Chapter 10
DIANA
What’s going on?
Who is that?
The man wears a leather coat with no sleeves, long blond hair shaved at the sides and bound in the back. He smiles viciously as he moves quickly to the cabin. That sends me bolting backwards, only to lunge for the door because I didn’t lock it—fuck, it’s opening.
I stumble backward, colliding with a couch and nearly falling over as my heart thrums in my chest.
“What are you doing?” I demand through a breath shaking from adrenaline, slowly moving to the kitchenette in case there’s a knife. I can make a dull one work.
He closes the door behind him with a casual finality, the soft click of it such an uneasy sound.
“Evans informed me there was an omega going into heat,” he says, voice thick and dripping with amusement.
“You smell quite nice, even if you’re covered in suppressants.
” He looks around me, like he wants to see something.
“I’m more of an ass man than tits. Let’s see what you got. ”
Out of everything, my first reaction is to glance at the watch house through a window, terrified for Selene. If that fucking Mistress Evans is involved, then alerting Trinity won’t mean anything.
Selene needs to run.
“Don’t worry, her tea was laced with a sedative,” he comments, following my line of sight. “Evans was very helpful.”
I freeze. That bitch. That traitor.
I grab the nearest thing—an old glass bowl—and hurl it at him as I scramble to find something else. All I hear is a laugh, then the bowl shattering. I reach for a chair, the closest thing to me, but he’s already on me.
His alpha stench reaches out to the omega within that’s ready for heat, which means I don’t have long to fight him off.
Something cold and damp is shoved over my mouth and nose as I thrash, heart slamming against my ribs like it wants out.
My vision blurs at the edges. It’s like my brain is detaching from my eyes.
My limbs are sluggish. “Easy, little omega. Once the heat takes over, you’ll be happy I’m here.
” His hand lifts from my face. “Don’t want you completely out, doll.
” I gasp for air, barely aware of the deep, guttural screech of a bird just outside, to which I think he averts his attention to. I swear there’s sharp talons on glass…
Then vibrations. A lot of them.
Engines?
Bikes?
A lot of them.
No. No, no, no—not a whole pack. Not like this. I’m not going to survive being passed around. I’ll die first.
The alpha snarls, turning his head. “Who the fuck is here?” he growls, voice no longer confident. “Did she share your info with more?”
I can barely keep my eyes open, the world swimming in molasses. I’m vaguely aware of the room, as if looking through fogged glass. A heavy thud against wood sounds, then I jolt as something crashes hard onto the floor, loud and splitting. “What are you—“ the one pinning me down begins.
There’s shouting.
Boots.
My ears ring.
I slump to the floor, cheek pressed to the cool boards as I realize somewhere in my mind he let go of me. I manage to roll onto my back as I hear a wet, gurgling noise.
More sounds of something disgusting, and I roll my head around until I see someone larger than that asshole who tried to rape me approach where I am. Blood stains his hands and is splattered across his face, that stupid face as cruel as I remember. “You’re a rather difficult omega, you know that?”
Judge.
I try to crawl. Try to move. But that struggle gets me nowhere.
He scoops me up like I weigh nothing, holding me in his arms like he’s done it before, my head bobbing backward as I refuse to lay it on him.
I can feel his breath on my skin, the sound of him breathing me in—like he’s identifying me.
A grumble emanates in his chest, his alpha presence mixing with my impending heat.
Estrus coils inside, greedy and aching. My body doesn’t care who he is; it just wants, and I have no idea why it seems to react more to Judge than the other.
But I am still in here, still screaming inside.
I haven’t fully entered my heat yet, which means some sanity prevails.
Anxiety doesn’t course through like normal when, upside down, I see the first alpha is slumped against a wall, his head completely severed and in his lap.
My eyes widen as a sound of horror escapes me.
Holy fuck.
I can’t concentrate as I try to piece together any picture this is trying to form.
I’m then aware we’re outside, the sky above darkening, the air cooler than earlier, just like Selene said.
“Find the one running this place,” Judge says with not a drop of warmth in his voice.
It’s weird being this close to him while he’s talking, giving orders, feeling his voice rumble in his chest against my arm.
“String her up by her feet. Tell her however many hours it takes for her to die is how many of her family will be spared. Give her an incentive to suffer.”
I hear laughter, like this is a joke that will never grow old to them.
I writhe more, the threat of people I don’t know making me nervous.
What if Evans’s family aren’t bad people?
As if sensing that, the fucker carrying me purrs.
It vibrates through his chest and into mine, syncing with something primal I can’t control.
The panic fades enough to let unconsciousness drag at me like a tide.
The next thing I know, I’m being laid in the back of a car, vaguely aware of his massive silhouette at the door. “Not a single alpha, other than me, is to be near Diana until she is out of her heat,” he commands as he shuts the door.
There’s more talking outside, but it tangles with the hum of bikes and is muffled through the car.
I press my back to the leather seat, like a small creature hiding within a bush.
Nothing filters through clearly. I can’t tell if they’re arguing or laughing, or planning what to do with me next.
The front door opens and closes, shifting slightly with his weight as he enters.
Then the car—what looks like a jeep of… the Enclave?
No, that can’t be right. It has all the hanging hooks, but the equipment is all removed.
I lie there, aware that the vehicle begins to move.
Trees pass by in the windows as the remnants of the sun barely color the sky.
Selene.
My heart races faster.
Do I say something? What if they don’t know about her? What if saying something alerts them to her location?
At some point, coherence truly returns without any real trigger, allowing me to sit up. It still feels so weird, and I wonder what the hell that alpha used on me. I peer at Judge, who drives in the front, tightly gripping the wheel.
Blank.
My system blanks out. My mind is wiped. Thoughts are paper burned at the edges.
Judge watches me through the rearview mirror, something I can only see from the headlights behind us. “Do you know how dangerous it is to be an omega without an alpha in this terrain?” There’s more reprimand than care.
I blink once, slowly. Words are hard to articulate. “No,” I slur out, voice dry. “I loved… being ambushed.” I cough, looking for any container of water.
“What was your plan, exactly? Let that cabin marinate in your scent?” he asks, then almost sounds angry. “There’s a small canteen on the right.”
Son of a bitch, there is. Maybe he doesn’t want me to die yet because he has plans for me. “I have to ride it out somewhere,” I defensively mutter, pulling my legs closer as if it can somehow hide the heat. “The suppressants help. It would have worked.” The words leave my mouth as if they’re heavy.
“Those weren’t suppressants.” His voice drops an octave. “Anything Trinity gave you was engagers. There’s an unnatural smell to them, and you reek of it.”
My eyes widen. No. They looked exactly like they did at the Enclave. Selene! What else have they done to her? If they were using me right away, what if they plan to sell her body? Or use her organs? That makes me want to pass out, as it’s not unlikely. “I… didn’t notice.”
“You wouldn’t,” he replies flatly. “Your senses are off. Denying what you need has skewed your judgment.”
I stare out the window, the broken horizon blurring. “Need?” I ask, my cadence still slow and disjointed. “To let an alpha knot in me?” I try to sound snarky, but it doesn’t come out that way.
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
The motherfucker purrs again. “You will be forgiven for hiding from me if you tell me who has been tending to you during your heats.”
“I owe you nothing,” I snap, heat building in my cheeks. “If I let ten people turn me into the Eiffel Tower, that’s my business,” I manage out.
He growls low in his throat, animalistic and unfiltered. “Don’t ever refer to others fucking you.”
“You’re a goddamn asshole,” I throw back, even as confusion and something traitorous twist in my gut.
“You’re welcome. And just so you’re aware, you’ll never take suppressants again.”
“You can’t do this.” I sound stupid saying it, the words no more powerful than paper bullets. Who’s going to stop him? The wind? I close my legs even tighter, and he watches that very carefully.
And I swear he smells better than I’ve ever smelled a male before.
His unusually pale eyes, like molten metal, are affixed to me. Hungry. Controlled, but barely. He’s so fucking big. Broad, too, not just tall. “Closing those legs won’t help you, Diana,” he murmurs, not even blinking.
Focus, lady!
Those eyes… Oh shit, that’s right! “You’re an echo, aren’t you?”
“Clearly, you nurses don’t come across my kind often.”
Sometimes, human echoes can be a combination of those bound to the wastes and those unaffected. Like having superpowers, except I’ve only ever seen one, and that was back home. “What are you going to do with me?” I ask, aware that I need to be incredibly careful with him.