Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Linus
It was fake. All of it. The job interview, the kidnapping, the auction, it was all just pretend. I wasn’t about to be raped or murdered. I couldn’t believe it.
I didn’t believe it. I sat curled up in the big chair near the window of the hotel suite, hugging tightly to the blankets the alpha who was supposed to have won me in the auction had given me, watching as he made a series of calls, all while pacing at the far end of the room.
He glanced to me once in a while, like he was checking to make sure I was still okay.
He still wore the lavender mask that hid half his face, but it kind of reminded me of a superhero now.
The alpha was a hero for giving me the space that I needed to get my brain and body to function normally again.
What kind of weirdos participated in a fake omega auction?
The answer to that one was obvious. Lucas.
Lucas was exactly the sort who would get off on pretending he was being kidnapped, auctioned, and savaged.
But that begged the question of what kind of alpha this guy who seemed so intent on taking care of me and fighting for me was.
He hadn’t given me his name yet. I wanted to know what it was. I wanted to know when he’d figured out I was actually scared. I wanted to know why he still wore the lavender superhero mask. Maybe he was so used to wearing it that he’d forgotten to take it off?
He was huge, even for an alpha. His shoulders and chest were broad and well-muscled.
I’d felt them when he carried me from the conference room up to the hotel suite.
If this had been a real kidnapping, there was no way at all I’d’ve been able to escape.
My alpha was incredibly strong, and he was probably fast and agile, too. He dwarfed me in size and power.
He smelled like sandalwood. It was an old-fashioned scent that reminded me of the artifacts room of the library at Barrington University.
God help me, I liked his scent. I wanted him to come closer so I could smell him again.
It didn’t make sense. Even though I knew this was all fake, I was still shaking with leftover fear.
I should have politely asked the alpha to hand me my clothes, which I now noticed where sitting in a neat, folded pile on the end of the bureau across from me, and to let me go home.
But no. I wanted him to come hold me again, like he had when we were sitting on the floor.
I wanted his massive body wrapped around me, keeping me secure and shielding me from the world.
It made absolutely zero sense at all, considering how terrified of him I’d been when he met me at the foot of the dais in the auction room.
He’d had me completely at his mercy and could have done anything he wanted to me.
He could have tied me up and fucked me first, then claimed he hadn’t known I wasn’t Lucas and that the whole thing was supposed to be fake, but he hadn’t.
He was protecting me, advocating for me, like I’d always dreamed an alpha would.
But the circumstances were mind-bendingly weird.
“How are you doing?” he asked in the softest, gentlest voice as he ended his call and walked back over to me. He crouched on the carpet in front of my chair, but even from that position, he was so big that his face was only a few inches lower than mine. “Can I get you anything? Water?”
I shook my head tightly, squirming slightly under my blankets. I was way too close to my next heat for any of this.
“I’m so sorry for everything tonight,” my alpha continued. “None of it should have happened. Everyone who participates in these sorts of events should be vetted and checked and sign a release form on the day of the event instead of in advance.”
“My brother signed a release form?” I asked. It was a stupid question, but my brain still wasn’t quite back where it needed to be.
My alpha nodded. “The Dark Fantasies Club started doing these fake auction events last year. They’re really popular with the club members. The whole thing is supposed to be as realistic as possible, but not so much that the omegas don’t know what they’re participating in.”
“I think my brother gave me clues,” I said, wriggling slightly. My body was sore from being tense for so long and from being strung up earlier. “He…he likes to prank me,” I went on. “This isn’t the first time he’s sent me into an embarrassing or dangerous situation.”
Something protective and feral lit my alpha’s eyes. “This isn’t the first time?”
I shook my head. “He’s sent me on errands into really bad neighborhoods before, then driven my car off, leaving me there.
He took me clothes shopping and stole all my clothes when I was in the changing room, before I could put the new clothes on, too.
He does things like that all the time, but this is by far the worst.” My voice went all shaky at the end.
“No one should ever do that to another person, let alone a brother,” my alpha said, resting a hand on my leg. A moment later, he pulled his hand away. “Sorry. You haven’t given me permission to touch you.”
“It’s okay,” I said breathlessly. Part of me wanted to go on and say I liked it, that I wanted him to hold me again, that he’d actually made me feel safe for a few seconds in the middle of my panic, even though that didn’t make any sense. Instead, I asked, “What’s your name?”
“Saint,” he said with a smile. “Saint Boscoff.”
“Your name is Saint?” I asked, blinking. It was a strange name, but I liked it.
Saint laughed self-effacingly and looked like he was going to give some sort of explanation, but there was a knock at the door.
I tensed, but Saint rested his hand on my leg again, then stood and walked to the door. He was built so powerfully, and his trousers hugged his tight backside perfectly.
“Hello?” Saint asked cautiously, his hand on the door.
A very faint voice answered, “Hey, Saint. It’s Hamish and Caden.”
A bolt of leftover fear hit me as Saint turned the doorhandle to let two alphas into the suite. I nearly panicked again when I recognized the alpha who had kidnapped me from the trailer and the auctioneer.
“We’re so sorry this happened,” the one who had kidnapped me said, looking at Saint at first and then me. “Honestly, this whole thing is unforgivable.” His mien and personality were entirely different from what they’d been at the trailer. He almost seemed…nice.
“This is entirely our fault,” the auctioneer said, taking a few steps into the room. “We’ll do whatever we can to make things right.”
Saint stepped between me and the auctioneer, like he was protecting me from them. He frowned, but didn’t seem super furious. “None of us can imagine what Linus here must be feeling. He thought the whole thing was real.”
The other two alphas looked at him, then the kidnapper one turned back to me. “Linus? Lucas’s twin brother, I assume.”
I nodded, but I was still beyond smiling, laughing, and brushing the whole thing off.
“Your brother is kicked out of the Dark Fantasies Club, effective immediately,” the auctioneer said.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It served him right.
“Linus, this is Caden Kuhl,” Saint introduced the auctioneer. “And his partner, Hamish Farrow. They’re the owners of the Dark Fantasies Club.”
My brow inched up slightly. Two alphas as partners? It was rare and a little taboo, but I knew it happened.
“We’ll do whatever it takes to make this right,” Hamish said.
“Just don’t ever let it happen to anyone else, ever again,” I said hoarsely.
“Absolutely not,” Caden said.
Both of the club owners looked beside themselves with regret, which made me feel better. That didn’t mean I was ready to be the center of everyone’s attention and host a tea party when I was still naked under the blankets wrapped around me.
Saint seemed to pick up on my reluctance to be around alphas. “We need to sort this all out and make amends, but not right now,” he said, subtly holding up his hands to Caden and Hamish, like he was shooing them away.
“Of course,” Hamish said with a nod. “We’ll give you some space.”
“We have the entire lodge booked for the whole weekend,” Caden said, a bit awkwardly. “You’re more than welcome to enjoy the suite until Monday morning, complete with room service, on us, if you’d like,” he told me.
“Um, I don’t know,” I said.
“I’ll make sure he’s okay,” Saint said, gesturing for Caden and Hamish to leave with a little more insistence.
The two alphas made more apologies and excuses, then left. I was so relieved once it was just me and Saint in the room that I blew out a breath and relaxed to the point where the blankets slid off one of my shoulders.
“I can leave too, if you’d like,” Saint said. I knew he wanted to stay right where he was.
“No, you can stay,” I said, confused by my own feelings. “I…I know none of this was real, but I don’t want to be alone right now.”
“That’s a perfectly reasonable response,” Saint said, coming back to kneel in front of my chair, like he’d done earlier. He looked bashful for a moment before saying, “As it happens, my day job is as a grief and trauma counselor. I deal with people going through shit all the time.”
“Oh?” I blinked, feeling even more at ease with him. “You know, you’ve got a good bedside manner for that job. I should be terrified of you, but you’re actually making me feel safer.”
I wasn’t sure I should have blurted all that out. It was too late now.
Saint relaxed into a smile and sat back on the carpet. “I have been told that I have a calming presence.”
“You do,” I said. I felt embarrassed, almost like I was gushing over him. It had to be because my heat was so near.
I wondered if Saint would be available to take me through my heat.
But no, that was the panic and false sense of safety and dependence talking. Saint was a stranger. I couldn’t ask him to deal with my heat.