Chapter 20 Torture
Torture
Locke
Istroke Aurora’s hair and purr for her. Her arms are wrapped around me, and her face is pressed into my chest. We both stare at our captor. He hasn’t moved. His eye twitches, and his arm remains outstretched. He finally lowers the gun pointed at our beta.
“Good. Very good. Bonded. Finally. You are so much more trouble than you’re worth, Locke.
” Legs paces the room. He holsters his gun at his ribs and returns to the bar, where he pours himself another green liquor drink.
“You know, when I bonded your mom, Little Bear, I hated the feeling. Like thorns were wrapped around my throat. Like there were eyes always watching me. It’s why I had to send her away.
The distance helps with the sick feeling.
” He pulls out a little baggie from his pocket and flicks the white powder inside.
“Unfortunately, it’s a dark bond, so my distance can break it.
Dark bonds are notorious for healing with distance and new alphas.
Despite me using so much of my fucking energy keeping the thing together.
” Legs licks his pinkie and dips it into the bag.
“I’ve got her completely surrounded by betas, and I have to see her a few times a year. I do make it worth my while…”
“You’ve seen my mom?” Aurora asks, cutting him off. “Recently?”
He turns to give her his attention, his finger in his mouth. He pops it out and says. “Of course. She’s my omega. What? Are you upset I didn’t let her see you?”
I can feel her opinion of this. She’s unbelievably upset and hurt. She’s shocked and angry. But she says, “I have nothing to say to her. And you know that. I thought we were both keeping our distance from that woman.”
It’s a lie told so casually that I wonder if I even feel her emotions correctly. She’s pacified him. She fed him a lie—that she doesn’t care for her mom at all, and he’s bought it entirely. I can tell because he smiles at her warmly.
“I only have to see her for our bond. I get out of there as soon as I fucking can, every time. Don’t worry.”
Aurora has been playing this game for a long time.
She clearly loves her mom and misses her. The ache of missing her is present. But she doesn’t want Legs to know that. And I know firsthand experience what giving Legs any insight into what you love would do. He’d use it to torture you.
Had he been torturing Aurora, too?
It’s not a great question to ask. The alpha in me does not want this question out there.
“I much prefer keeping you close. This is honestly such a wonderful situation for me. I get to keep an omega, a bonded O’Bannon omega, nearby, but I don’t actually have to be shackled with a real bond.
Those alphas did me a favor when they took my teeth.
They wouldn’t know it, but I’m grateful to them. What a burden a bond is.”
He just keeps blabbering. As always. I can hear his voice even in my dreams. He never stopped talking during the years I was here, and it made a permanent mark. Why else would a man cage another man, if not to have an audience at all times?
I kiss Aurora on her head. I feel compelled to relax her.
To be something for her. Legs is still chattering on, but this time he is confessing, “You know, I almost did let you go, Locke. I almost did. But this is better, especially because I had drugs prepared for you. They’ll make both of you really horny and relaxed.
I got them because I didn’t know how uninterested in women you’ve become, Locke.
“I heard a rumor you were fucking Mickey. Fucking Mickey. Fucking Kol. Probably sucking Oscar off every night. And color me surprised when, for a minute there, I thought you’d bonded a male omega.
Mr. Neck Bites over here. So many men. And yet you’d give me pushback every time I made you be with one of my men.
“Was that just for performance? Just to make it hotter? You know, now that I’m thinking about it, maybe, for performance’s sake, I’ll still give you the drugs…”
What on earth is he talking about?
I don’t get a chance to figure it out, because Mads has stood up, taken the steel vulture head of his cane, and rammed it into the side of Legs’s head.
Legs crumbles like a pile of bricks on the ground.
Aurora
Thank fuck, that fucker is out. I want to breathe a sigh of relief, but he’s the only one who knows the passcode to this fucking cage.
Before I can voice that to the men, Mads fumbles around Legs’s pocket and procures a key fob.
That won’t do us any good. Mads reaches the door.
He holds himself up on the bars, then punches in a code on the keypad.
It flashes green. What the fuck. He uses the key fob on the second lock, and bingo–the door opens.
How in the hell?
Is Mads a genius code breaker? He opens the door. Overcome with joy, I leave Locke’s arms for Mads, who pulls me into him as he leans into the opening.
“What the fuck, Mads!” Locke shouts way too loud and wipes his palm over his face.
I didn’t think we’d get out of here. I thought for sure the horrors had just begun.
Mads is breathing heavily. He looks at Locke and says, “I hate when people talk about you like that. I couldn’t…Can someone retrieve the cane? I actually do need it.”
I realize how much he’s holding onto me. There’s sweat on his temples.
I leave them to get the cane, which is next to my father’s prone body. There’s blood on the ground, but I don’t look back at the body. I just return to Mads and give it to him. I hope he’s not injured. I hope my dad didn’t do anything to him while I was being bonded.
Bonded.
My god.
I’m trying desperately to keep my feelings from Locke. All the silly love I have for him would overwhelm him. I looked up how to keep your bonded pack mates from your feelings, and learned me some techniques. It could be like kinking a hose. Or building a mental wall. Or laying a blanket on a fire.
I’ve had to use all the methods, and it’s been minutes.
Mads gets his balance on his cane and then grabs Locke’s wrist. Yanking it. “Get close, idiot. I’m trying to hug you.”
He yanks his wrist again, and finally, he hugs him. One arm over and one arm under.
They are cute and shy with each other. They are both so similar. Mads has much more colorless hair from the bleach, and Locke is a natural blonde, but both men are pretty handsome. Locke is prettier, and Mads is more handsome, but damn, do they look beautiful together.
“I don’t like when people talk about you like that,” Mads says again, his voice is so soft. “It really gets to me. It makes me irrationally angry to have them talk about you like that.”
They pat each other’s backs.
The omega in me doesn’t like it. She feels left out. That’s her newly bonded and her beta. Why are they comforting each other?
“If you keep defending me, I’ll start to think you love me,” Locke mumbles in his hair. They squeeze each other tighter.
Why aren’t they hugging me? I think irrationally.
“For someone so observant, you are kind of blind,” Mads replies.
“I love you, too, Mads,” he says, and I can feel how true it is. I smell it in the pheromones he lets out, it’s both briny and bright.
Love.
God. How dumb.
They pull apart and look at each other longingly.
It’s obvious these two guys love each other. Plain and obvious. But it seems they haven’t done anything about it. I’ll be damned if they have their first kiss before me. I’ll be fucking livid if they love each other more than they love me!
Before I tell myself to calm down and be a rational omega, I grab Mads’s face, pull him down to me, and kiss him.
His mouth opens in surprise, so I stick my whole tongue down his throat.
It’s the most possessive kiss. An explosion erupts from my heart and fills my limbs.
His hand presses on my lower back, and his fingers grip the fabric of my dress.
I raise up on my tippy toes and lay into him.
Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.
He kisses me back. And that’s enough to satisfy the omega in me for now. I release the kiss, and we stare at each other, our chests rising and falling, trying to catch our breath.
I tap his shoulder to indicate he needs to let go of me, and while he looks dazed, he lets me go, and I turn to Locke. Locke, who knows exactly what I was feeling.
I grab the front of his shirt and pull him into his own kiss.
His hands grab my shoulders. He kisses back right away and pushes me into Mads, so I’m pinned between them.
He can’t resist me. I can feel that compulsion radiating between us.
I also feel his guilt. I release his soft lips before I hurt him.
Before I hurt myself.
He has an omega. A scent match.
His snowy blue eyes peer into me. He’s confused. He’s feeling so many things. So am I, Alpha. So am I.
I reach up and fix his hair.
His pheromones are all over us. Like we just got done sitting on a blanket at the beach all day, and the briny sea air is now in our clothes and hair, layered over our skin.
“What was that for?” His eyes look at me with wonder.
I answer truthfully, “I got scared you two were going to kiss. And jealous. I wanted the first kiss.”
He suppresses a smile. He has to look away and hide his face. Alphas love it when omegas behave like this.
Mads clears his throat. “Aurora…” he starts, and I lift my hand to stop him, and say, “I know. You have an omega. You didn’t kiss me. I kissed you.”
And I won’t mention the little kiss he stole earlier.
“Come on, I need to get you out of here,” I say to end any more talk about their other omega. Tonight will be the only night I’ll be theirs. I’ll forsake the bond, and my fresh mark will heal. Locke doesn’t actually want me.