Page 19 of Omega Ruined

"He's fucking heavy. And I think he's got a loose tooth."

We maneuvered the unconscious Dean onto the sofa.

"This can't keep happening. We have to separate them and look for something more, something that can actually help them," Zephyr groaned. He rubbed a newly forming bruise on his jaw.

"I just heard from Josh, that's why I was coming to look for you," I told him. "We just have to hang in there three more nights."

Zephyr eyed me warily. "Think we'll make it?"

"We have to."

I didn't want it to come down to locking our alphas in cages in the basement. But Dean had barely responded to my first bark tonight. He was nearly as strong as I was when it came to being alpha and I knew he could easily challenge me. And, honestly, if I knew he wasn't going feral, I'd happily step back. This running a pack shit was ridiculous.

"I'm ordering pizza." Zephyr pulled out his phone. "You mind?"

"No." My mind was far from food. I didn't care what I put in my mouth tonight. Fuel was fuel. "We need to start planning for the omega. Where she'll sleep, all that shit."

"Well, she can take my room. I spend all my nights with Dean anyway." Zephyr rubbed his eyes with one hand then went back to tapping away on his phone. "We'll need omega stuff. Like, soft blankets and pillows and stuff."

"Right. Let's get her here first and then we'll figure out what she likes," I suggested.

"Pizza will be here in twenty."

Zephyr looked as tired as I felt as he slid down to sit on the floor. He leaned against the couch, one of Dean's hands barely touching his shoulder. Those two had been best friends since I'd met them. Zephyr was definitely feeling the loss as he dropped his head back against Dean's rock-hard stomach.

"We're going to fix this," I promised. "I'm going to fix it."

His black eyes reflected my desperation when he looked up at me. "I hope so."

Chapter twelve

Kidnapped

One minute I was sound asleep, the next, something was pulled over my head. I was wrapped tightly in my thin blanket that suddenly seemed very strong. Someone threw me over their shoulder, knocking the air out of me.

"Don't make a sound or you're dead meat!"

It was one of the guards. Was this a test? Had I fucked up again?

I racked my brain for any transgression I might have committed while the beta moved rapidly through the halls and down the stairs. I bounced against his hard shoulder and could feel the bruises forming.

Counting the flights of stairs, I realized he wasn't taking me to the basement. For a moment, I breathed a sigh of relief. Until I felt cold night air on my bare feet as he pushed through a door.

Before I could think, I was dropped into something and a lid clicked down over me. The surface under me felt plasticky and rustled when I moved. The smell… ugh, he'd put me in a garbage can.

The can rolled along the concrete and the guard whistled as he went. We stopped and there was some thumping, then I was pulled out and tossed hard onto another surface, this one rough and smelling like gasoline. Thunk. A trunk. He'd just shut me in a trunk. This was going from bad to worse. I'd always heard not to let a kidnapper take you to a second location, but not only was I incapable of fighting, it might be easier to escape from another place.

I could hear him throwing the garbage into what sounded like a dumpster, before he left again, whistling.

It only took a couple minutes of wriggling to free myself from the blanket. I ripped the bag off my head. I was definitely in a car trunk. This couldn't be good, but if I screamed, the guards would think I put myself in here and it would be another stint in the hole.

Just thinking about being back in that cell made my heart race and I started sweating. No, I'd wait until we were out of the compound and then figure out how to escape once we stopped. There was no way being kidnapped in the middle of the night was a good thing, but maybe it would give me more of a chance than being locked in the heat dens.

When the guard returned, I felt his weight shift the car. The engine started and we drove out of the compound and onto the open road. The pavement hummed under the wheels and nearly lulled me back to sleep. As it was, I dozed lightly, waking at every turn or bump.

It was hours before we finally turned onto a gravel road. That instantly woke me up, because the only places that would have gravel were places that were out in the middle of nowhere. What was his plan?

The car lurched to a stop and I hit the front of the trunk, banging my head. Once I was certain this was where we were really stopping, I twisted and turned until I was in the bestposition to attack whoever opened the trunk, on my back, with my knees pulled to my chest.