Chapter 7
SIN
I wasn’t stupid.
I knew Phantom was right. I just didn’t care. One way or another, we would find a way out of this.
I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been about Holden at the start.
It had been about him right up until the moment I jammed the gun under his chin and caught sight of her golden eyes.
Saw her up close. And for the first time since being thrown down here, when my lips had met hers, Holden hadn’t even existed.
It wasn’t a mistake, but it meant I had to pivot, fast.
As we walked down the grungy, worn stone hallways, my mind raced through options.
As expected, the news had already spread. There were more than a few eyes fixed on us as we walked. Leering alphas in the doorframes of their rooms, or pausing mid dice-game, crowded around rickety wooden tables.
The Cimmerian Vaults were located in a storm prone area on an oceanfront. The walls were thick, but not thick enough to mask the faint rolls of thunder.
I welcomed them.
A tether to the world outside.
We had very few of those in here. The few barred windows, that were high on the walls since we were in the basement floor, were hotspots for territory feuds I had no room for.
The Emerald pack was large, with eight members—which was common in a place like this.
It meant Bug and Rick could be spared, since two of us wandering about after an event like Crescent was a recipe for death.
And there were six members of their pack left across the hall from our cell while we were gone.
No one knew if the gun was with Karma or me, which was another level of protection.
I could never trust a pack that large, but a four person pack like ours left us vulnerable. And we were underdogs for more than just that. It was why I worked overtime to pull my weight.
The gun was with me. Tucked away in one of the few places I kept it. Strapped to my leg, beneath my sweatpants. It was small enough to not be noticeable—or easily misidentified as a knife.
“I guess tonight’s off,” Bug said, glancing back at me.
I cocked an eyebrow. No, I wouldn’t spend the evening fucking his omega in a cage for them to watch.
Bug, who was a usually cheery, lumberjack-looking alpha with a large ginger beard, raised his hands defensively. “Can’t hurt to ask.”
“Wait.” Rick looked back. “Does that mean it’s over… forever?”
“I have my own omega to take care of,” I said.
“Where are you gonna get our favours from, then?” Bug asked.
I snorted. “Ask me again when you’ve caught up on the debt you already have.”
It wasn’t a great position to be in. Loyalty and honour were the weakest of the currencies that flowed through Anarchy.
Man power and aura strength were stronger tools to barter with—but not ones we were top of the list on. Karma’s aura was potent as fuck, but it couldn’t make up for us having such a small pack.
Another big one was illusion, and that was where I was going to have to do some work.
Not all alliances like ours with the Emerald pack were visible. Debts were kept secret as often as they were announced. Which meant it was impossible to know how much aid a pack would get if someone started a feud.
My one rule was the most important, though: any show of weakness would instantly annihilate any assets I thought I had.
“You and Karma have any more jobs on retainer?” I asked Phantom, voice low enough that no one else would hear.
Both Phantom and Karma were vicious. Karma’s aura was almost unmatched in this place, and Phantom, who’d grown up on the New Oxford streets, was a better technical fighter than most here.
“Couple. I can try to change the terms to something a little more… protection oriented, but we don’t exactly offer unique services, do we?”
The unspoken half of his words hung between us.
Not like I did.
I knew it grated at Phantom and Karma that my value in Anarchy revolved around sex. I wrinkled my nose, a snarl tugging at the edge of my lips.
Grated at me, too.
Everyone wanted a fucking show.
Well. It was almost over and I’d get some peace and fucking quiet in a life on the other side that I was too afraid to even begin to imagine.
I stifled my irritation, though, as we reached the Redgrave’s room.
It was off the main square, which was a stupid name for the large open space in the middle of Anarchy, since it was a huge circle.
Out here, alphas played dice and card games. A large pit in the centre of the room held two fighting alphas—one of a bunch of places where fights often broke out—and another million stares were fixed our way.
Bug knocked on the Redgrave door before returning to glaring at any alpha who was looking too hard.
There was a bang, and the door swung open.
Ezra, a mute alpha with a brutal aura, and a missing eye covered with a ratty patch, was most commonly found at their door. He was lounging on a stool at the entrance, working with charcoal on a small piece of paper. He barely spared us a nod, which was as much of an invite as we’d get.
The room within was a spectacle, as usual. It had enough beds for a fourteen member pack, though the Redgrave pack was only ten strong.
Half of the others were out right now, but that left enough to guard the two spare bunks that were stacked with their current wares.
We got very little delivered down to Anarchy.
There was a stock locker through which we were sent things like food, clothing, hygiene supplies, scent dampeners, and drugs for ruts, sedation, and pack bonding.
Before my time, there’d been a pack who’d had full claim over the locker, but the hoarding of all the supplies had ended in a fight bloody enough that Anarchy’s population shrank by a tenth.
Now, the Redgrave pack got first dibs on deliveries as long as they didn’t touch the food and essentials.
In exchange, they used their connections to barter for the occasional extra from the guys upstairs.
I didn’t know how they were able to, but that secret made them one of the most protected packs in Anarchy.
So on the bed was an assortment of items people came to the Redgraves for: spray paints, cigarettes and a few bottles of pills, sketchbooks and pencils, insulin, and a row of knives alongside other weapons.
It was where I’d got the gun.
Dominic Redgrave himself had come to me with the request, and it wasn’t one I’d been able to decline. Matt wasn’t my type of omega, exactly, but there were levels I would stoop to for a gun. Not that even Karma and Phantom got the details of that.
It was the only absolute protection between me and Holden if everything else were to fall apart—and this trade, this one was my choice. Plus, I had been able to set some of my own boundaries. Like which kind of weapons had been allowed into that cage.
It also hadn’t exactly hurt my reputation—one I cultivated very carefully to survive. I might have come out on top that night, but there were still scars I carried.
Scars Dominic Redgrave admired every time he saw me.
Right now, from where he was seated on a rickety seat in the corner of the room, I could see his eyes tracing my wrist where one was clearly displayed.
He was in his late thirties—or early forties, if I were to guess—with a thick, more-salt-than-pepper beard. He was huge, with tattoos covering him head to toe, and piercing blue eyes that didn’t seem to miss much.
Leaving Phantom, Bug, and Rick to poke about at the goods, I approached Dominic.
The Redgrave pack were dwellers, which meant they’d let the last appeal lapse—and they’d done so over a decade ago.
Dwellers were most often packs with enough established dominance and comfort in Anarchy, that they’d decided they preferred this to the life waiting for them outside.
I got it, to an extent.
I’d been here a year and a half, and this was my only normal.
It was worse for those who had no memories from before, like Karma. I had a few flashes, but they were messy and not reflective of the world that might wait for me.
Bright lights.
Violent fights.
Injections.
I was an anomaly with blood-red eyes that unnerved anyone who looked at me. This place was better than that, a thousand times over.
Well, it was after I found my pack.
Dwellers like the Redgrave pack also had alliances that were hard to shake, which is why I was glad we were going to be out of here in less than a month. I didn’t want to stick around long enough to know where Holden’s pack would be in a few years.
“Looking for something in particular?” Dominic asked, eyes flashing with delight as he took me in. “I heard you did something rather… out of line today.”
I folded my arms, leaning against the metal bedpost. “Only if I didn’t get away with it.”
“You stepped on a dweller’s rights.”
“New dweller. And he shouldn’t have made it so easy.”
Dominic snorted, then tugged out a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it, then burned through a quarter of it in one inhale—which was as close to a power move as you could get in a place with such limited resources. He let out a plume of smoke and glanced at me.
“You want my blessing?”
“I thought we had something special,” I replied. He held it in, but at Dominic’s chuckle, I felt Phantom’s flash of irritation through the bond as he picked his nail absently with a knife we definitely couldn’t afford. He was close enough to be listening to every word.
“Is there any chance you might have something for a…” I threw a glance at the ceiling. Fuck this. He already knew. “I need supplies for her.”
“Supplies?”
I shot him a bitter smile. “Clothes. Underwear. Pants.”
I think we could manage with oversized tops for her. Everyone in here wore varying shades of light grey to white outfits.
But the rest was needed.
“That’s all?” he asked.
“Drugs for heats?” There was no way we could risk that with Crescent.
I’d known her for less than an hour, but I did know I would never risk allowing her to go into heat in this place. Omegas in heats were where heads rolled, bonds were stolen, and blood clogged the gutters.