Page 40 of Sweet Torment

Focus. I need a plan.

Three hours isn’t enough. Not even close.

How well do they know the land? Is this their first time here?

I think about the guys. They’re locked down tight, no doubt, their fathers making damn sure of it. Every move I make, someone’s already thought it through, written it down, set a trap. It’s a performance, a rigged match, and they want to see me break. They want to watch me fold and accept the fate they chose for me. Well, I won’t make it easy.

I grit my teeth, anger spiking hotter. Fuck them. All of them. Except anger doesn’t burn away the rest, the deeper need. It’s crawling beneath my skin, restless, hungry, impossible to ignore. Something inside me is shifting, stretching, aching for release.

The air thickens, laced with vanilla and amber. It takes me a moment to realize it’s me. I’m awakening. For the wrong alphas. My pheromones pour out of me, a flood soaking the woods. An undeniable beacon. My omega presented for the wrong fucking alphas. I want to rip her out of my body and strangle her.

Each inhale is a reminder that they’ll find me.

Moonlight slices through the trees, lighting my path and making me a target. I crash through brush, branches whipping my legs, lungs burning.

Water. I need water. A river, a stream, anything. Water means mud. Mud means I can smother this cursed scent.

It takes thirty minutes to find it—a dark slash of river carving through the trees. I wade in, biting back a gasp as the cold cuts into my skin. My hands shake as I scoop up mud from the bank, packing it over every inch of exposed skin. Gritty, wet, and freezing. It’s not perfect, but maybe it will dull the scent enough to buy me time.

My heat is coming. A physical certainty barreling down on me, and I’m standing right in its path. Soon, they’ll be right behind me.

Everything is too much. My skin prickles. The night air burns my lungs.

I need to get as much ground between us as I can.

Dr. Montgomery set me up. Not the way he did with the alphas, not with drugs, not with force—but with his own special twist, and I was fool enough to play right into his hand. I should’ve seen it, should’ve known better.

“Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.” The words rip out of me as I break into a sprint.

No looking back now. I run, every muscle screaming, the night a blur of panic.

13

TRISTAN

The fence hums.

It’s a low, constant sound that gets under your skin. Ten feet of chain-link and razor wire, all of it pulsing with enough electricity to kill us. We’ve been crouched in the dark for twenty minutes, but it feels like hours, waiting for Mason to work his magic. Each second stretches out, thin and tight.

I need to get to her.

The ride here was its own special kind of hell. It took way too long, and my mind just kept playing the same loop. We’d be too late. It’s what we’re good at—fucking things up when it matters most. What will we find when we get there? I can’t let myself go down that road.

“The power will go out for thirty seconds,” Mason’s voice comes over the comm. “Maybe forty, if you’re lucky.”

“Not enough,” Freddie mutters, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He’s been doing jumping jacks and pushups while we wait. He’s trying to outrun the anxiety. A futile effort, but I guess it’s better than whatever Owen and Weller are doing.

“It has to be,” Weller snaps. His hand is clamped over the mark Bianca left. He’s been pressing his fingers into the spot for an hour, a low hiss of air escaping his teeth with every breath. He looks like he’s in agony. The bond is supposed to be a comfort, a connection. On him, it looks like a wound that won’t stop bleeding.

Owen is just a statue in the dark. He’s gone somewhere else in his head, a place with no words. Everyone is losing it in their own special way.

“Power out in fifteen,” Mason warns.

We inch closer to the fence. I can feel the energy coming off it, a vibration in the air.

“Five, four, three, two⁠—”

The hum dies. The sudden silence is jarring.