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Panic seized my chest, and I noticed a significant portion of the officers were missing now, too.

“WHERE IS SHE?” bellowed Julian.

“Kitchen,” someone called out flatly, unaffected by Julian’s rage.

Linda dashed ahead of us and we followed. I guess she didn’t trust her colleagues nearly as much as she claimed.

I reached through our bond and didn’t feel any fear or pain from her, but it didn’t stop my imagination from running wild, going over the myriad of the worst horrors that could be falling over her.

We burst through the kitchen door and found Marlowe sitting happily at a table with a box of donuts, surrounded by cops who watched her dreamily while she ate.

Her eyes lit up as we entered. “Hey guys!” she greeted, her cheeks stuffed and a spot of powdered sugar on her nose. “Do you want some?”

4

JULIAN

Isat outside the interrogation room with my eyes closed, trying to keep myself calm, but the whispers I overheard about Marlowe made me clench my jaw.

“…smells so good…”

“…so pretty…”

“…I just want to bury my face in her…”

“Coffee?”

I opened my eyes to an officer holding two cups of coffee in his hands, one extended towards me, and I took it begrudgingly. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

He took a sip of his own and sighed, pulling up a chair next to me. “You’re a real lucky alpha, you know that?”

I grunted, already not liking where this conversation was likely headed. Obviously, I was thrilled to be with Marlowe. She was beautiful, smart, funny, kind… and fucking her felt like heaven.

Who wouldn’t want to brag about a female like that?

But I didn’t want to share all that information with any other alphas so they could imagine what it felt like being with her. She was for me and my pack only to love. Plus, I figured Marlowe didn’t want to be talked about like that, either.

“I’ve never met an omega before. Well, except for my great grandma, but that hardly counts,” he chuckled. “Does she know if there are more like her out there?”

I just wanted him to go away, but Elias would probably want me to keep it cool. Not make too many waves, or enemies. “She didn’teven know she was a shifter until a few weeks ago. She was raised human, taking hormone suppressants.”

He whistled. “Damn, that’s rough. So you all just accidentally found her and bonded her up, before she could meet anyone else? ‘Right place, right time’ kind of thing?”

My right hand curled into a fist, twitching with need for a target. He clocked it and laughed, slapping me on the shoulder. “Calm down, buddy. Can you really blame me for asking?”

I finished the coffee, crumpling the cup and tossing it in the nearby garbage. Yeah, Icouldblame him for asking, because it wasn’t any of his Moon-damned business.

I took out my phone to show him I was done with our conversation, but he wasn’t getting the hint. “I heard everyone in your pack can shift. Is that true?”

Just as the detective predicted, shifters were connecting the dots between our omega and our wolves.

On this, I felt a little more sympathetic. The blockage that kept us from releasing our wolves was killing us, literally and figuratively. How many lives could be saved if we figured out exactly why Marlowe was immune?

But that was a problem for people like Archer to solve—in a way that wouldn’t turn Marlowe into a shifter blood bank.

“My lawyer has advised me not to discuss that,” I replied. Yeah, that sounded official.

The cop scoffed. “Come on, give me something here. I was sitting as close to her in that kitchen as I am to you now. You guys are soaked in each other. How is it you get to knot a smoking hot omega like thatandshift into your wolf? What’s so special about you and your pack, huh? Because to me, it seems like you guys didn’t even give her a chance to explore her options here. I mean, don’t you think a pack of alpha cops could protect her better the next time an army of bloodsuckers comes into town to…”