Page 15 of The Alpha Warrior's Mate

“What did you do?” I asked, laughing.

His eyes were wide, and he held on to the wall beside him. Tyrus got excited over his omega, Sloan and their cub but, other than that, the bear didn’t really get worked up. His demeanor made me think he’d won the lottery or something. “I hacked them. The communication system. Phone calls. Emails. Texts. Surveillance footage. All of it. I’ve got them by the fucking balls.”

By the time he finished speaking, the team had gathered.

“We can bring the whole thing down,” Hammer said in awe of our friend and brother.

“We can. With some strategic moves and heading things off before they happen. We’ll cut them off at the knees.” Tyrus scrubbed a hand down his face. Sloan broke through the mini-crowd and wrapped his arms around his alpha, whispering something in his ear.

The bear growled low and deep in his chest, accepting what his mate so freely offered. Once he was calmer, he lifted his gaze to us. “Let’s talk about this. There’s a shipment of omegas arriving at a house nearby. We can stop them, but it has to happen now. They are only an hour out.”

A few of the omegas joined us for the raid. Sloan and Grey were good with the omegas. They were, of course, hesitant to trust alphas, since, in most cases, an alpha was the one who had kidnapped or drugged them, or both in the first place.

Tyrus tied in his newfound information to his phone and, while it all looked like run-on computer code nonsense to me, our friend and tech genius read it out to us like a book. A horror novel about abuse and treachery. Kidnapping, extortion, and so many other sins, it was hard to keep count.

We went to the coordinates discussed between the bosses and guards and, in less than two hours, we had a new group of omegas in our care and another breeding house shut down. Maverick’s dragon had burned the damned thing down just for show.

Once we got back, I showered and stayed under the hot spray longer than necessary. Clay was in our bedroom, probably sitting on the edge of our bed.

And he didn’t want to talk about dinner options either.

I’d avoided his gaze since arriving home. Sure, he knew what I did and who I worked for, but this was the first time I’d left him here to pursue that purpose. Because that’s what it was, saving these omegas was my life purpose.

Still, doing what I had to meant there was blood on my hands. The blood of evil, horrible people, but blood all the same.

I didn’t want my omega to look at me with anything but love in his eyes.

“Hey,” I said, walking into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around my waist.

“Jeremy,” he whispered. His voice tapped into that part of me I thought was hard as steel and melted it in seconds.

“I’m afraid to look at you, Clay.” No point in denying what I was feeling. We’d promised each other to share everything. That included the bad, the ugly, and the scary.

More than anything, I was afraid I’d become the thing he was scared of.

“Why? Have I grown ugly?” he teased.

“Of course not. But even if you did, nothing would change for me.”

“Then what? What’s little old me done to scare the big, bad wolf vigilante?” He had a grin on his face.

I pulled on some boxers and a pair of jeans and grabbed a T-shirt but didn’t put that on. He leaned into me as I sat beside him. “Today was rough but good. I killed people today, omega mine. I’m worried you will see me differently.”

“I don’t,” he responded simply. He turned his head and placed a kiss on my shoulder right where he’d marked me months ago. Some days, it seemed like yesterday that I found him and others, I would swear there were years with him next to me.

“Then why are you here, waiting for me to get out of the shower?” I asked.

“Because I was worried about you, mate. I paced the floors while you were gone. I barely stopped myself from calling you or checking on you. I knew that might be a distraction that got someone killed, but it was a job in itself not to reach out. The others are skilled at handling these times when their mates are gone, but I didn’t know what to do. I nearly lost my mind with worry.”

He said that word again.

Worry.

No one had ever worried about me before, with the exception of my parents and Hammer.

No one.

“You…” I choked on the question. “You worried about me?”

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