22. Caspian
Caspian
I just had to keep breathing through it.
I did what I came to do. Technically. I mean, I hadn’t packed a single box, but here I was, hurling myself up the stairs, offering moral support by finding her prick of a landlord.
Then we were done and dusted. Kai and Sin could deal with her for the rest of the two weeks we had to endure her.
Dinner. Ceremony. Then she was gone.
I didn’t give a shit how much my mates wanted her.
I didn’t give a flying fuck how Kai had just fucking accepted her in the space of a night after trying to choke her to death the first time we’d met.
Whatever the fuck was going on with him, whatever kind of bullshit Sin was pulling, it wouldn’t work on me.
I wasn’t going to deny I wanted her as well, but sticking your dick in someone was a far cry from sharing a fucking bite.
And that was it.
That was the reason I was practically vibrating as I cleared floor after floor of the dingy-as-fuck building that wasn’t good enough for her.
And that’s why my head was spinning, because her scent was so fucking rich that all I needed to do was touch those toxic shorts and I would have come away with slick on my fingers.
“Fucking hell,” I growled at my own fucking thoughts as I rounded another stairwell and kept going.
My lips burned with her, and I hadn’t even fucking kissed her. The only way I could get rid of this tension was turning my attention to something else.
I was so glad she only lived on the third floor, so we didn’t have to lug her stuff down all these stairs. But the landlord was twenty-five stories high and living the good life. Good enough that he thought he was safe enough to threaten the supposed mate of the Risler pack.
Supposed.
Supposed .
And it wasn’t going to be anything else.
Camille’s heartbreak when she told me she was leaving. Kai’s fucking face when he came home from the party covered in hickeys and bites. Mel’s desire as she looked up at me in her doorway and fucking growled.
A snarl snapped out of me as I forced down all the bullshit whirling around inside me and I finally reached the top floor, lightly panting and furious as fuck.
I banged on the door to the guy who had even dared come near her.
I was only pissed off because my mates were obsessed with her. And because this guy was blackmailing an omega. It didn’t have a fucking thing to do with Mel. I was just being an alpha.
“Well, that was fast,” a muffled voice chuckled behind the door. It clicked open, his words becoming clearer. “You couldn’t resist the aura of a real alpha, could you?”
The sight of his face falling from a twisted smirk to shock was enough to get me started. Until I rammed my palms against the door, throwing it open and knocking him backwards.
“Tell me who’s the real alpha,” I said as I stepped into an over-decorated shitstorm of a penthouse.
“Who are you!?” he shouted as he stumbled, catching himself on a black and gold granite bar top behind him. There was a sharp clatter as he hit two matching stools on his way back.
“I’m the fucking alpha,” I said, slamming the side of my fist against the door so it flew, banging against the wall on my left.
A proper scan of the room told me everything I needed to know.
Too much money was poured into the wrong things, and that was why there were three omegas around a table with squares of powder, syringes and tubes.
One of them lay horizontal, passed out on the sofa, while the two slumped spread-eagled on the floor with their backs against the couch, staring at me with empty eyes.
And the fucking scents layering the place were enough to make me snarl.
The garishness of the flat was nearly the same as the room my parents used to welcome business partners. Except my mum was sane enough to hire designers, so that didn’t make it look like an LA hooker’s apartment.
He scrabbled around the bar top, finally landing on a cocktail stirrer. The thin blade and a pointed tip made a good weapon, but he had a higher chance of being stabbed by it than stabbing me.
I could be making an assumption; one of the omegas by the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the distant London skyline could be the landlord.
If not for the fact he was the only alpha in the place, and the fucking idiot had the gold winged logo from the thick chain nestled against his hairy chest and poking through his plush black dressing gown plastered on every surface in the room.
I couldn’t scowl any harder.
As soon as the landlord brandished his weapon, I flung myself at him. I gave no fucks about the skinny omegas still shooting up as a snarl ripped from me, and my fist sailed straight into his face.
Sin hated it when I used violence. Kai was more on the fence. My gym and work were the ‘safe zones’, and I wasn’t meant to act out anywhere else.
Sin had put those rules in place the first time I went rogue so I didn’t tip over the edge. But I was usually fine as long as Kai was with me, so we’d been getting lax over the years.
Which is why, as soon as I drew my fist back and the landlord crashed to the floor, a groan dropped from me. It had been way too long since I let loose, and the instant spray of blood joined those red sparks of my rogue state dancing in the corners of my eyes.
I stepped away, watching him as he writhed and clutched his face, and screamed. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing!?”
I took a breath, my aura growing sharper, and I basked in the dull thud in my knuckles. That was what I’d been after. It didn’t matter how many punches I threw into a bag—there was nothing like sinking my fist into real flesh.
I rubbed my knuckles, enjoying his pure shock as his nose poured, drops of blood curling around his stupid-as-fuck chain.
My attention snapped back to him, and he flinched from his place on the floor.
“Is it money you want? I’ll give you money! I’ve got a safe—yes, a safe! I can give you the pass code.”
But I laughed as he backed away from me, one hand against his nose to stop the bleeding, using his other to drag himself across the floor.
At least with a broken nose, he wouldn’t have to smell his godawful milk scent. Those omegas were probably so drugged up they didn’t care about the stench.
If he’d stayed down, I would have left it. Just given him a punch, threatened him a bit, and then went back to my pack.
But the fucker just had to struggle to his feet as I folded my arms, un-fucking-impressed. All while my alpha instincts were yelling at me to end him. When he finally straightened, he brandished his shitty cocktail stirrer as if it was going to do anything more than annoy me.
“You won’t get away with this!” he swore, jumping towards me with the stirrer raised.
“Hell yeah,” I growled, ignoring the darkening red in my vision as I went for him.
The first crunch was always the best. But it didn’t stop the second one being just as good.
I swung my fist into his face, and an agonising shout tore from him as more blood sprayed from his nose and onto my shirt.
The cocktail stirrer flew out of his grip, scattering across the carpet and vanishing into the thick plush as he fell again.
The landlord’s head thumped back on the floor, and I grinned at my handiwork as the blood ran clear over his cheeks.
Sin was going to kill me, but I could deal.
Another snarl cracked from me as my thoughts screamed.
I should have held back, I should have tried to control it, but his gurgling cries drowned out the static which buzzed in my ears.
“Tell me who the real alpha is!?” I shouted before I grabbed his throat and shook him, slamming his head against the carpet.
“Stop!” a druggy in the corner yelled unconvincingly. “You’re killing him!”
I would have burst his fucking windpipe already, but my alpha instincts wanted to play. It had been too long since they’d been unleashed and my full primal rage was set free.
Mel perfumed when I got rough with her, but she had no idea. What would she think if she saw me pummelling her landlord? Kai would be horny as fuck, but would she be able to take me like this?
It was why I could never show Camille my true self, why I had to keep hiding from her. Because she flinched at the smallest drop of anger.
Red filled my sight and I couldn’t tell if it was his blood or the rogue.
I could let myself go into it. I could just flip over the edge and wake up tomorrow with no memory of how I fucking annihilated everyone in this building.
But even in my rogue state, my alpha instincts would hound me to fuck an omega before I killed anyone. Kai was the only one who could really save me.
“Wait! Wait!” he gasped. “You’re Caspian Risler, aren’t you?”
I paused, easing up on his throat, my fist inches from his face.
We were famous enough that people knew us at a glance, especially Kai. But it took him long enough to cotton on to who he was dealing with.
“I work for Zania Risler,” he choked out. “She pays me, I swear!” He stretched out a trembling hand, but I batted it away. “I just have to keep watch on Ms Sanderson, to make sure she leaves.”
The conscious druggies took the risk and bolted past me, but I wasn’t worried about them.
I was already wheezing, keeping my jaw clenched so I didn’t bite off my tongue.
And forcing myself to stop, even making myself speak when I was pushing close to a rogue state could be too much.
But I wasn’t that far gone yet.
His face split into a grin as I stared at him, like he thought he’d won rather than me using my fucking brain for once.
Maybe if Sin had tried to stop me, the guy might have has a chance, but my fucker of a mate was right there with me, sensing everything from all the way down in Mel’s flat.
I could feel him sending me disgust and calm, and silent anger that this guy had ever touched her. It felt like he’d prefer it if I did things my way for once.
“What do you mean ‘leaves’?” I finally asked through gritted teeth.