“YOU SKEEZE bag motherfuckers are gonna eat my fat dick for breakfast after I’m done with you!
I’m gonna bury you so deep in your own fucking shit, you’ll fertilize the bedrock! I’m gonna twist you up and make you look at your own asshole!”
Emmy is the Shakespeare of threats, I thought.
“You’re gonna be shitting your own goddamn teeth!!”
I whimpered at the last and especially shrill exclamation. Everything fucking hurt.
“Shit, sorry, Baby,” a voice whispered nearby.
I was cold and sore and my head felt as though someone had piped cement into my sinuses. I was curled up on my side, hard ridges digging into my skin, my shoulder and neck stiff and aching as I tried to move. I pushed myself up, eyes glued shut with sleep, and hit a metal grid, tangling in my hair and clanging in an echo around me. My hands gripped around the grid beneath me and I rubbed my face on my shoulder, horror sinking in slowly as I opened my eyes to a blurry world.
I was in a cage.
My breath caught in my chest and movement rattled the wall on my left. “Baby, it’s okay. I’m here.”
A smudge of white blonde and the cherry red nails curling through the wires of the cage cleared the fog in my head. I scrubbed at my eyes and then found my friend in front of me. “Omigod, Emmy!”
I sobbed and scooted closer, tangling my fingers with hers. The cages we were in were barely big enough for a medium-sized dog, although the metal was much heavier and the seams were made of thick welding. Another whine crawled its way up my throat as I realized I was still in Tornado’s t- shirt, and only the t-shirt. I tugged the hem down and Emmy watched with sympathetic eyes.
“They knocked me out too, grabbed me while I was taking out the trash,” she said.
“Everyone was so worried!” I said, and then I looked around us. We were in an unfurnished room with a bright flaring light sitting on a bare bookshelf. It was pointed into our eyes, probably to keep the rest of the room obscured. “God, everyone’s still worried, aren’t they?”
“Umm times like a thousand, probably,” Emmy said on a sigh. “I think we’re in an abandoned house, or something. Except I keep screaming at the top of my fuckin’ lungs, and no one’s called the cops yet so…”
I took a deep breath, rolling out my shoulders and squirming in the tight confines of the cage to turn my back to the light. I closed my eyes and sucked on my bottom lip, chasing out thoughts of where I was or how completely screwed I was, and searched for the bond.
Ryan was there immediately, a spike of alarm and then a desperate reaching sensation. I whimpered and squeezed my eyelids tighter against a threat of tears. Be calm, Baby, I thought. I
wanted my guys to know I was okay, not that I was completely losing my shit. They needed me to hold it together while they worked on finding Emmy and I. Ryan answered the call with pride and desperate worry and love, and I swallowed down another rising tide of weeping.
I searched for Mackenzie next and drew a gasping breath as he answered, grabbing tight to the connection until my heart squeezed as if in his grip.
“Oh, thank god,” I murmured, body sagging.
“What? What is it?”
I hunted for Tornado next, fingers clutching to the bars of the cage as I found nothing. Was he still drugged or… There was a shift in the bond, like a shadow passing down the line, and I realized he was there,
blocking me out.
“Tornado and Books are alive,” I said.
“What? Why wouldn’t they be? How do you know?” I lifted my palm up and showed Emmy the red marks of Mackenzie’s bite. She gasped, smile stretching before falling. “Aw shit, Baby. But you know they’re okay?”
I nodded, still trying to push my way through to Tornado. The veil lifted between us and I bit my lip at the torrent I found waiting. Anger and horror and queasy panic were swirling within my quiet alpha. This was why he had me blocked out. I breathed through his emotions as they stormed into me, finding a steady center of my own, forcing down any of my own panic.
“They’re okay,” I said nodding.
“Can you tell if they’re close?”
I grimaced and shook my head. “All I can really tell is that they’re not close.”
Emmy sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Well shit, we’ll just have to figure this out without them, right?”
Emmy did the trick. My laugh was watery and my answering smile was weak, but down the bond, my alphas settled. Good. As much as I wanted them to storm in and rescue me, I wanted to hold myself together for as long as that took. And Emmy was right, we could do our best to get out on our
own.
“It’s the Hangmen, right?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s definitely them,” Emmy said. She filled up the space of the cage and my lips twitched as she took a deep breath, ready to begin another tirade, but her speech was interrupted.
Near the bright glow of the bare bulb, the doorknob rattled and turned, a strange blue light from the hall illuminating a familiar face as he stepped into the room.
“There’s my sweet little omega.”
Emmy screeched and thrashed in her cage at the sight of Cole, all polished and pretty and smirking as he approached us. He ignored her, crouching down in front of me, out of reach but close enough for me to catch that vanilla and beach I’d once coveted. I felt naked in only Tornado’s t-shirt, and I held it down around my thighs to cover up in front of Cole.
“You betrayed your pack,” I said, hissing through the tight rage storming circles in my chest.
Cole’s head cocked, face half in light and half in shadow. His eyes narrowed. “Did I though?
The Hangmen were my first pack.”
“This fucker’s been working against the Howlers the whole goddamn time,” Emmy growled.
Cole pointed in Emmy’s face. “You. Shut your fucking mouth. You are a commodity here at this point and your worth is dwindling every time you start bitchin’. And no, I fuckin’ wasn’t. I was a Howler. Buzz even left me to it. Till you showed up,” Cole added, facing me again. “You shoulda just
made me your alpha, Baby.”
“I never will,” I said, staring back at him, even as the light made my eyes burn. “You’re not my pack. You’re never going to be my alpha.”
“See that’s the thing. Scorch was too fuckin’ slow to bond you, little omega. So you’re up for grabs,” Cole purred.
I couldn’t help it, I glanced at Emmy, both of us barely smiling in answer to his boast.
“What?” he growled. He glared between us and then he jumped forward. I scrambled back to the back of the cage as he rattled at the locks, tearing open the top and then reaching in to drag me out.
I came with a fight, knees and elbows swinging, teeth snapping as I screeched. Cole wrestled me into a forced hug against his chest, one arm pinning mine to my sides as he yanked my hair to the side, examining my throat. I snarled and twisted, tearing myself free and swinging a clawed hand toward his face. It landed, scratches ripping across his cheek, but he caught my wrist in his grip as he screamed, thumb digging into the bite on my palm.
I howled and yanked back, but he held on, eyes widening as he caught sight of the mark.
Mackenzie’s bite was reddened, healing set back by our separation.
“Fuck! Fuck! Stupid fucking…”
His thumb pressed harder and I cried out, dropping to my knees.
“Whose is it?” he roared, bowing over me, face red and faintly bleeding. “Whose bite is it?”
“Go to hell, asshole,” I spat.
“Let her go! You’re so fuckin’ dead when they get here!” Emmy screamed.
Cole growled, bared his teeth at the beta and then dragged me by my wrist to the door as my arm screamed and my knees scratched against the floor.
“Let me go!” Which was a useless thing to say. “I hate you! I’m never going to be yours!”
The men who’d attacked me at the mansion were in the hallway, eyebrows raised as Cole tugged me fighting through the doorway, pulling me up from the floor and forcing my hand out in front of me.
They were still dressed in black, and in the light I could see the holsters on their hips. More tranquilizers, or did they have real guns on them? The lights were stick-on battery lights placed unevenly along the walls. Behind the men I could see a dark flight of stairs leading to a pristine white door. It was definitely some kind of home and it looked too nice to be abandoned. Either the Hangmen were squatting or… “What is that?” Cole bellowed at the other men.
One of them shrugged, his eyes between my thighs rather than on my hand.
“Looks like a bite mark,” another said.
“It’s a fucking bonding mark, you fuckin’ idiots! I hope you killed whoever she was with, this is fresh,” Cole said. The men looked at each other, the answer clear in their frowns. Cole snarled. “Oh, you’re so fucked. You’re so dead. Buzz is gonna scalp you for this shit.”
“You were there with her. You were supposed to keep her from getting bonded,” one of the goons said.
Suddenly, all the times Cole interrupted me with one of my alphas made sense. Except he had completely missed the faint scar on my bottom lip from Ryan.
“I did! Until I had to leave. You were supposed to tie up any loose ends. Like sudden fucking bond mates,” Cole roared, shaking me.
“You’re so dead,” I breathed out, letting anger win out over fear. The men around me went quiet, and a small panicked giggle rose up my throat.
“They’re never gonna find you,” Cole hissed, pressing his face to my ear.
My head drooped and shook. My eyes drifted shut, weariness and rage mixing strangely into a dark and foggy feeling. “Then I’ll kill you.”
“She’s got a bite on her tit too. Saw it when we put her in the cage.”
Cole growled, low and long, and I lifted my head to hiss at him. His teeth were gritted and the blood on his cheek had dripped down to his throat. “Of course she fucking does. Those two tag team you, Baby?”
“I told them to, just like I told you to get your fucking hands off me!” I answered, voice rising in a yell.
It wasn’t the smart answer, but if Cole thought I was going to be a cooperative nervous omega who waited for her alphas to show up then I was going to teach him a lesson. I’d let him put his hands on me before I was ready once and pretended that because I was the one that got off, it was okay. But an orgasm wasn’t just an orgasm when it came from such a complete shitheel. I hated Cole, and he wasn’t getting the same chance twice.
When he pulled me up off my feet and turned me back down the hall, I kicked at his legs, at the wall, swinging and twisting and trying to tear myself out of his grasp. He didn’t take me back to the cage or the room with Emmy, but into a small room with a blacked-out bay window and a bare mattress on the floor. There was a dead overhead light on the ceiling, but a battery-powered light stuck to the floor. No electricity.
“You being bonded doesn’t change shit,” Cole grunted, slamming the door shut behind us and locking it. “Just gonna hurt that much more for you when we kill your alphas.”
He tossed me toward the mattress and I bounced off, running for the window. I could throw myself out of a window if it meant getting away from Cole. But then Emmy— It didn’t matter, Cole growled and tackled me down to the floor, hands going to my throat. He grabbed at the collar of the t-shirt, starting to tear it open. I slammed the heel of my hand up into his nose, screaming as bone crunched under my palm. Pain radiated up my arm, but Cole leaned back as blood gushed from his nose, a growl mixing with a roar.
I pushed him off of me and made it to the light before he caught my ankle and pulled hard. My skin slipped against his bloody palm and I twisted, the light fisted in my grip. I swung it like a short bat, slamming his face, hitting his eyes, other hand clawing at the back of his hand on my ankle.
Cole roared and released me, jumping up from the floor. His leg pulled back, knee bent, threatening to kick me, but I wasn’t the one with a broken nose and a bleeding eyebrow. I caught his boot as it connected with my chest and then grunted as I pulled him hard to the floor. His head hit with a sudden slap and crack, and I spared one second to gather breath back into my lungs. My ribs weren’t bruised too badly, I’d caught his kick just in time.
Cole groaned and rolled over, and I pounced onto his back, grabbing the longer strands of his hair in my fist. I yanked his head back and slammed it to the floor.
“Fuuuuck!”
Cole scrambled out from under me and ran for the door, blood dripping in his wake.
“You fucking cunt!” he screamed, fingers slipping on the lock as I panted and watched his retreat with a feral grin. His words were blurred and a triumphant curiosity made me wonder if I’d knocked some of his teeth loose. I hoped he ended up shitting them out just like Emmy promised. “Buzzard’s gonna break you and I’m gonna enjoy the fuckin’ show.”
He skidded out the door, slamming it behind him and locking it from the outside. I got one good look at the meaty new rearrangement I’d done to his face, and then I was alone.
Good riddance.
I ran for the window, taking the light with me. As beautiful as the damage it’d done to Cole’s face was, it wasn’t enough to crack the blacked-out window. It was one single, rounded pane, painted black on the inside. I scratched at the paint just enough to see sunlight bleed through and then more, pressing my eye to the small hole. There was a small circle of different styles of suburban homes, all with dark windows and no sign of life. It was a model home neighborhood, either abandoned or one of the Hangmen’s fronts they could use to traffic women.
I walked gingerly back to the bare mattress, avoiding the carnage I created on the floorboards.
Cole would be back, with Buzzard, and I’d give them both round two if they asked for it.
I KICKED the mattress in front of the door, my only option of a barricade, and then tucked myself into the corner where I could stay hidden until someone stepped into the room. I kept my emotional grip on my bond, soaking up the reassurance and love from Mackenzie and Ryan and then sending it back to Tornado. They were on their way, I was sure of it. I could hold it together until they got here.
Except hours later, after brief dozing moments before shaking myself awake again, I jumped to my feet at one high, angry, piercing scream.
“Emmy! Emmy!” I pounded my fists on the door, rattling at the knob, calling for my friend.
I had just kicked back the mattress when the door slammed open, shoving me to the wall, my head hitting with a loud smack. My vision blacked briefly, long enough for the door to be ripped out of my hand. I was pulled to a hard, wiry body and I yelled, hitting every bit of it I could reach.
My sight cleared and the familiar tattooed wings circling a throat were in front of my face. A hand slipped under the hem of Tornado’s t-shirt, grabbing roughly at my ass, Buzzard’s wheezing laugh ruffling the hair on my head. I screeched and brought my knee up, trying to hit his groin. He dodged me, laughing again, and then grunted as I threw my head against his face.
“Fuck! Little brother wasn’t kidding about you,” Buzzard hissed, stepping back and leaning against the door, grin smeared with blood from the split in his lip.
My head pounded in response, but I ignored it and the rushing urgency from my bond as I stepped carefully backward, making sure not to trip on the mattress.
The room was dark but the little battery light was still working, despite the beating it had delivered to Cole’s face and my attempt to smash the window. Buzzard was wearing one of those t- shirts with the sleeves ripped out and sides stretched, revealing pasty skin littered with black ink.
Leather straps hung over each of his shoulders and I caught the shadow of a holster on his left side.
My right.
Know where the gun is. Know if it’s loaded.
“Yeah, sorry about his modeling career,” I muttered, watching every twitch of Buzzard’s body, waiting for him to strike, trying not to look too obviously to the gun at his side.
Was it meant to intimidate me? Please let him be an idiot, I thought.
He probably still was an idiot, but not quite enough of one. Buzzard grinned and pulled the gun from his holster, pointing it to my head, the black eye of the muzzle staring me down.
Bullet’s voice was in my thoughts. What are you gonna do with a gun if you don’t know if it’s loaded or not?
“I don’t give a shit what you did to his face. Don’t really care if you kick his ass every time he tries an’ bites you. All I need you to do is get down on your hands and knees and present like a good
little omega,” Buzzard said. When I didn’t move, he clicked the safety off and tilted his head. “Now.”
“Fuck off,” I answered. His eyebrows ticked up in surprise. “You’re gonna shoot me? I kind of doubt it, Buzz. How long have you waited for an omega?”
“Dollface, I’m not gonna wait a whole fuck of a lot longer, you hear me?” Buzz growled. “Get on the floor!”
It was a full alpha bark, and my whole body flinched, knees wobbling and threatening to give beneath me in response. I locked my legs and narrowed my eyes.
“Fuck. Off.”
Buzz snarled and lunged for me, and I kicked at the little light on the floor, sending it skidding and spinning, twisting the light around us. I ducked and aimed my head for Buzzard’s gut, hitting it with a satisfying momentum. The gun went off in his hand and glass shattered, sunlight spilling into the room in shades of pink. I grabbed Buzzard’s arm on my left, drawing it to my mouth and biting on his wrist until he screamed.
The gun dropped to the floor, skidding away and Buzzard threw me back with it.
Idiot, I thought, snatching the gun from the floorboards, my ass exposed and me not giving a shit.
I rolled and pointed it up, zeroing in on Buzzard coated in sunlight and growling down at me. His bared teeth made a feral smile.
“You’re gonna shoot me?” he asked, eyebrow ticking up. “I kinda doubt it, Baby.”
I shot him twice.
The gun kicked in my hand and blood sprayed over me and coated the wall behind Buzzard. The sound echoed painfully in my head. Bile rocketed up my throat as I watched Buzzard’s eyes widen.
His knees cracked against the floor as he dropped, and I jumped to my feet before he could land on me, blood blooming over his chest and down to the edge of the mattress.
The door swung open as I gathered my shit together. I spun with the gun leveled and aimed, to face the goon standing in my way. He was shorter than the others, and I had the muzzle set to shoot
between the eyes.
“What the—“ “Get the girl out of the cage!” I shouted.
“Bitch, you are so—“ “Do I look like I give a shit about you? Get the girl out of the cage or I will shoot my way to her!”
Don’t shake. Breathe out slow. Through your mouth so you can’t smell Buzzard.
The goon backed away, tan skin fading to gray and brown eyes growing huge. I followed him, pausing in the doorway, waiting to see if there were others. He edged down the hall to the room where they’d been keeping Emmy. On the stairs past him, footsteps thundered on their way up. I had seconds to get to Emmy before I was totally outnumbered.
I chased down the man I had in my sights as he unlocked the door, ignoring his sudden scream at my approach, and then stole the gun out of his own holster. I ran into the room, pushing him toward the stairs and slamming the door shut behind me.
Emmy was out of the cage, huddled in the corner, cheek swollen and lip bleeding. She scratched her way up the wall, right arm hanging limply from her side and face grimacing.
“Omigod, Baby, are you… whose blood is that?” she asked, eyes growing wide.
“Um. Buzzard’s and… and maybe Cole’s.”
The hole in Buzzard’s chest. The slippery wetness between my toes.
My stomach heaved and I covered my lips with the inside of my arm, trying to hold it in for the
moment. Keep your shit together, Baby. Keep it together. I swallowed down sick and held in the whimper when the blood on my face and arm smeared over my lips.
“Baby! Ba— holy fucking shit!”
“Cole,” Emmy whispered.
I nodded and looked her over. She couldn’t shoot with that arm but she looked like she could walk.
“Stay behind me,” I said, and she straightened up and nodded, following me to the door.
We both jumped as the door rattled, Cole’s fists pounding on the outside. “Baby, goddamn it!
You’re gonna fuckin’ pay!!” Cole screamed from outside.
“What do we do?” Emmy whispered at my back.
God, I wanted to look Cole in the eyes. I wanted him to see me. Hell, I even wanted him to see
me with his brother’s blood on my face.
“Baby! Open the door,” he barked.
Fuck! Fine! I shot the gun halfway down through the door and then twisted the knob roughly as Cole started to scream. He was falling to the ground, hand wrapped around his thigh as I stepped into the doorway, one gun pointed down at Cole, the other at the cluster of goons in the hallway.
My heart raced so fast I thought it might burst, except I had to get Emmy out of this shit hole first.
I had to see my alphas. I kept my arms stiff so that my hands wouldn’t shake and stared between Cole —ghost white with his hands wrapped around the wound on his thigh— and the goons who slowly pressed themselves to the wall opposite me, guns out but wavering uncertainly at their sides.
“I think it’s about time we all agree that I am more fucking trouble than I’m worth,” I said. There were a lot of them. They’d take me down before I made it out, but I had a solid seven or eight bullets left and I was pretty sure that counted for something.
“You killed my goddamn brother,” Cole hissed, spitting on my ankle.
I looked at the strangers waiting for us on the stairs. A few of them had Hangmen cuts, but I didn’t see Indy. The whole pack wasn’t in the house or they’d have me and Emmy cornered by now.
“We’re walking out of here. I’ll leave you to deal with this guy here,” I said, staring briefly at Cole, feeling the ice of his gaze cut into me. “Just remember that he left your club, went with his tail between his legs to your enemy. And when he came back, he brought me.”
“She killed your Prez!” Cole bellowed.
I ignored him, taking a step toward the lined men blocking my way to the stairs. One snarled, white teeth bared, rope around his neck. He stepped forward and raised the gun. Behind me, Emmy yelped, and I spun to find Cole with his hand wrapped around her ankle, trying to drag her down.
I pulled both triggers, although only one gun was aimed. One of the Hangmen yelped by the stairs. Cole dropped to the ground, red spraying from his throat. I pushed Emmy forward, back to where I’d left Buzzard in his own blood. Guns fired behind me and I answered them blindly, focused entirely on getting to the room.
“Throw the mattress out the window and jump!” I breathed to Emmy, slamming the door shut. I kept my eyes above the floor as I helped her lift and drag the mattress, squeezing it through the narrow window, shards of glass skittering down. I banged more out with the heel of one gun.
“They’re coming!” Emmy shouted. I turned my back to the window, gun pointed at the bedroom door, waiting for the Hangmen to reach us.
“Emmy jump!” I cried out.
“Oh, fuck. Fuck. Okay!”
The door slammed open as Emmy let out a small shriek. I shot in the direction of the door,
backing to the window and watching the shadows of Hangmen duck out of my line of fire. From out the window, Emmy called me down.
I ignored the last of the glass shards under my feet as I climbed onto the window ledge, ignored the sound of men shouting orders to each other at my back.
I jumped from the edge, the best and most beautiful sight in front of me as I fell. Motorcycles on the horizon, screaming up the long drive to the model home circle, police lights flaring red and blue at their backs.
