Della
Della’s thoughts swirled so fast and furious she wondered if her concussion had resurfaced again.
Rue and Zorah had come looking for her.Her. The poignancy socked her right in the guts. Days had passed with no sign of the Morris Hill Alphas, but these two small Omegas braved the risk, putting themselves in more danger than they even knew, forher. How had they gotten away from the settlement without anyone noticing? How had they spirited horses out from under Sloan’s nose? Cal said they were a half day’s ride from Morris Hill. Surely the girls hadn’t walked the whole way here. And, for all that was holy, how had they avoided being nabbed by those two disgusting deplorables skulking around the forest?
Their pungent Alpha stink seared her ever-more-sensitive nose with every breath. They reeked of filth, evil, and lust—a bad,badcombination. Shaking with fury, Della tipped forward and rested her nose in Cal’s back, sucking in deep inhales of his soothing scent to displace their rankness from her nostrils.
Slowly, the tense line of Cal’s shoulders softened, and Della ventured a small tug on his shirt.
“Who were they?” she whispered. “Where did they come from?”
Cal spun around, and before she could speak again, he’d gathered her up and carried her into the black recesses of the cave. His eyes blazed out from dusky sockets, bearing down on her with a fierceness that sent her pulse into palpitations.
“I think they’re gone,” he said, voice still pitched low, “but we should be careful. There may be more.”
She fisted his shirtfront with both hands, yanking him toward her. His stubborn chin, with the impossibly handsome cleft, harshened in the shadows, taking on a maniacal contour. “Wehaveto warn the settlement. If we leave now—”
“No.”
The word slammed into her like she’d run face-first into an invisible door. “But—”
He gave one tight head shake. “I said no, Della. We’re staying here tonight, and then in the morning, we’re going east. We’ll start over, you and me.”
A shriek leaped up her throat, but she gulped it down, struggling to keep her voice under control. “What? No! We have to warn them—”
“No, we don’t.” His tone was hard and unyielding, unlike any she’d yet heard from him. Her mouth fell open, confusion and disbelief dancing a tango in her head. “Going back there is walking headfirst into a trap. I won’t put you in danger, so don’t ask me to.”
Heat flamed up her neck, losing her battle to keep her voice down. “So, you’re going to let Morris Hill burn? Let those girls be taken captive? They came looking for me.” She slapped a palm against her chest. “And now you’re asking me to abandon them to those monsters without a fight? What about the other Omegas? And all the children?” Fury propelled her forward, and she pushed at his immoveable chest.
“Keep your voicedown.” Cal crowded her against the wall, flashing his hand up to circle her neck as he bore down on her like a man possessed. “I amnotrisking you,” he snarled a low promise. “Not for them, not foranything.”
“But... but...” Della worked to still her flailing chest, hysteria looming a few scant breaths away. “If we warned them...”
“They will take you.” His beautiful lips curled around the harshly whispered words like they were an insult to him. “If we go back to ‘warn’ them, they willtake you from me!” The force of his hushed vitriol hit her like a slap to the face, and Della recoiled, stunned by the unexpected forcefulness from laid-back Cal.
The stone wall dug into her back, and the Alpha’s stony intransigence imprisoned her front. His broad torso heaved tortured breaths, and Della’s chest hurt as all the nightmare images crashed through her mind in a chilling sequence. Morris Hill on fire, the Alphas dead, the Omegas captured, the children... slaughtered? Abandoned? Her home and everyone she cared about gone.
No... not again.
She couldn’t go through that again.
Desperation. Pure, undiluted desperation made the decision. It placed her hand on top of his and squeezed his fingers tighter around her throat. “Then claim me.” Her words were hoarse, but their meaning plain. “Do it,” she commanded, louder and with more resolve. “They can’t separate us if we’re bonded.” Her voice cracked on the last word as the reality exploded in full focus. Claimed. Bonded. Irrevocably tied to him.
“You’d do that?” His expression turned wary, thumb caressing the base of her neck. “You’d submit to me? Now?”
White noise crashed in her ears. Della had known a great many Alphas in the AfterEnd. Some she’d run from, hid from, and protected others from. Others she’d bargained with, worked beside, argued with, and lived among. Yet none had ever made her feel a fraction of the things she’d felt for Cal in the last few short days. Not even Hunter, her onetime best friend, ever came close to inspiring her to make an offer such as the one she willingly, impulsively threw in front of him.
Yes, he’d stolen her away from her home, but he’d been patient, caring, and attentive. He was clever, humble, and honest. The night prior, drunk on sex hormones, she’d come perilously close to begging him to claim her without anything near as serious at stake. So, no, she wasn’t scared of being claimed by Cal.
She was afraid she was falling in love with him.
Her stomach wrung itself to the point of pain. Could she do this? Could she really, truly break the vow she’d made to herself a century before?
The faces of the Morris Hill residents—the Omegas and the pups and, yes, even the aggravating Alphas—paraded through her mind. Not as they were now, living and whole, but as ghosts in her memories, gathered with the ranks of all the others who’d died while Adeline Cabrese improbably lived on.
She couldn’t stop the events of TheEnd, couldn’t mitigate the aftermath, but this time shehadsomething that she could do to prevent a catastrophe from befalling her community of twenty years. If the horror those reprobates discussed came to pass, how would she ever forgive herself?
Tilting her chin up, she linked eyes with Cal. “If you promise we’ll go and warn the settlement, then yes. Do this thing, and I’ll be yours forever. If that’s what you want.”