Page 68 of Your Wild Omega (The Feral Actress #2)

Red

I feel more drained than if the Bitches had sucked all the haze from my glands.

For two days we’ve gone back and forth with witnesses, Ray’s lawyer trying to wriggle out through every loophole, presenting me as delusional and Ray as some kind of hero conned into helping me through my heats without knowing about the trafficking.

It makes no sense to me, and Callisto agrees.

Now, we wait for the jury.

Callisto slips into the court’s side room and quietly shuts the door behind him. He’s been out consulting with his fellow lawyers, but now he joins us in a side room. He smiles at me tenderly and then holds out his arms. “May I?”

I nod shyly. His refreshing timber scent folds around me, washing away the stale indoor air. For a moment, it feels like I’ve escaped the city altogether. Maybe when I’m rich and famous, I’ll buy us a cabin in the woods somewhere and do my heats there among the trees.

“You were marvelous,” Callisto says, his strong arms squeezing my shoulders before he releases me.

“There was nowhere for them to hide.” His gaze drops to my corset, which I wore both days, although now I’ve paired it with a black dress.

“And can I just say, this looks stunning on you. Ri-Jones Couture, I assume?”

I grin and pat my waist. “It was like Rickon hugged me the whole time I was on the stand.”

He nods in understanding and reaches out to ruffle Rickon’s hair. “Even better. You spoke so well, Red. I was really impressed.”

I lace my hands together and look down. “Well, turns out no one can tell my story better than me.”

He chuckles and hugs my shoulders again. Feels a bit like he wants to reassure himself I’m really okay.

I glance over at Zack to see if he’s getting mad, but he leans back in his chair, watching Callisto thoughtfully.

The feral alpha’s been quieter than I expected, listening and soaking everything in.

He might be formulating his questions for later, in the same way he holds back when he’s leashed. My clever alpha.

I drag my gaze back to Callisto, and that’s when I register something lumpy brushing against my shoulder from his arm. “Do you have a bandage on?”

“Ah.” He ducks his head like I’ve caught him doing something naughty. “Yeah, but it’s not an injury. I added to my tattoo.”

“No bloody way,” Rickon cries, jumping to his feet. “Seriously? I want to see it.”

Callisto strokes his fingers down his long sleeves. “I’d have to take my shirt off for that, and I’m not sure Zack would approve.”

A thrill jolts my heart, and Ricky and I exchange loaded glances. Callisto cares about whether or not Zack would get upset.

I plop down in Zack’s lap, and my alpha adjusts his long legs to accommodate me. “Zack, is it okay with you if Callisto takes his shirt off?”

Zack rumbles with warning. “For sex?”

“No.” Heat races into my cheeks. “He’s got, um . . . art on his arm we want to look at.”

Zack gives a brisk nod, gaze narrowing on the standing alpha.

I wait eagerly as Callisto peels his layers off, easing the shirt sleeve over his expensive watch before handing it to Rickon.

He’s beautifully shaped, large across the shoulders, tapering slightly.

Skin smooth with good health. The thirsty omega in me wouldn’t mind running her hands all over those ridges and down the dark snail trail that disappears under his belt.

Callisto hesitates as he reaches for the white bandage. “Okay, don’t feel pressured or anything. It’s just for my own reminder.” He groans under his breath and his voice drops until it’s barely audible. “Shit, I hope you don’t think it’s weird.”

The ever-composed Callisto Wren flushes pink before unwinding the bandage and removing a gauze pad.

The top part of the tattoo looks normal, the ink dark, but the bottom half looks like it might still be healing.

Despite the reddened discoloration in the skin, the design is elegant, the two antique-looking pocket watches nestled on a branch of blossoms.

“Nuts? And honey?” Rickon murmurs, leaning closer.

Then I see it. A delicate scroll unfurls beneath each clock face. The top one reads Dad but the second one, the freshly made one, says Red . That’s my name on his arm.

“But that’s, I mean, your dad’s . . .” Rickon’s eyes go big, his tongue tripping him up. He’s clearly as astonished as I am.

“They’re significant moments in my life,” Callisto says, sounding shy. “Stuff I want to remember.” He gets a bottle out of his bag and smears something on the reddened tat before covering it over with the gauze pad. “Could you help me re-wrap it?” he asks Rickon, voice quivering ever so slightly.

I stare at the alpha, but he avoids my gaze. Callisto Wren, the most well-reasoned, put-together man I’ve ever met, is not the sort of person to tattoo an omega’s name on his arm. Is he?

And the time. Eleven o’clock. Is it because my designation was O-11?

He said he wanted to remember a significant moment in his life.

It was after midnight when Zack threw him out, so it can’t be that.

Did we have another interaction that was memorable?

When I called him on the phone the other night? Or—?

On the day I ran into him outside the courthouse, the sun wasn’t quite directly overhead.

I remember because of the shadows on the grass and the feel of the warmth on my back as I climbed my first ever scent match.

The garbage truck came to the Omega Center near dawn in the morning, and I walked around the city and had an adventure in the hotel before I ran into him.

“The day we met?” I mutter to myself.

Callisto finally looks at me, and I read the truth in the dark, tortured depths of his eyes. He regrets it. He regrets walking away from his omega with every fiber in his body. And each day he’s living in hell because that vacant part of his soul designed for me sits empty.

Heat and chills race through me in equal measure, and it hits me square in the chest that his and my story isn’t over yet. Zack tightens his arms around me as if he feels it too, but he doesn’t growl.

“Callisto—” I begin.

A knock on the door interrupts me, and his law associate pokes his head in. “The jury’s back.”

“Already?” Callisto says, eyes widening. He checks his watch. “It’s only been two hours, which means they’re sure about their answer.” The smile he flashes makes my heart race. “That’s a good sign, Red.”

He slips his shirt and vest back on, and Rickon adjusts his tie for him before holding out the gray suit jacket.

I nod to myself as I get up and offer Zack my hand.

It’s okay. We’ll have time to talk after the verdict.

To work out if Zack and Callisto can call a truce.

To see if a future with all four of us together exists.

Rickon bumps my side, searching for my hand as we find our seats back in the courtroom, and I lock his fingers in a death grip as the jury spokesperson stands.

The room swims as we hang for a moment, weighted like a pendulum that could swing in either direction. My heart pounds.

“We, the jury, find the defendant, Ray Fibbistachi, guilty on all charges.”

A tiny noise slips through my throat, relief and grief mingling together to choke me.

The judge nods. “Ray Fibbistachi, stand for sentencing. You are hereby convicted of captivity of an omega, aiding and abetting omega trafficking, and rape, as well as unlawful extraction of haze from an omega and possession of unregistered haze.” He reads out several more crimes, which my testimony has sealed.

The judge looks up. “I sentence you to life in prison. Take him into custody.” His gavel bangs down, the thumping ringing out as a bell toll of finality.

Life. The word echoes in my head. A life for the life Ray stole from me.

I can’t feel happy. Happiness and Ray can’t exist in the same sentence.

Strangely, I just feel like me, perhaps a little emptier and quieter.

But maybe that’s the process of stripping away some of the sludge before being refilled.

Filled by my alphas, and my career, and all the new opportunities about to come my way.

Guards lock Ray into handcuffs, but before they can lead him away, he turns toward me.

And smirks.

Fucking bastard! What’s he got to smile about? My blood runs cold.

“You okay?” Rickon whispers.

I shake my head. “No. I think I need fresh air.”

He bundles me into his embrace and rushes me out to the corridor. Tears burn behind my eyes, but I sniff them back. I’ll save them for later, not here where I’m exposed.

“Where’s Zack?” I ask, reaching out blindly. My alpha catches me around the waist, his warm chest thawing my back.

“There’s a lot of press waiting outside,” Callisto says after we’ve huddled for a few minutes. “I’ll make a brief statement, and then we’ll get you home, okay?”

I nod, dabbing my fingers at my eyes in case my makeup ran. Rickon reassures me I look fine, and I take his and Zack’s hands in mine. I can’t wait to get my alphas home and roll myself in their scents, and feel their solid bodies pressed to mine. To close this wretched chapter of my story.

Cameras click and lights flash as we exit the courthouse, but this time, the sounds are oddly soothing. It reminds me that this is reality, and the cameras are here to record everything. I won’t wake up from a dream only to discover Ray’s walked free.

One of the flashing lights changes to amber, the color out of place among the white spots.

My phone vibrates in my purse and I reach in to grab it while Callisto reveals the verdict to the crowd and says we’re tired but pleased justice has been upheld.

His words float distantly in my brain as a powerful, foreign sensation rockets through my body, as if I’m howling inside. Shock freezes me in place.

That one weird strobing light changes from orange to red and the howl erupts—from Zack’s mouth.

I turn, ready to lunge for my alpha, hampered by the purse and phone in my hands, but something shatters at my feet, sucking the air pressure from my ears with a dizzying gulp.

A cloud explodes around us, thick with alpha musk.

The terrifying, choking smoke, like someone put fifty feral alphas in a car together, clogs my nose.

Shapes beside me drop to the ground as a burning scent strips away my sanity, locking up my joints with an animalistic alpha command.

But not Zack.

With a furious scream, he launches into the crowd, his leg scissoring out in a high kick. Trapped by an alpha scent so strong I can’t disobey it, I stand frozen in place as a line of police rush toward the outraged alpha. Why are there so many of them?

A dream after all? A nightmare?

Now I can’t tell if my paralysis comes from this scent in my nose or the uncontainable fury blazing through my alpha’s bond. The kind of fury that kills mindlessly.

A body goes flying and then another, Zack a whirlwind of destruction as he deals with the threat to his omega.

I jerk forward, vomiting up the foreign alpha smog.

A scream follows the bile as the officers fling Zack face down on the ground, pinning his arms and legs.

Beside me, Callisto, Rickon, and the OCB agents quiver, fighting the invisible force.

Like someone’s condensed an alpha’s scent and weaponized it.

Callisto sheds the paralysis first with a strangled growl. “Fuck! Not like this—” He throws a panicked look my way, the expression on his face so tortured I fall to my knees. He spins and races into the crowd, shouting at the police.

On my knees, I watch, shivering and silently screaming as they shove Callisto away roughly and shackle Zack’s hands. They drag my big alpha toward a wagon.

No, he can’t go back into a cell. He can’t. “You can’t take him!” I scream, the words tearing my throat. “You can’t!”

Zack hears me and jerks against his captors. His shout carries across the carnage. “Ohm! Red!” His pure rage explodes through my head and chest, so potent they fill my mouth. I choke and arch, screaming again.

I scrabble against the ground, trying to find leverage to get to my feet. My dropped phone skims across the ground into my line of sight. The lock screen blinks with a message:

Did you think that was the end, Lev? If I go down, I’m taking you all with me.

I look up, blinking through enraged tears as the red and blue lights swirl down the street and around the corner.

My alpha’s gone.

~ Intermission ~