Page 16 of Crave

I shifted a little closer, pressing the side of my body against hers to share my warmth, and maybe also because I just wanted to touch her. “It's coded into our DNA. Alphas for sure, but Betas too. It's our instinct to take care of Omegas when they make that sound.”

Susannah chuckled softly. “You aren’t kidding. I almost tore his pants off and sucked his dick just so he wouldn’t be in pain, but I knew that would have to wait. I doused him in one of my mother’s perfumes, packed two bags, and we ran away that night. I was still in your hoodie. Because if Wilkie would break him as a Beta? He woulddestroyhim as an Omega, and there would be no way Quinn’s parents would let us bond with you.”

All this fucking time, I thought she’d rejected us. That she’d run away because we’d pressed her too fast, or hadn’t shown her that Quinn mattered to us too. She should have run to us; instead, she ran out into a world that was filled with evil and danger.

“We would have helped you.” It was a naive thing to say, and I thought I was past that. But the boy who’d given his heart to this girl was still inside me.

She laid her head on the crook of my arm, snuggling close. It was like the last ten years melted away in that moment, and reality was pushed further into the darkness. “I know you would have. But you were kids too. You weren’t Legion soldiers yet. You weren’t ass-kicking Merrick and Murphy, the dynamic duo. We were all just kids with big dreams and no good sense.”

“So you ran.”

“Yeah. To California. Best week of my life holed up in San Francisco, in a dingy pay-by-the-hour hotel with roaches, dipping our toes in the ocean, eating cheap food from back-alley dives. We had no plan, but I would have done anything to save him.” She smiled, but it melted away slowly, painfully. “And then we were dragged back. You know the rest.”

Quinn’s parents had made him bond with Wilkie immediately, Susannah had confessed her undying love for the older Alpha, and Murphy and I nursed broken hearts for years after. All because Quinn’s parents were scheming assholes and biology had decided to kick Quinn while he was down.

So many mistakes and misunderstandings. So much time lost.

“I still don’t understand how Quinn still smells like a Beta.”

Susannah looked away from me, staring up at the stars once more. “We had help. An unlikely friend. But I can’t tell you more than that.”

I gritted my back teeth, breathing deeply to push down the hurt that she was still keeping secrets. Susannah didn’t owe me a damn thing. Not her secrets, not a new chance, nothing. It was my job to prove to her that we were worthy of both her and Quinn’s love. That we were the Alphas who would protect her from the people that would try and tear her down.

I didn’t say anything for a long time, just wrapping my arms around her and breathing her in. Finally, as the sun started to turn the horizon purple, and my eyes were heavy with sleep, I askedthequestion. “What will you do now? Now that you’ve left Wilkie behind for good and no one’s going to make either of you go back.” I squeezed her tighter, so she knew that I would personally harm anyone who tried to force her or Quinn to do a single thing.

“Tanner suggested that Quinn should go off his Omega suppressants. He said it wasn’t healthy to deny biology for so long. Plus, they prevent him from shifting.” A soft smile curled her lips, and I felt jealousy that the vampire could elicit that response from the woman who was in my very soul. “He said he would personally ensure that there’d be no blowback from Wilkie or the Alpha General. I got the feeling that he’d inform the Alpha General, but his conversation with Wilkie would be a little more permanent.”

A low rumble vibrated my chest. “He might have to take a number and get in line if he wants a pound of flesh from that fucker.”

She grinned at me, an expression that was like a thousand volts to the heart. “I get ticket number one.” She blew out a breath. “I don’t know if we’re ready for the questions that come with both of us suddenly being Omegas. Or the feeding frenzy that’ll come from being an Omega pair. I just got out of a Pack I didn’t want, one filled with users. I don’t want that again.”

I squeezed her tight, knowing I was going to be a part of that frenzy. Fuck, I felt like the worst person. “You take your time, Zanny. Or don’t—you don’tneeda Pack, if that isn’t what you want. You can just have Quinn and be happy. Don’t let anyone tell you differently, because I’ll set them straight in a way they won’t soon forget.”

She laughed softly. I could feel her inhaling my scent as her eyes drifted closed. “I’ve missed you guys so much. Missed your friendship.”

I shouldn’t have done it, but it was impossible to resist. I kissed the top of her head softly. “You’ll never have to miss us again, Zanny. I promise you that on my scales and claws.”

But she was asleep, and I was once again that boy holding the girl he loved until the sun lit the sky, then I’d wander back home, counting down the hours until I could be with her again.

10

SUSANNAH

The night with Merrick almost seemed like a dream I’d conjured from the past. I’d woken up on the grass in my backyard alone, the early morning sun pressing against my eyelids. The only sign he’d even been there was his jacket that he’d wrapped around me.

I’d crawled into bed beside Quinn and confessed that I’d told Merrick everything. And I meanteverything.I couldn’t work out what it was about that Alpha, but he made me want to bare my soul to him. It had been that way for as long as I could remember.

Quinn hadn’t been particularly impressed, but he’d gotten over it quickly. The weight of keeping the secret had always been a lodestone around his neck. The sooner we could shake free of it, the better for us. But not yet. We were heading to get coffee in town, and the eyes of the townsfolk on me were already heavy. I wasn’t sure I could deal with being in public if the full extent of our subterfuge came out. Soon, maybe.

However, beneath the weighty judgment of public opinion was a feeling of freedom that I’d been denied for so damn long. With my hand wrapped in Quinn’s, the sun beginning to dip behind the mountains giving us a reprieve from the heat, and the heavy weight of having to return to Wilkie’s Packhouse gone? Well, it was like a high I hadn’t known was possible.

We hadn’t attended the burial of the Pack’s Beta, Green, and given that he’d killed Doc and was just a shitty person in general, I doubted many others had either.

Walking into the coffee shop, no one spoke to us. We were shunned by extension, but whatever; I didn’t want to talk to most of these judgmental fuckers anyway. My nonchalance didn’t stop the sounds of gossip swirling around the room after us, though.

“Did you hear about the Fletcher-Wiley-Reid Pack’s feral little Omega? Apparently, Corvin and Beckett had her hidden away in a private love nest in the middle of the woods like a heathen, just out there, scraping away in the dirt. I heard she hissed at Radic the first time she met him. If I was Darius and Cooper, I'd have left their asses in the dust.”

I didn’t turn around to see who was gossiping. Honestly, it was probably the same poison that had passed dozens of sets of lips. It was shit, but at least they weren’t talking about me and Quinn.

---