Chapter 7 – JUNIPER
Chapter
Seven
JUNIPER
T he silk slip slides over my skin like water made of whispers, cool and foreign against flesh that's used to practical cotton and blood-stained denim.
Pink. They put me in fucking pink, like I'm some delicate flower instead of a weapon wrapped in ribbons.
The fabric catches on my hip bones—I'm still too thin, Felix says, even though I've put on weight since we escaped the Den.
Since we started eating real food instead of scraps and fear.
He always worries. Always reminds me to eat and drink when I forget. Always holds me when my pieces start to drift apart.
The mirror reflects a stranger wearing my face. Ruffles and lace cascade down my body like frosting on a cake. The makeup artist painted my lips cherry red, brushed glitter across my eyelids until I sparkle like a disco ball.
I look exactly like what I'm supposed to be. An expensive toy in a velvet box.
But toys don't usually carry ceramic knives taped to their thighs.
"You look beautiful." Felix's voice cuts through the chemical haze pumping through the vents, and I catch his reflection behind mine in the ornate mirror.
He's devastating in that black suit, angles as sharp as knives.
His dark hair is pulled back severe enough to make angels weep, and the way the fabric hugs his lean frame makes my mouth water even through the suppressants clouding my thoughts. "As always."
Beautiful .
Evan used to call me beautiful too, right before he'd?—
"This place smells like the Serpents' Den." The words fall out of my mouth before I can catch them, and I watch Felix's reflection freeze behind me.
Even he pauses at that. The Serpents' Den. His brother's kingdom of rust and ruin, where omegas were currency and pain was payment. Where I learned that beautiful was just another word for breakable.
His hand finds my shoulder, warm and real. "I know." His voice is soft, careful, like he's handling glass. "But we won't be here long. And no one is going to touch you."
The Rut Room is just the Serpents' Den in designer clothes.
Velvet bars instead of rusted ones, but still a cage.
The suppressants they're pumping through the air taste like artificial strawberries and forgotten screams, coating my tongue with memories I'd rather drown.
They're stronger here than they were at the Den.
More expensive. More effective at turning omegas into docile dolls and presenting scent matches.
That tends to complicate things in places like this, where rich alphas play without consequence.
Felix made sure I took the antidote before we walked through those gilded doors, and his meds make him immune, but the smell still churns my stomach.
His fingers tilt my chin up, forcing me to meet his silver eyes in the mirror. "Do you trust me?"
"You know I do." The answer comes automatic as breathing. Felix is my north star, my anchor, the only thing keeping me tethered to this reality when the shadows start whispering too loud.
And they're whispering now. Over his shoulder, in the corner where the mirror doesn't quite reach, darkness moves like smoke given form. They're agitated tonight, restless, their voices a cloud of warnings I can't quite decipher. Something about blood and snakes and?—
A sharp knock on the door cuts through the whispers. "They're here," a guard's voice calls through the wood. Deep. Bored. He probably thinks I'm just another omega getting ready to spread her legs for money.
If only he knew.
Felix's hand squeezes my shoulder once—reassurance and promise wrapped in a single gesture—before he steps back. I smooth down the ridiculous ruffles, check that my knives are secure, and follow him out into the corridor that smells even stronger.
The backstage area is a maze of mirrors and shadows, omegas in various states of undress preparing for their performances.
Some are high on the suppressant-booster cocktail, giggling and swaying like broken dolls.
Others have that thousand-yard stare that comes from seeing too much, surviving too long.
I wish the blood we're about to shed tonight could open their cages, too, but where would they go?
Not everybody has a Felix, and I can barely remember which way is up most days, let alone show anyone else.
We reach the curtains that separate backstage from the main floor, and I peek through the gap like a child watching a horror movie through her fingers.
The stage is bathed in red light, omegas moving in choreographed sensuality like little ballerinas at the top of a music box.
They're beautiful, all of them, but it's the kind of beauty that comes with a price tag.
And there, sitting at a table near the stage like they belong here, are our targets.
Four alphas who've never been in a place like this before—it's written all over them in the way they hold themselves, the way they're looking at the stage but not at the performers, the subtle tension in their shoulders that screams discomfort.
They're trying to blend in, but they stick out like wolves in a petting zoo.
The biggest one sits with his back to the wall, hazel eyes scanning the room like he's mapping escape routes.
His brown hair is shorter than in the surveillance photos, and now I can see a huge forked scar running down the side of his face like he got struck by lightning.
I'm close enough to see those angles weren't just a trick of the camera.
He's built like a mountain given human form, broad shoulders straining against his civilian clothes.
This one's the leader, I can tell by the way the others defer to him with subtle glances. Watching for his next move.
Next to him sits a man with silver hair that catches the stage lights like moonbeams. The one with the kind eyes.
He's older than the others, maybe in his mid thirties, with the kind of lean muscle that comes from years of disciplined training.
His blue eyes are sharp as surgical steel, and he holds himself with the stillness of a predator waiting to strike.
There's something almost robotic about him, like he's cataloguing everything he sees for future reference.
The third one makes my skin crawl and tingle at the time, a strange paradox.
Golden hair falls across his forehead in artful waves, and his blue eyes are the color of winter skies.
He's beautiful in the way poisonous flowers are beautiful—lovely to look at but deadly to touch.
There's something wrong with his smile, too wide, too knowing.
His white suit looks expensive, the kind that's made to stand out even in a room of rich assholes.
A predator hiding in plain sight. When he laughs at something one of the others says, the sound makes the shadows in the corner writhe like living things.
The fourth alpha sits slightly apart from the others, with light brown hair and warm brown eyes that never quite settle on the stage.
He's handsome in a quiet way, the kind of man who'd blend into a crowd until he decided not to.
There's a stillness about him that reminds me of Felix, the kind of calm that comes before violence.
I'm starting to see how they ended up on a bad guy's hit list. They're all much too attractive for vigilantes.
"Remember your part?" Felix whispers against my ear, his breath warm against skin that's gone cold.
"Yes." My voice sounds steadier than I feel. They think Felix is a wealthy trafficker looking to expand his operations. They're here to kill him, posing as potential business partners. My job is simple—get them to the VIP lounge where Felix can spring his trap.
So many lies wrapped in lies, tied up with deception. It makes me dizzy.
Or maybe that's the stuff coming from the vents.
"I'll be watching the whole time," he promises, his hand ghosting over my lower back. "Just get them to the room. I'll handle the rest."
I reach back and put my hand on his briefly before I slip through the curtains, winding through the crowd like the snake I am tonight.
The music pounds against my skull, bass lines that feel like heartbeats in the dark.
Patrons barely glance at me—just another omega in a sea of flesh for sale and there are women wearing much less on stage to ogle.
The four alphas are pretending to watch the show, but their attention keeps drifting to the exits, the other patrons, anything but the stage. Bad actors, all of them. Their discomfort is palpable, rolling off them in waves that make the shadows dance with glee.
I stop beside the mountain of a man, letting my hand rest on his shoulder.
He tenses immediately, muscles coiling under my palm like steel cables.
When he looks up at me, I see the first flicker of interest in those hazel eyes—not sexual interest, but the sharp focus of a predator recognizing potential prey.
Or maybe another predator.
I force my lips into a smile that tastes like lies and strawberry suppressants. "Someone is waiting for you gentlemen in the VIP lounge." My voice comes out breathy, innocent, exactly what they'd expect from an omega working in a place like this. "Invitation?"
The big one's gaze flicks to the golden-haired devil, who reaches into his jacket with movements inhumanly fluid. The red envelope appears between his fingers like magic, and when he offers it to me, our skin brushes for just a moment.
The world tilts sideways.
His eyes aren't just blue—they're empty.
Void-dark despite their color, like looking into the abyss and finding it looking back.
The shadows around him writhe and shriek, tentacles of darkness that only I can see reaching out with grasping fingers.
They're screaming warnings in languages I don't understand, but the message is clear:
Danger. Death. Run.
I freeze, paralyzed by the sight of something that shouldn't exist wearing a human face. The envelope trembles in my hand as reality fractures around the edges, showing me glimpses of what lies beneath his perfect mask.
"Something wrong, Miss?" His voice is silk over broken glass, his sharp British accent making even concern sound like a threat.
"No." The word comes out strangled, but I force myself to move, to breathe, to remember that I'm supposed to be acting. "No, everything's fine."
I open the envelope with fingers that shake only slightly, revealing the invitation that Felix forged with meticulous care. "This way."
They rise from their seats like synchronized swimmers, following me through the maze of tables and grinding bodies. I can feel their eyes on me, tracking my movements, cataloguing potential threats. They're good at this, these heroes. Professional. Deadly.
Too bad we're better.
We're always better. Alphas have to be good in order to dominate, we have to be bad in order to survive.
At least, that's what I tell myself. That's how it's always been.
The backstage corridors wind like intestines through the building's belly, past dressing rooms where omegas prepare to sell pieces of their souls. The air here is thicker with suppressants, making my head swim despite the antidote. How do they stand it?
How did I stand it for so long?
The answer that immediately becomes apparent to me is that I didn't have a choice.
But what about now?
"Miss." The voice stops me cold, along with a hand on my shoulder.
My head whips around and then I freeze, looking down at his hand. No one touches me except Felix. And when they do, it makes me sick. My skin burns, my spine crawls, long after their lifeless bodies hit the ground.
Why doesn't his touch make me sick?
I must stare a little too long, because he quickly lets me go and raises his hand like he's trying to soothe a frightened rabbit.
The one with the light brown hair and gentle eyes, watching me with something that looks almost like concern.
"I'm sorry. I didn't… You should probably clock out early. You don't want to be here."
He's trying to protect me? This alpha who came here to kill my Felix is trying to save me from what's coming. The irony makes me want to laugh until I cry, or maybe cry until I laugh. The lines blur sometimes, when the world gets too sharp around the edges.
I turn away, fighting the urge to tell him that I'm not the one who needs protecting. "Right through here."
The VIP lounge door looms ahead like the entrance to hell, made from dark wood and brass fittings that gleam like gold teeth. I push it open with hands that have killed senators and common criminals alike, revealing the chamber where Felix waits.
He's arranged himself on the velvet throne like a king holding court, legs crossed, fingers steepled, looking every inch the powerful alpha who deals in souls and flesh they expect to meet.
The resemblance to Evan digs into me like a knife.
It's the same predatory stillness, the same casual cruelty in his posture.
But the eyes. The eyes are different, even if they're nearly the same color.
Evan's eyes were empty holes where a soul should be.
Felix's burn with cold fire, silver flames that see everything and judge nothing.
You can't hide the soul, no matter how good the mask.
No matter how flawless the performance is.
And my Felix… he is a good actor.
The four alphas file into the room like they're walking into a trap, which they are, just not the one they think they've set. This isn't the board they think they control. I slip in behind them quiet as a shadow, my hand finding the door handle.
The lock clicks with a sound like breaking bones.