Page 37 of Dance Omega Dance

Ready to bring her home.

Anders

"Got her!" Blake’s voice broke through the silence, triumph shattered with the sound of it.

"Where?" I stopped mid-step. Then ran faster than I’d ever run, because I knew Summer was at the end.

"At the coffee shop," Blake said.

I heard the pride in his voice.

But this was the closest we’d ever come to failure, and this time, we’d nearly lost everything.

"This way," Blake said, when I arrived. He was filled with an urgency, dropping the phone from his ear, and turning the motion into another step. And another.

When I saw her again, she was leaving the coffee shop, saying goodbye to her friend.

“Take care of her!” Maddie warned, I nodded, then she tapped my arm and walked away.

Summer sat down on the curb, knees drawn up to her chest, loose shirt pulled tight around her arms. It didn’t look like armor. It didn’t look like enough.

I thought she would run when she saw us, but there was a peacefulness in her eyes, a resolution I wasn’t ready to believe.

"Summer," I said, crouching in front of her. "We didn’t mean—"

The edge of her mouth caught the edge of a smile, just enough to stop me from saying the words we shouldn’t have to.

"You can run, princess," Zach said, arriving breathless and barely able to hold himself still. "But we’ll always find you."

Her hand stayed on her knee, and she didn’t reach for us, but she didn’t pull away either.

Blake towered above us all, but she was the only one who wasn’t looking up at him. She didn’t need to. He wasn’t as big as his expectations anymore. He was exactly her size, and he knew it.

"We’re with you," he said, and there was no question in it. No force. Just the truth.

She sighed, and it held the world inside it. It held more than that.

"We’re with you," I said, the echo only reinforcing what it needed to. "Always."

And this time, we didn’t let her slip away.

“Always and forever,” Zach said.

Chapter Sixteen

The distress pheromones hit me like a wall as they spoke to me, so thick I could almost taste the acrid tang of fear on my tongue. It coated the back of my throat, tightening around my chest until I sat frozen, my body trembling with the force of emotions I'd tried so hard to outrun.

My eyes flicked around the open space, taking in the furrow between Blake's brows. They halted mid-motion as I stood up, heads swiveling to face me. For a long, drawn-out moment, no one moved, the air seeming to vibrate with relief and apprehension.

Blake recovered first. He took a measured step toward me, then another, approaching with the caution one might use with a skittish, wounded animal. In some ways, I suppose that's what I was, an omega broken by a world intent on caging me. His hand lifted, hovering a hairsbreadth from my shoulder, not quite touching. The heat of his palm seeped through my thin shirt, and I fought the urge to lean into that radiating warmth.

"We thought something happened to you," he said, his usual smooth voice roughened with an emotion I couldn't name. Concern, perhaps, fear even? Genuine fear, not just the instinctive need to shelter and shield that all alphas felt toward omegas. This was deeper.

A shudder rippled through me, tears stinging my eyes and blurring my view of his chiseled face. I blinked hard, a few drops escaping to trail down my cold cheeks. My breath hitched on ashallow, suppressed sob, the tight bands constricting my lungs, unraveling thread by thread.

I'd spent so long running, hiding, keeping myself closed off from any connections that could be exploited and used against me. But seeing them like this, scenting the edges of anguish beneath the surface of their strength, I realized I couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't keep them at arm's length, couldn't keep fleeing from the tentative trust and unspoken feelings growing between us with each passing day.

Blake's resolve crumbled as my first tear coated my lips, finally closing the distance, curving his arm around my shoulder and drawing me in until my face pressed into the solid wall of his chest. The crisp scent of him, the warm scent of his skin beneath the cotton, filled my nostrils, chasing away the lingering fear. His arms folded around me, engulfing me in safety and comfort, even as I shook with the force of my quiet cries.

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