Page 11

With Tuesday sitting on one side of the room and Madoc on the other, surrounded by the people I’d grown to care about in the last year. It feels like my two worlds are colliding in slow motion, and there’s no way to stop it.

I don’t even know why I came over to Maddox’s table because it just makes it look like there’s something going on between us, which there might be... but now the entire town is going to be talking about it. They were like piranhas latching on to gossip when they picked up the scent of blood in the waters.

They’re currently talking about the stranger staying out on the mountain with Betsy, at the inn, which was really just an old converted cabin with five bedrooms. Betsy let out rooms throughout the year to cover the maintenance costs of her family home and keep her going through the winter.

Alarm bells are ringing in my head because Madoc being here is one thing, Tuesday following is another and now a suspicious stranger? A sense of impending doom keeps growing in the pit of my stomach, swelling like a storm brewing until I feel sick with the pressure of it.

Realizing that I won’t be able to talk to Madoc with so many people listening, I reluctantly return to my table. Tuesday is sitting in my seat, glaring out at the rest of the bar as he scans it like he’s expecting someone to pop out from behind a stool and drag me back to The Warren.

After our night of tipsy bonding, I’d brought him in here for lunch before I helped with the evening shift. I owed it to Shep to put some hours in since I’d missed my shifts this week and the others had to pick up the slack. I also thought that if we had this conversation in public, Tuesday would be less likely to strong arm me into just vanishing without saying to anybody like I normally would. I just hadn’t expected half of the town to come in for lunch or Madoc to be sitting there watching us.

Tuesday looks pissed off when I return. His face is placid, but the nerve in his jaw twitches as his lips twist into a sneer. “You like him.”

The words are only an accusation, but they feel like an arrow to my chest. “What? No.”

I don’t know why admitting I like Madoc is a bad thing, but it feels like dangerous territory, like a secret that shouldn’t be shared. Was it wrong for wanting to keep whatever this was between us? For a few days, he was mine. Only mine. And it didn’t matter who he was or who I was, because we were just Blue and Jonah, omega and alpha.

“You liked him, even back then.” Tuesday scoffs and I hate how smug he is with his arms crossed, gaze trained on me like a human lie detector. “Does he know who you really are?”

“There’s nothing to know.” Being The Ghost was such a small part of my life now and one day, it wouldn’t be a part of it at all. Stealing was usually something I did to help out T or a way to raise money for charities that supported omegas in need. Never again would I steal to line the pockets of greedy maniacs. I would rather die than go back to what I was before. “And I didn’t know it was him.”

“You’re telling me you never looked up Officer Stirling?” Tuesday arches a brow, the disbelief clear on his face. “Never saw a single picture of him?”

Back when I had been actively working for The Husk, I had noticed that one officer in particular had started to become curious about me. Tawny kept an eye on the intelligence services attempting to track us down, and the same name kept coming up repeatedly. Madoc Stirling.

“I...I did. But that was over three years ago, and I never thought he’d turn up here.” I can feel my cheeks heating and I know there’s a blush spreading on my skin as Tuesday chuckles. I should have recognized him before T had done the background search. Then I would have realized who he was.

Madoc stoked my interest years ago. It was clear to see through his search history and his insistence that they focus extra resources on catching me that he was just a little obsessed with me. Every time I saw his name in an update from T, alongside mine, it felt like some sort of small twisted victory. I’d become mutually obsessed, I guess you could say.

Germany had been like the combination of tiptoeing around one another for years, but it had also been a rude awakening of how close I was to being caught. I knew he’d be on the mission, but I hadn’t expected to spot him in the corridor. I can’t even explain how I knew it was him. I just did.

I couldn’t even see his face because of all his gear and there was no clear scent to pick up either, but there was something about his body language or the way he watched me and I felt it in my chest. That was my Madoc. My hunter. My prey.

After that last job, everything changed. I decided that I wanted to live a life where I didn’t have to stalk someone online to build some sort of twisted connection. I wanted a real chance at a life. And Madoc Stirling eventually faded into the background, his name never coming up again until this week.

“So what? You didn’t recognize him? You just thought you had a ginger daddy fetish?” Tuesday laughs and I realize I rarely see him like this. Was Aurora Pines rubbing off on him already?

Lifting my chin, I glare at my friend with a faux pout. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

“I’m just trying to see what you see in him.” He tilts his head, his gaze assessing as he stares over at Madoc.

What do I see in him?

How about his big, strong body? I mean, I could spend hours licking every line and dip of his muscles. His kind eyes that smolder when he looks my way? Giant hands that cup my face when he kisses me like he’s desperate for another taste? Or his perfect lips that whisper all sorts of promises against my skin when he holds me like I’m the most important thing in the world?

Fuck, I was in deep. How had I gotten here?

“It’s not like that,” I deny. If he was important to me, that put him in danger. We hadn’t even talked since the shared heat episode. For all I know, it might just be a one-time thing. I hoped not. Goddess, why was this messing with my head so much?

“The love bites say otherwise.” Tuesday taps his fingers on the table, and just like everything else about him, even those are obscenely elegant. How can fingers be elegant? And yet they are. “Someone has been sniffing around, and an Intelligence Officer from your old cases just magically turns up...something’s not right here.”

Turning my bottle of ginger beer in my hands, I pick at the label. “So what? Is that why you came all this way, to warn me?”

“Mmmmm, I was bored. Also, I thought you might need help preparing for your next move, and if you were going to be stubborn and try to stay, I figured I might also stay a while.”

Tuesday’s stares feel like they burn their way down to my bones. I don’t know if it’s a cat thing, but sometimes I feel like he can read my mind, probing away into the depths because nothing seems to be a secret from him.

“Stay in Aurora? You’ll be bored.”

“You aren’t.” There’s that shit-eating grin again. The one that looks like the cat got the cream. “Besides, I’ve already made a few new friends.”

I blink several times in rapid succession, as if my brain is glitching. I’d barely left him alone. I mean, for a few minutes in the grocery store maybe and just now when I went to speak to Madoc, but I was cock-blocked by half the town, other than that I’d been with him the entire time. “When?”

“I work quickly, what can I say?”

He’s a fucking menace. Glancing over my shoulder to see who he’s smiling at, and my gaze lands on the bear shifter, and his father, who is sitting at the end of the bar nursing their beers.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I chuckle, biting on my knuckle, hiding my smile so they don’t think I’m laughing at them. “I know it seems like they would be fun, but you’ll eat them alive. Trust me, they aren’t worth it.”

Tuesday didn’t do commitment. He could never find anyone who held his attention for long enough. Over the years he’d cycled through countless relationships, some of them ending for the most bizarre reasons, such as chewing too loudly or finding an outfit offensive.

No one could ever quite handle him and his demanding ways. He was a perfectionist who liked things done a particular way. It’s what made him such an excellent jewel thief. But it’s also what made him a shit boyfriend.

“Well, I still think my new friends have potential. Besides, I can have fun training them while you’re chasing that foxy officer of yours, and pulling pints for money you don’t need.”

His little jab at my job makes me scowl. I work here because I want to. That doesn’t make it a waste of my time, or something to be looked down on. As for the other thing, I hadn't gone looking for Madoc. He’d found me. I don’t know why, or how, but it was supposed to happen.

“I’m not chasing—”

Tuesday rolls his eyes and lifts a hand to silence me. Damn him and his arrogant, elegant fingers. “I’ve let T know we’ve got an unexpected guest. He’s doing a little digging but, in the meantime, do your shift, keep your head down and don’t go anywhere alone.”

I nod, but it isn’t enough for my overbearing, overprotective friend. Leaning in, his eyes darken. He snarls, and I sit a little straighter.

“Do not go anywhere alone, Blue. Understand?”

*****

I hate The Husk for ruining my childhood, but I refuse to let them destroy the rest of my life too. I had earned my freedom, not that I should have had to earn it to begin with.

They were afraid of me. Afraid and greedy to get their sticky fingers on what I was hiding in my vault. If they left me alone, there would be nothing to be afraid of. If they were happy with their lot in life and the wealth they had already accumulated, they wouldn’t need people like me. When would they realize that I wasn’t the vessel for their next prophet?

I was their destruction.

I would set The Warren ablaze before I ever returned there, to be married off to some shriveled elder and birth another weapon to add to their arsenal.

Most of my shift passes almost effortlessly. Working at The Antler has become muscle memory and I’m surrounded by a sea of familiar faces. There’s a pang in my chest. I don’t want to leave town. These people. I’m not ready to give this up.

I still hadn’t managed to talk with Madoc before I started work. It was like some weird town conspiracy where there was always someone else lingering next to him. Throughout the evening, it’s the same and I swallow back a curse. When the fuck did he become so popular?

Was everyone just messing with me today? I couldn’t pull him away because that would set the gossip mill into overdrive, and right now, I didn’t even know if he wanted to be with me or if I was just a casual fuck. It didn’t feel like a casual fuck. It felt like he was always meant to be mine.

But what if I was the only one feeling that way?

My gaze keeps wandering back to him throughout the evening, as I foolishly hope there’s a moment when he’s alone. Even just five minutes would be enough. Every time I glance over at him, he is already staring back at me as if he’s already aware that the universe is trying to keep us apart and someone else is sitting where I should be.

I’m changing a barrel in the back room when a wave of heat prickles over my skin. It starts low in my groin before spreading outwards, making my stomach clench and my hole drip with need. Fuck, was it another heat episode? It had never been like this before. Slick trickles down my crease and along my inner thigh. Maybe it was something to do with the stress I was under?

All I know is that my body feels like I’m on fire, burning from the inside out. Pressing my forehead against the cold brick wall, I whine quietly. I need something. I need...I don’t know what I need, but it feels like my skin is too tight for my skeleton, and there’s an ache in my bones making me tremble.

With huge shuddering breaths and pausing every two minutes for cramps, where my body protests about not being impaled on an alpha knot or filled with cum, I finally manage to connect the barrel and make my way back out into the bar.

“Blue?” I stumble into Shep, who grabs my shoulder and turns me to face him. Concern is written all over his face as he looks me over. “What’s the matter? You look awful.”

I feel nauseous, but also hollow, like there’s something clawing at my insides. I want to drop to my knees and beg for relief, but there’s one person who can help now.

“I just need to take my break early.” I say, wincing at the contact, and gently shrugging off his touch. For some reason, his hand on me feels searing, and not in a good way.

Tuesday’s still sitting at the bar between the two bears, green gaze zeroed in on me, but I lift a hand to let him know I’m okay. He relaxes, looking less like he’s about to pounce over the bar, but his eyes don’t leave me.

“Of course. And if you need to go home, we’ve got you covered. Don’t worry about it.”

I owed this man so much for taking a chance on me, for giving me a home and a job. I’d never be able to replay the kindness he’d shown me.

Tears prickle at my eyes. “Thanks. For everything, Shep.”

“Don’t say it like that,” he chuckles awkwardly, scrubbing at the back of his neck as he glances down at his feet. “It sounds too much like a goodbye.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, but it comes out all scratchy and snarled. For a moment, I’m glad Ciro is over the other side of the room, because if he was behind the bar asking me a million questions right now, I might actually bite him.

Fed up with fighting the clawing need building inside me, and no longer caring about everyone else thanks to the pain, I stride towards Madoc’s table.

Barely pausing to grab his shirt, I yank him from his seat before dragging him outside behind me. Pulling him around the corner and into an alleyway besides the bar, I shove him up against the wall.

Cupping my face, eyebrows knitted together with concern, he stares into my eyes. “Love? What’s going on?”

Fuck. Why was he so good? And gentle? And kind?

“Help me,” I plead as I press my body against his, desperate for his touch. The alleyway is dark, barely lit by a lone street lamp on the sidewalk.

“Are you having another heat episode?” he asks, tilting my face up to his so he can gently kiss my lips. It’s not enough.

I nod, whining as I bury my face against his neck, craving more skin on skin. It’s one of the only things that seems to calm me. Inhaling, I groan as the scent of wood smoke invades my senses. Mine. Mine.

What the heck was that? There’s no time to linger on the voices in my head as another wave of desperation hits me, stronger than the last one. More slick oozes from my hole.

“Pheromones. Now,” I grunt, yanking again on his shirt, scraping my teeth over the scent glands on his neck. Chuckling, I feel his hands on my waist, before moving up my back in slow stroking motions that drive me wild.

A moment later, I feel it.

The soothing calm that comes with a hint of wildflower and woodland moss. Sinking my teeth into his neck and sucking on the skin, I rut up against him as the smell deepens. His pheromones are the most addictive high I’ve ever felt, and if I could bottle that shit, I would.

They wash over me, taking with it the worst of the frantic energy building, but we both know it’s not enough. It’ll take more than that to satisfy me.

Creating some space between us, Madoc pushes two fingers inside my mouth, pressing down against my tongue as he works them in. “Come on baby, suck.”

Fucking them in and out of my mouth, I get them covered in spit until it’s dripping down my chin. It’s obscene, but I don’t care. He tastes like mine. Like home.

Lifting his leg a little, he presses his thigh against my hard cock through my jeans and I almost whimper as I rub against him, seeking friction just to take the edge off.

“Good boy, you’re doing so well.”

I want to be good for him. Mine.

Want to show him how much I need this

Need him. Mine.

Moaning, I take his thick fingers deeper into my throat.

My cock jerks in my jeans, and I can feel the wetness inside my already soaked boxers. Fuck, everything was dripping.

Madoc pulls out slowly, reaching down to grab my ass, squeezing and kneading it in his hands as he forces me to fuck harder against his thick thigh.

“What do you need, love?” he asks, as he pulls my cheeks apart, making slick stream down my crease. Goddess, he was going to kill me if he didn’t fuck me soon.

“You.” It’s whispered, just one word. One simple request, but he knows what I mean.

Claiming my mouth in a kiss that wipes away all traces of doubt in my mind, I know I'm already crazy for this man. He tastes like hope, for a future where I’m free and I can’t get enough. My hands weave their way into his copper-colored hair, while his stubble scratches against my skin as I try to make sure there’s not even an inch between us, because that is an inch too much.

Pulling away, but still holding me firmly against him, he murmurs against my lips with a small huffed laugh. “We’re not fucking in an alley, darlin’.”

“I need it,” I whimper, rubbing my throbbing cock against his leg so he can feel how wet and needy I am for him.

“I know,” he mimics my tone with a smile, before giving me another deep kiss that makes my toes curl and steals the air from my lungs. Would I ever get tired of kissing Madoc? No, I’d rather die first. His kisses were everything fairytale story books talked about.

“I tell you what,” he sucks my bottom lip between his teeth and tugs on it playfully. “How about you get to your knees and suck my cock. I’ll give you a little bit of that alpha cum you’re craving, and then we can head back to mine.”

My brain goes fuzzy as I start thinking about taking his cock into my mouth, tasting him as I take what I need.

“How does that sound beautiful?” He strokes his thumb against my cheek while raising his leg a little more. Shit! I was going to come just like this if he wasn’t careful.

“Fuck, yes.” I nod eagerly, as his fingers slide into the back of my jeans and brush over my soaked, sensitive hole teasingly. Was he trying to kill me?

“You gonna suck my fat cock?” He tugs my earlobe between his teeth before planting a kiss just below my ear.

“Yes,” I whisper on an exhale. His fingers press against my opening, but he doesn’t push inside even though I arch my body, begging him to do it. To thrust his fingers inside and fuck me with them.

“Are you going to swallow every drop?”

“Yes! Please. Now.” I demand, scrabbling at his clothes, trying to push away so that I can undo his jeans, but there’s not enough space between us.

“Well, what are you waiting for then?” He growls, and sound ripples through me as he issues his command. “Get on your knees Blue.”

Fuckkkkkk.

I think I’m in love.