Page 98 of Laurels and Liquor

I push the comfort and reassurance down the tether between us, picturing the golden thread in my mind’s eye. I’m about to do it again when a strange, disconnected feeling of levity and arousal fills my chest. Excitement, anticipation, determination. She’s purposefully sending those emotions across all her bonds, flipping from one to the other faster and faster. Then there’s arousal again, followed by anticipation, and then nostalgia? What is she trying to tell us?

“Do you feel that?” Lucas asks, pulling me out of my head.

“I don’t understand,” I mutter, clenching my eyes shut tighter as I fight to maintain focus.

She’s trying to tell us something, I know it. I send back confusion and desperation. I need more. I don’t understand how she’s feeling aroused right now. I can feel how terrified she is, but maybe it has to do with where she is?

I need to get my head out of my ass and figure this out. She’s counting on us. I know Seth, and I know how he would operate. Another flood of anticipation, determination, excitement, arousal, and then there’s nostalgia again. A longing for the past, but excitement for the future, maybe? There’s a blip of confidence, maybe a moment of safety, and the more I focus, the more I’m sure of the fact that she knows where she is. That’s what the safety means. She’s somewhere she knows, and knows well. But that could be a dozen different places.

But Seth would want to create a spectacle, to make a statement with his actions. He wouldn’t choose somewhere random. It would mean something to her and to us. Maybe it’s one of the restaurants? I try to send back feelings of warmth and satisfaction, the kind you would get after a meal. But I’m met with a strong hit of rejection. So that’s a no. And besides, if someone broke into one of the restaurants, we’d have heard about it.

“Have we contacted the security companies? Any flags on the systems?” I ask aloud, just to make sure.

“Caleb says no. Wherever they are, it isn’t someplace on the network,” Lucas returns, speaking for Lex as she continues arguing with someone on the phone.

So it’s somewhere connected to us, but not on our security network. Somewhere that makes her feel safe, and aroused? I try to send back another questioning tug, but as I search for the bond, something’s wrong. Instead of the pristine golden thread, there’s only jagged edges, and the connection is blurry, like an old television not quite tuned correctly. I can feel blips of fear and pain, but they’re so faint as to almost be non-existent.

“Oh, God. I can’t feel—what happened? Where is she?”

My eyes fly open as I whip around, my concerns abandoned at the agony in Lucas’s voice. He’s on his feet, looking around wildly, hands clutching at his thin t-shirt like he’s about to rip it from his chest. Lex has finally stopped and is looking up at her beta with wide, horrified eyes. She looks to me, the silent question on her face. I reach deep in my chest, and my bond with Lydia is still there, but it’s only a tiny ember compared to the inferno of only moments ago. What has he done?

“The bonds…” Lex whispers, the wheels turning in her eyes.

Things start to fall into place. I don’t know how, but Seth is attacking our bonds. He’s been silent for months, and the first thing he does is attack our omega and the bonds we’ve formed with her. What’s changed? What set him off and made him pick this moment to strike? I look around, searching desperately for answers, even as I'm half focused on trying to solve the riddle of Lydia’s messages, all the while clinging to the disintegrating fragments of our bond. Then my eyes spy the most recent copy of The Everton Review, the issue with the feature about Lydia and The Magnolia Garden.

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick.

I scramble to pull out my phone, dialing Rhett. I know where he’s taken her.

Chapter fifty-one

Lydia

MyheadpoundsasI slowly come back into my body. For a moment, all I can hear is my blood pounding through my ears as the world spins. I feel like I’ve been hit by a parade of buses, and then run over by a freight train. I try to stretch my limbs, but I freeze as I realize with a jolt that I can’t. A surge of adrenaline brings the world into sharp focus, and I can finally take stock of my situation.

My hands are tied behind my back with rough hemp rope, and my ankles secured to the front two legs of the hard wooden chair I’m in. My torso isn’t tied back, or my thighs, but a short tug of my arms reveals that they’re connected to a cross brace. I’ve kept my eyes closed until now, trying to feign unconsciousness for as long as I can get away with, but I dare to open them a sliver to get my bearings.

Even through my lashes, I recognize the room I’m in immediately as the ballroom of The Magnolia Garden Theater. I was here this morning, watching as the work crew erected the scaffolding. Now everything is covered with plastic drop cloths, creating a clearing-like space in the center of an industrial forest. I can still hear the rain on the roof, but there’s a strange heat against my left side that’s growing hotter with each moment. A quick glance out of the corner of my eye reveals a bright work light, pointing up from the floor toward me like a spotlight.

“You can stop pretending, little omega. I know you’re awake,” a gravelly voice drones from out of sight.

I take a deep breath before lifting my chin up from my chest, eyes wide as I finally come face to face with Seth Douglas. Though, if I didn’t know better, I would never know it was him. His face is nothing like I remember, his nose thinner, brows more pronounced, lips positively enormous, almost grotesquely so. He hasn’t been wasting time spending his bribe money, it seems.

“Seth! Oh, my–you’re alive!” I gasp, trying my best to make my surprise sound convincing.

Fear and adrenaline snap things into sharp focus, and my mind whirs into planning mode. I need to buy time, time for my pack to realize I’m gone and find me. If I can get Seth talking, it might just work. But even if Rhett realizes something is up once I don’t come back up to the suite, how will they know where I am?

“Did Alex not tell you? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. The St. Clairs love their dirty little secrets,” Seth says, sounding bored and annoyed in equal measure.

“What are you talking about? There was a crash. It was all over the news,” I counter, letting the very real fear in my chest leak through as disbelief in my words.

My bonds quiver in my chest as each of my alphas tries to reach out with varying degrees of success. Rhett’s thread is hot with fury, while Lex’s is freezing cold with guilt and fear. Mateo’s link is soft, and I latch onto it for calm. It’s slippery, and it takes me several tries to focus enough to push away my other emotions and try to send something useful.

“Oh, honey, that wasn’t me in that accident. I hate to break it to you, but your pack paid me off and faked my death. They thought they’d toss me aside when the new model came out,” Seth replies, not sounding sorry at all.

I gasp, trying to keep up the act while my mind searches for clues to send. I focus on my excitement for the restoration project, my hopes and dreams for what this place will be one day, anything relevant that could help them find me. Hell, I even remember the intimate moment I shared with Mateo on the day he first brought me here.

“That’s what Pack Saint Clair does to omegas like us. They use us, make us think we’re special, but then toss us aside when we’re not needed,” he continues, pacing forward with his hands behind his back.

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