Caught by Her Alphas

People weren’t supposed to try to cross the bridges they’d already burned, yet there Farrah was, tromping right over the ashes she’d made fifteen years before.

They’ll turn me away.

No, they wouldn’t. She knew it, even after so many years apart. Her childhood friends would be angry, but they’d never say no to her. Plus, she had money. She could pay well for their services, and, from what she could tell, they were worth every penny.

The heels of the receptionist clicked against the tile as Farrah followed her down the hallway. The large office said the trio had done well for themselves, though her own research had told her the same.

She’d love to say it was research she’d done earlier that same day, but she didn’t need to lie to herself. Those nights when the chill was too strong, when her bed was too cold and empty, she’d been known to spend an hour or two doing what any self-respecting single thirty-two-year-old did—stalking old flames.

Unfortunately for her, she only had the three alphas to stalk, and it never ended well. It only deepened that ache inside her, the one that missed the closeness, their laughs, and their smiles and their voices.

And their lips. And their hands. And their—

She shook her head. Walking into their office smelling of desire would be a horrible idea.

“They don’t normally take last-minute cases like this,” the woman said, the fabric of her skirt pulled tight over her ass in a way that said she dressed for the attention of the three.

Do they take her up on it? Share her between them?

Farrah dug her nails into her palms, a sting of pain before she loosened her fist and chastised herself. “Well, I’m glad they made an exception for me.”

“They didn’t.” The woman cast a conspiratorial smile over her shoulder. “I did. They try to take a few pro-bono cases a year and yours seemed like a good one. Since I do their schedule, they pretty much show up for the cases I tell them to.”

So it wasn’t Farrah’s money but rather her sob story. Well, whatever got her through the front door was worth it. She’d already been run around by the police, who didn’t consider a missing fifteen-year-old an emergency.

Despite her explaining that he’d never done such a thing before, they’d kept reassuring her that he was likely just out having fun. She’d called each morning only to hear that they’d found nothing yet.

Farrah doubted they were looking.

The door to the office at the end of the hallway was large, with a metal plaque that bore three names—Pax Sterling, Blake Cooper and Ryder Shane.

Farrah’s toe caught a corner of the tile, pitching her forward a quick step before she righted herself.

Sure, she’d seen their names, had searched for them, but seeing them on that door was so official. It was really happening.

After fifteen years, she was going to face the alphas who had broken her heart.

* * * *

Fifteen years earlier Heat spread over Farrah’s skin and she didn’t understand why. It wasn’t warm in the forest that time of year. In fact, she should have been freezing.

Instead, she wiped her forehead to clear away sweat.

Pax was getting firewood while Ryder and Blake argued about what to cook. Their sendoff camping trip had been going for three days and had another four before they planned to drive the three hours back to civilization.

It wasn’t much, maybe, but it was all they had.

The alphas were leaving for college in a few weeks, and Farrah, a year younger than them, had to stay behind. It chafed, the idea that she wouldn’t be part of the group they’d made since meeting when she was eight and they’d caught her sneaking over a fence while they’d been playing at Pax’s house.

Still, it was the sweating that got to Farrah, that and the roll of her stomach. She hadn’t eaten that day and hadn’t had more than a few bites the day before. Her appetite was shot and she just felt…unsettled.

Was it them leaving? Fear of the future? Of being alone, without her best friends?

A tremble in her hand caused the cup of hot tea Pax had made her to slip free. It spilled down her leg, soaking into her jeans.

Before she could fully gasp, Pax was in front of her, patting the front of her pant leg as if that would dry her. “You are a disaster, kid.”

Farrah rose, shaking her foot so the wet, scalding jean fabric could cool. Her stomach rolled again, worse than before. It felt like the top of a rollercoaster, when her stomach would seem to lift to her throat.

Pax caught her before she even realized she’d started to go over.

“Woah,” he muttered, her weight nothing compared to his size.

The three guys had grown in a way that annoyed her, filling out and turning into the alphas she knew they were. They’d told her, there being no secrets between the four of them. As they’d sprung from tall, gangly kids into young men, as they’d gained muscle mass while she’d stayed that scrawny little girl she’d always been, Farrah had pouted.

Partly because it wasn’t fair, and partly because of the new attention it garnered them, and how damned much they liked it.

Pax seated her in the camping chair by the fire. He checked her eyes, as if that would tell him anything.

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. This is what people do.”

“Unless my eyes are missing, I don’t think you can tell anything from them.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, the childish action familiar. Except this time, her gaze locked on to his wet, pink tongue. She shook her head at the wildly inappropriate response of her body.

What the hell?

“I just need to lie down.”

The humor drained from Pax’s face, as though her quiet words alerted him to something really being wrong. “Maybe we should get you back.”

She shook her head. “A three-hour drive for a little lightheadedness? I’ve just been staying up too late and not getting nearly enough good sleep. I’ll take a rest and be fine.”

He helped her into the tent and perched by the door with a frown across his normally smiling face as she fell asleep.

She woke hours later, a fact she knew only because the sun had gone down. Instead of feeling better, though, she felt worse.

Far worse.

Fire licked at her skin, her breath quick and shallow, her body oversensitive so that even the slight imperfections of the air mattress aggravated her.

“Hey there,” came Ryder’s sweet voice.

Something smelled delicious. She didn’t know what, only that she needed more of it.

“I don’t feel good,” she whispered.

Fingers carded through her hair, and she realized the strands were drenched with sweat. Ryder’s face came into view, his brown eyes so light they were nearly yellow. “I bet you don’t. Do you know what’s going on and didn’t tell us?”

His words seemed like they mattered, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that scent, wanting to find whatever it was and wrap herself around it. She could only shake her head.

A soft curse drew her gaze past Ryder to where Pax and Blake stood, the inseparable pair far too serious. She needed them to laugh, to make a joke, to force her to roll her eyes in response.

Instead, their eyes held a glint of something else, something so intense it made her want to draw backward.

Maybe they saw it, because both alphas looked down.

“You’re in heat,” Ryder said.

Heat. The word hit her like a blow.

She wasn’t the beta she’d always assumed. A heat meant she was an omega, one of the rare females who could bond with alphas. She didn’t care what title she had, but the future she’d imagined, the cracking of things torn away, that was the blow.

Omegas didn’t have choices. They settled down fast, driven by hormones and instincts, usually claimed by some alpha who thought them his due.

Before she could freak out fully, like she wanted to do, another wave of pain rolled through her, dragging a broken cry from her dry lips. It wasn’t the slight discomfort from before, but rather full agony.

“Easy,” Ryder whispered, bringing his lips to her forehead.

That scent. Farrah inhaled. It was them she was smelling, something she’d never noticed on them before, a comforting scent that made images of rainstorms over ancient forests spring up in her head. A scent masculine and wild and hers, no matter how little sense that made.

“We can get her back to town,” Blake said, his voice strained.

“It’s a three-hour drive,” Pax argued. “If she’s this bad already, do you really think we could make that safely? Because I don’t think I can make that drive in a car that smells like…her.”

Ryder spoke, and it took her a moment to realize she’d buried her nose in the heat of his throat. “There’s no way we can put her in a car. Being around our scent will make it worse, and I don’t think any of us could resist her in a closed cab. Pax, why don’t you drive down? Hit the gas and you could make it to somewhere with cell service in two hours, maybe less, and get an ambulance here. They could put her under.”

An immediate response bubbled from her throat. “Don’t leave me.”

Pax’s face softened, as though her plea helped the strain that showed in his expression. He came forward and fell to his knees beside Ryder, taking her hand in his. His blue eyes were dark in the dim light of the tent. “I don’t want to leave you, kid, but you need help. First heats are rough, and we’ve got nothing to help you with here.”

“Well, not nothing,” Blake chimed in.

Ryder looked over his shoulder with a glare. “We are not doing that.”

“What other choice is there? Let her suffer?”

“I’m not taking advantage of her,” Ryder growled out. “And fuck you for even considering it.”

“You’ve got no idea,” Blake continued. “Give her an hour and she’s going to hurt like you wouldn’t believe. You really going to turn her down then?”

Pax and Ryder kept silent, and the only sound in the tent was Farrah’s harsh and erratic breathing.

“We have to turn her down,” Ryder muttered with less confidence than he had moments before.

However, an hour later, just as Blake had predicted, Farrah rolled on the air mattress, her head a mess of pain and desire. Everything inside her was consumed in flames, as though magma rolled through her and scalded everything in its path.

“Please,” she begged.

“I’m here,” Ryder said, the alphas having taken turns being inside. It seemed they needed breaks to keep their own instincts in line. “You need some water?”

Farrah grasped his shirt, her hands shaking as she held tight. “Please, make it stop.”

“I can’t, baby. Just hang in there.”

She pulled at his shirt, trying to draw him closer. “You can. I know you can.”

A deep groan left him as he cupped her cheeks and brought his forehead to hers. If he cared about the sweat, about the mess she was, he didn’t say a word. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You don’t want this, not really, and I can’t take advantage of you.”

“I love you,” she openly sobbed. The words were true, but hell, she’d have said anything right then to make the pain stop. “Please.” The begging continued as she repeated please over and over again, no other words coming to mind.

Another hand on her shoulder alerted her before Pax’s voice did. “This isn’t right, not like this.”

Before she could complain again, before she could start up with another round of begging, Blake cut in. “I’ll do it.” The growl of the other alphas filled the tent, but Blake kept talking. “She’s in pain, and I’m not about to let her keep on suffering. It’s the best of a lot of bad options, okay?”

Ryder tore his gaze away and dropped it to the floor. Pax caught Farrah’s chin and drew her eyes to his. “Do you want that, Farrah? You understand what we mean, don’t you? You’ll have one of us service you through your heat.”

Service. He said it so properly, as though that hid the meaning, that she’d have sex for the first time with one of them. That she’d go from never having been really touched to having one of the alphas she’d been around for so many years locked inside her.

Still, Farrah could only nod.

“Who do you want?” Ryder asked the question, and it helped.

She had choices. This was still up to her, at least as much as it could be.

However, there was only one right answer.

Her voice was harsh as she answered back. “I need all three of you.”

Present They hadn’t changed.

Or maybe they had, but Farrah could still identify each alpha without any help. Pax, with his blue eyes and dark hair that stood out against his pale skin. As a kid, he’d let his hair grow long, but now he seemed to keep it shorter, with enough length on the top that it could drop to his forehead.

Blake had his red hair pulled back, green eyes dancing with the same humor they had before, his beard thick and with that same reddish tint. He seemed to have picked up some extra freckles over the years, ones that sat on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

Ryder sat at the desk in the corner, staring at a screen, but the softness of his features, the subtle contentment he’d always had, was the same. He’d let his hair grow some as well, shaved on the sides but much longer on the top, long enough to look messy in an all-too-alluring way.

The biggest difference was in their sizes. If she’d thought them large at seventeen—now, as full-grown adult alphas, they dwarfed their younger selves. Ryder was the largest, with broad shoulders and a chest covered by a black polo that strained over his thick biceps.

“This is the pro-bono case I mentioned,” the receptionist said as she breezed into the office.

It was Pax who looked up first, who laid eyes on her. The weight of his gaze hit her like a sucker punch, so much stronger than she’d expected it to be. Nothing she could have done would have prepared her for it.

Tension in the room spiked as he rose to his feet, the scraping of the other chairs following until all three alphas stood.

The receptionist froze, her eyes wide. Hasn’t she ever seen this sort of reaction?

Well, at least they remember me.

“Is everything okay?” the woman asked.

Ryder answered, his voice deeper and rougher than it had been. “Yes, Stacy. Would you give us some privacy?”

She didn’t appear thrilled with the idea, but she followed the order without complaint.

When the door shut behind her, Farrah gulped and started to doubt her plan. Suddenly she was that sixteen-year-old kid again, and these were three very adult alphas surrounding her, staring at her with an intensity that made her stomach flip.

“What are you doing here?” Ryder asked the question with more bite than Farrah remembered from him.

“I need to hire you.”

“You write us off, don’t want a thing to do with us for fifteen years, but now you expect our help?” Pax huffed a laugh that didn’t sound all that amused.

“I’m not asking for a handout here. I can pay you.”

Blake tapped his fingers across the top of his desk, drawing her attention. “Not even a ‘hey there, how have you been? It’s been a long time.’ Just straight to business?”

Farrah licked her dry lips, reminding herself that she wasn’t sixteen anymore. She wasn’t a child chasing after the three alphas. She was a full-grown woman, damn it. She was hiring them to do a job. Nothing more.

She pulled her back straight, standing tall, as though that did a thing. She was still not even eye to eye with any of them. Regardless, it made her feel better. “This isn’t about us or our past. I need you to help me find someone, and you’re the best.”

Pax snorted as he crossed his strong, muscled arms over an equally firm and broad chest. “And what is it that has you willing to look us up after all these years? Who’s so important that you’ll sink to talking to us again?”

Farrah swallowed loudly before answering. “I need you to find my son.”

“He’s a good kid.” Farrah wasn’t sure why she felt the need to point it out as the three alphas entered her home.

Maybe she was nervous and blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

There’s no maybe about it. How can they still make me nervous? How is it I haven’t outgrown this?

“Every mom thinks that,” Blake said as he slid past Farrah.

“Except yours,” Pax called to Blake. “She always said I was the best.”

“And that proves moms have no taste,” Blake quipped in return.

Their banter took her back. Those two, stepbrothers, had forever been in some challenge to one-up the other. They always had an insult on the tips of their tongues, ready to toss out the moment the opportunity presented itself.

Farrah shook loose the chains of the past, trying to stay rooted in the now. She couldn’t get distracted. They’d agreed to help, as she’d known they would, then met her at her house for details and a chance to look over her son’s room.

The thought of them in her home made her uneasy. It felt like that groundless anxiety when she didn’t know the cause, but also couldn’t settle.

They took up too much room in her home, as though the house hadn’t been built with them in mind.

Worse? Their eyes scanned across objects and she felt naked, as though she were on display for each one.

“How long has he been missing?” Ryder started the conversation, which was funny, as he didn’t tend to talk as much as the others. Or at least, he hadn’t before. Then again, he’d also kept them focused.

Farrah walked into the kitchen that was open to the living room. She busied her hands with the coffee maker as she spoke. “Knox cut class on Friday. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Four days,” Pax said as he stood across the kitchen bar from her. “No word at all?”

“Nothing. I called his friends, and no one’s heard from him.”

“Or they’re not saying,” Blake chimed in. “Boys tend to stick together. Can you imagine if Ryder’s mom called Pax or me when we were kids? Just because they aren’t saying doesn’t mean they don’t know.”

The point was a good one, but it still chafed. She wanted to argue that maybe it was true with Blake, Pax or Ryder, but not with her son.

Her son was different.

Which, of course, he wasn’t, but any mother would swear it.

So Farrah let the comment pass. “He doesn’t skip school. He’s never just taken off before.”

“Any fights between you two?”

“Nothing. Thursday night we ate dinner like always. Nothing happened.”

Pax leaned his elbow on the bar. “And his father? I know you said his father doesn’t live here, but any chance he could be involved? Usually, if a kid goes missing, it’s a parent.”

A pang in her chest made her lose count of how much coffee she’d added. “No chance,” she answered as she estimated and tossed in another two scoops.

“Most of the time—”

Farrah nailed Pax with a hard glare. “I’m telling you, it’s impossible. He doesn’t know anything about his father and his father knows nothing about him.”

Pax’s eyebrow lifted, probably at the venom in her voice.

She was not about to discuss Knox’s father with the three of them. Not a chance. Better to shut down the conversation fast.

“Any problems with other kids? fights?”

“A few fights,” she admitted. “But nothing serious. He’s an alpha, and he has the attitude of one.”

Blake let out a soft laugh, as though she were right and they all knew it.

She kept going. “None of them were big deals. I’m telling you, this isn’t like him. He doesn’t just stay out. He doesn’t miss curfew. No one’s spotted his car. He kept cash in his room, and it’s all gone. He cleaned out his bank account, too, so he’s got twelve hundred dollars, maybe. I think that’s one reason the police aren’t doing more, because they figure that means he took off on his own. They think he’ll come back in a few days.” A stinging in her eyes was her only hint that she was losing it.

She’d been tough the entire time since the school had called to tell her Knox hadn’t made it to his fourth period class. At the time, she’d been annoyed, ready to ground the boy when he walked through the door. Instead, he hadn’t shown. By the next morning, after a night when she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, she’d set about doing what needed to be done. She hadn’t had time to freak out, to give in to worry. She was all on her own, which meant she didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.

Somehow, talking about him made her walls crumble.

A gentle hand on her shoulder pushed her to the side, and Ryder took over finishing the drinks. That was for the best, since she was pretty sure she’d gotten the grounds-to-water ratio completely wrong. I hope they like strong coffee.

Farrah swiped her thumb beneath her traitorous eyes to wipe away any damned tears. She was not going to cry.

“I just need to find him,” she said with more bravado than she felt.

“We’ll find him,” Ryder promised as the coffee maker came to life when he hit the start button. “Trust me, we spend our time finding criminals who know how to disappear. I can’t imagine a thirteen-year-old will be all that hard.”

Thirteen. She ignored her flinch as he repeated the fake age she’d given them.

Close enough, right? What do two years matter?

“Thanks,” she said as she extracted herself from the close quarters of the kitchen, needing a few feet of space.

She wasn’t used to having alphas in her home.

Her son was one, but it was different. He was a kid, her kid. He was too smart to try to act like an alpha to her, but these three?

Even if they seemed to be trying to pretend it wasn’t true, to hide it, they were all watching her with the same predatory gaze.

“Nice house,” Blake said to break the tension. “Seems like you.”

“Like me?” Farrah crossed her arms as she scanned the large open space, trying to decide just what he meant by that.

“Cozy,” he continued, lips quirked into a half smile, as though her annoyance only made it all the better. “You never would have been the sort to doll up a house all fancy. This? Fits you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“And whose fault is that?” Pax added.

The answer said too much, so Farrah let it drop. “Come on. I’ll show you his room.”

The alphas went to his room. Having them rifle through his belongings had Farrah having to pull in her temper.

It felt wrong, having strangers go through his things.

They aren’t really strangers, are they?

But they were. They were fifteen-years strangers, and Farrah found she was quite the mama bear when it came to her cub and her den. Having these alphas in her space, in her son’s space, had her lip itching to curl up into a snarl.

“I haven’t seen any pictures of him,” Ryder said.

“Kids these days don’t have physical pictures. They’re all on his phone and he has that.” Farrah sidestepped the next question by answering it first. “I don’t have anything else right now. Most of our photos are in storage and getting a teenager to sit still is nearly impossible. Besides, I’ll recognize him. I just need you to help me figure out where he might be.”

Ryder stared at her without answering. His unwavering gaze said he caught something in her voice and her answer, but he didn’t say anything about it. Either he didn’t want to call her on it, or he wasn’t sure he still knew her that well.

Whatever it was worked in her favor, so she looked away and leaned against the doorframe of the small room.

It was small even with Knox in there, but with the three alphas?

Tight was the best way to describe it, though the word seemed filthier than it ought to.

“So what have you been doing?” Pax asked the question as he went through the papers shoved into Knox’s desk. He didn’t lift his face, didn’t look her way.

Farrah fought not to answer, she really did. Each word between them created a bond, or at least healed the one that had been there. It built upon the connection that had dwindled to a trip wire over the years.

Still, she found herself speaking, despite all her good intentions. “Being a mom, mostly.”

“Can’t be easy to raise a kid on your own.”

She shrugged as she watched the men work, as they studied each piece they found as though it were a different part of the puzzle. “It’s all I know.”

“What happened to Mr. Wonderful?”

Is that jealousy in his voice?

She fiddled with the hem of her shirt as she answered with as much truth as she dared. “Never would have worked. I was young, so was he and we wanted different things.”

“You know what you want? Well, ain’t that new?” Blake sat on the bed and went through the nightstand.

“I always knew what I wanted.”

“Right,” he said without turning back toward her. “Guess it’s just that no one can live up to your standards.”

“Come on, Blake, that isn’t fair. I recall a pretty sordid time we found her with Topher Contor’s hand up her sweater. Seems Topher lived up to it.” Pax sat at the desk and focused on the computer screen.

Her cheeks burned at the memory, at the way the three alphas, a year older than her and Topher, had surrounded the poor boy. He’d looked like a plaything between them, like a chew toy they planned on tearing apart.

“He was perfectly nice,” Farrah reminded them. “And last I heard, he’s settled down with a lovely woman and has three kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have run him off.”

Pax looked over his shoulder at her, heat in his deep blue eyes. “He’s lucky all we did was run him off. Besides, if he scared that easily, he wasn’t worth you. If he couldn’t stand up to us, fuck knows he couldn’t stand up to you.”

“Right, it was all for me.” She didn’t bother to smother her eye roll at the idea. She lived with a teenager, so she could roll her eyes with the best of them.

“Pretty much,” Blake agreed. “Last thing you’d want was to be saddled with some limp-dicked, no-spine yes-man.”

“A man who actually listened to me? Yes, what a tragedy.”

Blake tossed a balled-up shirt of Knox’s at her, and just like they were still fifteen years in the past, she got smacked right in the chest.

They boys had always been quicker. Not nearly as smart, but they’d made up for it with their speed and agility.

Pax chuckled, despite him still facing the screen as though he were ignoring them all. After a moment, he pulled out his cell. “People never remember to erase their internet history.”

“What?”

Blake shushed her, something that didn’t sit well.

Pax spoke into the phone after someone answered. “Yes, hello. I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering about someone I think rented a room there. Yes, I understand. No, I get it—you can’t give out information, and I normally wouldn’t call. The thing is, the boy, he’s my son.”

The word son made Farrah’s heart freeze in her chest as though something had grasped it tight and wouldn’t let go.

Pax kept talking. “He’s mad at me. You know how kids are. The thing is, he needs his meds for his diabetes. I just want to bring them to him, make sure he’s safe.” Another pause said the other person on the line was speaking, before Pax started up again. “Yeah, man, I know. Thirteen. Yeah, they’re a mess at this stage. If I can’t go talk some sense into him and get him his meds, I’m gonna have to call the cops. I don’t want to do that, and if he’s not there, the cops will have to keep searching. I just want to help him. Uh-huh. Okay, thanks, I owe you.”

Farrah bit her bottom lip as she listened to one side of the conversation. There was no way they could have already located him, right?

Pax hung up the phone then turned, spinning the office chair to face her. His expression held enough self-satisfied arrogance that she knew, yes, he had found Knox, and he was damned pleased with himself, too.

He rose from his seat, then tossed an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go collect your cub.”

Good. The sooner I can get these alphas out of my life, the better.