Chapter 14
PHANTOM
We had a dark bonded omega, our pack lead was no longer feral, and we all had targets on our backs.
It was hard to take my eyes away from Crescent. She was tucked under Vandle’s wing like a shy, but rather pleased stray kitten that had found a home.
Blood still trailed down her throat from the vicious bite he’d given her, but she was far from upset. I could feel her in the bond, a vibrating ball of anxiety, relief, and… well… utter delight.
Our scent match…
I couldn’t deny that the bond, as confusing and twisted as it was, settled a part of me that had been on edge since the moment we’d caught her scent.
And on top of that, it was really, really hard to stay mad when she kept catching one of our eyes, a blush creeping up her cheeks.
In fact, not only was I not mad, but I wanted her under my arm like that.
As I watched, Karma, who was sitting on her other side, edged a little closer, side-eyeing her as he did.
Her hand drifted absently to his shirt as if to make sure he was there. When he noticed, he shifted closer again, and her fist balled in the fabric, contentment momentarily overtaking her nerves in the bond.
My gaze was locked on the contact long enough that Karma caught me looking. He puffed up, a smug smile on his lips.
Two omegas for one pack was unheard of in here. Both packs and solo alphas alike would kill for an omega to dark bond. Especially omegas like Crescent or Sin.
Crescent was delicate, with moonlight hair and a scent that could drive a sane alpha feral. Sin was pack—I loved him, and so did Karma, but he wasn’t a conventional omega, with energy that was borderline ‘alpha’, and a reputation to match.
They were about as opposite as two omegas could get, and somehow it just… fit.
I felt, for the first time, like this pack was complete.
Unlike many alphas down here, I did have memories from before.
They were faint, often torturous, but so vivid. Images of streets filled with graffiti, gum flattened onto concrete, turned black by thousands of feet, warm breaths from alleys backing onto laundromats, and the faint hisses of a bus as it lowered to accept travellers.
Downtown New Oxford had been alive to me in a way that it wasn’t for most. Living and breathing, impossible to quiet…
I’d always dreamed of escape until that escape had been in the shape of the Cimmerian Vaults.
Now I didn’t know if my dreams were the same smoke-scented streets that had once been my nightmare, or if I needed to go further now. A future beyond what I believed we could have.
Sin didn’t like to talk about what we would do if we ever got out—I think, perhaps, he wasn’t ready to accept that it might be possible.
Sin and I were the only ones who had talked about getting to the other side of these prison walls.
Karma didn’t talk about it. I knew his fears, but none of them were entangled with Anarchy. I think he was more nervous about the idea of getting out than anything else.
So I’d buried the dreams that seemed out of reach.
Or I had, until I looked at her.
Because it wasn’t fair to bite her into a pack who would settle for destruction. The others weren’t ready for that hope, so I needed to do it for them.
Maybe I needed to want more than just grimy streets and one off jobs that might leave me worse than before.
I needed to want more. To hold onto more. Maybe some of the moments that hadn’t been so painful, though those were harder to dig up.
Shooting hoops in the small garden, grazing my knees on rugged concrete… losing hours in the school library, reading or making bad trades on Premier League trading cards.
Those had all happened before I’d become an alpha. Before a sickness had made my life a living hell. None of them really helped me build an image of a future—but maybe they were a start.
I glanced at Sin to see he was eating absently, unable to take his gaze from her any more than the rest of us.
What if there was truly a better future just around the corner?
We only had to survive until our appeal, and then we’d be free.
Especially now that Vandle was awake. A fully feral alpha had been our biggest problem to the appeal process.
We had to convince the people on the other side that we could function in society.
Sometimes packs had been released with feral alphas, but only if the rest of the pack were stable.
Karma was a complication none of us wanted to voice. He hadn’t been feral, but an alpha who could lose control on a dime was even more of a risk. But if Crescent had stabilized Vandle—with two omegas in the pack, we had a much better shot.
With these idiots, making it to our appeal was easier said than done. Well, I wasn’t actually sure if Vandle was an idiot yet. But he was definitely more of a prick than I’d imagined—bringing up the extreme lengths me and Karma had gone to to try and get pack lead off his feral-ass.
“One of us has to stay with Crescent at all times,” I said. “And someone else needs to stay nearby, if not right beside her.”
My gaze snagged on the Redgrave pack cell. It was one that opened up into the square. They were central to everything, which made sense considering the power they wielded.
Dominic Redgrave was leaning against the doorframe, a faint plume of smoke billowing into the air around him, his gaze fixed right on our pack.
My stomach sank as he caught my eyes, even from a distance. A grin spread on his face, and he tapped a non-existent watch on his wrist.
Shit.
I glanced back to Crescent, and the beacon of a bond the whole of Anarchy had just seen my pack make.
Shit.
I caught Sin looking, too.
His stiff expression told me everything I needed to know.
Dreams of better futures had to wait. This timeline was about to cause us some fucking problems.
I got to my feet.
Vandle glanced up at me. “What?”
“Just gotta settle something,” I muttered.
I knew the deal Sin had made. The one that was about to come knocking.
Sin caught up to me as I began walking toward Dominic. “I can deal with them.”
I side-eyed him and my voice was low. “Like you did the last time?”
Usually Sin was the deal maker—and he was damned good at it, but now we had an omega in a bond and we’d made a trade with the most powerful pack in Anarchy, and that deal locked in place the moment Vandle had bitten her.
Now that she was bonded, the countdown had started. We needed to buy some time from the Redgrave pack so we could work out a deal that didn’t involve Sin fucking our scent match in a rut cage in front of countless near-feral alphas.
And she didn’t even know.
Sin looked bitter. “I didn’t think she’d run away, or that Vandle would go and dark bond her—he shouldn’t even be able to.”
I sighed. I still didn’t get that, but we had bigger issues. “Maybe we shouldn’t have made the trade—”
“I thought I’d be able to talk to her before a bond—and it wasn’t just about the underwear. Dominic would block any protection deals we would try to make—”
“We have allies—”
“Enough to protect her?” Sin demanded.
I took a breath but didn’t answer since Dominic Redgrave was in earshot.
He straightened, a grin lighting on his face as we reached him. Behind him the door to his cell remained open, and I could see a few of his packmates watching curiously.
“Congratulations,” Dominic said. “That’s a pretty bite, and I think you have to be the first pack in Anarchy to claim two omegas. I can’t wait for the show.”
Sin stiffened at my side. “We didn’t plan for that,” he said cautiously.
“Is that… my problem?” he asked.
“We need to renegotiate,” I said.
The situation was way worse than I’d initially thought. Not only was Crescent far more fragile than I’d believed, but she’d never even been intimate with anyone at all.
But Sin was right, we needed the Redgrave protection. We wouldn’t survive without it, and we wouldn’t survive until tomorrow if this pack thought we’d slighted them.
Dominic took the cigarette from his mouth, holding it between two fingers as he levelled me with an intense stare. He was a big alpha, even if he was a little older. And even if he wasn’t, he held the power of half a dozen of the most powerful dweller pack alliances in the weight of his words.
I glanced at Sin. He looked stiff.
“Look. The situation has changed. What else can we give you for protection?”
“What else?” he asked. “You want to change the terms?”
“I can’t do that to her,” Sin said.
Dominic cocked his head, glancing between us. Then I saw his gaze drift to the table in the square where the rest of my pack sat.
“Let us trade something else,” Sin pushed.
Dominic snorted. “I was looking forward to the show.”
“It’s not happening,” I put in. Sin was one thing, but Crescent… I forced myself not to look back at her.
“Cages,” Dominic said. “Tomorrow night.”
Tomorrow? “No.” There was no way. She wasn’t ready. “We need more time.”
“Time?” Dominic asked, saying the word slowly. “Time’s money, Phantom. What do I get for being patient? Especially with your pack leaving so soon.”
There was a long silence.
Fuck.
What were we going to do? Sin was right. There would be no better protection than the Redgraves—and no greater enemy.
But I caught Sin’s expression and faltered. He looked like he was deliberating. Finally, he rolled his shoulders, jaw clenched. “Last key to the contraband room,” he said to Dominic. “Did you ever find it?”
I paused, side-eyeing him and caught completely off guard.
What?
The contraband room was where the Redgrave pack picked up their ‘goods’.
We were supposed to be provided only what we needed—meds, drugs, clothes, and other supplies, but they had a way of getting a little more out of it.
Occasional books, and other things. No one knew how, but it was the most priceless territory in Anarchy.
The issue the Redgrave pack had was that the room had three keys. They held onto two, but the last was missing. Had been for a while now, and no one knew where it was.