Page 17 of Hangman's Knot
He dresses himself quickly in his own suit and catches her watching him out of the corner of her eye. He looked good. He knew that. He flexes a little as he gets dressed and she looks away with a blush on her cheeks. Fucking cute.
He takes a cursory sniff of himself before gathering her to leave. Fuck, they both reeked of sex. But at least it wasn't the heady scent of an omega's heat spike. A whiff of that in the halls would likely cause a genuine fucking blood bath.
Fuck, they'd have to get her a knife to protect herself in case something happens to one of them and they can't protect her.
Maybe them smelling like sex is a good thing, he thinks. It'll cement his claim, so the rest of the alphas will know she belongs to them.
"Come on," he says. "Stay close."
This time, she plasters herself to his side under his arm, her head down and not even looking at where she was going, just like she had walked with Tenor.
Her body language screams that she wants to disappear into his body, not wanting to catch the eye of any of the prisoners they pass in the hallways. She just trusts him implicitly to guide herto where they're going and keep her safe, and fuck if that doesn't send a surge of dominant pleasure through him.
She doesn't have any other choice,asshole, he corrects himself. Either she'll decide to trust them all the way, or not at all. There's no other way to survive in here.
At least the stench of her fear is a little less intense than it was, which was nice. He didn't dig rotted pomegranates.
He hitches his chin at Tenor when he sees him waiting for them outside the mess hall.
"Not a fucking word," he mutters to him before his pack brother can say anything when he catches their scent. He can see Tenor's nostrils flare and his eyes bug when he takes in the unmistakable smell of omega slick and alpha cum that must be coming off them in droves.
Thankfully, the asshole listens and doesn't say anything until they're seated at the table. When he does speak, his voice is carefully casual. "Got you some food at the commissary," he says to Eden, pulling a can of barbecue baked beans out of his pocket. "This was all they had. Sorry, we'll do better tomorrow."
She finally peels her head out of Julius' armpit enough to look over at Tenor when he speaks to her, her eyes flicking between the can in his hand and his face. For one awful moment, Julius thinks she's going to cry, but thank fuck she doesn't.
"Thanks," she says hoarsely instead. Her voice is soft, like what he imagines an angel would sound like, totally out of place in the deafening din of the mess hall.
"There's too much sodium in it but at least it's better than this shit," he mutters in response, popping the top of the can and offering it to her with a spoon.
She eats it without complaint, without even one frown on her face. What a fucking sweetheart.
"So," Tenor starts after a few minutes of silence when he finishes shovelling his food into his mouth. "You guys going to tell me—"
"Later, asshole," Julius mutters again, flashing him a glare and pointedly looking around at the other inmates around them. "It's not the time."
He sees Eden turn the most beautiful shade of rosy pink, her cheeks and chest heating with an embarrassed blush at the implication. He wants to see how far down her blush goes, wants to see if it's the same shade as her nipples.
Fuck!It's not the time for that, asshole!Stop thinking about the little omega and her perfect little pussy and her– FUCK. And now his cock was hard fucking again. He didn't think it was ever going to be soft again after this. And there was no way she was going to miss that in the prison jumpsuit. Fuck.
They stop by the laundry on the way from lunch. It's easy enough to grease some more hands and steal a few blankets for the workshop so she can make herself a nest. He's finds himself formulating a plan in the back of head. He doesn't know when, but at some point, he has decided she is his. And he protects what's his.
He files away the things he knows about omegas. They need touch. They need sex. They need to feel safe. To keep her heat spikes away, they would need to make sure they were meeting those needs. It was the only way she had a chance of getting through this alive.
But without her suppressants, she was a ticking time bomb. It was only a matter of time until her full heat presented. No matter how much they soothed and touched and purred for her, they were just buying borrowed time. They had to get her out of here, get her into a women's prison where she could serve her time safely.
He finds himself shuffling through the contacts he knows in his head who may be willing to help. Any lawyer worth their salt would see this case as an egregious miscarriage of justice. Even if she had killed a cop in cold blood, no omega, no woman, should have been placed in here. And if it was a cop, the pig probably deserved it, anyway. All cops are bad.
It doesn't surprise him though. Not with the corrupt fucking system they lived under. Probably the same rotten corruption that got his pack tossed in this place too, after they they had killed some human trafficking scum while they were working as a protection detail making some extra cash.
He looks down at the little thing under his arm. Anytime they were outside of their cell or the workshop, she always seemed to prefer to wedge herself into their armpits. He thinks she'd climb inside his ribcage if he let her, from the way she grips herself to him so tightly. And who could blame her? The way the prisoners look at her barely has him restraining a growl as he maneuvers them through the halls with one arm full of blankets, the other full of omega.
He sets her up in a quiet corner of the metal shop for the afternoon and gets to work mending some old furnace parts. It keeps his hands busy and he tries not to look at her, although he can feel her eyes following him.
He can't help the way he puffs out his chest and shoulders at her gaze. It's stupid, stereotypical alpha shit, but he can't stop himself.
At dinner, they feed her a peanut butter sandwich using two of the pieces of the shit stale bread they serve and then both of them pile all their soggy steamed vegetables onto her plate. She tries to protest, but with one look from him she shuts her mouth quick. She's his to take care of, and he will take care of her.
He leaves her with Tenor in the cell after dinner to make a phone call.
