MY HEART FUCKING aches.
This girl is so familiar. I know her, but how?
“What’s your name?” I question gruffly. I know that my voice can sometimes be intimidating.
But not for this little girl. She just beams at me.
I know that fucking smile.
“Al.”
The breath I was inhaling stalls in my lungs, and I choke it back out. “What?”
“Al. Or Alysson. You can call me either. Mommy prefers Al.”
I gulp down the emotion in my throat. Thoughts of Alpha and Lark flood me. Yet she looks just like Connor. In this moment, I know, and my heart rests finally.
I grin at her. “I’m Omega.”
Her eyes widen. “The Omega? My daddy tells me stories all the time of a great warrior named Andrew ‘Omega’ Larson. Is that you?”
Drew.
I wink at her. “It is. What’s your daddy’s name?”
“Connor Miller,” she says softly. “I can’t wait to tell my daddy I saw you.”
Flickering my gaze over to Love, I see that she is laughing with the children. My heart freezes in my chest—she’s never looked more beautiful than now.
God, I love that woman.
Nobody is paying our exchange any attention, so I turn back to Al.
“Can you do me a favor, Al?”
She smiles. “Yes! Anything!”
“After school, can you tell Connor I’d like to see him? If I leave a note, can you see to it that he gets it?”
The girl giggles and pulls a pink spiral notebook from her desk. “Here, write your letter in here and I will give it to him.”
She hands me a pink, glittery pencil.
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Pink? Got any manly colors for a warrior?”
“No. Real men wear pink. That’s what Daddy says. Mommy prefers black.”
Sounds like Lark, all right.
I grumble in faux annoyance at having to write with the girly pencil. With scribbles this girl will never be able to decipher, I write my message.
I want it to be difficult to interpret in case someone intercepts it. Hopefully he shows, because I would love nothing more than to see him again and discuss what the fuck is going on.
“Tell Twiggy I said hi,” I laugh as I fold the paper and hand it to the girl.
She tucks it into the front pocket of her uniform and smiles. “Daddy calls Mommy Twiggy a lot. I don’t get it,” she pouts.
I ruffle her hair. “Warrior talk. You’ll understand when you get older.”
She scrunches her nose up, and I stare at her a moment longer, drinking in the fact that she is the product of love between my best friend and Lark. Finally, I stand as Father Owen and Lovenia make their way to me.
“I think we’ve seen it all,” he announces. “I will see you both to the door since they’re about to get let out for the day anyhow.”
Lovenia and I quietly follow him out of the building. Once we’re standing in the warm sun, he surprises me when he hugs both of us at once.
“I’m so glad you came to visit our church. You both seem like good people, and I am proud to have shared this with you.”
When he releases us, I’m more confused than I was when we arrived. It’s as if we’ve accomplished nothing. The moment Luc asks about how the assignment is going, I’m afraid we’ll be had.
What exactly will happen when he discovers we aren’t doing our jobs?
Will he toss us into his closet of fucking horrors? Or worse?
I will kill him before I let him touch a hair on her head. I’m not really sure if the Devil can be killed, but I will die trying.
“Let’s get home,” I tell her as we walk toward the HEL.
She finds my hand with hers, and I sense my anxiety within her. I squeeze her hand and silently convey to her that I will find a way for us to be together. Her tight grip back tells me that she hopes I can.
I can and I will.
“I’ll never fall in love,” I grumble as I stretch out on my cot. Tonight, I wish I had more than the standard government-issue blanket. Even though I’m still fully clothed in my fatigues and boots, a shiver crawls up my spine.
Connor laughs. “I didn’t fall in love.”
I roll over to face him. He’s holding a picture of Lark and staring like a fool at it. I may tell him that I’ll never fall for anyone, but it doesn’t mean that, deep down, I don’t wish for what he has. It makes him seem weaker and stronger all at the same time.
“You don’t love Lark? That’s news to me,” I tell him gruffly.
Meyers, who’s on the other side of me, huffs something to the tune of, “Shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”
I flip him off over my shoulder and stay fixated on the conversation with my best friend.
Connor sighs and lies on his side to face me. “Love fell in me. It fucking possessed me, Drew. The moment I saw her looking so pissed off at the world and sexy as hell in her bizarre-ass clothes, I knew. But then,” he chuckles. “Then she spoke.”
I furrow my brow at him and look at him expectantly. “And?”
He flashes me a grin. “And it was as if she’d cut open my chest and poured herself into me. Love fell into me, and I’ve never let go. It was just so easy and right. God, I fucking miss her.”
We haven’t been stationed in Afghanistan long, but every night, the longing for his wife intensifies. If I had my way in this world, I would end this war and ship his ass back home. It’s where he belongs—with his love.
I lie back and attempt to relax. What would it feel like to love someone the way he loves Lark—so wholly?
I think I would feel fractured and fragile. Brittle, even. Your heart depends on them doing their part to keep it beating. A lot of trust would go into that, and I don’t know that I could ever trust someone that deeply. I mean, I trust Connor with my goddamned life and I love him like a brother, but to put that type of love mixed with passion and sex into a woman? That would make me incredibly vulnerable.
“Goodnight, Romeo,” I tease as I close my eyes.
The man sees through my playful front and ignores my comment. “Love will fall into you one day. And when it does, fight for it, brother. Every step of the damn way. Walk through fire for her, slay dragons for her, and forsake everything for her. Love will be worth it.”
“I’ll work up some notes and take them to Luc,” Love states, startling me from another memory.
Love will be worth it.
She is staring at me, her back against the door to her suite. Her brown eyes sparkle with a beauty as pure as heaven above. Love isn’t the woman I started this journey with—she is becoming something so much more.
“I don’t want you going alone,” I murmur and slide a hand around her waist.
Back when I was training to be an SG and she was a Leviathan fucking shit up, touching her was easy. The moment my flesh connected with hers, my nerve endings flared with life. She was every bit as intoxicating as any drug or vice. And now… Now, she fucking consumes me.
“Omega, I’m a better liar,” she tells me. “Luc will want a full report, and I’m going to have to bullshit him. You wear your thoughts and emotions on the outside where everyone can view them freely. And while I love that part of you, I also hate it. It makes you vulnerable.”
Tears swim in her eyes, and I pull her against my chest.
“It scares the hell out of me that he will find out you’re not like him or Corson or any of the bastards around here. And once he figures that out…” She sighs heavily. “I’m terrified of what he’ll do.”
Thoughts of Luc’s fucking horror closet fill me, making me want to vomit. “If he hurts you, Love, so help me, I’ll kill him.”
Her laugh is hollow—one of bitter resignation. “You can’t kill the Devil, Omega. Get that through your head right now. No matter how angry you are or pissed off at him, he’ll always be stronger and more wicked. The best we can do is hope that he won’t do anything rash.”
I slip my fingers around her ponytail and tug at it, tilting her head back so I can look at her. Her mouth opens, and I want her so damn badly. Everything. Not just her body or her lips or her perseverance. I want her heart. All of it.
Dipping my mouth to hers, I kiss her. Softly at first, but then her hands are on my chest—clutching and pulling at me. An internal fire begins to flame, and with each sweet plunge of her tongue into my mouth, it grows.
“Make love to me, Omega. Please.”
Her voice is so innocent and fragile. I want to cloak her being with my strong one and protect her very essence.
I growl and reach behind her for the doorknob. Once I open it, there’s a flurry of clothes being torn off along the way to her bedroom. The moment we’re inside her room, I kick the door closed as she crawls onto the bed. Her caramel-colored ass is smooth and round. I’m dying to taste and nibble on her.
It’s been so damn long.
Once she settles and peers back at me with wild, unsure eyes, my cock thickens fully. The woman before me is her true self. She wants this every bit as much as I do. As I prowl over to her, her chest rises and falls in a rapid cadence. Our hearts must beat with mutual need, because mine is about to explode out of my fucking chest.
I crawl over her body, relishing in the way her breath hitches at my touch, and settle myself to cover her curvy frame. Resting my cock against her belly, I slip my arms under her and bring my mouth close to hers.
“You promised we could talk.”
Frustration morphs her features, and I want to groan at having brought this up now, knowing both of us want to make love more than anything. But, that can wait. I need to talk to her.
“Tell me what happened, Love. Today, with Father Owen.”
Her brown eyes pool with tears, and her lower lip trembles. I press a soft kiss there and then look back down at her.
She sighs heavily, but she’s resigned herself to talking. “Prior to this life, before I was a Leviathan named Lovenia, I was a nun named Lillian.”
My eyebrows cinch together. A nun. I nearly chuckle when my cock twitches at the memory of seeing her in the habit earlier today.
“Anyway, I worked at a Catholic orphanage after my mother passed away from cancer. I wanted to help people and serve God—just as she would have wanted.” A smile plays at her lips, and I smile too. Though I can’t remember my own mother yet, I hope that memory comes soon. “And those boys were so sweet. Father Paul had said we were their family. I took my job seriously, and I felt as if they were all my children.”
Love shines on her face so purely that this becomes my new favorite moment with her. This woman lived for those kids.
So, how’d she end up at HEL Enterprises?
“But one day, I discovered that Father Paul was not fatherly at all like he claimed to be. In fact, he was a monster.” Her chin quivers, and behind the sadness is a blinding rage so fierce that I’m shocked into silence. “He hurt those children, Omega,” she whispers as tears roll out of her eyes. “So I took matters into my own hands. I let him hurt me instead.”
I growl, ready to punch holes in the goddamned walls. The very thought of someone hurting Love makes me insane.
“At first, he spanked me. He fucking spanked me! Every day, he would whip me until I was bloody and bruised. Yet I endured it. If he was hurting the kids, I wanted to take their place. I wanted to protect them.”
Despite my blistering rage for the Father, I place soft kisses all over her mouth and chin. She’s opening her guarded soul to me and allowing me in. And I’m fucking falling hard into it.
“One day, he changed things up. Instead of whipping me like I’d expected, he raped me, Omega. He took my innocence. It obliterated my sanity. He was supposed to be Godly and good yet he was evil—a fucking monster!”
Her chest thumps wildly against mine. The words spewing from her mouth are dark and vile, and I want to kiss her so she won’t tell me any more. It’s too sickening.
“And when I came across one of the children, Daniel, I realized he was still hurting people. There was only one way to stop Father Paul.”
“To kill him,” we say in unison.
I would have done the same goddamned thing.
“So, why did you end up at HEL? They should have given you a fucking medal, not punished you,” I snarl.
“There were casualties,” she sobs. “Please, I can’t talk about it anymore.”
“Shh, Love. It’s okay. You’re safe now, and you’re here with me. Thank you for sharing a part of yourself with me, no matter how fucking difficult that was. I love you, baby, and I’m not going anywhere.”
When her hand grips my cock, I nearly come from the touch of it. All of those other women I slept with in order to forget about this multifaceted vixen beneath me were just a ploy. She was always in the forefront of my mind, and I never forgot about her. As she guides my cock to the entrance of her pussy, my eyes roll back in bliss. I never thought we would be together again.
I slam myself into her tight heat, and she screams out in pleasure. We may fuck like wild animals, but now, as I buck into her, something is different—this time, our hearts are heavily involved. As I own every inch of her flesh with my touches and kisses, she hands over pieces of her soul to me.
“I love you, Omega. I’m so sorry,” she cries as we make love.
“It’s in the past, baby.”
“I didn’t want to make you do that—forsake everything. My actions were lies and my heart ached when I did that to you, but you must understand,” she moans as I thrust deeper into her. “Everything I did was for something bigger—something good, Omega. You were a part of that—still are. You just didn’t know that then. Please know that, when it comes to you, I become distracted from the plan, and somehow, I think that makes me evil. I don’t want to be evil.” She pants harder and harder as her orgasm nears.
“You fucking broke me, Love. Shattered my soul. But now that you finally let me see you, baby, I know. I know without a shadow of a doubt that you could never be evil. Someone wise once told me that I had to slay dragons and walk through fire for the one I love. I killed once for you, and I’d do it a hundred times more. Baby doll, I’ll kill the Devil in his own fucking lair to protect you—even if that gets me a one-way ticket to his horror closet. You’ll always be worth it. Love, you fell into my heart, and I’m not ever gonna let you go.”
The embittered wall between us finally obliterates.
Into a million fucking pieces.
As we both lose ourselves to the best orgasms of our lives, I pull her close to me and submit to her. I hand my heart and soul over to the woman beneath me. With no lies or deception between us, we’re free to love.
In HEL, where love isn’t allowed, my angel and I break the fucking rules.
And it feels great.
Now, I just have to get rid of one little thing that stands in my way.
Luc I. Furr.