Page 128 of Alpha Heat

Urho was relieved to have it now. Maybe he could stall for three or four hours until Xan had a chance to arrive. Hopefully Ren was having better luck finding him than Urho had had the night before.

“Sir! He’s running, sir!” A beta servant Urho recognized as being one of the housekeepers burst into the room. “Ren told us to keep an eye on Mr. Riggs, and,sir, he’s running.”

“Fuck me sideways,” Urho grunted, tossing the dildo to the servant. “Put that in his room.” Then he took off down the corridor at top speed.

He caught up to Caleb in the great hall. He’d almost reached the front door.

“No, no, no,”Caleb yelled as Urho wrapped his arms around his waist and hauled him up in the air. “I don’t want this. I don’t want it.” He shivered and shook, his heart pounding fast as a rabbit’s beneath Urho’s hands.

“I know, darling, but there’s no way to stop it now, and you won’t be safe out there. Please, trust me. I want to take care of you.”

Caleb started to sob, but he collapsed against Urho’s chest. “You won’t lock me in with a stranger?”

“No, I promise. I promise, sweetheart.”

“I want Xan.” Caleb whimpered, his tears dampening Urho’s shirt.

“We’re looking for him.”

“I want him here with me.”

“I know.”

“He’s my alpha.”

“He’d want to be here, Caleb. He didn’t know.” More like he’d forgotten between Janus and his pater’s illness.

Caleb nodded and snuffled. “I didn’t remind him. I wanted to think it wouldn’t come.”

Urho sighed, carrying his lover’s omega upstairs carefully, a terrible weight settling on his chest. This man was his responsibility now. He’d promised, and he had to carry it out.

Caleb relaxed in his arms. “I trust you,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” Urho said, and kissed the side of Caleb’s head. “I’ll try to make it enjoyable for you.”

“I just want knots to make this agony stop. I don’t care about the rest.”

Urho squeezed him tighter.

As he took a right instead of a left at the top of the stairs, he thought he heard odd sounds coming from the guest room wing. Jason’s voice raised in concern, and then a sharp cry from Vale. Caleb moaned against him. Sweat erupted on Urho’s forehead and in the small of his back.

Another pained cry, different from the noises Vale had been making earlier, more urgent and scared, came as Urho fumbled getting Caleb’s room open. He helped him toward the bathroom, his heart pumping hard.

“Listen to me,” he said, as calmly as possible. “I want you to take a bath with the water as cold as you can stand to help keep the heat at bay.” Another scream from the opposite side of the house. And a shout of worry from Jason. “There’s something going on with Vale and the baby. But I’ll be right back.”

Caleb nodded, letting Urho put him on his feet on the tiled bathroom floor. He turned on the cold water, sweat running down the side of his face and giving off pheromones that Urho could barely stand to ignore, even with the alpha quell.

He turned to go, but Caleb grabbed his arm.

“The alpha dildo,” Caleb grunted as he tore his clothes off like they were on fire. His pale skin gleamed in the sun rushing in at the bathroom windows. It shone like some kind of cheerful devil in the face of the calamity Urho sensed coming.

“Of course.” He raced back into Caleb’s room to find the thick, wide dildo with a massive knot at the base placed in the middle of the bed, where the beta servant had left it. It was larger than Urho’s own cock and knot, but it wouldn’t be enough long term. Caleb would need to be knotted by an actual alpha.

The muffled urgency and cries of pain from Vale’s room grew louder. Urho’s heart pounded and his mouth went dry as his mind raced urgently for a solution to the obvious crisis coming at him full-speed and straight ahead.

He returned to the bathroom. Caleb had slipped into the bath while waiting, and his pale skin was almost blue as his teeth chattered. Urho handed him the dildo.

“Use it if it will help,” he said. “I have to check on Vale.”