38. Aspyn
Chapter thirty-eight
Aspyn
A spyn Aged 20
Nat swipes at her wet eyes, but I just glare harder at her.
Shale carries another box into the house.
“Hey! I didn’t buy that.” I turn with him, following his path through my new rental.
“Housewarming gift!” Shale shouts.
I glare at his back. “You can’t furnish my house and say it’s housewarming!”
Keagan kisses my cheek. “Sure, we can.”
I look up at him as he walks off, whistling. The three alphas and Nat have become my world.
Nat continues chortling. Her unhelpful snickers are getting on my nerves.
I don’t know what I’d do without them.
But today is special. I’m renting a house, a home. It’s cheap and close to town but far enough away that I have my privacy.
Today is another step towards reclaiming my life.
My very own home, already filled with the delicious scents of my alphas.
It’s hard to hide how grateful I am.
P resent Day
“Typhor is here. Stay away from him,” Shale whispers as he passes me.
I glance towards the door and see an older version of the man who gave my mother the tickets to our escape. It’s an unwanted reminder of what I came from.
I turn away and find Kelly staring down at me.
“Ignore everything he says,” Shale murmurs and disappears.
Kelly nods reassuringly at me. “It’s going to be fine. We’ve got this.”
I watch as he drifts away, circulating through the crowd, but that leaves me alone. No, not alone. Fate’s Destiny are close by, and Ianto and Beau are talking, but their eyes are on me.
I am alone, though, in a sea of people. It’s supposed to make me look vulnerable. To see who he will go after, Kelly or me.
I grab a glass from a waiter, smiling at the young man. He graciously waits for me to choose one and then swans on again, disappearing into the crowd.
“You look beautiful, cousin.”
I jerk and find the tattooed man from my vision. I stare at him, hearing laughter and the sound of a woman crying.
“Three alpha kings, ice, fire, and death, and the omega with a moon in her hands. You are their sword. Don’t go home angry.”
“What?”
I shake my head, but it’s too late. He’s staring at me, rattled.
“Fucking Mael,” Shale murmurs and rushes past us in pursuit of his cousin. Bailey turns but someone cuts in front, and he just misses seeing the infamous cousin.
I return my attention to Bailey and tilt my head to the side, but he just grabs my arm and pulls me close as a couple rush past me, giggling.
“Bailey?”
“Yes. Cousin Aspyn?”
My cheeks get hot because I’ve never been anyone’s cousin before. “I guess so?”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you during such exciting circumstances.”
I cock my head to the side, but he’s not looking at me. He’s playing the part and saying all the words everyone would expect to hear, but he’s not saying them to me or with any thought. I wonder what would happen if I went off script.
Kelly will be confronting Typhor soon.
I’m to stay in this area of the ballroom, nice and protected. Out of his sight.
“He’s coming for you, little cousin. Now don’t be scared. We’re all right here. He can’t hurt you with anything but words.”
I tense, my heart jumping. I try to turn, but Bailey holds me still.
“Just stay right like that, sweetheart. Wait for him. Draw him in.”
Bailey is suddenly gone, but I can still feel him around me.
“Aspyn Montauk. I am surprised to see you here. I was thinking I made a deal for you and your mother to disappear.”
I turn around, feeling sick as I look up at his stony expression. “It’s a party. Everyone comes to parties.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but I seem to have lost my ability to say intelligent things.
“And, yet, I paid your mother to get rid of you. Why are you back?”
I try to act confused. “Why would you want to do that? What did I ever do to you?”
He sneers at me and looks me up and down. “You’re Kelly’s scent match. I supposed he bonded you?”
I refuse to answer.
“No matter. I can talk him around again. One way or another. It wasn’t that hard to talk him out of having a broken omega like you.”
“I’m not broken,” I protest feebly.
“Of course, you are. With that hideous scar across your face and that limp. You were so young and naive. And nothing has changed. You still have a scar and a limp. Tell me, can you still not have children?”
I nod my head. “I was all of that.”
“And what are you now?”
“Not alone,” I murmur and grin at Shale, who comes to stand beside me.
Typhor glares at Shale, but my alpha doesn’t even flinch. And why would he?
“Typhor Raines, I am so glad to meet you in person. It’s going to be the pleasure of my life, snuffing your existence out of this world.”
Typhor’s eyes have widened, his face turns grey, and he sways on his feet.
Kelly appears beside us. “Uncle, how wonderful to see you.”
Typhor seems to draw himself together, finding some inner willpower, though I find it amusing that he can’t look Shale in the eye.
“Cut the crap, Kelly. What do you want?”
“I’m here to stop you from destroying what isn’t yours,” Kelly says with all the power and arrogance he owns.
Typhor lets out a hideous laugh. It sends chills up my spine.
I catch a white-faced Ryn being escorted from the room by her alphas. I’m not running from him. He’s nothing.
I lift my chin and stare him down. For some reason, he’s focused all his rage on me. Even as he directs his words to Kelly, he still maintains eye contact with me.
“Everything is mine. It was from the time I put up with your grandfather’s shit and ever since then. I’m not losing my chance again.”
“It will make things easier if you just accept that you’re not a Raines. You never were, and you never will be,” Lia says from beside me. “You’re just a piece of trash who beats up my cousin and aunt.”
He raises a hand, but Zaden steps in front of Lia. The whole room throbs with menace.
“I’d be leaving if I were you, Uncle,” Raider says casually. “You never know when you might disappear.”
Shale reaches out and takes hold of my hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
“You’re going to regret all of this,” Typhor hisses. “I won’t make her a whore. I’ll ruin everything she has. You piece of shit. I’ll make it so no one will ever touch her again. She will be destroyed.”
Kelly smiles. “You have to get through us first.”
Typhor looks up and seems to realise, all of a sudden, just who is in the room. His expression darkens as he finds himself facing down Bethany, Locke, Lia, Raider, Kelly, Charles, and all their packs. In the shadows, I spot Bailey watching, looking almost as dangerous as Shale.
Shivers break out along my spine.
“If you insist.”
I reach out and take Kelly’s hand while we watch him stalk from the room. He doesn’t even stop to talk to the few people who try to talk to him.
Bailey reemerges and stands there, rubbing his chin.
I glance at him, wondering what’s going through his head, but judging by the dark gleam in his eyes, I don’t want to know.
Bailey doesn’t scare me, no, he’s too much like the Daane for that, but he makes me wary. He doesn’t play by the same polite rules as the rest of the Raines, and I don’t know if he has any allegiance to anyone else but himself and anarchy.
“Okay, now we go out and see if we can sway their minds,” Ezy murmurs.
The three of them wade into the throng of people while I stay at the fringes where I belong.
There’s a feeling that I can’t exactly place. It’s annoyance and aggression, like I’ve been listening to someone scratch their fingernails down a chalkboard for too long. It’s a buzzing in my ears that is giving me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I had the same feeling when I came home and found my mother gone.
“My mother would come home drunk from the pub and would tell me she wished I’d died and not my sister or father. She would say it while she was crying, and she would mean it.”
Bailey reappears by my side.
“I knew she meant it. I could feel her intent, and it’s the same with Typhor. He’s not going to go quietly.”
“No, but if he did, it wouldn’t be as much fun, would it?” Bailey snickers.
I get the impression that he’s as stressed here as the rest of us.
Shale passes me a drink from the other side. “He won’t hurt you.”
I want to argue with him and tell him you can hurt people in lots of different ways, but I keep my lips pressed together, watching all the beautiful people circulating.
“Come with me,” Shale murmurs.
Shale makes a motion with his hand, and when I glance to the left, I find Kelly making a beeline towards us.
They lead me to a section of the room and then simply step behind the wall. I gape and then walk around, finding a thin area that is almost perfectly concealed for someone to escape through a doorway.
As soon as I’m in, Kelly grabs me and moves me up against the wall, face first. I can see everyone.
“Look at them out there having a wonderful time.”
“Let's make it so you can have a wonderful time, too,” Shale murmurs.
My dress is unzipped and thrown away. Then my panties and bra.
Shale mouths the back of my neck.
“Hands on the wall, Omega.”
I lift my hands and put them on the wall.
“Good. Now keep your eyes on everyone.”
Kelly moves behind me and lifts me on a step. I gasp as now I feel like everyone can see me from the stomach up. And yet, excitement sizzles in my blood.
Kelly fingers me, pressing his long digits in.
“You’re wet. Are you enjoying this, Omega?”
I shudder. “Yes.”
“Good. Then you’re going to like what comes next,” Shale growls.
I hear Kelly gasp and twist.
A hand slams into my shoulder, pressing me against the thin screening. “Uh-uh, you keep your eyes in front.”
Kelly pushes himself into me. I feel the stretch and whimper.
“Good, Omega,” Shale murmurs. “Now enjoy me fucking our alpha into you.”
A whimper escapes me, and I claw at the wall. I almost turn and look back again, but I just manage to stop it.
Kelly reaches around me, and I hear a humming sound.
“What-” I gasp, but I’m cut off when the vibration hits my clit. “Oh!”
I struggle to hold myself up. Shale keeps sending Kelly slamming into me, over and over. But Kelly is stroking my clit like he’s creating a love song on a guitar with that damn vibrator.
I lift an arm, but Shale stops.
“Put it back.”
I whine. “I don’t want to make noise.”
“You won’t.”
I pant and abruptly come with no warning. I throw my head back, but just like Shale says, I manage to keep all sounds trapped in my throat.
I cling to the wall, watching as a few sparkly-dressed people walk past. Ezy pauses in front of us and lifts a glass in a mocking salute.
Kelly leans in close and nuzzles my neck. “Round two.”