Chapter 15
Just like I’d hoped, it was only Flynn waiting for me at the bar. He wanted a conversation from rich kid to rich kid, and that was exactly what I was going to give him.
I slid into the booth he was waiting in and he’d already ordered himself a drink. He was dressed well, beige button up and his dark hair was short and well styled. He looked like the kind of guy who went to the barber pretentiously often. It was work not to wrinkle my nose at his coconut and plum scent. Everything about this pack set my nerves on edge.
“Kingsman,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad you came.”
“Flynn.” I nodded, then ordered a drink when the waitress appeared.
Flynn waited until she’d gone before fixing me with an all-business look. Seemed he wasn’t wasting time. “Things have become far too messy. I thought a proper talk was in order, but I hope this can stay between you and me,” he said. “We’re the same. Both in packs with alphas that didn’t grow up in our calibre.”
I met his eyes, nodding slowly and watching as he relaxed a bit when I didn’t argue.
“You had me worried at the ball. Dusk… Well, he seems to have a vendetta, but you… Well, you surprised me. I didn’t think you would agree with him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I do not like assumptions made of me,” I said, hearing my father in my words.
Distasteful, but he knew how to spin a conversation to get what he wanted from it. And what I wanted from Flynn was to give him the impression there was a possibility of an alliance with me. It would cool down the urgency to open the safe, or villainise Shatter.
Flynn nodded, swallowing before taking a sip of his drink.
“We were taken aback. I hope you understand. You haven’t been here, though we don’t know why…” He trailed off.
“I was recovering from an illness.”
Flynn’s eyebrows shot up, and I could see a flash of relief in his eyes. “That’s why you weren’t here at the start of term?”
I nodded. There was one issue I had to tackle. When Shatter was with them, I’d turned up at their apartment and almost put one of them through a wall. “I wasn’t made aware that she was your mate.”
Flynn shifted, eyes calculating. “None of them told you?”
I shook my head as the waitress returned with my drink.
“What about the bond?” he asked when she was gone.
“Again. I had just got back the night I showed up at yours. I knew very little.”
“Dusk bit her,” Flynn said, eyeing me. “Did he speak to you before that?”
“No.”
Flynn’s eyebrows rose, and I saw a glimmer of hope in them. “Your pack has gone rogue, Kingsman. I’m sure your parents warned you about being selective with pack mates.”
“Incessantly,” I said, forcing the bitterness into my voice.
Flynn grinned, relaxing considerably as he took a sip of his drink. “I get it, you know? Why do you think I’m with Eric and Gareth? They were well off enough, but nothing like us. I needed a change—my own control.”
I let out a breath, making myself smile. “Yeh. It was… something like that.”
Flynn was nodding almost to himself. “You know, maybe our parents were onto something. I can’t imagine, if I was… indisposed… Eric and Gareth would… well. Not to say I don’t trust them, but this kind of money and power… how easily it could go to their heads…” He looked at me, and I realised he was waiting for me to confirm it.
“I think you’re exactly right.”
“People see our power, and it drives them mad. They want in, but they’ll never have it, not truly. Real power, you’re born with it. Eric and Gareth could take pack lead, could throw my money around, but they’d never truly hold the power I was raised for.”
I nodded despite the irony. Flynn wasn’t anywhere close to my family’s league. He was still of the wealth level that wanted to show it off. Even my father, horrible as he was, had done everything he could to remain as quiet to the public face as possible.
Flynn went on, clearly entranced by the sound of his own voice. “You were sick, and he was in control. Then he discovered she was our match—somehow, and I don’t know how. He must have got it from her. And he realised he could do it again, just like he did to you. Perhaps it’s a game, something to make him feel worth more than us.”
I nodded quietly. This was the direction I needed the conversation to go, and Flynn seemed happy to lead us there.
“It’s a complicated situation,” I added. “Dusk is pack lead, and he…” I trailed off like I was contemplating sharing. “He took more than pack lead when I was sick.”
“He has control over the estate, doesn’t he?” Flynn said, voice hushed eagerly. “Sato did some digging.”
“Like I said, this situation is complicated.”
“I’m still surprised at your stance at the ball—the party even. I can’t possibly imagine why you want to keep her?”
“I walked into this situation late—to Dusk telling me she’d been taken by your pack. Then she was dark bonded without my consent. I have a responsibility to ensure this situation is dealt with properly.”
This was getting easier with the drink, and as much as I’d despised my upbringing, this sort of diplomacy was something I was trained for.
Flynn nodded, considering that. “How does she…?” He narrowed his eyes as if unsure how to phrase it. “How is she with your pack?”
I took a while to consider that. “She’s… fragile,” I said carefully. “She escaped Dusk to be rejected by you.” I held his eyes, wondering what he’d have to say to that. “She is afraid of a lot of things,” I said, gauging his reaction. “Especially after what you did.”
“Afraid?”Flynn wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Well, I don’t trust her to be rational, but none of those things would have happened if she hadn’t been hiding from us. She’s a fool if she doesn’t understand the position she put us in. We’re alphas.”
I blinked, trying to contain my reaction to that. They were blaming Shatter for how they’d attacked her?
“Men like us, we’re run by instinct at the worst of times, and she was… Well, she was taunting us.” Flynn clapped me on the shoulder, and that, plus the lie he was spinning was almost enough to break my composure.
But I’d known, if I was to play this card tonight, I would be faced with something vile. That was the thing I’d learned about evil people. Very rarely did they view themselves as the villain. That had been one of the most disturbing things I’d learned from my father. I had returned to confront him—before I’d become completely feral. Back when Dusk and Umbra had begun their own hunts in retribution for the alphas that had died in those experimentations.
My father had no idea the security systems were down—that he was on the brink of his own reckoning. I’d sat before him in his office and given him one last chance.
And what had he told me?
“There was nothing inhumane about it, son. Those alphas were pulled from the Cimmerian Vaults; violent and insane, left to rot behind bars. They aren’t like us. This was the only opportunity they’d ever have to better the world.”
In a way, I supposed, he was right.
If my father had never pulled them from the vaults, Dusk would never have hunted him across his own mansion and ended him that night.
The world was better after that.
“Are you protective of her?” Flynn asked, a goading smile on his lips as he took me in. “My scent match?”
I straightened my expression, which I realised had stiffened considerably.
“She’s…” I trailed off, not finding a word that wouldn’t give too much away.
“Gold packs.” Flynn waved a hand, saving me from having to come up with an answer. “Nature’s sirens. I don’t blame you for being a bit attached, but it’s nothing more than biology.”
“I…” I swirled my glass. “She isn’t what I expected.”
“Be honest, you must want me to take her off your hands. You are the last of your line—and she complicates that.”
“What about yours?” I asked, surprised by that take.
Shatter was a gold pack. Any alpha children she had would be rogues—alphas capable of breaking the Institute’s laws that were designed to keep society safe. Flynn was right; legally, she could never have children.
Of course, that would mean nothing to Flynn, who saw Shatter as a cure for his aura sickness, but I wondered how he would mask that lie.
“We could work something out,” he said easily, waving a hand again. “An arrangement out of pack, or, well… I mean…” He paused, as if toying with an idea. “With what the world’s dealt me so far, a part of me perhaps enjoys the idea of…” He glanced around briefly, voice lowering. “Tripping the system.” He grinned. “With enough money, you can get around almost anything. And rogue alphas… I do like the idea of handing more power to my children. She can, at least, offer me that.”
Goosebumps rippled my skin as I processed those words, and it took everything I had to keep a hold on my aura.
His take was clear, though.
He was trying to play her off as worthless to me, while an asset to himself—but not so much so that he wasn’t doing me a favour by offering to take her.
“You’re a bigger risk taker than I am,” I said quietly, swirling on my drink to calm the boiling fury in the pit of my stomach.
At the lack of condemnation, Flynn downed the rest of his drink before setting it down with a scowl. “She is a gold pack caught between two families so far out of her calibre that it’s embarrassing we’re here discussing her. The least she can do is give me some power back to my lineage.” He snorted. “And she’ll be in a fucking princess bond. I better get something back after having to offer it.”
“I understand, but I’m still curious why you’re pushing so hard for it.”
“I wouldn’t be claiming her if it wasn’t for the match—I think my parents would tell me not to, but… Well, it goes against my principles. She is ours.”
I worked very hard to loosen my grip on my cup as he spoke those words. I took a breath, letting go as Flynn went on.
“It’s only right we should take her. I didn’t really imagine you’d have interest with how much you are a representative of your family now. Not with the kind of work that will have to go into making her even remotely presentable. I mean her show at the ball—pretty enough, if cheap. I couldn’t take her to see my parents—don’t get me started on the eyes.” He sighed. “I do wish we’d gone to the Valentine’s Division sooner, found a decent match. Oh! Speaking of—” He tugged in his pocket and pulled out a business card. I frowned, catching a number of sweet scents tangled upon it. “I have a friend who works at the Valentine Division, you know. They’re so regulated, but she can get around a few of their… rules. Make sure the omega scents you’re exposed to are reputable. You might not be able to scent match after that dark bond, but it doesn’t mean you can’t find a good fit.”
Ah.
Thiswas his play?
He handed me a card covered in the scents of a dozen unbonded omegas in hopes that… what? I was drawn to one of them?
I took it without flinching, knowing I was going to have to burn it (and likely my entire hand) if I didn’t want Shatter to start digging me a grave beside Dusk’s tonight.
“Not a bad idea,” I said.
“It would get their minds off of her—and this foolish vendetta. Think about it. Dusk strikes me as the primal kind. Get him another omega and he’ll forget all about her and this stupid… competition.” He eyed me. “Claim a little dignity back.”
“Dignity?” I asked, eyebrows shooting up.
He cleared his throat. “It might be hard to swallow, but everyone can see it, Kingsman. Those alphas claimed my scent match and ran rampant with your money. Time to leash them.”
My blood flashed with rage for the briefest second.
The image of the first time I’d ever seen Dusk and Umbra. Gaunt and beaten down. Starved, white outfits stained in blood. Violated over and over by experiment after experiment. Nothing more than animals to those that ran the facility.
“If you take the power back, then we can come to a proper arrangement. I can see you want this nightmare over just as much as I do. I must say, learning that your pack forged marriage papers…” Flynn’s jaw clenched. “You understand. She is ours. That is an insult.”
I got to my feet with a nod, knowing I would get nothing more from this conversation, but that every moment I stayed, I risked cracking and snapping him in two.
“I understand,” I told him. “I’ll speak to Dusk and do what I can. But in the meantime, no violence,” I said. “There’s been quite enough. I would like to facilitate it, so she goes to you the right way. I might be late to this, but that’s my pack’s bite on her neck. It didn’t sit well when your hired thug tried to… intervene.”
I hoped that would make him think twice about sending Mord. My job, after all, was to buy us time. Flynn’s jaw was clenched, but he nodded.
“Oh—Kingsman,” Flynn said as I was turning away.
“Yeh?”
He was frowning. “She will accept the princess bond, won’t she?”
I could almost see the pain on his face at being forced to ask such a humiliating question—whether a gold pack omega would be willing to accept the most valuable bite he could possibly offer. And finally, after all of this conversation, he’d circled back around to it, if only because it was his last and final obstacle. What a terrible inconvenience, Shatter’s autonomy was, to an alpha like Flynn Lincoln.
“That,” I said with perhaps my only honest smile of the night. “Is a good question, but I’m afraid I can predict her behaviour about as well as I can predict Dusk’s.”