Page 84 of The Beta: Part One

She crawls back onto the bed and leans her forehead into Jasper's and kisses him, “I love you, princess. So much.”

Then she runs from the room and down the hall before we can stop her.

I hear her taking the stairs to the basement too many at a time and then back up, then she's out the back door. Jasper wails when he sees her through the window, running into the fields towards the woods surrounding the property. He reaches toward the glass but another wave of heated cramps seizes him, then he's writhing on the bed.

Talia just fucking ran into the goddamned woods smelling like an omega in heat to lure a bunch of fucking rogues away from Jasper. She didn't even ask where they were, or question Devon, she just jumped immediately into what she thought would give us the most time to get him safe.

I still haven't moved.

“Where are they? Did you see them on the feed?” Kaleb has the sense to ask.

“Yes,” Nathan breaths, “They're in the fucking woods Talia just ran into, but on the far side. We have to get Jasper safe, one of us stays with him, the rest goes after her.”

Devon is shaking his head, “If we leave him to save her she'll kill us.”

Kaleb growls.

Jasper hisses out between gritted teeth, “If you let a group of rogues take her they will kill her, and then I will kill us all. Go get her back.”

But then his back bows off the mattress and he groans so desperately that I offer him more of the precum that is leaking out of me no matter the gravity of the situation.

He glares at me but sucks it from my fingertips anyway.

Kaleb growls in frustration and starts barking orders, “Help him to the freezer, she's right about that. Grab the blanket from her bed to wrap him in. Devon stays with him, the rest of us will go to the woods and get her.”

Devon carries Jasper through the house and downstairs, shushing and purring for him the whole way.

When I go to get the bedding from her room I notice the contents of her bag hanging halfway out of the opening but I don't stop to pick it up. I just step over it and grab everything from her bed; the sleeping bag, the comforter she stole from Jasper's room last week, as well as a few shirts and whatever other loose laundry she has piled in with the bedding. I put it all in a heap on the floor of the freezer where Jasper is sitting on Devon's lap with his legs wrapped around his waist and his nose buried in his neck.

Devon is purring constantly but I don't miss the tight look pinching his face. “Kaleb,” he says, “The bleach smell is gone.”

It’s an odd fucking thing to say right now, but Kaleb sniffs and then nods at Devon like it's something extremely important.

“Okay, angel,” Kaleb crouches down to croon at Jasper, “You stay here and let Devon take care of you until we get back. We'll bring your girl home and then we'll all go back to your nest.”

Jasper whimpers, “Talia, too? In the nest?”

We all answer at once, “Yes. Talia, too.”

Then Kaleb, Nathan, and I give him a parting kiss or caress, then we're up the stairs and out the door, running in the same direction Talia went. We don't get ten feet inside the treeline before Kaleb catches the foul stench of rogue and roars out a warning. Nathan and I flank him as he moves through the trees.

Nathan is first to get one of them in his sights and he barks out an alert before he peels off to one side. Kaleb and I move with him and soon we have an enraged rogue trapped between us. He doesn't last longer than a few seconds before we quite literally tear him apart. Then we're running again.

Kaleb sees the next one and has the sense to ask a few questions. “How many of you are there?”

The rogue spits at him, and Kaleb punches him in the face.

“How many?” he asks again, and again the rogue spits but it's obviously painful for him this time.

Kaleb punches him again and I hear his nose crack, blood spraying onto Kaleb's shirt and down the rogue's ruined mouth. “Last chance. How many?”

The rogue glances into the trees behind us and must realize he's alone. It won't matter if he tells us or not, Kaleb is still going to kill him; but he does choke out the number six before Kaleb calmly wrenches his neck and breaks it with an audible and satisfying crunchy pop.

We catch Talia's trail within minutes but it's been too long. One tiny female beta can't outrun or out-fight four unstable rogues, especially if they think they're chasing an omega in heat. We run hard all the way through the woods until we get to the road where Talia's Jasper-laced scent just disappears, the rank stench of angry male rogue overpowering any lingering traces of her. There are tire marks on the pavement that tell us that they've taken her.

She's gone. Really gone.

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