Chapter 9 #2
I brushed his cheek for a moment, earning a curious, bright eye opening to peer up at me from where he still held us both in his arms. His pupils were still fully dilated.
“See, he’ll be okay,” I murmured. “You want to help?”
She nodded, but it looked like there was a lump in her throat. “Help him come back?” she asked.
“Yup.” He was feral for the moment, but that wasn’t unusual for him, even if it happened less frequently these days.
She lifted her hand, mirroring my comfort and cupping his cheek, to which a low purr rumbled in his chest. Her eyebrows shot up and she looked unsure. Her hand was shaking, though, and I saw such fear in her golden eyes.
“It’s not a rut, he just… got lost. That’s all.”
No one was in this place for no reason. Phantom was the most grounded. But Karma?
We were trying our best, knowing he needed to be more balanced if we wanted a hope of being let out by the time our appeal came.
But by the state of his body and hormones, Phantom thought he’d come from illegal rut fighting rings.
The New Oxford trafficking ring that pushed alphas to madness by making them fight in competition with one another.
The pack was balancing him, but it was slow progress. Crescent might have sent him into this state, but I read it as a good sign. He had connected with her quicker than I had, and that meant, if managed right, she just might bring him back.
Sure enough, he was already reacting to her proximity, a low purr rumbling to life as he shifted, arms tugging around her and drawing her against him.
I saw a nervous smile on her face for a moment—a flicker of delight, but then it vanished, and she shot me a guilty look as if she knew I’d seen it.
She carefully lowered her hand to his hair and he reacted in an instant, tilting his head and pressing his teeth to her neck again. She laughed, cheeks bright pink as his purr rose, but I didn’t catch any fear from her scent.
It was obvious she’d come from a place with a lot of rules and was touch starved like I’d never seen, but her instincts were bursting from her. The little nip she’d given me when I’d told her that her name was beautiful was testament to that.
She cupped Karma’s cheek, straightening and redirected him back to nuzzling her collarbones.
So, we settled in like that. Phantom stepped out for a short while, and I heard him with the Emerald and Wakefield pack outside. That was good, we needed to start shoring up alliances before anyone could undermine them. The door was cracked open, and I heard the occasional snippets of conversation.
The alphas locked in here with us would never accept a pack claiming two omegas—surviving until our appeal was now all but impossible.
But it was too late.
I’d end every alpha in Anarchy before letting her go.
Still, I was wondering the same thing Phantom had. How the hell had an omega like this ended up down here?
My blood boiled, thinking about it.
The omegas they tossed down here didn’t come from nowhere. Lost souls pulled from the trafficking rings. Those who’d angered people with more power than they should have—I knew Justin had been caught with a senator’s daughter.
It was a familiar story.
There was a rot in the Institute, and those in New Oxford with the right connections… It wasn’t just about finding a warm body to feed the dwellers. It was the ultimate punishment from those who only felt powerful when hurting the weak.
We only had ten days to get through.
Then psychologists and arkologists would decide if there was any way we’d be stable enough for society. If we weren’t, they’d force us back down here until our next member’s appeal.
But if we were… we’d be free.
Conditionally, of course. But anything was better than here.
Our only problem—aside from making it to our appeal date alive in the first place—was that no omegas had ever left Anarchy.
Me and Crescent… we didn’t get appeals.
All we got was hell, and no one knew what happened if a pack appealed with an omega in tow. It had never happened before, as far as I knew. Since dweller packs had first dibs on omegas, they rarely got the chance.
Yet another reason I was grateful for whatever force of nature killed the pack that was supposed to bond me.
But even that turn of fortune didn’t guarantee me shit.
There was one pack—the Leo pack, who had an omega, and they would be going for their appeal a few days before ours was called. We were watching their situation closely to plan. But aside that, it was untested territory.
Crescent had been quiet for a long time, her scent calming as she slowly stroked Karma’s hair. It wasn’t happiness, I could still sense an undercurrent of worry, but she was settled.
“Why did you protect me?” Crescent’s whisper broke the silence at last. “You didn’t know I was your match.”
“I don’t know that I didn’t.”
“Scent matches don’t lock in until you scent each other,” she replied, tilting her head up and meeting my eyes.
“As far as we know,” I chuckled.
“I’m going to cause you a lot of problems—”
“You’re ours, Sweetheart,” I said, trying the next nickname and deciding instantly it wasn’t right. “That’s the end of it.”
Karma let out a rumble of agreement, and while his eyes were still dark, I could see a glint of understanding in them. She’d brought him back from the brink, and it was possible he might just be milking his feral state to stay close to her now, the asshole.
“But uh… you can’t…” She swallowed. “You can’t bond me.”
I frowned, wracking my brains to see if she’d heard something about the Redgrave situation.
“Why not?”
Crescent jumped as Phantom’s voice floated from the doorway. She straightened, eyes wide as he closed the door behind him. I wondered what time it was. It had to be late by now, but I wouldn’t relax until I heard the lock click at eleven.
“I’m gold pack,” she said.
I frowned. “We shouldn’t bond a gold pack?”
“That’s dangerous, unless you’re chosen.” She seemed anxious, as if this was basic stuff we should know.
Where the hell had she come from?
“Chosen?” Phantom asked as he sat back down on the bed. “What does that mean?”
“The…” She swallowed. “The Chosen are alpha packs approved by the church—the High Priests decide. Sometimes they claim gold packs. They know scent matches can lead to idolatry, but they still need… you know… balancing. But if they’re devout enough to purify a gold pack, they agree to claim one from the Convent. ”
“Purify a gold pack?” I asked, eyebrows rising.
“Withstand our corruption.”
“You think corruption is a real concern down here?” I asked.
She chewed on her lip, regarding me. “It should be even more of a concern down here, it’s dangerous, and…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Corrupted alphas always go to hell.”
Ah.
“Are you an Ascendant?” Phantom asked.
She glanced at him, then nodded.
“What?” I poked. Phantom, unlike me, had memories of what society was like outside of all of this.
“Don’t know much about them, they keep to themselves. Christian denomination with some added ideas about alphas and omegas and shit.”
“It’s not added,” Crescent put in. “The Ascendant Doctrine is completion. It affirms that society is divinely structured around the natural roles of alphas, betas, and… omegas.” She trailed off a little at the end, clearly feeling the weight of our stares.
“Those ‘Chosen’ packs you mentioned,” Phantom asked. “What kind of bonds do they give gold packs?”
“A dark bond,” she said.
“Of course.” Phantom gave me a look as if that explained the whole situation.
Which… Well, it kind of did. It was always about control.
“Don’t you know how destructive gold packs are?” Crescent asked, folding her arms and glaring between us.
I couldn’t help but snort.
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
Not that there was a way to explain it to her—not really.
I’d been given a number instead of a name—a living experiment.
What happened in that place was a blur.
A year passed in silence after I perfumed, and I’d known they were waiting for the moment my eyes turned gold. There were tests, here and there, but nothing to what I knew was coming. But they never did turn that distinctive colour, even though they should have.
I didn’t remember much—just standing before a mirror, sickness churning my stomach as I saw my own blood-red eyes, so striking compared to the plain brown they’d been before.
An anomaly like me wasn’t good for a branch of the Institute that needed to remain hidden, so I’d been tossed down here like garbage to be discarded.
The omegas down here, they weren’t supposed to escape. It’s why we were handed down when a dweller pack hit status. We’d end up dead, or bound to a pack with no prospect of getting out.
If she thought a gold pack would corrupt us, it was nothing to what an omega like me would do.
Either way, bonds were tomorrow’s issue.
A dark bond was off the table anyway. It was a bond that alphas could give omegas without consent, a bond of absolute control. It meant the omega had to follow every command. And it wasn’t illegal to dark bond gold packs like Crescent.
But our pack couldn’t dark bond her—they were a single omega deal. A pack with a dark bond couldn’t have two omegas in it.
The issue now was that normal bites required consent of both parties.
And I was starting to wonder if I could get her on board at all with all this corruption worry.
That was after I’d figured out the deal with Dominic Redgrave—which I definitely wasn’t going to bring up tonight.
“I do have to worry,” Crescent mumbled after a long pause. “Clearly none of you are going to.”
Damn, she was sweet.
I’d never met anyone so worried about my salvation.
Sighing, I held her close and pet her hair. If we argued, we would only upset her—especially if this was some extreme religion like Phantom mentioned. It was better if we introduced new ideas slowly.
“You can worry for us then. Talk about it more tomorrow, OK?”
On cue, I heard the buzz of the lock turning into place, shutting us safely inside for the night. No one else could get in until morning.
“It’s safe to sleep,” I promised her, and from the way she went lax I knew she believed me wholeheartedly.
I only hoped that trust wouldn’t end in disaster for us all.