Chapter 12
TWELVE
KNOX
I thought Ace would lose it again.
He looked on the edge of it. His scent was charred with madness. To my surprise, though, he didn’t move. His eyes fixed on mine, remaining present.
Looking closely, it was clear how worn he was. His skin was pale, but I could see the traces of sunburn along the edges of where the mask had been. His hair was a bit too long, there were bags beneath his eyes, and his cheeks were hollow.
When was the last time he’d eaten?
I had no pity for him, though. He deserved to feel like shit. He didn’t deserve to be awake at all. Or bonded to her—when I wasn’t.
He’d caused her nothing but pain.
I knelt by Ace’s side, holding onto the metal rod so he couldn’t move while I fixed the muzzle onto his face. He fought me for a moment, fingers grappling at my shirt and pants, but he got nowhere.
I made Rogue put on his own muzzle. It took weeks before he did it, but eventually the prospect of spending another moment in this cage had beaten out his pride.
That had been at the start.
It had been easier after that.
I didn’t have leverage with Ace… yet. It was a different kind of debasement, though, forcing it on him.
After the muzzle, I fixed a different black metal collar around his neck. Then I released the clamp at the end of the rod.
It was pure instinct that had him sitting up the moment I’d stepped back. A defence of his pride, which was good news.
I couldn’t destroy what wasn’t there.
I leaned against the cell wall, crossing a foot over my ankle, watching.
He didn’t stand, instead straightening where he sat and leaning his head against the wall.
From beneath shaggy raven hair, his eyes left me, and slid to the open door of the cage. He didn’t move, but I could see a million calculations in his gaze. Finally, he glanced at my hand, which was tucked in my pocket.
His smile was bitter. “I assume the collar isn’t for show.”
I grinned, thumbing the small silver device I had tucked away. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“What do you want?” he asked. “You’re not pack. You’re not her mate.”
It took every ounce of self-control I had to rein in the fury that surged at his words. Jealousy was an understatement. I wasn’t stupid enough not to clock that. This piece of shit wasn’t just her mate. He was her soul match.
There was nothing in this world I wouldn’t give to have that with her.
“She won’t see you without my go-ahead.” I didn’t know if I had that sort of leverage with Thistle, to be honest. But Ace didn’t know how very wrapped around her little finger I was, and even if that was true, I wouldn’t let her near him if he was going to hurt her.
“That would be rather unpleasant for her, I would imagine,” Ace mused.
“I don’t think so. You’re heat bonded. It’s her call when you come and go. I don’t give a shit how much time you spend with her when you’re brainless.”
Ace regarded me, running his tongue along his teeth. “Why did she bring me back?”
“I’m guessing she thinks you can help.”
“Help with what exactly?”
I snorted. “Doesn’t matter.” I would ask her to send him back the moment she returned from her date.
“Is she in danger?”
I scowled. “The Brotherhood is gone. Your property was taken, and your wealth was parcelled out. You have nothing.”
Ace tilted his head. There was a long silence as a smile cracked on his face. “The Brotherhood wasn’t my power.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Of course he’d say that.
“This danger, I presume it involves my mate?” he asked.
“I don’t believe you care about her.”
Ace regarded me for a while, looking like he was debating whether to say something. “I tried to kill her once, you know?”
I froze, gaze fixed on him.
He seemed to enjoy my reaction, the corner of his lips curving up.
“Wasn’t long after I found her for the first time.
Underestimated quite how this… attachment worked.
How addicted I would be. So, I tried to send a guard in to rid me of her.
” He scowled, a manic flash in his eyes. “But I couldn’t even speak the words.”
His lips drew back in a sneer. “That’s how much power a soul match has, and I don’t like power I can’t control.
Luckily, the guard had been with me a long time.
He figured out what I wanted without me saying a thing.
So, he went to her room in the middle of the night while she was sleeping—can you guess what happened? ”
I blinked, watching him stiffly, frustratingly caught up in what he was saying.
I didn’t answer, though, racing through all the possibilities. Imagining Thistle being woken up in the night, faced with a gun.
“He almost made it,” Ace said. “Almost freed me of her. Dragged her from sleep, had the gun to her head…”
I knew the answer before he said it. “You stopped him.”
“It was impossible to stay away. I don’t remember following him. I don’t remember anything until she was shaking in my arms and he was bleeding out on the floor. That was when I first began to hate her. Truly hate her.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Why do you think I’m telling you?”
“So I don’t tell her to send you back to hell.”
Ace let out a dry laugh. “And?”
“I don’t need your help protecting her,” I said.
“It’s not looking good for you. Where’s her…” Ace looked a little disgusted at his own question. “Her rabbit? ” he asked. “She didn’t have it earlier.”
“Bunny.” I corrected him before catching myself.
Ace gave me a pitying smile. “She won’t last long without it.”
Him.
By the skin of its teeth, my pride barred me from correcting the pronouns on an inanimate stuffie in an attempt to out-Thistle him.
My head wasn’t screwed on right. Or Rogue had hit me too hard.
I narrowed my eyes, though, a little surprised. He clearly loathed his connection to Thistle, but that didn’t make him oblivious. “It’s… getting fixed.”
“Fixed?”
I would fucking fix it. “I know how to keep her safe.”
“Ah. But does she believe that?”
Something bitter rose up my throat. The obvious answer hung between us, unspoken. If Thistle thought we could keep her safe, Ace wouldn’t be awake.
“If Carrion’s after you, you are in trouble. He strangles dissent with an iron grip.”
I paused, considering him as he named the leader of the Ring we were running from. He knew the circles Rogue and I were a part of. Carrion’s reputation went far, and I wasn’t surprised he knew the name.
Bella had been the one who’d turned up, but I knew she would blow my cover.
Ace had frozen, though, the casual smugness that radiated from him was suddenly gone. “You let that oaf walk out of here with her— alone ?”
“He doesn’t know yet.” Bella was licking her wounds, and she didn’t have a direct line to Carrion, who kept himself isolated.
“How long?” Ace asked.
I took a breath. There was nothing in this world that might compel me to give this vile piece of roadkill an inch. Nothing, except her.
My eyes traced his frame, head still leaning against the wall, a picture of nonchalance despite the muzzle and collar. All except for the clench of his jaw and the faintest tremor as his fist balled just a little too tight.
As the silence stretched, he only became more tense. His scent of redwood and roses turned just the slightest bit bitter in the air.
Damn.
I believed him. He really did need to know she was safe, no matter how much he hated it.
“The next gathering is soon. I expect the word to get to him then.”
“Who is it he wants? Her, or?—”
“Me.”
Ace’s eyebrows rose; it was the only indication of the calculations I knew he must be making.
“What do you know about Carrion? The Brotherhood never touched the Ring,” I said. That much I knew.
“My father dabbled, but he was a pragmatist. He preferred drug runners in the end—easier to deal with. They start off for the money but become addicted to the power that comes with it. They get careless. Easier to manipulate.”
“And traffickers?” I asked.
“They’re different,” Ace mused. “They start wanting power as much as money. They’re addicted to that, and all the more insufferable for it. It’s why so many are Alphas and Omegas, and unstable ones at that. It feeds their desire to claim and control.”
I watched him, processing those words. I hated him, but he had a unique insight into the world I’d been tangled up in for so long. He had a perspective I never had.
I wasn’t too prideful to throw that away.
“Was it money that drove Rogue when he claimed you?” Ace asked.
I considered that, weighing what I knew of the day Rogue had claimed me in the woods. “He was in that arena as a symbol of initiation. He wanted nothing to do with the business,” I said.
That at least, was the truth. If Rogue, who inherited a kingdom of poison from his late parents, had never taken part after seeing past the curtain, it would have spelled his death. “It was a token—he’d never sell them out, and they’d leave him alone.”
“Yet, once a Manzo, always a Manzo,” Ace murmured. “One brush with that power, and he couldn’t let you go.”
I didn’t answer. We both knew how true it was, but I didn’t want to give him any reaction he didn’t need. The way he looked at me sent a shiver down my spine, as if he was internalising every tiny detail.
“They’re paranoid,” Ace went on. “They don’t work with anyone who won’t touch the product.
They need to see their own deprivation mirrored to feel secure.
They’re not just building wealth; they’re building a world to exist in.
They want to walk the streets and know they are special—different from the people they cross.
That if any knew the truth, it would make them sick. Regression in its purest form.”
“You never considered participating?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Never interested me.”
“If you’re above money and power, then what?—?”
“I didn’t say that,” Ace said. “I value real power, not bought. Chained Omegas who can’t fight back—where’s the fun in that?”