Page 6 of Reckless Consequences

A rattling cough tears through Finn’s chest, his body convulsing with the effort before settling back into unnatural stillness. Each labored breath feels like a countdown timer we’re powerless to reset.

Ryker nods once, jaw clenched so tight I can hear his teeth grinding—the sound of a dam about to break. He’s been stationed at the window for the past hour, rifle across his lap, watching the perimeter with predatory intensity. But even his legendary control is slipping—his scent carrying notes of cedar and steel overlaid with something sharp and desperate. The outline of his erection strains visibly against his pants, a testament to how Theo’s pheromones are dismantling us molecule by molecule.

I grab my discarded jacket, deliberately draping it over the back of Finn’s makeshift bed. The action isn’t conscious—pure alpha instinct driving me to saturate his space with my scent, to mark him as protected, as mine. Ryker’s eyes narrow at the gesture, his nostrils flaring as he detects my territorial claim.

“Anything on the monitors?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Nothing,” he responds, the single word clipped short, bitten off. “Quinn’s last update put them at thirty miles out. Two hours if they’re actively trying to avoid Sterling’s men.”

Two hours.

Finn might not have two hours.

The thought slithers through my mind, coiling like a venomous snake around my brainstem. I force it away, channeling the chaos building in my blood into productive movement—checking medical supplies, securing the perimeter, anything to keep my hands busy and away from my dick, which hasn’t softened in the last three hours.

I make another circuit of the cabin, my path a precise pattern that any alpha would recognize—establishing boundaries, claiming territory. My hands brush doorframes, windowsills, the back of chairs—leaving invisible scent markers from the glands at my wrists. I pause at each potential entry point, shoulders broadening instinctively as I spread my scent, creating a pheromone warning system that screams mine, protected, pack to any intruder.

When I return from another perimeter check, the atmosphere in the cabin has somehow grown even heavier—a pressure system about to birth a hurricane. Theo stands in the makeshift medical corner, fingers trembling as he digs through his emergency kit. His movements are jerky, uncoordinated—nothing like his usual fluid grace. His skin gleams with a thin sheen of sweat, the back of his shirt clinging to the dip of his spine like a second skin. Between his thighs, a telling dampness darkens his pants—his body producing slick in preparation for what’s coming, the scent of it making my mouth flood with saliva.

“Found it,” he announces, holding up a small white pill like it’s salvation incarnate.

Ryker’s head snaps up, nostrils flaring. “Don’t.”

“One left,” Theo continues as if Ryker hasn’t spoken, as if he doesn’t feel the alpha command filling the space between them. “Should buy us three more hours.”

“Your body can’t take any more suppressants,” Ryker growls, stepping away from the window to stride across the room. The movement reminds me of a predator—all coiled strength and lethal intention. “You’ve been overmedicating for weeks.”

As Ryker moves, he crosses into the space I’ve been marking—the area around Finn’s bed that my alpha instincts have designated as my territory. The invasion sends a wave of primal aggression coursing through my system, my spine straightening as I unconsciously broaden my stance, exposing the scent glands along my neck in a challenge display that’s older than civilization.

“My body, my choice.” Theo’s voice carries that dangerous edge—the one that reminds us all that our artistic omega is anything but fragile. In this moment, he’s all steel and spine, the kind of omega that medieval alphas probably wrote terrified warnings about. “We wait for them.”

They face off like opposing storms, alpha command colliding with omega defiance until the air between them practically sizzles against my skin. My feet move without permission, dragging me into their magnetic field where common sense has no fucking business existing. Logic screams to stay clear, but my body has other ideas—cock hardening painfully, pulse hammering in my temples, in my throat, in the base of my spine where the beast lives. Every alpha instinct I own howls for me to either challenge Ryker or submit, to claim Theo or protect him. There’s no middle ground in this chemical warfare they’re waging, just the savage pull of biology that makes thinking a luxury I can’t afford.

My control slips—just for a second—but it’s enough. A growl tears from my throat, primal and challenging, my body vibrating with the need to assert dominance. Ryker’s head snaps toward me, his alpha presence expanding to fill the room like a physical force. For a split second, we’re not packmates but rivals, two alphas responding to evolutionary programming older than civilization itself. My hand automatically moves to the nearest surface—the wall beside me—dragging my wrist along it in a blatant scent-marking gesture that screams challenge.

Finn’s monitor beeps—a shrill warning cutting through the tension. The sound yanks me back from the edge, pulling me away from the chaos threatening to consume me. I shake my head, forcing the feral urge back into its cage.

“Theo—” Ryker starts, but our omega cuts him off.

“Cayenne is bringing Finn’s cure,” Theo says, each word precise and carefully controlled, though I can see the effort it takes—the fine tremor in his hands, the sweat beading along his hairline. “If I go into full heat now, we lose focus. Lose efficiency. Risk everything.”

I watch Ryker’s control slip further—the muscle in his jaw jumping like it’s trying to escape his face, his pupils dilating until only a thin ring of gray remains. A drop of sweat traces the column of his throat, disappearing beneath his collar, and I find myself tracking it with predatory focus. “And if your heart stops because you’ve pushed your system past breaking point? What then?”

Theo swallows the pill before either of us can stop him, chin lifting in defiance. “Then you restart it.”

Something dangerous flashes across Ryker’s face—something ancient and alpha that makes my own instincts rise in response. For a moment, I think he might actually grab Theo, force him to expel the suppressant somehow. Instead, he turns and slams his fist into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster, shards of drywall dusting the floor like snow.

“Reckless,” he spits out. “All of you. Fucking reckless.”

I can’t help the laugh that escapes me—rough and slightly unhinged, the sound of someone balancing on the knife-edge of sanity. “Says the alpha who jumped out of a plane without checking his parachute.”

“That was calculated risk,” Ryker snaps.

“So is this,” Theo counters, but his voice wavers. He sways slightly, and I move without thinking, closing the distance in seconds, catching him before his knees buckle.

Fucking foolish omega.

His skin burns against mine, fever-hot and damp with sweat that tastes like sin when I can’t stop myself from licking a stripe up his neck. Up close, his scent is overwhelming—dark vanilla and midnight jasmine intensified to intoxication despite the suppressant. My body responds like it’s been electrocuted. My cock jerks hard enough to hurt, pre-come dampening my boxers as my knot begins to swell at the base—an omega in heat and I have zero hope of suppressing what happens next.

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