Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
KNOX
Well. That could have gone worse.
I was left standing in the basement, staring at Ace.
Rogue had started counting down on his fingers, and Thistle squealed, tossing off the blanket as she bolted from the room. His scent of honied bourbon thickened, smugger with every number until he hit zero and launched after her, nearly bowling Ace over at the door.
“Guess we’re both second to ShadowRogue,” I muttered, but strangely I didn’t feel that bad about it.
My instincts had been haywire around Rogue since he’d let slip the ‘ pack ’ comment while we were both boning Thistle over my desk. I knew it was a bad idea to let her have her way when I was supposed to be dealing out punishment. I should never, ever, ever let a brat have her way.
Or let him join.
“She’d have listened to me,” Ace said.
I snorted. “In your fucking dreams, Bunny .”
He thought he’d destroyed another of the security cameras in his room the other night, but he’d been wrong. Rogue and I had watched everything before Ace carried her to her nest. I’d seen her turn him feral on my behalf.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out.
M: Found her.
I stared at the screen, then back at Ace. He’d paused halfway out the door, as if sensing the shift from me.
“What?” he asked.
“Bella,” I said. He cocked his head, waiting, but a grin spread across my face. “Found her.”
Relief and panic rose in my chest together, colliding in my ribs. Another text came in, detailing the location and potential threats nearby.
This was it. I could get her at last.
“How do you know where she is?” Ace asked.
“Got a tail outside her place.”
“What does it look like?”
I frowned. “What?”
“Her place. Give me an identifier.”
“I… why?”
“Just tell me.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m putting together a?—”
“No,” he said.
“No?”
I’d never heard him so deadly. “Tell me what her place looks like.”
I considered ignoring him, but… well. Dammit , he was good at this. I scrolled up through the messages before typing out a new one, asking.
My contact got back to me in seconds, and I flipped the phone to Ace. Luckily, Mirage’s name was shortened to M—by his own request—so Ace wouldn’t know who he was. I’d been warned that if he knew, Ace wouldn’t have anything to do with him.
Ace crossed toward me, then read over the texts. “Good boy,” he said, dropping onto the couch before dialling a number on my phone.
I rolled my eyes. “Who are you calling?”
“Your scent match.”
I froze. “You have her number?”
“I do—but that’s all I have. I wanted you doing the dirty work.”
I glared, almost grabbing the phone from his hand. “ What are you doing?”
“Cashing in on your reward.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means you get a cookie.”
“Were you waiting for me to find her?”
Ace scoffed. “If you couldn’t, you don’t deserve to bite in.”
“You are not the gatekeeper of this pack.”
“Turns out, Knox, I am—and I’ve already done the legwork. She knows the deal.”
“The deal ?” What the fuck did that mean?
But I remembered, even through my haze, how pale she’d been when Ace had whispered something in her ear back at the party.
At that moment, I heard the click as someone answered the phone. Ace lifted it to his ear. “Bella Morgan,” he drawled. “You tried to run, but you are out of time.”
I stared at him, mind racing as I heard a muffled response.
“You and your dwindling pack are holed up on the fourth floor of a Canterbury high-rise. You have ten minutes. If I were you, I wouldn’t wait any longer— chop chop .”
The world faded around me, sounds and sight swaying as the bond I was in blew wide open. For a long, suspended moment, I could feel Bella as if she were me.
“What the fuck did you do?” I snarled. I staggered toward the door, wanting out of the basement. Perhaps my own room, closer to Thistle. Closer to the Misfits.
But the world swayed and I crashed to my knees. The scent of roses and redwood surrounded me as Ace watched from above, curious.
I was twisted up with Bella’s dark soul, caught in a torrent of disgust and fear.
“…Something wrong?” I blinked. Ace’s hand was on my shoulder. “What could possibly be happening?”
“What…?” I couldn’t get the words out.
What had he done?
I was going to vomit.
Ace hauled me up and dragged me up the staircase. Time blurred, and his scent was strong. The walls were different, the room had changed. I was in his bedroom?
Not… what I’d wanted.
I realised my own hand was at my neck as if to ground me as the bond burned the world down.
Sight. Smell. Taste. Feeling.
It all left me in a void with only Bella and the other cruel shadows that made up her pack.
What was happening?
I’d always been able to hold them at bay, but now, I couldn’t get rid of them. Or her. And Bella was… different.
Everything was wrong.
Before, when she’d slipped behind my defences I’d caught traces of cold, cruel curiosity.
Taunts in the dark.
But that had vanished and in its wake was something vile. The Omega at the centre of the pack I was in, opened up her bond to us all.
Bella was a storm of disgust and terror.
It was so visceral I felt, through the darkness, the floor crash into my knees, the palm of my hand holding me up as I retched.
Fuck…
I thought I was going to die, my instincts tugging me to react. To protect something I would never protect in my wildest dreams.
I was helpless, with no control, and no ability to shut down the connection.
My breathing was heavy, the horror of the bond I couldn’t keep out smothering me, rising until she was all of me. I heard the faintest, low growl of distress, and it might have been hers or mine for how entwined we were.
Then, as the nightmare crescendoed into a roar, I felt agony like I’d never felt before; a lash of white-hot molten lava across my chest.
Everything went black.
I faded in and out of consciousness, hearing only the slow thud of my pulse in my ears. A bokeh of light swam in and out of my vision.
A scent lingered in my senses, the faintest sharp hint of wood and flowers on a cool night.
Roses and redwood.
A groan rumbled in my ears, and only on the second did I realise it was mine. I pushed myself up from the floor, world coming into view slowly, head pounding.
It was hard to catch my breath as the bedroom focused, something squeezing my chest tight. The first thing I noticed was the person waiting for me, matching the roses and redwood scent to its Alpha.
Ace was lounging on his bed, propped up by pillows, phone light glowing, but ice-blue eyes fixed on me as I gripped the footboard to steady myself. At his side was a cardboard box. I frowned at it for a second, still acclimatising to the world. There was something about it, something unsettling?—
“How do you feel?” Ace’s question drew my gaze back to him.
“Why?”
“I’m curious.”
“How long have I been out?”
“An hour or two. Just enough time for a delivery.” He nodded toward the box, eyes never leaving mine.
I didn’t understand.
He looked as calm as his scent, and there was nothing too tense about him that might mark him a threat right now. But there was a piece I was missing.
“I know what it’s like,” Ace added. “My dear brother put me through the exact same thing, though in my case it wasn’t such a gift.”
“A… what?”
“I didn’t pass out, so there’s that. I did bite her that night, though, which I’m sure you’ll do.”
“What are you talking about?”
His smile was icy. “My gift to you.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending.
A gift?
“Bella did exactly what I told her might give her a chance of survival—and one of her Alphas just dropped it off. I wonder if he was the one who did it?” A flash of madness glinted in his eyes. “I have a tail on him, we’ll see if he can shake it. Give them a head start.”
“ What are you talking about?”
“Your bond. It’s in there. Or at least, what was your bond.”
“My…” I trailed off, freezing as I realised, at last, what I was missing. “Shit.”
Not possible.
I sat up, ignoring the way the world spun.
The pain in my chest was fresh enough, aching with each breath until now. Ace tossed the box to me and I tore it open, instinctively knowing what I would see a moment before I did—despite how impossible it was.
But the bond—the connection I had to Bella’s pack—was entirely gone.
Inside, the box was spattered with crimson, and nestled at its centre lay a delicate heeled foot.
ROGUE
A few hours before …
I caught up to her in the stairwell, adrenaline roaring through my veins, but everything had happened too fast. I wasn’t ready for this to be over.
“Fight me, Kitten,” I growled.
She cocked her head, a sly smile flashing before she twisted from my grip. I grabbed at her, but she elbowed me in the ribs so hard the air left my lungs. The blow loosened my hold, and she bolted.
She was fast—too fast.
I snagged her by the waist as she tried to dart into Knox’s bedroom. I slung her and Bunny over my shoulder, carrying her kicking and screaming back to the nest. I pulled the writing table out from the wall and bent her over it so she could see herself in the mirror.
You know.
She was right.
With the hood mask over my head and a torso carved with scars, I looked pretty fucking intimidating.
I dropped Bunny onto the table and held Thistle down with one hand, pinning her wrists behind her back. She was still squirming when I freed my cock, but when I tugged her shorts down I found her cunt soaked.
She let out the hottest growl of shock, fight dying as I adjusted her hips and drove myself right up to the knot. Her body quivered as she was stretched around me, every inch of my size forcing her to yield.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
With my cock impaling her, it was easy to trap her hips with my legs. She was so tiny beneath me, the difference between us making her look too fragile. With my free hand I fisted her hair, forcing her neck back so she could see every expression her pretty face made as I split her open.