Chapter 35
PHANTOM
There was a large enough group that Crescent joined the others for lunch. I carefully went through her nest to find all the keys she’d snatched in the short time since she’d arrived.
A couple of safe keys.
A keyring that looked to have maintenance room keys.
Some handcuff keys, looking like they were made for the thin, novelty kind of cuffs—I bet those were the ones she’d nicked from the Emerald pack.
Some tubular keys, like the kind they used for bike locks.
And then, of course, the key to one of the fucking rut cages. The Marshall pack were probably going feral trying to find it—it was a small comfort that she hadn’t snatched all the cage keys. Only one.
They could live without access to that cage, right?
Jesus.
Sin and Karma were currently working hard on a plan to get contacts. Dominic had told them he was getting the contacts—he just wanted the right payment. Sin had taken that as a challenge.
The insane fool wanted to break into the contraband room.
And I didn’t have a better plan.
So while one of our omegas worked on one death wish, I was managing the other’s.
I held the library keys up in front of me and groaned, scrubbing a hand down my face. “How did she even manage to snatch these?” I asked Vandle.
Our pack lead wasn’t concerned by how good a thief our omega had turned out to be. He’d watched me from the opposite bunk as I went through her entire nest, noting each key and putting it back where I found it. Hadn’t bothered to help at all.
He shrugged. “She’s real small.”
“She was in the middle of a group of people the whole time we were in the fucking library. And these other ones?” I gestured vaguely to her nest. “Crescent said she took them from people’s pockets.
She’s reaching her tiny hands into random pockets and taking things without anyone noticing. That’s insane.”
“Everyone needs a skill here—maybe this is hers.”
I seized fistfuls of my hair. “She doesn’t need a skill!” I snapped into his stupid, nonchalant face. “We’re going to protect her, and she’s making it a thousand times harder by stealing from people all over the place!”
I paced the room, back and forth across the floor, with the library keys jingling at my side.
“She’s been here for days. Not even weeks, and she’s already got this many.
We have to make her stop or she’ll get herself killed.
Or one of us. Is there an easy way to get her some better keys for her nest until we’re out?
” It was only four days. “Can you work with me here? Do you have a single goddamn idea about how we’re going to get her keys in a place like this? ”
Bartering for keys was kind of just… crazy. Keys were too important to barter for. Giving up a key was giving up access to the thing the key opened.
Unless we could ask the Redgrave pack to get us a bunch of decommissioned keys through the stockroom. But considering they were trying to force Crescent and Sin back into the cage in exchange for the contacts, asking them to get nesting items for my omega didn’t sit right.
“We should talk to her about it,” Vandle said, finally throwing me a bone.
I stopped to glare at him. “How?”
He cocked his head, then tilted his chin up and rubbed his thumb along his neck. “This, Phantom, is a vocal chord, and it—” He cut off with a chuckle as a pillow from Crescent’s nest caught him square in the face.
“You didn’t see her yesterday.”
He shrugged. “I think it’s cute.”
“Cute?”
“She’s nesting.” He looked so smug, puffing up his chest.
How was our pack lead so fucking unserious.
“I will talk to her,” I said through gritted teeth.
I didn’t trust him—not even a little. He’d spent most of the time I’d known him feral and rutting. No way.
First, though, I had to return the irreplaceable library keys. Ideally, without getting killed in the process.
I knocked once on the metal door to the Archiva pack’s cell.
The sound echoed down stone walls ominously, and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I might truly die here.
Finnian and Lucian from the Wakefield pack had caught sight of me turning down the hall to the cell and joined me, seeming unsure why I was prowling around alone. The truth was, I knew how mad the Librarians would be, and I didn’t want to risk anyone else caught in the crossfire.
They were hanging back now as I waited.
The keys in my hand would damn me to losing a finger if Tyler wasn’t in a good mood today—and he wouldn’t be. Not when they’d been locked out of the library all day, hunting down anyone who might have stolen from them.
They hadn’t checked with us yet—likely because they thought we wouldn’t be this fucking reckless mere days out from our appeal.
They’d underestimated our new thieving omega.
“What?”
My eyes snapped open to spot Jared on the other side of the threshold, his face reddened.
I cleared my throat. “Uh, heard your keys went missing.”
Jared’s aura went wild, and his hand darted out to grab the collar of my shirt. I fought not to react, but my aura pulsed a bit in response, my gaze narrowing.
“The fuck do you know about that?” Jared demanded.
I strengthened my aura and widened my stance, shoving his hand off me with a loud rip of fabric. Then I held the keys out in the palm of my hand for him to see.
Tyler pushed past his alpha and snatched them from me with a sour look, examining them for any small dents or scratches—though he would find none. Crescent took good care of the keys she’d taken.
“Are these right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Where is the keyring?” Jared demanded.
I winced. “She… got attached.”
“What?” Jared narrowed his eyes.
“The ring is sort of…” Her nest, she’d said. Better than any other ring she had. Thick, and shiny, and satisfying to hold. “...Important…” I trailed off at his expression.
I was so dead.
“She said,” I muttered, unable to believe what I was saying, “and I quote: if they ask for the ring, you can deliver my fingers if that's okay with them.”
The ring wasn’t just important to the nest.
It was her nest.
“But she did give it some thought,” I added with a weak attempt at humour. “She prefers the pinkies because the index fingers are good for turning book pages.”
Of course, I wouldn’t be cutting off my omega’s fingers—I’d be offering up my own.
The silence was deafening as they gaped at me, and I could almost feel the stares from Finnian and Lucian on the back of my head as I said it.
Finally, with a huff, Tyler shoved the keys into his pocket.
“She was borrowing them, and… she apologizes,” I added weakly.
Well.
If I had brought her, I was sure she wouldn’t have apologized.
She would have forgotten all about the threat to her fingers, and her entire focus would have been on the keys and how important they were to the sanctity of the nest.
But I would lie for her.
“Borrowed them?” Jared snarled. “You know what we do to people who borrow without permission.”
I clenched my hands into fists. If I lost a finger today, well, I guess that would just be how it went. It was better than the Archiva pack having a vendetta against us—because that would be the end of our pack.
Hopefully, I could talk my way out of this.
“She’s new,” I said.
Tyler scoffed. “She stole from us.”
“If it was stealing, I wouldn’t be here giving them back.”
Jared lost it, surging forward to slam a fist against my cheek.
The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, my lip splitting beneath the force.
I grunted and took a couple of steps back but didn’t retaliate, despite my instincts burning through me and begging me to start a fight for once.
I waved a hand at Lucian and Finnian so they didn’t do anything stupid.
“You think I want to fucking be here?” I asked. “If we’d stolen them intentionally, we would’ve waited until you found out who’d taken them.” I spat out a glob of blood, teeth gritted. “You didn’t know it was us.”
Tyler reached out to grab Jared, pulling the alpha back until he could settle with his arms around him. The darkness in Jared’s eyes receded from the closeness of his omega, and I pulled my aura back to match his.
“We would have,” Tyler growled.
“Yeah, but we haven’t got long left down here. If we wanted your fucking keys, we would’ve just kept them.”
The tension in the air was electric, and I didn’t know if playing hardball was doing me any favours.
Would I keep my pinkies or not? It felt like some sick game show as I waited for the ding telling me I'd been the correct amount of assertive—or the ‘wah wah wah’ noise that signalled I’d failed masterfully.
Tyler and Jared glanced at each other, communicating without words. One day I’d be able to look at Crescent like that and know exactly what she was thinking.
So far, I was stuck trying to puzzle her out.
“Bring back those books we lent you,” Tyler said eventually.
I sighed. “She’s already done reading them, anyway. Anything else?”
Tyler’s eyes flashed. “Wait, she’s done? All of them?”
“Yeah.”
“There were six, and they weren’t short.”
“She’s a fast reader. I was surprised too.”
Jared was still red-cheeked and pissed, but Tyler looked more intrigued than angry now.
“Bring her by when you return the books.”
I narrowed my eyes, nodding, but I didn’t think I’d be bringing her—my cheek still ached from the punch.
“Don’t you think, this close to your appeal, you might be being a bit soft?” Finnian asked, when we were halfway down the hall.
“What does that mean?” I asked, turning to see him picking at a crusting patch of blue paint on his thumb. “This is not exactly a walk in the park for an omega.”
His eyes flicked up to me for a moment. “If I had to manage two omegas in this place with the appeal so close, I wouldn’t be allowing them so much leash.”
I scowled. I wasn’t in the mood for the creepy vibes the Wakefield pack gave off. My paranoia was through the roof after the Leo pack had been killed, and I hadn’t needed these two pricks to come with me.
“Especially not when the Redgrave pack is openly meeting with the Decker pack in the square.”
I spun on him, my mind racing. “What?”
The Decker pack was the pack who’d executed the Leo pack in the gym—the one who’d dark bonded an omega only minutes away from escape.
“They aren’t allies with the Redgraves.”
Finnian shrugged. “Didn’t look that way.”
My mind was racing. As long as we’d been in Anarchy, the Redgrave’s hadn’t collaborated with packs looking to fight over omegas.
Matt was with them by choice, and I’d always assumed it was something of a moral line for them.
They also had enough power from the keys to the contraband room that they didn’t need to play in the mud, executing packs for their omegas. It was a different ball game entirely.
But if they had been working with the Decker pack?
Sin had said the Leo pack’s allies hadn’t lifted a finger as they were slaughtered. I could explain it away, but what if there was more to it? What if the Redgrave’s had been involved?
And our pack, the one with two omegas, was working with them on protection…
“Do you want them safe, or do you want them happy?” Finnian added. “Because I don’t think you get both.”
I felt my hackles rise, though I was on edge for so much more than his attitude. But he had no idea what he was talking about. “When you’ve had to manage two omegas, get back to me on that, Finnian.”
He cocked his head with a snort as if that was all the answer he needed.