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But the only one I want is you.
The pronouncement hit her full force, shattering the end of her sentence. Whispered in a voice indistinguishable from her inner Omega and her own thoughts, the truth of it rammed through her so hard and fast that it knocked the wind from her lungs. Zorah stared into nothingness, speechless, as the sentiment ping-ponged around her brain.
The only one I want is you.
There it was again, said with certainty, as if her inner Omega and some part of herself she refused to acknowledge banded together to override everything else. This time, a different feeling rode in on the coattails of the shock. Comfort. Relief. Safety. Like sliding into a hot bath, the idea embraced her with open arms, the answer to so many of her questions and exactly none of her problems.
Jake was about as far from a Prince Charming as she could imagine, and yet, he was better. Because he was here in front of her, talking with her, teaching her, caring for her, caring about her, making love to her. In short, he had something Prince Charming never would: he wasreal.
And he's ours. He'sourAlpha.
Zorah raised silent, beseeching eyes to the deep recesses of Jake's own, willing him to see through it all and understand. To catch her up in his arms and tell her he wanted her and would claim her for his own despite everything that stood against them.
His hand withdrew from her neck, and his posture straightened as discomfort contaminated the middle-of-the-night peace. "Zorah," he rasped. "You know I can't..."
Zorah's heart nose-dived through the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest. "I know. You told me by the rocks."
"It's worse than that." Jake dug aggravated fingers into his hair. "He'll kill me, Zorah. I promised Hunter I'd stay away from Omegas, or he'd kill me. That was the deal I made."
Any faint hope scattered like a wisp of smoke in the wind. If she pressured Jake to be her mate, he'd lose it all. A home, his friend, a place to belong, everything she took for granted, everything he'd suffered without for a lifetime. To ask him to shun all of that after decades of desolation was unconscionable, but it wasn't even the worst of it. Her stomach bottomed out. He could lose his life. Was it not enough she'd put the Beta boy and his family in jeopardy? Not enough she'd endangered her own father? Was she truly going to choose this Alpha and condemn him to death? How could she be that selfish? Only a child would be that selfish.
Several quiet minutes passed, and Zorah sat alone in a new and unique flavor of misery. Her Alpha waited a mere handsbreadth away, yet that distance gaped like the greatest canyon in the deepest ocean.
Zorah rocked to and fro in mock solitary solace. "Do you want me to leave?"
"No. Stay," he said with quiet command and reached for her.
Freed to touch him, Zorah nearly leaped into his lap and mashed her face into his warm, fragrant neck. Inhaling his comforting aroma, she circled her arms around his back, squeezed him tight, and felt the ridges of his scars under her fingertips. How many more times would she feel them? When would be the last? A single tear dripped from her eye, her heartache beyond such a trivial display.
Jake's voice rumbled over her tattered heart, betraying the suppressed trace of his own anguish. "Stay with me."
CHAPTER 28
Jake
Jake pulled open the heavy door to the mess hall, his guts pretzeled into one giant knot. This was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
But there was no alternative. Zorah was hungry, and his food supplies had run out.
Stale, indoor air blasted him in the face as he stepped into the cavernous space. Smells of used oil and vegetable waste warred with human aromas: Alpha, Omega, pups, and babies. Every member of Morris Hill ate here, usually two or three meals a day, and he swore he could smell each and every one. The overpowering mélange made him want to spin on his heel and charge right back to his cabin, food or no food.
Hard to believe he'd once spent his days in buildings bigger and stuffier than this one without a single qualm. Office buildings reaching up to the sky like greedy fingers stuffed with people doing every imaginable kind of job, and once upon a time, he'd been in the mix. Wearing a collared shirt and iron-creased pants, he breathed the stifled air and pushed numbers around spreadsheets in service to the almighty buck. Stupid, stupid work that provided him absolutely no useful skills for surviving in the AfterEnd.
If some fairy godmother materialized out of the woodwork, asking if he would like to be whisked back to his life before TheEnd, what would he honestly say? Maybe it would depend. Could she erase those years of his imprisonment and servitude? From his body and from his mind? Or would he carry all of that with him as he returned to his laptop and his cell phone and his daily commute and his stale indoor air? Air-conditioning, it had been called. Not fresh air, but air that had been altered and processed, its molecules cleaned and rearranged into some precise shape and temperature. It was hard enough being in the mess hall; thinking of air-conditioning made him want to gag.
Maybe the AfterEnd had changed him in this one positive way. He'd adapted to the fresh, outdoor, pine-scented breeze brought into his body by every pump of his lungs. Then again, maybe it would be worth it to give all that healthy freshness up. If he could be zapped to some alternate reality where he didn't have to confront the ugly truth of Zorah's betrothal, he'd happily suck air-conditioning through a straw for the rest of his life.
Because, as it was, he didn't know how he was going to continue to live in this reality. A tornado of fresh air couldn't scatter the thought from his head. Even thinking the words made him sick.Zorah's betrothal. What the actual fuck was with that, anyway? Promised to her fucking cousin, like a medieval princess or some shit. And for what? So her parents would feel they had a leg up on their neighbors as they played keeping up with the post-apocalyptic Joneses?
And what was he going to do? Continue hiding in the shadows in Morris Hill, building the stupid fucking watchtower and impotently watching from the sidelines while they herded her into marital imprisonment?
How had it come to this?
"Jake," a deep Alpha voice called to him, and Jake's nerves went on high fucking alert.
At the other end of the room, Hunter stood near the doorway into the kitchen in conference with Logan, the head cook. They both gaped at him like they'd seen a ghost, and Jake raised a shaky hand in an awkward, stilted greeting.
"Hey." Behind him, the heavy door clicked shut with grim finality, locking him into the exact nightmare scenario he'd wanted to avoid on this mission. Jake shoved his hands in his pockets to hide his obvious trembling. "Running low on food; I was hoping to get some to take back. If you have any to spare."
