Chapter 2
Chapter two
Supply Chain Complications
Riot
The rational thing to do would have been to head straight to the pharmacy, collect his suppressant order, and pretend yesterday’s encounter with the Elysian missionary never happened.
Riot had never been particularly good at rational.
He’d made it five blocks in the wrong direction before he caught himself, standing at an intersection with his nose lifted like a bloodhound and absolutely no memory of deciding to turn north.
The kid’s scent was still in his head, caramel and cinnamon and something warm like sunlight through glass, and apparently his hindbrain had decided that tracking it down was more important than minor concerns like medication or self-preservation.
Get it together.
He forced himself to turn east, toward the industrial district where machinery noise and chemical fumes would help clear his head.
The pharmacy could wait another hour. What he needed right now was distance and perspective, neither of which he was going to find by chasing an Omega’s scent trail through the Neutral Zone like some rut-drunk Alpha who’d never learned self-control.
Because that’s what this was. Simple biology, simple explanation.
He’d been splitting his suppressant doses with Stave and Prepper for weeks now, running on pharmaceutical fumes while his two fellow Endeavor survivors struggled with their own supply shortages.
Seven months of stability at the settlement, surrounded by Nulls whose lack of designation made them soothing rather than stimulating, and he’d let himself forget what it felt like to encounter a compatible Omega while his chemistry was compromised.
Now he was remembering. Vividly.
The kid’s face kept surfacing in his mind with those ridiculous eyelashes, still wet with tears, the way his hands had trembled while he cleaned Riot’s wounds.
The soft curve of his mouth when he’d said that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, like Riot’s pain actually mattered to him.
The long line of his throat when he’d tilted his head back, practically begging to be—
Don’t.
Riot shoved the image away and walked faster.
This was the problem with running low on suppressants: his brain kept serving up thoughts he didn’t want, fantasies that felt more like indulgences than intrusions.
Under normal circumstances, he could notice an attractive Omega and move on.
Under these circumstances, his mind wanted to construct elaborate scenarios involving that Omega spread out beneath him, making sounds he’d probably never made before, learning exactly what his body was capable of when someone who knew what they were doing took him apart piece by piece.
He’s Elysian, Riot reminded himself. Born Elysian. He probably thinks babies come from harmonious energy alignment and that reading is a privilege reserved for spiritual elders.
There was a saying in the Neutral Zone about born Elysians: They send them out to recruit because they need someone to read the pamphlets for them.
It wasn’t entirely fair. Elysian’s educational approach was more about controlled information than actual illiteracy, but the kernel of truth made Riot’s skin crawl.
These were people raised in sealed communities, fed a carefully curated reality from birth, trained to see corporate doctrine as universal truth.
They weren’t stupid. They were shaped. And the kid with the golden hair and the desperate eyes had been shaped into something so sheltered that he genuinely didn’t understand why people kept rejecting his offers of spiritual enlightenment.
Which made the things Riot kept imagining doing to him feel approximately three steps worse than monstrous.
He’s not a child, some part of his brain protested. He’s an adult. Mid-twenties at least.
But the age gap wasn’t the problem. It was the experience gap.
The way Cass had looked at him with those trusting eyes, like the concept of someone helping him was genuinely foreign.
The way he’d flinched at harsh language and cried openly when overwhelmed in the fucking Neutral Zone like this was a place where people could show any weakness.
Riot had fucked people before. He’d even fucked people he shouldn’t have, back in his Syndicate days when artificial pheromones made bad decisions feel like good ones. But he’d never fucked anyone who looked at him the way Cass did—like Riot was something miraculous instead of something dangerous.
The thought of putting his hands on that kind of innocence made him feel sick.
The thought of putting his hands on that kind of innocence also made him hard, which was the actual problem.
Princess, he told himself firmly. Think of him as a princess in a tower. Untouchable. Not for you. Something to protect, not something to ruin.
It helped, a little. Framing Cass as something ethereal, something too pure and delicate for Riot’s bloodstained hands, created a barrier his hindbrain had to work around.
Princesses weren’t for fucking. Princesses were for rescuing and admiring from a distance and absolutely not for pinning against walls and teaching exactly how good it felt to—
STOP.
The industrial district’s noise helped. Steam hissed from processing plants, machinery clanked and groaned, and the chemical smell of manufacturing overpowered everything else.
Riot focused on his breathing, on the rhythm of his footsteps, on anything except the persistent ache between his legs that wouldn’t quite fade no matter how firmly he told it to.
This was going to be a long few days.
He was so busy being frustrated with himself that he almost missed the footsteps behind him.
Almost.
“Well, well.” The voice was smooth, artificially pleasant in a way that set Riot’s teeth on edge. “Look who’s still alive.”
Riot turned slowly, keeping his hands visible and his weight balanced.
Ken Nakamura stepped out from behind a shipping container, looking exactly the same as he had two years ago—expensive jacket, fitted black shirt, tattoos visible at his collar and wrists.
The kind of dangerous handsomeness that worked well for recruiting marks and worse for anyone who got too close.
“Ken.” Riot kept his voice level. “Thought you’d moved operations to the coast.”
“And I thought you’d moved operations to a shallow grave.” Ken’s smile showed too many teeth. “Imagine my surprise when I heard otherwise.”
His scent shifted as Riot glared at him, the expensive cologne morphing into something sharper, more aggressive. It was an artificial Alpha musk, the kind Chimeras used to establish dominance in negotiations. Ken had always been good at reading rooms and adjusting his pheromones accordingly.
Two years ago, Riot would have responded to that musk with something like respect.
Ken had been useful back then—a reliable contact in the Chimera Syndicate, good for jobs that paid well and didn’t ask too many questions.
The fact that he’d also been good for other things, late nights when the suppressants weren’t enough and Riot needed to burn off excess energy, was a complication Riot preferred not to examine too closely.
Now the artificial pheromones just smelled like manipulation. Funny how two years of distance changed things.
“Not looking for work,” Riot said. “Retired.”
Ken laughed. “From what? Being the best extraction team the Syndicate ever had?” He took a step closer, his pheromones ramping up in a way that was probably supposed to be enticing.
“People are asking questions, Riot. Contracts are backing up. When the Riot-Stave-Prepper combination goes dark, interested parties start to wonder why.”
“Interested parties can wonder all they want.”
“Interested parties can also start digging.” Ken’s voice hardened slightly beneath the pleasant veneer. “Which creates problems for everyone. Whereas a simple contract—two days, premium pay—would reassure people that everything’s still business as usual.”
Riot studied him. The same confident stance, the same calculated charm, the same assumption that everyone had a price. Ken had built a career on being useful to dangerous people, and he’d survived this long by knowing exactly how much pressure to apply before things got messy.
He’d also spent years manipulating modified Berserkers into doing his dirty work, using artificial pheromones and carefully manufactured intimacy to keep them compliant. Riot had been young enough and desperate enough to mistake that for something real, once. He wasn’t anymore.
“We’re done,” Riot said. “Permanently. Find new specialists.”
“Just like that?” Ken’s eyebrows rose. “After everything we built together?”
“What we built was you making money off people too desperate to know better. I’m not desperate anymore.”
Something flickered in Ken’s expression like a blemish in the smooth facade that showed the calculation underneath.
His pheromones shifted again, the Alpha musk fading into something sweeter, more seductive.
An artificial heat, the kind designed to trigger protective and possessive responses in Alphas.
Two years ago, it might have worked. Now it just made Riot’s skin crawl. It was a cheap imitation of something real, nothing like the warm golden scent that had been haunting him since yesterday.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
“Don’t what?” Ken stepped closer, his scent thickening. “Don’t remind you how good it used to be? You weren’t complaining back then, when you needed someone to take the edge off after a job. I seem to remember you being very—”
Riot moved.
He didn’t make a conscious decision to close the distance—his body just acted, all of his combat training translating thought into motion before his brain caught up.
His hand closed around Ken’s throat, lifting the smaller man onto his toes and slamming him back against the shipping container hard enough to dent the metal.