Pix
Merle eats breakfast, watching me like she knows something I don’t. I try not to glare at her, it upsets the alphas, and then I have to go round with them first thing in the morning, and I just can’t deal with them today.
She clicks her fingers at me.
I eat with more stubbornness, refusing to make eye contact.
“Are you just going to ignore me, baby boy?”
My head snaps up, nostrils flaring, rage scorching the air.
Raptor leans on her hand, smiling smugly at me.
“Yes, I freaking am.”
She hums and then, to my absolute frustration, her foot rubs against my inner thigh. I snap my legs together and narrow my eyes in her direction.
“Keep your feet off me.”
She snorts a laugh, but there’s something about her that is just predatory and bored. So bored.
I know she’s not going to stop.
I snarl and stab my butter knife into the wooden tabletop.
Blaze makes a sound of pain and snatches it out of the wood, stroking the spot.
“Why would you do that? We are not animals here!”
I turn my head to him and bare my teeth. He radiates his emotions loud and clear, and its irritation. Well, good, we can all be annoyed.
“I want to speak to Raven.”
The table goes silent.
“Raven’s not in,” Raptor says easily and stabs an egg. She lifts it to her mouth and smiles with a healthy dose of evil as she chews the fucking thing. “When Raven’s naughty, she doesn’t get to come out and play, and Raven is in time out for the next thirty years.”
“Find her and tell her I want to speak to her about things.”
Raptor pauses, cocking her head to the side. “No.”
Rolly walks in, and she glowers at him. He grabs Sage’s chair and pulls him away from her so he can kneel beside her.
“My horrible queen!”
“Annoying,” she growls at him.
He runs his hands over her, and she goes on the defensive, finally bursting up from her chair and coming to my side of the table.
“Raven!” I remind her.
She glowers at me. “You boys want to play? Let's play.”
She stiffens and then pats her pockets, huffs in irritation.
“What are you lot doing now?” Jay asks and walks out of the room without waiting for an answer. “Why is Raptor so annoyed?”
I slam my cutlery down and shove back my chair before catching up with him, just as he throws himself down on the couch. He grabs the remote and turns it on.
“Oh, I love this movie. Rolly, we’re watching movies, get in here.”
“Coming, dearest!”
I glare. “I want to speak to Raven,” I enunciate slowly.
“Take a number and wait in line, but keep it quiet. This movie is a good one. Also, oh, yeah, Raven is not allowed to play because she likes to break the toys.”
With a snarl of rage, I stalk off. This bunker is too small. I’ve got this whole feeling like the Earth is going to crash down and crush me. I don’t want to be here.
Except, I want to be with them.
It’s why I came back, but this place, it’s not good for me.
Roseland finds me in Blaze’s stupid dance room. I’m lying on the floor with my feet crossed at the ankles.
“You want to talk about it?”
“I need the sky.”
Roseland looks up. The ceiling is painted gold and red, and there are dragons and tigers everywhere. But no sky.
He stands over me and then kneels over my chest. He reaches out and grabs my jaw, turning my head to the side and exposing my mangled neck.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little bit.”
“Do you like having bonds?”
I stare up at him. I love these bonds, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t laid there and wished for one horrible, devastating moment that these bites and bonds were Roseland’s. His fingers trace down over the wounds, and they flare with warmth.
“I like them. I didn’t want to, but I do.”
He hums and leans down, he opens his mouth and puts his teeth over Blaze’s bond, but then abruptly, it’s like he’s dumped with a bucket of cold water because he pulls back, and I cannot decipher the emotions that race across his face.
“What do you want with Raven?”
“That’s between me and her, don’t you think?” I snap, irritated again by the alters shutting my request down.
He growls. His hand encircles my neck and squeezes.
“Now, this is a good time,” I purr and squirm under him.
His mouth slams down on mine, and I’m drowning in that taste that is purely him.
The night that I’ve locked up in my memory slams back, the feral way he growled, how he manhandled me and didn’t treat me like I was delicate.
He was rough but absolutely determined to make it good, and he was thorough.
I try to kiss him back, but he squeezes my throat until I start seeing spots. Only then does he break our kiss and let me breathe.
Someone claps. I turn my head, and somehow, without either of us being aware, she has crept in and is sitting cross-legged not even two feet away, clapping her hands.
“That was amazing and so incredibly hot.”
Kestrel.
I growl at her.
“Yes! That! I want that on something so I can listen to it over and over again.”
She lies down on her side with her head close to mine and smiles widely.
“You’re not going to let me speak to her, are you?”
She wiggles closer and rolls onto her back.
“It’s not so much a problem of letting. Raven simply does what she wants, and she’s refusing right now, but even if she did want to come out.
Raven broke the rules. She put us in danger by leaving Merle out on a motorbike.
We could have died. So, the others don’t trust her right now, and for good reason.
Also, she won’t tell us what she was doing.
She did give me a message for you. She says she told you what she needs, she’s not sure why you need clarification.
” Kestrel makes an irritated noise. “We are dying of curiosity. When exactly did you meet? What happened? What did she say?”
I stare at her. “None of your business.”
Instead of being offended, Kestrel tilts her head back and laughs like what I’ve said is hilarious.
My phone rings, and I answer it, ignoring Roseland’s narrow-eyed stare.
“Babe.”
Sariah.
“Hey, darling.”
The hand that grabs my balls comes from the omega in the room. I turn my head really slowly and stare at her.
“It’s been forever since we last spoke. Where have you been? In fact, where are you? Can you talk?” She sounds exhausted.
“Yeah, I know. But I love you anyway.”
“Oh, am I killing them?” Sariah says in a dark tone that has me trying to sit up. She recognises our code straight away and jumps to the worst case scenario.
Raptor’s eyes blaze with fury as she glares at me. “Who is that?”
There’s a pause on the line.
“No,” I say at last. “I’ve decided to keep this one. Just needs litter training.”
Raptor growls and snatches the phone out of my hand.
“My darling can’t talk right now, he’s about to bury his head between my legs and show me how sorry he is.”
She hangs up the phone.
Rose is doubled over laughing silently, still straddling my chest. He looks so beautiful when he’s happy.
I sigh heavily and send Mark a message telling him to check in with Sari because there is something definitely not right with her.
“You’re starting to like it with us,” Raptor whispers. She rolls onto her stomach, knees bent, kicking her feet in the air. “I think you like us, you want to bond us,” she sings and then bursts into laughter.
Clearly. She’s fucking nuts. But adorable, too. I can see her getting along really well with Meg and Bonnie.
“Yes, I like you. I just miss the outside.”
She moves closer, silent and soft. Her hand reaches out and cautiously lays on my chest, comforting me. She snuggles her head onto my shoulder and starts moving her hand in slow circles.
Roseland stands up after a while and disappears. When he comes back, the whole pack is with him. One by one, they lay down around us.
“I had no idea you had all this in here,” Sage says to Blaze.
“What?”
“The carvings of the dragons and tigers. When did you get them?”
“A while ago. They look good, don’t they?”
“I love them.”
King has fallen asleep and lets out a soft snore on every inhale. It’s kind of cute. Rolly is lying with his head on Rose’s stomach, staring at the ceiling.
“There are twelve dragons, eighteen tigers, and one phoenix,” he says.
“Why those three?” I ask.
“Dragons represent power, wisdom, and transformation. Tigers represent protection, fearlessness, and they ward off evil, and the Phoenix represents renewal, harmony, and balance. And they look good up there on my ceiling.”
Sage chortles. “You are so vain.”
“I am not.”
“You do a hundred strokes of the hairbrush through your hair on each side every night. You are vain, my love, but it’s okay; we like you like that.”
Blaze grumbles. “I like to look good.”
“You do look amazing,” I say without thinking, seeking to soothe his unease.
The bubble of warmth that flows through the bond is enough to make me growl in exasperation.
“You do care!” Sage teases. “So, when do I get to bite you?”
“Never!” I snap.
“Aw, come on, you know you want me to bite you. I saw a piece of exposed skin near your hairline,” Sage wiggles closer. His fingers brush the spot. I shiver. “Right here.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He kisses my forehead, then slides back to his spot.
“Is this what our future could look like?” Rolly asks. “No killing, just sitting here giving each other shit and making out?”
“Do you have a problem with that?” Sage asks with a laugh.
“Not at all. I think it sounds delicious. Delectable. Completely and utterly divine.”
“Have you had a stroke, Rolly?” Roseland asks.
“Nope, I’m thinking about words that start with D that make me happy.”
“Uh-huh. You want to spit out what you mean?”
“Nope. I swallow,” he says proudly.
It’s just so ridiculous, and he says it so proudly that I get the giggles, and then I’m laughing so hard I’m crying and have to sit up.
Rolly pounces on me, and we roll around, wrestling and play fighting, and for the first time since Blaze let me go, I forget about the fact that I’m underground and that we’re being hunted.
I just…exist.