Page 75 of Isla

Finn

Ididn’tknowwhat was worse, leaving Omega Island without our omega or hearing the alpha of all alphas, King, cry as he wallowed in pain.

His anguish was nothing I would have expected, and I felt my heart would break as I watched as the big man cried out her name the many times I had checked on him at night as he rocked himself to sleep in the fetal position. Then his days comprised not leaving the apartment, hardly eating and walking around like a zombie.

He had only known her for a short time, but she was his bonded mate and as much as I didn’t feel the bond pull, the pain he felt at the loss of his omega. My heart knew she wasn’t here.

Before she arrived at the hotel, even soon after, I didn’t have the desire that alphas had for their omega. But now I knew. Now I inhaled her delicious perfume, now I’d had her in my arms. Now I knew Isla was my omega.

I handed King a class of bourbon, and for the first time he took it. Knocking the amber liquid back and slamming the glass onto the tabletop before his heavy eyes stared ahead at nothing at all. Sometimes his silence was worse than hearing his pain.

“We have to get her back,” he whispered finally, though his voice was unusual, almost vulnerable, as he stared at me. Hoping? “She’s my omega, and I need her.”

It didn’t help that his ex-girlfriend Paula had called, not that King was in any position to speak to her and we refused her that.

But she made it clear why Isla had run away from us. Harrison’s worst fears came alive. Isla now thought we were liars, that we had tried to fool her. The same as Noah had done to her.

“Isla,” King called out her name again, his voice now hoarse, as I glanced at Harrison and he sighed. Because Harrison was hurting as well. We all were, but he was different. Isla was more than omega to Harrison. He fell in love with her at first sight.

“It wasn’t just her perfume. It was her,” he’d told me.

I got it. At least now I got it.

I crouched down beside King, filling his glass once more. “We’ll find a way. We’ll get her back.”

I wanted to harm him for claiming her on the island and away from her other alphas. We always agreed that first we acknowledged our omega together, and once we had, we would claim her afterwards. And that conversation hadn’t taken place.

Harrison and I were angry with King for taking her before us, but the pain King was going through proved claiming an omega wasn’t the easy road most alphas thought. That bond pull was certainly greater than I imagined it would be.

Was she in the same pain?

That thought made my stomach retch, hating that she was suffering in the same way.

“I’m going to London,” King said. “I need to find her.”

“The private investigators are looking for her, but she is in hiding,” I responded. “And to be fucking frank with you, King. You aren’t going anywhere. If anyone goes alone, it will be Harrison.”

“Too fucking right it will be,” Harrison growled, twisting to King. “You’re hurting, but she’s hurting worse than you. So you can continue hurting until we work out how to get her back. That’s your sentence.”

I thought Harrison was kinda harsh on his pack mate, but he was quieter than normal about everything since we returned. There was something going on in his head that he never wanted to talk about, but I didn’t push him because I knew it was Isla.

Harrison had married her, thinking he found a way that linked her to him. But she ran out on her bond mate, which meant she was going to run away from all alphas she thought had betrayed her in the same way her ex-fiance had.

“She’ll be having a bad time, probably why she hasn’t emerged from her hiding place,” Harrison said. “The moment you claimed her, you made sure she would always feel your pain and you are feeling hers.”

King groaned. “I need to do something for her not to feel my anxiety. But I know the only thing stopping that is inhaling her perfume as I hold her in my arms.”

Slowly, my rage was burning. I had small flickers of sadness for my pack member’s grief, but slowly those flickers were igniting the timbers, and they were burning away at my slow burning resolve.

He ruined everything.

Last time, he tried to tell us that Paula was our omega and tried to convince Harrison and me to take a chance.

This time, he didn’t wait.

Yes, Harrison and I had sent him to Isla, but that was to see if he agreed she was the omega for our pack. Not for him to claim her.

I needed to go to the gym.

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