Anarchy, p.4
Anarchy, page 4
This heat had to wait.
I clenched my jaw, trying to focus on anything else. I was right beside the open doorway, where mist was filling the air, and I could just catch the low conversation from outside over the running water.
“This was blatantly suicidal!” That was Phantom’s voice.
“Come on,” Sin replied. “If I call in all my favours—”
“You think those will hold up now?”
Sin snorted. “They fucking better.”
“And the gun. Now everyone knows you have it—”
“Everyone already knew—”
“Now they know, know. That changes everything.”
“We’re going to be fine. Vandle will be out of his rut by tomorrow. You know what he’s like; they’ll be attached at the hip. We only have to ride this out for another ten days.”
“Exactly my point—why the fuck did you choose now to throw a wrench in—?”
“Because she’s ours!” Sin’s words made me blink, and it felt like there was something closing around my throat.
Theirs?
A strangled whine tried to escape my chest.
They really wanted me?
But…no, no. He didn’t understand what that would mean for his pack.
And now I knew how much risk I was putting them in…
“You’re mad!” Phantom snapped back.
Okay.
I took a breath. Good, at least one of them was sane. “Even if you’re right, there is no way any alpha in Anarchy will accept our pack with her and—” I jumped violently at the loud clang of the metal door as they left, and it slammed shut.
Dang.
Me and what?
“Moonlight.” Karma’s voice caught me off guard, and I spun, looking up to see he was leaning against the wall at my side, peering down at me.
When had he snuck so close?
I’d all but stuck my head around the doorframe to hear Sin and Phantom’s conversation.
“Hi.” I blinked, trying to figure out what to do with my eyes with him and his rippling-muscled torso so close. I tried to drop my gaze, but then I was just looking at his crotch.
At least he was still wearing his sweatpants.
“I can go after you,” I stammered, eyes darting wildly around the room.
“No.”
“No?” I squeaked.
“You’re my omega. I’ll help.”
My lips parted in shock.
His?
What did that mean?
And what did help mean?
I tried to ignore the little bloom of warmth at the words.
This was so wrong.
But Karma didn’t have any intention of explaining himself. Instead, he swept me up like a doll and carried me into the running shower, clothes and all.
The hot water shocked my skin, and then his palm brushed my cheek. I flinched at his touch. At the electricity of our connection. The shirt had acted as a barrier when he grabbed my waist, so it was the first time his touch had truly found my skin.
He went still, eyes wide, a rumble of a growl rising up his throat, fingers tangling in my hair as he tilted my head up.
Dang.
His pupils were blown wide, eyes fixed on me as water streamed over both of us.
I couldn’t find my words as he stared down at me.
“We shouldn’t be… this close,” I whispered.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
I understood, now that I’d heard what Phantom had said, how much they’d risked to bring me here like this.
And Sin thought they were claiming me?
Karma flashed me that brilliant smile that made my stomach flip. “Hurt me?”
Was I too late?
“I’m gold pack.”
“Yeah, I can see that, Moonlight,” Karma said.
I forced myself to look away, resisting the urge to squeeze my eyes shut. His fingers pinched my chin, though, and my gaze snapped back to him.
I watched diluted trails of red flow over his beautiful, rich umber skin as the shower washed water down his neck and torso.
So much blood.
Blood he’d drawn to protect me.
All wrong.
“I’ll corrupt you,” I whispered, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.
That’s all we could do. Corrupt. Break. Any children we bore would be rogues, alphas who weren’t bound by the same laws, making the world a dangerous place.
One of his brows cocked, and he tilted his head slowly, eyes even more intense than before. “You’ll what?”
Oh my word.
“You don’t know?” The squeak was out of my mouth before I caught it.
“Know what?”
How did he not know?
What about Sin and Phantom? Had they just risked everything with no idea?
Everything about this was wrong.
The weight of everything that had happened today all crashed in at once.
6
KARMA
Female omegas, it seemed, were really, really odd.
Cute.
But odd.
Right in front of my eyes, her whole expression cracked, lip wobbling before she burst into all out sobs.
I’d never seen a female… anything since I’d woken in this place. Well. Possibly a rat or two. Like many alphas here, there was very little before Anarchy when it came to memories.
Phantom was lucky; the only one of us that remembered where he came from. Or… he was unlucky, if you looked at it from a different angle.
So, basically, all of this was new for me.
I lifted her up, pressing her against the shower wall, happy when her legs tangled around my waist instinctively. I nudged her chin up, and it was very hard to ignore how much my instincts wailed at me to fuck her right this instant. It happened every time my skin met hers.
Goddamn, she was touch starved.
How had that happened with an omega this alluring???
Anyway, what was it she’d said—corrupt me?
I snorted.
With fresh blood circling the drain at our feet?
“Moonlight,” I told her. “I’d let you corrupt me any day of the week.”
Truest thing I’d ever said. Especially with those pretty eyes of liquid gold trying to reach into my soul.
Unfortunately, that didn’t help. Instead, her lip wobbled harder, and she let out a wail, arms winding around my neck as she buried her face in the crook of my shoulder.
Oh dear.
I frowned. I needed Sin or Phantom to untangle this.
Fucking her, I was pretty sure, wasn’t the fix, though my hindbrain disagreed entirely. Thus, I was out of solutions.
So instead, I pried her free and set her back down. Then I removed the hair tie so her gorgeous hair fell loosely down her back, lathered shampoo in my hands, and gave her a head massage.
She was so small and adorable.
She didn’t fight me, instead just sniffling softly, a very confounded look in her eyes whenever she shot me glances. After a while (when we’d moved onto the conditioner, and her hair was silky smooth), her distress died down a little.
Seems I’d done something right.
I swelled with pride at that.
Ha.
Maybe I didn’t need them.
I think she was into me, too, from the way her gaze kept tracing my abs. I swear her hand lifted for a moment, as if she were reaching out to me.
“You can touch,” I told her.
She could do whatever she wanted to me.
She was… perfect. I’d never seen beauty like hers down here.
An old fear shuddered to life, one that stirred every time I felt the feral part of me grow.
One weekend last year, I’d gone feral—a frequent occurrence for me—but when I woke up from it, I hadn’t remembered my pack.
Not Phantom. Not Sin. Not Vandle.
I remember their shock. I remember how, at the time, it hadn’t meant anything to me, because their faces were new.
Everything before that point, I’d had to be told.
The fear I carried now was from the relationship I’d built with them since.
A deep, visceral unease that everything I saw, or felt, or said—it would one day be gone. It would mean nothing, and I’d leave them again.
They hadn’t known, when we packed up, that I was broken like this, and I always wondered—if they had, would they have found another alpha?
It was a constant fear I carried, but now, staring at this goddess, I understood it was nothing compared to what it could be.
Her palm pressed against my chest, ripping me from my spiral, and I felt that shock of lust from how touch starved she was.
All those fears dissolved as her breathing hitched, her pupils dilating as she drank in every ridge with her eyes.
Then, completely instinctively, she shifted forward and next thing I knew, she was dragging her soft tongue right up my abs.
As if snapping into consciousness halfway through, she drew away in an instant, back straight, eyes wide.
She looked shocked. “I don’t know why I did that.”
I groaned, fighting every instinct right down to the marrow of my bones, to stop myself from pinning her up against the wall and claiming her.
What kind of cruel test was this?
Maybe this was how they found out if we were fit to leave in ten days.
I cupped her cheek, sinking into a want—a need—the likes of which I’d never felt before. Maybe… maybe I didn’t have to be afraid.
She wasn’t going to let me go anywhere.
I knew it—don’t know how I knew it, but I did.
She wasn’t a burden like Phantom was worried about.
She was the answer.
So very slowly, I helped her from the shower and handed her a towel to dry herself off. I even tried not to look when she shimmied off her soaking top and undergarments from beneath it. I failed. But I did try.
Unfortunately, she expertly held the towel in place with her teeth while she worked, and I didn’t get a single chance to glimpse anything naughty.
It didn’t take me long to finish my own shower, and when I had, I grabbed my towel, heading into the next room, rooting about in the drawer to grab another pair of sweats and a fresh, dry shirt for her. That was when I caught the faintest trace of something in the air that was… different.
I frowned, clumsily tugging the sweats on around the towel (so as not to offend her), and looking back at the doorway where she was standing, clutching her towel to her chest.
As fresh as the shower she’d just stepped from, was the trace of velvet rose and cocoa.
I blinked, taking another breath and letting it saturate my lungs.
Holy. Shit.
I stared at her. That scent.
A rumble of need rolled up my chest.
She was… mine. Like actually mine.
Ours.
A scent match.
Fuck. Me.
I felt the dregs of sanity that tenuously tethered my mind to this reality instantly drain away.
7
SIN
I wasn’t stupid.
I knew Phantom was right. I just didn’t care. One way or another, we would find a way out of this.
I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been about Holden at the start. It had been about him right up until the moment I jammed the gun under his chin and caught sight of her golden eyes. Saw her up close. And for the first time since being thrown down here, when my lips had met hers, Holden hadn’t even existed.
It wasn’t a mistake, but it meant I had to pivot, fast.
As we walked down the grungy, worn stone hallways, my mind raced through options.
As expected, the news had already spread. There were more than a few eyes fixed on us as we walked. Leering alphas in the doorframes of their rooms, or pausing mid dice-game, crowded around rickety wooden tables.
The Cimmerian Vaults were located in a storm prone area on an oceanfront. The walls were thick, but not thick enough to mask the faint rolls of thunder.
I welcomed them.
A tether to the world outside.
We had very few of those in here. The few barred windows, that were high on the walls since we were in the basement floor, were hotspots for territory feuds I had no room for.
The Emerald pack was large, with eight members—which was common in a place like this. It meant Bug and Rick could be spared, since two of us wandering about after an event like Crescent was a recipe for death. And there were six members of their pack left across the hall from our cell while we were gone. No one knew if the gun was with Karma or me, which was another level of protection.
I could never trust a pack that large, but a four person pack like ours left us vulnerable. And we were underdogs for more than just that. It was why I worked overtime to pull my weight.
The gun was with me. Tucked away in one of the few places I kept it. Strapped to my leg, beneath my sweatpants. It was small enough to not be noticeable—or easily misidentified as a knife.
“I guess tonight’s off,” Bug said, glancing back at me.
I cocked an eyebrow. No, I wouldn’t spend the evening fucking his omega in a cage for them to watch.
Bug, who was a usually cheery, lumberjack-looking alpha with a large ginger beard, raised his hands defensively. “Can’t hurt to ask.”
“Wait.” Rick looked back. “Does that mean it’s over… forever?”
“I have my own omega to take care of,” I said.
“Where are you gonna get our favours from, then?” Bug asked.
I snorted. “Ask me again when you’ve caught up on the debt you already have.”
It wasn’t a great position to be in. Loyalty and honour were the weakest of the currencies that flowed through Anarchy.
Man power and aura strength were stronger tools to barter with—but not ones we were top of the list on. Karma’s aura was potent as fuck, but it couldn’t make up for us having such a small pack.
Another big one was illusion, and that was where I was going to have to do some work.
Not all alliances like ours with the Emerald pack were visible. Debts were kept secret as often as they were announced. Which meant it was impossible to know how much aid a pack would get if someone started a feud.
My one rule was the most important, though: any show of weakness would instantly annihilate any assets I thought I had.
“You and Karma have any more jobs on retainer?” I asked Phantom, voice low enough that no one else would hear.
Both Phantom and Karma were vicious. Karma’s aura was almost unmatched in this place, and Phantom, who’d grown up on the New Oxford streets, was a better technical fighter than most here.
“Couple. I can try to change the terms to something a little more… protection oriented, but we don’t exactly offer unique services, do we?”
The unspoken half of his words hung between us.
Not like I did.
I knew it grated at Phantom and Karma that my value in Anarchy revolved around sex. I wrinkled my nose, a snarl tugging at the edge of my lips.
Grated at me, too.
Everyone wanted a fucking show.
Well. It was almost over and I’d get some peace and fucking quiet in a life on the other side that I was too afraid to even begin to imagine.
I stifled my irritation, though, as we reached the Redgrave’s room.
It was off the main square, which was a stupid name for the large open space in the middle of Anarchy, since it was a huge circle.
Out here, alphas played dice and card games. A large pit in the centre of the room held two fighting alphas—one of a bunch of places where fights often broke out—and another million stares were fixed our way.
Bug knocked on the Redgrave door before returning to glaring at any alpha who was looking too hard.
There was a bang, and the door swung open.
Ezra, a mute alpha with a brutal aura, and a missing eye covered with a ratty patch, was most commonly found at their door. He was lounging on a stool at the entrance, working with charcoal on a small piece of paper. He barely spared us a nod, which was as much of an invite as we’d get.
The room within was a spectacle, as usual. It had enough beds for a fourteen member pack, though the Redgrave pack was only ten strong.
Half of the others were out right now, but that left enough to guard the two spare bunks that were stacked with their current wares.
We got very little delivered down to Anarchy. There was a stock locker through which we were sent things like food, clothing, hygiene supplies, scent dampeners, and drugs for ruts, sedation, and pack bonding. Before my time, there’d been a pack who’d had full claim over the locker, but the hoarding of all the supplies had ended in a fight bloody enough that Anarchy’s population shrank by a tenth.
Now, the Redgrave pack got first dibs on deliveries as long as they didn’t touch the food and essentials. In exchange, they used their connections to barter for the occasional extra from the guys upstairs. I didn’t know how they were able to, but that secret made them one of the most protected packs in Anarchy.
So on the bed was an assortment of items people came to the Redgraves for: spray paints, cigarettes and a few bottles of pills, sketchbooks and pencils, insulin, and a row of knives alongside other weapons.
It was where I’d got the gun.
Dominic Redgrave himself had come to me with the request, and it wasn’t one I’d been able to decline. Matt wasn’t my type of omega, exactly, but there were levels I would stoop to for a gun. Not that even Karma and Phantom got the details of that.
It was the only absolute protection between me and Holden if everything else were to fall apart—and this trade, this one was my choice. Plus, I had been able to set some of my own boundaries. Like which kind of weapons had been allowed into that cage.
It also hadn’t exactly hurt my reputation—one I cultivated very carefully to survive. I might have come out on top that night, but there were still scars I carried.
Scars Dominic Redgrave admired every time he saw me.
Right now, from where he was seated on a rickety seat in the corner of the room, I could see his eyes tracing my wrist where one was clearly displayed.
