Chapter Text
“You’re in London, right?”
Eva trapped the phone between her ear and shoulder.
“Yeah, until tomorrow, probably. Why?”
She peeled off her gloves, turning them inside out before shoving them into her back pocket. Grabbing her phone, she stepped carefully out of the alley, slipping seamlessly into the drunken foot traffic of Saturday night in the city.
“There’s a situation that I hope you can help with.” Eva thought back to the alley and smirked. “Pretty sure I just finished helping you with a situation.”
Silence on the other end of the line. “…I am going to pretend not to know what you mean by that and look forward to the report on my desk detailing how you attempted and failed to apprehend a dangerous criminal, who has mysteriously disappeared into the ether.”
She rolled her eyes, quickening her steps as she began planning the rest of her evening. Maybe she’d pick up a burger? Definitely needed a shower, what with the blood… wait. Lost omega?
She tuned back into the conversation that she had started ignoring the minute her boss, David, began talking about paperwork.
“What did you say about an omega?”
A familiar sigh of disappointment filtered through the phone.
“Glad you’re paying attention. A pack in the city has lost an omega, and the director of their security team reached out to me. The local police haven’t been helpful—” she snorted (shocking) “—and it’s been almost 24 hours since he disappeared.”
Eva’s instincts prickled. Male omegas were rare, making them a commodity for people who felt they had the right to own another person. Her job revolved around finding and dismantling the organizations that funded human trafficking. It was why she was in London in the first place. The dead beta cooling in a pool of his own blood back in the alley was one of many pieces she’d removed from play in the past week.
“You think this is Archer? One last stab at Evon before leaving town?”
David hummed on the other end of the phone.
“Possibly. Regardless, you have the best shot at finding him, if he’s been taken.”
She nodded, plans for an evening of relaxation and a redeye to Japan discarded.
“Give me everything you know.”
~ ~ ~
Ten minutes later, she had a description of the omega and an overview of the missing man’s actions before he disappeared. David was cagey about the pack, but she didn’t push it. A pack that had its own security was a pack that lived in the public eye, a place she avoided like the plague. The group had finished some event in the city (she was absolutely not speculating on who it might be) and gone out to eat a late dinner together. The omega had an argument with a fellow member and left the restaurant with his security guy. Said security guy was found unconscious, a few streets away, in the standard issue black SUV that all famous people seemed to think was incognito, and the omega was gone.
Hopping on the tube, Eva reached the place where the guard was found and paused. She had no doubt that the pack had canvased the area looking for any hint of their lost omega’s scent. If the kidnappers were smart, they slapped a military grade scent blocker on the omega immediately, cutting off any hope of his pack following them.
Unfortunately for them, Eva wasn’t looking for the omega’s scent. She grinned as a clinical, chalky smell laced with an acrid chemical aftertaste hit her nose. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a light skin toned patch, smelling it briefly to confirm her suspicion, before carefully tucking it away.
Not Archer, or Evon, after all.
Eva carefully pulled on her gloves, somewhat stiff with the drying blood of Archer’s unlucky subordinate.
She was going to enjoy this.
~ ~ ~
The first two men died silently, unaware of the threat until it had them by the literal throat. One was an alpha whose charcoal scent soured to rot as his carotid emptied itself onto the rough asphalt at his feet. The other, a beta that smelled like he needed to shower more than any nature given scent. The smelly one died as a thin wire garrote, pulled from her leather bracelet, sliced through his flesh and severed both jugulars with the ease of a warm knife slicing up a stick of butter. She really needed to get back into baking; maybe it was time for a return to her cupcake phase.
Eva stepped silently over the dead men, slicing off a finger to press against the sensor at the door. It swung open on oiled hinges, revealing a hallway flickering with ugly, fluorescent lighting. Glancing inside found no one visible, and she slipped in. Taking a breath, the scent of a terrified omega, burnt caramel and rotting leaves, slammed into her nose. Her abdomen twisted, hot and painful, and she grit her teeth against the sensation, resisting the urge to scratch at her neck.
Not the time, buddy.
She followed the scent, ending up in front of a door made of flimsy, faux wood. This place looked like some rundown office building with ramped up security. Not that ramped up, but still, the contrast was jarring.
The door was slightly open, and she could hear voices from within, intermixed with terrified whines. Shifting it open slightly, she saw the backs of two figures, and could just make out another huddled on the floor. She moved into the room, watching as one of the figures, a broad-shouldered man who smelled weirdly of Greek yogurt, approached the huddled figure who clearly matched the description she’d been given for the missing omega. And confirmed her suspicions about who, exactly, this pack was.
As the omega curled backwards, away from the approaching alpha, Eva came up behind the other figure, a woman with a long braid. Gripping the woman’s hair with one hand, she rapidly slammed a knife clean through her throat with the other, cutting off the woman’s ability to make any sound as she lowered the body to the ground to bleed out.
The alpha hadn’t noticed, too distracted by pinning the omega to the floor and ripping down his pants, hands touching places he had no right to touch.
Filth. All of them.
She’d make him hurt.
She met the omega’s panic filled eyes as she appeared behind his assailant, landing a swift kick to the alpha’s kidney, the knife in the toe of her boot automatically snapping out to slice into the tender organ. The man screamed, spinning around, half-hard dick flopping in the wind before flying across the room in response to a carefully placed slash of the knife still wet with the blood of the dead woman on the floor.
“Oops. Guess you won’t be using that any time soon.”
The alpha tried to charge at her, but she spun to the side and snapped out a hand, impacting his throat with a crack that signaled his cartilage lost the battle against her fist. As he fell to the ground, wheezing and sobbing, she wrenched back his head and made him look at the omega still cowering on the ground.
“I hope hell treats you as well as you treated him.”
His blood spray coated the wall next to the omega, a bit spattering to fall on his pale skin. Dark eyes looked up at her from fine, angular features. Black hair hung in uneven strands around his face as he pulled back further, pressing himself into a ball.
Eva dropped to her knees and held out a hand, palm up.
“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you. Your pack sent me.” Not entirely a lie, they did send her, circuitously.
The omega simply shook his head, fully embedded deep in his omega headspace, the human nowhere near the driver’s seat. Shit.
She scooted forward and slowly reached out again, until her fingers brushed the omega’s chin. She tilted it up until she could see his eyes, bracing herself for a bite or attack, but he just sat there, frozen and whimpering.
“Omega. Look at me. I need Hyunjin right now. You did so good, little omega, protecting him. But right now, I need him to come back.”
Eva felt her words land with a bit more power, felt a warm rumble in her core (again, not the time, damn it), and kept her eyes on the omega. Slowly, his posture unfurled, and he took a shuddering breath, before collapsing forward into her arms. His fingers dug into her shoulders, sobs shaking his frame. She wrapped her arms around his taller form and slowly stood, tugging him to his feet with her.
“Come on, we need to go. Your pack is missing you.”
One shaky step had Hyunjin stumbling, legs giving out. Fuck. It had to be the tallest one. Eva crouched down and pulled his arms over her shoulders, using years of martial arts to brace herself and stand until she could get him onto her back.
“Hang on as much as you can, I’ll get us out of here.”
She felt his legs tighten around her waist and dropped one of her arms to support him while keeping the knife in her other hand. The sound of footsteps had her halting at the door, pressing them both back against the wall. She quickly traded out her knife for a thin, razor-sharp dagger.
“What the fuck—” the words cut off as the dagger buried itself in his throat. The next one lodged in the chest of the alpha behind him, the sour scents of curdled milk and black mold flooding the room. She felt Hyunjin gag against the back of her neck, and quickly moved out of the room, hurrying back down the hallway until she her a scuff and a click. Spinning, she put her back, and subsequently Hyunjin, against a wall, facing the alpha holding a gun twenty feet away.
Eva let go of Hyunjin’s legs and let him slide down the wall to the floor. Still shielding him with her body, she cocked her head at the alpha and smiled.
“Does Evon know you’re playing guns and gangsters in his territory? Or, better question, does Markus know that you’re risking his business by fucking around in Evon’s sandbox?”
A twitch of the gun accompanied by a hitch of the alpha’s breath told her she’d hit her mark.
“You’re going to put down your gun and allow this omega to leave here unharmed. You’re going to do this, or else I will slit your throat just enough for the blood to fill up your lungs and leave you to drown. I’ve heard it’s a terrible way to die.”
The gun’s shaking intensified and she smelled the sharp scent of urine in the air. Lovely. A bully and a coward. But the gun stayed raised. She heard Hyunjin’s breath turn choppy behind her, a sign of him starting to drop. She needed to end this now, without getting him shot. She began walking towards the alpha with measured steps.
“St-stop walking, beta bitch, or I’ll fucking shoot—” she launched forward, slamming the wrist holding the gun up towards the ceiling, hearing the shot go off, as she tackled the alpha to the ground. Pinning his wrist to the floor with her knife, she had him subdued in a matter of seconds. It only took another minute for his struggles to fade into nothing.
Eva rushed back to Hyunjin and pulled him onto her back again. He was limp, and she leaned forward to keep him balanced as she tucked both hands beneath his legs to hold him up.
“Evangaline, call David.” The British accented female voice echoed from her pocket as it acknowledged her request, and her phone began to ring. She heard it click and cut David off.
“I’m going to text you an address. Send someone to get us. And send a crew later, there’s a bit of a mess.”
“Eva, what—”
“Evangaline, end call.” She quickly voiced the address to be texted and listened to the ding of acknowledgement.
Reaching the door, she listened for any movement, before pushing through and continuing to move until she reached a shadowed spot in view of the building but hidden from the street. Her thighs were burning as she slid to the ground, feeling Hyunjin shivering violently against her.
“Shhh, you’re ok, you’re ok, your pack is coming, I promise. Stay with me.”
She wrapped him in her jacket and pulled him into her lap, as well as she could since he had a good 15cm on her height. She began to hum softly, hands stroking over his hair, tucking his face into her neck. She felt him nuzzle into the space where her scent gland should be only to pause and whine in confusion.
“Sorry sweetheart. I can’t help like that, but your pack will be here soon, and you’ll have their scent all around you.”
He pulled back to look at her, eyes wide.
“You… speak Korean?”
Oh. She’d switched without realizing it. Should have tried that earlier. Stupid.
“Yep. Worked in Seoul for a bit, a few years back.”
Hyunjin’s hands maintained their death grip on her shirt, but his shivering had eased slightly.
“Who are you?” His voice was raw from screaming, but there was strength there. He wasn’t broken. He would be ok. Eva felt something tense in her chest release at the realization.
“I’m Eva. My boss is friends with one of your security guys.”
“How did you—” he cut off, head snapping up before his scent, previously dulled and sour, exploded into sweet caramel and lilacs. A car pulled to a halt, and three people tumbled out of the backseat. Eva quickly slid out from beneath Hyunjin, untangling his hands and standing up, not wanting to get mauled by a panicked group of pack alphas in the presence of their vulnerable omega.
Unsurprisingly, the first to reach them started to growl, and she tried to back away only to be stopped by Hyunjin’s death grip on her ankle. The posturing alpha seemed to realize this at the same moment as she did and, with a glare, dropped to his knees and began feverishly scenting him. Hyunjin’s body immediately went limp, and Eva quickly retracted her leg, scooting around the pile of reunited packmates, to reach the car.
“You look like shit. Any of that blood yours?”
She glanced over at the man leaning on the top of the driver’s side of the car.
“Oh, hey Cole. Lovely to see you again.”
Eva walked around the car to the passenger side and slid in, letting out a sigh as she sank back into the comfortable seat.
“You’re getting blood all over my car again.”
“It’s not your car. It’s the agency’s car.”
“Don’t speak about Dolly like that.”
“I still can’t believe you named the company vehicle ‘Dolly’.”
“Say’s the woman who changed Siri’s name to ‘Evangeline’ and acts as though she has a posh British assistant.”
How dare he. She would kill him in his sleep for slander. She would—
“Eva? Eva! Where—” Hyunjin’s panicked voice rang through the quiet street. Eva quickly got out of the car, groaning as her sore legs took her weight again, and jogged over to where Hyunjin was straining against his packmates’ arms.
“I’m here, I’m right here. Your pack has you, you’re ok now.”
Her words were met with a rush of lilacs and melted sugar as Hyunjin grabbed her wrist and held it to his neck.
“Don’t go. Please. Don’t go.”
Blinking, Eva looked helplessly at the three men standing protectively around Hyunjin’s disheveled form. She knew them, of course. Everyone with a vague awareness of pop culture probably knew them on sight. But she had no idea what the protocol was for meeting a pack of Korean idols after killing seven people to rescue one of their omegas.
“Um. Hyunnie, love, I’m sure she can come visit you later, but we need to get you back to the hotel and the rest of the pack.”
Bang Chan’s words fell on deaf ears.
“NO! I need her, alpha, please, I need alpha—” his words devolved into cries as the shivering returned, his drop hitting with a vengeance. Eva stepped back as his hand fell away from her wrist, and Minho scooped him up in his arms.
“We need to go.” Eva nodded and returned to the passenger seat as Cole started the car. The three alphas (Seungmin was an alpha, who knew?) piled into the back with Hyunjin cradled on their laps. The drive to the upscale hotel where the pack was staying didn’t take long, but it still had Eva getting dizzy from the swirl of powerful scents in the car. It didn’t matter that there was a whole row of middle seating between the front seat and the back where the pack was sitting. She cracked open the window as Cole did the same, the beta wrinkling his nose slightly at the olfactory assault.
They pulled into a covered area at the back of the hotel with a discreet door tucked inside. Minho and Seungmin got out, the former still cradling Hyunjin, and Bang Chan came around to her side of the car, tapping at the window. “Here,” he held out a piece of paper with a scrawled phone number on it. “Hyunjin is going to want to see you when he wakes up. I understand if you have places you need to be, but please, text me, we owe you more than I can possibly repay.”
With that, he backed away with a sheepish smile, before hurrying into the hotel with his packmates. Eva blinked down at the slip of paper with Bang Chan’s phone number in her lap.
“Evangeline. Search ‘how do I know if I’m dreaming’ on google.”
I’m sorry, I didn’t understand—
Cole’s laughter filled the car as Eva closed her eyes and let the scents of a very special pack fil her mind.