Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
ARES
S omething is very fucking wrong here.
We’ve always known that Logan is a possessive asshole. He has always been protective of anything that he considers his.
But it’s supposed to be different with pack.
We share everything. Women, riches, responsibility. We’ve had each other’s backs for years and anything that belongs to one of us, belongs to all of us.
Things have been weird with Maya since she arrived, but I chalked that up to growing pains, to Logan adjusting to the king’s requirement for him to bond and deciding whether to trust an Omega who had already rejected him once before.
I told myself that once he got over himself and bonded her things would be better.
How the fuck is everything even worse?
The handful of times he let us see Maya in the days after her heat, she looked like she just wandered out of a trench on the battlefield, hair tangled and a shell-shocked expression on her face. Logan practically growled like an animal if any of us got within a foot of her.
Now that she has her senses back, he doesn’t act quite like a dog guarding a bone. But the level of possessiveness Logan still displays makes absolutely no sense.
The bond should make him more secure with her, not less. So, what the hell is going on?
I stare at the security monitors, flipping through camera feeds with a flick of my finger. The new systems we installed in the palace after the breach need testing, and I’m not about to let another attack happen. Not on my fucking watch.
But my mind keeps wandering back to Logan and Maya. Not to mention Cillian’s skulking ass always hanging around in the background, looking like he wants to be anywhere else.
The thing is, I served under Logan in the Restoration Wars. I know how he operates, especially with women. Pack hierarchy means we all get a taste eventually—pack Alpha might get first claim, but the rest of us aren’t not meant to starve.
What other reason is there to pack up in the first place?
I’ve reviewed the same line of code for the tenth time when Poe slides into the security room like a shadow.
The fact that I heard him come in at all means he isn’t trying to take me by surprise.
“You look like you’re about to snap that monitor in half,” Poe says, leaning against the doorframe. “Bad day?”
I aimlessly click around the screen, just to make it look like I’m doing something. “I’m busy.”
He saunters across the room without waiting for a response or an invitation and takes a seat at the side of my desk.
I swivel around to face him. “Why do you look so fucking relaxed? I’ve never seen you let your guard down for a single moment in your life, and suddenly you’re all...” I wave my hand at his general demeanor. “Oozing calm.”
The corner of Poe’s mouth twitches upward. Not quite a smile, because Poe doesn’t smile, but something close to one.
“Spending time with Maya left me feeling pretty good.”
I snort. “Murder and torture don’t work like that for everyone, you know.”
Poe shrugs, completely unbothered by my jab. That’s the thing I like most about Poe, even if it also drives me crazy. He has never denied what he is or what he does. No guilt, no shame. Just acceptance of his role.
And Maya had been the best I’ve seen her in days when he brought her back to the apartment.
Something twists in my gut. Jealousy? Fuck. I don’t want to examine that too closely.
“How’s she doing, anyway?” I ask, trying to sound casual. “After the bonding and everything.”
Poe’s eyes narrow slightly. “Surprised you care, Ares.”
“Why, do you?” I fire back.
The question hangs between us for a moment. Poe doesn’t answer right away, which is an answer in itself. I study his face and see something I’ve never noticed before—a softness around his eyes when Maya’s name comes up.
“Holy shit,” I breathe. “You actually care about her.”
Poe looks away, clearly uncomfortable with my observation. He shifts his weight, the only tell he ever gives when something’s hit too close to home.
“We’re all supposed to care,” he finally says with a half-hearted shrug. “She belongs to the pack now.”
That should be that. Logan bonded Maya. She is a permanent part of our pack now.
So why does everything still feel somehow wrong?
I feel my jaw tighten. “Tell that to Logan.”
The words come out sharper than I intended, but fuck it. The tension in the apartment has been unbearable since Maya’s unexpected heat. Logan’s keeping her locked up like some kind of prize he’s afraid we’ll steal.
“You’ve noticed it too,” Poe says, not a question.
“Hard not to. He’s acting like we’re the enemy.” I lean back in my chair. “That’s not how pack works.”
“No,” Poe agrees quietly. “It’s not.”
We sit in silence for a moment, both of us contemplating what this means. Logan’s always been possessive, but this is different. This feels like a fracture in our foundation.
“Something’s off with him,” I mutter. “With all of this. The way he’s acting with her, the way Cillian’s always lurking around…like there is always something going on they haven’t bothered to tell us about.”
Poe’s expression darkens. “I know.”
“So, what are we going to do about it?”
Poe doesn’t answer, but his silence speaks volumes. We both know something has to change, and soon.
I gesture for him to move behind my chair. “Let me show you something.”
At first, I planned to keep this little discovery secret. Partially because I want to believe it does mean anything, but mostly because I’m worried about just how much it might actually mean.
There are cameras in every room of our apartment. Unlike the rest of the palace, the apartment’s security system is supposed to exist on a closed circuit. Impossible to hack because the recordings and backups only exist locally on this very terminal.
I don’t make a habit of tracking my pack brother’s activities. Less for any illusions of privacy, than that watching them jerk off or take a shit isn’t particularly interesting viewing for me.
But when Maya had emerged from that basement safe room, looking like she’d been thoroughly worked over and Logan practically dragging her with him like a caveman, curiosity got the better of me.
When Cillian trailed out after them, stone-faced and refusing to answer any questions, I just had to know.
Which is when I discovered that approximately twelve hours of footage from the basement camera has been erased.
“You sure it isn’t a glitch?” Poe asks as he leans over me to rewind the recording. The feed turns fuzzy with digital snow before the digital clock in the corner jumps back in time. “Or an outage?”
“No outage. Someone manually wiped the feed.” I tap the screen where the timestamp jumps. “See that? Clean break. If it was a power issue, we’d see degradation or complete blackout across all cameras.”
Poe’s face is inches from mine as he studies the screen, his scent of driftwood and salt mixing with my bourbon-chocolate. His eyes narrow to slits.
“And only the basement camera was affected?”
“Bingo.” I swipe through the other feeds from the same timeframe. “Hallways, living room, kitchen—all intact. Just that one room during Maya’s heat.”
Poe straightens, his expression unreadable. “Who has access to delete security footage?”
“That’s the interesting part.” I lean back in my chair, cracking my knuckles. “Only the four of us. Even the king can’t waltz in here and access the terminal.”
Poe raises a single dark brow. “So, if I didn’t do it and you didn’t do it…?”
“Exactly,” I sigh.
The implication hangs between us. Either Logan or Cillian erased evidence of something they didn’t want us to see that happened during Maya’s heat.
Maybe they’re just protecting her modesty.
Maybe it’s something else.
Maybe I’m sick and fucking tired of constantly feeling out of the loop.
“When did secrets become part of the way we operate?” Poe asks, his voice dropping lower.
I swivel my chair to face him fully. “Three people know what happened in that room. Only one of them is likely to tell us anything.”
Dark eyes narrow with sudden alertness. “You’re not working Maya over. I won’t let you hurt her.”
For fuck’s sake, the cold-blooded assassin is in love.
“I’m not going to torture her. Couldn’t do that even if I wanted to,” I grudgingly admit.
His slight smile turns mocking. “You like her.”
“What’s not to like? She’s beautiful, available and well-trained. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.”
Poe rolls his eyes. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
“A little positive reinforcement goes a long way. You’ve apparently already seen that for yourself.” I level a finger at him. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten that you almost got her killed.”
Poe shrugs off the implied threat, but his gaze on me is watchful, as if he’s looking for something behind the words. “Sure thing.”
That was footage I had watched, stress tightening my shoulders when I saw that piece of shit former guard launch himself at Maya. Even though I knew I was seeing the attack after it had occurred, and Maya was already safely ensconced back in Logan’s den.
Even still tied to that chair, Darius would have torn her apart if Poe hadn’t been there to deal the death blow.
“Why don’t they teach Omegas how to defend themselves,” I grouse, only realizing I’ve spoken aloud when Poe answers me.
“Because that’s what we’re supposed to be here for.”
The image of Maya’s stricken face feels burned into the back of my retinas. The attack by that guard hadn’t put that lost look in her eyes. That had been there from the moment she first emerged from the basement after her heat.
“Do you think they did something to her?” I ask.
Poe has enough respect for my intelligence not to ask who I mean.
He sighs. “I think the more important question is what you want to do now.”
“Maya is the key to all of this, I can just feel it.” I turn away from the terminal to find him watching me. “So, we stick close to her, and we eventually get the truth.”
“And that’s all you want from her?” he questions softly. “The truth?”
I think of Maya’s scent, and my mouth waters like a starving man at a feast.
That alone should be warning enough to stay away.
“That’s it,” I insist, even though we probably both know that’s a lie.
Poe makes a noise in the back of his throat that sounds suspiciously like a scoff. “If you say so. I’m going to go wait outside Logan’s door on the off chance he lets our Omega come out at some point.”
His cavalier acceptance of the situation annoys the hell out of me, even as I envy him a bit. That’s Poe all over. Once he makes a decision, even one completely counter to whatever perspective he held before, he is all in.
I’m already staring back at the grainy static where a camera feed should be when he closes the door behind him.
It was so easy when this all started, a little flirting and teasing domination to keep her off balance and entertain myself. But somewhere along the line, things changed.
At this point, falling for Maya might be the stupidest fucking thing I could possibly do. Even if I ignore the fact that Logan obviously doesn’t want us anywhere near her right now, the simple truth is I have no idea if I can trust her.
And it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that she still doesn’t trust us.
Poe is already getting attached. I can see it in his eyes, the way his gaze goes all soft around the edges when he looks at her.
Pretty soon, he’ll be bringing her body parts from his targets as souvenirs and offering to show her the most painful way to slice someone up without letting them bleed out.
Our pack harmony is already fractured enough without me adding to the problem by losing my head.
Better to keep some emotional distance while drawing her closer. Get her to trust me so she’ll spill whatever secrets she has been keeping. Figure out what the hell is going on with this bond situation.
There can be no picking sides here. This pack has to operate as a unit, or it will cease to exist. Too many of Logan’s brothers would be overjoyed to steal his position the moment they sensed a weakness.
The last thing we can afford to be is weak.