Cal
Cal halted, stilling his feet and his breaths so as not to disturb the sticky air. A bead of sweat dripped from the tip of his nose, the only movement on his body and one he did not endeavor to wipe away. Stock-still, his focus narrowed, and he strained his ears, searching for any indication of intruders in the area he’d staked out for this impromptu adventure.
Earlier, after leading Della outside the cave to relieve herself, he’d caught the faint whiff of Alphas on the breeze. Too distant to estimate their exact number, the danger blared in his ears nonetheless. After shuffling her safely back inside and shoving some food in her hands, he’d hid himself and waited to see if the scent heralded an approaching search party. It did not, and even more importantly, Della gave no sign she’d scented them, either.
But his high-alert state never faltered. While Della snoozed, he’d patrolled the area, gathered firewood, set some snares, shook out their bedding, took stock of food supplies, and on and on. Well aware of the risk of disclosing their location, he’d moved with stealth and stayed downwind while completing his chores. Blessedly, the woods remained pristine and untainted by any human presence but his own.
Satisfied nothing stirred in the woods, he continued his trek through the trees, retracing his steps back to the hot springs. The blazing mid-summer temperature slowed his movements and added a sluggishness to his fatigue, putting him further on edge. Sweat glossed his brow and dampened his back, reminding him yet again of the risk of polluting the air with evidence of his presence. The strain of the last day had added an acrid, stress-filled reek to his usual scent and that concerned him even more. He hated to stray so far from the sleeping Omega, but the need for a bath was imminent.
A sulfurous tang on the breeze grew potent as he neared his destination. At the hot springs, thick vapor blanketed the water’s surface like the sinister steam over a witch’s poisonous cauldron. Hardly inviting in this kind of heat. Shrugging out of his sticky and blood-crusted clothes, Cal resigned himself to the particular torture of taking a hot bath while baking in the hot sun. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Growing up, his Alpha father refused to tolerate neglect in matters of hygiene and cleanliness. One of his many, many lectures having to do with the good of their small Pack, his frequent rants about other Alphas’ animalistic tendencies instilled some very particular lessons in Cal’s young life. Lessons he’d fought to follow when the Pack’s leadership fell to him.
Fought, and ultimately failed.
He paused again, utilizing all of his Alpha senses to probe the environment one more time before lowering his body into the scalding brew. He would make this brief. Briskly, he submerged his head and began scrubbing filth from his skin. It pained him to rinse the traces of Della’s slick off his body, but safety necessitated it and, all things considered, he’d prefer to be clean when he finally claimed his Omega.
His Omega. Remembrance of what passed between them that morning renewed his barely idle lust. Nothing in his entire life had prepared him for the onslaught of Della’s frantic desire. The serious, cold woman unraveled, her body ripened and her pussy swelled as her sapphire eyes overflowed with hunger. Hunger for his body. Hunger for his scent. Hunger forhim.
It was heady, heady stuff.
Yet nothing compared to her response to his growl. He’d been with women, even a few Omegas as a much younger man, and none had ever climaxed with the merest of rumbles from his chest. He honestly wasn’t sure which of them had been more surprised at this discovery. And still, Della denied the most obvious of conclusions: her status as a late-blooming, latent Omega. The confirmation of her nature trumpeted deep in his soul. He’d never heard of such a thing, but that didn’t matter. He only had to make her see it for herself.
And soon, so they could move on from this area and the threat of detection. The cave suited as an emergency hiding spot. Thank happenstance, he’d discovered it when he did, but the risk of lingering this close to the Morris Hill Pack curdled his guts. Reaching for a handful of dirt, he scoured dried flecks of Silas’s blood from his hands, and the bite of anger and injustice again chewed at him.
Could he have handled things differently with Silas? Should he have gone along with the half-assed patrol and simply taken it up with Hunter and Colt upon his return? His entire motivation, indeed his entire ethos, organized around ensuring the safety of the settlement and Della within it. But, in his efforts to protect her, he’d dragged her away from that safety and exposed her to the dangers of a wild, Pack-less existence. His fists curled so tight that the shallow cuts that decorated his knuckles cracked open.
He stared at the small stripes of fresh, red blood, a bitter reminder of his inescapable limitations. As long as there was breath in his body, he would protect Della, but the fact remained, a lone Alpha could only do so much. Without a Pack or even just Simon and Matteo to watch his back, he was vulnerable. And that made Della vulnerable, too. Cal plunged his hands back into the water and savored the sting of the minerals against the tiny wounds. Returning to Morris Hill now was beyond impossible. The best he could do would be to take her east and try to find another established, peaceful place where they could live safely.
To do that, she needed to heal from the concussion, accept her Omega nature, and bond with him. One thing was certain: they were not leaving that cave until she’d done all three. After witnessing her responsiveness on the dusty cave floor, he had a pretty good idea of how to make it happen.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Della
Prying her crusty eyes open, Della woke as waning daylight trickled through the cave opening. A fucking cave, for God’s sake. Dragged off by an actual, honest-to-Christ caveman.
Fuck.Fuck!
“Damsel in fucking distress,” she muttered, rolling to her back. Her eyes roved over the small stalactitespointing down at her like hundreds of accusing fingers. “Your move,”they seemed to say as the shadows deepened with every passing minute, the night emerging as yet another jailer.
If the sun was setting, that meant she’d been gone almost a full day. Had Hunter, Colt, or any of the others noticed she’d vanished in the middle of the night? The idea of a rescue was itself galling, an affront to her independent sensibilities, but at the moment, it was all she had. Back in the barn, before the concussion... Colt had been there... Sloan... and Lars, too. Alphas could be dense, but those three weren’t total idiots. What would they do? Send out a search party? Talk to Hunter?
The memory of her last conversation with Hunter stung like the sharp flick to an earlobe. In compliance with some biological imperative to conform to this fucked up new world order, theoneperson she’d been somewhat close with had cast her aside. Well, okay, then. What was the loss of one more friend when she’d lost dozens?
His withdrawal of friendship was a good reminder. For the twenty years she’d lived in Morris Hill, she’d largely kept to herself. Sparing the others her incomprehensible status as neither an Alpha nor Omega nor Beta, she’d sat back as they lived out their best Alpha-Omega lives. Mating, bonding, going through Heats, cranking out the pups without serious Della around to cast judgment on the sexist gender norms Alphas and Omegas gravitated toward. Like with the Omega bunkhouse proposal, she checked in with the Omegas, watched out for them, and advocated for them, yet considered none her friends.
She told herself it was easier for everyone this way, but there were darker, more sinister reasons for her hiding-in-plain-sight isolationism: it kept her safe in a different way. Safe from the intimacy of relationships and friendships, safe from the connections that had torn her apart.
Connections, both personal and political, wove the fabric of her former life. All the colors and contrasts melded together into something exquisite, beautiful, and secure. Something she could wrap around herself and point to as evidence of “Yes, I belong here. These are my people, my communities, my purpose, my home.” Except TheEnd came and ripped those connections, that fabric, in two. Threads unraveled, scattered to the wind, or burned to a char as if they never existed, and Adeline Cabrese withstood every merciless tear.
Only to end up here, in the middle of who-knew-where, with an Alpha she had no reason to trust, while her hormones went absolutely berserk. No, she was quite alone in this. The stalactiteswere right: she’d have to save herself.
Striving for calm, Della took a long, slow inhale. Unexpected, but enticing, food smells greeted her. Onions, potatoes, and something meaty nudged her appetite, and her stomach answered with a resounding growl. Fully awake, she slowly sat up and looked around, grateful the movement failed to trigger any nausea and that, for the moment, she was alone.
On the other side of the cave, steam rose from the bubbling pot, and she indulged in another deep breath. When was the last time she’d eaten a proper meal? Even more shocking, when was the last time she’dsmelleddinner cooking so intensely? Besides the stew, more smells wafted into her awareness: the clean damp stone walls, the grassy, woodsy moss that blanketed the rocks near the entrance, and the—
Knife. Not a smell but asight.Propped on the stone-lined edge of the firepit, the blade winked in invitation. Scrabbling to her feet, Della hurried across the floor, although giddy at this change in her luck. True, Cal had exhibited no violent tendencies in their short acquaintance, but Alphas were famously impulsive and excitable. She’d seen enough turn on a dime to be wary of this one, no matter how courtly his manners. A weapon offered a modicum of protection, some semblance of control in this thoroughly out-of-fucking-control scenario. Her chance of physically overpowering an Alpha bordered on absurd, but she had totry.