I forced my body back into motion and took a seat, sitting two rows in front of Alex. Kam slipped in beside me. Nikolayev was already seated at the front of the plane, along with the handful of support staff that had accompanied us to the conference.
The preflight checks dragged every bit as badly as the wait in the car, but eventually we taxied onto the runway and took off, the acceleration pressing me against the seatback. Complete darkness lay beyond the small window until the small jet banked, revealing the twinkling lights of Minsk far below. The aircraft leveled out, and we were on our way back to safety.
Ninety minutes, I thought.Please, Alex—just stay unconscious for another ninety minutes until we land.
TWELVE
Kameron
ALEX STAYED unconsciousfor slightly less than thirty minutes—and then the screaming started. Not screams of fright, but screams of rage, interspersed with feral growling. There wasso much furyin those sounds... a banshee railing against the unfairness of the world.
Leo sat stiff and unmoving in the seat next to me. I know that she was fighting the same gut-deep need that I was—the need to go to Alex and comfort an alpha in distress. An alpha we both desperately cared for.
Flynn, seated in the row behind us and in front of Alex, must have felt the urge through his bond with Leo. He reached around the seatback to grasp her shoulder. “Don’t. It won’t help. You two need to know that if you get within range of her teeth, she’ll bite you. If she somehow got free of her restraints, she’d try to rape you. There’s not a single thought in her head right now exceptget to the omegas.”
It wouldn’t be rape, I thought, and I sensed Leo clenching her jaw to hold back similar words. This wasn’t a discussion I was willing to have in front of Nikolayev and the gaggle of terrified support staff, but wewouldbe having it once we landed.
Leo craned around the edge of the seat, and Alex’s wild green gaze locked on her. The alpha lunged, getting her upper body partway into Flynn’s row before the metal around her wrists pulled her up short. Spittle flew as she snapped at the air.
“Fuck!” Flynn ducked out of range, and Alex fell back, panting and snarling.
The flight was horrible. Alex’s shrieks of frustrated anger grew hoarse with exhaustion as time went on. The metal frame of the seat creaked and clattered as she jerked against her restraints convulsively. I wanted to find whoever had done this to her, so I could watch Jax and Flynn beat them within an inch of their worthless, miserable lives.
By the time the plane descended toward the runway at Nikolayev’s secure compound, it was after midnight. The Russian had remained stoic as a marble statue throughout the tortuous journey—but as we shed altitude, he stood and made his way to the cockpit.
He returned after only a couple of minutes and sat down again, pulling his seatbelt across his lap. “I’ve instructed the pilot to radio ahead and ensure medical staff are waiting with an appropriate dose of tranquilizer,” he said, pitching his voice to be heard over Alex’s wails of distress.
Alex lunged again, only to crash shoulder-first into the bulkhead when the plane banked for its final descent. I faced forward and closed my eyes, gripping my seat arms in an attempt to block out her obvious torment. It must have been windy outside, because the landing was rough, setting my already nauseated stomach roiling.
After an endless few minutes, the plane rolled to a stop, its engines powering down with a whine. The cabin’s low lights brightened, turning everything gleaming and white. The unfortunate staff members who’d been stuck on this flight from hell wasted no time in disembarking. They were replaced almost immediately by the doctor who’d been attending Beckett during his pregnancy, along with a burly man dressed as an orderly.
“You believe she was drugged?” the doctor asked.
“That’s the current theory,” Nikolayev replied tightly. “An unknown substance delivered orally via food or drink to induce a state of alpha rut.”
‘Well,fuck,” said the doctor. “That’s all the world needs right now. We’ll definitely have to sedate her in order to remove her from the plane safely.”
