Chapter 41 Cain
For over a week Ayden hadn’t let Calliope out of his sight. I really didn’t understand why—she was the deadliest person I knew. He basically ignored me ever since Dax had taken Calliope to that fucking warehouse. Dax hadn’t been much better. Them pretending I didn’t exist made my heart ache in a way that was very un-beta-like. I needed to get out, get away from the sadness that seemed to touch everything. Even using the bonds to know how my alphas felt hurt. All the love and worry they felt just made me want to cry. Knowing it wasn’t for me had me packing my bags. I would disappear, I certainly had the money for it. This wasn’t like me at all, I knew that, but I couldn’t get the thought of losing them out of my head. My mind latched onto it, refusing to let go, I needed to leave before they made me leave.
I was pushing the last of my blades into the belly sheath when Calliope came in. I froze in place, waiting for her to speak. “Thank God, Cain.”
She looked genuinely relieved to see me. “What’s up?”
“I need to get out of here.”
That forced me into action. I reached out and grabbed her hand before leading her out of the house. We nearly ran to my car before I peeled out of the driveway. Turning the car towards downtown, I turned out of the neighborhood. Opening the car up beneath me, I allowed miles to fly by. We neared a group of warehouses and I pulled into one of them. Reaching into the center console, I pulled out a remote and closed the garage door behind us.
Her eyes sparkled and I could see how relieved she was to be out of the house. “Those alphas are too much, I swear.”
“Yeah.” I mumbled, pulling the driver’s door open and sliding out into the darkness. Watching her as I moved around to her door, she seemed calm, so different from what she had been at the house. Pulling open the door, I leaned in smiling. “Come on, little Omega.”
Calliope was climbing the stairs from the garage behind me, but we had yet to say anything to each other since we left the car.
The door opened to a room that at first glance would have looked abandoned. If you knew where to look, you could see the little touches that said I used it. There was a futon along one wall, the blanket along the back had carried both Ayden and Calliope’s scents at one point. The pillow I had stolen from Dax a couple of weeks ago.
Calliope went to the desk picking up the coffee mug there. “I wondered where this went.”
I moved around her until I slid my hand under the edge of the desk and hit the button there. The hiss of a door opening sounded from behind the futon and I crossed the space to push it to one side and went into the rooms beyond. The first room had weapons covering every surface imaginable. I moved through it without thought, heading to the second room.
This one contained a hydroponic grow room. I kept moving, traveling through the maze-like tanks until I came to the final door. This one had a keypad, and I leaned forward and typed in the code. I felt Calliope’s warmth as she leaned against me. “My birthday? Seriously?”
“You’ll find that a majority of my life revolves around you.”
I pushed the door open and led her inside. When I brought her here, I wasn’t really thinking right. My judgement was clouded. But watching her react to what she saw in the room was worth it. Her eyes lit up as she took in the photos that plastered every wall. Each was dedicated to a different phase for us. One was every photo I could find from her childhood and before I met her. The back wall was covered in images I had taken of her at home and when she worked. The third was moments of passion. Naked bodies of my pack stared back at us. She spun in place, facing the final wall. She took a sharp breath and smiled.
“I never noticed you taking any of these pictures.” Reaching up, she pulled one I had taken at her most recent murder.
She had been so beautiful covered in the blood of the alpha that I hadn’t been able to resist. Angling the camera upward so I caught her from the floor up, you could make out how the blood-soaked shirt she wore clung to her body. Her arm ended with shining claws she used to remove the alpha’s throat. That was when she was at her sexiest, not in the throes of passion, not when we were cuddling, but when she was bathed in the blood of her enemies. My goddess of death.
It took everything in me not to fall to my knees and worship her. I couldn’t though; she smelled too much like the alphas who had been ignoring me. Moving past her, I flipped a switch in one of the corners. That made the walls retract enough so that metal shutters fell down over them. The roof retracted so chains fell from the ceiling. Calliope was moving already, going to one of the walls and pulling a blade off a shelf there.
She came up to me, blade held out and moving in until the edge of the blade pressed into my skin. “You really thought of everything.”
“Kind of hard not to.”
I shrugged as she pushed that blade hard enough I felt the bite of it breaking the skin. “Why haven’t you touched me since we left the house?”
“It’s been longer than that.”
That made the blade at my throat fall away enough, I could feel the blood dripping down my neck. “Since that night in the living room.”
“Kind of hard to go from spending every night with you and Ayden to neither of the alphas touching me.”
“So, I get punished for it?”
“There wasn’t really space for me in your bed,” I admitted.
The knife clattered to the ground, Calliope’s eyes starting to well with tears. “I’m sorry you felt that way.”
“It’s not your fault,” I sighed. “That’s not why I brought you here.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She reached out and offered me her hand, pulling me to a couch that was set up in the corner. Pushing me down onto the couch she fell into my arms. It actually felt nice to have her there like that.
I couldn’t stop my hand from moving in her hair, her head coming to rest in my lap. “You are the only thing that never changes in my life. It’s really nice to know no matter what happens, you’ll always be there for me.”
My breath hitched; I had been packing when she came into my room. “I was considering leaving actually.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“I won’t. But—” I didn’t know how to say what I needed to.
“This shit can’t continue.”
“That.” I shrugged.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. I was distracted by my own phone going off. It wasn’t a message as I expected, but a contact calling me from an illegal omega strip club. When I answered I was nearly deafened by club music. “Sorry, sorry.” The sound of a door closing let me hear the man that spoke. “You told me to call you if I heard from a certain alpha.”
“Go on.”
“He books the basement every two weeks for a private event.”
“Get me a meeting with the owner,” I snapped.
I hung up before he could respond. Calliope curled up next to me, her legs tucked beneath her. “The alphas are on the way.”
“Great. Now we just have to come up with a plan that gets you in the room alone with one of the alphas that raped you.”
“Be serious. I’ve been alone with alphas like him before.”
“With me there.” I stared her down. “Do you really think they will allow you to use yourself as bait?”
Her response didn’t matter, the alarm on my phone started going off. It was a motion sensor. Opening up the security app, I selected the camera feed. I watched as Ayden’s black BMW Spyder parked next to my car. They swept up the stairs and into the room quickly.
I moved to the side as they pushed into the room, going to get Calliope. They sandwiched her between them, once again ignoring that I was even there. I went to a panel by the door, and a palm scanner popped out. Placing my hand there, a slot opened next to the scanner. Reaching inside, I grabbed my go bag and left the room. I went down the stairs and out the back of the warehouse.
Taking the long way through the area, I neared another warehouse nearly an hour later. No one knew about this one, that was kind of the point. Sliding into the dark interior, I scanned the room until my vision adjusted. Approaching my Ducati, I hitched my leg over it, reaching down to turn the key.
My motion was stopped by a large hand on my own. “Why are you running from us?”
“There is no us,” I whispered, of course Dax heard me. I had shut the bond down so tight I couldn’t feel what they were, nothing gave away what was going on in Dax’s head.
“What about you being mine wasn’t clear?” His hand lashed out, catching me by the throat. “And here you are trying to sneak off.”
“So, you don’t touch someone who is yours for over a week? Is that how you treat someone you love?”
He released me so quickly I collapsed down against the bike. “I fucked up, I’m sorry.”
“Do you know what it’s like to be touch starved?” I didn’t let him answer. “The only thing you want is to be held, kissed, touched. And the people you want more than anything are so fucking focused on someone else they completely forgot you exist.”
“I’ve never cared for anyone the way I do you and Calliope.” He sighed. “Come back to us, we can work out a plan that makes us all happy.”