Chapter 32 – Bells
BELLS
Consciousness comes back in waves.
First, the cold. Stone floor, gritty under my cheek. The kind of cold that seeps through clothes and into bone.
Second, the taste. Chemical sweetness coating the back of my throat like someone poured cough syrup down a drain and I'm the fucking drain.
Third, the cage.
I open my eyes.
Gold bars.
Actual gilded bars, ornate and scrolling, wrought iron underneath the decoration. They curve overhead in an arch forming a massive birdcage, seven feet tall, maybe eight, bolted to a stone floor in what looks like…
An opera house.
I know this building.
The state opera house. The one Stephen owns a stake in, the one he rented out for Reverie charity events, the one with the underground rehearsal rooms and the rooftop helipad he bragged about at every fucking industry dinner.
The cage sits center stage of a small private rehearsal theater. Velvet curtains frame the wings. Crystal wall sconces on the walls. There's even a cushioned bench inside the cage, tufted red velvet, like whoever built this wanted the prisoner to be comfortable.
A gilded fucking cage.
For his songbird.
Rage hits me so hard my vision goes white.
I'm on my feet before my legs are ready and the world tilts sideways. I grab the bars. They don't budge. The lock is a heavy brass mechanism on the outside, well out of reach.
"Good morning."
Stephen Hughes steps out of the wings.
I can't even muster up the energy to be fucking surprised.
He looks like shit.
Both eyes are bruised from when Rex rearranged his face.
His nose is crooked, badly reset, the bridge swollen and discolored.
Bandages peek above his collar. His prematurely gray hair is slicked back but it's wild and stupid looking, and the fact he dressed for the occasion with a crisp charcoal suit while having a bird's nest on his head makes me snort because I'm apparently still high from chloroform.
He even has a little gun on his hip.
He put it on wrong.
"Bryan," I say flatly.
A deranged smirk tugs at his lips. It's lopsided from his jaw being busted. "You always were a smart little songbird."
Of course.
Of fucking course he's Bryan.
“You’ve been pretending to be a beta.” I press my fingers into my temples because I suddenly have a migraine brewing. “And how did you even hide that? What, did you neuter yourself too? Because that's totally something you would do, you fucking creep."
His smirk falters.
It's then that I realize I can feel my knife strapped to my thigh, right by my prosthetic cock.
The absurdity of it all hits me out of nowhere.
Stephen Hughes neutered himself to suppress his alpha scent so I wouldn't know what he really was.
He was too scared of my rubber dick that he knows is fucking fake to properly search me.
And I have my treasured knife and I'm already thinking about how satisfying it's going to be when I stick it in Stephen's neck or chest or eyeball or somewhere else vulnerable and squishy.
A laugh bubbles up.
Hysterical, sharp, completely unhinged. It rips out of me before I can stop it and I double over against the bars, cackling.
Stephen's expression sharpens. "Shut your fucking mouth."
I'm still laughing. The chloroform definitely ruined my inhibitions because the filter between my brain and my mouth isn't just broken, it's been thoroughly demolished. "On a scale of one to ten," I wheeze, "how bi are you?"
"What the fuck are you on about?"
"No reason." Another giggle. I can't stop. "Oh my gods, you are the shittiest, lamest supervillain on the fucking planet. This is so tacky. I'm going to die and it's going to be the tackiest death anyone has ever died."
I can't even bring myself to care that I'm running my mouth so much.
If this is the end for me—and it will be, because I'm not letting Stephen take me anywhere even if I have to brain myself with my own knife—I'm at least going to have fun saying all the shit I've wanted to say to my stalker this entire time.
Shit I've wanted to say to Stephen, too.
Kill two birds with one stone and all that jazz.
"Lame." The composure reassembles across his bruised face like a curtain being drawn.
"I glued that freak's mask with surgical adhesive so the cute little mechanism would fail, rewired the pyrotechnic sequencer, and had my people in the lighting booth for the blackout so I could spirit you away. But yes. I'm lame."
He smooths his tie and straightens, adjusting his cufflink. "A helicopter is arriving in forty minutes," he says. "Rooftop. We'll be gone before anyone knows where to look. If Vespyr somehow figures out where you are, they'll meet my guards."
They will.
They will figure out where I am, because I followed the same instinct to Rex in that cemetery and there's no way in hell these alphas that have become my alphas are going to let Stephen lay a finger on me.
"Of course you have a helicopter. You always were a dramatic fucking idiot. Too bad it's hard to take you seriously looking like..." I gesture at his face. The bruises, the crooked nose, the bandages. Rex's handiwork. "That."
Stephen's hand curls at his side. "That's rich," he says quietly. "Coming from a girl who spread her legs for a monster."
I spit at him.
It catches him across the cheek.
The silence that follows is the loudest thing I've ever heard. Louder than the crowd, louder than the pyrotechnics, louder than the gunshot that dropped Rex.
Rex.
The thought of him hits me like a punch to the sternum and something inside me reaches, stretches outward through whatever fragile bond connects us, desperately searching for him.
He's alive.
The bond is barely there. A gossamer thread, strained and flickering, nothing like the solid warmth I feel from Phoenix and Raf.
Because the only mark on my body is the incomplete one from the man standing in front of me, and that mark was never completed, never consented to, and the real bonds—the ones that matter—are unmarked and raw and new.
But Rex is alive.
And he's…
What the fuck?
Something chaotic is pouring through the thread.
Something unhinged and incandescent that makes my hindbrain flatten its ears and whimper. Like standing on train tracks and feeling the vibration in the steel before you hear the engine.
Coming closer.
Fast.
Stephen wipes the spit from his cheek with one finger. Examines it. His expression is terrifyingly calm.
"Act like a lady," he says.
I bat my eyelashes at him. "What, am I ruining the illusion?"
His jaw tightens.
"You built this whole fantasy," I continue, leaning against the bars with a posture I've perfected over years of pretending to be someone I'm not. Cocking one hip. Letting the jacket fall open. Tilting my head so my white hair catches the amber light and the collar sits just so against my throat.
But this is the real me this time.
"The cage, the roses, the pet names," I continue. "You wanted a songbird. Here I am."
Stephen's eyes track down my body. Up again.
I force my heartbeat to slow. Force my breathing even. Channel every ounce of stage presence I've ever had into making this man believe what I need him to believe.
"You're right," I say softly. "I'm scared. I've been scared. Of Rex, of the band, of everything." I let my voice crack. Just enough. "You're the only one who ever really knew what I am."
His chin lifts.
"Because you see me," I whisper. "You always did. Even before anyone else."
The narcissist in him can't help it.
His shoulders relax by a fraction.
"I know you're angry," I continue. "I know I ran. But look at me." I wrap my fingers around the bars and press my face between them. "I'm right here. You caught me. You won."
Stephen takes a step closer.
"You're so handsome," I breathe, and the words almost choke me. "So rugged with all the…" I trail my eyes across his battered face. "...bruises."
I reach up with one hand and caress his stubbled cheek, reaching into the front of my pants with the other. Past the silicone cock, down to the knife strap around my thigh, curling my fingers around the hilt.
He's so lost in my eyes, he doesn't even notice me slipping my knife out of my pants and spinning it behind my back.
Stupid fucking alpha.
His hand rises to the cage door.
The brass lock clicks.
The door swings open.
Stephen stands in the gap, one hand on the gilded frame, his grossly swollen face soft with something possessive and sick.
"That's my girl," he murmurs, reaching for me. "My songbird."
I step into his arms.
My knee comes up.
I drive every ounce of force I can generate from my planted foot through my hip into the hardest, fastest strike I've ever thrown, and it connects directly with his cock.
Stephen doubles over with a snarl, already scrambling for the gun on his hip.
I drive my knife into his eye.
"CHIRP CHIRP, MOTHERFUCKER!"
Stephen screams.
I rip my knife free and fucking run.