Chapter 30
Mirabelle
Rowan’s been in a terrible mood all day.
I keep on finding him furiously tapping away on his phone before shoving it into his pocket when he realizes I’m watching him.
“Are you worried about the fight tonight?” I murmur softly, perching myself on the couch cushion beside him.
His shoulders are tense and he’s radiating the frustration that would suffocate to be around if he were an alpha.
“Something like that,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face before trying to relax his expression. “You have nothing to worry about though. We’re gonna go out and win. Your job is to sit pretty and stay here.”
I nod slowly, picking at my cuticles.
It’s been a couple weeks since the last fight and I still haven’t been able to get the flashes of violence from that night out of my head. They’ve worked their way into my dreams. Sometimes I’ll wake up to Rowan shaking my shoulder and telling me it’s not real.
But it was real.
I watched it happen with my own two eyes.
I’m not sure why I’m so bothered by that fight night. It wasn’t like that was my first experience with violence. I watched Jett beat Rowan into the floor, and even though it was terrifying, there was just something about watching my alphas fight that’s stuck with me.
Maybe it’s because that was the first showcase I’ve seen of why the label “feral” is used to describe them. The kind of violence that occurred in that ring was different than the sadistic beatings Jett is fond of.
There’s an animalistic, uncontrollable, overwhelmingly vicious air to those fight nights.
“I know we’ll be gone for the entire weekend since this is a bigger showcase.
They moved it out of town since some Northsiders were apparently sniffing around some of the other locations used, but you have enough food to last you the week,” Rowan continues after it’s clear that I’m not going to fill the silence between us. “I got you extra alfredo.”
“Thank you.” I offer him a smile that’s a little tight around the edges. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, Sugar,” he says with a sigh, standing from the couch.
“Make sure the guys are okay,” I call after him as he picks up his backpack.
“I will. They’ll come back in one piece, promise. You stay out of trouble here too, ‘kay? I know you wouldn’t cause any, but you should probably stay inside.”
“I know.”
“Ah, that reminds me, I have a gift for you.”
Rowan digs in his backpack and pulls out box about the length of my arm.
I take it tentatively, peering down at it.
“Go ahead and open it for me, I want to see if you like it before I have to leave.”
I open the box to reveal an art kit full of different color pencils, oil pastels, and paints. There’s also a sketch pad.
“I know you’re going to be cooped up in here for a while, so I thought I’d try and give you something to keep you from getting bored. Maybe you can get good at painting clouds, since you always seem to stare at ‘em.”
“This is... for me?” I ask, my bottom lip wobbling as I clutch the art supplies to my chest.
“’Course it is, Sugar. Who else would it be for? I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.”
“I—I don’t know if I do either,” I say, letting out a small huff of laughter. “I’ve never tried this kind of thing before.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
I set the sketchpad and art kit down beside me before launching upwards and throwing my arms around him.
“Thank you,” I whisper, pressing my cheek into his neck, scent marking him.
“You’re welcome, Sugar. I’ve gotta go now.”
“Okay,” I say, my arms tightening for a split second before I find the courage to let him go.
He hefts his backpack over his shoulder and gives me a two-finger salute.
“Stay safe!” I call after him.
If only I knew I was the one in danger.
It’s been eighteen hours since Rowan left yesterday afternoon. I’ve counted every one. Well, at least the ones I’ve been awake for.
The microwave beeps, signaling my microwave mini pancakes are done and I make my way over to it with a yawn.
This place was far too quiet.
I don’t like being alone. It reminds me far too much of my time at the facility.
Sometimes, as punishment, we’d be locked away in our rooms with no contact with anyone other than one of the handlers dropping off our bland meals silently.
That kind of boredom, locked away in a cold sterile room with only a cot and a single scratchy blanket and thin pillow was torture.
Now that I have my nest all put together in Rowan’s bedroom, I’m starting to realize that the boredom wasn’t the only form of torture we experienced at that facility. I never could’ve dreamed the kind of comfort that could be found in things like nests.
My heart leaps to my chest when I hear the sound of an ATV engine. The loud noise cuts off. Right in front of Rowan’s door.
Is that Rowan?
No, it can’t be. He said he’d be gone all weekend. It’s only been one night.
Did something go wrong?
The sound of keys jingling in the lock freezes me in place. Multiple keys. All of them wrong.
Someone is trying to get in here. Rowan wouldn’t try to use multiple of the wrong keys.
“Fuck this,” A voice mutters from through the door.
The mini pancake turns into cement in my throat.
Jett’s voice.
What is he doing here? He was supposed to be at the fight with Rowan.
“Omega, if you know what’s good for you, open this door.” Jett’s barked command hits me like a sledgehammer to the skull, even through the door.
The chair scrapes backwards as my body moves on its own to fulfill the order.
No, no, no, no, no! What is he going to do to me?
Rowan isn’t going to be here for another couple days!
I’ll be at Jett’s mercy.
My brain feels like it’s being squeezed so hard I’m worried it’s going to pop the more that I fight the bark, my feet dragging slowly along the floor.
“Hurry the fuck up,” Jett snarls, banging on the door.
My hands tremble as I reach up and unlock the deadbolt. The moment Jett hears the lock slide out of place, he’s pushing the door open and sending me stumbling back.
“Ahhh, alone at last,” he says, his lips spreading into a maniacal grin.
I’m shaking like a leaf, both from the effect of his bark and dominance wreaking havoc on my omega senses but also because he’s terrifying.
I’ve seen so little of him recently that I’ve forgotten just how sadistic he is.
“What—what are you doing here?” I shuffle backwards until my hip bumps into the small dining table, sending a couple of the color pencils I was using on a basic colored sketch of the view of the sunrise rolling off the table and onto the floor. “What do you want with me?”
“Awful chatty this morning, ain’t ya?” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a remote, waving it menacingly. “Thought my brother trained you better than to talk back and ask questions.”
My mouth clamps shut at the sight of the remote, my hands flying up to touch the collar that I forget about most of the time.
The only time it gets in the way are during my showers, but even then, I’d take nice hot warm showers with a collar on than the kinds of showers I was forced to take back at the facility.
“That shitstain never fucking leaves you alone,” Jett grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Even with this weekend, the guy threw such a big fit, insisting on me coming.”
For good reason. Rowan probably knew his brother would pull something like this.
“Rowan—Rowan is in charge of me,” I whisper softly. “You—you’re not allowed—“
He presses the button on the remote, cutting off my words as the shock from the collar shoots its way up into my brain and down my chest. A strangled scream is torn from my throat as I fall to my knees as it just keeps on shocking me.
It feels endless.
Tears stream down my cheeks and between the indescribable pain and my strangled cries, I can’t breathe.
Through the ringing in my ears, I hear Jett’s taunting laughter.
Just as suddenly as the shock started, it stops, leaving me a gasping mess on the floor, on my hands and knees.
Jett leans down, gripping my long hair in a painful hold and using it to haul me up.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, omega,” he spits, saliva spraying from his hissed words and onto my face. I fight the urge to wipe it off. My body and mind seem to reject the thought of anything that can be remotely perceived as a claim.
I’m not his.
I already belong to someone.
Four someones to be exact.
“I’ll have you know I had Daddy Dearest sign off on all my plans. Which means, you’re mine. We’re almost out of the booster and it’s your turn to produce like the little golden goose you are.”
He bites the plastic cap off of the autoinjector before grinning maniacally down and slamming it into my arm.
A started gasp leaves my throat, still hoarse from the shock and my screams.
“What—what did you—“ My words are cut off again, this time, not by a shock, but by a nauseating wave of heat through my veins.
It radiates out from my arm and through my body, marching its way through my veins with every beat of my heart.
I claw at my arm, my nails digging into the pale flesh as I try and dig it out.
I can’t do this.
No. This isn’t happening right now.
This can’t be happening.
All I seem to do is irritate the injection sight, my nails breaking the skin and drawing blood.
“Damn, no wonder they apparently had you bitches in restraints back at the facility.” Jett grabs my wrists and pins them in a painful grip that has my bones grinding against each other.
“Thought it was ‘cause the people in charge were kinky motherfuckers, but maybe they had a point about you guys hurting yourselves. Lucky for you, I have everything all set up for you.”
“Set—set up?” I pant, a whimper leaving my throat as he hauls me to my feet.
The burning heat is making its way lower and lower on my body, working its way past my ribs and down my stomach.
It makes all of me feel like a raw, open nerve. Every touch, every sensation is heightened, narrowed into a singleminded focus.