Page 8 of The Omega Trials: Part Two

1. “Formaldehyde Footsteps” — Houndrel

Chapter 3

The Silent Things

Titus

It’s not that I want to stay up half the night. It’s just that I can’t fall asleep until I know they’re back safe.

It doesn’t help that for half that time, Bishop has been pacing in the common room. Just watching him is about to make me crawl out of my damn skin.

“I don’t know how much more I or these ancient ass floors can take,” I grumble after nearly an hour.

Instead of stopping, he asks, “You think he’s really gonna do it?”

“I don’t know, man, can’t reallythinkat all with you buzzing around like a fucking gnat—”

“I think I’ll know if he does.” Completely ignoring me, he continues, “Right? Like through the bond—I’d know, right?”

He barely notices when I push off the couch with a tired sigh. “I’m going to bed.”

There, I listen to him pace, sit down, stand back up, pace some more, sit down, stand up, rinse and repeat for another hour until finally I hear his bedroom door shut. It’s two hours after that that our wing’s front door opens.

Pattering footsteps and a poorly stifled giggle bounce outside my bedroom door. Ecker and Sinclair stumble inside, sounding like they’re drunk. Something sharp twists in my gut when I listen to the sound of a body hitting a wall, then a falling frame.

“Ecker . . .”Sinclair hisses his name in a chiding yet teasing whisper.

“I can’t wait—I need to fuck you again. Being inside you is fucking addicting, baby girl.”

“Ah.”She gasps as I hear her back slam against the wall again.

That’s when I throw both pillows over my head and tug my comforter all the way up. And that’s where I stay until the morning, when my door is thrown open.

It bounces off the wall with a loud bang, and I emerge from my huddle, disgruntled.

“I can’t stand it.” Bishop has burst into my room and looks just as harried as the night before. A muffled moan carries through the walls. He grabs his head and groans. “I can’t fucking stand it.”

“What do you mean you don’t like listening to your brother rail our omega while she screams for him to give it to her harder?” The sarcasm in my voice couldn’t be thicker.

He balks. “We were not nearly that bad.”

“No.” If I didn’t just wake up, I would probably punch him. “You wereworse.”

He shakes his head adamantly. “No fucking way . . . Okay,maybe. But that doesn’t make this any fucking easier.”

“Dude, just go join them. She’s your mate too.” As much as it pains me to say, it’s true.

“Nah.” He shakes his head. “You were right—he needs to do this alone. Bonding isn’t exactly a family affair.”

Yeah, I shocked myself with that one too.

Sinclair’s disappearance being one of her schemes was a hill I was willing to die on. But, I guess once we found out what really happened, it was hard to still make her the villain. At least, in thisonesituation.

I could sense Ecker’s panic. It was like a broken power line, sparking and skittering, untethered and dangerous. I knew once we found her that he not only needed her to be okay, but he needed her to behis. It was the only thing that was going to pull him back from the edge.

And I love my brother more than I hate her.

Bishop looks up at the ceiling and sighs. “It fucking sucks though.”No shit.

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