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I yank away just as a familiar voice snarls, “What the fuck are you doing?”
The omega whimpers, eyes wide. Eyes the wrong fucking color.
I shove her away from me, and she stumbles back right into Davis and Ford, who growl at me, angry that I would treat an omega like this. Despite how quickly he’d reached the omega, Asher is standing to the side, looking confused, his dark brows drawn low as Topher barrels up to us. “Where the fuck is Sylvie?”
I blink at my beta, who places his hands on my chest and pushes, putting more space between me and the omega who smells like my mate, but tastes like someone else. He has a cut in his eyebrow, a bruise forming on his cheek, like someone punched him. There’s blood on his t-shirt.
“What are you doing?” The omega protests. “I need them. Need a knot. Need a bite. Need my pack.” Her heat pheromones flood the area, her perfume rises, and it’s a sickening combination of hazelnut, chocolate, nectarines and honey. “You promised,” she whimpers. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me.”
Saliva floods my mouth. I growl and try to go to her again.
“You shut the fuck up,” my beta snarls at her, and I growl at him in response. Topher fists my shirt and shoves me back again. “That is not Sylvie.” He points at the whimpering omega, who is currently rubbing all over Davis. My brother has a dazed expression on his face, one hand fisted by his side while the other curls around her hip, urging her closer. He’s as torn as I am.
He lifts his blue-gray eyes to me, and says slowly, thickly. “I think he’s right.”
“No!” the omega wails. “No, please. You promised. You swore.”
Topher ignores her and it makes it easier for me to ignore her, too. He reaches up and cups my cheek. “We need to find Vee,” he tells me, holding my gaze with his milk chocolate eyes. “She’s in heat, Jackson, and she needs her pack.”
“I’m right here!” I shake my head, finally able to think enough to know that this woman is not Vee, is not my mate. What the hell happened? How could I make that mistake? How could every single one of us, but Topher, not recognize that this is not Vee?
Asher is staring off to my left, in the opposite direction from where Topher came at us. “She’s close,” he mutters and then takes off. The rest of us follow, stumbling over our own feet, moving away from the now sobbing omega. Fuck.
I can’t believe Maxim did this, drugged us, brought in an omega that looked just enough like our girl to fool us. I don’t even want to consider how he got his hands on Vee’s scent, thick with heat markers. The realization that he hurt her somehow, forced this, has me contemplating all the ways I’m going to make him hurt.
“No,” Ford moans, drawing me back from my realization and the visions of revenge running through my head. “No. Please.”
It only takes me a moment to see what he does. A small body with blond hair slumped against the side of the house amongst the bushes. Only twenty feet from where we were with the fake Sylvie.
“She saw,” Davis chokes out, dropping to his knees next to the still figure. “Fuck. Fuck.”
The five of us huddle around her, but not one of us reaches for her, terrified of what we might find. Of this huge fuck up being the thing that takes her from us for good. My chest aches, tears already forming in my eyes, but then… but then the faintest movement in her chest.
“She’s breathing,” I rasp, reaching out and hauling her toward me as relief floods my system, clearing out most of the lingering effects of whatever my father dosed us with. Four sets of hands help me, settling her on my lap, as we check her pulse, the faint flicker in her neck.
She whimpers and her eyelids flutter and all of us relax marginally. Alive. She’s alive. But she’s cool to the touch and far too limp.
“Hospital,” Topher says, pushing to his feet. “We need to get to the hospital and have them check her out.”
He’s right, I know he’s right, but the idea of putting her down, of handing her over to someone else, has me snarling and pulling her closer.
Ford claps a hand on my shoulder and forcing me to look up. “If we don’t take her, she could die, Jacks. I will fight you if I have to. Please don’t make me. She needs us.”
I blink and then nod. Cuddling her close to my chest as I uncoil to my feet. I take off at a sprint, heading around the house to the driveway, where Vee’s car is parked crooked, still running, front door open.
“I’ll drive,” Topher says, already climbing in the front seat while Asher yanks open the back door and practically dives inside. Ford snarls at Davis, who snarls right back as I follow Asher, sliding into the middle seat with our girl still cradled in my arms.
After a moment Ford climbs in next to me, and Davis into the front, before he twists around and grabs Vee’s hand, lacing his fingers with hers, blue eyes fixed on her pale face.
Tires screech as Topher speeds down the driveway, his brown eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror, constantly checking on our girl.
I should demand that he keep his eyes forward. The last thing we want is to crash, but fuck, I can’t exactly blame hi. Vee is too still, too pale, her chest barely rising and falling with each breath. Her skin feels cold and clammy, like she’s already gone, a corpse. Asher’s hands are gripping her legs where they’re draped over his lap, hand moving restlessly up and down, like he’s trying to rub warmth into her.
Ford’s inaudible murmur reaches my ear, from where his lips are pressed into the top of her head, his fingers resting lightly over her neck. No doubt feeling the faint flutter of her heartbeat.
“Vee, baby girl, open your eyes,” I whisper, staring down at her. “Please. I need you to open your eyes for us. Come back to us. We need you.”
Nothing. Fucking nothing.
