Page 2 of Racing the Storm

Years down the road, I’ll never really know why I walked into the bar that night or what drew me down that dark street. It would have been nice to know I had picked up on the scent of the one Alpha that could draw the heat out of me, or that fate just wanted me in his arms, but I was always a realist—born, bred, would die that way.

Maybe I just needed a break—maybe I just wanted a change.

There had been a momentary reprieve from the war—Wolves sent home from the front. Zane and Talia remained close to the capital, but they’d called twice that week, and it had settled something in me that I hadn’t realized was so tense. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe it was over, but it allowed me a second to breathe.

A second to step outside my little bubble and just let myself live.

The bar I found was dingy, the outside run down. Through the crack in the door, I could smell them all—Alphas and Betas with hints of human blood still clinging to their skin. It was raw and almost desperate, and I knew I should stay away. An Omega had no place there.

But before I turned, I could hear Zane’s voice in my head. “You belong anywhere we do.”

I don’t know if it was bravery or stupidity that had me walking forward, but I took a breath and stepped in. For a second, nothing happened. For a single heartbeat, a few eyes fell on me, but I didn’t matter.

And then the pain hit. I was halfway to the bar where a Beta was serving drinks when I nearly doubled over by the pain in my stomach. My skin erupted into heat, racing down to my fingertips—down to my toes. I felt my backside instantly go slick, and the few Alphas in the room immediately stared at me.

I was going to be mauled—and in the midst of the chaos taking over my body—I felt him. He was a stranger, but something about his scent instantly soothed me. I was only half-aware of his growl, of the way he postured at the room, blocking me from view. The few Alphas in there didn’t consider his challenge, though I could feel their eyes on me as he turned and gripped me by the shoulders.

“What the fuck were you thinking, coming in here in heat? Do you know what an Alpha in a rut could do to you?”

I managed to look at him, some of the fog clearing as he touched me, and I bared my teeth. “My Alpha brother and sister would rip your throat out for assuming that just because an Omega’s in heat”—and fuck, I was in heat—“that they’d instantly become rapists.”

He let me go, and I moaned, the pain returning, only easing when he slid back into my space. After a second, he touched my chin, and I could feel the bare edge of his claw. “Do you want to come with me?”

I opened my mouth to tell him no. This was my first heat—the heat I wasn’t supposed to have, because I was a fucking broken Wolf. But instead, I nodded. I licked my lips with an impossibly dry tongue, then allowed him to drag me outside and around the side of the building.

He backed me up against the cold brick, and I could see the flare of want in his eyes. They shone in the dark with a preternatural glow, and when his lips parted, I was suddenly desperate for him to lay his mouth to my skin and taste me.

“Please,” I breathed out.

Logic told me to be terrified, instinct had me bearing my neck for him and feeling the absolutely perfect way he buried his face against me and gulped down breaths like he needed my scent to live.

The pain of heat was there, but touching him made it so much more bearable.

“I want you,” he growled out.

I nodded. I wanted him too. I wanted him to fill me, to knot me. I needed it like I needed air to breathe. “Do you have somewhere we can…”

“I have a room. I’m on leave,” he said through gritted teeth before grazing them against my pulse. My slick soaked through me, and I felt his hardness through his fatigues as he rocked himself against my thigh.

I wasn’t brave enough to ask his name, but I had enough courage to take his hand when he offered it to me.

On the walk back to the shitty little motel he was staying in, I got the chance to study him. He was lanky unlike most Alphas, but he was tall. He had hair that sat in thick curls, cropped close to his head. His skin was olive—rich in the lamplight as we made our way through the city. He had a full mouth and aquiline nose, and his fingers trembled as they clung to mine.

I wanted to taste every inch of him, and each step was agony with him not being inside me.

By the time we got back to his place, I was dripping wet. I’d woken up after dreams sometimes a little sticky with slick, but it was never like this. It was never a desperate need vibrating under my skin.

I moaned when he dragged his hands along my arms, when he pushed me against the motel door and finally—after what felt like an eternity—kissed me.

“Are you mated?” he asked against my mouth.

I shook my head, knowing I should be insulted by the implication, but I had no room for it. Desire was consuming everything. “Not mate. I’ve…you’re…” I wanted to tell him that this was my first heat, that he was my first Alpha, but it was impossible to form words.

Now that I knew what was coming—what he would do to me—I couldn’t think. I could only mewl and beg with my body as he stripped me down. I stood there, the door the only thing keeping me upright, and I watched with burning need as he dragged his palms from my shoulders, to my knees, then back to my cock, which was aching for touch.

“Please,” I whined.

He grinned—a little feral, and gods, I wanted him to lose control with me. “You beg so pretty. So needy. Fuck, if you’re this desperate, your first heat must have been torture.”

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