Chapter 4: Royce - Marked By Love

His paws padded against the wet grass, his nose to the ground. It smelled of rotting leaves, rain, mud, and old vegetables with an undertone of omega. This was his third night running circles around the omega house, and he hadn’t caught a single trail of mint to track. It was as if the omega had vanished.

Sure, the first day he’d loitered, Royce scented the same mint from the Town Hall, but it was faint. The new veterinarian had been here, but it had been a while ago. When a group of omegas lived together, it was harder to identify individual scents within the dwelling, unless you were in their room sniffing their pillow. That and Royce knew some omega houses were warded to keep the inhabitants hidden.

Was that why the mint omega had disappeared?

Leaving the tree line, he lumbered to his car and phased. Slinking into the back seat, he dressed quickly and then tied his hair into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Technically, he was parked within the two-hundred-yard limit of alphas approaching the omega house uninvited, but he didn’t want to be caught naked down the road from them. That would be impossible to explain in a manner that didn’t make him look like an unhinged creep.

It was bad enough that he was starting to feel like an unhinged creep. His urge to circle the omega house hadn’t abated since his wolf’s command to find the new doctor. After that last growled sentence, his wolf had been quiet no matter how many questions Royce had asked. The furry bastard was stubbornly mute, and it was starting to piss Royce off.

Actually, this entire situation was pissing him off. Why was the mint scent making him crazy? Why couldn’t he get it out of his head? It was so bad he was losing sleep, and his teeth kept itching. Seriously, teeth were not supposed to itch.

He settled into the back seat of his car, eyes fixed on the pink front door, and waited for that face to exit. Wide brown eyes set in a cool olive complexion … He should know it well enough by now, he’d been obsessing over it since that strange meet in the Town Hall parking lot. Now all Royce had to do was be patient; but what he’d originally thought would be a one-day stakeout had soon turned into two. The veterinarian had to leave at some point.

Wasn’t he supposed to be working?

Royce’s head fell to his hands, a searing pang shot through his head and settled behind his left eye. He’d been getting bad headaches. He’d never gotten headaches before …

Looking up, he blinked hard. Where was he?

He was supposed to be finding the omega.

He couldn’t scent the omega. It was imperative that he scent him … He was inside the omega house, why the hell hadn’t he left? Was something keeping him inside?

A low growl rumbled in his chest.

The passenger side back door opened, and Scott slid into the seat next to Royce and let out an exasperated huff.

“So,” Scott said, letting the o linger. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Really? Is that why you’ve been parked outside the omega house for two nights?”

“I’m not—”

“I don’t give a fuck, and neither will Michelle or Argus. So what if you’re technically not less than two hundred yards away, you’re lurking and stalking, Royce. And the omegas have started to notice.” His fellow wolf shifter fixed him with a hard glare.

“Who?”

“Freddy. He still has friends that live here, and they know I’m an enforcer; they asked him to bring it to my attention. I didn’t mention it to Argus because I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Scott turned in his seat to face Royce, the collar of his shirt pulled down to reveal his mate mark on the side of his neck. It wasn’t common for omegas to bite their alpha-fated mates back, but not unheard of. Some alphas liked it, most didn’t. But there wasn’t much conventional about Scott and Freddy because Freddy was an exceptionally rare omega shifter.

Less than one in three million omegas were shifters; as if Scott needed an excuse to think his fated mate was special and deserving of never-ending praise. The two of them could be found romping around the woods in their animal forms most evenings and holidays, a wolf and a raccoon having the times of their lives.

“You gonna tell me what the hell you’re thinking?” Scott demanded.

Royce glared out the windshield because what was he doing? He had no answers or reasons for his bizarre behavior other than it felt like it was what he needed to do. Royce didn’t think he could make himself forget about this, shake this relentless itch that’d taken up residence in the back of his mind.

Since he heard the omega was living here, he’d become senselessly fixated on the omega house. He couldn’t force himself to think past those pink front doors, no matter how hard he tried.

“Come on, man, I’m your friend. You can tell me, and I’ll do my best not to be judgmental,” Scott coaxed. “Unless you’re doing something utterly insane, then I invoke the right of friendship to mock you for life.”

“I don’t have friends.”

Scott rolled his eyes.

Yes, Royce had been to his house. Yes, Royce went to his and Freddy’s mating party, but they didn’t talk. However, Scott was a fellow wolf shifter, and there were things about them that were similar because of that. If anyone would understand it might be him.

“I don’t know,” Royce admitted. “I just, it’s ridiculous, I feel like there’s something, not wrong, but there’s something … I can’t explain it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, the pang behind his eye started throbbing.

“Your wolf caught onto something?”

“Yeah, and the fucker isn’t telling me anything.”

“I get that frustration, I really do.” Scott turned to consider the omega house. “When Freddy first moved into Elk Cove, my wolf went nuts. I couldn’t sleep, I lost my appetite, and I kept finding myself wandering the town at night headed to the hospital, then the omega house, with no conscious thought of going there.”

“That’s different. Freddy was your fated mate, and your wolf sensed he was near and tracked the scent. This is … I don’t know. A threat?”

“If you think there’s something threatening the omega house, you need to tell Michelle and Argus.”

“I don’t know yet. I need to meet him first to know for sure.”

“Meet who?” Scott was skeptical.

“The new vet.”

“Dr. Abbott? He goes by Doc and isn’t living here.”

“What?!” Royce’s gaze snapped to Scott.

“Yeah, you remember all those omegas that got rescued a few weeks back. Well, most of them ended up here. The place is full. Michelle turned him away because the vet clinic has a place for the doctor to live.”

Royce scowled at the omega house as if it had somehow personally offended him.

“How do you know all this?”

Scott rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated huff. “One, I’m not a social shut-in, like you. Two, Freddy brought Gingersnap in for an appointment yesterday. If you hadn’t been camped out on this street the last few days, you’d know this,” Scott chided. “Come on, go home, shower, you stink. And Royce, if you know what’s good for you, stop stalking Doc. No one likes a pushy, butthead, alpha-hole.”

He didn’t go home. At least not right away. Halfway to his condo, Royce remembered his fridge was empty. He’d planned to go grocery shopping after finding the missing betas. But that had been before.

Before he’d seen the vet. Before this new omega had acted so strange. Before his wolf demanded he hunt down this threat.

Royce drove to the local grocery. Not bothering to make small talk with his fellow townsfolk, he loaded his cart with steaks, potatoes, butter, jerky, and soda—all his basic staples. He knew how to cook a wider variety, but since it was only him, he didn’t see the point in putting in any more effort than necessary.

He had a well-abused countertop grill and a microwave, his pots and pans having long been donated, because why keep something he didn’t utilize?

His plug-in grill was perfect for keeping him fed. Compact for if—when—he moved and indoors so he didn’t get caught outside and be forced to talk to his neighbors.

In line for the checkout, he idly listened to his townsfolk chatter. Meanwhile, he sent a litany of internal curses at his wolf—who was still silent. The furry bastard was probably brooding that he didn’t get his way.

Why had his wolf demanded Royce find the source of the mint smell? And why had he gone radio silent afterward?

Among the din, his attention snapped into focus. A little omega balanced a paper bag in one arm while his other rummaged through a hip bag. The omega had cool olive skin and dark hair, large round glasses … it was him!

“Hey!”

Abandoning his cart, Royce ran after the veterinarian. The omega yelped and then bolted.

“Wait! Stop!” Royce commanded, running after him. But it was no use. The omega’s only response was to drop a litany of items from his hip bag and lock himself inside his yellow car. The tires screeched as he tore from the parking lot.

“Damn it all!” Royce grumbled and cursed as the car disappeared.

The strangest urge to chase it swelled up in his breast. It was as if his life depended on catching up to that damned car.

Shaking the absurdity from his head, he tracked the omega’s path through the parking lot, retrieving his discarded items.

He froze.

Mint.

His nostrils flared, and he huffed what was in his hand. It had recent and direct contact with the omega in question, so the scent was stronger, but it was off.

Royce hardly scented omega. Every omega and alpha had a distinct scent that accompanied the general musk of their type. But this was muted and muffled. It was wrong. Was the omega using suppressor?

It wasn’t illegal to use suppressor, it could be found at any drug store, but it typically wasn’t this effective.

For the first time, Royce noticed exactly what it was he was holding. A blister pack of pills, four rows of seven with little letters at the top to signify the days of the week. Above that was the name of the medication. It was birth control for female alphas.

His wolf growled.