Braun rubbed his face against the cool sheet beneath him, comfortable and sated after this morning’s second round of sex. He loved napping on his belly, so that the gift his alpha had given him stayed inside longer, instead of slipping out. Tarek lay on his back, head on the pillow, his expression mild as he gazed at the ceiling. Their hands were laced, and they simply existed in silence for a while, both of them coming down from endorphins.

The apartment was silent, so Dex and Serge had left at some point during their second lovemaking session. Braun’s hole was deliciously tender from taking Tarek’s big dick twice. They’d never gone twice in four hours before, except during heat, and Braun would feel it for a while, but he didn’t care. He reveled in it, just as he reveled in the joy of last night’s trip to the wilderness. Helping those omegas, and then standing up to Lars, had given him a new sense of personal courage.

A new sense of purpose.

“You should break the law more often,” Tarek said. “It turns you into a firecracker in bed, firecracker.”

Braun laughed, then kissed Tarek’s shoulder. “Don’t tempt me, Constable Bloom. Then you might have to arrest me.”

“Shame to see your pretty ass in some detention center.” Tarek used his free hand to pinch the top of Braun’s ass, earning a small yelp. “I much prefer it in bed with me.”

“I like it here, too. I’m just…so happy right now, and I don’t know how else to share it with you.”

Tarek turned on his side, head propped on the pillow. “I can see it in your smile and your eyes, sweetheart. You don’t have to have sex with me to show me your joy.”

“Well, it does have the extra side benefit of feeling amazing.”

“Okay, that is very true. Can’t say as I’ll ever turn down a chance to be inside you.” His hand slid down to grope Braun’s butt cheek. “I love feeling you around my dick.”

“And I love taking your dick.” Braun snuggled in closer until he could press his nose against Tarek’s shoulder and breath in the delightful scent of the man. Sweat and sex and the spicy alpha aroma he adored.

“May I ask you something personal?”

“Of course, my alpha. Anything.”

“Well, I know your body is wired to want sex during heat, because of pheromones and the slick and the need to knot.”

“All true.” Braun thought he saw the question coming, but he allowed Tarek to voice it without interrupting.

“Does sex outside of heat really feel as good as during? I mean, you don’t loosen automatically, and we have to use manufactured slick, and I’m not exactly gentle sometimes.”

Braun sat up so he could drape himself across Tarek’s chest and look into his questioning eyes. “Truthfully? Sex outside of heat doesn’t feel as good.” He paused a beat to allow Tarek to feel surprise before going on. “It feels so much better than sex during heat, because I am completely in control of my own body.”

Tarek’s eyebrows went up, then knotted together. “Really?”

“Yes. Only omegas will ever truly understand what our bodies go through preparing for and during a heat. I mean, alphas experience some of the pheromone-driven lust and urge to mate, but the only real physical change is your knot. My entire lower body alters itself in preparation for not only taking your knot, but potentially becoming pregnant. For creating and carrying a new person. That loss of physical control, of being in actual pain if there is no one to fuck me…it’s embarrassing, and it’s…less special.”

Braun brushed Tarek’s hair off his damp forehead. “Every time we’re in bed together outside of a heat is an amazing experience for me. Because I want it to happen. I want it because I’m attracted to you and I love you, and it isn’t just my body needing your cock. And it isn’t you, as my alpha, forcing me to have sex even if I don’t want it, because I know you never would.”

You’re nothing like Krause, and you never will be, my love.

“You’re right,” Tarek replied. “I will never force you to do something you don’t want to do, Braun, I swear on my life. I don’t ever want to hurt you, even by accident. You’re much too precious to me.”

“If only all alphas were like you.”

“I know.” Tarek wrapped his arms around Braun’s waist in a loose hug. “And I haven’t forgotten my promise to help Kell.”

Braun’s heart twisted sharply. “But what can we do? The law is on Krause’s side.”

“I’m not sure yet. I have a private investigator friend looking into the disappearance of Kell’s baby. If Krause sold the child on the black market, we might have a way to arrest him. Omega or beta, no money is allowed to change hands for the adoption of a child.”

“It makes me sick to think that monster sold my nephew.” Anger prickled down Braun’s spine. “I could kill him for all the pain Krause has caused my brother.”

“I know, which is why I need to handle this.”

“Well, do it fast, before Krause can impregnate him again.”

Omega heats usually ran like clockwork, every ninety days until impregnation occurred. But after an omega gave birth, the clock started whenever it wanted within that ninety day window. An omega could go into heat as quickly as ten days later, or as long as the full ninety. There was no predicting it, and Kell had nearly died giving birth once, only to lose his son. Braun couldn’t stand to see his brother suffer like that a second time.

“I’ll do whatever I can,” Tarek said.

“I know, and I’d never ask you to break the law.” Braun rested his head on Tarek’s chest so he could hear his alpha’s heartbeat, steady and strong. “It’s scary to think that we’re only here together because of chance. I happened to run in a certain direction that night. Dex and Serge happened to leave the club at exactly the right time to save me.”

Braun couldn’t imagine what his life could have become had Dex and Serge not been there that night. Used and abused by two strangers, possibly impregnated against his will. Alone. Scared. Hurt. He might never have met Tarek, might have lived a scared, miserable life, instead of one filled with joy and love.

“We were meant to know each other, Braun,” Tarek whispered. “I know it in my heart. No matter what happens, I will always cherish that.”

“Me too.” Braun couldn’t guess the future, but no matter what happened, he’d always treasure his time spent with Tarek. They made sense in a way he never imagined possible—not while being spoon-fed stories of hateful alphas and useless omegas. Now he knew better. He had value and he had a future as someone, not just as an omegin.

He also knew he wanted to be with Tarek forever. “I’m ready,” Braun whispered.

“Ready?”

“Yes.” Braun raised his head. “To mate. To live together. To be husbands in the eyes of the law. I want it all, Tarek. With you.”

Tarek’s eyes glittered with tears. “I want that with you, as well, Braun Etting.”

“Then take me, I’m yours.”

They both laughed as Tarek rolled him onto his back, his bigger, broader body pinning Braun to the bed. “Yes, you are,” Tarek said. “And I’m yours. Move in with me?”

“Yes. I’d love to.”

“And your next heat?”

“No condom the first time. I want to mate with you. I’m still scared of having a child yet, but I’ll love any baby of ours with my whole heart.”

“Same. And I agree to your terms. First knot, no condom. The rest after will be protected.”

Braun sighed. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for making you happy. It’s my job and my pleasure.”

“And you do it so well.”

“Anything for you, my little omega firecracker.”

Something amazing happened in those few moments: Braun got it. He truly understood the nature of relationships between an alpha and his omega. Not the manufactured relationship sold on television and in society’s expectations of the big alpha taking charge and treating the smaller omega more like a child than a spouse. Braun understood the dynamic of the nurturing alpha taking care of his loving omega, both of them partners in this life they were creating together. The former was fiction, the latter reality as it should be.

The latter was everything Braun had ever wanted, and now he had it.

And nothing short of death would ever steal it away from him.

* * *

Tarek went into work the next day whistling a merry tune, stupidly happy to have spent the entire night with Braun in his bed, in his arms, where he belonged. It hadn’t taken more than ten minutes to pack Braun’s meager belongings and move him into the cottage. Seeing Braun’s clothes hanging in the closet next to Tarek’s had blown his mind.

His omega was home to stay. And in Braun’s next heat, they would mate.

He changed into his work uniform and was about to head to patrol when his name blasted over the loudspeaker, asking him to report to the supervisor’s office. Curious, Tarek went with little thought to the reason for his summons.

Both Constable Lars and his own supervisor, Senior Constable Higgs, were in Higgs’s office. Their expressions were flat, and Tarek’s heart dropped.

They know.

“Sir,” Tarek said mildly. “I was asked to report.”

“Shut the door,” Higgs said.

He did, but did not sit. And he stayed silent.

“Anything you want to tell us to make this easier?” Lars snapped.

Tarek didn’t let the bigger man intimidate him. “Nothing I can think of, sir, no.” He shot a curious look at Higgs, but Higgs deferred to Lars, who didn’t outrank him, but Lars had seniority in regard to years worked.

“A clerk reported he saw you sitting at the scheduling desk for approximately two minutes two days ago,” Lars continued. “Why?”

“Why did the clerk report that, sir?” Tarek didn’t mind playing dumb for a good cause.

“No, why were you at the scheduling desk at all? That’s for the clerk to do, not a constable.”

“I was looking for a pen, sir. I needed one to sign off on some paperwork. There was no one to ask, so I simply rummaged around on the nearest desk.”

Lars glared. “That’s so?”

“Of course. Why else would I sit there?”

“Perhaps to alter the shift change times at the hospital, in order to provide a fifteen-minute window of opportunity?”

“An opportunity to do…what?” Tarek looked from Higgs to Lars, and back again.

“An opportunity for those omegas to flee the hospital, either under duress or on their own volition,” Lars snapped. “Their scent was all over the stairwell nearest their ward, and we found security footage of a linen service truck parked outside from approximately 7:55 to 8:09. The truck was found early this morning, abandoned, down by the Narrows.”

“So you’re saying someone deliberately left the ward unguarded, so that the omegas could be spirited away in a linen van?” When Tarek said it, the entire thing sounded ridiculous—and he had no reason to doubt the entire thing was true. “Why on earth would I do that?”

“Your omega,” Higgs said, speaking for the first time. He didn’t sound angry so much as disappointed.

Tarek turned to face Higgs, who was still seated behind his desk. “Because Braun visited the omegas the day they disappeared? I didn’t realize he was a suspect for showing compassion.”

“Your omega is a troublemaker,” Lars said. “A few days ago, Krause Iverson lodged a complaint against Braun Etting, citing him for trespassing and assault.”

“Excuse me?” Shock and fury rolled through Tarek’s gut. “Krause’s mate, Kell Iverson, is Braun’s brother. Kell gave him permission to be on the property.”

“That’s not what Mr. Kell told the officer he spoke with.”

Fuck, what did Krause do?

Tarek stayed silent.

“Seems your omega entered the Iverson house without permission, proceeded to lodge false accusations against Mr. Iverson, and when he was asked to leave, your omega threw a tantrum, bit Mr. Iverson on the face and kicked him in the nether regions.”

Violence rose up inside of Tarek at the blatant alteration of what had actually happened. Tarek had heard Kell crying. Tarek had seen the blood on Braun’s face, the fear in his eyes. “Did you contact Braun for his side of the story?” Tarek asked, pleased his voice was even, non-confrontational.

“What reason would Iverson have to lie?” Higgs asked.

“Because he’s an abusive bastard who beats his mate, gave away their first child, and who tried to rape Braun when Braun attempted to visit his brother after the child disappeared. Braun wanted to comfort Kell, and instead, he was physically attacked.”

“Then why didn’t you report it?” Lars fired back.

“For exactly this reason. It was an alpha’s word over the word of an omega, and the fact that you’re speaking to me about this, instead of Braun directly, tells me you’ve already decided who you believe. Never mind that my omega was traumatized by Krause, who has a history of beating Kell.”

“Domestic discipline isn’t against the law.”

It took everything Tarek had inside of him to keep still and not punch the smirk off Lars’s face. “Maybe it should be,” Tarek snapped back. “Omegas don’t deserve to be beaten simply for being born omega, and alphas shouldn’t automatically be believed simply for being alphas. We’re all human beings, damn it!”

Higgs rose from his chair. “You need to get hold of yourself, Bloom. Right now.”

“Sir, I apologize for my temper, but not my words.”

“So you stand by your omega’s actions?”

“Always.”

Higgs sighed, then put his hands on his hips. “I’m sorry, but pending a formal investigation, Constable Bloom, you are hereby suspended with pay until further notice. I need your weapon and badge.”

Tarek’s entire world slowed to a crawl, as if everything was happening through a haze of confusion and murky understanding. He unclipped his badge from his uniform belt. He withdrew his service weapon from its holster. Both somehow ended up on Higgs’s desk. And then Tarek was suddenly in the locker room, changing back into his street clothes, and nothing made sense.

He’d wanted to be a constable since he was six years old. His second oldest brother had disappeared, and the entire family feared kidnapping. The constabulary got involved, and a man named Constable Hart had been in charge of the search. Kind, solid, and stoic, the man had found his brother trapped down an old drain pipe, cold and hungry and alive. Unharmed. Their entire family had rejoiced and thanked the man. He’d been a hero that day.

Tarek had wanted to be a hero, too.

Now he was suspended from a job he loved, and all because of Braun.

No, that wasn’t fair. Braun had made choices; Tarek had made choices. Now they both had to live with the consequences of those choices.

Tarek drove around the city for a while, so used to doing this on a regular basis that going home seemed ridiculous. He should be out there, responding to calls and helping people. His job was to help people, not sit around on his ass drinking beer. That sounded like a fate worse than death. Braun had a work shift today, so he couldn’t even find comfort with his omega for hours yet.

Around ten, he’d stopped at a city park to watch old men feed birds, because he didn’t know what else to do. He stared up at the sky, trying to see shapes in clouds, but he never could see anything another than amorphous puffs of white and gray. His siblings used to tease him endlessly about being so uncreative as to not see the goose or the smiling face.

Siblings who would be so disappointed in him for this suspension. They all lived in different provinces, spread out over thousands of miles, and they rarely saw each other in person lately. Hell, Tarek hadn’t spoken to his eldest brother in over a year. An alpha like Tarek, Suvik had grown up to mate an omega at a young age, had four children of his own, and had recently been elected mayor of his province. Their parents, had they still been alive, would have been so proud of Suvik.

Less so of Tarek, risking his career for an omega he hadn’t yet mated.

If I lose my job, how will I provide for Braun?

No, he couldn’t think that way. It was a suspension with pay, not an expulsion or an out-right firing. The suspension was probably Lars’s doing, because of how mouthy Braun had been yesterday morning. They didn’t have any proof that Tarek changed the schedule, or that Braun had been involved in the omega escape. They suspected him. The suspension was a song-and-dance to make it look like they were investigating, when there was nothing to find. And probably no public outcry to find eleven orphaned omegas with no family who cared enough to pressure the constabulary.

But after the recent fuckup with Fynn, they had to put forth an effort, for appearances sake.

Still hurt like hell that Tarek was the public scapegoat in this mess.

His mobile rang. Dex.

“Hey,” Tarek said.

“Shit, man, I just heard you were suspended,” Dex replied. “That fucking sucks.”

“Did you hear why?”

“Only that they think you tampered with the schedule, which is idiotic.”

“That’s the official story.” Tarek told him about Krause’s false report. “I could have killed Krause for touching Braun, and that bastard turned around and accused Braun of trespassing?”

“Asshole. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. A report isn’t the same as Krause pressing charges, and if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t take that step.”

“What about Kell, though? What did that bastard do to Kell to make him turn on his own brother?”

“I don’t know, and it’s nothing good.” No way was Tarek telling Braun about that—Kell corroborating Krause’s story. Worrying over Kell would destroy his omega. “Braun’s at work, so I haven’t told him anything yet. Goddess, our first full day living together and this happens. Some alpha I am.”

“The job doesn’t make the man, and you’re still getting paid. You guys will be fine. You’ll just need to find a hobby to stay busy.”

“Oh goodie. I’ll take up painting fruit or something equally tedious.”

“Take a cooking class. Read a book or two. Visit the zoo. Culture yourself.”

“Very funny.” Tarek gazed up at a passing cloud. Nebulous blob. “I love Braun so much. I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“I hear you. I fell in love with Serge after our first date, and it broke my heart every time we broke up. But he was worth fighting tooth and nail for. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Yeah.” He’d fight any enemy to keep Braun by his side—even Braun’s brother-in-law.

“Hang in there, man,” Dex said. “It’s just a bump. Ride it out together, okay?”

“Thanks. Later.”

Tarek snapped his phone shut, boosted by his friend’s support, but he couldn’t stop worrying. Would Braun see him as a failure, because he’d been suspended? Not outwardly, no. His sweet Braun was generous and forgiving, sometimes to a fault. He would probably blame himself, because everything happening revolved around Braun in some way, and Tarek didn’t want Braun to take on this responsibility.

He also didn’t like the idea of lying to his future mate and not telling Braun he’d been suspended. Dex or Serge were likely to let it slip, and then Braun would be angry that Tarek hadn’t trusted him enough to come clean. Unless he got his friends to go along. They weren’t lying, they simply weren’t bringing it up. For Braun’s own good.

Braun worried about Kell enough, he didn’t need this mess on his conscience too. Tarek would find a way to deal with this himself and spare his omega a little more pain. He’d be strong for both of them.