Chapter Four
When Chris slowly came back to consciousness, he felt two things he hadn’t felt in a very long time; warmth and comfort. He blinked his eyes open and realized he was staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. He swallowed to wet his dry throat and then suddenly stiffened when he heard humming.
His eyes darted around the room frantically, trying to judge his surroundings while his brain slowly tried to recover what had happened to make him end up here. He was in a sitting room that much was clear. It was small but completely furnished, the walls nearly drowning in pictures and posters, the two other chairs in the room were made of red velvet, thick and bouncy and inviting and covered in golden throw pillows.
Chris shifted a bit on the softness he was currently sinking into; realizing that some of the source of warmth he could feel came from the thick, soft blanket currently draped over his naked body.
Wait – naked? Where on earth was he? What was happening?
The thoughts, memories hit him all at once and he clutched is head, whimpering in agony.
He’d been running through the snow for so long his legs had begun to burn but he hadn’t stopped – couldn’t stop. Then he’d smelled the most amazing scent – delicious and mouth-watering, beckoning him closer like a moth to a flame. The most lovely omega he’d ever seen – all pale skin like porcelain and brown hair in wild curls with piercing grey-blue eyes. Unbelievable need had filled his entire being and then fear and mistrust – he didn’t know this person! He couldn’t trust him. Dizziness and then darkness.
He licked his lips and shivered a little when he realized that that scent was still in the air, sweet and soft, slightly beckoning. He felt his mouth fill with saliva and his eyelids droop, his eyelids shooting back open when he heard a door open and then the sight of bare feet padding over wooden floorboards to where he was lying down.
He sat up so fast the entire world spun on its axis and he felt his stomach fly into his throat as he curled over the couch and emptied the contents of his stomach onto parts of the wooden floorboards and the lovely rug lying in the middle of the room, the sounds of his retching filling the small room. He licked his lips, eyes teary from now hard he’d just vomited, staring at the vomit which looked like milky water, soaking up the floorboards and carpet.
“Oh my gosh!” came a concerned gasp from whoever was in the room with him and Chris growled lowly in warning, shifting away from the stranger as all his defences shot up like a jack in the box.
The person immediately stopped and Chris felt the tears build up again in his eyes as he doubled over, retching again and feeling like he was about to puke out his organs. Before he could take a breath, he was retching again, this time allowing the tears run down his cheeks, all his muscles hurting and straining as they contracted hard, forcing the melted snow he’d consumed earlier out of his system in the form of the milky water now taking up more than half of the floor.
“Shit shit shit,” the soft voice murmured and then the footsteps were fading away as the omega left the room.
He came back and Chris immediately curled into the couch, trying to disappear into it, his eyes snapping up to access his attacker.
Beautiful grey-blue eyes met with his and if Chris wasn’t so terrified, he might have said that the man had the most chiselled face he’d ever seen. His face was as slim and lithe as his body, his cheekbones painfully defined like they were sculpted, and his pink lips small and thin. His hair was the colour of caramel and mussed up in short, wild curls that made the omega look so young and innocent. The thick eyelashes that framed his big, almond shaped eyes didn’t help at all either.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the omega said softly, his voice making Chris shiver uncontrollably. It was deep and velvety, stroking over his skin like a soft caress and that made Chris stiffen all the more, not wanting to trust him.
Tom was holding a hoover mop in his hands, moving slowly towards the mess on the floor and keeping his eyes on the alpha, who was watching him like Tom was going to pounce any second. He didn’t think the alpha was even aware of it, but the way he held the blankets up, crouching against the couch was a completely defensive pose, his eyes not straying away from Tom, darting over his body as if looking for weak points or trying to judge how he was going to attack.
They remained in the same pose, eyes locked and never straying as Tom managed to clean up the mess blindly. The hoover mop, as it was named, acted like both a mop and a hoover so in no time the floorboards were shiny and clean and Tom’s priceless organic rug was once again dry and fluffy.
Tom’s cheeks were flushed with a blush because frankly, he felt ridiculous mopping and cleaning the floor while his eyes were locked on the alpha to try and placate his obvious fears. He was sure that if the man was in his wolf form, all his hairs would be standing at attention – it made him wonder just exactly why the alpha was so frightened. It was unlike any alpha Tom has ever met.
“Do you think you’re okay?” Tom asked tentatively, standing a few feet away from the alpha and wondering if he could move forward or not. The man looked really pale and his eyes were half-lidded. It honestly looked like he was about to pass out again.
Chris didn’t know how he’d gone from glaring at the omega to actually staring but having those blue-green eyes looking at him so softly had calmed him somewhat and now that most of his apprehension was gone, his other senses picked up. The omega was tall, Chris would say he was nearly his height and he was wearing a pure white bathrobe that was so big and fluffy, it was practically swallowing the omega in it.
Chris could still smell that scent – the sweet, cloying scent that had attracted him here but it was fading away, leaving only the fragrant natural scent of the omega, which was like honey and milk. Goddess, the scent was so attractive, it was making Chris’s senses go haywire.
Tom could feel himself getting extremely self-conscious. He was so glad that his heat had managed to let up a few hours ago but he was still just recovering, so he was sure the scent of it was still lingering. Thank goodness he’d been able to shower and clean up the heat room before the alpha woke up because the last thing he’d want is the alpha waking up and scenting the needy and lustful pheromones in the air.
Tom tried not to shiver visibly as those electric blue eyes trailed from his head down to his toes and when he saw those eyes darken with obvious heat, he felt his traitorous body responding, his dick fattening up against his thigh where he was painfully naked underneath his bathrobe – stupid – and he took a trembling step backwards, hands dropping the hoover and clutching at the front of his robes almost self-consciously.
Fuck, he needed to leave this room before the oblivious alpha sent him straight into another heat. He’d never heard of it happening before, but with the way his body was already clenching and trying to get slick, it might not be a new thing.
“Uhm…I’ll just…I need to…be right back,” and Tom was flying out of the room and into the small kitchen, closing the door behind him and resting against it, breathing heavily.
Jesus, Tom, control your fucking libido! You just had your heat, how damn greedy are you?
Chris blinked at the closed kitchen door and when he shifted, he realized he was aroused – almost painfully so. His eyes widened with shock and his hands clenched painfully around the soft blanket he was gripping like a lifeline. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten hard. Gods, what the hell was happening to him?
He had to leave. He couldn’t stay here – he couldn’t trust this stranger that made his mouth water and his body hunger for the scent that was like fucking heaven.
He dropped the blanket and got on his feet, wobbling and nearly toppling over as the world spun on its axis. He clenched his eyes shut to get rid of the darkness creeping in on his vision, begging inwardly for his wolf to stay awake and when he felt like he wasn’t going to keel over in a dead heap, he opened his eyes and took a step forward.
He was still wobbly on his feet but he managed to make it to the front door which was of course, locked when he tried the handle.
His panic began to rise. Why was the door locked? Was the omega keeping him here for something?
Goddess, what if he worked for the weres that had captured him? He frowned when he tried to think of the cells he’d just escaped, the other alphas and all that came to him was a blur of images that felt more like dreams than reality.
“Please don’t leave.”
Chris froze, his grip on the door handle tightening.
“Okay, first off, there’s a shit of a storm brewing out there right now, so you might want to wait it out…unless you’re on a suicide mission then that’s completely fine by me and I won’t stop you.”
Chris licked his lips, his hackles raised so high he was ready to run through the door, the locks be damned.
“I won’t hurt you,” the velvety voice whispered, “I promise. Just…I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you and frankly this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” a soft laugh that sent tingles up Chris’s spine, “but you’re obviously hurt or sick or something and I just can’t let you leave like that. Just…I can drop you off where you want to go if you want when the storm is done…just, let me take care of you?”
Tom felt his entire body burn with a violent blush at the sound of those words leaving his lips. Oh fuck, he did not just say that. Oh goddess, it was like an invitation for a fucking mating.
“Uh…what I mean is…well, you’re obviously sick and…uh,” he began, stuttering nervously and his anxiousness only increased when the alpha turned to look at him and at least he was looking less like a frightened deer about to bolt and was that...amusement tinkling in his eyes? “Are you…are you laughing at me?”
Chris could feel the unaccustomed emotion bubbling up in his chest and his voice was croaky and unfamiliar when he said, “I’m not laughing.”
“You are. You’re laughing at me,” Tom stated in surprise, eyebrows shooting into his forehead while his blush multiplied tenfold.
Chris gave up and let a chuckle slip past his lips and his felt his stomach bloom with warmth when the omega laughed softly with him and just like that, the tension in the air diffused. The laughter ended and their eyes locked and like the flick of a switch, the tension was back but this time it was heavy and laced with mutual attraction.
Both of them were suddenly hyper aware of the fact that Chris was buck naked and Tom was in only a robe.
“Uhm, I’ll just get you something to wear be right back,” Tom said in a high pitched voice as he spun on his heel and practically turned to run away from the room.
“Chris!” the alpha called hoarsely and the omega turned around, blinking at him owlishly before it clicked and his porcelain skin pinked with a blush.
“Oh, oh, uhm…hi Chris. I’m Tom.”
Chris bit his lip a little shyly when the omega just stood there, staring at him almost dreamily before he suddenly realized himself and snapped out of it with a tiny mortified squeak, turning and disappearing from the room in a blur of white.
Chris made his way to the couch and grabbed the blanket, suddenly self-conscious as he wrapped it tightly around his body so that he was covered from neck to knees, his calves uncovered because the black material wasn’t long enough. His heart was still racing, his instincts telling him to run now while the omega was gone but something kept his feet glued to the floor, made him able to ignore the simmer of panic, fear and distrust still lingering in his conscious.
Goddess…Tom. Tom was so beautiful.
When the omega returned a few minutes later, he was dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and a black long sleeved shirt that hugged his torso like a second skin, the material soft looking. He held out some folded items in his hands, saying while refusing to make eye contact with Chris, “I’ve got an extra toothbrush in the bathroom,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of said room, “…I’m sure your mouth tastes like crap after…after earlier. And uhm…these are the biggest I have…I hope uh, they fit. We’re nearly the same height any way and I’ll stop rambling, here,” The clothes were practically shoved in his face, “I’ll be in the kitchen,” a thumb pointing in the direction of the little door, “If you need me,” a brilliant flush spread over his cheeks, “or! Or if you need help or have any questions or yeah.”
Chris’s smile was back and he watched with amusement as the omega disappeared into the kitchen, closing the door gently behind him.
Chris’s cheeks hurt. He was smiling. He was laughing.
And he was fucking terrified.
*
“A pill,” Sera O’Connell said in disgust as she stormed into the main office where her partners were waiting. She slammed a file holding the reports from the medical examiner down on the centre table, “he was killed by a damn pill.”
Her teammates frowned at each other and then got up to look at the file.
“How are we sure it’s a pill?” Markus Rowan asked gently, picking up the folder and scanning through the lab results, confirming what Sera had just said.
“M.E. confirmed it,” Sera said nodding at the paper Markus was reading, crossing her arms over her chest, “she scanned the blood samples and that was the result.”
“So that bartender wasn’t all that cuckoo then,” Pierce Brown said with a chuckle, his statement earning him an elbow jab in the chest from Frank Lin.
Markus frowned a little, “just what type of pill was it? It’s not mentioned here.”
“And that’s where our problem comes in,” Sera said with a sigh, “M.E’s never heard of it – never seen anything like it.”
“When on earth are you going to use the woman’s name, Sera?” Pierce asked, “M.E. is such an awful abbreviation and it’s not even her name.”
“I think it’s cool,” Sera said childishly, sticking her tongue out at the alpha.
Markus ignored the bickering of his teammates as he read and re-read the lab reports of Chief Medical Examiner, Shelly Buzz. A few days ago, the death of an alpha had been reported to the Peace Force in Serai, the second biggest kingdom on the planet Maviz, located in the South West. The bartender had told them that the alpha was seen trying to chat up an omega who really wasn’t interested in his moves and when he refused to back off, the omega agreed to have a drink with him. Only when he wasn’t looking, the omega had slipped a pill into his drink.
A few hours later and the man had keeled over dead on the bar and the omega had disappeared.
And according to the report in his hands, this wasn’t the first death by this pill. Shelly had recorded several more deaths – all solely alphas – with symptoms that matched the ones of the bar alpha.
The same pill. What was the most terrifying aspect was the fact that the pill was unheard of – Shelly didn’t recognize the patterns it took in the blood, she didn’t recognize the form of the pill – it looked like a virus under the microscope and then clung to the blood, making it thick until all the blood in the body ended up clumping together like a huge blood clot, resulting in internal suffocation – the organs seeming to shrink in on themselves.
“Oi.”
Markus nearly jumped out of his skin as Ronan Cloy snapped his fingers in front of his face. He glared up at the beta who was smirking at him.
“You really need to let us take over; after all you’re flying off to the big city in a few, are you not?”
Markus blushed despite himself and scrubbed a hand over his face. He gazed up at his partners; Serai, Frank, Pierce and Ronan and felt his stomach clench. He was going to miss them so fucking much. Just as he’d been getting into this case with the pill, his boss had called him up and told him he was being transferred to Sendorai, the biggest kingdom on Maviz.
Markus had been shocked – Sendorai? Didn’t they have enough people working there already? But Ten had only laughed and told him to suck it up. And now, just as Markus had barely gotten used to his reputation as the youngest alpha on the force, not to mention him being the best in Serai, him being just twenty-two and fresh out of college, he was being transferred. Now he was going to have to get used to the jealous and angry glares all over again and it was just exhausting.
“When’s your flight?” Sera asked him, cocking her hip.
Markus immediately knew that this was a bad idea. “Friday at six.”
“Ah, so we have a day or two to mess you up,” Sera said with a grin, “starting from now.”
“But the –” Markus began to complain, reaching for the folder as Pierce snatched it out of his hands.
“Leave that for now, you workaholic. Let’s get smashed!”
“You know the people that rule the P.F. in Sendorai are actually two omegas?” Pierce teased, “and one of them is a woman,” he waggled his eyebrows.
“Then Markus will fit right in,” Sera said sharply, “what with his youngest alpha award thing going on.”
“Oh Goddess,” Markus groaned, face palming himself, “I hope to the earth that none of them are like you.”
“I’m hurt,” Frank said with mock shock, clutching his chest dramatically.
“I’ll be taking the title when you leave,” Pierce said, sticking his chest out and preening.
Sera laughed at the second alpha in their team, “Pft, I’m more alpha than you are.”
“Hey!”
Frank, Ronan and Markus laughed at the bickering couple as they made their way out of the office, waving at the security as they locked up and left the office.
Markus inhaled deeply when they got outside. It was already late and the air was slightly warm. He gazed out through the tall metal gates at the neighbourhood beyond the Peace Force’s compound, streets lighted up brightly for the night.
“Come on, Mark!” Sera called, already making her way to the car park, “time’s a wasting!”
Markus inhaled deeply again and then turned to his team, “On my way!”
He watched them with a fond feeling in his chest. His team was made up of three betas and two alphas, with him being one of the alphas – he’d never worked with an omega before and now not only was he going to work with two, but two considered the best on the force. And they weren’t just the best omegas; they were the best officers and investigators in the entire Peace Force as a whole.
It was a bit daunting to be honest, even to Markus’s ‘youngest alpha on the force’ title. But even though he was going to miss his team, he couldn’t help but feel excited about his transfer.