JURASSIC WORLD:TAINTED

Chapter 31

The paddock was bathed in sunlight. Clouds still obscured the sun now and then, but most of the storm had passed. The winds were strong, but not dangerous, and it was a little cooler today. The raptor enclosure and the land surrounding Owen's house hadn't suffered from the cyclone. The trees had bowed, but they hadn't broken. The ground was still a little more muddy than usual and there were puddles further out toward the road.

Owen found the gates still unlocked, but they had been pushed closed. For such intelligent dinosaurs like raptors it wouldn't be much of a challenge to open them. For the pack it wouldn't have been a challenge at all.

Walking into the paddock, Owen was immediately surrounded by the four velociraptors. They rumbled and chittered, making clicking noises of welcome, and Blue pushed into the palm he held out.

Alpha.

The word was echoed three more times and Owen felt this gooey warmth in his chest, like a hug, like emotions overflowing that he knew weren't his own.

"I'm proud of you," he told the four raptors. "All of you. Each and every single one. And thankful."

They rumbled, pleased, Echo more than any of the others, and he scrubbed his good hand over her muzzle.

"You are amazing, Echo. Thank you."

She purred loudly.

Echo had carried him. She had carried him!

His girl was smug and proud and she had every right to be. Her head was up high, she stood with her chest puffed out, and she shot the others challenging looks.

Blue snorted, not challenged in her beta role. Delta and Charlie prowled around her sister.

Not that Owen had any intention to ever ride a raptor, but the very idea... the way the pack had worked together to get their seriously hurt alpha home...

They had all done so well. Even if part of it had meant overwhelming his mind and making him move through the pain.

Help. You needed help. It was all we could do.

Blue nuzzled against his shoulder, careful, soft in her approach. No one would believe how gentle these four predators could be with their alpha. But within a fraction of a second were able to turn on whatever threat faced them, maybe even kill.

Owen was quite aware of that, but he didn't fear them. Enveloped by them, body and mind, he was in the most dangerous position and he felt no fear. No terror. No apprehension.

Just... warmth. Trust.

Blue sniffed at the cast on his arm and touched it with a talon.

He let her.

A little pressure and she could easily slice into it, but there wasn't even an indentation. Well, not much of one.

We are always with you, Owen, alpha.

The bond. They were there, through the bond. They could never be anywhere else, be less of what they had already become.

Owen was part of this.

They were all each other's safety net. What they had done went far and beyond everything anyone could ever have come up with as a likely reaction for a pack of raptors whose human alpha had gone down.

When the i-rex had attacked him it had been a psychic strike. It had bounced along the bond, had thrown them all. There had been no blood, no physical pain.

When Echo had lost it under the pressure of the i-rex's mind, he had been just bruised.

Charlie's reaction to Owen removing the piece of metal in her gums hadn't been an attack either.