Page 13 of The Night Movers: Season One

What?

No. No. No. No. No. No.

Not now.

Ridley was told he wouldn’t have another heat for months after his presentation.

They’d made a huge deal out of presenting him with his many pharmaceutical options, letting him know suppressants were borderline miraculous, allowing him to skip his heats until he was mated and ready to have babies.

Except, he didn’t have suppressants. He didn’t have birth control.

The guards had taken him before he’d received any of that.

Before they’d even checked if he was capable of having babies.

He was an unmated, unclaimed omega surrounded by six alphas.

And he was in heat.

“Maybe he’s just hungry? He hasn’t eaten in days,” Diesel said.

Ridley had never been so grateful to have another alpha in the room. Maybe Diesel was right. Couldn’t this be extreme hunger? He couldn’t remember his last meal and had barely had a drop to drink. Surely, his body could just be rebelling? It certainly felt like his stomach was trying to eat itself.

Titus clearly didn’t think so. He scoffed at Diesel’s suggestion. “Can’t you smell it?”

“I’ve been smelling him for the last six hours,” Diesel snapped. “And if you’re not planning on fucking him through his heat, then maybe we try feeding him to see if maybe we’re just overreacting. He is newly presented after all.”

Titus snapped his mouth shut. Ridley watched as the two alphas glowered at each other, nostrils flaring, both posturing for no reason.

Please, let that be it.

“Are you willing to take that risk? What do you think will happen to him if he is in heat and locked in here with us? All of us.”

Another gush of slick had him biting down hard on his lip. How could he be so horny while in so much pain? Both alphas looked at him hungrily, Diesel sticking his tongue out like he was tasting the air, then rolling his eyes at whatever he’d found.

“See?” Titus snapped.

Diesel gave him one last nasty look, then made his way off the bed, leaving Ridley curled in a ball with Titus lying beside him, staring down at him like he was a problem that needed to be solved.

“I’m gonna go get him some soup,” Diesel said, sounding borderline pouty. “It should at least help with the cold and hunger, then we can see what symptoms stick around when he’s full.”

Ridley’s omega bumped along his insides, desperate for Ridley to let him take over. He definitely wanted to be full. Fuck. This was a disaster. He was a disaster.

“Mm,” Titus agreed, with almost no conviction.

When Diesel left, Ridley made a beleaguered little sound and snuggled closer to Titus, trying to crawl inside the alpha’s body and stay there. “So cold, Alpha.”

Titus gently pushed him away, dragging himself up into a sitting up. Ridley looked up at him, miserable, tears clinging to his lashes.

Titus sighed, like he couldn’t believe this was what his life had come to, then stroked his finger along Ridley’s jaw. “You only think you’re cold, but you have a fever, Strawberry. Your skin is on fire.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, once more trying to get closer to the alpha. “Just cold…just hurting. Please, Alpha,” he begged, in too much pain to even be embarrassed by his pleas.

The only light was the outline around the bathroom door, but Ridley’s eyes had adjusted enough to see the way Titus looked at him, the way his hands fisted at his sides as he inhaled Ridley’s scent.

“You’ve soaked through the sheets. In more ways than one.

You have to try to breathe through this, okay? ”

“Breathe through it?” Ridley repeated, a tiny glimmer of hope shining through the pain raging through his insides. “Does that help?”

Was that a thing? Did breathing help with pain?

It sounded fake. Sounded like something big, dumb alphas said when they didn’t know what to do with omegas who needed them for something other than sex.

But these alphas were different. They had to be.

They saved omegas. They’d saved Ridley…sort of.

For now. Didn’t he owe them a chance to prove they weren’t like other alphas?

Especially if he was going to be theirs one day?

He took a deep breath and let it out, once, then again…and again waiting for the pain to subside. “Are you sure this helps?”

Titus shrugged. “I have no fucking idea, but it’s all I’ve got.”

This time, it was Ridley who snarled, snapping his teeth at the alpha. Who was he kidding? They were all the same. Useless. Still, once he started breathing rhythmically, he couldn’t stop.

“Have you ever even been around an omega in heat?” Ridley gasped, his panic ratcheting higher as the pain only grew until it felt like a giant hand squeezed his insides in a death grip.

Titus’s mouth tightened at the question, his face a storm cloud. Then, suddenly, the look was gone, his expression morphing into one of disbelief. “Of course not. What kind of fucking monster would I be if I saved omegas but then assaulted them when they were unable to refuse me? ”

The usual kind, Ridley thought meanly. Titus acted like there was some code of conduct alphas followed when it came to omegas.

He acted like Ridley hadn’t spent nineteen years in the real world praying that he would be a beta and not an omega, even though he knew, just based on his build, what he would be.

Now, here was this alpha—this pack of alphas—telling him everything he knew was wrong.

That good alphas existed, that not all alphas wanted to hurt omegas.

It pissed Ridley off. Not because Titus said it, but because Ridley desperately wished it were true.

Nobody wanted it to be true more than him.

“You’re not going to say it’s just biology?” Ridley asked through clenched teeth, curling back up into the fetal position.

Titus snorted. “Look, I’m not going to pretend I’m a good guy. I’ve done a lot of evil shit in my life. I’ve stolen things, cheated people, maimed more than one alpha, killed a dozen more…whatever it took to complete the mission. I did it and I never felt a shred of remorse.”

“Okay?” Ridley grunted, tears squeezing from his eyes as he tried to breathe through the next cramp.

Titus glared down at him. “But I’m not a fucking rapist and I won’t let any of my guys become one either just because we had the misfortune of meeting you.”

Ridley felt his words like a punch to his chest. “Ouch.”

Titus shrugged, looking away as he muttered, “I told you, I’m not a good guy.”

Another cramp seized Ridley, tearing a scream from him as he tried to dig his fingers into his abdomen, hoping the pressure would be enough to quell whatever was tying his intestines in knots.

He bit down on his lip to keep from screaming again but couldn’t stop the pathetic whimpers that escaped, making him sound like a wounded animal.

Titus’s jaw clenched and unclenched, the muscle there ticking as he stared down at Ridley with an enigmatic expression. In that moment, it felt like he hated Ridley, but his pain was coloring everything red.

Titus made a low rumble deep in his chest, then smacked Ridley’s hands away. “Move.”

Ridley stared at him, mouth gaping, somehow still shocked by the alpha’s rudeness.

Titus replaced Ridley’s small hands with his own, just resting them there.

Ridley squeezed his eyes shut. The alpha’s hands felt hot even through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

At first, nothing happened, but then, Titus grunted, his face contorting.

Before Ridley could ask if he was okay, the pain began to subside, not completely, but enough for him to breathe normally, enough for him to look at Titus without tears in his eyes.

“What did you do?” Ridley whispered.

“Just took some of the pain away. But that’s all I can do,” he said begrudgingly, like Ridley had asked him to do it.

When he put his hand over Titus’s where it still rested on his belly, the alpha snatched his hand away, grimacing like he was in pain.

Was he? Had taking Ridley’s pain hurt him?

He hadn’t even known that was something an alpha could do.

Guilt sliced through him, but quickly dissipated when Titus stuck a finger in his face. “I can’t take it all or I’ll be too drained to help the others with our real jobs tomorrow.”

Who fucking asked you to? Ridley thought, fighting the urge to stick his tongue out at the grumpy alpha. Instead, he gave a stilted nod, rubbing absently over his stomach, feeling Titus’s eyes on him like a physical touch.

“Are you going to throw me out if I’m in heat?” Ridley finally asked, bile rising in his throat.

Titus gave him a disgusted look. “I’m not that fucking guy either. Jesus. We both know what would happen to you out there. I have no idea what the fuck we’re going to do with you but you’re safer with us than out there.”

Relief flooded Ridley so quickly he felt dizzy. He nodded, eyes wide. “That’s what I’ve been saying,” he said, gesturing wildly. “Even if you’re not good guys, you are the lesser of two evils. ”

Titus scoffed. “The lesser of two evils is still evil, Strawberry,” Titus said. “I won’t become the thing I fight against. Not even for you.”

Not even for you.

“Don’t I have any say in this?” Ridley asked, blinking sweat from his eyes. “It’s my body.”

“Omegas in heat can’t consent,” Titus muttered.

Ridley made a noise of frustration. They didn’t even know if he was in heat. “I consented the moment I showed you that I belonged to your pack. That’s what a pack omega is. They’re there to be…used, well and often,” Ridley managed.

“You have to hear how fucked up that sounds,” Titus said, shaking his head at him.

“Fucked up or not,” Ridley said, needing him to understand his situation, “it’s just the way the world works.”

Titus looked horrified even in the shadows. “You’re too young to be this jaded.”

“And you’re too old to be this naive,” Ridley snapped.