Chapter 5 – RAVEN
RAVEN
"Geo, wait!" I call out, hurrying after the burly alpha's retreating form. His heavy footsteps echo through the stone corridors as I try to keep up with his determined stride. "She needs time and space. You can't just—"
Geo snorts without breaking stride. "She's been scurrying around in my tunnels for hours. She's had plenty of both."
I lengthen my stride to catch up to him. "You don't understand. She just found out the man she loves has been lying to her for years. She's processing."
Geo rounds on me so suddenly I nearly collide with his chest. "If she wants space, she can take her tank of an alpha and go topside," he growls. "I'm not running a fucking therapy retreat."
I straighten my spine, meeting his glare head-on. "You wouldn't dare kick an omega out. Even you have standards."
His single eye narrows dangerously. "Don't presume to tell me what I would or wouldn't do, boy."
I narrow my eyes. Usually, when he calls me that, it elicits a confusing jumble of arousal and rage.
But right now, it's all rage.
"She's going to leave on her own sooner or later," he continues, voice dropping to a rumble. "You'd better get used to that."
The words hit harder than they should. Than they have any right to. I've known Cosima for such a short time, yet the thought of her walking away feels like someone's tearing out my heart with their bare hands.
"If she does," I say quietly, chin lifting, "I'm going with her."
Geo looks like I've punched him in the gut. Winded, shocked, wounded. I've never seen that expression on his face. Never.
"You're what?" he asks, voice suddenly hoarse.
"You should have seen this coming," I murmur, trying to ignore the way his reaction makes my chest tighten. "She's my mate."
Geo's face hardens into a mask I know too well. The one he wears when he's about to do something brutal. The one that means someone's about to bleed.
"Yeah? She has a lot of those." His voice is flat, deadly. "Men who would kill you without blinking. You get that, right?"
I swallow hard, holding his gaze. "I'm not helpless, and I don't care," I reply, fighting to keep my voice steady. "I don't understand why you're so upset. You've talked about nothing but getting rid of me since I showed up again."
Something flickers across his face—something raw and vulnerable that vanishes so quickly I might have imagined it.
"Forget it," he growls, turning and heading into the central cavern of the black market.
I follow him.
The pounding bass of music vibrates through the stone, growing louder with each step. I recognize it immediately—the distinctive rhythm that pumps through the Pandora's Box. The place where I first learned to survive in this wasteland. The place where I earned my freedom.
I catch Geo's arm, surprised by my own boldness. "Geo—"
Before he can respond, he comes to an abrupt halt at the entrance, cursing under his breath. "There's your girl."
I follow his gaze and nearly choke.
The main stage is dominated by a figure in burgundy silk. Cosima moves like liquid silver around the pole, her hair catching the stage lights as she spins. The dress—the one I picked for her—is hiked up, revealing her thick thighs as she executes a perfect spiral down the pole.
It's as far from the kind of behavior you'd expect from a woman who's practically Reinmichian royalty, and my mouth goes dry in an instant.
Good gods, she's lethal.
The crowd roars its approval, a sea of hungry eyes fixed on her every movement. A possessive growl builds in my throat before I can stop it. The sight of all those grimy alphas and betas salivating over her like wolves surrounding prey makes my blood fucking boil.
I want to claw their eyes out.
But I force it down. She doesn't need that right now. She doesn't need another alpha trying to stake a claim, to control her.
But I imprint every last slimy grin to memory so I can torture and murder them all later. I may not be a typical alpha, but I'm no saint either.
"That's quite the spectacle," I manage to say, my voice strained.
Geo snorts. "She's going to start a fucking riot."
He's not wrong. I can already see the tension building in the room, several alphas pushing closer to the stage than the bouncers typically allow. Their aggressive hormones saturate the air, a sour scent that makes my skin crawl. And this is the effect she has on our kind while on suppressants.
As we push through the crowd, I note with grim amusement that even Geo's eye lingers on her longer than strictly necessary.
The hypocrisy isn't lost on me.
But he's already lost the one eye, so I suppose I can spare the other in the bloodbath to come.
We reach the edge of the stage as Cosima completes another turn around the pole. Up close, I can see the flush on her cheeks, the slightly unfocused quality of her violet eyes. She's drunk. Very drunk.
"Cosima," I call up to her, keeping my voice gentle despite the chaos around us. "Time to go, love."
She spots me and her face lights up with a smile that steals my breath. "Raven," she purrs, drawing out my name. "Come dance with me!"
"That's not gonna happen," Geo growls beside me. "Now get down from there before your boy toys go caveman and start a fight in my fucking tunnels." He gestures vaguely in my direction. "And yes, that includes this fop."
I shoot him a withering glare before turning back to Cosima. Not helping. "Geo's right, this really isn't safe. Why don't we go back to the apartment and I'll make you a nice cup of tea?"
For a moment, I think she might concede. Then an an alpha by the stage who apparently has a death wish tries to grab drunkenly at her when she gets too close to him. "Get outta my way," he bellows at me. "I need a piece of that juicy ass."
Before I can consciously process the movement, my boot knife ends up in his windpipe. Curious.
I watch the shock on the neanderthal's face as the violence registers and then wrench the knife out, a spray of blood arcing across my brand new shirt.
Worth it.
I'm cleaning the blade off before he hits the ground with a thud and two guards come over to drag him off. Just another Monday in the club.
"Now," I say, turning back to Cosima as I sheath my knife back into my boot holster. "What were we—"
Cosima's shriek of indignation splits the air just in time for me to see Geo grabbing her off the stage and flinging her over one broad shoulder.
She claws at his back with her pointed nails, but he remains stone-faced as he lumbers through a crowd that's hasty enough to part after my little demonstration.
"Put me down, you… barbarian mafia pirate!" she hisses, followed by a slew of the most obscene Vrissian I've ever heard in my life, including a few words I've yet to encounter but can nonetheless decipher the gist of.
"Geo!" I cry, running after them. "Put her down, she's delicate!"
The words are barely out of my mouth before Cosima has somehow twisted herself to an angle where she's able to elbow him in the neck while kneeing him in the front. Geo makes the pained sound of an alpha who's just had all his breath forcefully expelled from his lungs.
"Your 'delicate' omega just kneed me in the godsdamned spleen," he snarls at me, still carrying her. Just gripping the back of her dress a bit tighter. He'd better not fucking tear it.
"Well, you should have listened when she asked you nicely," I retort.
"She called me a fucking barbarian pirate!"
"Barbarian mafia pirate," Cosima corrects him, still slurring. "And you really wouldn't have liked what I wanted to call you."
Geo rolls his eye, undeterred in his steady trudge down the corridors and away from the club. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was every bit as eager to get her off that stage as I was.
"Who the fuck served you?" Geo demands. "I want a name."
"Your shitty, boring bartender cut me off after three," Cosima grumbles, seemingly having given up on escaping his bear hold for the moment. Then again, she looks like she's focused on trying to hold her breakfast down now. "But the patrons were far more generous. Especially Mark."
Mark. The strip club coordinator.
Geo and I exchange a look.
Mark dies tonight.
But first, we need to get her home.
"Mark is the one who let you up on that stage?" I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral. I'm pretty sure I fail at that, but she's clearly too drunk to notice.
Cosima giggles, her silver hair spilling like a waterfall over Geo's back. "He said I was a natural," she purrs. "Asked if I wanted a job." She reaches out as I follow them, close enough to run her fingers through my hair, tugging slightly.
It's the first time she's touched me, but I refuse to let my alpha instincts preen the way they want to and go numb instead. I want the first time she touches me to be when she's fully lucid, eyes glazed only with pleasure—and preferably screaming my name.
"You could join me, pretty boy," she continues. "We'd make a hell of a team."
A smirk tugs at my lips, the thought momentarily dampening my rage. But it's still there, simmering in the background, waiting for the appropriate time. "We certainly would. But I'd prefer a private show. When you're sober."
Her hand drops from my hair and her sultry expression melts into a blank mask. "You are seriously no fun."
I can't help but chuckle. "That's the first time in my life I've heard that."
Geo snorts, but he's never silent this long unless he's pissed, uncomfortable, or both. The question is, why does this little excursion seem to be affecting him as much as me?
The walk back to Geo's quarters is mercifully short, though Cosima makes it feel endless with her wandering hands I keep having to redirect for decency's sake—a grueling test of morality I didn't know I possessed—and whispered suggestions that make my face burn.
I've heard worse, said worse, but coming from her, it's different. Dangerous. Tempting in a way I'm not prepared to handle. And I'm not someone who's accustomed to resisting temptation.
Everything is uncharted territory where this woman is concerned, apparently.
When we finally reach the door, Geo steps ahead to open it. At least Knight looks like he's enjoying his new throne, sitting in it like some gothic king, massive and menacing in the dim light.
He's on his feet the instant he sees Cosima slung over Geo's shoulder, a worried growl building in his chest as he comes toward us fast and hard enough his footsteps shake the floor. She's barely conscious now, draped limply over Geo's burly back like a sleeping feline.
"Slow down," Geo warns him, holding up a palm and taking a step back.
Knight snarls at him.
"She's fine," I reassure him quickly. Before he can decide the other alpha's arms aren't a safe place for our omega. "She just… got into the spirits. She needs to sleep."
Knight's piercing blue eyes study Cosima as her violet ones flicker open and drift over to the throne he was just sitting in. She gives a throaty laugh, the sound shooting straight to my fucking cock.
"Your Majesty," she slurs, reaching out to caress his mask. "You have a throne now. Very fitting."
Knight growls in confusion, reaching out with his human hand to brush her silver strands away from her face with a gentleness that comes only from worship. He tucks them behind her ear, then tilts her chin up to him as if he's making sure she's okay.
"I promise, she's okay," I assure him again, holding up my arms to Geo. Geo shifts the half-conscious omega into them, still uncharacteristically somber.
Sullen is typical, but this is new.
I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with what I told him in the tunnels, but I can't focus on that right now.
I carry Cosima past Knight to the bedroom, letting out a wary sigh of relief when he allows me to pass.
The tension between us seems to have eased slightly, but I'm under no illusions.
He's still watching me, like he's calculating how quickly he could tear my head from my shoulders if I make one wrong move.
My guess is point-three seconds.
The bedroom is exactly as we left it, the sheets still rumpled from her earlier rest. I lay her gently on the bed, not letting my hands linger. She gazes up at me through heavy-lidded eyes, a soft smile playing on her lips.
"Stay," she murmurs, reaching for my hand.
My heart constricts. I've heard that word so many times, from so many different lips. It was my job to stay, once. To be whatever they wanted, men and women both, for as long as they were willing to pay.
But Cosima isn't asking for the performer, the charmer, the beautiful toy to be played with and discarded.
She's asking for me.
The real me, whoever that is.
And that's precisely why I can't. Because she makes me want to be someone else. Someone better. Someone worthy of her. And I know the real Cosima wouldn't be asking me to stay.
Not yet.
"You need to rest," I tell her, gently extracting my hand from hers. "We can talk in the morning."
She makes a small, disappointed sound that nearly breaks my resolve. But then her eyes start to close, the alcohol finally winning out over her stubborn will.
"Azarel," she mumbles, her voice thick with sleep. "Why?"
The name is like a bucket of ice water down my spine. A painful reminder that no matter what I might wish, no matter what I might feel, her heart belongs to someone else. Even now, drunk and hurt and confused, it's him she thinks of.
He may even be why she's drunk.
I back away from the bed, watching as she curls onto her side, her silver hair spilling across the pillow like the moonlight that sweetens her scent.
I sink into the chair on the other side of the bed before remembering Knight is watching from across the room.
He sinks against the wall, staring at her sleeping form like a silent sentinel.
Those blue eyes flicker to mine for a moment, and an understanding passes between us.
We're alike now, in one regard.
We exist for her.
To protect her.
And right now, neither of us has a damn clue how to do that.