Page 19 of Dodging Bullets

Something like completeness washed over me, and for the first time in days, weeks, maybe even years, I fell into the deep, contented sleep of someone who knew that they would be safe forever.

I woke in the living room, but still pressed tightly to Llew’s chest. “You’re awake,” he said softly, the warmth of his breath clouding over the top of my head. My cheek was directly over his heart, its steady rhythm soothing in a way I didn’t understand yet.

A lot had happened in a short amount of time, and it was all catching up to me. I just wanted to bury myself in Llew and the security that he blanketed me with, wishing that the first twenty years of my life had been just a bad dream.

There was a light waft of a cocoa scent, and I looked around for August. He was sitting across from us, and the clock on the wall told me it was late, nearly midnight. Why was he still here?

“Hello, Omega. Are you feeling okay? Any ill effects of your… bonding?” I wasn’t sure why he hesitated over the word.

I wanted to feel bad about it. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could have controlled the impulse. It was a poor excuse, however. I’d tied the man beneath me to me for life.

I looked up at Llew, whose eyes were as warm and reassuring as his presence. I smiled back at him and felt the pulse of contentment down the bond between us. There were more emotions there, but they felt like they were hidden beneath a thick blanket, only giving me the good and vague awareness of the bad.

“No. I feel… right? Like, inside myself, I feel almost happy?”

Llew rumbled, holding me closer. “Almost is not good enough. I know this isn’t what you planned for your life, but I promise I will make you so happy, you won’t have any regrets.” I could feel his conviction down the bond.

“Considering that my future held either becoming a wife to Leader Malakai, or being sent to be some kind of Omega slave to unknown Alphas, this might be exactly the life I wanted.”

As his body stiffened beneath mine, a low growl pulsed from Llew, a subtle shift in his scent making him smell wild. Scary. Angry and sad, and no longer all the warm feelings that I was previously basking in.

A whine passed my lips, and I crawled up his body until we were cheek to cheek, before wrapping my body around his. I wanted to chase that scent away from him, wanted to bare my teeth at the thing that was causing him to feel this way. But I couldn’t find a threat.

I had ceded control to the Omega again, and August’s words about Omegas soothing their Alphas by scent marking played back through my head. I felt lost, because I instinctively knew how to help, but it made me feel out of control of the only thing that was mine. My body.

Llew let out a deep breath. “Apologies, my Omega. I’m okay now.”

His words were a crooning promise, and the way he saidmy Omegamade a thrill pulse through me. I was his. He was mine. I’d chosen this man in front of me—kind of.

“I just don’t like the idea that there’s someone out there who wanted to hurt you. Who wanted you to be anything but the very center of their world.” He looked over my head at the other men in the room. “Does anyone want to fill me in?” His voice dropped low. “I’m in control, Rio. I swear. Having her is like a gift I didn’t expect, or even deserve. I’ll protect her with my life.” He rubbed his rough beard on my own cheek, and I hummed a happy noise.

How could this be anything but right?

Eleven

Rio

What a shitshow. Lance was going to murder me, but honestly, I didn’t even care. Because Llew was back, right there in front of me, a clarity in his eyes that I hadn’t seen since the day I’d deployed overseas.

There was still darkness in their depths, an edge of mania that sat just below the surface, but for the first time, this man who stared down at the Omega in his lap with empathy and compassion was the same one I’d created a Pack with over a decade ago. Whatever bonding with an Omega had done, it had healed something inside him.

And for that alone, I would lay down my life for Paloma.

I explained about Lance, about the mission we’d carried out to rescue a bunch of animals and instead found an Omega. About Paloma’s cult. I kept waiting for Llew to lose it, for his Alpha to take over and start destroying things in a rage he couldn’t contain, and my body stayed prepared to grab Paloma and protect her.

The feral rage never came. Oh, Llew was angry all right, but it was the anger of a man in control. The anger of any reasonable human being, who knew that the woman in his arms had been abused for so long and had come terrifyingly close to endingup trafficked for sex, or god knows what. That only a random Omega with a love of animals had led to us saving the one in front of us.

Finally, silence fell across the room as we all tried to make sense of everything that had happened. It was well past midnight, and Paloma had fallen asleep once more. I wanted to take her from Llew, not because I was worried, but because I wanted to feel her soft body draping over my own.

Shaking the thought from my head, I looked at the other Omega in the room. August yawned, his soft scent swirling around us. Max had always laughed that I had a crush on the VA therapist, and he was probably right. But more than that, I respected August. He was good at his job, and I knew that I had many VA buddies this side of the Pearly Gatesbecausehe was so good. He was both strong and soft at the same time, and incredibly smart. What was not desirable about that?

It could never go any further, however. August was a professional, and now…

I looked at Paloma. Now, our Pack already had an Omega, and it was common knowledge that Omegas were territorial at best. They couldn’t share a Pack, their space, with other Omegas. At least, not normally—there were a few exceptions, like Lance’s Pack. Paloma had known barely nothing about her Omega, but her instincts wouldn’t let her stay in the same house as Lance’s Omegas.

Regret swelled in my chest, warring with the happiness that we had Paloma. She was Llew’s fated mate. That was an almost unheard-of anomaly these days. We should be content.

I stood and stretched. “I’ll drive you home, August.”

---