33. Phoenix
Phoenix
Tears are welling up in my eyes, and I blink to try to focus on the back of Honey’s head because maybe if I look hard enough at her, then she’ll stop saying these things. She’ll listen and choose to stay. Choose us.
“She wants to go, then so be it. Fox, you will process her just like you would if you were back acting as the butcher. If she wants to be just another omega, then she’ll be just another omega.” Revenant ends the discussion. He’s so cold about it.
One minute, he was trying to help us keep her, and now he’s demanding Fox do terrible things to her? To prove what point?
I look to Fox for help with stopping this ridiculous, overzealous response, but my older brother won’t meet my gaze. I look at Zephyr, and he’s physically shaking with his jaw locked tight, anger vibrating between us. We don’t want to see her hurt.
Lazarus crosses the small office to us and puts his hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off, and I’m ready to bolt out of the room. I can take her away from here. I’m a Baron. The club isn’t my home, and they can’t make me stay.
They can’t make me stay. They can’t make us stay. They don’t own her.
I could storm out of Revenant’s office and execute escape plans. Those plans run through my mind on how to take Honey away from here. I go to make my move, pulling open the door and rushing out, but I’m stopped short. The president’s shadow, a massive grizzly bear, blocks my path.
Rather than wait, I shift. Letting the big falcon take my body. His bear bats at me, trying to take me down. But I’m in the clear with my wings partially flapping to escape the narrow hallway into the garage.
Until Fox, as an eagle, takes the sky. We battle, his claws sinking into my feathers. I try to shake him and fail. We crash to the ground, and I shift to the maned wolf. Longer legs. I’m taller than his fox. We dance, growls erupting and teeth cutting into each other.
I know that if I’m fighting, Fox can’t be hurting Honey.
I’ve heard what he’s done to omegas as the Butcher.
I’ve seen the results of the ‘processing’ Revenant speaks of, including the omegas who don’t survive it.
That won’t be Honey because I won’t let it happen.
I won’t let her eyes go hollow with that on-death’s-doorstep look.
Fox snaps down on my leg, and I struggle to shake him off. He tears the flesh away, and I howl out in pain. Lazarus gets between us. Then Mayhem breaks up the brothers of Family Baron by pushing us apart. Where the fuck is Zephyr? Maybe he’s smart, and he’ll sneak her out of here.
I shift back. Blood drips down my arms and legs where Fox’s teeth sank in deep. My shadow works hard to put me back together. Pain radiates from my arm as it bleeds through my long-sleeve T-shirt.
Fox coughs, spraying blood into the hand over his mouth.
“Serves you fuckin’ right,” I snap.
Fox laughs, wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth, and dusts himself off. He goes to walk past Mayz to me again, but Mayhem grabs him by the shoulder. “You’ve a job to do. Beat the piss out of him later.”
I charge forward, but Lazarus wraps his arms around me, holding me to his chest. “I know you’re mad. The orders came from the top. Honey made her choice. We did what we could to protect her.”
“I hate you,” I growl at him, trying to push away. Normally his touch is grounding, but not this time.
Lazarus should be fighting to keep her too. Why won’t he want her like we do?
“I hate you for not convincing her to stay. I can see you want her too. The way you look at her. You’re a coward, Laz. I hate all of you.”
“Welcome to the real world, Baron.” Revenant shrugs.
It’s left unsaid: Baron money can’t buy my way out of this.
But I’ve been a loyal soldier all this time.
So has Zephyr. We’ve played by their club rules.
Zephyr took a fall for the club. We were separated for three months.
None of them cared. None of them even considered that keeping her could be their repayment to me . . . to us. It wasn’t even a thought.
When I stop fighting, Laz lets me go. He refuses to look at me. I follow Fox, the Butcher as he was once called, and his pack back down to the basement. Zephyr is still there with Honey. She sits in the chair while Zephyr leans against the desk like he was trying to talk reason into her.
I raise my eyebrows at him. Why didn’t you take her out of here?
He answers with a micro head shake — she wouldn’t go.
In disbelief, I shake mine back and forth. No, this is all wrong. Why wouldn’t she go?
Honey gets to her feet, Zephyr right by her side. She hangs her head, purposely avoiding eye contact.
“Alright, Honey. Let’s get you processed.” Revenant’s voice holds none of the amusement nor animosity I expected.
Mayhem won’t look at me, but he has no problem pinning me to the wall with his arm, his shadow keeping me from grabbing Honey.
They lead her into the clinic space, the space that’s supposed to be for healing, not hurting, and I lose it. “Fuck you all!”
I fight back, but Zephyr comes to stand in front of me. His eyes plead with what I can only guess is ‘Don’t make this hard for her.’
Why doesn’t she want us? I recall happy memories of what we lived through in a short week with her. The way she ate pizza, how she was enthralled with movies, and the snuggles in bed together. It all pointed to everything being okay.
A bone-crushing ache fills my chest as I try to process all the conflicting information.
My head hurts from clenching my jaw so tight. I push against Mayhem’s shadow, but I’m trapped.
There’s a snap of fingers. Which must be Fox. Zephyr turns and shifts out of my way so I can see. Fox puts on his lab coat, not even bothering to change into scrubs. He points to a spot by the door, and I’m allowed to come forward.
We lock eyes, a low growl radiating from each of us.
There is no brotherly connection between us.
But absent is the vacant look in his eyes like he used to get when he’d come back home from the Mafia’s slaughter rooms. Evangeline, his mate, has softened him in some ways, yet hardened him in others. It’s not a bad thing. He better be fucking easier on her.
He drags the toe of his shoe across the threshold into the clinic with a single warning shake of his head.
I spit on his shoe, and he snarls at me.
“Don’t test him,” Mayz says, stepping across the invisible line. “He’s doing you a favor regardless of whether you believe it or not.”
“I’m not leaving.” I grind my teeth, debating shifting and tearing into them again.
“They aren’t saying we have to.” Zephyr leans against me and rests his head on my shoulder. “We’re here for her. Not for them.”
Revenant pushes past us into the room.
My gut churns.
Honey’s fear has her primed and on edge. She cowers away from them with a whine, looking away.
“Last chance, O — Honey.” Revenant points to me, Zephyr, and Lazarus, who stands behind us. “You’ve got alphas here who want you, and you’re denying them, asking to be processed, and then sold to the highest bidder.”
Honey looks over at us. I lock eyes with her, but she quickly looks past me, over to Lazarus. They’re in a bubble, eyes locked for a longer moment before she nods a silent agreement.
I mean . . . They can’t stop us from buying her? Zephyr nuzzles my shoulder.
It hurts too much though. That she doesn’t want us. There must be a reason for it. Something is stopping her from picking us. She loves us. I know she does.
“I’m sure.” Honey vocalizes her choice when Pack Westergaard stands before her.
Their phones all buzz, but only Mayhem pulls his out.
He clears his throat and shows it to Revenant and then to Fox, who moved to the sink to wash his hands.
“I’ll go.” Mayhem groans, scrubbing his hand down his face. “She’s already mad at me. Explaining this to her will have all of us in the doghouse. I’ll centralize Angel’s wrath on me. It’s my turn anyway.”
Fox snorts and makes a big gesture of rolling his eyes. Their mate, she’d be on our side. Always wanting to protect an omega because she understands. She is a victim of trafficking. She was put in the system by her own sire in some perverse cash grab.
When Mayhem leaves, I force myself to watch Fox. The touch of humanity I believed was there, instilled by his mates, is gone. He doesn’t speak to her. Snapping his fingers, he tugs at her clothes. Honey looks back at us and at Revenant.
Fox isn’t playing around. He tears her shirt as he pulls it from her. I lunge forward, trying to go to her, but Lazarus’s strong arms grip my biceps. He holds me in place. Fox reaches for scissors to cut her skirt off, and she starts to undress.
Tears are forming in her eyes already.
“Stop.” I plead, but it goes unanswered. I struggle, trying to go to her.
Honey is naked, all her curves on display. I’m thankful it’s two mated males and the three of us. I couldn’t handle more eyes raking over her. Her being on display for others to see would be bloodshed.
It’s obvious Revenant is here to stop me, maybe all of us, from rushing Fox.
Fox points to the table, and Honey must see something in his eyes that has her moving quickly, climbing up onto it.
She draws short breaths as he moves mechanically.
The basic tests don’t seem too invasive.
It’s everything on the outside, surface level.
He stops after each little thing, taking notes into the computer, one hand clicking the keys expertly.
He pushes on her shoulder, laying her back, and pulls out a board for her to rest her legs on.
Forcing her arm above her head, he pins her there with a snarl. She turns her head away from him, baring her neck in submission. The fear smell is so thick in the room that I’m choking on it.
I’ll never forgive him.
Zephyr grips my hand. He tries to reassure me.
Lazarus pulls me back to his chest when I try to push forward again. His arm wraps across mine as he holds me to him.