t me.”

Pax laughed, finally giving in to a full smile. “Oh, that one was still you.”

“I never even talked to him!”

“Nah, but he talked about you, and let’s just say his very active imagination got him into some trouble when he started spouting off in the locker room.”

Farrah didn’t bother to hide the way she stared at Pax, her mouth hanging open at the stupidity of the alpha, and worse, at how pleased the three of them seemed with themselves.

They were exactly like Knox.

“Alphas are going to be the death of me,” she said as she pushed her chair back to rise, having stomached as much of the high-fat breakfast as she could.

She scraped the plate and stuck it in the dishwasher, the chuckles of the infuriating alphas there to punctuate her actions.

As she left, Ryder called out. “We’re leaving in thirty minutes, so make sure you’re ready.”

“Where exactly are we going?”

“Nervous?”

“With you all, I should be.”

Ryder’s eyebrow lifted but he didn’t argue with her. “Trust us,” was all he said.

And Farrah did, damnit. Even after all the years, even after the heart ache, she did.

And it still might just be the death of her.

* * * *

Farrah’s car was far too small for all the bodies currently crammed into it. Ryder drove, with Blake in the passenger seat and Pax beside her.

Worse? Pax had lost the bit of humor from breakfast, as though he’d remembered exactly why he was so angry with her.

Which seemed altogether unfair.

Sure, maybe he had a point about being given a choice, but really, that was only an after-the-fact complaint. The truth was that it was easy to feel cheated now that Knox was older, now that they were settled, now that they were ready for kids.

It was easy for thirty-three-year-old Pax to forget who seventeen-year-old him had been. Easy to think he’d have made different choices.

She glanced out of the window, barely noticing the trees as Ryder maneuvered the car down the long and winding road.

He’d finally put a shirt on, which had helped her concentration a bit. Funny that for being the quiet one, the level-headed one, he could be so damned distracting.

Still, who could blame her? The man had grown into quite the alpha, and his wide back made her mind twist itself into filthy little knots for all the ways she could test those muscles of his.

“Think about rotten meat,” Pax bit out.

Farrah twisted to find his lips pressed tight together, lines of strain written across his face. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t turn to face her, his gaze pinned out of the window. “You’re more than a little distracting when you smell like that.”

Oh. Farrah couldn’t stop the rush of heat to her cheeks at the blunt reminder, and sure enough, a dampness between her thighs said he was right.

“Sorry,” she whispered, not sure what else to say to defuse the uncomfortable tension.

“Be nice to her,” Blake said from the front without turning. “She hasn’t gotten any in fifteen years. Surprised she doesn’t have carpal tunnel syndrome from handling herself for that long.”

Pax snorted. “You say that because you’re not right next to her. And it was her choice to go celibate, so I don’t feel a lot of pity for her.” Even as he spoke, an undercurrent of something wild laced his voice. Did he like the idea she hadn’t been with anyone else?

“My dating life isn’t your business,” Farrah finally responded.

“You mean your lack of a dating life.” Blake twisted to toss her one of those panty-melting smiles he’d used on too many unsuspecting girls in their younger days. “You could have found someone more than willing to step up. How did you even make it through heats?”

“I had a friend stay with Knox and I went to one of the clinics.”

A simultaneous growl echoed through all three, enough for Farrah to offer the largest eye roll to show they how foolish they were being. “I didn’t use a surrogate alpha, you idiots. They also supply rooms and sedation.”

“You drugged yourself silly each time a heat hit?” Ryder shook his head as though it were a waste.

“Not a lot of other options. I wasn’t about to bring some stranger into Knox’s life, and let’s be honest, the last heat didn’t exactly go the way I’d planned.”

Silence met her at that, as though her words had snatched the conversation right from them While she was glad not to have them prodding sore spots anymore, to not have to reveal any more wounds that they didn’t need to see, she also missed it.

As soon as the conversation stopped, when they shifted in their seats and seemed to look the other way from her, she realized how much she really did miss that sense of belonging she had with them.

Even when they picked on her, even when she felt flustered and frustrated by their arrogance and humor, she had always felt as though she had a place that couldn’t be taken away.

At least, she had before she’d gone into heat.

Memories of afterward, of the discomfort, of the distance, ate at her until she felt that clawing sense of claustrophobia again.

Before she had to say anything, her window rolled down, Blake hitting the button from the front seat.

Chilled air blew across her face, and Farrah let the breeze force away memories that weren’t reality anymore.

The alphas would help her with the issue, then realize they didn’t want to be fathers. They’d leave, and she’d go back to the life she’d had before.

And she’d pretend it didn’t break her heart all over again.

* * * *

The police station was busy, and it made Farrah swallow hard.

Omegas tended to stay away from the law. She wasn’t in hiding, but that didn’t stop her from being a target. If they got on the wrong side of the wrong person in power, omegas lost their rights very easily.

It was one reason she’d avoided alphas with such fervor. If she ran afoul of the wrong one, she could lose everything, including her freedom and her son. Thankfully, she managed to fly under the radar, to live a quiet and uneventful life that drew little attention.

“Relax,” Ryder whispered and set a hand on Farrah’s back.

“I don’t like being here. In case you haven’t noticed, omegas don’t do well in captivity.”

“I don’t know. I feel like you’d look good in a collar, all domesticated,” Blake said.

And Farrah couldn’t help the rush of both anger and excitement at that comment. Which won out, she wasn’t sure. “Trust me, it’d take better men than you to domesticate me.”

“Ah, but it’d be fun to try.”

“She’d just bite something off,” Pax chipped in.

“Worth the risk.”

Farrah went to give both a piece of her mind when she realized…she wasn’t afraid anymore.

Their pointless bantering had distracted her enough that she couldn’t think beyond the three alphas. The others there, the betas and alphas surrounding her in uniforms, who had been so frightening moments before, had turned into background noise.

A curl of Blake’s lip said he knew the exact moment when she realized it.

Instead of admitting it, Farrah let herself walk a little closer to Ryder. Not only did he look nice without a shirt, but he didn’t pick on her.

At least, not as much as the other two.

The four of them were led into a small office where Farrah took a seat and the three alphas stood behind her. She hadn’t even had the option of not sitting, not with how Ryder had all but dropped her into the chair.

“Wish I had better news,” the overworked officer said, his eyes tired behind his glasses as though he never got a good night’s sleep.

“You’ve got nothing? A man like that can’t keep that clean a record,” Blake said.

“Well, he has. Officially, he’s clean.”

“Officially?”

The officer nodded. “Unofficially is always a different story. Look, I’ve got no love for bounty hunters, but you three aren’t so bad. It’s the only reason I agreed to see you. Michael Frank is smart enough to keep himself squeaky clean on paper. No one here looks too closely because he knows the right people.”

Ryder spoke up, his hand still on Farrah’s shoulder. “So tell me what’s unofficial. I’m not wanting to cause problems for you here, but he’s trying to marry a fifteen-year-old omega. He’s paid off her parents and threatened her.”

“So get her out of town. Easy solution. Omegas disappear all the time.”

“Not so easy,” Pax said. “Omega has herself a friend, an alpha, and Michael knows about him. She disappears, he’s on the chopping block.”

The officer looked over at Farrah, as if the pieces all finally came together. “Alpha kid is yours, I’m guessing?”

Farrah nodded, then leaned forward and set her hand on the desk. “He’s a good kid, just trying to help someone in a bad spot. What would you do if that omega was your daughter?”

The officer let out a long, slow sigh, as though he didn’t care to think about things in a personal way like that. It probably made his job easier when he kept a distance.

Forget easier. She didn’t need it to be easy for him. She needed for him to help them, to listen.

Finally, he nodded. “Last thing I want is for some kid to get saddled with him. He had a girlfriend a few years back, and let’s just say no one knows what happened to her. Wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone some poor kid.” He drew in a deep breath then leaned in, his voice low as if afraid someone might overhear. “Look, I can’t say I’ve got much that will land him in jail. He’s too slippery for that. However, if all you need is something to lean on him with, something to make him decide that the omega girl isn’t worth the work, I’ve got an idea.”

“All we need is a direction,” Ryder said.

The officer looked at Farrah, not the alphas. “He’s got a store downtown, a little pawn shop sort of place. He’s officially on the title because he runs a lot of his money through it. Thing is, he’s gotten cocky. Pretty sure he’s running a lot less legal things through there, too. He’s been sloppy, thinks he’s untouchable. No one will risk pissing him off. If you want to get something to put his feet to the fire, I’d look there. Probably won’t be enough to take him down, but it might be enough to convince him that the omega is too much trouble, which means he’ll have no reason to go after your boy.”

Farrah nodded, a solution in mind. Sure, she didn’t know what to look for at the shop, and she had no idea how to use anything to blackmail the man, but none of that mattered.

She had a way to help her son.

When she rose, the officer spoke up once more. “Be careful. Michael Frank isn’t someone to screw with. Most of the people who go up against him end up never being heard from again.”

Farrah drew her shoulders back and faced the officer with all the confidence that came from knowing she would do anything to keep her child safe. “Well, he should never have targeted my son.”