Some part of him wanted to pin it on Hyon's loyalty to the king, that perhaps their subject had willingly died for their survival. But it was more than that when Hyon's lips were curved with a smile of insanity, his voice trembling, his arms hanging loosely. Rowan had heard it all, ears sharper than ever in his wolf form.
Xin.
His last words were for the dead Alpha he had killed and devoured. Zen seemed ashen with the head of his best friend now crumpling in his fingers— all melting ink and rotting carcass. The remains dribbled, crushed into dust. And to his left Helios pulled himself up with broken wings.
Broken wings.
"Shit," Rowan cursed, shifting back to human form, already crawling over to take a look.
Quinn knelt, a hand on his mate's feathers, gently tracing dark feathers, trying to figure out the damage. A shaking Helios clung to her, hands on her shoulders. Already she'd moved on from the ordeal, her scent still burning with fear and yet she chose to care for someone else. Someone she should hate. Rowan's heart swelled with warmth.
But Helios was hurt. There would be no flying out of these parts, not with broken wings. Zen could propel himself into the air with his powers, but it took a toll on him and that was out of the question. His mate was weak, all eyebags and broken hearts. He'd heard him screaming in their bed, pinned down by Klaus and forced into a scent drunk state because his mind was breaking.
Zen was the first one to fall in love with Quinn.
He just didn't have the balls to make the hard decisions, which made him unworthy.
Just like Rowan was.
Unworthy.
And fucking stupid.
"We should wait," Zen murmured. The first words out of his mouth were awful and scratchy. A tinge of sickness in his throat. He tried not to cough, and Rowan could tell from the bunch of his muscles, the stiffness in his shoulders. The rasp in his lungs.
Quinn's voice spiked then, sharp and dripping into an almost command. "The Lonely are coming. They heard my shots. We have to move."
Helios trembled, standing with a wince. "I can try to fly."
Her snap was quick, lashed out with a timbre of a snarl. "Don't be stupid."
Rowan spoke then with a false cheer. "The smoke is a signal for the army, they will have seen it."
"And it is also a signal for the Lonely," Quinn replied. "We've been here a while, if the army were coming, they'd have been here a long time ago. They're not because of the storms. We need to go; we need to find shelter and food. The sky's dark now and the temperature will drop into ice. And once the sun's out we'll all boil. Helios's hurt and Rowan can't run."
It was then when their eyes snapped to him, focused upon his person. Rowan blinked, looking down at his feet. He hadn't noticed the swelling of his ankle, the ugly purple and red of his feet that signalled something that could be worse than a sprain. What the fuck?
"Fuck," Zen hissed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! I can try to fight—"
"No."
"You should run, you should leave us," Zen said. "I can hold them off until the army comes."
"Are you crazy?" Quinn snapped. "There will be hundreds of them. Hundreds."
Zen recoiled, staggered back with a shake of his head, tongue darting out to wet the seams of drying lips. Rowan stared, realising now that Zen felt the same as he did. That Quinn should take this chance to escape from the clutches of their pack. And it hurt to watch the understanding shift in her eyes. The realisation. The blink of gratefulness, then the look of utter rage.
"You think I can run when you're all like this?"
"Like what?"
"Zen, you're not well."
"I'm fine." Zen's stubbornness was back, and his voice raised, louder, angrier. "I'm fucking fine."
"I can smell you," she answered. "You need medicine, you need blood, you need me."
"Not like that," Zen stated, a strange rage boiling in him. An odd fleck of stubbornness. He was hissing his words, hostile and wild. His body snatched at a cough that spewed from his lungs, he cleared his throat. "Fuck, I don't want it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I…" Zen struggled with the words, face growing red, glare deepening. "Like this is fucking transactional—"
"Zen." Her voice was thin then, sharp and dangerous. This was the most she'd said in a while, and it was so different from before. The once velvet softness of her eyes changing into steel. "Out here, you listen to me if you want to survive."
"But—"
"Out here? You're fucking mine."
The words were growled out, a sharpened blade from her tongue, slashed into the air. But it shocked him, a luxurious external influence that tingled all across Rowan's nape and had him dripping from how good it felt to be controlled like that. It was a shudder of emotion that tied them all to her like an unbreakable cord.
It was an Alpha's command, laced within the tether that strung itself from Rowan to her. And it hummed like livewire, like a tautened rope, like an anchor from ship to sea. It was odd that she did not require a bite mark, odd that he could feel her as if she were a part of his soul.
But he could.
And he could smell his mates, just as aroused, just as needy. Their bodies clenching with insanity, nipples hard and aching, cock thick and dripping. Carnations on their cheeks, bodies dripping for the Alpha, hot and wet despite the situation. Helios quivering in the sand, Zen with buckling knees. Gods, they were all so fucked up. And Rowan hated that he loved this. How the fuck could a Beta do that? How the fuck could a woman do that to him? Rowan was fucking immune to everything an Alpha could do, cursed forever to not cum.
But Quinn would always be able to make him cum.
Because Quinn was his Alpha.
And maybe the only woman who could grant him completion during a Heat.
Her words were softer after, a smile offered to the snuffed out Zen, panting into the flush of the command. "Sorry," she whispered. "Alright, look. I've lived here for three years. I'm your best bet, so we'll find a good place. Your mates will lose their shit and start looking for you all like crazy. They won't stop the search. They will eventually find the wreckage, but they'll know you're all alive from your bonds. So, we just have to lay low and keep everyone alive. Okay?"
"Okay," Zen whimpered, wet eyes now wide and crystalline with almost tears. But Rowan knew he liked it, liked it so much his thighs were now pressed together, legs clamped close because he was hard and dripping sticky slick. And Pre-Heat twisted in the air, a musky ripe scent of sweetness that wafted from three fertile Omegas which should turn an Alpha absolutely rabid.
They all watched with bated breath, Helios's teeth snagging on his lower lip, Rowan's fingers clenched tight to white knuckles, Zen with crossed legs. But the woman before them merely looked away as if she didn't give a flying fuck as if she couldn't smell shit.
Suddenly Rowan was ravenous, so fucking hungry for more, for Alpha, for cunt, for her love.
Quinn sighed; she didn't seem to notice everything. She seemed distant, looking at something else in the horizon. The aircraft was burning into dust, another explosion echoed in the distance, something had blown. She blinked, turning to meet his gaze. He clenched his jaw. "There's no point salvaging the wreckage. I think we'll just be wasting time and energy we don't have." Quinn exhaled. "Now that my collar's gone, I'm going to show you all something."
Her hands pulled, stretched through the air, a ghost of blue. A ring of violent light that whistled and whipped. It glowed like the sun, shimmered like a star and then within, something bubbled and splattered out from its depths. A lightning cracked. It was a truck, old tech painted green and welded with grills and plates, singing with protection. It smashed to the sand, spinning on the most monstrous wheels he'd ever seen. Rowan almost screamed, choked back a whimper. He staggered back, horrified. Then understanding dawned upon him.
It was the blue.
The blue that swallowed them all in the ship.
The blue had been her.
"No glass at the sides. Military brand, but second-hand," Quinn muttered, a petrol can was suddenly in her hands, snapped into existence like the shatter of lightning. She plugged the head into the vehicle, and it drank the stinking liquid. Fuel. How the fuck was she doing that? "But good enough since we're desperate." She rapped her knuckles on the exterior. "I had to buy whatever was on offer, but it looks pretty good."
"Buy?" Helios's voice was a shaky echo.
Zen gawked. "How did you do that?"
Rowan could only stand and stare, stare at what should only exist back home, rusting from years of overuse. This one was relatively new. This one still had its teeth, the glass clean and scratch free, with lightly chipped paint and a slight dent in its side. But God, it looked like it was only ten and that was fucking insane.
Quinn bent, swept Helios in her arms and climbed up the thing in a single move. She placed him so gently in the back seat it looked like she loved him. Helios's face had blossomed into a delicious pink, eyes following her like a damsel in distress. But Rowan understood, Quinn looking hot as fuck in the skintight torn suit, with the sleeves tied around her waist, exposing her midriff and her sports bra. She looked hotter climbing into the front seat with one hand on the wheel like a pro.
She threw tape and stints to Zen. "For Helios," she said. "Just tape up his wings so it doesn't hurt when the vehicle jerks. Can you do that? I'll need to drive quickly. I'm detecting a couple of hordes heading our way." His mate nodded dumbly, mouth still hanging wide open. It seemed that there was more to her powers than just a goddamn monster truck.
How the fuck—
Fabric was tossed his way, and he caught it, staring confused at the lump in his hands. Then his eyes widened, finally noticing his nudity, the eye of his weeping cock staring right back at him. The suit had torn completely with his transformation from wolf to human, and while there was fairy magic to keep some of it flapping in the wind, Rowan was practically completely exposed.
Fuck, she must have seen his hard on. She might have even seen the slick dripping down his thighs. He blushed, struggling to zip himself up, stepping into the freshest pair of boxer briefs and a comfortable long sleeve overall. The quality was amazing.
"Get in," she called, and the engine roared. His Pre-Heat seemed to worsen, but he struggled to hold it in, breath quickening, tummy growing tense as he resisted the urge to shudder for an Alpha that provided so good for his Omega. An Alpha that was so worthy of pups—He snapped out of it before his thoughts could drag him there, driven absolutely mad from the confident jerk of her chin. "I'll explain on the way."
Read ahead to Chapter 50 on
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tinyeyecat
Inkitt Subscription: https://www.inkitt.com/tinyeyecat