Raven
Sneaking out of their bunker and cabin is ridiculously easy. I almost feel bad for them, but I have things I need to do.
I disable their cars and steal the only motorbike. With the engine purring between my legs and putting miles between me and the alphas, I begin to relax. This is almost fun.
It takes me five hours to get to where I need to go. The cash I stole goes towards petrol, but when I get to the resort, it’s barely dawn. They’ll be awake and hunting me soon. Poor babies.
My footsteps are loud and confident as I march across marble floors of a place such as I’ve never set foot before. The beta at the reception desk watches me with eyes that grow ever wider.
“Hey, I’m here to see Pix O’Connell.”
The bleary-eyed woman at the counter blinks at me. “I can’t give that information out.”
Ah, I love it when people try to do the right thing, it’s so cute.
I nod my head, then lunge forward and twist her arm sharply. “I’m not asking. Where is my omega?”
Her eyes get wide, and her face turns white. She stutters, her bottom lip shaking.
“R-rr-room three thirty.”
“Thank you,” I say sweetly and release her. “Now, be a good girl and call up and let him know I’m coming.”
“Okay! I will. Right now!”
I jog across the empire blue carpet runner with its gold monochromatic patterns and hit the button for the lift. It slides open as if it were waiting for me. For a moment, I hesitate, wondering again if this is the right move.
I huff and get in, refusing to look in the mirror.
When I look in the mirror, I see vulnerable Merle, fury-filled Raptor, Kestrel’s pain, Jay’s grief.
I see it all, but I see the purpose in my eyes and the fact that I will put us all last to get this done.
They have no idea the lengths I have gone to and how much further I will take this.
I will sacrifice us all if I have to.
My alters don’t like me a lot of the time, and that’s fine with me. I don’t need to be liked, I need to win.
The doors slide open, and I find room three thirty right in front of me. I don’t bother knocking, instead, I use the master card I palmed off the reception desk when I attacked the woman.
I don’t open the door slowly or cautiously. There’s no point.
Pix is waiting for me with a gun aimed at my chest when I walk in. I close the door and raise my hands, trying to indicate that I am harmless, but he doesn’t let up. Instead, he stares at me even more suspiciously.
“You all told me to go. Here I am, gone. Here you are, back.” The words come out almost amused, but I can see the cold, hard rage written all over his hurt omega feelings.
“Yeah, I need you.” I say the words with a grin, loving this game.
“You’re not Merle, Kestrel, or anyone else I have met yet.”
“Raven.”
His eyebrows go up, and he finally lowers the gun. “What do you want with me, Raven?”
“Oh, things that would make you weep and blush, but all that has to wait. I need you and only you. You are the only one I can trust.”
He chokes out a laugh. “You can’t trust your alphas?”
Silly, bitter omega. He’s so adorable.
“Our alphas,” I say with a wide smile, watching his every move.
“Yours. Mine dumped me.”
I make a rude noise in the back of my throat. “To save you. It was so disgustingly noble. Roseland really does care about you, he wouldn’t have done that for anyone else. He wants you to have better than this nightmare, but I’m going to drag you back in to drown with us.”
Pix’s expression gets black, fury-filled.
“I don’t need saving. I don’t want to live in a cage. And I can protect and care for myself.”
I bite my lower lip, appreciating the deadly menace that radiates out of this pissed-off omega. As a beta, I’m not able to claim him in any way, but I want to.
So badly.
“Prove it.”
He brushes his hair back and sneers at me. “Go back to them and tell them I’m doing fine. Then get out of my life and leave me the fuck alone.”
I can’t help it. He’s gorgeous and fascinating.
I love the way he moves, all deadly grace.
I inhale and catch his scent, and my legs tremble.
He’s framed by massive windows, and with the new day light, it’s giving him a golden aura.
Not even the massive queen bed can distract me from how damn pretty he is.
“Pix,” I murmur. I take a step closer, ignoring the way he levels the gun at my forehead. “Omega?” I call gently, trying to reach the part of him that I know wants me.
He looks at me sharply. “I’m not fucking you.”
I let out an unhappy whine, mocking him and myself.
He rolls his eyes. “You are so childish.”
I burst out laughing and flounce over to his bed, sitting on the edge, looking up at him.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t have come if this wasn’t really important.
Much as I want to spend the next week fucking you until we are both bow-legged, you really will get hurt if you come join my war.
It’s too late for the alphas, but Roseland’s right, you have a chance at a life.
So, you can do me this solid, and I will walk away and leave you be.
Or you can come back and drown with us. Or the last option is refuse.
Don’t get involved at all. Spend the rest of your miserable life wondering what if. I don’t really care.”
He stares at me. “Do they know you are here?”
I shrug. “Not really. I kind of disabled their cars, snuck out, and stole the bike.”
He barks a laugh. “Raven?”
“Yeah, I’m Raven.”
He steps closer, staring into my eyes, studying my face, the gun at his side. “You have intensity in your eyes. Something deadly.”
I snort a laugh and lean in to whisper. “It could be constipation.”
“Could be, but my guess is you’re the get-the-job-done-at-all-costs girl.”
I study him, remembering how Kestrel pegged him so perfectly. How when she said he was ours, I’d scoffed at her. How ridiculous to claim an omega.
I’m not laughing now.
I want him.
“Well, what’s it going to be? Are you going on a road trip, or are we hanging out here?”
“I should call them to come get you,” Pix whispers, and his fingers slide into my hair and grip it close to the scalp, yanking my head back. I allow it because the pain feels good.
“We both know you won’t want that,” I say dismissively. “That would mean that you would have to talk to them, admit your feelings, beg them after they threw you away. Admit you want to go home. You have too much pride to come crawling back and claim what’s yours.”
I lean back on the bed, raising an eyebrow. My words hurt him, but he has followed me down, leaning over me, my hair still wrapped around his fingers. He’s so close I can taste his breath, feel the heat of his body looming over mine.
“Pix,” I moan.
He scowls. “Don’t play this game with me, Raven. I can play it better. I’m meaner and colder.”
“No, you think you are, but you had family, a chosen family. You can be cold. Not like me. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“You have a pack,” he says slowly.
“They aren’t mine. Not yet, maybe not ever. They can still be yours, though. I would have given them to you. Be happy with them,” I say honestly. “I want to see you smile. You’re pretty when you smile, Daega..”
He raises his eyebrows. “Do they know that?”
“Of course not.” I bite my words off, frustrated with his suspicion.
He backs off, letting me go, and it feels like he’s opened a door and let the winter cold in.
“Would it make it easier if I begged you? If I made all the promises not to hurt anyone you care about? Would you like me to hand over my weapons and let you tie me up?”
Pix moves closer and gestures for me to stand up. “Spread them.”
I huff. “Really?” I ask, but I spread my arms and legs, watching as he pats me down. My whole body tingles. When he’s satisfied, he pulls out the phone I stole and takes it into the bathroom and drops it in the toilet.
“Mikhail from the bar two towns away is going to be really upset when he realises where his phone is now living.”
“Mikhail can bite me.”
A surge of possessive rage floods me, and it startles me so hard it actually takes a moment to suppress it. Fuck, okay. We are not okay with Pix being with anyone but us. Good to know.
“Why me?” he asks, and it takes me a few seconds to gather my thoughts.
“Because,” I look at him, dropping all the coy smiles and show him how deadly serious I am.
“You left. When they all stayed, you listened to him, and you left. You’re smart, and you have a distinct instinct towards self-preservation.
They don’t, they are all fucked up with omega scents and the urge to protect.
I need someone who wants to live protecting this secret. ”
“What secret?” he snarls out.
“Uh-uh, I can’t show you until you agree and we head there.”
He cocks his head to the side and smiles, the utter sexiness of it takes my breath away, but I steel myself against it. His ability to charm the knickers off anything with a pulse is well known, but it’s all a mask.
Why is he wearing a mask for me? It’s almost offensive.
“All right, Miss Omega. Let’s go.”
“Excellent, though I’m going to correct you, I’m not an omega, I’m a beta.”
His eyebrows hit his hairline, and he leans in and sniffs, then does it again. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, I’m magic.” I wink at him and wander out of the hotel room with him in tow. I should be happy. But his hostility is a variable I didn’t account for. I feel like I’ve lost something valuable.
He doesn’t laugh or smile or respond to my teasing.
“I’ll be back,” he says in the hotel reception to an omega with a dark bob who drops the tablet she was holding and glares at me.
“I don’t like this,” she snarls.
Meg. This is Meg. One of Pix’s chosen family. I can’t kill her. Damn. If she keeps looking at me like I’m the interloper I will take her the fuck out. Pix is mine.
He kisses her cheek. I wonder if he will still like me if I stab her in the eye. She doesn’t really need two.
“I know, but I want to find out what she wants. I’ll be back-” he glances at me.
“He will be back in about five hours, and then he’s all yours.” The words feel like acid on my tongue.
She narrows her eyes. “He better be. You are supposed to be gone.”
I don’t correct her about my identity, and neither does he. Which rankles.
I grab my helmet from where I left it and pull it on my head. He gets one from somewhere. I climb on the bike I stole and wait for him to hop on behind me.
Some asshole rides up with his bike and gets off. I think I remember him from Kestrel’s memories, but I can’t be sure. My Pix takes the bike, touching the other asshole’s shoulder in a far too familiar manner.
So, he’s going to refuse to ride with me.
Fine. Fuck you very much.
I rev the bike and turn my head, looking at him through the visor.
Then I take off, leaving him stumbling over the decision as to whether he chases me or not.
If he doesn’t follow, my next attempt to get his help will involve swollen balls and an inability to sit easily for the next month. I don’t want to be mean, but I will.
Luckily for his cock, he catches up with me a few minutes later. I look at him, rev the bike, and take off, flying well over the speed limit. We’re in the middle of nowhere; it’s just us and the trees, there are no cars.
Nothing.
But us.
And miles of road.
My anger seeps away, and the worry returns. This is why I don’t like being out. If I have to exist, I think too much. I am a chronic over-worrier, I have to know the plans down to the exact, precise, and perfect moment. No detail escapes me.
But riding out here with so much time to think, I worry about my plans falling through. And I have a lot of moving pieces.
Pix is another piece of my puzzle.
He’s going to do this because I know what kind of person he is, and despite him being a killer, he’s a protector and a defender. He will hear me out, and he will do it because it protects Merle.
I’m not above using his connection with her to my advantage.
We ride until we reach a town.
I stop the bike and leave it clicking and ticking in the tree line where no one can see it, then I pull off my helmet. My stomach flutters as I wait for him to join me. I don’t speak, I don’t tease him. Nothing about this is a game anymore.
The walk is nice. Thirty minutes through thick grass and tall trees that turn the temperature into a cool day. The town itself has about a thousand residents.
A thousand people. It’s tiny.
No one knows anything about this town, it’s surrounded by mountains, is almost backwards with technology and city advantages. It’s quaint. There is an ice-cream shop, a pub, a service station, one mechanic, and it likes to celebrate holidays and have little festivals.
It’s cute and exactly like a million other small towns. There is nothing exceptional about this place.
Which is why I brought it here.
I stop across the road from a cottage. It’s got bushes that stand taller than a person, and they are covered in pink flowers. The door of the cottage is green, and there’s a white letterbox with a pink daisy painted on the side.
“Who lives there?”
“Mrs Potter. She likes to read at night and does the crossword in the morning. Her beta partner smiles too much, and everyone loves him.” My voice is soft as I recall their information.
“He works at the local mechanic shop part-time, but his passion is carpentry, though he helps everyone out when he can. She likes to bake. Her house always has cookies. Melting moments are her favourite, but she loves a good fruitcake, too. They are in their fifties, and they are just really, really decent people.”
“What are we doing here, Raven?” he snarls, out of patience.
I grin at the memories. “No one knows. Just me and now you. If I disappear, if I die, then you have to keep this secret. You have to protect this secret; you are the only one I can trust.”
“What secret?”
I lick my lips, watching the door open. I tense and turn away, squeezing my eyes closed so I can’t see, just in case one of the others is here.
“That secret,” I whisper.
Pix’s sharp inhale tells me he’s seen it, too.
“Let’s go,” I say urgently, antsy now, just in case someone catches us here. Just in case one of my alters wakes up and starts asking questions, they can’t know.
He doesn’t speak.
Neither of us speak.
When he gets to the hotel, I slow long enough to feel his eyes on me, to wish for one horrible moment in my horrible life I could have something for myself.
Then I turn away, and I go back to the alphas I’ve left behind and the time that is rapidly running out.
He’s coming.
And we’re not ready.