Page 19

CAMDEN

Marlowe looked so perfect I could hardly stand it. The dress hugged her curves in all the right places, and every time I got my hands on her, I fantasized about ripping the thing off her once we got home.

I knew it wasn’t fair to Julian or Nolan, but fuck it. I was pack leader, and I was having her all to myself tonight.

If only that part of tonight could come sooner. Things were somewhat tense after my fight at work, and I needed to smooth things over and play the good, genial host. My dad had been great at this, and after he’d died, James had asked me to take up the mantle, spouting some BS about needing youthful energy to make the parties more fun.

Whatever. Dancing with Marlowe was fun, too.

My fingers grazed across her stomach as I circled around her, her smile playful and coy. She rolled her hips suggestively to the beat, beckoning me to come closer.

I stepped up and she straddled my thigh, grinding and throwing her arms around my neck to hold on.

Moon, I was going to lose it. Every movement she made released more of her sweet perfume into the air, my cock straining hard against my pants. I needed to stay until closer to the end, but I didn’t know how much more I could take without release. A quickie in my truck or the bathroom was hardly fitting for everything I wanted to do with Marlowe after being apart for so long, but it would probably be worse to blow my load on the dance floor.

I was about to whisper in her ear and ask if she wanted to find somewhere private when Julian cut through the crowd, a panicked look on his face as he held out his phone.

“Guys, have you checked your messages? We gotta go!”

Marlowe’s smile disappeared and I growled, hating whatever

Julian freaking out was putting a damper on the mood we’d been building. I pulled out my phone and made a big show of checking my messages, but soon my expression fell. “What the fuck?”

Marlowe turned my wrist so she could see, her phone still with her purse and coat at our table. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Nolan’s really upset about something.”

I reached out through the bond, and his anxiety hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Is it serious?”

she asked.

The last thing I wanted to do was pour cold water on the heat we’d been generating, but this didn’t feel okay. Nolan was great in a crisis—it was one of the things that made him such a good mayor. So if he was this upset, it meant some bad shit was going down.

I looked around the room. Normally I’d ask Isaac to take over for me so I could leave, but…

Patricia was running the raffle now, happily chatting with one of our beta engineers.

I handed Julian my keys. “Get our stuff and pull up to the door. I’ll meet you out there in a couple of minutes.”

He nodded and grabbed Marlowe’s hand, dragging her back to the table as her eyes widened, worry furrowing her brow.

Fuck.

“Hey Trish!”

I yelled, running up to her.

“Camden!”

she exclaimed, her cheeks pink from drinking. Her ugly solstice sweater was adorned in flashing lights, and she opened her arms to give me a big hug. “I saw you with Marlowe, you two look so cute. I bet your fathers never would have imagined that their kids…”

“Trish,”

I interrupted. “There’s nothing I like to hear about more than how perfect my omega and I are together, but there’s been an emergency and we need to leave. Can you make sure the rest of the night goes okay?”

Her smile faltered, and she looked at the other female nervously. “Is it vampyrs again?”

she asked, swallowing nervously.

I shook my head. I wished Nolan had given us a few more details, because rushing into this blind was pissing me off. “I don’t think so, but I really need to go. I’m trusting you.”

She nodded hesitantly and I patted her on the shoulder. “Consider your solstice bonus doubled!”

I dashed out the front door right as Julian pulled up. The cold air, combined with Marlowe’s skimpy dress and the urgency of the situation, had her shivering, and I turned the heat up as high as it would go. I kept my mind from running through the worst possible scenarios by concentrating on Marlowe instead, pulling her into my side and wrapping my coat over her bare legs.

“Damn, every time I looked at your thighs tonight I imagined them wrapped around my face, and now I gotta cover them up,”

I joked, trying to ease the tension.

Unfortunately, my lame attempts at humor couldn’t combat the dread that fell over us as we noticed the unusually high amount of police cars parked outside City Hall. Right by the front were five large, black-tinted town cars, and my anxiety skyrocketed. What the hell was going on?

Elias was pacing by the entrance, and rushed over as soon as we pulled up. “It’s a huge fucking mess, I don’t even know where to begin…”

“Is Nolan okay?”

Marlowe asked. “I can barely breathe, his stress is overwhelming.”

When he grabbed and hugged her I nearly growled. Hadn’t that fucker had enough of her the past week?

“The Shifter Conclave is here,”

he explained, now looking at me. “Nolan contacted them last week to intervene with the vamps for us, but once they heard there was an omega involved… ”

Rage.

I felt my wolf snapping its jaws inside me, demanding to be released and rip out their throats. “They have no right to her!”

I bellowed. “She’s bonded to us! She chose us!”

Elias guided Marlowe back to me, and I held onto her possessively. “I don’t know much else,”

he further explained. “Only they refuse to start any kind of proceedings until Marlowe arrives. They want to meet her before they reveal why they’re here.”

Marlowe’s face paled, and her body shook in my arms as a small whine made its way up her throat. “Elias… what if what you and Archer said is right? About my scent?”

Julian and I whipped our heads towards Elias. “Got something to share with the class?”

I snarled. This was exactly why I hated splitting up the pack. Vital shit would miss someone, and then we wouldn’t all be on the same page. Archer had promised to share any new developments as soon as he came across any, but it was obvious they’d been discussing something important behind my back.

Elias growled his reply. “I wasn’t keeping anything a secret, I was waiting until tomorrow to talk about it. You know damn well you wouldn’t have wanted to go over jack squat before you had your knot in Marlowe tonight.”

“Discuss what? What’s wrong with Marlowe’s scent?”

Julian asked.

Our phones all beeped with another message from Nolan telling us to hurry up. Elias cursed and ran his hand through his hair as we headed inside. “She’s irresistible to shifters, vamps, and even humans. We think she might be more special than we realize.”

Like I didn’t already know all that. The more time I’d spent with her, and the more I’d watched other shifters react to her, the more I’d begun to realize she might be more than your typical omega of yesteryear.

A few cops were lined against the wall as we made our way down the hall. I could only guess why they’d been ordered here. “Hey, Marlowe! You should stop by the station again sometime soon. You know we always have donuts…”

The smarmy looks on the officers’ faces were too much, but Julian and Elias caught me before I could wipe all those smirks off with my fists.

“Focus!”

Elias seethed, his teeth clenched in fury. “Marlowe needs you!”

One look at her hazel eyes, beautiful and scared, brought me back. “Yeah, yeah,”

I shrugged, wrapping an arm around her more tightly.

As the doors to the chamber room swung open, the cacophony of overlapping conversations fell silent, all eyes now drawn straight to Marlowe.

I felt their dominating presence before I even saw them—the Shifter Conclave.

Conclaves always consisted of a whole alpha pack, and the five males in front of us made up the strongest, most successful, and highly decorated Conclave we’d seen in generations.

In the middle sat the pack leader, Roland Thorne, a three-star Lieutenant General in the Marine Corps. To his left were Eamon Frost, a retired linebacker and two-time MVP recipient, and Brennan Grimm, the billionaire tech mogul. On his right were Theodore Hartwell, a U.S. Senator from Wyoming, and Torin Vaughn, one of the biggest action film stars in Hollywood.

If this were any other day, and they were here for any other reason, I would have been fangirling like Marlowe at a BTS concert, lining up for a selfie and asking for their autographs.

But today? I wanted to tear their fucking heads off. I watched their calculated stares as they sized us up, then dismissed us to move on to Marlowe with hunger in their eyes.

“Wait… they’re shifters?”

Marlowe whispered. “They’re famous.”

“Yeah, there’s a few of us out there,”

I grumbled. Despite our collective desire to live among our kind in isolation, alpha ambitions sometimes drove us out into the human world to make our own way, like with Archer and Elias. Only these males had taken it to a whole other level.

She squeezed my hand and chuckled, giving me a performative yet welcome kiss on the cheek. “It makes sense, though. I always thought they seemed like assholes.”

I hadn’t even wanted to consider that Marlowe might be swayed by their combined strength and status, but hearing her confirmation that she wasn’t, was more comforting than she even knew.

I squeezed her hand back and found Nolan at the podium in front of them, white knuckling the sides. His jaw ticked in frustration and anger, and even Marlowe’s presence wasn’t calming him like it usually did.

We were in deep shit.

Vaughn, the actor, was the first to speak, his white veneers shining unnaturally as he grinned with casual arrogance. “Well, now, what have we here? An omega, in the flesh. Come on over, sweetheart, let us have a sniff.”

He had typical leading man good looks and a history with almost every shifter actress in Hollywood. The male was likely used to females falling all over themselves to talk to him, and probably expected the same reaction from Marlowe. He patted his knee and winked, as though she had been merely waiting for the invitation.

But she was having none of it. “I’d rather eat glass, thanks.”

The Conclave’s mouths dropped open and a shocked gasp made its way through the crowd. A few females giggled, and while I was proud of Marlowe sticking up for herself, there was nothing an alpha male hated more than being made to look stupid, especially by a female from a “weaker”

designation.

Omegas were supposedly shy and submissive, desiring praise and attention from powerful alphas above all else, but one minute with Marlowe would tell you that was all bullshit.

I braced myself for the backlash, ready to hand her over to Elias so Julian and I could defend her, but instead the actor laughed, more amused than embarrassed. “Ooh, the mouth on this one. What do you think, General? Wanna give her one of your patented barks?”

Thorne’s barks were the stuff of legend—even humans were compelled to obey when he took command.

But thankfully he simply smirked at Marlowe rather than reprimand her. “No need to be so hostile, Ms. Linden. I understand you aren’t used to our customs, but greeting through scent is just how we do things. I promise, we won’t bite.”

“Yeah, but I might,”

she mumbled under her breath. She took a step back and looked to me for guidance.

She didn’t want to do this, she didn’t want to be here, and I was one hundred percent in agreement. But despite my overwhelming desire to tell them to go fuck themselves, I knew it would only make things harder if we didn’t play along.

“Go on, we’re right here,”

I told her.

Resignation and reluctant understanding flashed across her features, and she nodded, stepping up to the open space in front of the long table where they sat.

Fuck, did I feel like a failure as she marched towards them, head held high. She shouldn’t have to offer herself to them like this.

Not that I was some paragon of bodily autonomy, either. I cringed, thinking back to how I’d scented her and forced her to scent Julian. For all the justifications I could make in my head that it turned out for the best, if I could go back in time and change how I’d handled meeting and introducing her, I would. The Conclave came around from the table one at a time, with Vaughn going first.

He dipped her low like he meant to kiss her but just inhaled deeply into her neck, her eyes scrunched closed and body stiff.

Fucking showman.

When he came back up his pupils were fully blown. “Holy shit,”

he whispered. He went in for another sniff, a warning growl reverberating in my packs’ chests he duly ignored. “I’ve never smelled anything like this…”

Each member of the Conclave came up and sniffed her, their reactions more or less the same as Vaughn’s until finally the giant Frost took his turn.

She looked half his size in his meaty hands, and he nearly bent his body in half to stick his nose in the crook of her neck. After he breathed her in, he roared, the sound so loud some covered their ears. He turned her around, pulling her into his chest as he pawed at her breasts and forced a hand up her skirt while she screamed at him to stop.

Julian and I were on him before he could touch her further, and while I may not have played football since high school, I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t proud that we were able to successfully tackle the hulking alpha, halfway to a rut, down to the ground.

“Frost!”

Thorne barked, standing and pounding his fists on the table. The alpha stopped fighting to get out from under us, his chest heaving as his dilated eyes remained on Marlowe. She was now safely tucked into Nolan’s arms, shaking uncontrollably while Elias stood in the middle, fists cocked.

“Get back to your seat!”

Thorne ordered his pack mate.

We got off him and he stood, his composure returning as he cracked his neck, and shoulder checked Julian on his way back to his chair. Thorne gave him a stern look before turning back to us. “My apologies, alphas, I don’t think we were prepared for how… potent your omega’s perfume would be.”

Julian was livid. “You’re apologizing to us? Apologize to her!”

He pointed back towards Marlowe. “She’s the one who was just assaulted by that titan creep!”

Snarls and growls erupted between our two packs until Marlowe threw her hands out and barked, “Enough!”

It wasn’t an alpha command, but it certainly grabbed our attention. She took a step forward and out of Nolan’s arms. “Let’s just get this over with, I want to go home. What did you come here for, more statements about the vampyr attack?”

She gestured towards the cops standing by the doors. “Just get it from them. We already told them everything that happened.”

The general sat back down and looked to the rest of his pack before meeting Marlowe’s eyes with a sly smile. “You’re correct that this is related to concerns we have about the vampyrs. You see, when we discovered the target of the attack was an omega, our interest was planted. We had already been planning a visit in the near future to officially introduce ourselves, but then we received a rather alarming report of possible omega abuse going on in this town. So we moved our schedules around and made this our top priority.”

I could feel the anger rising inside me, my pulse reaching my ears. “Abuse?” I yelled.

Elias echoed my surprise, while Nolan appeared nervous. He cleared his throat and began to speak. “Listen, your honors, I’m not sure what incident this report is referring to or who could have sent it, but…”

“I sent it.”

I whipped my head around to a beta male now making his way up front, carrying a laptop. I didn’t recognize him, but the look on Nolan’s face said that he certainly did.

Who was this guy, and what in Moon’s name had Nolan done?

Elias beckoned us over and away from the middle of the floor, as the weaselly-looking beta took our spot. “Last Saturday, our mayor, Nolan Wilk, reminded me of the old laws protecting omegas in our society. Not only through his words, but also his actions, when he attempted to bribe and blackmail me using his omega’s scent.”

Nolan paled and Marlowe gasped. “Nolan, what did you do?”

But he refused to look in our direction, keeping his gaze straight ahead.

I was already so full of fury I didn’t think I had room for any more, but Nolan, my pack mate, one of my best friends, had endangered Marlowe.

I was going to fucking kill him.

The beta male connected the laptop to a large TV screen and played a clip of security camera footage taken somewhere in City Hall.

There was Nolan, in grainy black-and-white, dangling the handkerchief Marlowe had given him with her scent over the beta’s head, who was going crazy trying to grab it. Once he finally had it in his hands, bringing it into his face to breathe in deeply, we heard Nolan speak:

“So, what’s it going to be, Seth? Apologize and I’ll forget this ever happened. Or go forward with this stupid charade, and…”

He pointed towards the security camera.

“Perhaps I’ll leak the video of a certain City Manager creaming his pants over…”

And then the screen went black.

Marlowe winced behind me. “I think I’m going to be sick…”

Oh yeah, Nolan was dead.

“Interesting place to cut the video, Seth,”

Nolan seethed. “Shall I get my copy of the whole exchange, so I can show the Conclave and the town how you threatened to force Marlowe on hormone suppressants?”

The females in the crowd gasped in horror, and Elias held a firm grip on my shoulder as I redirected my anger towards that spineless beta male. “You did what?”

I bellowed.

I added that slimy asshole to the list of shifters I was killing tonight.

Seth puffed out his chest, unashamed of the backlash. “General Thorne said it himself, her scent is too potent. We all witnessed it—she can even cause a member of the Conclave to go crazy. Nolan, I was only thinking of your omega’s safety, while you only seem to care about having fun during her heats.”

I was about to launch myself at the rat when Elias blocked me again. “What does any of this have to do with your so-called report?”

Seth grinned and cleared his throat. “I’m so glad you brought that up, Elias. I always figured you were the only rational member of Pack Wolcott.”

Grimm snapped his fingers. “Enough of your stupid posturing, beta, just get on with it.”

Seth’s cheeks reddened and he displayed a scanned copy from an old book on the screen. “Here, from the Covenant of the Pack, is The Sanctity of Omega Bonds Act.”

The print was a little blurry but I read through it quickly:

An Omega, being of bond and bearing sacred to her pack, shall not be exposed or shared outside said pack without consent, whether by means of scent, presence, or any claim thereof. Any individual, be they Alpha or Beta, who shall attempt to wield or disseminate an Omega with intent to coerce, manipulate, or otherwise exert undue influence, shall be subject to The Redistribution Act.

The fear that came through the bond from Elias was felt immediately through the whole pack.

“Elias?”

Marlowe asked, her voice timid. “What’s The Redistribution Act?”

Before Elias could respond, Senator Hartwell stood and addressed the room. “The Redistribution Act of 74 states that should an omega be at undue risk through neglect or abuse of her pack, the Conclave reserves the right and duty to seize custody and redistribute her.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. The Conclave had the right to take Marlowe away from us, all because of some obscure law Nolan had broken in trying to protect her.

I was going to fucking kill everyone.

But before I could start my rampage, Marlowe stepped forward. “There’s no way that’s happening. I’m not property, I’m a person! I have rights!”

A few females in the room clapped in agreement, but the Senator just laughed. “Sweetie, the Female Rights Act of 1986 did not include omegas because we thought you were extinct.”

Shocked silence fell over us, while Marlowe’s anger threatened to boil over.

“You think I can just be tossed around due to some technicality? I don’t give a flying fuck what your outdated, backward laws say, and I refuse to go along with this farce any longer. My pack has not abused me, and I choose them. We’re done here.”

She turned to leave, but several police officers now gathered in front of the door, blocking our path.

We circled around to protect Marlowe as the Conclave now stood, addressing the crowd. “Good shifters of Maiingan Hollow,”

Thorne spoke, his hands raised. “I think we have a clear-cut case here. The omega needs a pack who will not use her for gain, as Mayor Wilk did when he blackmailed a member of his own staff with her scent. And she’s clearly been neglected, seeing as Pack Wolcott has failed to teach her how to show respect to the Conclave and our ways. As such, with the authority vested in our sacred positions, we hereby claim the omega as our own.”

“No!”

I bellowed, pushing away the cop that tried to reach for her. Julian fought off several at once, taking the attack on one officer in particular a bit personally. Marlowe grabbed onto the back of my suit jacket and I squared off against another one, dodging his baton and punching him in the gut.

Some of the females in the crowd had become enraged, and fighting had now broken out between them and the other males in the room.

It was utter pandemonium, and the Conclave was slowly making their way towards us, the general readying his bark, when Elias broke free from the melee and ran to the podium, yelling into the microphone, “I invoke the Rite of Dominion!”