Page 24 of Jace

It was late, and outside the window of my apartment, lights glistened through the darkness, the zone looking a whole lot prettier than it did during the day. Usually I stared out at it like a warlord of old surveying his domain, but any satisfaction I might have gotten from the life I’d carved out in the zone was stolen by her.

Sloane.

She was hurting. I could feel it, like a niggling pain under my breastbone where I couldn’t scratch. It was just alpha bullshit, I knew that, but…it made it hard to sit still, to stand, to move, to fucking breathe. And what was worse was if I was aching, it had to be twice as hard for her. My hand dropped down into my lap, the heel of it rubbing against my cock. It had been semi-hard all day, which wasn’t helping me to think clearly.

For the first time since I’d discovered my alpha strength, I felt helpless. The memories of standing out the front of Ella’s door, listening to what the alphas were doing to her and not being able to do anything about that. I’d sworn I would never experience that level of powerlessness again, only here I was, right back in my own personal hell. It wasn’t my sister this time, not even someone I knew that well, so why did I fucking ache?

The same level of pain, but still, it was all different.

I needed Sloane to be safe, and even though it probably made me an arsehole, the only way she would be safe was with me.

She would be confused, and the last thing I wanted was for her to go to the Dawn Agency. Those bastards were as corrupt as they came. Half the omegas were sold off to whichever alpha had the most money in the zone, while the rest of them were experimented on, the betas looking for ways to stop alphas, control us, prevent us from being born. The thought of Sloane in their hands had me breaking out in a cold sweat.

I slugged back a gulp of the whiskey I was nursing in my hand, finishing it off and slamming the glass down on the windowsill. It burned my throat and hit my empty stomach like fire.

Then I took up pacing, staring outside, waiting for somebody to fucking call me with some answers, an address, a number, something. Nobody did, so I kept pacing. I wasn’t going to sleep tonight, and no way I’d get any rest. I needed…

Need her, he snarled. Mark, breed, claim. Never should’ve let her go.

I shoved that to one side. It wasn’t about me and my fucking instincts, it was her. I needed Sloane to be safe.

I checked my phone for the fiftieth time, my fingers tightening around it until the plastic started to creak dangerously. Like that was enough to force it to give me what I needed. No new messages, no new calls, nothing. No one I knew could tell me anything about where the omega was or what state she was in. My thighs tensed as I strode from one end of the room to the other, my heart rate speeding up faster and faster. I was an alpha. I sorted shit out, so why the fuck was I cooling my heels here?

I thought about calling Ryder or Dane, but last time I called Ryder, he’d told me to fuck off, get some rest, and not to hound him again so he could do his fucking job.

He was right. I just didn’t want him to be right.

There was little we needed from betas but their money and patronage. For the most part, we kept things legit here. It was different from the Beta Zone, but there were rules because without them, it would have been anarchy. The identity theft bullshit, that was all Snake. Which made me think about something I sure as fuck didn’t want to consider.

Betas didn’t care how things played out on our side of the fence. They were happy for the sides to mingle on their terms, let the curious betas come and play, see what it was like here, before returning home to the safety of the sterile world. They weren’t stupid, so they understood that blocking us off would only make people seek entry to the zone in less visible ways. I guessed some beta in charge had determined that limited contact was the best way to go for all.

But the systems that ran the world, they were a different ball game. Betas had locked down tight the banking systems and databases on the other side. It wasn’t easy to gain access to their world in any capacity, particularly not the data.

We weren’t uncivilised here, despite how the media depicted us. For the most part, we played the game, but now I was ready to bend any and every rule to get what I needed—namely, my little omega back where I could protect her.

Why the fuck had I hesitated to mark her?

But I knew. Everyone knew.

Biting omegas, tearing their delicate skin with fangs that ached to mark them, scarring them forever, declaring to the world who they belonged to… I heard my heart thud, deep and loud in my chest. I’d seen marks plenty, littering my sister’s lily white flesh. Marks she didn’t ask for. That was what alphas did. Half out of their fucking minds with potent hormones, they took and they took and they took, and fuck what anyone else had to say about that.

Fuck, this was a mess. I felt dirty, grubby, and out of sorts, like there were ants under my skin. I could take five minutes to shower and put some fresh clothes on.

I stalked toward the bathroom, but the moment I stepped inside, I was bombarded by fantasies of her in the shower, plump arse just visible through the steamy stall door.

After I had fucked her all night, I’d figured she needed a rest, figured I needed to feed her, my alpha instincts clamouring for me to pamper and coddle my charge as much as the rutting. Besides, I’d planned on bringing her right back here and indulging in some of the sexual relief.

What I wasn’t expecting was for her to hightail it and run. She had taken her bag too, so I couldn’t even rifle through it for information. With a frustrated growl, I began stripping out of my clothes, T-shirt, pants, shoes, kicking them off, tossing them towards the hamper.

Then I stopped dead. There, hanging over the side of the basket, was yesterday’s pants, the ones that I’d been wearing when I found my Sloane, and poking out the pocket was her panties. I walked over like a man on dead feet, reaching the hamper, and carefully pulled them out.

The scent hit me immediately, not as strong as yesterday, nor anywhere near as potent as it had been from the source when I’d had my head buried between the thighs, lapping up her sweet slick. Jesus, my mouth watered for the taste of her again. An alpha was ever addicted to eating omega pussy.

My hand shook as I lifted her panties to my nose and drew in a deep, ragged breath. My cock instantly hardened, pumping full of blood, engorging with the need to serve my omega—an omega who wasn’t here where she belonged.

I closed my fist around my dick as I drew another deep, shaky breath in. Fuck that felt so good. My fingers worked up and down the shaft, pre-cum already making it sticky as I readied myself for her. Only she wasn’t fucking here.

That thought should have cooled my heated blood, but it didn’t. It just made my frenzy even worse. My fist made wet sticky noises as I pumped up and down roughly, imagining Sloane on her hands and knees, ready for me to take her from behind the way omegas instinctively needed when they were in heat. So I’d heard, anyway. I’d never rutted an omega through her heat. I’d never tasted an omega pussy, nor felt the hot clenching sheath before either, and now, there was only one that I wanted ever again.

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