Chapter 26
“Fenrir Snow’s body is providing a lot of useful material,” Fiora’s slightly manic tone came through the earbud attachment of Oberon’s multi-slate and he sighed, laying an air of boredom on thick.
“I told you not to bother me with trivial matters,” he said from his perch in the private box overlooking the main stage of the auction house.
The auction was set to begin within the next ten minutes, a full sale purchase one this time, with a mixture of alphas and omegas up for grabs.
He strummed his fingers on his thigh, careful not to glance around at the crowd, keeping his eyes on the row of product kneeling at the back of the stage.
They’d made a big deal at the heat auction, revealing them with a raised curtain just as the event started. Since this was for ownership and not a single heat or rut, the Wardrobe approached things differently, setting out the merchandise early so potential buyers could look their fill beforehand.
“You consider the dissection of your omega trivial?” Fiora hummed. “Interesting.”
“Stop calling him that.”
“True. You broke the bond the second you killed him.”
They’d been through this already. Had set the scene three days ago, even going so far as to have Fenrir’s “body” brought to Frost Loans and wheeled out on a gurney.
If there were Wardrobe spies set around them, they would have seen and run straight back to Michelle to confirm everything she’d no doubt heard through Oberon’s hacked multi-slate.
He’d discussed how the omega had tried to kill him with his Shout abilities, and how in the heat of the moment, he’d shot Fenrir in self-defense.
His call had been to Fiora, a preplanned affair, wherein they discussed how she wanted to take the omega apart to see if there were any useful parts.
She’d added there might be a chance of her replicating part of Rebirth by testing his blood and altered DNA.
Once the groundwork had been laid, they’d gotten to building a believable lie.
Oberon King, the billionaire dominant alpha, had gotten used to having a partner on hand for readily available sex. He feigned developing anger toward the Wardrobe for selling him a hybrid and talked ad nauseam to everyone who would listen on the phone about how he wanted to confront Michelle.
Koah and Baal both suggested he attend another auction and simply find someone else to take his frustrations out on. They’d each mentioned different companies on purpose, leaving the Wardrobe out of the discussion entirely.
Levi, however, told him bluntly they could storm the estate if he was that serious about it.
It was that last part that finally gotten them the desired result.
An invitation to a last-minute auction arrived on Oberon’s desk just this morning.
Michelle had taken the bait.
Which was fucking fabulous, because it meant O wouldn’t have to suffer through separation anxiety for another damn night.
“Still, that’s cold, even for you,” Fiora said, pulling him back into the conversation.
“Not as cold as he was,” Oberon snorted. They couldn’t be certain that Michelle was listening right now, but the point of this call was to help ease the tensions and ideally lure her out.
Threating to storm the estate had pushed her to organizing this auction, most likely meant to appear as an olive branch. She wouldn’t be pleased with O, since he’d technically stolen Fenrir right out from under her nose, though it was debatable whether she’d care about his death.
What mattered was they knew she was here, in the building, and that she’d brought Trick along with her. That alone meant half the plan had been a success.
Now if only she’d play along so they could get the second half going…
On the surface, the plan seemed rather convoluted. There were too many moving parts, and yet with the limited amount of time they’d had to concoct something, Oberon felt he’d done a rather good job.
An auction this large, and held this last minute, meant extra security. They’d been counting on the fact Michelle anticipated his attendance, and she hadn’t disappointed. There was more than three times the amount of security personnel roaming around than there’d been the night of the heat auction.
Which meant less people guarding the estate.
“Are you still feeling like shit?” Fiora asked, the sound of a bone saw and a squish momentarily cutting her off.
“My offer to test out the new vitamins I created still stands. It’ll help you expel all that pent up energy and unclog your pheromone blockage a lot faster than finding a bedpartner and training them will. ”
“That’s why I’m here,” he replied. “The Wardrobe trains them already. Say what you will about the last product I purchased, but his skills in the bedroom weren’t the issue.”
“I doubt you would have bitten him if they were.”
“That was a mistake,” he growled, “and you know it. You said it yourself. It was his hybrid pheromones. They momentarily had me possessed. But I’m better now. Or, at least I will be, once I purge myself of these lingering traces.”
“Severing a mating bond is no joke. Plan to be holed up for at least a week. And pick a strong one. If they happen to have a dominant omega for sale, go with them, be it male or female. You’ll need one.”
“Disgusting.” He made a big show of smoothing a hand down the front of his suit, as though attempting to rub dirt off his body. Oberon couldn’t be certain that the eyes he felt on him belonged to Michelle or one of her spies, but it was worth acting like they were, just in case.
“I know you prefer men—”
“I prefer a pretty face,” he corrected. “You’re telling me to settle.”
“Do you want to feel better or not?”
“Fine.” Oberon pinched the bridge of his nose just as the countdown began to flash from sixty on the projected screen at the back of the stage. As it counted down the seconds to the start of the auction, he felt his impatience grow. “At this point, I’d fuck anything to make this feeling go away.”
“Sir,” Claudio’s voice on the other side of the velvet curtain sectioning off his balcony was like music to his ear. “The Mistress of the Wardrobe is requesting an audience.”
“Gotta go, Fiora.” He ended the call and then snapped his fingers. “Let her in, Claudio.”
The fabric swished, and then a set of heels clicking on the marble ground came a moment before the mistress settled into the empty seat at his left.
Oberon purposefully didn’t look at her, pretending to inspect the product on stage some more.
He brushed a finger across his lips and hummed.
“Miss Ophelia. I hope this is a friendly visit. The auction is about to begin, and I would hate to cause a scene because you feel the sudden need to rescind my invitation.”
“I would never,” Michelle replied in a friendly tone. “You misunderstand me, Mr. King.”
“Oh?”
“It’s my hope that by extending this invite, we can clear the air between the two of us. Let bygones be bygones, so to speak.”
“The scar on my side where one of your men put a bullet isn’t so easily forgotten.”
“You broke our contract,” she reminded. “Claimed product that didn’t belong to you and ran off with him. I apologize if you were harmed during the Wardrobe’s retrieval process, but that was never our intent.”
“No?” Bullshit. Seems like he wasn’t the only one who’d come prepared with a carefully crafted story.
“I’m sure you’ve learned by now the omega you stole was highly dangerous.
He’d been cleared for a single outing, as it was our hope and belief that he’d been broken in well enough to no longer pose a serious danger to a buyer.
However, there was a reason he was entered into a heat auction and not placed in one of our showrooms.”
Her showrooms were just fancy brothels, and even the notion that Fenrir would one day have ended up in one almost had Oberon’s alpha pheromones giving him away.
“You can dress it up however you like, but at the end of the day, you sold me faulty product,” Oberon stated.
“I’d hardly call him faulty.” Michelle rested a hand on his forearm. “You enjoyed him enough to claim him.”
“Ah, so you weren’t aware then?”
“Aware?”
“That the hybrid had the ability to seduce whoever he pleased?” Oberon finally turned to her, catching the flash of confusion in her eyes a second before that saccharine sweet smile returned tenfold. “Are you really going to claim ignorance?”
“I wasn’t aware.” She pursed her lips. “Are you absolutely certain?”
“You mean he’s never used his Shout energy to try and attract anyone else into biting him?” Admittedly, this wasn’t really part of the plan, but Oberon was feeling petty. How dare she think for even a single heartbeat that she could ever possess someone like Fenrir Snow.
The two of them were miles apart already, and soon, there’d be an extra six feet of solid ground between them as well.
The indignation that swept across her face when she thought Fenrir had the capability to thrall someone into biting him but had never tried it on her was priceless.
“I apologize for my confusion,” she cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably in her seat, “are you saying he used some sort of sway to force you into giving him the claiming mark?”
“Would I have bitten a sex slave otherwise?” Fenrir would be nowhere near them, but Oberon still felt guilty saying those words out loud.
He’d make it up to him later. “Not only did he trap me with the bite, but then he had the nerve to try killing me. What would you have done if he’d been successful?
If word got out that the Wardrobe sold faulty product and got a client murdered in his bed—”
Her fingers tightened on his arm. “I assure you, Mr. King, he was the only hybrid we had. Really, we should be thanking you for handling this problem for us, and with such decorum.”
As in, keep his fucking mouth shut.