The first thing Karter found on his desk the next morning was a request to stop by the viewing room, because someone found footage from yesterday’s River Row burglary. He checked his other messages, but found nothing that couldn’t wait, so he headed down the hall, past a row of meeting rooms, to the viewing room.

He knocked once, then went inside. Their video forensics specialist, Mal Tantor, greeted him with a tentative smile. They’d worked together on the Iverson case, and they’d both watched video footage neither man would ever forget.

“Morning, Jenks,” Mal said. “Got something for you.”

“I heard.”

Mal popped a tape into the media player and hit play. A black-and-white view of the alley behind Piotr’s house came up. The angle was almost straight down the mouth of the alley, with a view of most of the backyards. Mal tapped a pen against one of the yards. “That’s your victims’ home.”

“Okay.”

A man appeared on the bottom of the screen, head down and covered by some sort of wrap that also appeared to swamp his entire body. It obscured his face, body shape and hair color. The man opened the gate to Piotr’s backyard and disappeared from view. Mal fast-forwarded, and the time stamp moved ahead fourteen minutes.

The man reappeared, and he returned the way he’d come, that headscarf still obscuring their view. But Karter picked up an interesting detail: a bulge at the front of the man that could be anything from the stolen merchandise, to a pregnant belly. He couldn’t imagine a heavily pregnant man climbing in a window, but stranger things had happened.

“Freeze it,” Karter said.

The image stopped with the man’s head about to disappear from view. Karter studied it, picking out what appeared to be the ends of a beard and wisps of long, unkempt hair coming out of the hood. The fabric was old, dirty, and a little ragged in places. Definitely signs of a vagrant.

“This doesn’t give us much.” Karter let him play the rest of the video.

“Not this one,” Mal replied. He switched videos. “But based on the direction he walked, we found him on another security camera down the block which shows where he went. Abandoned house over on Turner Street.”

“Fantastic.” This might be the break in the case he needed.

The tape did indeed show their vagrant going into the front yard of a house with boarded-up windows and untended grass. The angle wasn’t great, but he shoved one of the boards aside, hoisted himself up, and the board slid back to cover the window.

“Gotcha,” Karter said. “Can you zoom in and find the house number?”

Mal tried, but the image was too grainy. “The mailbox next door is busted, though. And the camera was located on a crosswalk at 454 Turner.”

“That’s enough to find it. Thanks, Mal.”

“No problem. You want me to call for patrol backup?”

Karter hesitated. The man could be armed, or he could be crazy, but his actions were too calculated for the latter. If the former was true…well, Karter could handle himself. And a tiny voice deep inside his head that he didn’t understand insisted he go alone. So he called in his destination, then went to get his car.

* * *

Turner Street had more boarded up homes than not, and it was a depressing reminder of population shrinkage in the province. Families were leaving for better opportunities elsewhere, rich alpha families were hoarding their wealth, and the beta middle class was suffering for it, so many more falling into poverty and government assistance than ever before.

Karter parked up the street near the security camera’s location. Distant sounds of the city were all he heard. No human voices, no children playing. The entire area was depressing as hell and should probably be torn down, but that wasn’t his call. He scanned the street, locating the broken mailbox eight houses up, opposite sidewalk.

A quick check removed going in the back way as an option. Instead of an alley behind the row of homes, their backyards connected directly to the backyard of the home behind them. Yards full of weeds and probably vermin. Karter didn’t look exactly casual in his slacks, button-down shirt, and wool coat, but he also didn’t look any different from an investor who might be checking out the area, looking to renovate.

Still, he kept close to the front yard fences as he walked up the block, all senses on high alert. The vagrant, if he was still in the home, couldn’t possibly keep constant watch, and Karter hoped that played in his favor. Doing this alone was a little idiotic, but he couldn’t shut up that tiny, instinctive voice demanding he go by himself.

His instincts had served him pretty well over the years, so he listened.

He paused by the rusty gate and sniffed. Over the familiar odors of dirt and decay, a floral note rose up and caressed his senses. Tickled over his skin and filled his nose in a way that went right to his balls. An omega.

Hell.

He’d smelled omegas before, but he’d never reacted like this. Never wanted to spring wood over a faint scent, never wanted to hunt that scent down and rub all over it. Never wanted.

No, he was imaging it, and he had a job to do. Karter opened the gate and stepped inside, noting a few spots where the grass was trampled. The scent grew stronger, so strong Karter could taste it.

I want to taste him.

No, he did not. This was insane. Was this what alphas meant when they said they felt a mating bond with an omega? This intense need to wallow in the omega’s scent? To mark him as claimed before the omega met with danger?

My burglary suspect cannot be my mate.

He stepped up to the boarded window the vagrant had gone in through, and the scent intensified. Karter bit his tongue hard, because he could not confront a suspect with an erection. That was too damned unprofessional.

Desperate scrambling from inside the house jolted Karter. Adrenaline shocked through his system. Karter shoved the board aside, his firearm raised, in time to see a hulking, fabric-draped form racing toward the back of the house, leaving behind a nest of some sort, full of material, food containers, and other detritus.

Karter hauled himself in through the window and landed more gracefully than he expected on a grimy wood floor. He bolted after the vagrant, ignoring the floral fragrance permeating the room, along with the fainter odors of old food and human waste. Down a short hallway, he found the vagrant desperately tugging at a back door that wasn’t opening.

“Sansbury Constabulary, freeze!” Karter said.

The man froze, his entire form trembling.

“Hands where I can see them.”

His suspect angled his body slightly, showing one hand holding a shopping bag, which he slowly lowered to the ground. In the bag, Karter caught glimpses of folded diapers.

Interesting thing to run off with.

And then a gurgling squall came from the man’s middle. Something moved, hidden by swaths of fabric. The man’s hands flew to his belly, holding that squirming thing tight.

Not thing. A baby.

Karter scented the man again, and his traitorous dick reacted happily to the odor. This was the omega. His omega. And his omega already had an infant. He couldn’t hold back a soft snarl that anyone had touched his omega before him, and the omega shrank back. Sank to his knees, holding that baby tight, and still visibly shaking.

“I’m sorry, I’m not going to hurt you,” Karter said, gentling his voice. “My name is Constable Karter Jenks. Can you tell me your name?”

The man shook his head hard and part of his hood slipped back. Long, unkempt hair surrounded a gaunt, bearded face. He seemed older than Karter expected, but he was also dirty and scared.

“You can’t tell me your name?” Karter asked.

Another head shake. The baby squalled again.

“It’s okay, you can comfort your son.”

The man regarded him a moment, then began shifting layers of clothing and fabric, until a plaid carrying pouch appeared. A head of brown hair poked out of it, and Karter was mesmerized by the baby’s puckered face as the man lifted his child higher and pressed him against his chest. Made soft, soothing sounds with his lips. But no noise seemed to come from his throat.

Could he be mute?

Karter had never met anyone who was mute, but he’d heard of the condition. “Can you speak at all?”

Another shake no.

“Were you born mute?”

A hesitation, then another no.

“Can you spell your name?”

A nod yes. The man was still shaking a bit, but he seemed calmer now that he knew Karter wasn’t going to attack him. He spat on his index finger, then traced three letters in the grime of the back door’s glass pane. JAX.

“Okay, Jax. Do you have a last name?”

Jax had to think about that one, and it hurt Karter’s heart to think what his poor omega had been through. It also infuriated him, but he couldn’t react to that anger right now. Jax needed him calm and rational, not flying off the handle.

Finally, Jax rubbed out more letters: ORRIS.

“Jax Orris,” Karter repeated.

Jax nodded.

“Okay. Is that your son?” Nod. “Does your son have a name?” Shake. “That’s okay. How old is he?”

6 WEEKS.

Goddess, that was young. Too young to be living in an abandoned house surrounded by weeds and vermin. His omega and that baby deserved a warm bed and good food in their bellies, not whatever crap Jax could steal.

Procedure told him to arrest Jax on suspicion of breaking-and-entering and theft. His heart demanded he take Jax and child home to his apartment for a shower and proper rest.

Now I know how Tarek felt when he didn’t report Braun for running away from a halfway house. He needed to protect his omega.

Jax watched him with open suspicion, tempered by curiosity. The baby had settled, so Jax returned him to the cloth carrier, which he cinched up a bit higher. He sat down, seemingly out of energy after the fright of being discovered by a constable, never taking his eyes off Karter. Karter squatted to his eye level and breathed in the omega’s scent.

“This was quite unexpected,” Karter said. “But I need to know if you feel it too. Jax, please be honest. Do you feel the mating bond?”

Jax’s eyes narrowed, and he seemed to war with himself. It was as good as a yes for Karter. “You do, don’t you?”

A head tilt and a low growl preceded a nod yes.

Karter’s heart flipped over and his insides got quivery. He’d met his bondmate. His omega. And the man was a homeless criminal.

Fuck my life.

Jax couldn’t take his eyes off the tall, handsome man squatting in front of him, even though every fight-or-flight instinct in his body was urging him to flee. But Jax was weak, and this alpha was not, and he couldn’t risk a physical altercation while Son was in his arms. The boy was already underfed, underweight, and Jax was terrified that one more too-cold night would end in a fever. They’d been on their own for four weeks, noted by the marks he etched into the wall every day, but their luck had finally run out.

A constable had found them.

And not just any constable. The man’s leafy-green scent soothed Jax in a way he couldn’t explain. No other alpha had ever smelled this good, looked so strong, appealed to Jax so much. He wanted to roll over and give himself to this alpha, to be taken, but Jax had promised himself that would never happen again. Not even when his next heat struck.

He was done being used.

He also couldn’t deny he felt the mating bond for this stranger named Karter Jenks. But he didn’t want a mate. He didn’t know what he wanted, other than to keep Son safe and avoid alphas at all cost. It’s why he chose to hide away, instead of going to the constabulary for help. They’d only send him to another halfway house, and he’d end up in the exact same situation as before.

He growled again; Karter smiled.

Idiot alpha. There is absolutely nothing to smile about.

“You’ve put me in quite an odd position, Jax,” Karter said. “I expected to find a burglary suspect here, not my bondmate.”

Jax paid closer attention. The fact that Karter hadn’t arrested him yet had to mean something, but what? Would he let Jax go free? Insist on taking Jax home? Jax knew nothing about the man or his honor. Would his job come before his bondmate? If Jax played passive, played along, maybe he and Son could slip free and disappear.

He relaxed his posture while keeping his senses sharp, aware of every noise nearby. Karter’s smile widened as he bought the submissive act. If Karter came too close, he’d be sorry. Jax had lost weight but he remembered how to fight.

“Listen, I’m going to make a phone call to a friend, because I honestly don’t know what to do with you.”

Jax didn’t like the sound of that, but he nodded that he understood. Maybe his voice had been taken away, but he was still sharp. And suspicious as hell.

Karter stood and moved a few feet away, then dialed his phone. “Bloom, hey, man, it’s Jenks. You busy? Good, can you meet me somewhere? I’m in a bit of a bind, and I could use your advice. I’ll text you the address, thanks.” He hung up. “Listen, my friend Tarek Bloom is coming over to help me figure this out, okay?”

Jax wanted to ask what there was to figure out and just let us go damn it! But Karter was a constable, and he’d be risking his career by allowing Jax to escape. But Jax wasn’t just any suspect, he was Karter’s bondmate. How could he make Karter help him?

Words. Jax held his left hand out, palm up, and mocked writing on it with his right. Karter understood immediately and produced a small notepad and a pen. He took three long strides forward; Jax cowered out of sheer instinct, bile splashing the back of his throat.

Karter froze. “How about I throw them to you?”

Jax nodded, then mouthed the word “Please.” He caught the pen, but the notebook skimmed his fingertips and hit the floor. Son didn’t stir, so Jax retrieved it. Found a blank page.

“I’m sorry I stole. Please don’t turn me in.”

He ripped out the page, balled it up, and tossed it at Karter, who snatched it out of the air with easy grace.

Karter read it, then blanched. “I don’t want to turn you in, that’s why I called my friend. I don’t know what to do. You’re my omega, but I’m still a constable.” He sounded genuinely upset at the position he was in.

Jax didn’t care.

“Let us go. We’ll move. I won’t steal again.”

Repeat action.

Karter shook his head. “It isn’t that simple.”

Jax nodded vigorously. Yes, it is that simple.

With a frustrated sigh, Karter gazed around the empty kitchen. No furniture had been left behind, which was why Jax had pulled together his nest in the living room with odd blankets and things he’d found on the streets. It wasn’t the warmest room in the house, but it was closest to his exit, and damn it, he should have made sure the back door opened more easily. Then maybe he wouldn’t be trapped here by an alpha who smelled like spring and rain and everything beautiful in the world.

Stop it. He isn’t your alpha. Keep your head and get out of this.

Seduction was an easy way to throw an alpha off his game; it was also an easy way to be attacked, and Jax couldn’t risk a fight with Son strapped to his chest.

“What are those markings on your hands?” Karter asked.

Jax blinked at him, then studied his bare hands, which were getting stiff from the cold. His wrists were decorated with dark markings—tattoos created by his captors, a warning that if he tried to leave, he’d be found via those tattoos and punished. He’d been told there were thousands of others involved in the fight ring, and there were eyes all over the province, eager to locate the alpha’s missing property.

His stomach wobbled at the thought of those threats, and he shoved back the awful memories of those months in captivity. The training, the conditioning, the price of a loss.

He shook his head, unwilling to discuss the tattoos.

“How old are you?”

“25.”

Karter blinked. “You’re older than me?”

Jax scowled at him. Yeah? So?

He must have seen some of that in Jax’s expression, because Karter smiled again, flashing perfectly white teeth. Jax didn’t have all his teeth anymore. “It just surprised me, that’s all. I’m twenty-three.”

Good for you.

“I suppose the obvious question I should ask is why are you squatting here? Where’s your family?”

Jax’s heart squeezed with grief. How much of his story should he trust Karter with? Enough to gain his sympathy, but not enough to give Karter power over him? Jax’s entire life was devoted to protecting Son, and he couldn’t do that if the constabulary got involved. He wouldn’t allow Son to be taken from him.

He squeezed the pen, then started to write. “Born in Buckman Province. Mated at eighteen. Moved to Sansbury Province two years later. A year ago, mate killed in work accident. Sent to halfway house for omegas. There for a while. Alphas took me in middle of the night.”

Karter read the note, his face going red with rage by the end of it. “Goddess, Jax. The man who ran this halfway house. Was his name Fynn Lawry?”

Jax physically recoiled from the name, his heart pounding in his ears. He wouldn’t go back to that man, not ever.

“Fuck,” Karter snapped. His anger softened and he held a placating hand out to Jax, who was shaking again. “I’m sorry I got upset. Listen, the halfway house was busted a few months ago. Fynn’s in prison. He can’t hurt you again.”

The words did little to soothe Jax’s quaking fear. Angry alphas led to punishments, and he didn’t know Karter Jenks at all. If his bondmate was quick to temper, Jax was fucked in all the worst ways.

“I’ll have to see if your name matches against Fynn’s records of omegas who were”—he made air quotes—“mated out and their paperwork closed.”

Jax grunted. So that’s how Fynn explained what he’d done? Jax had found a new mate? Hah!

“We know that’s not what happened,” Karter said. He looked as if he was holding himself back from coming closer, possibly to comfort Jax. “An omega named Braun witnessed one of Fynn’s middle-of-the-night transactions and he escaped the house. We were able to use his story as a way to monitor, and then finally bust the house when Fynn tried to do it again. We have a team still trying to track down the omegas Fynn sold, but so far, you’re the first we’ve found.”

Jax swallowed hard against a wave of tears. He was happy Fynn was in jail and his night job busted, but he ached for all the omegas still out there, still suffering. The men who’d held Jax captive had likely purchased more than one omega from Fynn, and that infuriated Jax. Mostly because Jax had no idea how to find the alphas who’d taken him. They’d moved around the province to avoid capture, and even if he took Karter back to the place Jax had escaped from….

No. Jax didn’t need to get involved, he needed to keep Son safe.

What if Karter can keep us safe? We’re already bonding. He’ll feel that desperate alpha need to protect his omega and keep me safe.

Karter’s phone rang. “It’s my friend.” He answered the call. “Hey, this is going to sound weird, but the boarded window to the left of the stoop? It moves. Climb on in.” The other man—Bloom?—squawked something. Karter hung up.

A moment later, wood scraped, followed by the heavy sound of footsteps. Jax shrank back from the big man who entered the kitchen, reeking of alpha pheromones. A mated alpha, but still an alpha. Bigger than Karter, muscular and intimidating. His scowl softened when he spotted Jax, though.

Bloom sniffed, then his eyes widened. “An omega. Our theory about the thief was right?”

“Yes,” Karter replied. “He has a six-week-old infant.”

“Hell.” Bloom looked back and forth between Jax and Karter, his nose twitching. “Oh no. Your problem is the mating bond?”

Jax scowled. How was it that alphas could smell it so easily?

“We both feel it,” Karter said. “But that’s not all. He’s terrified of me, probably people in general. I think he’s been abused somehow, and he can’t speak.”

“He can’t speak?”

“No, we’ve been communicating with notes.” He handed them all over to Bloom, which felt like a betrayal to Jax. Those notes had been private, damn it. “And to top it all off, he was one of the omegas sold by Fynn Lawry.”

Bloom physically startled, his eyes going wide. “You’re shitting me.”

“No. Read the top note.”

Jax growled, not liking this stranger getting in on his private business.

Bloom read all the notes. “Do you think he knows where the other omegas might be?”

This time, Karter scowled. “I don’t know, ask him. He’s mute, not feeble. In fact, he seems pretty damned sharp to me.”

Hearing Karter defend and compliment him should not roll over Jax like a warm bath. It really shouldn’t. But it did.

Damn it.

“Do you know where any of the other omegas are?” Bloom asked Jax directly.

Jax shook his head, the lie coming easily. He couldn’t commit to knowing anything, or they’d never let him go. He’d be under guard faster than he could spit, and that was unacceptable.

“Do you know the names of the men who took you?”

Jax scribbled a note that was true enough and threw it over.

“No, they all used aliases.”

“All,” Karter repeated, his face flushing again.

“Why were you there?” Bloom asked.

“Seriously? Why do you think?”

Jax considered his answer carefully. Too much of the truth and they’d want to get involved in the whole mess, and all Jax wanted was to be left alone. Maybe it was best to leave them to their assumptions. So he hung his head and let them assume.

“Fuck,” Karter snapped. “I’m so sorry, Jax. So sorry.”

“Do you know how long you were with them?” Bloom asked.

Guess Bloom wasn’t too affected by a mating bond to ask clear questions, and Jax resented Karter for inviting the man over. He was seriously disturbing Jax’s plan to manipulate Karter into letting him go.

Jax shrugged, even though he knew. He’d been pregnant with his former alpha’s child, but unaware of it, when Jax was sent to the halfway house. He found out he was eight weeks along while in Fynn’s care, and only a week later, he’d been taken. Based on when he’d given birth, he guessed he was their prisoner for about six months.

Not that he was telling Bloom that.

“Is one of the alphas who took you the father of your child?” Bloom asked.

No, neither of them.

He shrugged again, hating that it further enraged Karter, but Bloom was being too damned nosy.

“Look, Jenks, I know you don’t want to hear this,” Bloom said, “but we have to take him in.”

Jax’s hands jerked; he tensed, ready to bolt.

“Are you sure?” Karter asked. “What if he’s booked for the burglaries? He’s got a child and he’s been abused. Prison time is the last thing he needs right now.”

“I know that.” Bloom put a gentling hand on Karter’s shoulder. “Listen, he is a witness to the halfway house case. A victim, okay? Once the burglary victims understand that, they’re unlikely to pursue charges. And after the black eye he got prosecuting Kell, Awless probably won’t press changes in the first place. He doesn’t want another abused omega on the stand telling his story.”

Jax eyeballed Bloom, uncertain if he believed the big man’s words. He’d stolen, but they wouldn’t arrest him? Then what? Why not just leave him alone? And he had no idea who Kell or Awless were, or why they were important right now. Did this Kell person give Awless a black eye? Was he arrested for it?

“I just found him,” Karter said, a strange grief in his voice that made Jax want to comfort the guy. “I can’t lose my omega.”

“You won’t. Trust me this time. I’m on your side.” He looked at Jax. “I’m on your side, too, okay? I swear on the life of my own mate, I’ll help keep you safe.”

Jax didn’t trust the man at all, but Karter seemed to, and Jax kind of trusted Karter. He threw over another note.

“What happens now? I won’t give up Son.”

“No one’s asking you to do that,” Karter. “That won’t happen. But we need to take you to the hospital and make sure you’re both healthy. You probably haven’t had the best diet.”

As if on cue, Jax’s stomach growled with hunger, which was its most frequent state. He rationed the food he did steal, and some of it went to supplement whatever formula he could steal for Son. His meager breast milk had dried up a few days ago, probably due to malnutrition. He wasn’t being a very good omegin to his son by starving himself. Maybe trusting Karter was the best choice.

Karter took a small step forward, then dropped to one knee. His dark eyes glittered with emotion. “Will you trust me? Please?”

Jax wasn’t sure he remembered how to trust other people. But he did trust his own instincts, and his instincts said to trust Karter. Trust him to keep both Jax and Son safe. So Jax held his gaze and nodded as he mouthed the word “Yes.”