Page 112 of Ondine: Vol. 2

“Jake is giving us time to get you out. But I’d like to stay and slit his throat. I’ll let you decide. Slip out of here before or after I end his life?”

His figgy smell is so welcoming and I find myself rubbing into him. “I need my mate,” I whimper.

“And Boone’s life?”

“He is making a case against the Meier Pack. He’s legally made himself my handler.”

Shadow nods. “Yeah, my mother alerted us to this. She did it by inviting me to meet a new omega,” he says and my eyes narrow at him. What the fuck? He continues, “but she gave us the information all the same. He can bring down the entire police department to our front lawn to enforce that shit and we’d still never give you up.”

I wrap my arms and legs around him. He stands up, holding me on him. I feel so delicate in his arms.

“His death? We can end this now.”

“I don’t know, Shadow.”

“Ok, my love. I understand. Let’s get you out of here.”

He pulls me even closer to him, and I cross my ankles behind his back.

“Kiss me?” I ask, with tears still in my eyes.

With all the tenderness in the world, Shadow kisses me. He kisses me like I’m special. And precious. Like he loves me like I love him.

Suddenly my head is yanked back by my hair, and Shadow drops to the ground in one boneless heap. The sound of a taser sparking is drowned out by my screams. Boone yanks me again and this time into his body. His fingers grip my hair so tight I know he’s pulled a lot of it out. I look down at Shadow, who is completely unconscious on the floor. Boone holds the taser away from us.

“This was going to be for you if you got out of line. Guess I needed it for more things. Like fuck-ass alphas.”

Boone spits on Shadow’s crumpled up form.

I scream and cry and try to get his hand out of my hair.

He pulls me out into the main room and slams the door shut to the bedroom.

“How did that fucker even get in here?” He asks himself. Boone’s phone is ringing. He pulls me up to the kitchen counter and then, after seeing it’s Sebastian calling, he answers it.

“Boone, I could smell her on you.”

“Don’t fuck around with me, Sabbies. Your boy Friday was down here trying to take my legal ward. He’s trespassing on my property, trying to rob me! I’m well within my rights to kill him on sight.”

Sebastian plows on. “Let me see her. I need to see her.”

This softens Boone. He finally loosens his grip in my hair.

He thinks for a few seconds and then says, “I’m not a killer, Sabbies. Come get Jake’s alpha. I’ll let you see my omega. But you have to promise you’re only here to remove the body.”

“And if I wanted to stay? Stay with you?” I’m shocked by his words for only a moment, before I hear the lie. Sebastian is a terrible liar. Boone hears the lie too.

“I’m not stupid like you, my friend. Retrieve the body. That’s all I’ll allow.”

The phone goes dead and there’s a knock on a metal door near the kitchen. It’s a back exit. Sebastian must have realized where I was being held.

The door is heavily locked and reinforced. But it’s still just a basement apartment. Not a bunker.

Boone wraps his arm around my waist and hauls me with him to the door, where he unlocks and unfastens it. He opens to just Sebastian. His orange scent hits me like a wall. My bond mark itches and I whimper.

His lips quiver, but then he steals himself.

“Boone.”