“Riley girl,” they said.
Interlopers that slipped in via the bond we still shared or some other process I didn’t fucking understand, they forced me to experience the indignity of their touch, and worse, each time a hand landed on my body, it uncurled. Like the rush of potent painkillers, the warmth that exuded from them washed through my body, unlocking muscles, smoothing ligaments, until finally, I went limp on the bed. For a second, all I could do was pant and experience that most seductive of pleasures—the loss of pain. They weren’t really here, each one of the Vanguards, but it felt like they were, just as it had when Haze and Colt entered my dreams.
“So fucking stubborn,” Colt said with a shake of his head.
“Well, she was hardly gonna douche with cold cum, was she?” Haze snapped. “You should’ve stayed, Fen, or let one of us.”
“Her wolf would have ripped me apart if I did,” he replied.
“So?” Blake’s question was blunt and to the point.
“Next time then,” Ryan said, then faced me. “This can’t go on, Riley. We can’t let you keep hurting like this.”
“She won’t,” Fen said in a definite tone, staring down at me. “Not after tomorrow.”
I should’ve interrogated that, but I was beaten, by pain, by the changes they’d wrought, by finding my beast. Whatever it was, it pulled me away from consciousness, a wave of pure exhaustion rising up and then swallowing me down.
“Riley!”someone shouted the moment I walked into the lab.
Dear freaking god, why was everyone so damn chipper when I felt like death? I turned around slowly, my body feeling like lead, my joints, my muscles, everything aching, but here I was, at work, reporting for fucking duty.
Windsor hustled over with a pretty woman in tow, her and a hulking beta by her side. My eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of them. The exaggerated curves of her figure made clear what she was, the challenges of being an omega something I was now becoming a whole lot more sympathetic too.
For one, it was impossible to find good clothes. I’d picked up some more after work yesterday, but everything was either too big around the waist or too small around the arse and thighs. This omega, she had to have been shopping at some special boutique that I needed to find the name of, because she looked perfectly put together.
“I was just telling our new volunteers about our star researcher,” Windsor said in a warm tone. “Riley is currently working with another pack dealing with an unusual mating situation. I think she’ll be the perfect person to look into your case.”
The omega smiled politely, then regarded me steadily in a way that had my own wolf shifting restively. Extended eye contact, so prized in Western society, was often seen as a sign of aggression in every other culture and species, and I wasn’t sure if that was what was happening here. I returned her smile and her gaze, waiting to get the details on what was expected of me.
“This is Janine Evans,” Windsor said, the penny fucking dropping, and so did my stomach, it suddenly feeling like I was in a lift during freefall. “And this is her mate, Blue Walker.”
I moved through the requisite pleasantries, offering my hand, telling them it was nice to meet them, all the while hearing a high-pitched whine inside my head. Windsor kept assuring them I’d be the person best placed to help them, and for now, I was grateful that he was doing the talking because I had literally no idea what my role was here. Whatever I had become now, it looked beyond what was said, to what I could see, because being a wolf was excellent for sniffing out evidence.
The two of them were mated, I knew that. It took me a few seconds to work out why. He kept his hands on her at all times, seeming to be unable to stop from touching her, and Janine? She leaned into each caress with a subtle shift of her body weight. Not visibly so, not unless you were really looking, but it was there. He also reeked of her and vice versa, until it was difficult to get the individual scent of either of them. They’d become…meshed somehow, but it was more than that. Perhaps deliberately, her hands went up to the neckline of her pretty silky blouse, running a finger along the collar in a way that was pure alpha bait.
If you weren’t already wearing someone’s marks.
She nodded and smiled along to everything Windsor had to say, but her fingers were all I could focus on. A lurid red mark, not too new either, was there on the creamy skin of her neck, and when my eyes darted to Blue? He was a big guy, looked a lot like my dad, down to the reddish hair that had earned him his nickname. He wasn’t paying too much attention to the conversation, instead watching me. When he caught my eyes, his hand went to the collar of his plaid flannel shirt, scratching his neck with exaggerated care so I saw the bite there.
“All right, I’ll leave you in Riley’s capable hands. Thanks so much for coming in, Ms Evans.”
“Let’s go through to my office, shall we?” I suggested. “Can I get you tea or coffee?”
I kept up the pretence right up until I had my door unlocked and I’d ushered them in, shutting the door behind us.
“Fen sent you,” I said flatly, gesturing for them to take a seat, then taking my own behind my desk. I stared blatantly now at the both of them.
“Fen recommended you,” Janine corrected. “You’ve heard of us?”
“I’ve heard of you. Eloise said you were the boys’ mate.”
I watched her face fall at that, her fingers going to her brow and rubbing the small line that formed. Blue was at her side in an instant, picking her up in a way that was all too familiar and impossible to fake.
Well done, Fen, I thought, trying to hold onto my anger, but I felt it fraying between my fingers.
Blue ended up hauling her up into his lap, the much smaller omega fitting in the crook of his arms in a way that seemed perfect for the two of them. They slotted together like jigsaw puzzle pieces, making it hard to see where one started and the other ended. My brain rebelled at the idea, but my gut told me something loud and clear.
Together, they were complete.