Chapter 16
KARMA
Vandle was back with us.
That roiling storm we’d always felt in the bond had calmed, and he was happy to be curled up with our sweet omega in her brand new makeshift nest tonight.
A nest that she liked, and that I’d helped her make. I puffed up with pride at the thought, only to immediately push out a harsh breath.
His storm was gone, but mine…
It wasn’t so easily soothed.
When Crescent’s stomach let out a loud rumble, I volunteered to head out and grab food from the cafeteria before the hot food was gone for the night. Phantom tried to come along, but I’d shut it down. Sin still had a gun and a bullet, but we didn’t need to take more risks.
The more of us with Crescent, the better.
Bug and Rick, plus Finnian from the Wakefield pack, trailed behind me, chatting about stuff that didn’t matter. A bad gamble Justin had made last week; a fight that had ended in someone losing a finger.
Everything but the elephant in the room.
The only female omega in Anarchy.
And how she was bonded with an alpha who might not be stable enough to escape this hell.
If we failed our appeal, it would be my fault.
Before, I’d been able to handily blame Vandle. He’d never even spoken a word, and his aura was always haywire.
We’d formed a pack with a guy we didn’t know a damn thing about, but when we’d all collided it had just been… right. Without us, Vandle would be dead, without Vandle, Sin would be dead, and without Sin… Well. I snorted, catching an odd look from Bug.
Without Sin, we’d all be dead.
Even with impressive auras, three-alpha packs didn’t last long—especially not ones with omegas. But Sin alliances served us well, as much as my instincts raged against watching him in that fucking cage. Still went to every single one, though. Couldn’t help myself.
But Phantom and Sin were the sticky glue that kept us all together, me and Vandle were the brawn. Crescent… I narrowed my eyes trying to figure out what she was.
My brain drew a blank, the metaphor falling apart. Whatever. The point was, we were a team, and we knew our roles. I wasn’t supposed to be the most unstable one.
Second most, dammit.
I wasn’t adjusting well to this.
This pack was more important to me than it was for anyone else.
Me and Phantom hadn’t found each other straight away. He’d managed to get by working with the kitchen crew between his rut episodes. But I hadn’t been so lucky…
Everything from when I first came down to Anarchy was a blur.
Nights of empty hallways, bloody fights, echoes of pain and rage and need.
And above all… an emptiness. No one to talk to in the rare gaps of time when I was sane.
I roamed the halls as one of the hopeless ones—a strong aura, but so unstable none of the packs thought I was worth the effort.
I’d be a risk to the stability of the whole pack if they brought me in, so I had… no one.
Until Phantom, anyway.
He’d helped me, and then Sin—Sin was my real saviour.
If I lost them all, and somehow survived, I was destined to be that broken alpha again. Feral and alone. No mind or memories. They’d all be gone as if they’d never existed.
My heart twisted at the thought of it—what would Crescent think if that happened?
She’d never trust me again.
I shook off the spiral as we reached the cafeteria. I needed to feed my pack.
It was late and almost empty but for a couple of the weaker packs playing cards or chess. The high stakes games at this time of night were in the square, but the weaker Anarchy packs didn’t have much of value to bet. Not if they didn’t want to risk losing everything, anyway.
So they stayed away and played for fun, not favours. At least until they got desperate enough to put their lives on the line.
A weaselly alpha shot me a few glares as I crossed the room. Hmm. Robert Ferguson, I thought…? The sickly pallor to his face rang a bell.
Ah.
Right.
Heh. He was on corpse cleanup. He’d found himself on the wrong side of the Archiva pack after spilling blood on their omega’s favourite books.
Quiet, that pack might be, but they were ancient dwellers. No one fucked with the librarians.
Ferguson was doing his time.
The bitterness he was directing my way made sense. We’d left a number of bodies in the square—and in here, come to think of it—over the last day or two.
Only one guy stood behind the counter, and most of the trays were completely empty of food. “Three plates of whatever’s left,” I barked.
The dishes were plain and all looked slightly brown, but I knew they were edible—at least when they weren’t drowning my servings in fucking salt.
We’d all been eating the food cooked by these alphas for years.
The packs that ran the cafeteria might not be professional chefs, but their role here was only to keep us alive so we didn’t all have to fumble our way through using the raw ingredients we got.
He narrowed his eyes, but it wasn’t like anyone else wanted the night’s leftovers. If he wanted to test me, I’d be happy to fight.
The packs who did the cooking weren’t weak, exactly. Weak packs in Anarchy didn’t last long, no matter how useful they were. But these packs did the cooking because without the protection it brought, they may well have been fighting for their lives. All of them would rather stay out of trouble.
My aura could destroy him, but I could only touch him if he started it.
He didn’t.
What a shame.
I would have enjoyed a quick fight, to take the edge off.
I grabbed some forks and napkins to shove into my pocket, then turned away to scan the room while he worked.
A few of the other alphas in the room were looking at me, their noses tilted upward like they might catch a whiff of Crescent. None stayed brave when I caught their gazes, at least not until I met the eyes of a tall, broad man veiled in shadow across the room.
Fucking Ozias.
I growled under my breath. He was alone, none of his allies anywhere near, while I had my allies sitting on a nearby bench.
If he tried something, they might not be enough.
There was always the possibility of being killed in here. Most packs had strength in numbers, so you could be the best fighter in the fucking world and still end up a corpse.
But in a one on one fight, without any tricks? There was only one guy here who I worried could beat me.
Ozias Harper.
He spent more time in the rut fights than I did.
His aura was massive, oppressive. Volatile. We’d gone up against each other in those cages a hundred times, and the betting was always split down the middle. He’d knocked me out as often as I’d put him under, and people liked to make up stories about our rivalry.
We’d never fought outside the cages.
No point, really. My pack never had anything he wanted.
But now…
My growl grew into a snarl as he pushed off the wall and strode toward me. He favoured his left side ever so slightly—he’d taken a nasty kick to his right leg in a fight the other night.
Bug tried to stand, but I shook my head.
No offence to him, but he’d be useless.
I stood my ground, keeping eye contact with Ozias until he stopped a table’s-length away from me.
“Hear you’ve got something I’m interested in.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
It would be so easy to start the fight before he could ready himself—and if he was talking about Crescent, I fucking would.
She was mine. Ours. Not for anyone else’s eyes. No one else in this hellhole was even worthy of speaking about her.
But as my aura’s energy felt like it was crackling inside me, I tried to channel my inner Phantom. Be rational about this.
If he was about to say he was interested in my omega, he’d be a lot less casual.
Because he knew that would start a fight to the death.
“What?” I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms and ground my teeth until I could hear the grating.
Every muscle in my body was taut.
Bastard had the gall to smirk at me. “You got some painkillers the other week, right? How ‘bout a trade?”
…Painkillers?
Last week I did a job for the Archiva pack.
Went badly when the target’s pack got involved—one of them died in the fight.
Obviously we stole everything of value before we left.
He had a nice ring on his finger that I’d pinched—not that I had a need for it.
But one of the Leo pack alphas had caught wind of it, and traded me for painkillers, mentioning needing a gift.
It was just a small bottle of pills, and the kind that barely took the edge off.
Ozias was probably only bringing it up to fucking antagonize me.
To make me think he wanted my omega.
Maybe it was a good sign that I hadn’t immediately jumped to ripping his head off. Usually I couldn’t actually channel my inner Phantom, even though my packmate technically lived inside my head. Maybe Crescent was balancing me more than I thought.
“What do you have?” I asked.
Meds like that weren’t a high value item. Wouldn’t win us protection or an alliance or anything substantial. But maybe he had something… Hm, maybe I could get a gift for Crescent.
Ozias shrugged one shoulder. It drew attention to the massive scar on his neck, a ragged bite mark from when a feral alpha had tried to rip out his throat with his teeth. “Won some coloured pencils in a bet a while back. Sketchbook, too. Good gift?”
I had a few colours of spray paints in our room, but wall art wasn’t a good gift for an omega. She couldn’t carry it around with her.
A torn-out sketchbook page, though…
“Deal.”
Painkillers were good to have, but if we got out of here in a week, we wouldn’t need them. Ozias would. Far as I knew, he didn’t have an appeal coming up anytime soon, and the only way he gained leverage in this place was in fights.
It was a good trade for both of us, as much as I knew the fucker had only approached to antagonize me.
He produced a small box of coloured pencils and a mini-sized sketchbook from his back pocket, trying to hand them to me.
I shook my head. “Pills aren’t on me.”
He snorted. “Bring ‘em out tomorrow. I trust you.”