Chapter 8
Cassius
An unfamiliar pressure cushioned my back and a satin pillow dented beneath my cheek. I swam up from consciousness trying to figure out where I was. Slowly, a table came into focus, then a big TV. I turned my head to see a vaulted ceiling with high windows that let in a pale pink light.
Memories of the night’s activities began to return.
I lay on a couch in a game room. An alpha’s game room.
I’d learned pool last night. I’d played a video game with utmost concentration.
And there had been a somewhat uncomfortable but revealing question and answer session with the owner of this place. Malin.
I tried to roll to one side but the back of the couch firmly stopped me. That was the pressure I felt, nothing more than soft cushions. The room was silent. Raising myself up on one elbow, my hair fell in tangles about my face. I pushed it back and looked around.
There he was, EZ chair pushed back, feet up, eyes closed.
He looked good all in black, his muscles accentuated against soft cotton.
His hair was dark and messy over his eyes.
His alpha scent was like a forest. I hadn’t paid attention to it before but now, just waking, the air moving around as I pushed back the blanket that had been dropped over me, it was central to my senses.
Quietly, I sat up. When had that blanket gotten here? I couldn’t remember. It was plush with a design of evergreens woven into it.
I immediately wondered what time it was.
I had nothing but the clothes on my back.
No phone. No watch. I glanced about for a clock.
If I was late getting back to Brimstone, I would be blamed whether it was my fault or not.
They would decide I wasn’t cooperative or that I had somehow caused the client to delay.
My heart began to race.
I dropped the blanket to the floor and walked to a nearby bathroom. When I came out, Malin still sat in the chair but was now awake.
I clasped my hands in front of my stomach. “I need go back.”
“I know.’
“Do you know what time it is?”
He glanced at his shiny gold watch. “Seven. Do you want breakfast?”
“What?” I couldn’t think of food at that moment. I’d just woken up.
“Coffee?”
I gulped. That sounded good. “How far of a drive is it to the ranch?”
He stood up. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I have to be back by eight. Klonis said….”
“Klonis is an idiot,” he interrupted.
I stiffened. “Yeah, well you don’t have to live with him.”
“True.” Malin didn’t look angry. Instead, he moved off toward the bathroom while saying, “It really is like a prison, then?”
I nodded, a bit miffed at the question, though I wasn’t sure why.
By the time he came out, I had my shoes on and was standing by the game room door.
“Do I even have time to change?” he asked.
“It’s far away, isn’t it?”
Malin sighed. “I guess we’re getting coffee on the way.” He grabbed his jacket. His dark clothes still looked impeccable, not a wrinkle on them.
Me, on the other hand…. I looked down at my t-shirt. It was rumpled and a little stained where I’d spilled some onion dip from our snacks last night. My mouth tasted sour.
Malin moved past me to the hall, his scent reaching deep into my lungs. “Come.”
I jogged to catch up.
The garage door opened before I could get into the car. Brisk morning air caught my bare arms and neck, causing goosebumps. I slid onto the marshmallowy leather seat and immediately warmed up. The winged door closed.
Malin roared down the empty road. Countryside passed and, finally, a few houses on the outskirts of the small town we’d passed yesterday.
In the town, we passed a bunch of tiny coffee houses.
Malin pulled into one and ordered through the window.
Immediately, I could tell they knew him.
He didn’t ask me what I wanted. He ordered something fancy called a Café Latte with half and half. Two of them.
“What is it?”
“Try it. They’re decadently good.”
“I’m used to plain black coffee,” I said.
He made a tsking sound. “I can order you one of those, too, if you like.”
I shook my head, curling my fingers around the cardboard cup’s heat protector.
The lid had a spout. I could tell from the steam that it was still too hot to drink.
I blew into it. It smelled great. I was so focused on the drink, it surprised me when he pulled away, the motion jerking me back in my seat.
A box sat on the console between us, open to reveal glazed donut holes.
Malin was already popping one into his mouth and steered one-handed back on the highway.
He sped far past the speed limit. I worried we’d be stopped by cops and even more delayed. But nothing happened. No one came after us.
I blew and blew on my latte. Finally, I took a sip. It was amazing.
Malin turned to me and laughed. “Good, eh?”
“Yes.”
Back home, I’d avoided takeout and fancy stuff like this.
I didn’t have my own money and no one in my pack would give a set omega a job.
My parents kept me behind closed doors from about the age of sixteen.
I was finally sold at twenty, defenseless and scared, but glad to leave.
I’d grown to hate my pack. I’d been forced to take set classes online where they drummed it into us that our duty to the pack was to bring in money once it was decided where we’d be trafficked.
Even though our culture taught that sets were to be banished, that they weakened the pack, I couldn’t believe people blindly let themselves believe it.
In this day and age, survival in the pack was not about pecking orders and barbaric alpha challenges, but more about who made a higher salary, who had the biggest house.
Sets didn’t affect that. But the old beliefs were like a religion.
That religion left people like me out in the cold.
An object to be sold for my only worthwhile function: breeding.
I pressed my thighs together as if reacting to that notion. I’d been bred but I couldn’t remember it. That was almost more horrible for me than facing my greatest fear. But a large part of me was glad for the foggy heats, images fading to blank memories like lost dreams on waking.
Next to me, Malin was in his own entitled world. He wouldn’t and couldn’t understand. But worse, something he’d said to me earlier stuck in my mind.
“Why did you ask me if the ranch was like a prison?”
“What?”
“Earlier. When we were talking about returning me on time.”
“I wondered.”
Something seethed inside me. “How could you not know?”
“Never thought about it. I only know about the auctions. Never been to one, though, or a ranch.”
“Not even curious?”
He glanced at me, then back at the road. “Should I be?”
“Maybe not you. Blights in your world are hidden behind thick, dark curtains.”
“What’s that mean?” He grabbed another donut hole as if the conversation was nothing more than small talk.
I couldn’t seem to get my thoughts in much order to explain it. “I’ll bet when you were little if you wanted more icing on your cake you got the whole bowl.”
Silence.
Finally, he spoke. “Have another donut hole.”
They really were great. I popped one into my mouth, then sipped more of my drink. It might be shallow of me to state, but the taste and smell were strangely comforting.
We drove a long way. I kept checking the digital time readout on his dash. The minutes were ticking down.
Finally, we pulled into the long, single lane road that led to the ranch. More countryside, only this area was far less lush and beautiful than where Malin lived.
I directed him to pull up to the front of the largest building. It was four minutes to eight. I tried to open the door but it was locked.
Malin pressed a button and the wing opened. I set my drink in the now empty donut box and swung my legs out. Before I stood, Malin spoke.
“So, you’re saying I get all the icing and you’re left with the crumbs?”
I turned to look at him but he wasn’t focused on me.
Instead, he was looking all around at the complex.
We’d come through a gate attached to a tall chain link fence topped with razor wire.
The area around the main building was okay as far as landscaping, done to appeal to visiting alphas.
But beyond that, toward the outbuildings, was old yellow grass filled with burs and nettles to deter runaways.
It was most definitely a prison.
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I got out and headed for the front without looking back. The doors were already opening, I saw Klonis just inside, arms folded across his chest, eyebrows narrowed.
I walked in and said to him, “Duty performed.”
“We’ll see. That alpha has yet to leave a review.”
“Isn’t all that matters is that he paid?”
“Feedback is good for business and if you fucked anything up, you little shit, you’ll pay.”
Couldn’t anyone see? I’d already paid. And was still paying. With my life.