Page 28 of Fierce Claim

They’re just some weapons. Even as a teen, Mathew was smart enough to make sure that they couldn’t be traced back to anyone and that they were clean before he stored them. There’s nothing dangerous about them.

It’s not like Mathew cut off their fingers to use as ornaments in snow globes or something. Or skinned them to turn them into human book covers. He didn’t do anything weird like that.

He just... Those people tried to kill him, he killed them instead. I can see why a teenager would think it’s cool to keep the weapons that were used in the attempt.

And it’s not like I’ve not taken weapons from our attackers before. It’s how I got my previous favourite knife, before I lost it in the struggle with one of Derrick’s men. It’s now probably a blob of metal in a burned-out skeleton of a house. That’s just how things are sometimes. It’s not like we can always be picky about what we use...

Caleb slides his arm around my waist and picks me up, putting me in his lap as he takes my place on the chair. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “I’m fine. I don’t think Jorge is having the best couple of days, though.” I glance at the walk-in dressing room where Mathew and Riley are chatting as they’re carefully boxing up the weapons.

Caleb lets out a soft laugh as he nuzzles my hair. “Yeah. I agree. I think his world just went through some significant changes and they might not all have been so good.” He pulls me against him more, kissing my neck. “Maybe you should go and see if you can cheer him up. I’m sure he’d love that.”

“He needs to talk to Mathew more, though.” I want to find Jorge, but I also know I’m not the one he needs right now.

“Two things can be done at the same time, and their chat might go over better if you’re there with them.”

“Why? Because they’ll just both get horny and forget everything else?” I eye Caleb, not sure what he’s up to.

“No, because they have a habit of fighting instead of talking things through and having you with them might actually allow them to have a proper conversation.”

Ah. Okay. That makes sense too. I put the knife on the table next to us and slide off his lap. “Will you be fine up here?”

He bursts out laughing as he pulls me in for a kiss. “I’ll be fine. Riley and I will keep clearing the rest of the room. You go hug your other Alpha.” He winks suggestively.

“Riiiiight. ‘Hugging’.” I shake my head, not able to suppress my smile. Then I look into the walk-in dressing room but Mathew and Riley are sitting next to the open box, deep in conversation about some type of gun mechanism, not something I’m interested in. I’ll leave them to their chat.

I make my way down the stairs, following Jorge’s pheromones out of the house, until I spot him sitting at the edge of the training grounds, looking up at the sky.

“Hey.” I plop down next to him in the grass. “Anything interesting up there?”

“Not much.” He chuckles and pulls me into his lap, wrapping his body and his pheromones around me. “Anything interesting happening inside?”

With how he reacted when he found out about the weapons, I probably shouldn’t brag about my new knife, so I go with something else instead. “Mathew and I found a few papers from people who researched Alpha frenzy and ways it can be interrupted without needing their Omega’s pheromones.”

“Anything good?”

“No.” I let out a long breath, not happy with that result myself either. “At least, not that we’ve found yet. Most of them didn’t have hopeful results... But we’ve only just started, I’m sure there’s more out there.”

“If his pheromones never stabilise, what the hell are we supposed to do?” Jorge’s voice is low as he leans his head on my shoulder. “You can’t always be there to protect us. You can’t be with him every second of every day, no matter how hard we try, it’s simply not possible.”

“I know. And we’ll figure it out. We’ll have to figure something out. Mathew can’t be the only person who deals with low pheromones, he can’t even be the only Omega who has to deal with them. So, there has to be something we can do.” I look up as Mathew walks in our direction, the box with weapons in his arms.

Instead of going to the training building, he comes over to us and sits down, the weapons in the box clanking together as he puts it next to him. He takes a deep breath as he looks at his hands. “I didn’t realise it would be a big deal to have the weapons. I’d basically forgotten they were there.”

“Why did you do it?” Jorge’s voice is low, his head still on my shoulder, not looking in Mathew’s direction.

“I was a dumb teenager who thought it was cool. I felt like some action hero every time I managed to outsmart one of them. Then I did it for a while to remember that no matter how hard they try, I’m still alive. And when I outgrew that, I kind of forgot about them until today.”

Jorge’s pheromones fill with pain and sadness and he reaches out, grabbing Mathew’s arm and he pulls him against us. “Sometimes I forget you were still a fucking kid when you took over the organisation. You might not have been living the life of a kid for years at that point, but you were still one.” He lets out a long breath. “Promise me one thing.”

“Yeah?” Mathew’s pheromones are unsure.

“Don’t fucking do it again.”

“Taking the weapons or storing them?”

“Squirrelling them away like they’re some serial killer’s trophies.” Jorge growls.

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