Chapter 10
TEN
ROGUE
Watching Thistle’s eyes widen as she saw the bright lights of the Ferris wheel from the parking lot was worth the whole world twice over.
Her lips popped open, and I swear there was a glimmer of tears in her eyes.
“A fair ?” she asked, voice high-pitched. “We’ve always wanted to go!” For a moment, she glanced down at her empty hand, a flicker of sadness in the bond.
Right.
I had to make sure the date was so amazing she forgot about Bunny entirely. I tugged her into a side hug, and her sadness waned, a smile returning.
It was dusk, so the bright lights of the fair got brighter with every passing second. Once we were inside, we were slammed by carnival music, the shouts and screams of kids, and the smells of doughnuts and greasy fair food.
Thistle was practically vibrating with excitement as she stared around.
“Alright,” I said. “Your call. Where do we start?”
A fair might be a cliché choice, but whenever I pictured taking her out, it wasn’t a fancy moonlit dinner. She was pure, chaotic fun, and from everything she’d let slip about her upbringing, she hadn’t had enough of it.
I wore a heavy jacket that easily hid the gun I’d brought. Callum had fixed the security system, and it didn’t look like Bella had shown her face near the mansion, but that didn’t mean I trusted anything. On top of that, two of Knox’s regular security team were trailing us.
I wasn’t taking any risks.
To say Thistle was like a kid in a candy shop was an understatement. She made us ride the teacups seven times, screeching with delight each time. We would have gone again if I hadn’t almost thrown up in the garbage after the seventh.
Luckily, she spotted a booth where you could win teddy bears for shooting basketball hoops. She quickly took the young girl at her side as a competitor and kept demanding more turns while the kid—who looked about nine or ten—also fleeced her mother for more tickets.
Finally, as they both missed their tenth shot, and she went from irritable in the bond to a downright tempest, I grabbed the basketball from her grip, lined up my aim, and hit the shot straight away. I played basketball a lot as a kid to maximise my time away from my parents.
I felt pretty smug about it until I presented her with the huge white teddy bear and the delight that had shot through the bond the moment I’d won, turned instantly to poison. She stared at it, expression suddenly stiff, frosted moonflower tinged with fear.
Uh.
Oh. Oh.
I cleared my throat. “We, uh… wouldn’t want to dethrone Bunny, right?” I muttered, nudging her lightly, locking gazes with panicked violet eyes. I nodded subtly over to the mother and daughter duo—the former of whom was digging in her pocket for what looked like non-existent tickets.
She followed my gaze, figuring out what I meant, then she looked down at the teddy, a smile of relief on her face.
She straightened, a flash of excitement like I’d never seen lighting her eyes, then she edged over to them both.
She stood awkwardly for a moment as the little girl glanced up at her. The girl frowned, looking cautious, but Thistle pushed the teddy into her arms before she could say anything.
“You can have him.” She paused, darting a look between them, then reached out and patted the teddy on the head in an awkward gesture. “If you want him. His name is Teddy. He wanted me to tell you.”
A smile split the girl’s face, and she grabbed Thistle and Teddy into a hug. “Thanks!”
That tightly wound anxiety I could feel through the bond vanished in an instant.
“Thank you,” her mother said as the girl pulled back.
“Your eyes are really pretty,” the girl added.
Thistle gave a strange laugh, taking a step back. Then she almost tripped over her own feet as she hurried back to me.
As they walked away, I heard the girl say, “I want to be an Omega like her when I grow up.”
Thistle said nothing, though her cheeks were bright pink, and I kept catching her glancing back as we walked away.
We found an aisle of photo booths next, and I managed—with immense difficulty—to cram my frame into a tiny booth with her. It was hard not to feel awkward, smiling into the camera for the first set of flashes. Thistle was clambering out the moment it was done to grab the photo strip.
I leaned back in the seat, resting my head against the booth behind me, something unsettled in my chest. I heard her happy little squeal, and she was tugging the curtains back and thrusting the strip of paper into my hands.
“It’s us !”
I looked down at it, eyes narrowed. Thistle looked happy in the photos, but there I was.
I wasn’t just odd looking because my face was covered with bruises, and a half-healed pink cut peeked from the side of my neck from slicing the muzzle off with a knife—though I had been drawing odd stares for all those things.
The problem was how I just stared at the camera awkwardly, clearly unsure what to do with myself.
“Again,” I grunted, tugging another ticket from my pocket.
I was her Alpha. Like… a boyfriend, but way more important. I dug around in the empty cavern that was my mind, trying to find a person in there somewhere. Not the person I was before, but not… whatever shell I’d become.
I didn’t know who he was, so I just followed my instincts as the countdown ended.
I clambered out with her this time, curious. She was flustered as she fumbled the pictures from the booth, and her eyes were shining as she examined them. I craned my neck down, scanning them.
Much better.
The first picture was Thistle smiling as I looked down at her. The next, I’d grabbed her hair, tilted her head back to look at me, and in the third my teeth were at her neck.
I reached out, mostly to get a closer look, pride swelling in my chest, but Thistle tugged them away from me with a growl.
Her frame was tense, even as she cleared her throat as if to pretend the growl hadn’t been real. She slowly and stiffly offered the photos to me, cheeks bright red.
Ignoring them, I lifted her by her waist instead, pinning her to the photo booth and kissing her. Her legs tangled around my waist, and her fingers wove through my hair as she kissed me back, matching me for passion.
I pulled back at last, getting lost in the violet eyes that held mine in wonder. “I’m really glad you’re not gonna die,” she whispered, breathless.
I chuckled, setting her down. “Yeah. Me too.” The words came out before I thought about it, and surprisingly, I felt they were simple and true… Wasn’t expecting that.
To my delight, I caught her stuffing the photos into her bra, which I hoped was Thistle-code for nesting.
Despite the excited squeal she’d let out when I’d suggested it, taking Thistle into the haunted mansion was, as it turned out, a bad plan.
She became increasingly tense as we walked through the different rooms. I began to wonder from her death grip on my arm, if she was perhaps taking it all a bit too seriously.
My fears turned out to be accurate when one of the actors tried to jump-scare me near the end.
She let out a hiss and launched at him with murder in her eyes.
“Don’t you touch my Alpha!” she snarled.
Low-key ready for something to snap, I’d managed to catch her before she got to him. I had to carry her the rest of the way out, crushed against my chest as growls shuddered from her with every exhale.
By the time I’d hauled her onto my lap with a basket of corn dogs and chips on a bench on the opposite side of the fair, she’d settled, and was even looking a little sheepish.
She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“Embarrassing you.”
“No chance.” I chuckled. Knox marched me around the trafficking ring parties wearing a collar and muzzle—she wouldn’t make a dent.
I paused, the black tapestry of the life I’d come from curdling strangely with the sweet aromas and loud noises of this nighttime fair.
My mind flashed to the dumb fucking Monopoly situation I’d just fled in the basement. I didn’t realise until I spotted her odd look, that I was palming my neck—and the stupid Monopoly piece. I could already feel my anger ebbing, though, much faster than it usually did.
I cleared my throat. “You just didn’t want them hurting me. I get it.”
She paused, halfway to tossing a cheesy puff into her mouth, violet galaxies fixed on me from beneath heavy eyelashes. “You’re my Alpha.” She sounded almost pouty.
I grinned, chest warming. “I sure am, Kitten.”
She brightened at that, then straightened the packet and funnelled a mouthful of cheesy puffs down the hatch, dusting her cheeks bright orange.