“Ask Jasmine,” I interrupted.
Jace shut his mouth with a snap. Both he and Owen looked at Jasmine, who shrank back. She buried herself between Killian and me, panting, trembling, her gaze on the forest floor.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “Please. I’m not ready. But…but if you need to do it, then I will be okay. I don’t want to put you in pain, either.”
A protectiveness swept through me. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her tight against my chest. “We’re grown men. We can handle a little abstinence.”
“I can leave,” Owen said gruffly. “If that’s why you’re holding back. I don’t have to be here. I can leave, and you can have them take care of you without me around.”
It was the most generous thing he’d ever said to her. Before Jasmine could answer, though, the satellite phone at Jace’s hip rang. He answered, and soon the voice of one of our commanders came through.
“We need you to return right away,” he said, sounding stressed. “There’s been an incident.”
Chapter 11 - Jace
We left the campsite behind after sending a message to the Burgess alphas, who agreed to send some people to clean it up for us so we could get back to Tyrell as quickly as possible. We shifted to our wolf forms to move more quickly, but Jasmine still slowed us down. Several times, I considered suggesting that one of us stay with her while the others go ahead, but every time I dismissed it.
All of us, whether we cared to admit it or not, would be distracted and anxious to be parted from her. The best thing to do was stick together at a pace she could go.
When we reached the trailhead where our car was, she gratefully climbed into the backseat. Killian and Renz climbed in after her, while Owen drove. The tension remained thick, even when Jasmine slept with her head on Renz’s shoulder.
My wolf whined in jealousy whenever I glanced back at them. I wished it were me who had been able to kiss her, to touch her, to bring her to orgasm. As soon as I’d seen them, Jasmine on her knees, kissing Renz passionately while Killian worked his hand between her thighs, I’d known she was in heat. It was the only way they would have jumped to sexual contact.
Gods, this was the last thing we needed. Even in my desire and jealousy, the guilt made my stomach cramp. It wasn’t Jasmine’s fault that she went into heat, but I couldn’t help but think we would have been better off if she just hadn’t. Owen clearly had shit he was still working through, and to have this on top of everything else?
I shook my head as we reached Tyrell. I couldn’t let myself be distracted by thoughts of our relationship as it stood, not when we had business with the pack to handle.
We headed straight for the infirmary, where two omegas were being held. They were in separate rooms, both with the blank eyes of the possessed. I recognized them both: Marla and Alex, who worked with children at the pack’s daycare. They were two of the gentlest people I’d known.
And they were both covered in bite marks, bleeding heavily, and straining against their restraints. They gnashed their teeth, grunting and growling. The doctors were keeping them in separate rooms, but it seemed like they could sense each other’s presence.
“What happened?” I asked.
The warriors who were standing guard over them explained how the two had gotten into a fight in the market—luckily not the daycare—and had nearly killed each other. It had taken several warriors to pry them apart.
Jasmine chewed her thumb. “I know them both. They’re gentle and kind and always look on the bright side. Maybe I can find a recipe in my gran—my cookbook,” she corrected, glancing quickly at Owen. “I have plenty of dried herbs, and they can sometimes help to relax the mind. It might help with…this.”
“Do it,” I told her. “But when you’ve got something ready, call us. Don’t come back alone.”
She nodded once, her clear black eyes on me. She seemed to want to say something else, but instead turned and headed out. The warriors watched her go, and I had to bite back a snarl. Her scent had receded again; they wouldn’t be affected by her heat. On the other hand, if we alphas started to make a big deal out of it, it would cause trouble.
“Run us through exactly what happened,” Owen said.
After we had heard the story from multiple people and were assured by the doctors that these two omegas would survive, the four of us headed to our offices. There, we entered the conference room. I poured myself a coffee, my mind turning over what we’d just learned.
“It’s the dark energy. The same as what happened in Burgess last year,” Killian finally said. “It manifested this same way before. It’s only going to get worse from here on out.”
“Is it the dark energy, or is it the curse that the omegas put on the land?” Owen asked.
I rubbed the back of my neck. For generations, we had thought that the omegas cursed the Maplewood valley. That they had done something that would slowly kill off the forest and creep into our towns and wipe out everyone who wasn’t an omega.
All of it was a lie. The curse itself was a lie. Though whatever they had done had left behind something in the valley, and that did result in things that went wrong, it wasn’t because the omegas had made a malicious attempt to wipe us out. Instead, they’d known about the darkness, and the ‘curse’ was, in fact, a warning system.
Supposedly, at least.
Apparently, the omegas who first cast the curse, or spell, or whatever it was, had known that the darkness would come back. There was an evil here that wanted to destroy us. But since they were omegas, nobody listened to them, and since they were bound to the land, they put this omen in place to warn us when the evil was coming back.
Of course, the rest of our ancestors assumed that the evil was their doing, and so the omegas were treated as the enemy. Ithad lasted all this time, and I still wasn’t entirely certain how it worked.
