33. Chapter 33
Rosalina
Cruz lifted me out of the back seat, which would have been sweet if he wasn’t clearly friends with the Moreno heir.
How could I have missed it? Nico Moreno.
It wasn’t like Nico was a very common name, it wasn’t incredibly uncommon either.
But it all made sense. The familiar line of his jaw and the inky black and gray tattoos.
I should’ve known.
I wanted to walk, I wanted to scream and scratch this motherfucker’s eyes out, but I wasn’t going to give up the advantage I’d gained during the car ride.
They thought I’d slept the whole way, that I was still asleep.
That was fine by me. It gave me more time to plot the slow and painful death of these Moreno fuckers, and to listen for anything else they might let slip.
I lay still as Cruz cradled me against his chest, like I was his precious omega.
If only that were true. My traitorous body would’ve loved that.
The instinctual urge to snuggle against him was strong, but I fought it.
He wasn’t my alpha. He was a child-killing monster.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, reminding myself that these people were responsible for my family’s downfall.
Trees rustled in the early morning breeze, and the first trills of birdsong were swept along with it.
The air smelled fresh after being cooped up in a warm car, suffocating on alpha pheromones.
I wanted to peek, but I also wanted them to leave me the fuck alone, and so far, pretending to sleep had been keeping them from paying me much attention.
Which was perfect, as far as I was concerned.
Cruz carried me through a door, shutting out the slight chill and flooding my senses with delicious scents of syrupy sweet breakfast treats.
I almost groaned, thinking they might feed me.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and the smell of buttery maple had my mouth watering. I’d kill for French toast right now.
A pleasant, velvety voice carried through the space—distracting me from my hunger—telling Cruz not to put ‘the stray’ in his nest.
Well, I wasn’t a fucking stray, thank you very much, and I didn’t want to be here any more than this guy with the nest wanted me to be, so we were in agreement on that.
The thought of being in a stranger’s nest made my skin crawl anyway.
So when Cruz kept walking without responding, it was a relief.
Although it made me wonder where we were going.
I was envisioning one of my father’s concrete torture rooms with the drains in the floor for easier clean-up of the blood and viscera.
I wish we’d get there already. The suspense was killing me.
The air changed again, and the light behind my eyelids dimmed. It felt like we were going down steps, and then there was the clank of a metal door. I dared to peek, just barely cracking my eyelids open.
I fucking knew it. Of course, they would have a torture chamber in their basement, didn’t everyone?
Cruz lowered me onto a concrete bench that jutted out from the dull slate-colored wall. A concrete cell. How unoriginal.
He stepped back, and my body ached from the sudden lack of his warmth.
My body was a traitor anyway because it was all languid and happy, breathing in his pheromones even though he’d kidnapped me.
I pushed myself up so I was sitting on the ledge and pressed my lips together. “So, I’m your prisoner now?”
“Come on, Rosa. Don’t be like that.” He retreated to the door.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Be like what, Cruz? Like someone who’s been beaten, abused, drugged, and kidnapped… twice!”
He paused at the metal door, unable to meet my eyes. “Almost none of that was my fault, and you know it.”
“Yes, but in the end, here I am, and there you are about to lock me in a concrete room with a drain in the floor. We both know what that means.” I turned my attention pointedly to the small grate in the center of the room.
“You’re going to be fine. It won’t come to that. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” With a look that almost resembled remorse, he backed out with his eyes cast down and closed the steel door.
Fuck my life.
I thought it was bad when Diego pulled me out of school.
And then I thought it was worse when my father decided to marry me off to the Vasco pack.
But no, I was wrong. This was so much worse.
I couldn’t even wrap my head around what was happening.
How does one get kidnapped three times in the space of a couple of weeks? Twice on the same night.
Really though, it was looking more and more like I was going to die here. There were things worse than death, and it wouldn’t matter if I begged or cried, all I could do was hope that they’d make it quick.
I stared at the only bit of minuscule light coming through the barred window set high in the door.
Maybe there really was no way out this time.
Oliver
Scent-match.
That hot brunette was definitely my scent-match. My pack’s scent-match. Did Nico know? Did Cruz? How could they not? It was so obvious.
Restlessly, I paced the soft carpet of my nest, letting the plush pile squish between my toes. I wanted to sleep, but how could I now?
No, this wasn’t happening.
Before my thoughts had even caught up with my actions, I was pushing open my door back into the hallway. Nico had to be around here somewhere. He’d have answers. He'd better fucking have answers.
There, in the kitchen, with a bottle of whiskey next to his hand. Okay. Well, maybe he wasn’t handling this very well, either.
“What the fuck, Nico?” I tried to gentle the turbulent emotions that infused each word, but with the way he looked up from his empty glass, I wasn’t sure how successful I’d been.
“I thought you were going to bed.” His voice oozed, thick with whiskey and repressed rage.
I pulled up a stool, filled his glass, and shot it back. “How could I sleep with that in the basement?”
“Yeah, well.” Nico grabbed another glass and poured us both a double.
I ran my finger around the rim of my fresh glass. “‘Yeah, well’? You can’t just ‘yeah well’ me when you have our scent-match locked in the basement.”
His knuckles went white around the bottle of whiskey, and I was half worried he might crush it.
I wrestled the bottle from him with some effort and moved it to the other side of the counter.
“We didn’t know at first. Fuck, I wasn’t even sure until now.
You picking up on it that easily confirms my suspicion.
We’ve all been on heavy scent-blockers at work.
She must’ve been, too. I didn’t want to believe it.
” He sat on the stool next to me, propped his elbows on the counter, and dropped his head into his hands.
“Does she know?”
“The less she knows about all of this, the better,” Nico replied.
“I don’t see the problem, just bite her in.” I waited for him to agree, but when he didn’t, I realized just who she must be. “This isn’t the girl Francisco wants, right? That’s someone else? Right?” I stared at him so hard that my eyes began to ache. She couldn’t be.
“No.” That was all he said. One word.
My head spun. This was the girl that Francisco wanted us to torture and probably kill… to avenge the death of his wife. The one Nico swore would suffer, just like his mother had.
She was supposed to be the center of our pack, the part that brought us all together, balanced us.
“Well, we can’t just…” I waved my hand in the air. “We can’t just give her to him.”
“If that’s what needs to be done, we can, and we will,” Nico said, tossing back another shot of whiskey.
My fingers speared through my tangled hair, tugging roughly at the warm brown strands. “We have to fight for her. She’s ours. Claim her. Can’t you just bond her and tell Francisco to go fuck himself? That’s what you should do.”
“She’s our enemy. Her family has to pay for what they’ve done.
Even if she wasn’t, my father would decimate us and not even blink if he thought we’d consider betraying him.
Not only would I lose everything I’ve worked my whole life for, but more importantly, I’d lose you, too.
He’d torture you. I’d feel everything, then Cruz.
He’d kill you both, making me suffer the loss, feeling each bond shredded slowly and painfully until it finally snapped.
Then he’d force me into a pack so I wouldn’t die, where he’d use another alpha to control me.
” He filled his glass from the nearly empty bottle on the counter.
“When the time comes, we will do what we are told.” He brought the glass to his lips and let the amber liquid slide down his throat.
God, he was too hot for his own good.
“Nah, we won’t,” I replied with a confidence I didn’t feel.
“I said we will do what’s necessary, and you will follow orders. We’ve come this far without a scent-match. We don’t need one. End of discussion.”
That was not the end of the fucking discussion but based on the rapidly diminishing bottle, Nico was in no position to discuss anything.
“I need one of those,” Cruz said, appearing from the hallway that led to the basement access. He plucked the glass from in front of me and finished it off. Fine, they could get shitfaced if they wanted.
“You both owe me a conversation when you’re sober enough to have one.” I got up and went back to my nest, flopping into the mountain of furry blankets piled on my bed.
Fuck them, I was too tired for this shit anyway.