Chapter 8 & 9

Chapter 8

Talya

I wanted to turn away and bury my face in Colby’s neck. Let my alpha take care of it. But I could feel him shake and tremble. He was both absent and at the same time roaring loudly in our bond. I wasn’t sure that he was all here at the moment.

So I didn’t look away. I stared at the new men in the room. It was hard to smell anything outside of my own fear-filled acerbic perfume. But next in potency was Colby’s sharp cedarwood and allspice. Something that’s normally warm and assuring was filled with edges like knives.

The men took a step back, hands raised where we could see them. In a quiet, soothing voice, the one closest to us spoke.

“Easy, alpha. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m Officer Yellowleaf, with the police department.” He moved exaggeratingly slowly as he reached for his badge to show us. He held it out at arm’s length. I wasn’t sure Colby was seeing anything at all. “I’m going to take you out of here. Get you to a hospital and then home.”

Colby’s chest was heaving. I could feel his muscles strain.

“It’s okay,” I whispered in Colby’s ears as I squeezed my eyes shut. I was choosing to trust these men. Because I wasn’t sure what else to do. Colby wasn’t going to be able to keep himself upright much longer. I could already feel the sluggishness inside him as he fought to keep himself coherent. “It’s okay, alpha. Let’s go with the police.”

There was a moment where I got no response and I thought maybe he was already shutting down. But after another moment, he grunted. Pulling me in front of him, he wrapped his arms securely around me and then stared down the officers in the room.

No one touched either of us and I was shocked when Colby managed to make it out of the facility on his own two feet, especially carrying me. But then, I wasn’t all that surprised. An alpha will always take care of his omega above all other needs.

And then we were at an ambulance. Colby climbed in and sat on the stretcher. He growled menacingly when someone suggested I take a different ambulance.

“Don’t be a fool,” one of the medics said. “Based on what we know, they were kept separated for fuck only knows how long. You’re not going to get between them right now. They’ll be fine riding together.”

I released a breath, relieved I wasn’t going to have to argue. I was too tired. Too weak. Too emotionally and physically drained to put up the verbal argument they’d need from me.

We were tucked onto the stretcher and wrapped with straps. Only as we lay there and the ambulance pulled away did Colby finally drift back into unconsciousness. “I’m not going anywhere,” I promised him, tangling my fingers in his hair and rubbing my cheek against his. “No one will ever take me from you again.”

They tried though. Many people over the next several hours when we were released to the hospital made valiant efforts to split us up. But every time someone put their hands on me, regardless of how comatose Colby was, he would growl like a lion and everyone would back up.

But after what felt like days of constantly going through the same struggle of physicians trying to split us up, all the stress got to me and I broke. I burst into tears and just let loose on them.

“I get that you don’t understand. And I am well aware of how much you hate me because of my designation and that I innately get something that you crave and won’t ever get. I have been made aware of that my entire life, okay? It’s not my fault that I was born an omega. It’s not my fault that you’re treated the way you are by alphas. But for just a second will you get it through your head that we’ve been forced apart for who knows how long, drugged and tortured in an attempt to break our bond, and stop trying to split us up again! I’m staying with my alpha. Put that on the door so I don’t have to repeat myself.”

Tears continued to stream down my cheeks. In his comatose state, Colby growled at whatever threat had made me so upset. His arms tightened instinctively.

The doctor looked at me as I cried, and I could only imagine how pathetic I was to him. To this beta who made a butt load of money and got to watch a helpless omega sob her troubles away, liking it to breaking a nail. Yes, sure. I was that omega.

When I thought the room had cleared out and we were alone, I worked myself back down. Trying to assure myself that my alpha was here. We were together. And I was alive. Colby was just sleeping of the remnants of the drugs in his system. He’d be okay.

He’d be okay!

It was in that moment that I realized maybe he wouldn’t be okay, and another sob broke from my throat. I quietly begged him to be okay. That he had to pull through this. I couldn’t live without him.

By the time I was able to take a regular breath, I realized that my misery had in fact been witnessed. The same doctor that had witnessed my meltdown was sitting quietly on the stool watching.

“Do you need a drink?” the doctor asked.

I nodded. He stood with a sealed water bottle in his hand and brought it to me. I watched as he unscrewed the cover before handing it to me. Gingerly, so as not to disturb Colby, I sat up and took a sip. A few deep breaths later, I took another couple sips.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He nodded, taking the bottle back from me and replacing the cover. He set it on the small table by the bed.

Instead of leaving, he pulled the stool closer and sat. Close enough that I could curl up again with Colby and still look at this man, but far enough away so that he couldn’t just reach out and touch us.

For a moment, he didn’t speak. We just looked at each other. With a hand at the color of his shirt, he pulled it aside to reveal the scar of his own bite. I looked at it for a long time before meeting his eyes again.

The doctor was a big man. Bigger than the average beta. If I had to take a guess, he worked out. I always found it surprising when a big man of any designation had a bite.

“You understand then,” I said.

He nodded. “I do. I cannot fathom what you went through, Talya. I can’t imagine the things they did to you in an effort to break your bond. What you both must have gone through.”

I swallowed and closed my eyes. More than anything, I wanted to forget it all.

“The police are still waiting for your alpha to wake up so they can take a statement from you. They have a lot of questions.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. There are bad people all over the place. Omegas are always going to be taken because we’re a commodity. Anything rare is stolen and sold to the highest bidder. That’s just the way of life. What could they possibly glean from our experience?”

“You survived it, Talya,” the doctor said. “You’re free again. I’m sure you can imagine how often that happens.”

I shivered. For a second, I couldn’t stop shivering. I was at that point where I had thought that that was our life. We were never going to get out of there. We were forever going to be stuck, waiting for the next drug. Waiting for the next attempt at breaking my bond.

When Colby’s arms curled tighter again, I realized my breathing had gotten heavy and I concentrated on taking longer, deeper breaths until I was calm.

“Was everyone released?” I asked. “There were others. When I was opening doors to find Colby, there were others.”

“Yes, we got out everyone that was being held there.”

“Where they all bonded alphas and omegas?”

He looked at me for a moment before shaking his head. “No. Most were just alphas or omegas. None bonded.”

“I guess that means we were lucky,” I spat.

The doctor nodded. “They were trying to break your bond,” he said.

I met his eyes again and nodded. “I don’t really know why only that they were trying to break it so that they could have my alpha.” I shook my head and closed my eyes. “You know, growing up, omegas are taught to be afraid. Warned to constantly look over our shoulder and never be alone if we can help it. Find a pack as soon as possible. Otherwise, the world is a nasty place and omegas are hunted like large game for resale. But in all that, no one warns you that once you’re bonded to an alpha that there’s still a possibility that you’ll get kidnapped. They don’t tell you that maybe alphas are hunted, too. Doctor, I think there was even a couple betas there. I saw them when I pushed open a door to find my alpha.”

“There were,” he confirmed.

“Please don’t take this rude or insulting or as a reflection of where I hold my designation. But I know what they want with omegas. I’m assuming, like omegas, alphas are rare and therefore that makes a market for them. What are they doing with the betas, though?”

He smiled sadly, releasing a heavy breath. “We don’t know. It sounds as if the betas don’t know either. They underwent experiments as you and your alpha did though quite different.”

I shook my head. “Were they caught?”

This time he frowned. “As a doctor, I am not privileged enough for that information.” I could hear the bitter tone in his voice. “So I cannot say for sure. If I have to take a guess, no. If by chance they were, as you said, the world is filled with bad people willing to do anything for money.”

“Stupid police,” I muttered, closing my eyes again. “If we are supposed to live in this world, wouldn’t it make sense to warn us of all the dangers out there? Not just certain ones while the work and fail at those they don’t want to the public about.”

His smile was sympathetic. “I actually think the police do a pretty good job. There are many omega rings that are still out there. Every time one of their auction sites gets shut down, another pops up. And in almost all those cases, the omegas are rarely recovered. But Talya, you got out of this operation alive and with your alpha. The police deserve some credit.”

I wasn’t really in the mood to give him even that, but he wasn’t wrong. I was alive. My alpha was alive.

“Doctor, is my alpha okay?”

This time his smile was sympathetic. “I believe he’s just trying to burn off the last bit of drugs in his system, but he’s not let us close enough to examine him.”

“Then get closer,” I demanded.

He chuckled. “I’ll tell you what.” He got to his feet. “You keep him calm and assured that you are safe, and I’ll see what I can find out. Okay?”

I nodded.

For the next half an hour, I petted my alpha’s face and murmured to him that we were alive. That we were safe. That the nice doctor was going to make sure we were both healthy and that there wasn’t something they needed to do.

Finally he stepped away with Colby attached to a machine that monitored his heart and oxygen level. He also had a half dozen vials of blood to test.

“I will put the sign on your door as requested,” he said as he headed for it. At first, I wasn’t sure what he was referring to but then I smiled. “Sleep, omega. Your calm will do a lot for your alpha’s state of mind. And I’ll be back when these lab results are in.”

With as tired as I was, it took a lot of effort and energy to convince myself to sleep. But once I was out, I remained that way through the night. It was the first decent night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks. 

Chapter 9

Talya 

I woke up to purring. For a few minutes, I thought I was home in bed. That the whole experience had been nothing but a dream. But then the rhythmic beeping of the machines mingled in with Colby’s purr and my eyes shot open.

The room was dim and I was certain we were alone. I sat up and looked at my alpha. To my relief Colby smiled at me.

“My precious omega,” he whispered, his voice scratchy and quiet. Rough.

“Colby,” I whimpered, collapsing on him and wrapping my arms around his torso. Tears stinging my eyes.

“Shh,” he hummed, wrapping around me. “It’s okay now.”

I felt like I should be the one comforting and assuring him. He was the one unconscious for so long. But right now, it took all I had not to start sobbing in relief. My alpha was finally awake.

“Are you okay?” I finally manage to ask.

“My head is a little wobbly and I’m unimaginably furious, but yes, I’m okay.” His hands ran over me as he pulled me up. His hand cupped my face before falling all over me. “Are you hurt?”

I nodded, tears dropping onto my cheeks. The fear that I’d never feel him again boiled over and forced more tears from my eyes. “I was so scared,” I whispered. “I thought they were going to kill us.”

Colby brought my face down to his, kissing my lips gently. “I know. It’s good for them that they kept me drugged.”

“What were they doing?” I asked. “Why did they want us?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know for sure but from the little bits that are coming back to me, they kept drugging me with different mixes, trying to make me obey them.”

Confusion made my brows knit together. “But… why?”

Again he shook his head. “I have no idea, love.” He brushed a hand through my hair. “What did you hear?”

Tears sprang in earnest again. “They were trying to break our bond,” I whispered, my voice trembling. My hand went to the scar of my bite. “They tried everything.”

Colby gently pulled my hand away to examine my collar bone. His thumb traced over my bite, his growl low on the air. I could feel his anger through his touch, burning brightly through our bond.

Bonds were something always promised to be there for an omega. Like it would always be there. Always tie me to my alpha. That it assured me we would always be together. It never occurred to me that perhaps I might have taken it for granted.

I can’t help but know that it had been close to being terminated. Not by one of their ridiculous attempts to break it but by killing me for good.

I took a breath and lay back down, burying my face in his neck. “All I wanted was to find you,” I whispered.

“I’m here now,” he said. “I will never be apart from you again.”

I could hear and feel the vow in his words. The promise as he swore that we would never part.

When morning came, Colby was awake and the doctor with the bite was in the room checking the machines and his vitals. He smiled at me when I opened my eyes.

“I trust that you were left alone last night,” he asked me.

I nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

He nodded. When he was done with the machines, he brought the stool close to us again and sat, facing us curled together in the small hospital bed for one. “The cops are chomping at the bit to come in and question you. I should warn you that they’re going to attempt to question you separately.”

“No,” Colby said, the tenor of a bark in his voice. “I will not allow my omega from my sight.”

The doctor nodded, his lips lifting slightly. “I assumed as much. Before I let them know that you’re awake, let’s talk about your health. Your blood panels have slowly been evening out as your body worked to rid it from your system.”

Colby nodded. “Good.”

“How do you feel, Colby?”

“Better. My head is still swimming and I think I need to remain laying down for a while longer, but I am conscious again. In control. With my omega.”

I smiled, rubbing my nose at his jaw. His purr rumbled through me, making me relax.

“One of the questions I’m sure you’ll be asked is why they targeted you. Based on how your roommate found your house, it was planned.”

Colby rolled his eyes. “I will make sure to tell them that I didn’t plan my own abduction so I can’t answer that question.”

The doctor chuckled.

“What was in my blood? Were they trying to kill me a specific way?”

“None of the chemicals identified in your blood are lethal at the amounts detected. They are designed to reduce your ability to willfully respond. And there is an entire rainbow of components not recorded in modern medicine or science. It’ll take a while to figure them out.”

“Someone made them,” Colby said. “How can that information not be available?”

“If they’re made by scientists, they would be. My guess is these compounds are made by a ‘mad scientists’ so to speak - someone who knows just enough to be dangerous. But without knowing what they were trying for, we can only guess as to what they might want with you and your omega.”

“As you can imagine, they weren’t keen on telling me their plan,” Colby said. “Not that it would have mattered if they did since they kept me pretty well drugged at all times.”

“They weren’t forthcoming with me, either. I wasn’t even a person,” I said.

My explanation made Colby growl. His arms tightened around me.

“Can you surmise from what you found what their ultimate goal was?” Colby asked after a minute had passed and he managed to get his growl under control.

The doctor shook his head. “Even knowing what some of these drugs are commonly used for, there are enough unknown chemicals mixed in that we can’t make an educated guess quite yet. It also seems that they didn’t wait until one attempt was worked out of your system before giving you a shot of another.”

Colby shook his head in agreement.

“I’m going to bring you something to eat and then I’m afraid we won't be able to hold the police off much longer,” the doctor told us.

“Fine,” Colby said, frowning. The beeps on the machine quickened as he became anxious about the upcoming argument. I was not going to be taken away from Colby. We would both make sure about that.

Unsurprisingly, the two policemen that entered our hospital room were betas and though I was somewhat hysterical at the time, I didn’t recognize them as those who had taken us from the place we were being held.

They introduced themselves as Officer Hendricks and Officer Daniels. After going through the simple introductions and nicety questions, Colby decided to start off the conversation.

“The only way we’re going to be interested in speaking with you at all is if you accept that we will not be split up,” Colby said. “And frankly, I don’t give a shit about what laws and pieces of legal paper you present. I will not be separated from my omega again.”

There were heavy laws and penalties against a civilian alpha expending a bark towards law enforcement of any designation. Colby was careful not to put a bark in his tone. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t one right under the surface.

Hendricks and Daniels frowned at Colby for a minute before one of them nodded.

“At some point-”

“No,” Colby said. “We’re the victims. At no point will we be treated otherwise. And at no point will we be separated. Now or in the future. We can end this conversation now if you can’t accept that.”

Neither of the officers agreed but they moved on to ask their endless questions. Repeating them in different forms when they didn’t like the answer or simply thought that we were hiding something.

Eventually, I sighed and lay against Colby again, letting my alpha deal with the policemen. Yes, this was their job, but I was wondering if they were pleased to see that an alpha and omega had been tortured for a while. We were spoiled, special people after all. I was beginning to think that they forgot that we weren’t the criminals.

The door opened and the doctor with a bite stepped inside with another officer. This one an alpha. I almost sighed in relief. Colby both stiffened and took a relieved breath.

“Outside,” the alpha officer told the betas.

Hendricks and Daniels frowned at the alpha before leaving the room, their shoulders tense. The alpha watched them leave. When the door shut, he turned to us with the doctor leaning against the door.

“My name is Officer Mikel Andrew. How are you feeling?”

I smiled slightly, turning my face further into Colby’s neck to drown myself in his scent.

“Outside of being badgered by your men, we’re tired and cranky, thanks,” Colby said.

Officer Andrew chuckled. “They mean well.”

Colby grunted.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions, maybe repeated, but please bear with me. When we’re through the questions, we’ll talk about your options when you leave here.”

I shifted my head to look at him. What did that mean? Weren’t we going home? The tension in Colby suggested he felt the same uncertainty now.

“You were taken in the night from your home?” Officer Andrew asked.

Colby nodded. “I don’t think I even looked at the time. Our roommate was at his parents’ house so I knew that the noise I heard inside wasn’t him. We didn’t even have time to call 911.”

Andrew nodded. “What do you remember after that?”

Colby shook his head. “For me, it was a lot of blurred, slurred, flashes of light and stupid pain. Panic and fear from my omega. Rage that they were hurting my omega.” His words were emphasized by a growl. “Otherwise, there were needles being stuck in me over and over before a stupid beta trying to place a demand on me.”

“What kind of demand?”

“Anything stupid. ‘Get up.’ ‘Open your eyes.’ ‘Tell me you want me.’ I swear, something more infuriating came out of his mouth every time.”

Andrew smirked, shaking his head. Then he turned his attention to me. “And you, omega?”

“They tried to take my bond away,” I told him. I spent the next few minutes repeating what I went through. By the time I was done, Colby sounded like a bear. Even the officer was stiff and fighting a growl. You just don’t treat an omega that way. An alpha can’t help themselves but become defensive.

When the alphas had calmed themselves, Andrew began his questions again. “In the time you were held, what conversations did you overhear? What information did you glean from your situation?”

“We weren’t a chance abduction,” I told him. “We were targeted. And I wasn’t their object of interest. They wanted Colby, but they wanted him without our bond. So while they tried to break the bond on my end, they were using drugs on him in another room, trying to make him obey stupid commands.”

“I knew even less. I was so lost in a drug fog that the only thing I was hanging onto was my bond. Focusing on my omega,” Colby said.

Andrew nodded. “I would have liked for the team to have closed in during daylight. The main players would have been there. But that’s not what they’re trained to do.”

“So the people responsible are still out there?” I asked, fear making my voice higher.  

Andrew nodded solemnly. “Very much. And I’m sorry to tell you that those who were calling the shots had never been there at all. Only their minions who were conducting the experiments that would possibly – eventually, maybe – ultimately lead to their desired outcome.”

“Do you know what they wanted? What they were trying for?” Colby asked.

Andrew considered us for several beats before he answered. “There’s a drug that is being developed. Word on the street says it’s called Obey. When given to an alpha, it renders them pliable. Unable to be the alpha for a period of time determined by how much of the drug they’ve been given. And when they’re drugged, for a brief window, they can be commanded and must obey as if they’d been barked at.”

I stared at him for a long time, trying to figure out how this fit in with what we’ve been through.

“Are you saying that Obey doesn’t actually work? And they were trying to find the right mixture with me?” Colby asked.

Andrew shook his head. “No. It works. It works on unbonded alphas. If I had to guess at why you specifically were targeted is quite simple and even more barbaric than what is already happening underground in the world. Unbonded alphas are going to be targeted more and more by wealthy betas desperate to have that pack bond that they crave. They’ll be able to buy a bite, so to speak. We already know about and have been working for decades to stop the black market movements of abducted omegas for purchase. But this, based on what they were trying with you, sounds like they’re trying to broaden their market. Making every alpha and omega available. If they can break a bond, that means it frees up that alpha for selling as well as the omega.”

“Over and over again,” Colby muttered. “That’s disgusting.”

“I’m relieved to hear that it’s not been figured out yet,” Andrew agreed. “Furthermore, you specifically might have been targeted because of your circumstances. You’re bonded, yes, but not with an entire pack. A single bond to work with would be easier to break, in theory, than three or four.” He paused and I could feel the guilt settle like a lead balloon within our bond. Colby was convinced that I didn’t have a pack because of him. “Now, we must talk about your options upon discharge.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked. “Transportation?”

Andrew chuckled. “No, omega. Everyone we’ve recovered will now be continuously hunted by these people, if for no other reason than that you know things you shouldn’t about their operation, even if it's something trivial that you haven’t remembered to tell me.”

“I won’t let anyone take my omega from me again,” Colby growled.

“I agree,” Andrew said. “That’s why I’m telling you that your option is to walk away from your previous life as if you were dead.”

I stared at him in horror. “But- my mom?”

Andrew shook his head, sympathy in his frown. “I’m sorry, Talya. It’s not just for your safety but the safety of all of your friends and loved ones. If they believe you’re dead, then those coming after you cannot use them as bait. Because they’re not hiding anything.”

“Is this like a witness protection thing?” Colby asked.

“Yes. We will give you a new identity. You will both need to use suppressants and-”

“No,” Colby said, shaking his head. “I’ll agree to faking our deaths to keep my omega safe. Fine. But no, we will not pretend to be something we’re not. You think that we want to parade around as betas when they’re the ones who’ve done this to us?! No. It’s going to be on you to find us a place that’s safe.”

Andrew smiled. “I already have a place and like you, the pack there is equally as stubborn.”

“There’s already a pack there?” Colby asked, hesitation in his voice.

I felt it echoed in my core. Every experience we’ve had with packs before was not a positive one. In fact, I can count on one hand when they’ve been somewhat pleasant.

“Yes and no. They’ve formed a pack but they were all victims of various circumstances that required their disappearance from life.”

“And you put everyone in one house. That sounds safe,” Colby said.

Andrew chuckled. “No. We rotate and decide, depending on what we’re removing you from, where we will place you. This location is the safest for you two specifically, based on what you’ve been through. But before we send you, you both need to be completely committed to vacating your lives completely. No weakness. No contact with anyone. You cannot sign into a single account of yours anywhere. Not even social media that you haven’t used in seven years. You will be brand new people. Do you understand?”

I swallowed. Colby looked at me, cupping my face with his hand once more. He stared into my eyes, reflecting my fear and sorrow in his. With a frown, he nodded. “Yes. Whatever it takes to protect my omega.”