Anarchy, p.10
Anarchy, page 10
With more tenderness than should be possible for an alpha as far gone as Vandle was, he set her on the table. She didn’t let him go as he straightened, clutching his stomach, cheek pressed against his abs as she kept her eyes squeezed shut.
What was going on?
I had my gun, but a feral and territorial Vandle had done a good job of deterrence.
She was crying, hiccupping, and purring all at the same time, which really confused my instincts.
“Look at me.” Vandle’s voice was cracked with disuse.
I opened my mouth, then shut it.
Uh…
He could speak?
I felt the command seize her through the bond, and she finally peeled her damp face from his abs, blinking glittering eyelashes as she stared up at him, lips parted in shock.
Something had shifted in Vandle—it had happened as the bond hit. But a gold pack scent match was as close to a magic potion as we had in this world.
She was stabilizing him already.
Her dark bond was like a beacon slap-bang in the middle of her neck. I couldn’t help but stare as his thumb traced it. It was a bite like mine, but it was leaching darkness, not… well, crimson, whatever the fuck that meant.
There were three types of bonds. A dark bond—a bond of control—which looked like that. A normal bond and a princess bond—and both of those left normal silvery scars, though princess bonds glittered a little.
I’d never heard of a bond that went red.
But my pack was still here, and that’s all I cared about.
And she was… ours.
I felt something unwind.
Ours, and—
“You won’t go anywhere without one of us,” Vandle growled at her. She shrank a little, or as much as she could with his palm still cupping her neck.
“Yes, alpha.” She glanced at us nervously again, lip trembling.
Now my nerves were calming, I was starting to tune into the feelings of my pack. What I found was a tad unexpected.
I think Vandle was… angry. Oh, yep, really fucking angry. I could also feel a faint trace of fear that was dying down now. It was a feeling I understood after exiting the bathroom to find she was gone.
Since all I’d got from him in the last year and a half was a smudge of possessive, territorial alpha instincts, I thought that was… good.
Well.
For us.
Crescent, on the other hand…
“Should we… go back to the room?” Karma asked.
Vandle’s annoyed, mismatched gaze snapped to him. “You fed me protein bars for three days,” he growled, straightening. “I’m starving.”
Crescent, freed of his grip, tried to slip from the table. Vandle huffed, stopping her before she could, and picking her up. He was one tall motherfucker, and she might as well have been a teddy bear with the ease with which he lifted her into his arms.
Crescent, who now had her arms wrapped around Vandle’s neck with that oversized top, was staring at me with eyes as wide as dinner plates as Vandle walked off—and right past the bloody mess of bodies he’d left behind.
I felt a smile twitch on my lips. I probably shouldn’t find any part of this funny. She’d almost got herself bonded by some random fucking alphas, and I didn’t have a clue why. But uh… she was ours now.
So that was that.
And she looked so fucking cute in Vandle’s arms.
CRESCENT
I had a bond with my mates.
The spike of fear I’d felt when I'd stared up at that alpha who'd approached me in the square was fading at last. My mate had killed him, which was wrong, I thought.
But they seemed to fight and kill a lot in here so maybe it was... different from the outside world?
There had been a little bubble of joy in my tummy when my mate had come for me. Something exhilarating about the iron tang of blood in the air and the aching mark on my neck.
Vandle, they’d said.
He... wanted me.
And he would fight for me.
My pack lead… the thought was dizzying. More than I could have imagined.
And now I was theirs... like... properly theirs.
I should feel a lot more guilty than I did, but none of this had been my choice.
I’d tried.
He smelled like burning wood and ash. It was so dominant, and kinda... angry. It was still hard not to huff it as he carried me down the hallway.
We entered the huge cafeteria that I'd first been in when I'd come through the doors to Anarchy, but this time Vandle was carrying me over to the open window along the wall. He didn't stop to speak to anyone as he loaded up a plate.
The others were behind us, and I could feel them all in the bond, so I'd stuffed my face into the corner of Vandle's neck, not meeting their eyes.
They were all a bit shaken, and upset, and... Well, also pissed. But they'd... be okay with it in the end.
At least I hoped so.
They were heathens, so they didn't understand that they couldn't give me a normal bond. Not with me being gold pack...
This was for the best.
More than I deserved.
Vandle didn't take long, piling up his plate with an obscene amount, and snapping at one of the servers when they tried to stop him.
“I haven't had a real meal in days,” he snarled.
The server, a slender alpha with long black hair and a goatee, seemed so shocked by his outburst, that he didn't argue.
The server didn't say anything to me, though he was gawking—like everyone else, actually. The others caught up with us as he left the cafeteria and returned to the main square where he’d bitten me. He set me down, and slid onto one of the benches.
The square was much larger than any of the hallways or even the cafeteria, which had a higher ceiling than the cells. This room was a few stories high, like the chapel auditorium back in the Convent.
I settled onto the bench right beside him, hoping he was alright with how close I was.
He was clearly still grumpy with me, even as he nudged one of his pancakes in my direction. I took it, unable to tear my gaze from him.
He was really beautiful, even with the strange, mismatched eyes. It comforted me—I'd always been a little different looking. My hair was white, and my skin was devoid of colour except for when I blushed. Before my eyes had turned gold, they’d been a pale pink.
But that wasn’t the real reason his mismatched eyes were wholly captivating. There was a much more pressing truth that was sinking in.
He was a Seer—he was special.
And the Ascendants elevated Seers as Chosen.
That meant… I blinked, the truth finally hitting me. He could claim this dark bond without being cursed.
“Can someone explain what the fuck just happened?” Phantom sat down opposite us. He glanced at Vandle, then to me. “Why did you run away?”
“I… didn’t know your pack lead was a seer,” I whispered.
“What does that change?” Sin asked.
Right. They really didn’t know anything. “Seers have sight beyond the mortal realm.”
Vandle paused halfway through cramming a pancake into his mouth, shooting me a funny look.
“And…?” Sin prodded.
“So he has the authority to decide on a dark bond with a gold pack like me.”
The words themselves settled nerves that still hadn’t dulled since I’d woken up this morning.
I was bonded to my scent matches, and everything was going to be okay.
SEERS
Seers are rare alphas or omegas distinguished by white hair and heterochromia—one red eye and one white—and by their ability to visualize auras of other alphas and omegas. They are colour blind but perceive their scent matches in full colour. Seers can assess the stability and health of auras, aura sickness, and identify bond classifications—including princess bonds and consensual versus non-consensual dark bonds—often marked by distinct visual phenomena such as a pearly sheen at bite sites.
VANDLE
My mind was sluggishly settling into a new reality. A new world. I remembered my time in the cell. Alone. Insane. Black and white shapes of guards blurring in and out.
With only a few brief windows into reality.
So few people I remembered from before…
Until one visit had gifted me reality just enough to request coming down here to Anarchy…
How long ago had that been?
Then my life was a series of flashing memories. Meeting Sin, and joining the pack. Cycling in and out of ruts. Fighting hard enough in the cages that sometimes, for the briefest of seconds, I was present.
I had no idea how far away those things were from each other.
Days. Months. Years.
Today, though, everything had changed. I’d woken in a rising tide of panic—seeing my omega try to flee.
A scent match…
One I’d gone and dark bonded even if she hadn’t given me a choice.
She was beautiful. Perfect. But she was saying really odd things. I’d lowered my food, examining her closer.
What had she just claimed?
Sight beyond the what? “The… mortal realm?”
Auras were pretty mortal as far as I knew. I could just assess an alpha and omega on a more precise level than anyone else. Good for diagnosing issues and stability.
I glanced at the others.
Phantom helped me out. “Crescent has just arrived, and she was part of a… group called the Ascendants.”
Crescent…? I glanced at her, fitting the name to those wide, intense eyes made of colours I’d never seen before.
“A… group…?” I asked.
“Like a faith,” Crescent said.
I noticed from the corner of my eye, Sin mouthed the word ‘cult’.
I… okay.
Never been much into the religious stuff, but that was fine. I mean… especially if she thought I was special…
I glanced at the rest of my pack, taking them in one by one. I didn’t remember being told their names, but they came to me easily, surfacing from a million foggy memories.
They were creatures who had, until now, been composed of cores of energy bound to me in a bond that had been my only anchor to reality.
Now I was finally processing them in the flesh.
Sin had a strange aura for an omega, and I’d been told he had crimson eyes even if I couldn’t see their colour. Something about that nagged at me, memories from my time before I’d been locked in this place—an alarm bell in nature.
A threat…
But as hard as his edges were, it wasn’t the only side of him—there was another he offered to his pack. I’d lived with him in the bond for long enough to know the part he tried to keep buried.
Flashes came back, some of the worst moments in that fire of madness. It had tried to consume me whole.
But he’d been there, not a flicker of resentment in those eyes as he’d held me against his chest, the faint vibration of his low rumbling purr the only thread stopping my mind from finally dissolving completely.
Then there was Karma and Phantom. With those two, much less painful memories surfaced. Karma flashed through a dozen different moments, and in them his eyes were wild as he launched at me, lips drawn in a snarl.
Exhilarating.
Rut cages and fight pits.
A pressure valve for aggression and madness.
Phantom, sometimes, too in Karma’s place.
But they were more than just fights; they were… I felt a smile cross my face as I realized what it had been.
For what… months… years?
I took a sip of my drink, catching Phantom’s eye before I asked, “Why, exactly, did you allow a feral alpha to keep pack lead all this time?”
Karma’s gaze snapped to me and Phantom’s expression soured, food pausing before his lips.
Sin chuckled, catching my smug expression.
“Thought it made you happy,” Phantom muttered. “We needed you to not be feral.”
My grin widened. “Uh huh.”
I didn’t say out loud the truth I’d pieced together from those cage fights: they hadn’t been able to take it off me.
“It looks like it worked,” Phantom added. “And just in time.”
“Just in time?” I asked.
“Appeal coming up,” Sin said.
Appeal…?
It took a moment for that word to form meaning, but then I blinked, surprised.
We might… get out soon—to the normal world outside?
As… a pack?
Phantom nodded. “It’s possible they let us out with one feral alpha, but only if we can prove you’re not a danger. And with Karma’s aura, too…”
I glanced between them. Phantom’s aura was fine, but Karma… his crackled in the air around him, erratic, unstable… I could always see it—it was the gift of my eyes. I could visualize auras, how unstable or sick they were.
Phantom was right. Karma’s wasn’t… well. He was like a bomb that might go off at any time.
Even as I watched, Karma’s aura waned in the air before shimmering around him, something deeply unsteady in it.
“But if it’s just one unstable alpha to manage…” Phantom said. “There’s no way we won't get out.”
He sounded a little less certain than the words let on.
“Assuming…” He exchanged a glance with Sin. “Well, assuming the Leo pack can get out. They’ve got an omega and an appeal a few days before ours. If they can leave, we should be fine.”
“Why does it matter if they get to their appeal?” I asked.
“No omega’s ever escaped this place before.”
Ah.
Guess they weren’t tossed down here the same way the rest of us were—no omegas were imprisoned in the Cimmerian Vaults above us. This place was built for alphas.
It left the question: were we going to get out at all?
But, it was still something I was working through. I had… a pack with two omegas…
How had I ended up with two omegas?
A low voice whispered in my mind, dragging up the few memories I did have. When you should have none…
My heart rate leaped as I absently lifted my hand, cupping the back of her neck. I drew my fingers across the open wound I'd just left, the bone-deep need to keep her near curdling with an age-old shame—something vile enough that there had been a time where I’d welcomed the silence and madness.
She glanced up, a piece of toast frozen between her lips as she caught my eye. She shuffled closer, swallowing the toast fast enough that it looked almost painful.
“You’re mad at me…” She whispered through watering eyes.
I…
Well, I wasn't anymore. The dark bond was locked in, as impossible as that was.
“No,” I told her.
What was even more strange was the bond on her neck, especially now I was looking at it closer. It wasn’t just a bite to me; I could see a second layer to it. Dark bonds, unlike other bond types, could be forced upon an omega without consent. But I was a seer, and to me they looked different if they were forced as opposed to if the omega wanted the bond.
Forced bonds… They were poison.
I frowned, wondering where those images came from… Shadowy bites that leached darkness into the flesh around like an infected wound…
I had seen bites like that before, but Crescent’s was nothing like them. It was a dark bond, one that anyone could see from the shadowy tint to the bite mark, but it wasn’t poisoned.
And that meant… I thought back to the moment I’d done it. I’d tried to bond her normally first, but she’d rejected it.
“You wanted me to dark bond you?”
She nodded. “I had to explain to the others, too. But gold packs are dangerous. I might send you all into madness if you let me into a normal bond.” She trailed off, voice waning a little at the look that had crossed my face.
I tried to shake it free, opening my mouth, then closing it again.
“I want to know, how did the dark bond go through with a second omega in the pack?” Karma asked.
I frowned, that incongruity slamming into me like a sack of bricks.
It had been so driven by instinct the thought had never crossed my mind. But…
“Dark bonds can't be established in a pack with another omega…” the words came from him. A slice of cruelty and evil from a life that only visited me in fragments.
Sin was lifting his sleeve up, though, showing me the bite across his arm. Another mark from me, I realized, though I didn’t remember giving it.
I frowned and I stared at it.
If I’d thought poisoned dark bonds looked odd before, it was nothing to the crimson bite across Sin’s arm.
“What is that?” Crescent asked.
“No idea,” Sin replied.
I was just as confused. None of the three usual bond types went crimson like that.
More mysteries…
One omega who believed she was a curse, and another that might have one.
It took a while for me to drag my eyes away.
He was still in the bond. That’s what mattered.
“So, what's the plan?” I asked.
14
PHANTOM
We had a dark bonded omega, our pack lead was no longer feral, and we all had targets on our backs.
It was hard to take my eyes away from Crescent. She was tucked under Vandle’s wing like a shy, but rather pleased stray kitten that had found a home.
Blood still trailed down her throat from the vicious bite he’d given her, but she was far from upset. I could feel her in the bond, a vibrating ball of anxiety, relief, and… well… utter delight.
Our scent match…
I couldn’t deny that the bond, as confusing and twisted as it was, settled a part of me that had been on edge since the moment we’d caught her scent.
And on top of that, it was really, really hard to stay mad when she kept catching one of our eyes, a blush creeping up her cheeks. In fact, not only was I not mad, but I wanted her under my arm like that. As I watched, Karma, who was sitting on her other side, edged a little closer, side-eyeing her as he did.
