Chapter Three
Marcus
The petite omega wearing layers of filthy clothes stared at me like I was an angel from heaven, eyes wide with awe.
Gordon spoke and told me the creature was simple, but intelligence lay in those bright, pink eyes of his.
Skin pale as milk and hair just as shimmering like diamonds peered at me from the brim of a dirt-caked hooded sweatshirt more patch than cloth at that point.
So, when Gordon decided he’d earned a beating, I couldn’t help but step in and have the boy sent away. Nobody deserved that, at least not an omega. A dragon would never treat their omegas with such disdain.
Throwback, he’d called the albino omega. Couldn’t shift. Poor boy. I’d stop by to check on him once I was finished with Gordon, I promised myself. See for myself if he was simple.
I hated that term. Measuring someone’s worth by the hand they were dealt in life. And mute? It wasn’t uncommon for there to be flaws with an albino shifter. Some were deaf or blind.
After thirty minutes or so of talking with the alpha, I’d gotten precisely nowhere. He promised he’d try real hard to keep his business under control, despite the urgency I impressed upon him to stop making drugs! It wouldn’t happen.
The place would be better off burned to the ground.
“Besides, I gotta do something to get my ten g’s back, or the clowder won’t have no food for the next few months.” As if ten thousand dollars was anything. If anything, it was pocket change to dragons and embarrassing that they’d stooped so low for change.
I grunted. “Then, I’ll just have to come back again.”
I dismissed myself from the alpha’s presence and made my way through the village without even so much as an escort.
On my way through, I followed the trail the albino had gone. Whisper, the alpha had called him, and I wondered what sort of name it was. His real name or one of their silly nicknames.
As I made my way back that direction, the scent of lust and filthy bodies hit me in the cold like a slap, and my dragon inside me roared in offense. How dare you!
How dare I not be the one getting laid? I thought to my dragon and earned a snort of flame.
Someone was touching what my dragon thought belonged to him, and as a dirty alpha slid from the door of what appeared to be a utility shed, tucking his dick back into his pants, I spied a withdrawn Whisper standing not too far behind next to a stack of pallets covered in egg crate foam and dirty blankets, a twenty-dollar bill clutched in his fist. The expression on his face was painful to see, disgust, but delight, as if he’d done something particularly foul but earned a reward.
A growl curled in my throat, and the alpha stared at me with wild eyes before stepping back. “Sorry, man. You can have a turn if you want! Didn’t know anyone was waiting.”
He ran, and a pit sank deep in my gut as the omega within, Whisper, stared back to me, his pink eyes full of curiosity, unease, and a willingness to submit.
“A turn?” I forced myself to ask, and with a shaking hand, the omega held up his fisted hand, the money peeking from the top.
For twenty dollars, I could have the alpha’s sloppy seconds…
I saw red. Violent rage burned within me, and fire flicked from my nostrils in a way that sent Whisper tumbling back.
He threw the money down and climbed atop his bed, waving his hands as if to tell me I could have the money.
Then he pointed to himself and started unbuttoning his pants, and I stormed in, my nose assaulted with body odor, weak rut, and not even a hint of omega arousal.
He’d done it and not even liked it. I put my hand on the poor guy’s scrambling fingers and shook my head to tell him to stop.
Tears welled in Whisper’s bunny-pink eyes, wind-chapped pink nose cracked and a little rough.
“I’m not going to… No. Keep your clothes on.” I held up a reassuring hand and backed away.
The thought disgusted me, and the alpha from before spoke from the doorway. “What’s your problem, man? Either fuck Whisper and get on, or let him get back to his work. He’s got shit to do, ’specially after that fire.”
“Go get Gordon,” I snarled over my shoulder.
A squeak of protest died over the omega’s lips, but I was too angry to focus.
I stood in place, my vision going red at the edges, sending the frantic male into trembles of fear.
He took one step back then another, the backs of his legs hitting the sad excuse of his nest as he flopped back, fragile boards creaking.
“Omega,” I said with as much calm as I could muster. My dragon snarled and screamed in my head at the injustice and wrongness of what I’d been forced to witness.
“What’s all this shit about?” Gordon’s nasally voice rang out amid his staggered steps, the gait unpredictable and erratic, something my dragon equated to injury or mental ineptitude, the kind only years of substance abuse could guarantee.
I turned away from Whisper’s cowering form as he drew back, the fear in his eyes magnifying at the sight of the alpha, scared more of that old tomcat than he was me. “What’s this one’s story?”
“Told you a’fore. Born dumb, don’t talk. We keep him around to dig shitters and muck about, burn trash.” Gordon shrugged. “And if he wants a little cash—well…”
Gordon’s gaze migrated to a nearly spent tub of petroleum jelly on an upended crate. A hot ringing sound roared in my ears, and every fiber of my being trembled. “You do not pay him for his labor?”
“He gets a place to live. He wants food and anything else? That’s for him to earn the hard way.” Gordon snorted, and I glanced from him to Whisper, who bunched up tighter, knees tucked. “Why, you want him?”
I couldn’t explain why. I did. I wanted the creature in my hoard, tucked away safely from the world. I wanted to see him dressed in new clothes, clean, hair cut in something flattering, not the filthy mop that stuck up at odd choppy angles over his head. “Thought he might like some work, is all.”
I turned my head from the cowering male, keeping my face carefully blank. Gordon rubbed the back of his neck with a sneer. “Y’all live over the ridge yonder, right? The watch towers?”
I nodded.
“Awful far for some’n to drive the idjit.” Gordon bobbed his head from side to side. “How about n’stead of giving him a job. How bouts I just sell him to ya?” That awful, crooked-toothed smile twisted his wicked lips.
A hoarse noise broke Whisper’s silence, and I glanced over my shoulder.
The expression on his face twisted in confusion, disbelief, still stinking of fear.
I wanted to wash that off him completely.
My precious kitty needed a bath, a warm spot by my hearth, bathing in my fire, pale skin soaking up every lick of my flame.
The way I craved it had an urgent passion behind it, but no arousal flickered within me.
For that, my dragon had no desire. He wanted to own a rare treasure.
Gordon’s upper lip twitched, nostrils flaring as if he were sniffing me out. “You wanna buy or rent?”
“What’s the price on either side?” I rolled my eyes and waited.
“Five hundred a month, cash to rent.” Gordon picked his teeth and stared me down, and my face must have twisted unpleasantly. “Or I’m askin’ too much. Four hundred?”
“And to buy?” I glanced toward the horrified shifter once more and back.
“Already got a bid on buying him for spring. If you can beat out what the Rockies clowder put on him—” Gordon licked his lips, desperation stinking from him. “They offered me six thousand.”
He was lying. There was truth in it, but he’d been offered less. My dragon could smell desperation, urgency. That ten thousand was going to end them.
“And if I want to put all the money in your account, right now?” I leaned against a doorway.
“Ain’t got no accounts. Would want the cash up front.
” A few gathering bobcats gathered nearby stared into the open door, hunger in their eyes, but whether for cash or Whisper, I was uncertain.
“Less interest, ’n all that. And I’d have to call up and tell them Rockies boys and tell them that Whisper ain’t for sell no more. ”
“A number, or I’m leaving.” I took a step toward the door, and a silent puff of breath made the hairs on my arms lift, as if Whisper wanted to leave. “I don’t have time, and the council can send me many omegas wishing to work in a dragon’s hoard.”
I hated to upset the omega, but I pushed Gordon aside, and he flustered his hands out, stammering. “Seven thousand!”
I glanced over, brow furrowed.
He waved his hands again. “Six-five?”
I huffed as if the number pained me, and I nodded once. “Pack his things. Have him ready. I’ll return with cash, and he’s not to be touched. He reeks of bobcat rut enough as is. Fuck with him and I half the price.”
Gordon stammered for a minute and offered a grubby hand for a shake. “You have yourself a deal. When will you be back?”
“An hour.” I turned and stared down the omega. “Any funny business and I burn every building here down and call the council. I don’t play games.”
The calculation in the alpha’s sunken eyes froze behind thinning lashes as I shoved completely out and took a few running strides before leaping skyward in a shift, my form stretching, blossoming, and unfolding into my dark-scaled form.
Six thousand five hundred dollars was so little compared to the joy I would get at seeing the male snuggled up on my hearth.
I had to move fast because Gordon wasn’t smart, and the longer I waited, the more balls he’d grow.
I just had to hope nobody stopped me on my way. Even I couldn’t explain what I was about to do.