Page 68 of Marked By Love

“What? What witch?”

“The other omega, is she okay? Where is she?”

“Buford?”

Royce was startled to find Buford was still in his bear. His muzzle nudging and licking at the neck and face of the omega who’d attacked Gage. She was unconscious and wrapped in copper coils.

Royce stood, pushing Theo behind him. He approached Buford and the omega. Buford snarled and postured over her.

“Oh no …” Royce stepped back. “Buford, buddy, you gotta phase back. She needs help; she needs medical attention and to get that copper off her. You can’t do that while you’re a bear. You need thumbs.”

The bear snorted and snuffled, his head snapping from the omega to Royce and back. Royce could see little slivers of the man coming through the bear.

“Yeah, that’s right, buddy, thumbs are what’s going to help her now. You gotta take over and let the bear go.”

Moments later, the grizzly fell away, leaving a naked Buford behind. He gasped and shook his head. When at least he regained himself, his medical training kicked in. His experienced hands roamed over the omega, assessing for breaks while also testing the copper wires.

With a great hiss, the witch jolted upright, swinging a jagged stone across Buford’s chest. For his part, Buford smiled like a sap, catching her wrists in his giant hands as his eyes flashed gold.

Chapter thirty-four

Theodore

Despite not needing it, he consented to Royce carrying him. It felt good to be close to the alpha, to scent him, to have the warmth of his body radiating through him as his heart thudded rhythmically in time with Theodore’s own. Theodore hadn’t realized how anxious being apart from the alpha had made him. But now he couldn’t deny it, ignoring his mate was starting to affect him too.

Omegas weren’t impacted by the presence of their fated mates the same way alphas were, or at least that’s what people said. Now he was experiencing it himself, Theodore thought they were full of it. He didn’t feel surges of protective violence the way Royce clearly had, but he felt wrong being away from him.

It was more than the helplessness of being kidnapped by traffickers and having his life threatened. It was empty and hollow when Royce was gone. It was bone-deep desperation that the concept of never seeing Royce’s face again had wrought upon his bleeding heart.

Royce carried him over the piles of alphas he and Buford left in their wake. Gage and one other had survived. Based on the carnage in the cabin, Theodore assumed that couldn’t be said for the others. The survivors were carted off by Elk Cove enforcers and the North American Union SWAT team.

Royce set Theodore down in the back of an ambulance. Someone started fussing over him immediately: a blood pressure cuff squeezed his arm and someone else ran cold swabs across his forehead stinging where it contacted his open skin. When Theodore tried to convince them to give Royce a once-over, his alpha simply growled in response.

“How do we know Gage was taken by someone who wasn’t working for him?” Theodore asked

“Because I made sure of it.” Argus came up with another alpha Theodore didn’t recognize. “Theodore, this is Kendle. She’s in charge of the North American Union trafficking division. She’s been hunting Gage for a long time.”

“Nice to finally meet you, Theodore.” The woman stuck her hand out to shake. When Royce growled, she dropped it with a smile. “In addition to looking for Gage, my office has been trying to locate you as well. You’re a hard person to find.”

“Lo-looking for me?”

“Yes. We’ve been trying to get enough evidence on Gage Prescot to put him away. An informant in Seerinoga dropped your father’s name, but he was already gone, and you’d disappeared before we could find you.”

“I was meeting with her when we got the call that something had happened,” Argus explained.

“Talk about timing,” Kendle said. “You’re one lucky omega.”

Theodore frowned. He’d never once thought of himself as lucky. His gaze shifted from Kendle to Royce, dirty, bloody, and standing there staring at him as if the only thing that mattered in the world was that Theodore had lived. Maybe Theodore would have to change his mindset on the topic of his luck.

“There were others,” Theodore said. “That were working with Gage, governing officials. You may have stopped Gage, but this operation is far from crippled.”

Kendle nodded. “We’re hoping what’s on your flash drive will be enough to put some of them away too. If not, it will at least get the ball rolling. But I don’t want you to worry about that anymore. We’ll be in contact for interviews and testimonials later, when you’ve had time to recover. But this isn’t your responsibility anymore, Theodore. We’ll take it from here.”

The alpha looked so confident, so sure of herself, that Theodore almost believed her words.

He turned from the alpha, Kendle. Across the way, he recognized another alpha, he’d come into the clinic with his omega daughter when her guinea pigs needed routine checkups and nail trims. He caught Theodore’s eye and nodded. Another alpha from Elk Cove, Theodore recognized him; their mate was helping with the cat colony, and he’d been driving one of the trucks of trapped cats. He also nodded at Theodore.

Theodore had always assumed the people he saw at the clinic left and never gave the omega veterinarian a second thought, and yet here was all of Elk Cove, in the middle of the forest, to rescue him. And it was all because of this beautiful, naked, and dirty alpha standing at his side.