This is why the heat in a female would send us all into an insane rut, but especially Raiden, as our Pack Omega.
I noticed my Packmates on the other side of the stage, also looking up at her like she was a gift from the Goddess. She was definitely the one, and I would make her ours. Raiden was all but shaking with need, and I moved him toward the back wall so we could watch her and be obscured by the shadows a little more.
Her hips swayed with exaggeration to the music. She hooked her leg around the shiny metal pole in the center of the stage, swinging in a slow loop, her left foot barely scraping along the floor. Her breasts were barely contained in a tiny little bikini which matched the barely-there thong that both covered her intimate flesh and attracted the gaze of the audience to it.
As I searched the crowd, watching the hungry eyes of the humans, smelling their lust and violence, my Beast rose up in my chest. They were looking at what was mine, or at least, what would be mine. I looked at the red lever beside me, secure behind its safety glass from accidental knocks. The fire alarm.
Looking over at Finlo, I lifted my chin toward the girl. Finlo would know what to do. He nodded back, so I pushed through the safety glass and pressed the fire alarm. Within seconds, there was a loud whooping noise that blared across the music, the interior fire sprinklers opening the metaphorical heavens.
Panic ensued, and there was a mass exit for the door, people pushing and shoving as they nearly trampled others to make their escape from nothing. As people turned and fled, the girl jumped off the stage, but Finlo moved incredibly fast. He gathered her up into his arms and walked out the rear exit, the girl over his shoulder, Seven and Ellar at his back.
Raiden whined as he lost sight of the other Omega, and we moved with the tail end of the panicked exodus. The rest of our Pack would get her where we needed her to be. I would just take care of Raiden.
An Omega pair… Could we really be that lucky? Raiden whined low under his breath, his hand gripping mine. “She’s close, Gat. So damn close. Maybe a week? It’s making my skin itch.”
Female Omegas had been the first thing to die out. There were no Omega pairs left. Back when they’d found out the Omega females were dying out, we’d tried the Omegas of different species, but while they might be hierarchically the same, they weren’t physiologically similar enough for there to be an Omega bonding. That had led to an uprising against us by shifters, because the Manix of the past didn’t exactly ask for the Omegas nicely, which drove us further into the Mountains, isolating us even more.
It had been a bleak time in our history. Because we weren’t like shifters, or other supernaturals. We were different completely, an entirely different genus. That was why the girl we’d just pulled off the stage was such a miracle, a true gift from the Goddess.
She was going to save our Pack, and then maybe, our species. But first, we had to get her to like us.
2
Naja
Iwas in the middle of my set when chaos erupted. The sprinkler system kicked in, soaking the ground and all the clientele. I didn’t mind really; I’d been running a fever for a week and the water felt blessedly good on my overheated skin. But my heels weren’t made for wet weather, and I slipped across the stage. I was about to scramble down, when my heel went out from underneath me completely, sending me flying.
I screeched, but strong hands caught me around the waist, pulling me upright. I looked up at the man who’d caught me. And I do mean up. He must have been close to seven feet tall. And he was handsome, literally steal your breath handsome.
“Thank you—oof!”
He hauled me over his shoulder and pushed his way into the staff hallways toward the back entrance.
“Hey, asshole! Put me down. I can walk,” I screeched, ignoring the fact that I’d nearly fallen on my face moments before.
That’s when I noticed the other two. They closed ranks around the other guy, and fear began to replace my outrage. Shit. Fuck. I was being fucking kidnapped. I hammered at the guy’s back, shrieking obscenities and god knows what else, both in Spanish and English, but none of them seemed to pay me any attention.
No one could hear my calls for help over the wailing of the alarm, and my panic turned to icy fear in my veins. Everything they’d ever told me in self-defense classes came roaring to the front, such as never let them take you to a secondary location, and go for the soft bits. But over this guy’s shoulder, with his arms banded around my leg like a vice, and his back impervious to my nails and bites, I didn’t know what my self-defense instructor would have wanted me to do. There were no soft bits back here.
I was going to be a statistic, going to my death in only a fucking thong.
My kidnapper stopped outside a black minivan and one of the other guys zipped around to open the trunk. Oh hell no.
“Let me fucking down, you cocksucking piece of shit asshole!” I screamed, twisting my body up to grab at his hair and yank hard. He hissed, but I swear to fucking god, he grinned at the pain. He went to put me into the back of the van, but this fucker probably thought I was a human. He couldn’t have been more goddamn wrong. As soon as my ass chafed against that cheap auto carpet, I twisted hard, putting my ridiculous heel into his stomach. He flew back with a grunt, and I was out of the car and sprinting across the parking lot back toward the building. I’d take my luck with the fucking fire and lock myself in the boss’s office.
I made it a few more steps before I slammed into a wall. Or at least, it felt like a wall. When a set of arms wrapped around me again, my stomach sank. I craned my neck to look up into a gorgeous face, the kind with high cheekbones and a sharp jaw that made a person look cruel. This guy definitely belonged with the other group.
I opened my mouth to scream, but another set of arms yanked me away from him. The new guy was shorter, but still towered over me. He looked down at me with the softest blue eyes I’d ever seen. “It’s okay, Omega,” he whispered, and my entire body went lax. It was like someone had shot me with an overdose of Xanny, making my body languid and chasing away the terror.
He picked me up in his arms, and while my brain wanted to run from the other predators, I found myself snuggling into this one's arms. The hell?
“Ah, little one. You must be so uncomfortable. Let us take care of you,” he cooed, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell him how sick I’d felt the last few days, how exhausted I was all the time. But at the same time, I wanted to claw out his eyes and run away as fast as my stupidly tall heels would let me. As if he could sense my thoughts, he tutted his tongue. “We mean absolutely no harm, Omega. We couldn’t hurt you if we tried.” He stared down into my eyes, finding a truth there that I desperately wanted to remain hidden. “How hard it must have been for you.”
I sniffed, realizing I was crying and also now in the back of the fucking minivan. Goddammit. What an epic fail.
But one thing was clear—these guys were some kind of supes. “Not an Omega,” I said groggily, fighting the pure calm that was radiating from the guy currently holding me. “Shouldn’t take me. I’ll bite off your dick.”
One of the guys in the back of the van laughed. “Some of us might like that.” When the guy holding me tutted, the other one bowed his head. “Apologies, Omega.”
