Chapter 9
NINE
THISTLE
Before we left for the date, Rogue carried me upstairs to my bedroom and rummaged around in the closet, finding me an outfit.
Then he raided a drawer in the kitchen, picking out a few credit cards, and finally, when he marched us outside, there was a limo waiting.
I spotted two members of Knox’s security team in the front seats.
I tugged on the hem of my dress, examining it with worry, but I thought it was nice enough. Knox had picked them all, so it had to be good enough for a date.
That was good, because I was out on a limb with everything now I didn’t have Bunny to ask.
I hurriedly tied my hair up into two buns as he got into the limo after me. They were messy, but they were something. Not too off-center, I didn’t think.
When he sank down onto the leather seat beside me, I huddled close under his arm, trying not to let my mind spin out of control.
I didn’t have Bunny, but I did have my Alpha.
My mind wandered back to the last time Bunny was gone—back when Ace had tried to take him. That feeling like I couldn’t breathe… But the world hadn’t broken completely like I thought it would. Knox had tried to save me, Rogue had helped me through my heat…
But back in the mansion, I had three Alphas who could substitute for Bunny if one was busy. If we went out, Rogue was all I had.
He wasn’t allowed to leave me alone—he’d know that, right?
I was distracted by how tense he was, though, and I frowned.
Shit. Get your head in the game.
“I’m sorry about the dog,” I said quietly. I mean, kinda . “But I’m not sorry you aren’t gonna die.”
His jaw was clenched, but I saw the faintest edge of a smile on his lips as I said that. I think that meant I could cheer him up. I scrambled for the best way to do that.
The first time I’d ever met him, I’d managed to settle him and keep him sleeping with tummy rubs. I reached over, patting him on the stomach lightly and watching for his reaction.
He did seem to uncoil at my touch.
So, as the limo pulled out of the drive, I clambered onto his lap and fumbled for the hem of his shirt. When I began running my hands up and down his stomach (which was warm and mega thick with sexy-ass muscle) he gave me an odd look.
He caught my chin, and I found myself tumbling into those teal eyes. He was so dang good-looking with that shaggy silver hair, strong nose, a shadow of stubble along his jaw, plus all the blossoming bruises Knox had given him that were starting to make pretty colours across his cheek and chin.
“What on earth are you doing, Kitten?” he asked.
I froze, anxious. “You don’t like it?”
“Can’t say I don’t.”
Okay, perfect. I grinned, getting back to it.
Wherever we were going, if I kept this up, he’d be the happiest Alpha ever by the time we arrived.
KNOX
The entrance hall was silent and cold.
I sat in one of the armchairs still in the corner beside a dead fireplace. Rogue and Thistle were gone, and it was eerily silent in here. The scent of blood still lingered in the air from the run-in with Bella’s pack.
Since the Misfits had only just got back into the security system, they hadn’t been out yet. That meant I’d got here first to pick through the mess, bagging all the larger chunks of torn up body so no one else had to deal with it.
On the table beside me was a small pocket knife with Thistle’s scent, the small sketchbook I’d bought for her, the art of a storm Bella had ripped from it, and scattered pieces of ripped up Bunny.
Most of it had been flung across the marble floor during the fight, so it was only the storm sketch that was edged with blood.
I turned Bunny’s head in my hand, glaring at the clouds of stuffing desperately trying to escape. “Bet they’re having a great time without us…”
Of course they were. It was Rogue. She’d been obsessed with him from the start. There was no date he could fuck up enough that would make her love him any less.
I’d already opened an app on my phone, watching recent transactions. Rogue, it turned out, had my bank PIN. The piece of pewter in his neck had been doing a lot more heavy lifting than I imagined.
I wanted to know if Thistle was happy, though—not guess. Instead, whenever my grip on the bond loosened, I could feel Bella and the other six Alphas lurking, like shadows in my consciousness. It made me sick every time I sensed them.
I made myself check in on the bond, though, and found it still roiling with sickness.
I knew Rogue had taken members of my security team with him, but it brought me comfort knowing that the recent death of three Alphas had left Bella’s pack far too broken to come for me or Thistle.
It would happen, though. I was sure.
I glanced at the bloodstained storm Thistle had drawn. Bella had torn it from the sketchbook as she’d ripped Bunny to shreds.
I needed her dead.
I shut my eyes, inhaling Thistle’s scent, ignoring the buzzing from my pocketed phone. It was blowing up with updates from Callum. They were sorting out another few layers of security, and my contacts were working on getting information on the whereabouts of Bella’s pack.
Doyle, my contact with the unit investigating the Ring, told me they hadn’t been back to her main residence.
That was concerning.
The mansion felt strange in Thistle’s absence, like she’d altered the makeup of the whole place since the first time she’d stepped foot inside. Rogue shouldn’t have taken her away from here.
I loosened my jaw, carefully thumbing fluff back into Bunny’s decapitated head.
Red tinged my vision as the faint scents from the Alphas who’d stepped foot in my home—to hurt my Omega—tangled in the air around me.
I thought of Christina—the young beta woman I’d managed to free from this nightmare, the one I’d just seen die in the video Bella had made just to taunt me.
I had to sort that out, too: the body of a young woman a state away, with no one to know what had happened. She’d hated it here, had never settled after I’d bought her in an auction like I had bought Thistle. She’d left as soon as she’d had the strength to start a new life.
She needed a dignified burial, but nowhere near me, or this place.
The Misfits were good at sensitive stuff like that, but I didn’t want them near it. How far might it set them back if they learned about her fate?
I could find out if she had friends in the area—the family she’d wanted to build from scratch…
I took a breath, trying to steady the hand holding Bunny’s head.
It happened.
Every day, it happened. Every day I crossed those I couldn’t save…
Footsteps ripped me from the precipice of my breakdown, and I looked up to see Callum walking in. He looked like he was passing through, but when he spotted me, he made his way over.
I caught the slightly clinical smell of scent dampener on him as he approached. He shook a messy sweep of sandy blond hair from his face as he perched on the arm of the sofa in front of me.
I’d been texting him, but a worried part of me I hadn’t even clocked, relaxed as I saw him safe. “You alright?” I asked, glad my voice was steady.
He nodded.
“The others?”
“Shaken up, but they’re okay. What about you?”
I waved a hand, but Callum narrowed his eyes. I tried to give myself a mental shake so my scent didn’t give me away. “I’ll be fine. Making plans already. I’ll get it fixed. I’m sorting everything.”
He rolled his eyes, but glanced down at Bunny’s head, which I still had in my hand. “You gotta get that stitched up. She doesn’t go anywhere without it, does she?”
“No.”
Callum chuckled, and the sound eased my nerves. “She might be nuttier than peanut brittle, but she’s got you all losing your fucking minds,” he said, getting to his feet. “We’ve got a sewing kit somewhere—I’ll leave it in your office. Don’t ask me to show you how to use it, though.”
Looking at him, I could see he was still tense, like he was holding onto something.
“What is it?” I asked.
He frowned, palming the back of his neck before meeting my eyes again. “I recovered some of the footage. The ballroom was a bit corrupted, but the rest…”
I paused, seeing the unease on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“Well… He wasn’t lying.”
“Who?”
“R—Scum said… Vance wouldn’t come to the safe room.”
“He what ?” I straightened. “Is he?—”
“He’s fine. He wanted to help. Rogue told us he’d knocked him out, so he wouldn’t get himself killed. He wasn’t lying. Brought him back to us after.”
The words hit me like a semi-truck.
Shit.
“I don’t really want to think about it—none of us do,” Callum said. “But he brought Vance back, and I, uh… I need to know why.”
I knew how much the Misfits hated Rogue.
“I saw the footage from out front when you were drugged up and they had you…” Callum didn’t seem to want to finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to.
When Rogue had saved me from Bella.
“But he was just worried about… blowing up, right?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the words didn’t come as easily as I’d expected.
It should be easy: Yes. Rogue was a selfish piece of Manzo garbage who wouldn’t do anything that didn’t benefit him.
But instead, I was left staring at Callum in silence.
“Fuck.” Callum summed up my thoughts perfectly, his shoulders slumping.
My voice was dry. “He had another way out.”
“What do you mean?”
“He knew Thistle’s other Alpha, Ace, might have been able to get him free.”
“And he knew that before?—”
“Yeh.”
“She’s his mate. I thought it was about her…” I winced at the look on Callum’s face.
Right.
And Vance mattered in the Thistle equation how, exactly? I wondered.
“Well. Fuck,” Callum repeated.
I sighed. “I’m sorting out a safe house for you.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is our home, you know they won’t agree?—”
“Then you’ll convince them. Just for a while?—”
“No.”
“I can’t focus on this if I’m worrying about you?—”
“It’s Bella Morgan,” he said. “We’re invisible to her?—”
“Not anymore. There will be nothing in my life she isn’t looking at, that she won’t be willing to take if she thinks it will hurt me. Or get me to fold.”
“Fold?” Callum asked, incredulous. “To what?”
I regarded him for a long time, mulling over how stubborn he and the others were. “I bit in.”
Callum’s face drained of blood. “To Bella’s pack?”
“It was that, or watch them kill Thistle.”
“She’s going to be?—”
“After me. That’s what I’m saying. We killed three of her Alphas, too. Callum, there is nothing she won’t come for?—”
“Even more reason for us to stay,” Callum cut me off. “You’re wrong. We won’t mean shit to her anymore. You know there’s only one person she’ll be after.”
My blood chilled.
Callum’s piercing gaze was fixed on mine. He was an Omega, like Thistle. Like Bella. But I didn’t need to share that kinship with them to know he was right.
Thistle would be Bella’s target.
“You have security, but we know this place inside and out. We can keep an eye out. And if shit hits the fan, we have the safe room. None of us go that far, anyway.”
I stared at him, my instincts at war with each other. To protect them, like I always had. To keep her safe.
“We’re settled here, Knox. We aren’t leaving.”
I rubbed my face. “Fine. But stay close to the safe room.”
Once he’d left, I stood.
There was already a bitter taste in my mouth. Callum was right. That meant I needed to use everything I had.
Thistle’s sketch of a storm still lingered in my periphery.
Fuck.
Before I did anything else, I needed to get a gauge on Ace.