Page 25 of Your Wild Omega

I cringe and look down instinctively, imagining tentacled aliens swarming up from the shadowed well. The zigzagging staircase kinda mirrors the movie set. “Shit, that gives me the creeps just thinking about it.” I shiver dramatically to shake off the chills.

“Guys, you’re going to give me nightmares,” Agent Pierce says with a laugh.

Red chuckles. “Lucky we have the fiercest alpha of them all right here. They wouldn’t want to mess with Zack.”

Agent Pierce gasps. “And here I thought you were referring to me,” he says, tone full of mock outrage.

Red and I both laugh. “Would you believe me if I said I was there for the filming?” I ask, following her down the steps.

She smiles, her profile backlit by golden lighting. “I’ll believe anything you tell me, Rickon.”

Hot damn, Cupid just keeps hitting me right in the heart. Can you die from loving someone too much? I blow her a kiss. “It’s true. They had these super weird stand-in rubber aliens that ran on noisy tracks. And half the dialogue had to be dubbed in after.”

Pierce, leading the way down the stairs, pauses to look back at me, brows lifted. “Truly?”

I lift one hand in pledge and grin. “It was Lyra Gray’s first major appearance, and I was her acting manager.”

The agent whistles quietly. “And that was the film that made her big.”

“Yeah.” My voice catches. I’m happy where I am now, but it stings a little, the way she threw me aside like I was nothing. Even if I’m used to people abandoning me, it still hurts.

I said the exercise would be good for us, but sixteen flights of stairs might be overdoing things. Red and I both wheeze by the bottom, and Zack and Agent Pierce puff. Maybe this will be a good way to tire our wildling alpha out somewhat.

We wait at the foot of the stairs until we’ve all caught our breath before stepping out into the foyer. Red tightens her grip on the leash as we enter the open, tiled space. The receptionist watches us curiously, likely already briefed by Agent Josef.

Red leads Zack over to the ground-floor windows facing the street. Cars whizz by under a cloudy blue sky and pedestrians throng the sidewalk, everyone going about their busy lives.

“Look, Zack,” she murmurs, pointing. “One day soon we’ll go out there together.” She reaches up and strokes his neck beside the collar. “That’s why you have to get used to this. I want to take you everywhere with me.”

The alpha vibrates, trying to watch everything at once. The elevator dings behind us, and Zack whirls as the doors slide open.

“Zack, stay,” Red orders firmly, putting a little tension on the leash.

Both agents tense and I hold my breath as a resident walks out, calls a greeting to the receptionist, and then heads into the basement garage elevator. My shoulders droop as the doors slide shut behind her back.

Zack passed the first test.

“Good job,” Red praises, beaming as she offers him a piece of cake out of a small plastic container in her pocket. She walks him a few more times around the room and repeats the process when a cleaner comes through with his loaded trolley. Zack growls but shushes when Red warns him.

The cleaner swings around to locate the growl. His head swivels as he follows the leash trailing from Zack’s neck to Red’s hand, and his eyebrows arch. “Shouldn’t you keep that kind of thing in the bedroom?” he asks, muttering under his breath about shameless young people.

“Is that any of your business?” Red asks stiffly.

“Right, what would I know about public decency?” He throws his hands up, heaves on his trolley, and trundles down the ground-floor hallway. The receptionist jostles nervously, seeming unsure if he should step in or not.

Well, he’s better off thinking it’s some kind of kink than knowing the truth. But it reminds me that Red might get a reputation for being into kink. I’d better draft some press releases. And brief Mr Yun in advance. Or not. It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission, after all. So long as we can say Zack’s under control.

Today, he appears to be, but that’s only because no one’s done anything that seems like a threat to him. We can’t pinpointexactly what the kennel bosses conditioned him to react to. I sigh and scrub at my face. We still have a long way to go.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I answer it without shifting my gaze away from Red and Zack. “Hello?”

A familiar cultured female voice responds. “You’re a hard man to get a hold of, Rickon Jones. Some might even think you’re ghosting me.”

My heart sinks. “Hello, Hannah.” She’s right. I have been avoiding her. I swallow hard, wrapping one arm across my body. This woman sold me a summer preview gown on the condition Lyra wore it to the gala—but Lyra wore a different dress.

I gather my spiraling thoughts. “I’m very sorry, Hannah. It’s not that I’ve been avoiding you; I just had an omega situation.”

Red meets my gaze across the room, frowning as she watches me. I turn my shoulder away and cup one hand around my mouth over the receiver. She doesn’t need to know about this problem of mine—she has enough to deal with.

---