Page 26 of Omega’s Fever (Prime Match #2)

Kellen

The claim mark on Milo’s neck is still fresh, still perfect, when I pull up outside Schmitt and Petersen. My omega—mine, finally, completely—shifts in the passenger seat, fingers ghosting over the bite. The gesture sends satisfaction rolling through me, primal and possessive.

“Stop touching it,” I tell him, but there’s no heat in it. There can’t be, not when I want to do the same thing. I want to trace the mark with my tongue, feel him shiver against me.

“It’s sensitive.” His cheeks pink, and I catch the spike of arousal in his scent. “Different than I expected.”

Different. Yeah. Like everything about us.

I put the car in park but I don’t kill the engine. “You don’t leave this building without me. For any reason.”

“Kellen—”

“Any reason, Milo.” I turn to face him fully. “Not for coffee, not for lunch, not if the fucking building catches fire. You wait for me.”

His jaw sets in that stubborn line I’ve seen so often from him in the last few weeks. “I’m not a child.”

“No. You’re my pregnant mate who’s been threatened by dangerous people.” I soften my voice, reach over to cup his face. “Please. Just... give me this.”

The fight goes out of him. He leans into my touch, eyes fluttering closed. “Fine. But you better not be late.”

“Three hours. Four at most.” I press a kiss to his forehead, breathe him in: the sweet note that says mine. “Go.”

He laughs, soft and warm, then steals a proper kiss before sliding out of the car. I watch until he’s safely inside, past security, before pulling away.

The nursing home looks worse in daylight than it did on the computer screen. It’s a squat beige building with barred windows, trying to pretend it’s not just a warehouse for people waiting to die. The parking lot’s half empty, cracked asphalt sprouting weeds through the gaps.

I sit in the car for a minute, watching the entrance. A few staff members drift in and out—scrubs in various colors, tired faces, the universal shuffle of underpaid healthcare workers. No sign of Cobb’s people, but that doesn’t mean they’re not watching.

I picked up two potential tails on the way here, and lost them both.

The lobby smells like disinfectant and cafeteria food, that particular mix that makes hospitals and nursing homes interchangeable. The receptionist doesn’t look up from her romance novel when I sign the visitor log using a fake name.

Finding her takes some wandering. The halls all look the same: mint green walls, buzzing fluorescent lights, the occasional splash of cheerful artwork that just makes everything more depressing. Then I spot her.

She’s in a patient’s room, adjusting pillows. Her hair’s different. It’s darker, shorter, pulled back in a neat bun. The scrubs make her look smaller than I remember, or maybe she’s just lost weight. Stress will do that.

I wait in the hallway until she’s done. When she emerges, clipboard in hand, she glances my way and freezes.

For a second, I think she might run. Her whole body goes rigid, fight or flight response in full effect. Then recognition floods her face, followed quickly by something I can’t quite read.

“Supply closet,” she whispers, barely moving her lips. “Third door on the left.”

The closet’s cramped and smells like industrial cleaner. Shelves of bedpans and adult diapers line the walls.

The door barely clicks shut before she throws her arms around me.

“My God, Kellen.” Her voice cracks against my chest. “I thought you were locked up forever. How are you—” She pulls back suddenly, hands gripping my arms. “How are you out? Are you safe? What’s happening?”

The concern in her voice catches me off guard. Here she is, someone who has been genuinely worried about me. It’s an odd feeling.

I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face. “I prime matched with my defense attorney.”

Her eyes go wide. “You what?”

“And he’s pregnant.”

The laugh that bursts out of her is bright and unexpected in this dim space. “Only you, Hayes. Only you would get arrested for trafficking and end up mated to your lawyer.” She shakes her head, still smiling. “Is he... is he good to you?”

The question hits somewhere soft. “Yeah,” I say, and feel the truth of it settle in my bones. “He is. He’s amazing.”

“Good.” She smooths down her scrubs, a nervous gesture. “That’s... that’s really good, Kellen. You deserve something good.”

“What about you? You okay here?” I gesture at the closet, the hospital, all of it. “This isn’t exactly...”

“What I dreamed of?” She finishes with a wry smile. “No. But it’s honest work. Safe work. And I’m married now.”

I’d seen it noted in the case file but I pretend I don’t know. “Yeah?”

“To Damon.” The smile goes soft, private.

“Really?” I can’t help but grin. I’d known they were close. I hadn’t known it was that close. I couldn’t think of a better couple.

“Really.” She gives me a wide smile and touches her stomach in a gesture I’ve been seeing a lot lately. “He works security now. Private firm. We have a little place in Forest Hills. Nothing fancy, but...”

“It’s yours.”

“Yeah.” Her hand stays on her stomach. “It’s ours.”

I know that gesture. Seen it on Milo when he thinks I’m not looking.

“You’re pregnant.”

“Four months.” Her voice drops to almost nothing. “Damon wants me to quit, stay home, but we need the money. Need to save everything we can before...”

Before the baby comes. Before everything changes.

“That’s great, Pen. Really.”

“Is it?” The fear bleeds through now. “I want the baby, I really do but I didn’t want to bring a child into this. Not until we were out of here and safe.”

I think about Milo, about our baby growing inside him, about all the ways this could go wrong.

“Yeah,” I tell her.

She studies my face, then nods slowly. “I know why you’re here.”

“Penelope—”

“And I can’t.” The words come out rushed, desperate. “We can’t testify. I’m sorry, but we can’t. Not with the baby.”

“I’m not asking you to testify,” I say carefully. “I wouldn’t. Not with...” I gesture at her stomach. “I just needed to see you were okay.”

It’s not a complete lie. I did want her to testify but I didn’t realize until I saw her how much I wanted to make sure she was okay too. But I can’t ask her now.

“Come home with me,” she says suddenly. “Talk to Damon. Maybe... maybe there’s another way. Something that doesn’t put us in danger but still helps.”

I should say no, but then I think about Milo and about how few options we have.

“Okay.”

The shift manager doesn’t seem to care that she clocks off early when I follow her out. I keep my eyes peeled as we move through back alleys but nothing seems off.

She’s got an apartment half a block up.

“Look who I found,” she says we enter.

Damon’s expression stays neutral. “Kellen.”

“Damon.”

The living room is sparse but comfortable: secondhand furniture, a few photos on the walls. One is of their wedding, Penelope radiant in a simple dress, Damon looking at her like she walks on water.

“Coffee?” Penelope asks, already moving to the kitchen.

“Sure.”

Damon and I sit across from each other at their small dining table. He’s studying me the way he used to study the crowd at the club—weighing up the threat.

“Heard you were in prison,” he says finally.

“Heard you got married.”

Something in his face softens. “Best thing I ever did.”

Penelope returns with three mugs, her hand brushing Damon’s shoulder as she passes. The casual intimacy of it makes my chest tight.

“I know what you want and we want to help,” Damon says, cutting straight to the heart of it. “But we can’t testify. Can’t put Penny and the baby at risk.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then what are you asking?”

Good question. What am I doing here, really?

“Information,” Penelope says quietly. “That’s what you need, right? Not testimony, just... information.”

Damon tenses. “Pen—”

“Just information,” she repeats, reaching for his hand. “Nothing official. Nothing that traces back to us.”

They have one of those silent conversations that established couples do, entire arguments in a glance. Finally, Damon sighs.

“Cobb’s records,” he says. “The ones that kept track of every... arrangement.”

The trafficking. He means the trafficking.

“The books they seized were cooked,” I say.

“Cooked, seasoned, and served with a side of bullshit.” Damon’s mouth twists. “The real books would show exactly who was running what. Would show you were just muscle.”

“Where are they?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” He shifts, and I catch the subtle adjustment of someone carrying concealed. Old habits. “But Haymore would know.”

“Who?”

“The asshole accountant who did Cobb’s books. I don’t think you ever met him. He came by during the day.”

“Any idea where I’d find him?”

They exchange another look. “I don’t know,” Penelope says. “He was high up though. He had that snooty look every time he came by. We were good enough to make money off of but never good enough to talk to.”

“There’s more,” Damon says. “The club had security cameras. Good ones. Digital storage, off-site backup. If those recordings still exist...”

“They’d be proof.”

“They’d show everything.” His expression is grim.

“Where’s the backup?”

“Sorry, I don’t know,” Damon spreads his hands. “Sorry. I know it’s not much.”

“It’s more than I had.”

We sit in silence for a moment. Penelope’s hand drifts to her stomach again, protective.

“When are you due?” I ask.

“September.” A smile flickers across her face. “It’s a girl.”

“That’s great. Really great.”

“You should go,” Damon says quietly. “The longer you stay...”

The more danger I put them in. I know.

At the door, Penelope hugs me again, fierce and quick.

“Be careful,” she whispers. “And Kellen? Good luck. You know we love you.”

“Love you both too.”

Damon offers his hand. “You need anything—anything that doesn’t put her at risk—you call.”

I’m about to leave when I realize I’ve forgotten something. “What was his first name? The accountant?”

Pen looks at Damon and wrinkles her nose. “Not sure. It was something like—”

“Kenneth. Kenneth Warren,” Damon says and my blood runs cold.

Suddenly, everything Milo’s uncle said before our claiming makes a different kind of sense.

Milo, if you stay with this man, you’re going to wind up dead.

You are ignoring my advice and that’s not going to go well for you.

I can’t look out for you if you’re going to be so stupid.

The drive back to Milo’s office feels longer than it should. I keep checking mirrors, changing lanes, old paranoia in overdrive.

I pull into the parking garage with ten minutes to spare. Milo’s already waiting in the lobby, pacing near the security desk. He looks up when I walk in, and I see the relief in his face.

“How did it go?”

“Fine,” I tell him. “Everything’s fine.”