Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Dante
I t’s a cacophony of fury and something darker, far more savage in my fucking veins. “I said, what the fuck do you think you’re doing, Knight?”
I drag him off her, his fingers wet with her slick, the scent of her so fucking strong, so fucking good, I almost suck his fingers.
Screw that.
I want to throw her down in the dirt and rut her, knot, fucking fill her with my seed.
She’s basically in heat at this point and that’s what’s driving me crazy.
The girl has sunk down to the ground, and I think she’s humming because there’s the sweetest, softest sound as she folds around herself.
Yeah, she’s in full fucking heat and spinning out all kinds of signals an alpha finds hard to reject.
I get it. I get why Knight did what he did. My instincts are saying I want her, too .
It’s not happening.
I glare. “Basic fucking rule, Knight. Don’t fuck when they’re in heat. Don’t even touch. Find someone else. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Bite me, Dante.” He’s turned, face to the ground as he snarls.
Then he glances at me, eyes glittering.
Knight wipes his mouth like he’s trying to erase the evidence, but I smell them both in the air, almost like a song, like she’s got a power to make me pick up on him like I do her.
He goes to rise, but I put a booted foot on his chest. “I wouldn’t.”
Lifting it, I turn to her. I need to check her over, make sure she’s okay, that our fucked up Romeo hasn’t gone and done something he shouldn’t. As in made an irreversible mistake.
Once I see she’s fine, I can get rid of her. Last thing we need is a little omega sniffing around.
I know her name, but I don’t want to use it. “Are you okay, girl?”
Her head’s down, and she keeps it there.
“Look at me.”
The girl’s head lolls, her hair falling over her face, but I don’t miss the bruised mouth as she looks up. Fuck. I turn.
“What the fuck? Did you fucking hit her?”
Knight surges up, comes at me, and I down him with a punch.
“Fuck!” he snarls and rubs his jaw.
When he starts to get up again, I say, “Stay down.”
I use my alpha voice, and he doesn’t move for about five seconds, enough to get his shit together.
“You asshole,” Knight says, one of his hands grabbing at the ground as he half sits up.
His hair’s wild, the curls tangled both from my punch and her fingers.
A sharp, hot pain lances through me. But I don’t move, blocking her from him.
“Move, Dante.”
“Speak to me like that again, and I’ll make you wish for death.”
We glare at each other and then he lowers his gaze. We both know I’m not killing him.
Maybe I’ll rough him up some more, but killing him? Nah.
Especially not over a fucking girl.
“I didn’t hurt her. That prick sitting with her at the bar?” he says. “He did.”
I lean down over him. “Whatever they want to do, let them do it. She got fucking drunk. She clearly came here looking to scratch her little omega itch.” I lower my voice. “She might be a Council plant.”
“She isn’t.”
“You know this how? You’re somehow plugged into the net with your brain power?”
“No, you ass,” he says. “The dude drugged her and tried to rape her. I stopped him.”
I stare at Knight.
The guy’s young, wild, and sometimes he lets his unruliness out along with the chip on his shoulder. But he’s good. He fits. He’s not a raping asshole. He’s got a hero complex, so he’s not even a “coercing a girl” kind of guy.
Shit, he doesn’t have to be.
They fall all over themselves for him, over all of us, I guess, but the pussy he’s offered, he usually takes. And a lot of that’s young, early twenties pussy. The pussy attached to ideals and dreams, and melts like hot butter for him.
So, for him to be all over a drugged girl, even one who…yeah, okay, was getting off on him like sex had just been invented, is out of character.
Just like the whole evening .
Which makes me wonder if Reaper’s wrong and she’s got something to hide.
I’ll put this idiot on it. But first… “Get inside and send out Julien and Darcy. And open the basement door. Then get me everything on Lizette Roth.”
He opens his mouth, then shakes his head like he thinks better of speaking back. Knight gets to his feet and hightails it out of there.
I sigh, turning to the girl.
Her dress is hiked high and in the moonlight, her thighs catch a silvery gleam from her wetness. And…fuck. Her panties are twisted so pretty, wet pink petals show.
I’m not fucking touching her.
No way.
But I do use her name.
“Lizette?” I tug down her dress. “We’re going to put you up for the night, let you sleep it off.”
“I don’t…” Her voice is slurred and irritation and anger knife through me again.
Fucking Knight. He could have just kept his mouth and hands to himself. Drugged, drunk?—
“I don’t want to stay here,” she says, those mesmerizing eyes on me.
And they’re stunning, just like her.
Except, though they’re melting darkness, promising a night of sin, they’re also full of sadness, lust, longing, innocence and loneliness.
I take a deep breath. “Look?—”
“I’m tired and I hurt.”
“Everything good, boss?” Julien’s at the door, taking in the scenario before him.
I turn, right as Knight sidles back into the scene, hand at his mouth, gaze stormy and wearing a frown.
“Yeah,” I say. “We need to get her down to the private level. ”
Next to him, Darcy casts dark looks, first at me and then she settles on the culprit for this particular scenario. Culprit, savior, it weirdly works out to be the same thing.
She wants to say something, that’s clear, but even she knows her place—mostly.
All Darcy does is lean a hip against the wall, the music low, sultry around her as it seeps out.
“Can you do that, Darcy?” I press.
She tucks one of the long white-blonde locks behind her ear, on the side that isn’t buzz cut. And just raises a brow. “Maybe Knight should.”
“Maybe you need to learn your place,” Knight says.
Julien swings a look at his girl, then to me. “What do you need, boss?”
“I think,” Darcy says, “we defuse this. Knight and Julien go open the door, and I stay here with you.”
This is Darcy through and through. Utterly tough as nails and not above challenging us. It’s totally unacceptable gamma behavior.
Then again, it’s probably why we work.
“Do it.” I nod at Julien.
Knight’s scowl is something I feel burn deep into my flesh, but I ignore it. Just like I ignore the fact he was meant to unlock the fucking door earlier. All I do is flash him a look.
“I’ll get digging,” Knight mutters.
The two leave and Darcy helps Lizette up. “C’mon, kid, get it together.”
She runs a hand over Lizette, and I shove my hands in the pockets of my suit pants, turning away so they have a modicum of privacy. Voices murmur and I tune them out.
“She’s fine, but she’s already started her heat. You’re right, she should stay until morning. Or, let’s face it, until it’s over. She needs a safe space to ride it out.”
I don’t want Lizette to stay, I don’t want her here period, but I keep the thought to myself .
“What was the kid thinking?” Darcy mutters.
“He wasn’t.” I don’t point out that Darcy is younger than Knight. Shit, she’s probably only a handful of years older than Lizette. I pause, kicking at a rogue stone, trying not to breathe in Lizette’s scent. “And he’s your alpha, too. You don’t talk about him or any of us that way.”
“Yes. Sir.”
My mouth twitches but I fight the smile. “One night, then we take her home in the a.m. Full-service delivery with a warning to stay the fuck away.”
I turn back to her, and she gives me a mock salute. “Julien and I will get to it before dawn breaks.”
“Thanks.”
Further down the alley, there’s a clang and another door opens. It’s well-oiled, and bolted from the inside. The route is for clandestine and highly illegal meetups, and for us to come and go when we don’t want anyone who might be watching to see us go. Julien pokes his head out.
And I head for the main door. “Put her in the suite, and then lock the door and get back to your posts. I’ll be down when I’m ready.”
By tomorrow, this is going to be nothing more than a nightmare ready to be forgotten.
Precautions. A new moon. Another fucking night. Life on the cutting edge of society. Take your fucking pick. But with everything going well from this vantage point, where I like to keep an eye on things—the club on the floor below isn’t open tonight, thank fuck—I take her bag from the bartender and go to my office.
Knight’s door is closed, which makes me roll my eyes to the ceiling .
I get it. She’s phenomenal in her scent. And he’s young enough to make mistakes.
Or, considering he’s actually early thirties, he’s lucky to have us to guide him from making the mistakes an alpha’s dick might get them into.
Until now.
I stare at her bag. Cheap leather. Old. Well-used from the worn creases and the softness. Yet I’m loath to open it up and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s the hat that sits in there. It is clear the thing’s beyond personal to her. I don’t want to tie myself anymore to the situation than I am—than we are. Right now, we have a girl who’s in heat, one who stirs the blood, and one who’s in no state to go home by herself tonight.
Or maybe it’s just her and everything she represents.
Innocent or complicit, I do know she’s been untouched. As untouched as a girl can be before Knight finger fucked her.
I suck in a breath.
Reaper’s poking into things, and between him and Knight, we’ll get a good picture of her. But banning her from coming near our places should be enough.
Girls like her will be mated within the year.
Something claws into me, deep.
“Get it together,” I say as I empty her bag.
Hat, makeup, wallet. Odds and ends that I assume women carry with them.
But it’s got a heavy base that most wouldn’t think twice about.
Except smuggling small things is part of our business and secret compartments are a must.
A bag this cheap should be light now it’s empty. Even taking in the base.
I feel around inside. It takes a little longer than I’d like to find the hidden zipper, which tells me this is a custom piece, made to appear cheap, and made to smuggle. I undo it and take out the contents.
A tablet I can’t open without a thumb or fingerprint. An old-fashioned, worn book full of names, numbers. The writing’s basically chicken scratches in notes and dates jotted down like little reminders from over the years.
Chicken scratches, that is, until I reach the names and numbers. They’re written legibly.
Important?
Next are polaroids of Lizette and her dad. And he really does look like the man who saved my ass, along with Reaper’s, almost twenty years ago.
There’s money, wrapped in a band. Not crisp and new, but old, like it’s been painstakingly saved.
It’s a piteously low amount.
There’s an external hard drive I set aside, and some jewelry. Simple, old and not expensive. I won’t say cheap because the simplicity brings it class, but there aren’t any expensive stones.
I pull out one more thing.
A letter.
From the Council.
I unfold the contents from the envelope, scanning my gaze across the note.
“Ah, fuck.”
“Here.” I don’t bother knocking.
Knight spins in his chair, cockiness back in place. The kind of cocky that always makes me suspicious. Because it’s the cocky he pulls out when he might have done something he shouldn’t have.
“I’ve gotta door, Dante. Right there. You can knock. And everything.”
I shove the hard drive and tablet at him, then settle back against the wall and fold my arms. “See what you can find on those.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
“Cut the bullshit, Knight.” I eye him carefully. “We both know you fucked up.”
He swallows and nods. “That tasty morsel is hard to resist. Especially when she rubs her cunt on you, kisses you, and demands you touch her.”
“Well, glad to hear she’s a villain and you’re the innocent one in this scenario.”
He plugs in the hard drive then looks at me. “I didn’t say I was innocent. I said she’s hard to resist when she’s begging.”
“And you’re meant to be better than that. A girl like her is worse than jailbait. Fuck, she’s Council bait.”
“She’s clean.”
I straighten. “You found something?”
“No, and that’s the point.”
I pull the letter from my pocket and hand it to him. Knight frowns. “He’s like a million years old.”
“That’s what you focus on?”
He waves the paper. “It’s a standard fucking letter, man.”
Frustration rolls over me. “You say she’s clean. How?”
“Clean as in no real history. She’s not registered.” He meets my gaze. “The Council catches the ones who try to live outside their rules. That’s what the letter is.”
“The girl’s trouble.”
“Oh, she’s trouble, all right,” Darcy says behind me. “Dante, come with me.”
I follow her and she takes me into the room with the girl who’s curled up, eyes closed, a blanket over her. There’s an empty glass next to her, and I’m willing to bet Darcy gave her something to sleep.
“Yeah, we have a temporary problem,” I reply .
“She’s out until dawn. But look.” Darcy flips her hair from the girl’s throat and I see it—the indent of teeth. A binding mark.
Fury hits, searing me.
“Oh, fuck me.” I stalk out of the room. Darcy follows hard behind me.
I put my hands flat on the wall and force myself to breathe into calm.
“Dante?”
“Yeah?”
“I locked the door. Here.” Darcy holds out the key and I take it, pocketing it.
“Go back to work. I’ll handle this.”
I return to Knight’s quarters.
He’s completely fucking still. And he’s staring at the computer screen in front of him.
“Just family photos on the hard drive. Cracked the tablet’s password, but it’s all up and up. No secret contents, and?—”
“Knight.” I say his name softly.
He nods slowly, my deadly note more than registering with him.
“What the fuck did you do? I’m going to assume it was you.”
“What do you mean, Dante?”
I take a breath. “Jesus. You knew,” I say, “we couldn’t have an omega here. It’s dangerous. To us. She’s a virgin. How could you be so stupid?”
“It might take a while to go through everything again, and?—”
I grab Knight, hauling him up, and into the wall. “Got something to say? If so, I suggest you do it now.”
The slide of his gaze gives him away, even as he says, “No.”
“Bullshit.”
“Dante— ”
“Congratulations,” I say. “The omega isn’t going anywhere. Do you know why?”
“I might.” Knight pulls free. “Fuck.”
“I hope not. I hope to hell you didn’t manage to somehow fuck her, too.”
“Dante, listen.”
“You bit her. Marked her. Know what that means? She’s not going anywhere until we can work out what the fuck to do.”