Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
KNOX
I glanced at Ace as he sat down in an armchair in the ballroom.
Rogue had gone to fetch Thistle.
I stayed, bracing myself as I took the couch. I wasn’t looking forward to hearing whatever idiocy Ace was about to lay out, but we had plans to make.
Going to Bella’s party was a dangerous suggestion—we should be staying away from her, not walking right into a fucking party she was hosting for the entirety of the Ring.
The ride back had been tense. Ace had refused to explain himself, smug as ever.
All I knew was that he wanted us going exactly where we shouldn’t be going.
Before we’d left the mansion, he’d raided a safe behind a painting, shoving whatever he found into his pocket before I could see. Then he’d led us to her old rooms. Thistle’s scent still clung faintly to the air, though the nest itself was gone. The place had been stripped bare.
Ace lost his composure when he saw it. He demanded to know where her things were. When security said they’d been burned by Roman, he’d looked ready to tear the walls down.
“You were more pissed about her nest than I imagined you’d be,” I observed. He shot me a sour look from the armchair. “Maybe you care more than you let on.”
“I want her balanced and out of my hair so I can get on with?—”
“What?” I cut him off, genuinely curious. What was it Ace was looking forward to at the end of all this?
He gave me a sour smile. “Anything that isn’t this nightmare.”
So that meant he knew he couldn’t get around Thistle, somehow.
Progress?
Perhaps.
Rogue and Thistle entered the room. Thistle looked content, so I assumed it went well with the Misfits—I’d sensed her nerves when I’d left her. But they were good people, and I wanted her to have friends outside of this dysfunctional pack.
Rogue took a seat on the opposite side of the couch from me, and she looked between us—all sitting as far from one another as we could get. Her eyes narrowed, then she decided to take the rug in the middle, crossing her legs and hugging Bunny.
“Right,” Rogue said, a flash of my own disappointment reflected in his eyes as he dragged his gaze from her. “Party.”
“Party?” Thistle asked, perking up.
“We can’t go,” I said. It would be offering us up on a silver platter.
“Bella’s hosting it for the Ring, right?” Ace said. “Everyone we need to worry about, thanks to your little fuck-up”—his gaze cut to me—“will be there. Perfect place for a statement.”
A what ?
“What statement , exactly?” Rogue asked, already offering the idea far more credence than he should.
Ace’s expression remained neutral, but his roses and redwood scent hummed with the faintest indication of excitement. “It’s going to be a spectacle.”
It was hard, for a moment, not to glance at Thistle. She was dancing Bunny between her legs each time any of us spoke, little stuffie happily mocking a room full of Alphas.
“Ace Maverick, rejoining the game, but this time in the trafficking ring,” Ace went on. I frowned, returning my attention to him. “With his Omega, new pack mate…” He cocked his head, a faint smile tracing his lips as his gaze flicked from Rogue, back to me. “And our new muzzled pet .”
My blood turned to ice as every eye in the room landed on me.
Even Bunny froze mid dance.
Me?
My growl rumbled to life this time, mind spiralling out of control as I glared at Ace.
Not. A. Chance. In. Hell.
“Ah…” The word seemed to slip from Rogue involuntarily, and I turned my glare on him, only to find him palming his neck, eyebrows raised.
“What?”
He tilted his head with a small shrug. “It’s… Well, they think you’re a threat.”
“So fucking what?” I knew that.
It was the whole goddamn problem.
But the pieces were floating around in my head, and I knew they would slot together if I let them.
“So…” I could swear Rogue was fighting back a smile. “Ace turns up with me, you look leashed, we can play it off…” He shrugged.
My pulse sped up as I processed what he was saying—as I realised it made an obscene amount of sense.
“Oh…” Thistle, to my horror, perked up, too, and I could practically see her working through the same truth I was. If the Ring was worried about what I’d done—about me ratting on them, the Maverick name, plus Rogue’s history with me…
Fuck.
Ace chuckled. “Would look even better if he was yours, Manzo. Muzzle, chain, and all. Let them see you got him back?—”
“No.” My voice was tight. I wouldn’t fucking do it. “We’re betting too much on them buying it,” I growled through gritted teeth.
“They’ll buy it.” Ace spread his arms, voice as sure as I’d ever heard it. “I’m Ace fucking Maverick.”
My mind flashed to the fear in Roman’s eyes as he’d seen Ace saunter into the room with that stupid sceptre.
I hated him.
I hated more that I had no fucking argument. And the choked cough Rogue let out as he failed to stifle a laugh.
Thistle picked up herself and Bunny and slid onto my lap. Still glaring at Ace, I dropped my hand to her waist by pure instinct, but I couldn’t look at her.
“If we want a fighting chance, I need to make an entrance,” Ace went on. “Showing up back from the dead, with Knox Wilde in a muzzle—well that does the job perfectly .”
I bit back another growl, and for a moment, I considered what sweet sounds Ace might make if I pinned him down and gouged one of his eyes out real fucking slow with a blunt object.
A squeak and shot of pain in my neck ripped me from the daydream. I realised, finally looking down at a disgruntled Thistle, that my grip on her waist had become too tight. She’d bitten me.
“Sorry, Doll,” I muttered, trying to ground myself. She made it easy, hands cupping my cheeks, pout on her lips bratty.
“Daddy.” She was glaring at me with those beautiful violet eyes. “I wanna see.”
Rogue ‘coughed’ again, which almost got another growl from my chest.
“Everyone else had a turn,” Thistle whispered. “Plus. I’ll be there the whole time, right?”
I scowled.
I’d had my turn for the four years I was trapped under Rogue’s fucking rule.
“Showing them you’re dealt with is our best bet,” Ace said. “We won’t have to watch our backs as much. Chained and muzzled paints the right picture for them—or don’t you agree?” he asked.
Rogue leaned forward, and though his face was straight, humour still danced in his eyes as he looked at me.
“All we’ll have left to manage is your bond with Bella.
And if the Ring loses interest, it makes it easier for you to carry on with your…
work .” Rogue emphasised that last word, and I clenched my jaw.
The Misfits and others I’d helped over the years would forever be a part of this calculation.
One was already dead. Christina. And the video of her death played over and over before I slept. Sometimes it was Vance, or Tanisha… But if the Ring—if Bella—thought I was eliminated, it might protect the Alphas and Omegas I’d already freed.
We knew much less about Carrion, but the Ring’s faceless leader was more dangerous than Bella could ever be, and his goals went hand in hand with the Ring’s survival…
The Misfit’s safety wasn’t something I could be too proud to reject.
Still, their delight was palpable and I was ready to shove both these assholes in the cage together and leave a single fucking bucket.
“Bella won’t take that sitting down,” I said. The constant itch of her stupid bond nagged at me, an ever-present taunt. Those two wanted to parade me around in front of her and the other traffickers like I was their kept mutt?
She wouldn’t let me walk free with this bond, and no way would she let any other pack take ownership of her scent match.
I drew Thistle closer on instinct, feeling her moonflower scent wilt a little as my bond with Bella was mentioned again. I fought, once more, the urge to look down at her, not sure how to arrange my face as the reality of the plan sank in.
Ace shrugged, eyes sliding to Thistle. “I have plans for Bella.”
He was already acting like he was fully in the driver’s seat, and the issue was, he wasn’t wrong about the plan. It would set Bella off, but it might placate the rest of the Ring.
“I wanna kill her,” Thistle muttered, one hand gripping my arm tight, the other squeezing the life from Bunny.
“You have a job at the party, Omega.” Ace’s eyes roamed over Thistle with a more intense look than I was used to from him.
In my arms, Thistle went still, watching him with wide eyes.
“You said Knox was gonna be with Rogue…” she said cautiously.
Ace didn’t reply straight away, but her pretty lips parted as she stared at him.
A flare of hatred burned in my stomach.
“You mean…?” She remained so still, and I thought if I brushed my fingers over her neck right now, I’d feel how flighty her pulse was.
When Ace didn’t confirm anything, she scrambled off my lap, probably ready to launch at him, but there was only so far my Alpha brain could be bent out of shape before I snapped. I followed her to her feet instantly, my hand closing around her neck as I dragged her back against my chest.
Ace cocked his head, looking up at the two of us intently.
Then, to my irritation, he stood and closed the space between us. The growl that rumbled to life in my throat was fully involuntary at this point.
She was mine first.
Rogue was the only one still seated, one ankle crossed over his knee, eyes narrowed as he watched the interaction carefully.
Ace stepped too close, and the challenge spoke for itself. I either held her in place while he curled his finger beneath her chin and tilted her to face him, or backed up a step.
“You know, Omega, I’ve almost changed my mind,” he said.
“On what?” she asked.
“Your choice in Alphas.” Ace’s eyes flicked up to me for a moment. “He makes you so much more obedient for me.”
I almost swung at him, but it felt primitive, as if that’s exactly what he wanted. Entirely unfazed by my hold on her neck, Thistle reached up, fist balling in his shirt.
I considered releasing her just to defuse some of the power he’d somehow managed to flip on its head, but my fist refused to move.
She was still mine.
He was hers.
I tried to remind myself of what Rogue was so sure of.
“They saw me feral, Omega. I want to make sure every Alpha in that room excuses it away,” he said. I frowned, but he continued. “When we arrive at the party, the whole world will know you are my soul match.”
Her moonflower scent almost exploded with joy.
Another growl threatened to escape. I was almost at the end of my rope. I took a breath. He was heat bonded to her— he couldn’t have less power. He just had an uncanny knack for making that easy to forget.
As long as she didn’t forget that.
The button for the shock collar—still thankfully secured around Ace’s neck—was heavy in my pocket, aching for another use.
“You’ll make me proud?” he asked.
“No.” I cut in before Thistle could answer. “Wrong way around, Bunny .” My voice was icy. “ I made your soul match more valuable in these circles than you can even imagine. She’s the one who needs to be matched.”
And with that, I found the true source of my fury.
It wasn’t just the muzzle, or dragging me back to the time I belonged to Rogue. He wanted to walk into territory that was once mine, before an audience who had seen me claim Thistle, and show them all she had been taken from me.
I’d been tortured, then dragged from a forested arena by Rogue and kept like an animal for years. I’d debased myself by stepping back into the very Ring that had ruined me and forced myself to become one of them.
I was possessive, unbalanced, erratic, but true pride—soul-deep dignity—it was something long dead.
Or so I’d thought.
Yet the idea of being leashed while they claimed her… I hadn’t truly felt, until now, how deep the wound of Bella’s bond had cut. Thistle had been a chance at something I never believed I would get, and Bella had stolen it from me.
Ace didn’t look away from Thistle, but I saw the faintest trace of a smile edge his lips like I’d just presented him with a challenge. Thistle’s small frame was rigid, trapped between the both of us as Ace’s piercing blue eyes bore into her soul.
Finally, his hand dropped and he stepped back, not looking at either me or Rogue as he walked from the room.