Page 4 of Crave

I laughed, because Wilkie was going to be pissed about only having one ear. He was a vain Alpha, considering how he was so fucking rotten on the inside.

I tried not to think about why Merrick and Murphy would do this for me, for us. I tried not to think about what they’d want in return, because if I’d learned anything, it was that nothing in life came for free and that everyone could be bought.

“What are we going to do, Quinn?” I whispered to him, snuggling my face into his chest. I might not have bitten Wilkie’s ear off, but it would be Quinn and I who’d be punished.

“We could run again?”

We were mated to Errol, and the strain of that bond meant they’d always be able to find us. We needed to break the bonds, and that shit wouldhurt.Right now, we could throw up a wall between them, but that wouldn’t stop him from being able to find us.

“We can’t run. What about the new Alpha General? You think he’d help? Maybe put Wilkie down for good?”

He shrugged, his muscles tense as he held me closer. “How about we hide out here for the rest of the week and then we’ll deal with it, okay?” He kissed my forehead. “I love you, Zanny. I won’t let anything bad happen. Let’s go back to sleep.”

I pressed my face right over his heart, taking a deep breath. Already his Omega scent was fading into something more like a Beta. The newly minted Omega whined at the loss, and Quinn tensed beneath my hands.

“One day, baby, we are going to escape this place and that Pack. Then we’ll be happy, just you and me. I’m sorry.”

I nodded, my eyes welling with tears that I refused to let fall. This wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t my fault, either. This was the system's fault, and I’d dismantle it one way or another, if it was the last thing I’d ever do.

2

MURPHY

This last week had been a masterclass in torture training. My control over my Beast and my body had been tested, especially when the Omega pheromones in our house had been so thick, I felt like I could actually taste them on my tongue.

After the first full day inside, in that sex-smell soup, Merrick and I had decided to set up a temporary campsite in the backyard. One of us would have to stay indoors—we’d never leave Susannah and Quinn unprotected during the heat—but being trapped inside could, quite literally, send us insane.

Cocking my head to the side, I looked back toward the barracks that used to be our home for so many years. After the first female Omega had been found, and then lost, Merrick and I had decided it was time to move out. She’d presented a possibility that we’d never thought could possibly occur. But if another female Omega had popped up, and we’d tried to woo her while living in the damn Legion barracks? Yeah, that wasn’t going to work for any of us.

So we’d bought this cabin on the outskirts of town. It was beaten up a little by time and neglect, but it had good bones, and we’d restored it painstakingly by hand. We included a nest, and man, was I glad we did.

I tried not to think too hard about the fact that the girl who both Merrick and I had loved since we were kids had become an Omega. Fate seriously liked to kick a man in the nutsack sometimes. Susannah had always been perfect for us, and we would’ve loved her every day of our lives as a Beta. But as an Omega, she was a dream come true.

And she was mated to the Manix I hated most in the world. She was Pack Wilkie. The burn of that hard truth was like acid in my veins.

The back door opened, and Merrick walked out, shaking his head. As always, when I saw my best friend, my soulmate, my lover, my heart thumped a few times in my chest. Didn’t matter that it was the millionth time he’d walked toward me, I still ate him up with my eyes.

August Merrick wasn’t what any fashion magazine might call beautiful. His lips were a little too pale and thin, his eyes a disconcerting shade of icy blue, the structure of his face a little too sharp. He had tight creases between his eyes, like he’d spent decades frowning, and they seemed out of place on the face of a nearly thirty-year-old. He made an intimidating Legion soldier, but I’d seen those features as he came apart beneath my hands, so when I looked at him, all I saw was beauty.

He shifted his hand down his body and rearranged his cock. “I swear, if they don’t stop soon my dick’s going to explode.”

We were on day six of Susannah’s heat, and I knew it was waning. My dick didn’t get instantly hard when I opened the back door anymore. No, it usually held out until I was five feet into the mudroom instead. The only way we knew that Susannah and Quinn were still in there were the sounds of Susannah’s orgasms, and the fact that all the trays of food disappeared. I wasn’t sure when they showered or went to the bathroom, but sometimes I’d pick up Susannah’s scent in the small bathroom, and I’d rush to fuck my hand until I was exploding against the tiles with her scent swirling around me.

It was kind of creepy if I thought about it too hard. But it wouldn’t be the first—or hundredth—time I’d found release to thoughts of Susannah and Quinn.

“Let them take all the time they need. I’m not in a hurry for them to have to face the world.” Or go back to that piece of shit, Wilkie. Walking into that mausoleum he called a Packhouse, finding him banging against the door of Quinn’s room, seeing Quinn’s pale face and terrified eyes… It was too much. My Beast growled at even the thought of them returning to that place, and I was in agreement. But Susannah had always had free will, in abundance, and I wasn’t going to be the one who caged her.

Merrick looked pensive, but nodded. “I heard that by the time they’d managed to fit Wilkie in to reattach his ear, the flesh was dead.” He grinned ferally at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. The very image of Wilkie walking around with one ear would entertain me until the day I died.

Just then the back door opened and we both spun toward it, instantly on high alert. But it was Susannah stepping through the doorway ahead of Quinn. I had a brief flash of her small, pale body on the hospital bed unconscious after we’d picked her and Quinn up from their Packhouse, and I flexed my fingers to release the panic that still welled in my chest at the thought.

You’d never know it now. She looked better than I’d seen her in so long; her blonde hair was shining in the afternoon light, the sweet curve of her hips were hugged in a pair of my sweats, though they were baggy everywhere else. She was still too thin, as was Quinn, but a week of the high calorie food we’d been feeding them to keep their energy up had filled out the more gaunt edges. The fact they could fuck like rabbits, doing that high intensity cardio, and still put on weight over the last week made me wonder just how psychotic it was over there at Wilkie’s Packhouse. Was he starving them? The thought made me clench my teeth, but I forcefully loosened my jaw into a smile.

“It’s good to see you’re both okay.” It was a lame thing to say, but what else was there?Hope you had a good heat? Wish I was there?

It was Quinn who answered, “We can’t thank you enough. I can’t thank you...” His voice was rough, and I got it. It had been scary there for a while.

Quinn and Susannah had always been inseparable. They were two parts of the same whole, much the same way Merrick and I had been our entire lives. You couldn’t say Merrick without adding my name to the end, and it was the same way with Susannah and Quinn. Though unlike me and Merrick, Susannah had always been the leader, even when she was young. My Beast had always been drawn to the fiery Beta, but I’d always liked Quinn too. Hell, there’d been a time when we’d all been teens when my Beast had tracked Quinn around the room like a hunter who had spotted his prey. But they’d run away soon after, then had to be dragged back by the Legion before jumping into bed with Wilkie.

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