Page 90 of Into the Fire: Before

We’d followed Taryn in and out of four different bedrooms. There were only two left, and I hoped one of them pleased the omega because we didn’t exactly have a Plan B.

Taryn opened the door to the fifth bedroom at the end of the hall, stepped inside, and immediately let out the most adorable squeak I’d ever heard.

“Houston, we have liftoff,” I whispered to Brea as we approached the doorway and glanced inside. It was a small room, which made sense. The bed wasn’t huge—a queen, maybe? We could bring in more mattresses from the surrounding rooms, though, if we needed. The headboard was a simple wooden rectangle with inlaid patterning resembling a checkerboard of light and dark wood. A coarse rug covered most of the wooden floor, and an oversized bean bag chair sat in one corner. Heavy drapes framed the window that was almost an entire wall looking out onto the back of the property.

Brea approached her omega, sweeping the long dark hair back off her neck. “Is this the one, Teacup?” she murmured. Taryn gave a frantic nod and headed to the bed, already stripping sheets and pillows. Brea and I quietly fetched the nesting supplies from downstairs—a dozen pillows of different sizes and textures and colors, blankets of faux fur and cotton, a laundry bag full of used clothes from each of us. Hopefully these, along with whatever we needed to rob from the rest of the house, would be enough.

I switched on the lamp on the nightstand, which put out just enough light for Taryn to move safely and arrange her nest. Onceeverything was in the room, Brea and I stood at the threshold and watched as Taryn flitted about, putting pillows and blankets around the top edges of the bed. She dragged the bean bag to the far side of the bed, lining it up so it almost acted as an extension of the mattress.

Caine’s t-shirt, she laid over one pillow. Lin’s button-up, wound around her fuzzy pink blanket that lined the bottom of the bed. Brea’s dress from the night of the ballet was draped through the center. And my favorite sweatshirt was laid over the other pillow at the end of the bed. More t-shirts and boxers and sweaters, plus a couple blankets and linens from home with our scents, were distributed through the blankets and onto the bean bag, everything getting smaller adjustments until Taryn sat in the middle of the bed, her keen omega’s eye examining every detail to ensure they were right.

When she finally looked up at us, eyes glassy and skin flushed, I knew it was time.

She was ready.

The heat was on.

Two

Caine

Iheldtheflashlightas Lin affixed the last of the hunting cameras to the tree trunk. My alpha practically vibrated with the need to run back to our omega, to touch her, soothe her. If the pheromones she’d already been giving off before we left the house were any indication, she’d be awake and in full heat by now.

Should be there. Run to your omega.

Gritting my teeth, I reminded my alpha that this was just as important. We couldn’t be taken unawares if someone found us.

“That should do it,” Lin muttered, standing with a sigh and pulling out his phone. He waited for the connection to confirm before pocketing the phone again. He nodded back behind me. “Give it a minute then try to trip it from back there.”

Omega needs you.

Rut her.

Knot her.

Bite her.

Sex was usually a means to an end more than something I actively desired. With Brooks and Lin, it was a way to anchor myself when I felt myself drifting almost too far away, or distraction from pain, physical or mental. With Melody, it had been a meager attempt at connection, the lie I told to convince myself I was in the life I deserved.

I didn’t crave it day to day. Even as my sessions with Brea opened me up more and more, and even as Taryn won my heart inch by inch, it wasn’t sex I craved with either of them. Sweet touches, yes. Gentle words and whispered intimacy, absolutely. The sex, though, I’d been fine to leave to the others.

But in the car, hours and hours andhoursspent soaking in Taryn’s growing perfume…goddamn, but my alpha craved it now. Needed it. Needed to satisfy my omega, needed to claim her, needed to fuse with her, needed to reach the deepest parts and mark them as mine. Needed to—

“Caine.”

My gaze snapped to Lin’s. I looked down to my feet, which hadn’t moved.

I took a deep breath, focusing on the woods around me. The dirt. Pine. Salt. Lin’s blackberry scent, also heightened as he no doubt wrestled with his own alpha.

Mine just had a louder voice.

Without a word, I nodded and backtracked. About thirty feet from the camera, I waited for Lin’s signal then walked forward. His alert tone rang out.

“Good to go.” He met my gaze again, the corner of his mouth twitching up as I approached. “Let’s go check on our omega.”

Her scent grew steadily as we approached the house, so that by the time we were sprinting up the porch steps and through the front door, I was dizzy with it. The air in the house as we locked up the doors almost shimmered like a desert, the objects around me distorted and hazy.

Touch. Rut. Knot. Bite.

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