Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Dante
T his is one of the most fucking foolhardy things I’ve ever done. Coming down here. Shit . The girl gives off scent like crazy, and it’s hard to fucking think straight.
I’m still mad as fuck at Knight, but I’m beginning to understand the little prick. Because I’m both lying and telling Lizette the truth.
I’m glad because I need to question her.
But honestly, I wish to fuck she still was out for the count. Better yet, I wish she wasn’t here.
She’s too…disturbing.
The girl’s gorgeous with her sweetness of innocence that makes one soft and available and the last one’s exactly what I don’t want. I can’t release her, either. Not yet. Not until her fucking heat’s done and not until we get down to the ground about why she turned up at the club, of all places.
The mark…is something we need to work on, something that’s going to decide the extent of her freedom after her heat. But I do know if we let her go, she’ll be under close watch .
“Y-You must be Dante.”
“Did you come looking for the Trinity? That it? Figured your heat made you so fucking alluring we’d be yours to…what? Manipulate? Have us hand you information for the Council?”
She recoils, and I try to take shallow sips of air, to not breathe in her aroma. But it’s almost impossible because she’s everywhere, coating my skin, sliding down into me, wrapping around my fucking cock. There's a whisper to grab her by the hair and flip her so I can take her hard and deep and long while she’s on her knees and her ass is in the air.
That scent makes me want to mold her hot, wet cunt to my dick. I want to fill her with my seed. I want to take her in the hardest, longest, most mindless and satisfying rutting the world’s ever seen.
Never in my fucking misguided life have I ever wanted to do that. Just take her. No games. No fun denial torture. Just straight down and dirty fucking. The animalistic kind.
I meet her dark melting gaze, and from here I can see the mark Knight left.
She didn’t bite him. They didn’t rut.
Thank fuck.
All he did was be the lucky bastard to slide his fingers into her pussy.
Christ, he’s lucky I didn’t take his head off his shoulders when I caught him licking at his fingers later. Much later. Which meant he’d sucked her slick from them already and he still wanted seconds or thirds, or let’s face it, probably fifths.
Because her scent clung to him.
I breathe out heavily, keeping my gaze guarded, cold, unreadable. It’s taking everything I have not to claim her. Everything I have to keep the erection at bay.
His mark should lessen her appeal to me.
It doesn’t.
A part of me wonders if his mark heightened her allure, but that’s not how things work. But who knows. We’re not exactly a pack that follows the ‘rules.’
Lizette frowns, and though I know she hurts, and her eyes are getting fever-bright and pupils so wide the expression is a siren’s call of an invitation to smash myself against her rocks, I don’t give in. I don’t move.
“I asked you a question,” I say. “I expect an answer.”
“You think I want…this?” She throws back the covers and swings her feet over the side of the bed and runs a hand in the air along her body. “To be this? Feel this? Be reduced to fodder to basically be sold as a baby making machine?”
“That’s your choice. I don’t give a fuck. You do what you want. And as far from here as we can get you.”
Her eyes flash. “It’s easy, isn’t it, for you? Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” I ask.
“Turn me into the Council?”
I don’t reply immediately. My first instinct is to believe in her innocence, that she’s not a trap. But it’s fucking lust whispering to me, not common sense.
Common sense says flatly it’s one hell of a coincidence she turned up here. And I’m not sure how what Reaper found out fits in with her, but it does. Has to.
They were following her.
“Who’s Jake?” I ask.
Her expression turns mulish, and she shifts, half stands but her legs wobble and she sits, dress riding higher.
There are fading purple bruises to match the ones on her face and they tell me Knight was right. The fucker, Jake, tried to rape her. She’s just lucky he didn’t. And that he didn’t mark her, claim her, own her, tie her to him.
Or maybe she’s his honey pot for us? Who the fuck knows except for her, a dead man, and the missing Jake.
“Who the fuck is he?” I press.
“He told me he was gay.” She doesn’t look at me, but her cheeks tell the story of her shame as they turn red. The decent part of me, that small part, wants to tell her it’s not her fault.
I don’t.
“He got me a drink and?—”
“You gave him your number. Why?”
Her head snaps up. “Because he asked for it. And I didn’t give him mine. I put in the number of a pizza place I know. I’m not a total idiot.”
“Debatable.”
“I guess that makes you a dumbass who likes kidnapping girls.”
“No one kidnapped anyone, and Darcy’s been looking after you, right?”
“Darcy?” She frowns. “The blonde Valkyrie?”
It’s a pretty fucking apt description of Darcy. She could go anywhere, be anything, until she chose a pack, as long as she stayed within her own group to mate with. But with us, she has a special kind of freedom, one that doesn’t pin her down. One that allows her the forbidden—her relationship with Julien.
“She’s a gamma. They aren’t ever submissive to omegas.”
“I didn’t ask her to be. I didn’t ask for any of this, I just…” Lizette swallows, glances down, then meets my gaze again.
Innocent. The word rushes through me.
“Just thought you’d wander in Pandora while in heat.”
“Almost in heat,” she snaps. “I?—”
She stops, shakes her head.
I don’t push that line of questioning yet, but I will.
Her too-big dress has slipped off one shoulder, showing the black strap of her bra, her unsullied skin. I wonder what it would be like to tease her, leave her a quivering mess under the order not to come.
It’s about now, when I’m looking at a woman, usually a beta, or delta, I’d have her ready to do my bidding. Or, if I’m feeling like something rough and tumble and edged in danger, a gamma fighting me.
Reaper likes to play with gammas. He likes the challenge, the fight, the hunt. If he’s in the mood he’ll go for a beta, or occasionally a delta.
Now, Knight’s a delta and beta guy. His particular taste in play is that he wants a sub. Gammas don’t tend to want that.
The one thing we keep away from?
Fucking omegas.
I can have her flavor in others. Maybe not her particular scent and the way it curls in deep, but she’s weak, made to want to breed, and breeding is the last fucking thing on our agenda. Especially mine.
I don’t think she’s weak of mind, but she’ll have that omega subservience, the kind I’ve seen so many times in the females the Council mates with an approved alpha and his pack. Simply because they’re an omega.
And also I’ve seen them with the alpha pack that’s dirty and off the grid, the omega either bred or used. Some of them okay with it because that’s their role.
I digress.
She’s able to get into my blood because she’s in heat, and it’s worse now. Because before she was on that edge or just starting.
It’s full blown now, and her pheromones are thick and irresistible.
“You what?” I ask.
Her mouth clamps shut, and she shakes her head again.
“Nothing,” she finally mutters.
I put my foot down then raise the other. No way I'm moving from this wall or taking a step in her direction. Not right now. Not with that fucking mark on her. But I need what she knows.
Yeah, I’m being a masochistic ass by being in here, soaking her up. I could have sent in Julien who’s immune. The guy’s loyal, smart, happy in his relationship with Darcy. Fuck, I could send her back in, too.
She’s exactly the same.
But…
And there is a motherfucking but .
I need to be the person questioning her.
Need and want all mesh together in this room. Yeah, there’s want, but I also know I can’t trust Knight in here, not with her in heat, not with his mark on her.
And Reaper’s liable to scare the shit out of her. He can be…not the gentlest, but good at extracting information. He might be able to twist his depraved instincts into something slightly more benign, but he’ll scare her.
The reason I need to be the one is I’m the one who first saw her.
She recognizes me. My scent. My voice. On a base level, she recognizes me. Her lust strokes against my skin but I think I’m the one who can get her to talk.
If she has anything to talk about.
If she’s being manipulated, I’ll find that out, too.
Plus, I don’t want anyone else in here with her. Fuck that.
“Nothing?” I ask. “Nothing gets you fucking jack, you know it, right?”
“I’m not in any position to bargain. I’m your prisoner.” She fists her hands, notes her hiked up skirt and rubs it down her thighs to cover up. She doesn’t uncurl her fists. “Prisoner. One you drugged and tried to double drug. In a locked, windowless room with the threat that even if I get out, I won’t be able to get past you or your minions.”
“Not a threat. The truth. And my minions aren’t what you should worry about. My pack members are.”
“Knight?” The way she says it is a sharp twist in the heart. “I thought… Is he a delta?”
“There’s a reason we’re called the Unholy Trinity. Our pack has three alpha leaders. ”
She studies me for a moment. “And you’re the top dog leader of the alpha pack, that it?”
“We’re equal.”
“What’s the saying? Some are more equal than others?”
I nod slowly. “If you’re trying to stroke my ego, it’s not going to work, little omega.”
“You’re the Council. I don’t want to stroke anything to do with them.”
The bitterness, fear, and hate are real. The fear’s new, because it fits with someone who’s been out of their sight up until now. The letter…maybe it’s all real. But still, I look for cracks, for where her attempts at creating a truth don’t line up.
“I’ve got nothing to do with the fucking Council.” I offer a small, nasty smile. “Three alphas. No omega. Outside the fucking law. What do you have to do with the Council?”
She stands, a grimace of pain marring her face. But she raises her chin. Looks me dead in the eye.
I ignore the lack of respect deep inside. Why? Not sure. She intrigues me.
“Nothing. You turned me in. That’s how they found me,” she says.
“Your little cop friends did. I stopped them from arresting you.” I rake my gaze over her. “An act I’m starting to regret.”
“Dick.”
“Not my name and I do have one.”
“You turned me in. And now?—”
“Craig Edmonton?”
She recoils.
“Of course,” Lizette snaps, “you went through my things. Read the letter.”
“How did you manage to keep out of their reach now you’re in heat. It started, what? A year ago?”
“This city’s full of jobs where you don’t need registration.”
I smirk. “I’m aware.”
It’s the only type of person we employ. The girls who work the lower level and some of our other places, the men who bring in the stolen goods, deal in contraband—women, too—not one of those are registered, or they’re shunned. And some, according to Council records, are dead.
“Then—”
“Craig?”
She shudders this time. “Some old alpha the Council wants me to mate with.”
“You’d be queen of the pack.”
“He has mean eyes,” she says. “Cold. It’d be a loveless match.”
I scoff. Love? Is she really that naive?
“I thought…I thought I was shunned, but I’m not and now they expect me there next week.”
I nod. She can’t go. They can’t see the mark. “Will you go?”
“I… It’s not your business.”
It makes sense how she thought she was shunned, especially since they were off grid. Somehow Roth showed up on their systems when the idiotic cops handed over her name.
Our connection with the cops on something like this need to be handled right, and I’d personally prefer not to involve them. It’s not worth them getting caught. And if they turn…
“I’m not interested. Curious.” I shrug. “But what you do next with this Craig is up to you, Lizette.”
“Can I go?”
“You’re in fucking heat. Do you want me to spell out what might happen to you?” I say.
“Can I go?”
“No.”
Her father’s dead, and she’s protecting him. Or herself.
But the way she put that hat away and the photos…not to mention the little leaflet of the pauper’s funeral tells me it’s all about him. In death, she doesn’t want to give up anything that might seem like betrayal .
I go along the lines of things in my head. Every place I stop has a thousand possible outcomes or motivations.
Life isn’t cut and dried. It’s not simple. People do things that are muddied. Her love of her father might be pure, but her motivation might not be. His might not have been, either.
Fuck, he might not even have been the Elias Enver I knew.
Which brings me back to how an unregistered little omega managed to bestopped by idiotic cops who both didn't know what she was.
And— “Here’s one thing. When those cops grabbed you and I fucking rescued you, why didn’t you have fake papers? You have to have them. Anyone off grid or shunned has them. Because there are things that come up, things you need them for, even shitty housing wants something. You know there’s a curfew so?—”
“Because I don’t have any.” Her burst of words makes me stop, and I unfold my arms, running a hand through my too long hair before I fold them again.
I wait.
Silence stretches, and she finally says, “I didn’t need them. I didn’t have a reason for them until…until recently.”
“What happened?”
“Not your business,” she says, her voice catching. “Not anyone’s business.”
I change direction, toward the man, David, who Reaper killed for reasons I understand. He also said the book she has contains nothing but the names and info of old rebels and nobodies. His area of expertise, not mine.
“Who’s David Finch to you?” I ask.
She frowns. “Who?”
“He was outside your apartment last night. A friend of your Jake’s?”
“He’s not—” She stops. Glares. “I don’t know either man. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Then she looks down, takes half a step toward me before changing her mind and stopping. She finally looks at me. “At least not intentionally. The only stupid thing wrong I did was make a bad judgment call and go out for some drinks to take the edge off the heat. Because you…you motherfucker, it hurts .”
The raw edge of her voice slices into me but I ignore it.
“Okay. Then tell me this.”
“Tell you what?”
I give her a cold, blank look, one she steps back from.
And what I really want to do is stride over and throw her down, and fuck her so senseless she’s utterly mine.
She’s fucking witchcraft. She makes me want to do all the things I don’t. Corrupt her sweetness.
But I just keep that stark expression in place and stay where I am. Pressed into the fucking wall. Like a special kind of coward.
One who won’t risk trusting himself.
Coward? Or is that man who knows what, exactly, he’s capable of doing and is hanging on by a fraying thread to keep this side of control?
I’ll send someone for O-blockers. The best on the market. But first…
“Who’s Elias Enver?”
She goes still, but the expression is real. “I heard the name, but I haven’t met him.”
“But,” I say, “you have. Question is how the fuck did the Council know Elias Enver was Connor Roth? Your father.”