Chapter 36
Three days until appeal
CRESCENT
We’d spent most of the next day in the cell.
Phantom and the others had been discussing robbing the contraband room in hushed voices. They were much more intense about it now, since Phantom had received information about the Redgraves that had changed everything.
At noon, Phantom had taken my books back to the library and returned with more, so I didn’t think he was still mad at me.
Of course, he had no right to be—I hadn’t done anything wrong.
But last night I had hidden in my nest from him, and Karma had taken his spot for the second night in a row.
It was fine. Karma was the least balanced anyway, so it was good he’d taken another night. He’d been warm and cuddly, and I’d only snuck in a few glares at Phantom—which had taken a lot of self-control.
And I’d slept with that perfect metal ring clutched to my chest, even if it no longer had its friends. He couldn’t have that.
“We need to talk about the keys,” Phantom said at last.
It was early evening, and I’d been tucked into my nest, stressed every time any of them came close—except Sin, who was allowed. He was in the other corner of my nest right now, focused on writing out ideas in his sketchbook.
He, Phantom, and Karma had been flitting in and out of the cell door all day to get information from the Emerald pack.
“The keys?” I answered, nerves bubbling up.
What was there to talk about?
I glanced at Vandle, who was leaning against one of the beds, but he didn’t seem inclined to intervene. In fact, he looked curious, as if he wanted to know how it would go.
I wrung my blanket in my fists. “I… didn’t mean to get us in trouble...” It was true.
I just really liked those keys. And I had a bond, so I needed a nest...
“Are you going to do it again?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Tell me the truth, Little Omega.”
“I...” I stalled out at the dark bond command. Darn. My eyes darted back to Vandle, Sin, and Karma. Vandle’s eyes were narrowed as he watched us. “Um...” I fought my scowl, trying to get around the order. “I’m going to try really hard not to.” My voice was a wisp.
Phantom groaned, sinking down onto the bed.
“If you were pack lead and your omega said that to you, would you be satisfied with the answer?” Vandle asked.
I mulled the question over, clearly trying to parse it out. “Probably... not?”
I glared as I caught a faint smirk on Sin’s face at my answer.
None of them got it.
I needed the keys.
“It’s not long until we’re out, can you wait just a bit?” Karma asked.
Wait?
Now that the imminent threat of losing my fingers had passed, my instincts were all over the place.
I couldn’t get the image of the library keys out of my head. The little imperfect ridges—and they had good weight to them, like old castle keys.
The best kind.
Where was I going to find anything like them again?
Now they were gone…
I stomped down a little whine. “I can... try. But they’re... so... pretty.”
What if... what if I could snag them right before the appeal...
No one would know, and then we’d be free, and I’d have them for my nest forever...
“Crescent.” Phantom got to his feet and crossed to me. The brush of his thumb on my chin snapped me back to the present. “You won’t steal any more keys until the appeal.”
My lips parted in shock. That was a command.
A little whine of distress slipped out of my chest.
What?
“None?” My voice was shrill.
Not one tiny key?
“Little Omega,” Phantom said. “You’re going to get us killed.”
But the keys... I glanced around the room. “Did you...?” I tried to tug away from Phantom, but he blocked me in place.
And the special rut cage key... That had been from when Sin had claimed me in front of the whole of Anarchy.
If that one was gone, was I even his anymore?
I shoved past him, breaking from his grip and stumbling over to Karma, who was sitting up straight, eyes flitting between me and Phantom like he wasn’t sure what to do.
I seized his arm, tears beading at my eyes. “Undo it!” I begged.
They couldn’t do this.
“I…” Karma looked lost. “I don’t know if I can…?”
Could he?
I turned. Sin had stopped scribbling, tense as he watched—but he couldn’t stop this.
I hurried to Vandle, tugging at his shirt. “You’re pack lead. You can… you can undo it?”
His hand cupped my cheek, but his eyes flicked from me to Phantom.
“Alpha!” My voice wobbled.
“It’s only three days, Princess. I think Phantom’s right.”
No…
Everything was wrong.
But Vandle was a seer, so he couldn’t be wrong.
A low whine sounded in my chest as I tried to make sense of this.
I looked back to Phantom, whose rich, freckled skin was paler than usual, but his jaw was set.
Devil!
If they were going to ban me, what was next?
I knew they’d gone through my nest yesterday—they hadn’t put the keys back right.
What if they took them?
I couldn’t keep them like this. They needed to be safer.
I stumbled away from Vandle and made a beeline for all the nesting places.
PHANTOM
I wasn’t quite sure what I was watching. All I knew was that my omega was a storm of hormones in the bond.
She was digging keys out of the most unexpected crevices—most of which I hadn’t known existed in the room. I definitely hadn’t found them all when I’d done my search earlier.
After the bundle was barely contained by her fist, and she’d pulled the last one free from a crack in the wall beside her bunk, she burrowed under the covers of the nest.
Ah.
I glanced at Vandle, who was watching with a concerned look on his face. Karma looked curious, and Sin looked sympathetic, though I’d never seen him nest a day in his life.
I sat down on the bed. The mattress creaked, and an angry little growl rose from the bundle at my side. I tried to pull the blanket up, but she ripped it back down.
She didn’t fight me the next time I tugged it up, but she did shoot me a distrustful glare. She was currently sliding all the keys onto the big ring she’d refused to let me give back to the librarians.
She ignored me as she worked, though she got more frantic the longer I was staring.
This was a hormonal crash-out like I’d never seen.
Finally, when she was done, Crescent looked up at me with eyes shining and clearly on the verge of tears. “I need more.” Her voice broke.
Uh.
Oh… dear.
“I’ll get you more once we’re out.” I’d give her a whole room full of so many keys she could swim through them.
But first, we needed to survive the appeal.
Until then— “No more in here.”
“But y-you said I’m in your pack, and I can be as disruptive as I like.”
“I…” My jaw worked soundlessly as I processed that.
“They’re just keys,” she said.
“You need to wait three days, Little Omega—”
“But—”
“No buts. If the rest of Anarchy find out you’re stealing—”
“Stop saying that. Stealing is a sin. I’m not stealing, this is their home.”
I took a breath, trying to shove down my anger. It wasn’t her fault. It came from the fear I was feeling now we were so close.
Nothing could go wrong.
But she didn’t deserve me taking it out on her.
“Are these all of them, Firefly?” Sin had shuffled nearer and was peering at the ring that held the collection. She growled when one of us touched them, but of course Sin got a pass.
“Do you… like them?” Crescent asked, watching Sin with glittering eyes as he examined her trophy. “I… it was for you, too.”
“For me?” Sin looked at her curiously.
“Keys are important to you,” she whispered. “I saw. And you don’t nest, so I thought…” She trailed off, suddenly looking unsure.
But I watched as the colour drained from Sin’s face. “What… does that mean?”
Her lip wobbled. “I… remember now. You kept it real close like it mattered. And then everyone wanted it from you, so I… I kept it safe.”
“Firefly…” Sin looked stunned. “What did you keep safe?”
Her eyes darted from me, to Vandle and Karma, to Sin, and she looked like she was going to cry.
“You can’t take it,” she whispered.
“You didn’t…” I’d never seen Sin lost for words. “But the cage—we got thrown in the cage because I didn’t have it.”
“They couldn’t take it…”
The truth was slowly dawning on me, and my lips parted in shock.
No... way.
But my little klepto omega was digging in her pocket to pull out the one key that wasn’t on the ring.
The key to the contraband room.
SIN
That fucking key… was with her the whole time?
The only reason we’d ended up in the cage had been because of the missing contraband room key.
Our bargaining chip had vanished into thin air.
And yet, we would have found it if we’d thought to pat down Crescent’s pockets.
She looked up at me with such a sweet expression on her face, the key still clutched in her fist.
I closed my eyes, locking down the pack bond so she couldn’t feel my roiling emotions. I wasn’t mad at her—it was impossible to be mad at her.
Just… damn.
And I felt guilty. She hadn’t needed to go through the cage experience after all, and even though she was pleased every time the claim was brought up, I still felt bad.
“Thank you, firefly,” I said roughly.
Crescent’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, searching my face as if she could see every hint of frustration.
“I-I’m sorry I took it without telling you. But I thought… I was worried Holden might take it, and you seemed so attached.”
In the heat of that tense moment, I hadn’t noticed her little hand slipping into my pocket and taking out the all-important piece of metal.
At least I wasn’t the only one to fall victim to her. She’d snatched quite a few.
“Uh, I was attached to it,” I reassured her. Well, because of what it would buy us, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “You did good.”
“Everyone is frustrated with me.”
This damn bond—she kept her end so open that shutting her out felt like a grave sin. I glared around the room at my packmates who couldn’t keep their emotions in check properly.
They were all as stunned as I was.
Did we explain to her the series of events that the loss of the key had caused? She didn’t seem to be putting it together yet, even though we’d been frantically searching for the key right before being grabbed by the Redgrave pack to put on our show.
But then… Well, she hadn’t been nearly as scared as I’d expected.
“Did you choose to keep it from me when you knew the cost was the cage?”
“No.” She shook her head. “The first few I took… I think my hormones were really bad with the missed heat, and then the drugs…”
I frowned. There had been a lot of drugs.
“What does that mean?” Phantom asked. I noticed her pretty golden eyes narrow a bit at his voice, and I prayed for Phantom’s sake that she wasn’t good at holding grudges.
“I don’t remember the first few times I took them. I know it sounds stupid, but I just… lost myself. I just needed them so badly. I remember now, but I didn’t at the time.”
I’d never heard of an omega blacking out from nesting instincts, but I was somehow unsurprised.
She was touch starved, had been banned from nesting and alphas for years, had suffered five agonizing heats, never had a knot, been given a heat drug, and then a heat blocker to stop it. Then she’d been dark bonded, and allowed to feel her instincts for the first time.
Jesus.
And it all started because she wanted to keep this key safe for me? There was only one upside to this.
Breaking into the contraband room wasn’t going to be a challenge anymore.
When I’d first seen it, I’d thought of just trading them for contacts, but our alliances were growing weaker, and I didn’t want to leave a pivotal piece of our appeal to anyone else. Not even the Redgraves.