Chapter 15
Why the fuck did they live in a warehouse district?
Instead of there being a dozen busy Vegas city streets for me to vanish into, I was hemmed in by mile-long industrial buildings and a scattering of cars. In my fist was a kitchen knife and a pair of cuffs.
Not ideal, but they were the only things I’d been able to reliably grab without wasting time. The knife had been planned, but I’d spotted the cuffs still on the couch from last night.
Despite my feet burning from the hot concrete against my soles, I was shivering. Not in heat—luckily, though Knight had bought that faster than I’d imagined.
Every breath burned my lungs, having sprinted my hardest down a road that looked exactly like the last in a soaking wet shirt.
It had been what—five minutes, maybe?
When the fuck would this district end?
I froze at the sound of a car at my back, then spun, trying to find something to duck behind. When I found nothing, I stilled instead, praying the car was just a passerby who wouldn’t notice a half-dressed Omega wandering in a place like this.
Why had I decided to take off my sweats?
I’d thought maybe the more skin, the more likely to scramble the brain of whichever mate walked in. Now, I was regretting it—Knight’s brain had scrambled so fast I could have probably been dressed like a beekeeper and I’d still be free right now.
Ah, fuck.
My heart sank as I saw a beat-up black truck pull past the intersection behind me. I didn’t wait to see which of my mates was behind the wheel. I took off, the sound of an engine revving behind me, but when I turned my next corner, it was to meet a dead end with two industrial doors and a van.
Shit.
I didn’t have time to change my mind. I tried the doors, but found them locked, and instead ducked behind the black van, chest heaving, stupid kitchen knife clutched in my fist.
I heard the truck stop and a door slam, then the crunch of boots on gravel.
Only one of them? Good. I held my breath through a pause.
“Glade?”
Knight.
Okay, Knight, I could work with.
“You don’t want me here,” I called back. “Let me go. Tell Zed you never found me.”
Silence.
Come on. Please.
The quiet went on for too long. Finally, I heard his voice from the right of the van. “That’s not how this pack works.”
I ducked to the left around the car.
Fuck me—he’d left the keys in the ignition? It was still running. I glanced behind me, hearing something scrape concrete on the other side.
This was it. My only chance.
I made a break for it, heart in my chest.
If I could get the door shut and locked in time?—
A strangled sound of shock tore from my chest as Knight’s huge fist closed on my hair. I reacted on instinct, knife whipping out, and he snarled in pain as I caught him on the forearm with a shallow cut, but didn’t let me go.
“Glade—!”
Fuck him. I shoved the open cuffs between my teeth to free my hand and threw myself to the side, using the back of the van for purchase with my foot and launched myself behind him. My free arm circled his neck as I swung around, ending up on his back. My movement forced his wrist at such an angle that I could rip my hair free. He staggered back, reaching for me with a growl, but I shifted, pulse thready, and managed to secure the knife at his neck.
He froze, fist trying to close around my wrist until I dug the knife deeper.
“You’re going to let me go,” I hissed through the metal between my teeth.
“I can’t do that. Zed’s orders.”
I tried to lower myself down, to get my feet on the ground and have more control. I reached out with my foot and found nothing but air. He was so cursedly tall. If I dropped to the ground, I’d lose my advantage. I could hold the knife to his neck at the front, sure, but that might leave me toe to toe with his strength, and I couldn’t match that.
“Crouch!”I demanded.
“No.”
“Knight.”My voice was a warning.
“You aren’t going to—” He cut off with a hiss of pain as, in a flash of movement, I shifted the blade, cutting it across his shoulder. I returned it to his neck in a second.
He had to let me go.
None of them understood. I let the cuffs drop, able to reach them with the hand not holding the knife. They hadn’t locked shut, thank god.
“Go to the wall,” I said instead.
“What?”
“The dumpster.” I tried to use my elbow to direct him to the dumpster that was just around the corner of the dead end. “Now.” I pressed the knife harder and he tensed.
“Okay. All right . I’m going.”
He took a tentative step toward it, and I could practically see the cogs turning in his mind as he tried to find a way out. He flinched, and I dug the knife in harder.
“Don’t try anything,” I snarled.
He did as I said, closing the gap to the dumpster, if slowly.
“Okay. Give me your wrist.”
“What?”
“Now.”
He lifted his arm, and I hooked the cuff around his wrist. “Secure it to the bar.”
“No way?—”
“Do it, Knight!” I failed to keep the tremor from my voice, which probably made me sound more crazy, because he did what I said and lowered his arm. Wasn’t this what I wanted… To leave them?
Again?
I was shaking; the blade pressed so hard against his flesh I worried I was already drawing blood. “Try anything…” Fuck, I was almost sobbing. “I swear to God?—”
“Okay.” Knight’s voice was deathly calm. He did what I said, and next thing I knew, he was cuffed to the bar.
I slipped from his back instantly, stepping away, trying not to think about what I’d just done.
The trick I’d set up, bottling up my hormones as best I could to convince them I was in heat, had been designed on the assumption that they’d let me out to help it pass. I was their mate, after all. It would make sense.
I’d told him to leave me in that room to seem more afraid, but he’d thought I was saying I didn’t want them. And then—at the slightest hint I didn’t—he’d left to get help. He’d thought I was going into heat—his own mate—and he’d been willing to listen to me. To find drugs to help me. He’d even offered to… to call someone.
Another sob almost broke from my chest.
I had to go, now.
But there was such a lost look on his face as he stared at me, as if he didn’t know what he was seeing. Not his mate. Not the woman he’d once loved.
I’d changed—Ace had changed me. I could never escape that, no matter how many years or miles I put between us. Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them away.
I took another step back, his scent of pear grove fading, and tried to forget that it was the last time it would ever truly be with me.
I had to vanish completely—go somewhere so far away neither them, nor Ace, would ever find me.
“Glade…” For a moment, Knight was so much more than the Alpha who’d argued with Zed not to keep me. Who was just angry that I was here—angry at me. Those beautiful dark brown eyes flashed with desperation far beyond the fury I’d just seen. His chest heaved, voice low and wounded as he threw his weight against the cuffs holding him. “Don’t.”
Don’t leave…
I could almost hear those words.
Don’t leave like before…
“It’s best for you, I promise.” My voice was thick. “For all of us.” That last part. That was a lie. This had never been better for me, but I’d never had a choice.
I forced myself another step back, bracing to do it again. To leave them, and this time, forever.
But then I hit something solid and warm—someone that, should I not have been so panicked, I might have sensed was near. A hand closed over my mouth, covered with… something.
A… cloth?
I struggled briefly, inhaling something sharp and sweet, but then the world went fuzzy.
“...I’m sorry, my Sweet Oasis…” I heard Kyan’s breath in my ear, drifting away as the world went black. “After everything, I won’t let you go.”