Anarchy, p.25
Anarchy, page 25
No one would know, and then we’d be free, and I’d have them for my nest forever...
“Crescent.” Phantom got to his feet and crossed to me. The brush of his thumb on my chin snapped me back to the present. “You won’t steal any more keys until the appeal.”
My lips parted in shock. That was a command.
A little whine of distress slipped out of my chest.
What?
“None?” My voice was shrill.
Not one tiny key?
“Little Omega,” Phantom said. “You’re going to get us killed.”
But the keys... I glanced around the room. “Did you...?” I tried to tug away from Phantom, but he blocked me in place.
And the special rut cage key... That had been from when Sin had claimed me in front of the whole of Anarchy.
If that one was gone, was I even his anymore?
I shoved past him, breaking from his grip and stumbling over to Karma, who was sitting up straight, eyes flitting between me and Phantom like he wasn’t sure what to do.
I seized his arm, tears beading at my eyes. “Undo it!” I begged.
They couldn’t do this.
“I…” Karma looked lost. “I don’t know if I can…?”
Could he?
I turned. Sin had stopped scribbling, tense as he watched—but he couldn’t stop this.
I hurried to Vandle, tugging at his shirt. “You’re pack lead. You can… you can undo it?”
His hand cupped my cheek, but his eyes flicked from me to Phantom.
“Alpha!” My voice wobbled.
“It’s only three days, Princess. I think Phantom’s right.”
No…
Everything was wrong.
But Vandle was a seer, so he couldn’t be wrong.
A low whine sounded in my chest as I tried to make sense of this.
I looked back to Phantom, whose rich, freckled skin was paler than usual, but his jaw was set.
Devil!
If they were going to ban me, what was next?
I knew they’d gone through my nest yesterday—they hadn’t put the keys back right.
What if they took them?
I couldn’t keep them like this. They needed to be safer.
I stumbled away from Vandle and made a beeline for all the nesting places.
PHANTOM
I wasn’t quite sure what I was watching. All I knew was that my omega was a storm of hormones in the bond.
She was digging keys out of the most unexpected crevices—most of which I hadn’t known existed in the room. I definitely hadn’t found them all when I’d done my search earlier.
After the bundle was barely contained by her fist, and she’d pulled the last one free from a crack in the wall beside her bunk, she burrowed under the covers of the nest.
Ah.
I glanced at Vandle, who was watching with a concerned look on his face. Karma looked curious, and Sin looked sympathetic, though I’d never seen him nest a day in his life.
I sat down on the bed. The mattress creaked, and an angry little growl rose from the bundle at my side. I tried to pull the blanket up, but she ripped it back down.
She didn’t fight me the next time I tugged it up, but she did shoot me a distrustful glare. She was currently sliding all the keys onto the big ring she’d refused to let me give back to the librarians.
She ignored me as she worked, though she got more frantic the longer I was staring.
This was a hormonal crash-out like I’d never seen.
Finally, when she was done, Crescent looked up at me with eyes shining and clearly on the verge of tears. “I need more.” Her voice broke.
Uh.
Oh… dear.
“I’ll get you more once we’re out.” I’d give her a whole room full of so many keys she could swim through them.
But first, we needed to survive the appeal.
Until then— “No more in here.”
“But y-you said I’m in your pack, and I can be as disruptive as I like.”
“I…” My jaw worked soundlessly as I processed that.
“They’re just keys,” she said.
“You need to wait three days, Little Omega—”
“But—”
“No buts. If the rest of Anarchy find out you’re stealing—”
“Stop saying that. Stealing is a sin. I’m not stealing, this is their home.”
I took a breath, trying to shove down my anger. It wasn’t her fault. It came from the fear I was feeling now we were so close.
Nothing could go wrong.
But she didn’t deserve me taking it out on her.
“Are these all of them, Firefly?” Sin had shuffled nearer and was peering at the ring that held the collection. She growled when one of us touched them, but of course Sin got a pass.
“Do you… like them?” Crescent asked, watching Sin with glittering eyes as he examined her trophy. “I… it was for you, too.”
“For me?” Sin looked at her curiously.
“Keys are important to you,” she whispered. “I saw. And you don’t nest, so I thought…” She trailed off, suddenly looking unsure.
But I watched as the colour drained from Sin’s face. “What… does that mean?”
Her lip wobbled. “I… remember now. You kept it real close like it mattered. And then everyone wanted it from you, so I… I kept it safe.”
“Firefly…” Sin looked stunned. “What did you keep safe?”
Her eyes darted from me, to Vandle and Karma, to Sin, and she looked like she was going to cry.
“You can’t take it,” she whispered.
“You didn’t…” I’d never seen Sin lost for words. “But the cage—we got thrown in the cage because I didn’t have it.”
“They couldn’t take it…”
The truth was slowly dawning on me, and my lips parted in shock.
No... way.
But my little klepto omega was digging in her pocket to pull out the one key that wasn’t on the ring.
The key to the contraband room.
SIN
That fucking key… was with her the whole time?
The only reason we’d ended up in the cage had been because of the missing contraband room key.
Our bargaining chip had vanished into thin air.
And yet, we would have found it if we’d thought to pat down Crescent’s pockets.
She looked up at me with such a sweet expression on her face, the key still clutched in her fist.
I closed my eyes, locking down the pack bond so she couldn’t feel my roiling emotions. I wasn’t mad at her—it was impossible to be mad at her.
Just… damn.
And I felt guilty. She hadn’t needed to go through the cage experience after all, and even though she was pleased every time the claim was brought up, I still felt bad.
“Thank you, Firefly,” I said roughly.
Crescent’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, searching my face as if she could see every hint of frustration.
“I-I’m sorry I took it without telling you. But I thought… I was worried Holden might take it, and you seemed so attached.”
In the heat of that tense moment, I hadn’t noticed her little hand slipping into my pocket and taking out the all-important piece of metal.
At least I wasn’t the only one to fall victim to her. She’d snatched quite a few.
“Uh, I was attached to it,” I reassured her. Well, because of what it would buy us, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “You did good.”
“Everyone is frustrated with me.”
This damn bond—she kept her end so open that shutting her out felt like a grave sin. I glared around the room at my packmates who couldn’t keep their emotions in check properly.
They were all as stunned as I was.
Did we explain to her the series of events that the loss of the key had caused? She didn’t seem to be putting it together yet, even though we’d been frantically searching for the key right before being grabbed by the Redgrave pack to put on our show.
But then… Well, she hadn’t been nearly as scared as I’d expected.
“Did you choose to keep it from me when you knew the cost was the cage?”
“No.” She shook her head. “The first few I took… I think my hormones were really bad with the missed heat, and then the drugs…”
I frowned. There had been a lot of drugs.
“What does that mean?” Phantom asked. I noticed her pretty golden eyes narrow a bit at his voice, and I prayed for Phantom’s sake that she wasn’t good at holding grudges.
“I don’t remember the first few times I took them. I know it sounds stupid, but I just… lost myself. I just needed them so badly. I remember now, but I didn’t at the time.”
I’d never heard of an omega blacking out from nesting instincts, but I was somehow unsurprised.
She was touch starved, had been banned from nesting and alphas for years, had suffered five agonizing heats, never had a knot, been given a heat drug, and then a heat blocker to stop it. Then she’d been dark bonded, and allowed to feel her instincts for the first time.
Jesus.
And it all started because she wanted to keep this key safe for me? There was only one upside to this.
Breaking into the contraband room wasn’t going to be a challenge anymore.
When I’d first seen it, I’d thought of just trading them for contacts, but our alliances were growing weaker, and I didn’t want to leave a pivotal piece of our appeal to anyone else. Not even the Redgraves.
37
PHANTOM
It was late in the evening. It had been a long day, and I felt guilty about the dark bond command, but I couldn’t take it back.
The doors were finally locked, and Sin had managed to get together a plan—which was much easier now we had a literal key to the room we needed to get into.
The heist would be tomorrow night. Once we were done, we’d just have to make it one more day, and what we wanted to take was so small, it was unlikely the Redgraves would notice before our appeal.
Crescent was… well, she was still a lump of white blanket, growling when anyone but Sin came near. After a long time, he was the one who broke the tension. Right after another little spiral of panic in the bond, he sighed and shifted closer to Crescent.
She jumped, but didn’t growl, clearly clocking the scent of desert eclipse as non-hostile.
“They told me I couldn’t have any more.” I heard her whisper across the room as he drew her into his arms, the blanket falling away.
“I know,” Sin murmured, hand on her hair.
“Could you order Phantom to go stick his head in the toilet?”
Sin’s eyebrow shot up at the bratty request. “I could.”
“Sin.” I could hear the edge to my voice as I got to my feet.
“Would it make you feel better, Firefly?”
Karma, who was sketching, choked on a laugh, and Vandle had raised his head from his pillow to look between us, delighted curiosity dancing in his eyes.
“Come here.” Sin’s command locked onto me, and it was a strange feeling. I was reacting before I could stop myself, crossing toward them.
I stopped before the bed, eyes darting between Sin’s mischievous, crimson eyes and her golden irises, glittering with something a lot more hopeful.
“Wait there,” he said to me, then looked down at her. “I’ve thought of something better.”
A flutter of dread seeped up my spine at the smug look on Sin’s face.
“I can’t make him undo the command, but I can get you revenge.”
Crescent was nodding, looking relieved.
Sin leaned down and whispered into Crescent’s ear. Instantly, I felt a shot of delight down the bond from her, and she glanced at me with glee.
What the hell was going on?
But my mind was wiped blank as Sin reached down and tugged at the hem of her shirt.
Then he was pulling it over her head easily. I glanced at the door, but it was already locked for the night, so it was just our pack.
We didn’t have many undergarments for her and did our own laundry in the bathroom, so at night she went commando. But that meant her beautiful breasts were out the moment the shirt was off, and I couldn’t take my eyes from them.
But uh… what was he going to make me do?
I couldn’t even take a step.
Crescent moved, turning and shuffling back in her nest, then laying down. Next thing I knew, she was shimmying her oversized sweatpants off.
Jesus.
Was he going to put me through the cage torture again? Make me watch as he fucked her—only this time she was almost in reach.
Maybe he’d get the others involved.
I bit back a whine of frustration.
I’d only been trying to keep her safe. And the others were too cowardly.
“There we go, Firefly. You’re so beautiful.”
He shifted over her, his lips pressing to hers, then trailing down to her neck, and her breasts.
The bite he’d given her back in the cage was still there, though usually omega to omega bites faded quickly. It was still a little red, as if it was fresh.
He reached down to her hips, then ran his fingers down her pussy. Crescent arched slightly as he dipped his fingers into her, a little breath escaping her lips.
Her eyes darted to me, and I saw her reach to the side, grasping the keyring nest. She lifted it, then tucked it between her teeth possessively.
Sin chuckled. “Beautiful.” He dipped a second finger into her, pumping slightly. “So wet and ready.”
My cock was stiff and my veins alight with lust.
I wanted her.
He’d already had her.
I could feel the swirling lust from my pack brothers too, and I knew they were all watching the show.
Sin withdrew his fingers, nudging her knees slightly apart. Then he adjusted her feet where they were planted on the bed. “Look at you, ready to be fucked with your little nest safe and sound.”
A little purr rose in her chest, her eyes bright from the praise.
My dick ached with the amount of blood flow it was receiving.
But then, to my shock, Sin got up, ducking from beneath the top bunk.
He faced me square on. Midnight black hair swept over delighted crimson eyes. “You’re going to take care of her.”
I blinked.
I… was?
He mouthed the words ‘you’re welcome’, before patting me on the cheek and stepping aside.
It took me way too long to fight with my pants and to stumble onto the bed over her, trying not to make my delight clear in the bond, since I think she thought she was getting retribution.
“He’s going to give you the ride of your life for threatening your nest, Firefly.” Sin looked at me, voice dropping to a low growl. “Fuck her.”
The command seized me. I glanced from the glinting ring of assorted keys that seemed like a taunt, to the half feral, possessive, and very triumphant look in her eyes of liquid gold as I sank into her warm cunt.
She was pure heaven.
I gripped the railing with one hand, the other on her hip, as I began at a slow pace, wanting to make sure she was comfortable.
Her wet heat gripped me with each thrust, dragging me deeper each time until I couldn’t go any further. I couldn’t tear my attention away from her heaving breasts, the fluttering of her pale eyelashes, her eyes half-lidded as she stared up at me.
Head to toe perfection that I could finally—finally—claim for myself.
“Is he going hard enough, Firefly?”
She shook her head breathlessly.
“Pick up the pace.” My body reacted before I could process as I drove into her faster. I clenched my jaw.
Too soon.
She was way too hot, and I’d been abstinent for too long.
Luckily Sin came to my rescue.
“Don’t come yet, Alpha.” That last word almost seemed like a taunt, but the command worked.
“Fuck.” The curse slipped out as my body almost seized, desperately needing release I’d been denied. She was too far gone to notice the vulgarity, though.
My knuckles were white where I clutched the bed rail, the other hand still on her hips as I drove into her.
Low growls sounded involuntarily from my chest as pleasure rolled through me in waves. I was on top, but I did not feel like I was the one dominating her. I was being thoroughly dominated by my omegas.
I think it was the hottest thing I’d ever experienced.
Crescent’s breathing picked up, the keys slipping onto her chest and between her full breasts that bounced with every thrust.
Her lips parted, pretty sounds releasing in time with how I fucked her. Then her eyes crossed, her body tensing impossibly around me as she came.
I groaned, but I couldn’t even slow down as the sensation became blinding.
“Knot her.”
She gasped as I pressed in, stretching her tight pussy around my knot. Still, I couldn’t come, my nerve endings on fire.
“Sin!” I growled.
I needed this.
“You won’t finish until she comes a second time.”
I began rutting her slowly, letting her get used to the feeling of squeezing my knot. Sin reached over her, giving me some help, his fingers finding her clit and circling it rapidly.
“How does your first knot feel, Firefly?” Sin asked.
Her gaze snapped to mine. I was tense, teeth gritted, but completely entranced.
“I feel so full,” she whined.
“Is it good, baby?”
“Yes—uh!” she let out a little gasp as I drove in again.
God damn. Pride swelled in my chest as it hit me. I was claiming my mate. It was like a dream I’d never dared touch for far too long.
“Harder,” Sin commanded.
I grabbed her hips with both hands, rutting her like a feral beast.
With a cry, she came again, and finally my release almost blinded me as I unloaded into her. Each thrust taking me further into bliss as I thrust my knot into her until I was out of seed.
Then I collapsed over her, feeling Sin’s commands release me all at once.
