Chapter 31 #2
Bella looked up at him, but kept her composure. “There isn’t an Omega in the world I can’t convince you to be disgusted by.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s exhausting , being an Omega for a pack as feral as mine.
They can’t keep their eyes off little sluts like your stupid little soul match.
So, I let them have their fun. But they always come back to me in the end.
After seeing them mangled, crying and begging, missing their teeth and all the little bits and pieces that make them…
wanted —even a soul match will turn to dust. That’s the truth, and I can show you, too. ”
Ace paused, finally considering her completely. Like most people when leveled with his undivided attention, her confidence stuttered for a moment. When it did, he took her chin between his fingers and redirected her gaze back to him. Banner flinched at the contact but did nothing more.
After an age of silence from Ace in the bond, I felt something at last. It was a roiling disgust that leached from him the moment his fingers made contact with her. It wasn’t even guilt, as if he were betraying Thistle—it was simple revulsion.
“Can you?” he asked, still so fucking unbothered. It made me consider putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger.
I didn’t know how much Bella could sense, but she was, for a moment, more thrown off than I’d ever seen. Her Alphas didn’t seem to know whether to intervene, though I imagined they worried if they did, they would make her look weak.
Finally, the edge of a smile found its way back onto her lips, though the way she appraised Ace was different now—a mix of breathlessness and… well, as if she were regarding something rare.
When she spoke, her voice had dropped an octave. “ Maybe , at the end of it, you’ll do what the others do and come crawling back to me.”
Ace’s touch dropped from her, and for a moment, I swear he looked bored. “I’ll warn everyone in this room one time.” His eyes locked with Banner. “Take your hands off what’s mine.”
Bella laughed. “I don’t think I will, Maverick. You and your pack have too much to pay for.”
She didn’t look at Thistle as she stepped back to Banner, reaching up and cupping him on the cheek. “Get her out of your system, Pet,” she said. “Then ruin her for us all to see, so you’ll never lose a dream to her again.”
Banner took a step back, Thistle still clutched in his grip.
Ace—the stupid prick—still wasn’t reacting, and neither was anyone else in the room.
I’d bought in too hard. I shouldn’t have trusted him and his stupid fucking plan.
Thistle’s shriek pierced me to the soul as she threw herself against Banner’s grip—both toward Ace and the ragged plushie she’d left behind.
In the bond, he was a fortress of stone, sitting freakishly still as the Alpha clamped a hand over Thistle’s mouth, lifting her kicking and screaming toward a door.
I lunged forward, instincts ripping me away from reality. There was a glint of one of the guns still raised to my face, but I barely noticed, a growl rising in my chest at another of Thistle’s screeches.
I didn’t see what happened—just heard the bang!
I staggered a pace, off-balance, trying to reach her, but the world wasn’t as steady as it should be.
“Don’t kill him!” Bella sounded furious. “Not before the show.”
Hands gripped me, but I was running out of energy. The marble slammed against my chin as I was shoved to the ground, and it took two of them to hold me there despite my waning strength.
There was another scuffle—but Knox didn’t get any further than me.
Again, I struggled, making the world swim into my vision just in time to see Rodrick Banner step through a double doorway. Thistle was struggling, so small in his arms, and the last thing I saw before the doors shut was her desperately reaching over his shoulder.
I tried again to fight, but my body wasn’t responding properly. I could feel something warm and sticky near my arm.
Blood— fuck .
I’d been shot. On my side, somewhere? I wasn’t dizzy, so it couldn’t be that serious. I fought again, trying to?—
“Manzo.” Ace’s drawl was the only thing that broke through my fury. “Find some decorum.”
I couldn’t see him, but I could still feel his stillness.
What was wrong with him?
“Lock them in.”
I watched in numb shock as one of the guards flipped the lock at Bella’s command. I was dragged up roughly so I was on my knees.
Everything was going wrong.
Earlier, I’d caught Knox’s eyes sliding to me at the hint that Ace had leverage on some of the partygoers.
I’d filed that away like he had. He held all his cards close to his chest, but I thought I’d clocked his plan.
But now Thistle was gone, and not one of the Alphas or Omegas in the room was coming to our defense.
Ace had failed.
And yet, he quietly sat back down as if nothing was wrong at all, lounging in Carrion’s chair.
To my horror, the great screen flickered to a camera feed. Thistle’s screams—the faintest echoes from a room away—suddenly lit the space.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the second show of the night,” Bella said, victory in her drawling voice. “A pack of traitors—unwilling to follow our rules. I’ll make an example of them and their inbred Omega.”
It was a rerun of what I’d already endured.
Thistle let out another shriek, trying desperately to pry Rodrick’s grip away. He was a monster compared to her, though.
Desperately, she sank her teeth into his arm, a spray of blood coming with it, but it only seemed to energize Banner, who laughed before dragging her off him and easily tossing her against the wall.
Her wounded, involuntary squeak of pain was enough to make me shut my eyes for a moment. Bella’s scent of Absinthe was too close, though, and I felt her nails dig into my hair as she forced my neck back.
“After all the damage you did to my pack, Manzo,” the warmth of her voice tickled my ear as she leaned in, “every second, you will watch.”