21. Honey
Honey
It wasn’t what I wanted.
Their cocks inside me was not my choice.
But I sinned with them. I am guilty of the unclean act just as much as they are.
I could have fought back. I should have fought back to stop from sinning, more than I already did during my impure time.
But at the same time, the tome and teachings aren’t clear. I am to obey all alphas. But I am not to sin. I should not resist an alpha’s orders. But was that what it was? Were they ordering me to partake, or was I complacent, which was in itself a form of saying yes?
They’re sleeping now. Curled up in bed together while I sit with my knees hugged to my chest in the same chair they took me in. I want to nestle in and join them. It might not have been what I wanted, but parts of them are so good and so . . . right.
It wouldn’t be a sin if they were my alphas.
But do I want that? Don’t I want this? The four of us together. Lazarus, Zephyr, Phoenix, and me . . . It could be good. It’s all so confusing.
The light comes on by the elevator, and I hold my breath in anticipation of who will walk through the door. Will it be Lazarus, Revenant, or Fox? Or someone I don’t know? I get the feeling that there are many people in this compound.
Should I wake Zephyr and Phoenix?
Time stands still, and I straighten the top I was given. I can’t do anything about their scents all over me. Anyone will know what we did together. My cheeks flame hot at that thought.
The door slides open, and it’s Lazarus. His hands clasped together before him, he steps out and walks toward this end of the hallway, where the omega ‘nests,’ as the twins called them, are.
“I should have known that they could not be trusted.” His voice is low with thick gravel, and it sends a shiver down my spine. Brows furrowed, he looks me over consideringly. “Are you physically injured?”
Afraid to speak, the weight of whatever he’s putting in his words crushing me, I shake my head.
“Come, Honey. It’s nearly time to talk to Revenant.” Lazarus offers his hand out to me. And when I place my hand in his, he helps me out of the chair.
A stiff tenderness between my legs causes me to step in what feels like an unnatural way, and my legs are sticky. Quietly, to not wake the twins, I fight through it. Willing my body to behave, my legs to walk, and my heart to beat without the fervent pace it’s chosen is incredibly difficult.
Lazarus doesn’t let go of my hand. He’s not dragging me, not forcing me to go with him. Instead, it’s a steady pressure of reassurance that soothes the ragged parts of my mind.
We’re in the elevator before I find my voice. “I did not ask them to . . .”
“I know, Omega. None of which has happened to you is your fault. God will know your intentions are true.” He comforts me with words alone.
“But do you?” I look at where our hands are joined, then follow the long dark sleeve of his shirt up to his shoulder, then his neck, before landing on his face. Despite Lazarus not touching me during my impure time, I’m drawn to him in a way unlike with the twins.
Lazarus does the same, and we’re suddenly locked eye to eye.
“You should have no concern over my belief. It is not for me to cast judgment. No alpha should.” His words fit the tome more than they fit that of the apostle’s teachings.
The elevator stops at the ground floor, and Lazarus pulls away, his hand slipping from mine. I clench it into a fist, missing the connection to someone else. I follow him across the elevator threshold and into the hallway.
He pauses momentarily, pulling his phone out of his pocket and looking at the screen. I’ve always wondered what people do with the screens of phones. The apostles said they were temptation devices and that only apostles and disciples could use them. They’re not for omegas who could be corrupted.
“There is time if you wish to bathe before the meeting.” Lazarus doesn’t look up.
“That would be pleasant.” I can’t disagree. The stickiness of the fluids Phoenix left behind coats my legs.
“I’ll take you to the apartment and then fetch you some clothes.”
Lazarus is so formal, like the elder alphas with the House of Apostles. But nothing about him is wicked in the way Apostle Clement was.
I was allowed twenty minutes to clean and dress, so I did as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Then Lazarus led me from the safety of the apartment I’ve become familiar with. With my wet hair braided and hanging down my back, I try to observe my surroundings as we walk.
The building is clean but a little worn out, in a well-lived-in but cared-for way. Such as a favorite dress that you pray lasts one more season.
Once we’re back in the office I was first brought to, where I met the twins and felt safe for the first time in a long time, the mood changes. It’s heavy and dark, shadows taking up residence in the room, making it darker than even the apartment.
Revenant, the club president and leader of the group, sits across from me. His hands are clasped, resting on the desk.
A massive alpha who goes by Mayhem, introduced as Revenant’s and Fox’s mate, stands behind him with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
Fox, the doctor and brother to the twins, sits in the chair adjacent to mine.
Behind me, just out of my line of sight, I know that Lazarus is standing.
Revenant is supposed to be the only one I’m to trust with this information.
Information I was supposed to disclose when I first got here, but it was forgotten with the rise of my impure cycle.
The words the other omega said are so clear in my mind right now.
But Revenant swears these are his trusted people and that it’s okay to talk to them.
I have no choice but to believe what he says.
“You found us and know our secrets about the bunker and other omegas. How did you come to find us, Omega?” Revenant’s words are full of suspicion. They pitch with a questioning tone but also hold a deep undercurrent of a potential threat.
I fight to stay strong under his gaze.
“I was in the sequestering room. They brought another omega into the room and left her there with me. She told me how to get here. I was to go north to Hod’s Landing and the Night Wraith’s compound.
She said that they would have a horse with too many legs riding east as a symbol.
Slep . . . something.” I draw a steadying breath, trying to cut down the rambling, but my chest is tight, and I wish for half the comfort I felt with Zephyr and Phoenix to get me through this questioning.
“Sleipnir.” Mayhem provides that word again.
It sounds right, and I nod.
“So this mysterious omega told you where to find us. What else did she say?” Revenant encourages me with a roll of one hand.
“I should only talk to you. She didn’t know who could be trusted.” I look at the other three men in the room for the third time.
“My mates would never double-cross me. They fear our omega too much.” Revenant winks at me, and it eases some of my suspicion. “As for Lazarus, it is important to have him here since you two share a connection with the House of Apostles.”
I don’t argue with him. “She wouldn’t tell me her name, but she said if I told you she was the .
. .” The word escapes my brain. I try hard to bring it back.
“It was a word like Sleipnir, unknown to me. I asked her what it meant, and she clarified that she was that thing. It was clear that she thought you’d know what it meant. She said she was counting on you.”
A deep line forms in Revenant’s brow. He narrows his eyes at me, like if he looks hard enough, he can pull the memory out of my head and witness it for himself.
“Sphinx,” Lazarus says from behind me in his beautiful, deep voice.
I look over my shoulder to Lazarus and nod before turning back to Revenant. “That. Sphinx.”
Revenant sits back in his chair. He drags his hands across the clean desk before raising one to cover his mouth.
Silent seconds tick by as he looks me over.
He speaks slowly. “What did she look like?”
“She was ill.” Do I tell them I thought she was dying? I chew my bottom lip and look over my shoulder to Lazarus, but he’s void of any sort of encouragement. “I could tell they had dyed her hair black. She had fair skin, and her eyes were pale blue or gray.”
Thinking back to her, the sequestering room, and how ill she was, I shiver.
Tears threaten to fall from my eyes, and I have to grip my legs to stop myself from curling up into a ball.
I try to focus on the feeling of the fabric beneath my fingers.
The knit material of the pants that Zephyr gave me is smooth, but it doesn’t calm me.
“That could have been Iona.” Revenant’s voice is growly, and I feel pushed back in my chair by it. “Where were you, Omega?”
“The people who came to the compound one time said they were from Barren Lake County. I remember seeing the sign Barren Lake County Thanks You for Visiting. Then the next sign said Welcome to Hammock County.” I swallow hard, trying not to cry, but for whatever reason, emotions are getting the better of me.
I look to Lazarus again, hoping for some reassurance that it’ll all be okay.
He raises an eyebrow, and the conversation from just after my impure time resurfaces. I need to ask to be sent away. He doesn’t want me. He’s not comforting me because he doesn’t want me here.
“What else can you tell us about where you’re from? Did the omega say anything else?” Mayhem places a hand on Revenant’s shoulder.
“We spent two days together. She said they were planning to bring other omegas there and that I was their only hope. I needed to come find you so that you could save the omegas when they got there.” I try to summarize concisely and push a little harder into my memory.
“She said that she’s seen all this before.
That they’re bringing in omegas for use and sale.
I told her that didn’t make sense. The apostles would never give up an omega.
She laughed. But it was true. I swear. Until her, there weren’t any new omegas who didn’t come with their families. Where would the omegas come from?”
“Laz?” Revenant looks past me.
“I believe both can be true. The idea was young when I was —” his pause like he’s searching for words hangs in the air — “removed. If more omegas could be brought to the house, then there would be no more packs. One dis — alpha to one omega. Perhaps, bringing in Iona, and other omegas after Honey left, is the beginning of this new order.”
Revenant’s eyes go wide as he asks, “How would one alpha ever be able to handle an omega’s heat? There’s a reason alphas outnumber omegas.”
No answer finds its way into the room.
Mayhem redirects the conversation. “What can you tell us about how they’re bringing the omegas in?”
“I don’t know anything about that.” I shake my head, feeling small under the weight of their gazes. “I was kept in the sequestering room a lot. The apostles felt I needed quieting, and because I was promised to an apostle, they wanted me pure.”
Pure. That word tortures my insides. I’m anything but now. My first experience escaping the sequestering is exactly why they were locking me away. I proved them right.
A warm hand rests on my shoulder. I look and find it’s Lazarus.
He draws my gaze up to meet his eye. “Purity is not in the tome. It is designed by the apostle and the apostles. It is their doctrine, not God’s law.”
“We have to go there. Let’s get a raiding party together. We can call in the sister chapters to send people.” Revenant looks to Fox and then to Mayhem.
Fox drums his fingers on the desk, and it’s as if a silent conversation is happening between the three of them that Lazarus and I are left out of. Are they reading each other’s minds?
“He’s right,” Mayhem says aloud. “We don’t know what sort of weaponry they have. We don’t know what safety precautions they are taking. Reconnaissance is the best bet right now.”
“They may have Iona,” Revenant growls.
“We’ll get her back,” Mayhem growls back. “But we can’t risk her and anyone else’s lives in the process.”
“They’ll be heavily armed.” Lazarus steps in. “They believe that God is on their side and that it will be his will if they live or die.”
“Reckless and stupid with firepower. That won’t go well if we don’t know for sure what we’re walking into.” Mayhem tries to be reasonable.
“Each apostle uses a weapon now.” I try to be more helpful. “They started that before I ran. They practice with them weekly. We heard the noise. The omega said the guns they were using were automated?”
“Automatic?” Lazarus offers.
“That.” I nod, looking at where we’re still joined. His hand is comforting on my shoulder.
“How many apostles are there?” Lazarus asks.
I start running through the list in my head, names and faces, and try to count them. “There are twenty-seven, no, twenty-eight.”
“Round to thirty to be safe.” Revenant pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I wonder if Techno could find the compound on a map. We’d have a layout of the buildings at least.”
“That could take time.” Mayhem paces slightly. “We need to go before then. If we’re doing surveillance, it’ll be better done in person. A layout of the buildings doesn’t mean much if we don’t—”
Lazarus clears his throat. “Honey can tell us which buildings they are using and what for. Assuming it is the same compound I was familiar with, it should be quite easy to navigate.”
“I escaped through the grassy part of the cow pasture.” I try to explain. “They bought more land for the cows, and the fences aren’t as strong. The apostles all pray in the afternoons. It’s when the omega said my best chance to get away was.”
“Could you draw a map of the buildings?” Lazarus’s suggestion that I help feels so big and important.
I nod, and soon paper and pencils are laid out for me on the desk.