Shared by the Alphas

Pain twisted Tiffany’s small body, so deep she couldn’t think. The only thing she knew for sure was that the alpha in the room with her smelled divine.

Her earlier horror paled against her need. The fear, the pain, the panic when the alpha she’d been dating, Randy, had abducted her and drugged her meant nothing now. Her biology had scrubbed that clear, and while she’d have to face it later, only this alpha mattered.

She hadn’t known a heat would feel like this. Her mother had talked to her about them, but she’d assumed she could deal with it. She’d figured omegas had oversold the truth looking for sympathy.

If anything, they’d undersold it.

The clawing pain in her stomach made her curl in on herself. Her arm hurt, but she couldn’t figure out why. It hung limp and useless against her side while she buried her face in the alpha’s lap, although she didn’t know him. He’d appeared in the midst of the fog that was her head. She knew nothing about him, but she didn’t care about anything beyond what he could do for her.

His cock pressed against her cheek, hard and thick and everything she needed.

“Please,” she begged.

He stroked his strong fingers through her hair, letting her nuzzle her cheek against his length. “I can’t take you like this.”

“It hurts.” She twisted, sliding her lips over his jean-clad hardness. “It hurts so much.”

“I know.” He moved his fingers from her scalp to the back of her neck, digging in as though his touch could ease the rigid muscles. “Breathe through the cramps, nice and slow. It’ll pass.”

He was wrong, though. She felt like she’d die, like her skin would sear away and leave behind nothing but bone. It consumed her, flames dancing over her skin, her thighs rubbing together. Her underwear and sweats were soaked, and her cunt throbbed around nothing.

She parted her lips and dragged her tongue against the length of his cock. It jerked beneath the touch, and a heavy groan left his lips.

“You can’t do that,” he growled. “I’ve got limits, little girl, and you’re mid-heat. Don’t test them, because you don’t want me to knot you.”

I do. The thought of his knot stretching her cunt, of him locking inside her, made her soaked pussy clench desperately. It would stop the pain and the mindless need that gnawed inside her.

He inhaled slowly, then that growl started up again. “You’re too far gone, aren’t you?”

“I need you. Please, help me.”

A sigh. “Okay. I can help you, but I won’t fuck you.”

The filthy word from his lips only drove her need higher. She wanted to argue, to claw open his pants, to mount him herself. She rolled, trying to crawl over him and free his cock.

Large hands set on her waist, keeping her from her goal. “I already told you, not that. I’ve got something else that will help.” He moved her so she knelt before him.

She trailed her hands over his thighs, gripping the firm muscles as he undid the button to his pants.

The moment his cock came into view, her mouth went dry. He was thick, the color shades darker than the rest of his skin, with raised veins running along the length. She wanted to lean forward and wrap her lips around him. She wanted him to fuck her face, to grasp her hair and force himself down her throat, to feed her every thick inch of him. The thought might have shamed her before, when she was clear-headed. Her heat filled her so fully there was no room for shame now.

When she moved forward, his snarl stilled her. It reached inside her to the omega part that submitted to an alpha, that wanted to please one. Hell, she’d do anything if he’d give her what she needed.

“Please.”

His lips pulled into a smirk that would have frightened a lesser omega and wrapped his hand around his cock to stroke. “Oh, I’ll take care of you, little girl.”

Tiffany’s scent drove Kieran feral. Each breath drew it deeper into him.

He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to strip off her soaked sweats, spread her thighs and slide deep into her. She’d let him, too. Hell, she’d beg him to.

It was her first heat, and she smelled delicious. He wanted to be her first, to claim her in a way no one else would ever be able to. Hell, maybe she was a virgin, too? Damn, she’d feel good stretched tight around the girth of his cock, and she’d make the best sound as he trapped her on his knot.

First-time omegas whined when they stretched, as they got locked in place. Their bodies might know what they needed, but their minds tended to take a while to catch up. Fuck, he wanted to have her pinned on his cock, trapped against him.

He stroked his cock, pre-cum dripping enough to lubricate his hand. It took everything he had not to call her over, not to let her have what she wanted. She’d slide that pretty pink tongue over his length before swallowing him down.

What little decency he had kept him from it.

As much as he wanted her, she was too young, too inexperienced. She was an omega with a dislocated shoulder who’d been abducted by a murderous alpha, whose first heat had started due to a drug. None of that meant he should fuck the poor girl, even if they both wanted it. Badly.

Her heat would end, and she’d regret it all. He could picture her sweet, innocent face pinched in unhappy lines at realizing she’d given up her first heat to an older, jaded alpha like Kieran.

That didn’t mean anything to his cock, though, as he fucked into his palm. She needed, and even if he couldn’t take her, he’d give her something to take the edge off.

A thin whine left her lips, her gaze pinned to his cock.

Stay quiet. Don’t say a word. Anything you have to say will only make it worse.

He couldn’t stop the words. “Are you drenched, girl? Desperate for me?”

She nodded, her good hand inching forward, leaning closer.

“Have you ever had an alpha? Ever felt a knot stretching you wide?”

“No.” The word came out soft, breathless, and had him almost coming at the implication.

“Have you ever had anyone?”

A shake of her head had his cock aching.

Damn.

Even with her dressed, he could see the lines of her alluring figure.

Her shirt hung low, letting him peer down it and see her ample cleavage. Her breasts weren’t huge, but they were perky. They pressed together when she leaned forward, her injured arm still tucked against her. Her hips spread out, pulling at the waist of her leggings, hiding nothing.

Especially not the wet spot at the apex of her thighs, proof of what she needed.

To think no one else had satisfied her, that she’d never experienced the stretch as someone slid into her tightness had him groaning. There was only so much a man could be expected to resist. He couldn’t think he’d be able to ignore her, her scent, her body, that pleading in her eyes and her voice.

Still, Kieran had done enough things he regretted, enough shit he couldn’t take back. Taking a virgin during a forced heat was a nail in his coffin he didn’t need.

So instead, he stroked his cock while he let his mind wander, as he let himself pretend her lips wrapped around him instead. When her tongue darted out and slid against her bottom lip in an unconscious stroke, he lost it.

He couldn’t hold off his own orgasm any longer. Didn’t want to. He came, his thick cum warming his palm, sticky and hot and not at all what he’d wanted.

Tiffany leaned forward on her good arm, eyes begging. Poor little omega, desperate for alpha cum.

Kieran held his hand out to her, but that didn’t sit right. The alpha in him snarled at his passiveness, at him ignoring his own needs. Kieran changed tactics. He wrapped his other hand around the nape of her neck and pulled her in. He fed two fingers past her full lips and into the heat of her mouth.

She suckled him, her agile tongue moving against the seam between the two fingers, neck twisting to clean each drop from him. She took it like she’d tasted nothing better, a broken moan leaving her, muffled as she refused to release him.

When she’d removed all the cum Kieran pulled back. He opened his palm, rubbing it against her lips, smearing the remaining cum on her like a mark. He wanted her skin to soak him in, her to carry his scent.

Maybe he hadn’t fucked her, hadn’t bred her, but instinct demanded he claim her somehow. Her tongue pressed at the creases of his palm, capturing his cum, the taste of his cock, all of it. When he pulled back, white still painted her lips near the corner of her mouth, but her tongue captured it and swallowed it down like the rest.

Kieran ran a thumb along her cheek, her blue eyes clouded and momentarily sated.

Damn, she is something.

Too young. Too naive. Too impulsive, if all he’d heard about her had been true, but still something.

A spark in her gaze and a thin whine said the effect of the cum hadn’t lasted long. Swallowing it would take the edge off, but it wouldn’t ease her the way fucking her would have. Too bad that wasn’t an option.

“Relax,” he ordered, a command in his voice he couldn’t hide, couldn’t stop. “I’ll take care of you, omega.”

He wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked again, now aided by her saliva coating his palm.

He could hate himself tomorrow for this. For now? For now, he’d feed this omega as much of his cum as she could take.

* * * *

Marshall hated to see injured omegas. It seemed like hurt puppies, something that shouldn’t ever happen. Was there even a point to alphas existing if they couldn’t manage the one thing they were meant for?

He’d been a doctor long enough, had seen the horrors of what the body could survive, but it never dulled that initial shock. Even at thirty-seven, having worked with injured omegas for a decade, he never lost that anger on their behalf when they came in beaten and hurt.

Though, after hearing the story from Sam, the detective who had brought her in, he knew damned well it had been an alpha who had put the girl in that hospital bed. An alpha was to blame for him having to reset her shoulder, for the cut lip she’d had, the bruises on her knees.

Worse? The alpha had been the reason he’d had to inject her with a sedative to ride out the rest of her heat, and he couldn’t quite pretend to be unaffected.

Even unconscious, she threw off an intoxicating scent. At the tail end of her heat, the scent had lessened. He’d opened the window so it didn’t fill the small hospital room. The heat, brought on by a drug the alpha had used on her, was stronger than most, and he’d already had to send another alpha to a different floor.

She tossed and turned on the bed despite the sedative. The sounds she made swung between frightened and filthy.

Marshall should have left. He’d set her arm, he’d written her orders. There were beta nurses to deal with the rest who would remain unaffected by the strong pheromones her body was pumping out.

Something kept him there, though. Something had him standing beside her bed, staring at her long blonde hair fanned out on the pillow, the flushed tone of her skin, the quick breaths.

What was it?

Instinct was something he ignored whole-heartedly. Instinct could go to hell for all he cared. He was a man and, while he may have been born an alpha, he refused to let that dictate his behavior. He’d made his own life, carved it out from nothing, and he’d be damned if instinct screwed it up for him.

Yet, that sound in his head, the one that filled his body and scratched against his mind, wouldn’t allow him to walk out. The moment he’d seen her, the moment he’d smelled her, he’d known.

What he’d known, he wasn’t sure.

It was like a fact written in a language he didn’t know, but a fact nonetheless.

So, he’d waited in her room, checking her vitals again and again as an excuse.

She stirred, quick movements that signaled waking. The medication should have kept her under for longer, but omegas never failed to do the unexpected. They reacted poorly to many medications, their hormones wreaking havoc on medical knowledge. It was why specialists like him were so important for omega care.

“You’re safe,” he offered softly to reassure her.

Her lids lifted and blue eyes met his. She tried to rise, but when she went to set her hand behind her, she gasped.

Marshall placed a hand on her back to help her up. “Your shoulder won’t be much use right now. You’re in the hospital.”

“Hospital?” She peered down at her lap before her gaze shot up. “Where’s Claire?”

Marshall pulled his hand back, the fear on her face showing she’d recalled the events. “She’s fine. She’s in a room down the hall.”

“I want to see her.”

“You will in a bit. First, I need to check how you’re doing, then I’ll see if she’s up for visitors.” He turned to the machines, checking heart rate, oxygen level. “My name is Dr. Brown. I’ve been taking care of you since you arrived yesterday.”

“Yesterday? I’ve been out for a whole day?”

“Yes. I gave you a sedative to sleep off most of the effects of your heat.”

Her cheeks flushed red, the color bright on her pale skin. “Right, that.”

He nodded, recalling the man who sat in the waiting room, the one who had brought her in. Kieran Elliot. He knew the man only through reputation. He’d offered information without inflection, as though none of it mattered, as if they’d spoken about a toy instead of a living, breathing omega in pain.

He’d claimed they hadn’t had sex. The idea had Marshall scoffing, since resisting an omega in heat was something few alphas could manage. Marshall could only because of years of training. Still, the omega carried the other alpha’s scent, a low level that supported his story.

They’d had contact, but it seemed he hadn’t knotted her. Had he, that scent would have clung to her in far larger amounts.

A petty part of Marshall liked that. It made his alpha side quiet the snarling when Kieran had stood in the room with him.

“How are you feeling?” Marshall lifted the clipboard from the foot of the bed. He didn’t need it, but his looking at it relaxed patients. His gaze could unnerve anxious omegas.

Being an alpha working with omegas had challenges, especially when he cared for injured and abused ones. Still, they’d found that nothing calmed an omega quite like the scent or voice of an alpha.

“Tired.”

He nodded, gaze down. “You’ll be tired for a few days. I’ll have food brought in to help. How much do you remember?”

A shudder ran through her. “Everything.”

Words perched on his tongue, something reassuring, something to tell her it was okay. Instead, he shook away the impulse. “The alpha who found you, Kieran, stated there was no sex, so no possibility of conception. Is that right?”

She nodded, her fingers running over the sling that kept her arm immobile. “Kieran?”

“You don’t know his name?”

“No. We’d never met.”

Marshall hung the clipboard on the hook at the foot of her bed. “Yes. His name is Kieran Elliot. He’s outside if you’d like me to get him.”

“He’s still here?”

“He never left. I think he wanted to make sure you were all right.”

She huffed a soft laugh that made her chest rise against the hospital gown they’d dressed her in. “I doubt he wants to see me. Let him know I am awake, alive and not his problem anymore.”

The hurt in those words caught Marshall. Not venom. Not fear and not anger, but unhappiness. What had happened to cause her to react like that? Marshall rolled his shoulders, telling himself to relax, to breathe in and out, like he told his patients.

He had no reason to believe the alpha had harmed her, but reason had nothing to do with the adrenaline that had started to work its way through his body.

“Doctor?”

Marshall snapped his gaze up. “Yes?”

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing. Why?”

Her eyebrow lifted, and the vibration in his chest told him.

He’d been growling.

Wonderful.

“Sorry.” Marshall cut the sound off before leaning out of the door to order the food, giving himself a moment to collect himself. He didn’t go off like that, didn’t let his baser instincts free. No, not Dr. Marshall Brown. He’d always been the steady one, the thinker, the one no one would suspect of being an alpha.

After a few breaths, Marshall returned to the room, to the omega, to her scent and her temptations. “Are you in pain?”

She shook her head, but even that had her wincing. Her soft smile said she knew he’d seen. “I’m sore, but I don’t want painkillers.”

“Why not?”

She curled her fingers into the blanket as she pulled it up tighter around her waist. “I don’t want to feel out of control.”

Of course. After what she’d been through, she’d want all her faculties in order. “How about anti-inflammatories? They will reduce the swelling and pain, but they won’t make you feel drugged or loopy.”

A breath full of relief left her. “That would be great.”

Marshall added it to her chart, then sat in the chair beside the bed. It lowered him and gave her a position of height. “You can have them after you eat, since taking them on an empty stomach will make you sick. Eat something, take the pills and I’ll set up for you to see your friend.”

“Thank you, Dr. Brown.”

“Marshall.” He frowned at how quickly the correction came out, at how much he wanted to hear his first name fall from those pink lips of hers. “Call me Marshall.”

“Marshall,” she said with a smile.

And, damn, that smile was enough for him to pull in a rough breath and realize he was in over his head.

He liked the omega.

Kieran wanted to pace. He wanted to move around the waiting room and snarl at anyone who passed too close.

Tiffany sat in a hospital room, and the walls separating them made him want to tear them down. Fuck. Where did that come from?

Instead, he sat in one of the chairs far too small for his size, his laptop perched on his thighs. He reviewed the bid for a job in Texas sent by the manager there. It was busy work to keep him occupied and not thinking about Tiffany, about what had happened, about how she’d looked stretched out in that hospital bed unconscious.

The way her lips had wrapped around his fingers, the way she’d swallowed down his cum—he couldn’t shake it. Her eyes, full of trust, were the worst.

She was too fucking young. After what had happened with Randy, she shouldn’t trust anyone, especially not him. Kieran was at fault for what had happened. He’d failed to see Randy for what he’d been, hadn’t recognized the monster in his employee and it had led to the deaths of too many omegas. It had led to what Tiffany had suffered.

After getting her settled, he’d checked on Claire in her hospital room. The other woman had given him some information on the girl, but she’d been tight-lipped. Smitten as she was with Bryce, Joshua and Kaidan, it seemed he wasn’t offered that same trust.

Tiffany was only nineteen. A barista at a local coffee shop, from what he understood. That didn’t shock him, though. Her sweet nature, and the way she’d pleaded so nicely?

That was the sort of voice he wanted to hear begging. He wanted to see her strip down and drop to her knees, to have her turn those blues eyes up to him and—

“You sure this is the place for that?” Sam’s voice cut into his thoughts.

A look down at his groin had Kieran groaning and adjusting the laptop to cover his erection. “What do you want?”

Sam only grinned before lowering into the seat beside him. How the detective managed to deal with all he did and still have that cheerful mood, Kieran would never know. “Wanted to check in on everyone. Besides, I brought Tracy and Karen to see Claire.”

A soft snort was Kieran’s only answer. Sam was the sort of alpha to settle down, so it didn’t shock him to hear he’d put some claim on the broken omega and her daughter. Sam was a family man, the sort who would fit well into the father role.

“How are you?”

“I don’t need a heart-to-heart, Sam.”

“You sure about that? Because you look even more glum than usual, and you’re usually pretty depressing.”

Kieran released a low, threatening growl.

Sam only laughed. “That won’t scare me off.”

He shut the laptop, giving up on the fake distraction. Sam was a hell of a pain in the ass when he wanted to be, and it seemed he wanted to be.

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

“She was in heat. What the hell do you think happened?”

“You didn’t knot her. You wouldn’t be this wound up if you had.”

Kieran’s knuckles popped when he drew them into fists, then released them. “Fine, I didn’t. Can you blame me? She was drugged out of her mind, and it was her first heat. Nothing in that says she should have had sex with anyone, let alone me.”

“Let alone you?”

Kieran pressed his lips tight at the telling statement. “I mean that I’m not looking for anything long term, and that girl should be. So, no, I didn’t knot her. I helped her the best I could until she could be sedated, and now? Now I’m waiting here to make sure she’ll be fine. Then she can go on her way, meet a nice young alpha and have a handful of kids. Are we done?”

Sam’s chuckle only drove Kieran’s temper higher. The draw to knot the female had nearly overwhelmed him, and denying the instinct had left tension. “Oh, this should be fun to watch.”

Kieran shook his head, wanting to open the laptop and let the detective fuck off for all he cared. Being rude wasn’t something he’d worried much about in his life.

“There’s something else,” Sam said.

“What?”

“Well, when they brought Tiffany in, they fingerprinted her, ran her history.”

“She’s nineteen. How much history could she have?”

“More than you’d think.” Sam reached into the bag slung over his shoulder to pull out a folder. “She’s been in trouble a few times. She was pegged as an omega at fifteen because of a reaction to some medication. At that point, she rebelled a bit. Most of it was small stuff. Went joyriding in a few cars, a bit of graffiti, some breaking and entering.”

“Most of this looks harmless enough.” Kieran read through the reports.

Hard to think of Tiffany being such a troublemaker. Even the things listed weren’t outright destructive. She’d graffitied omega slogans on the wall of a newspaper that tended toward pro-alpha stories. The breaking and entering seemed to be revenge for an alpha who had groped her friend. The joyriding was pure fun.

“Most of it was. Then this happened.” Sam leaned across and flipped the page. “She got into it with this alpha. Broke his nose, gave him a concussion.”

“That little spit of a girl did all this to an alpha?”

“That little girl had a big bat and a lot of attitude.”

Kieran read over the details, his lips tipping down. “Says here she claims the alpha attacked her.”

“Yeah, and, judging from what I’ve found, he probably did. However, the alpha’s father is a congressman, and the last thing he wanted was this story in the paper about his son, so he made sure it fell on Tiffany’s shoulders. They put out a warrant to have her registered as a delinquent omega.”

“Fuck.” Kieran slammed the folder closed. “Tell me there’s something you can do about this?”

“The alpha’s father has a lot of pull, and he’s well connected. I’d guess he hasn’t let it go, because I ran her prints as soon as she came in, and I got a call within fifteen minutes about her.”

“You can’t let them register her for that. She’ll be given to whatever alpha has been sucking the dick of the council. She’ll be nothing but property.”

Sam slid the folder back into his bag. “I know, but I don’t have unlimited power here. Lucky for you, I have enough strings for one plan, but it’s all we’ve got.”

“And what plan is that?”

Sam’s smile, wide and full of amusement, didn’t bode well. “How do you feel about coming out of retirement to train one last unruly omega?”

* * * *

Kane sighed as the man struggled against his binds. Why did they always struggle? It wasn’t like the man thought he’d get out of the rope that bound his wrists, yet there he went, yanking and rolling.

Even calves gave up when hog-tied. Seemed cows were smarter than the fucker Kane had caught.

“Let me go! I’ll give you anything.”

“Don’t want shit from you.” Kane opened the desk drawer and rummaged through the items there. Snacks, a magazine, a billion paper clips.

What the fuck? No one used paper clips anymore, yet every desk he looked through had them in spades.

“Besides, you’d lie anyway.”

“I won’t lie. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, okay?”

“See, that won’t fix this. Someone hired me to find you and to get some important files. You being alive or dead at the end of it? Well, that’s a fun surprise for us all. I’m partial to dead, but not sold either way.”

That had the man struggling again, hard enough he rolled to his side and got stuck. Not the most dignified position.

The ringing of Kane’s phone had him sighing. Why did he give out his number? He hated when people called him when they wanted stupid shit. He should hire a secretary, someone to deal with the frustration for him.

He pulled out the phone, and the name forced a smile he tried to hide the moment it appeared. He gave a warning jab in the man’s direction then a shush before he answered it. “Hey, Tiff. Been a while.”

A soft background beeping came before she answered. “Hey, Kane. Sorry, I’ve been busy.”

He stilled, something on the edges of his awareness raising suspicion. “You okay, doll? You don’t sound great.”

“I’m fine.” The lie, even through the phone, could have been spotted by a blind idiot. “Well, I mean, I will be. There was an accident, and I got hurt, but I’m okay now.”

“Accident? You lying to me now?”

The hesitation from her was new. Hell, it almost sounded like she had to psych herself up to answer. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

His hand tightened around his phone until a crack warned him to ease off. “Fine. Sure. We’ll not talk about the fact I know you’re in a fucking hospital. You think that beeping ain’t distinctive? But, yeah, whatever you want. Why’d you call? So we could not talk about you being hurt?” The sharpness of his tone would have shut up most people, but Tiffany had never been most people.

A year since they’d started talking, since she’d hired him to do a simple delivery job, and he’d never been able to stop thinking about her. They hadn’t met, of course. Too tempting, too dangerous. She sounded like a fucking perfect omega, and him? He was scarred and tatted up and far too dangerous for her. Hell, the girl had no idea he was even an alpha.

Instead, their talks had turned from jobs to actual conversations. They’d laugh, they’d talk and he’d pretend there was something there. Her voice had gotten him through some dark nights, nights when that soft laughter of hers was the only light he knew of.

Her sigh came out soft and tired.

Don’t be an asshole.

She’d clearly had a hell of a day, so the last thing she needed was Kane acting like a bastard to her.

“Sorry, doll. What’s up?”

At that, the man on the floor shouted, “Help me! He’s going to—” A kick to the man’s stomach, then a hand over his mouth shut him up.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. TV was on too loud. What’s up?”

Suspicion colored the silence, telling him she was too smart to believe his shit. Still, she didn’t call him on it. “I wanted to know if you’ve made any progress. I don’t know how long I’ll be under this name, and in case I have to go, I wanted to make sure you send anything new you’ve found.”

“You planning on running?”

“Might not have a choice.”

The hell she wouldn’t. Kane wanted to ask her what the problem was, wanted to tear it apart. He wasn’t any good for her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fuck up anything that endangered her. That was what they had—all they could have. Tiffany got the good life, the happy life, and Kane got to watch over her. It had to be enough. “Tell me the truth, Tiff. Tell me what’s going on. I can help you.”

“You’ve done a lot for me, Kane, but even you can’t fix everything.”

“Wanna bet?”

Her laugh eased his chest, the resilience there. Stubborn, feisty little omega that she was, nothing much kept her down for long. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I’m going to have much to say about this. Text me that address when you find it, please.”

He nodded before remembering she couldn’t see him. “Sure thing. You keep my number, though, because if you drop off the face of the Earth and don’t bother to let me know you’re okay, I’ll track your ass down.”

“Promise?”

His answering growl came out feral against the teasing she always did.

How many times had she asked to meet? How many times had she’d begged him to stay at their drop-off location? Hell, he still recalled the time he’d scouted it out first, only to see the same car sitting there. A call and her laugh had said, yeah, she’d tried to outwit him.

Fuck, turning her down was hard. Didn’t matter, though. Sometimes people did what was right even when it was hard, and he hadn’t done much right in his life.

“Don’t push me,” he said.

Nothing but affection came through her words, as if his growls and threats meant nothing. “I’ll do what I can, okay? And, just in case, if things don’t work out and I can’t talk to you again, I want you to know—”

“None of that. You shut the fuck up with goodbye bullshit, you hear me?”

“There’s that charm of yours I love. Okay, fine, no goodbyes. I’ll talk to you later.”

“You better.”

The line went dead, leaving Kane still holding the man beneath him down, his hand over the guy’s mouth. Sure, the guy was a two-bit asshole who deserved the shit that was happening, but, even so, it all painted a picture, didn’t it?

No matter what Tiffany thought, the girl didn’t know shit, and they had no future. The best thing he could do for her was to stay the hell out of her life.

If only he was strong enough to do it.

* * * *

Tiffany shifted her arm, the sparks of pain causing her to grit her teeth but try again. It moved, but pain still spread through the joint.

The pills had taken the edge off the ache. Food had settled her stomach, and she could breathe easily again.

Kane’s voice brought a smile, though. That growl he let out and his subtle annoyance with her warmed her. If she had to run—and it seemed she’d need to—she’d miss him.

She couldn’t contact him after she cut ties. Claire had taught her enough to know better than to try it. The quickest way to get caught would be contacting anyone from her old life.

She’d miss him. How many people could she count as friends? He’d never been interested in anything, had refused to meet her. Because she’d gotten his number through a forger, she had to assume he knew she was an omega.

Was that the problem? Most betas didn’t want omegas. They considered them too much trouble, too prone to running off with an alpha. It meant few settled down together.

Did he not want to risk his heart if she decided she’d rather end up with an alpha? Like omegas were driven by nothing but the need for a knot? She bristled at the idea.

As soon as it happened, the anger melted away. The reason didn’t matter. She’d miss him.

There wasn’t a choice, though. She’d seen her legal name on the file. If they had that, they’d have seen the warrant and the orders to register her.

And she couldn’t let that happen. She wasn’t going to be given away like a prize to some alpha she’d never met. The alphas willing to take on delinquent omegas tended to be shitty people. What sort of man was fine with taking an unwilling omega as a mate?

She grasped the needle of the IV. How much time did she have? How long before the police showed up? Before someone came to tell her what happened next?

Before the thoughts could drag her under, before she risked pulling out the IV, a soft knock on the door caught her attention.

“Yeah?” Her voice cracked from the nerves.

The door opened, and a man she didn’t recognize came in. One sniff told her. Alpha.

Before she could worry, Kieran came in on his heels. He met her gaze, eyes hard, looking so much like he had in that room.

He was tall and impossibly large. Silver hair at his temples showed he was more than a couple of years older than her, but that didn’t scare her off. In fact, all the signs of his age, the knowledge in his dark eyes, the lines between his eyebrows that implied he frowned a lot—she liked it all. His hands caught her attention, and they brought back all the ways he’d used them on her the night before.

It forced her gaze down to hide her reaction.

“Hello, Tiffany. My name is Detective Sam Franklin. How are you feeling?” The new man spoke with a kind voice, the sort that made her want to let down her guard.

“Tired of that question.”

Snark was always a risk. She never knew how an alpha would react. Would he find her smart-ass comments adorable? Would he see them as a challenge?

Sam responded by letting out a hard bark of laughter. “I’ll take that as you feeling pretty well, then. You look better, and the doctor says you’ll be fine.”

“So why are you here?”

Kieran said nothing as he leaned against the wall beside the door. He stuck his hands into his pockets, his gaze moving between Sam and Tiffany, but remained silent.

Sam, however, seemed more than willing to do the talking. “Well, as I’m sure you guessed, we’ve run your name. It seems you’ve had some issues with the law in Ohio.”

She swallowed before trying to play dumb. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Must be a paperwork error.”

Sam reached into his bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Her picture showed on the front, her name above it. “This isn’t a mistake. You are Tiffany Hansen, and they are looking for you.”

“Please, don’t turn me over. Walk out of the room, go get some coffee. I’ll take the IV out and be gone before you get back. Say I snuck off again. Say anything you want, but let me go.” Her words started to ramble, to spin faster and faster.

Kieran spoke, voice hard and so familiar despite the short time they’d known each other. “Easy there, girl. Listen to your options before you pass out.”

She pulled in a shaky breath, not realizing how shallow her breathing had turned. “I have options? That’s new.”

“To be fair, it’s only one.” Sam came over and rested his hip against the bed. “I’ve got an option for you, Tiffany. It’s not great, but it’s better than being registered.”

“What’s the option?”

“Go through a training program with a registered alpha. I’ve gotten a judge to sign off on it. Complete this program, and your history is wiped clean. You’ll be free to start over, to live any life you want.”

“I’ve never heard of that before.”

“It’s not done much anymore. Basically, if there’s an omega they feel could do fine on her own after a little training, they’ll place her with an approved alpha. He’ll teach her, get her set up, and she gets a second chance after completing the program.”

“How long?”

“Program takes a year. You’d have to give up that time to it.”

Her jaw ached from the way she pressed her teeth together. “So, you’re telling me that the cost of my freedom is to give up my freedom to some strange alpha for a full year?”

“It’s not perfect, I know, but it’s all I’ve got. And, besides, it’s a year versus your whole future, so it’s the lesser of two evils.”

The idea of agreeing chafed. Still, what had she wanted since she’d run a year ago? She’d wanted her life. She wanted to go home and see her parents. She wanted to be able to use her real name, to buy property, to go to school. An entire year beneath the thumb of some registered, approved alpha wasn’t ideal, but it was only a year. She’d been on the run for longer than that.

She could sacrifice a year if it meant her freedom. “Okay.”

“Don’t you even want to know who the alpha would be?”

“Doesn’t matter. I can get my life back this way, so whoever it is? I can handle them.”

Sam chuckled, then stood. “Glad that’s how you feel right now. Not sure you’ll feel that way when you find out who it is.”

Her eyebrows inched toward one another. “Why not? Who is it?”

Kieran spoke from his spot against the wall, so still she’d nearly forgotten about him. “You just agreed to be mine for the next year, girl.”

Well, shit.