Chapter 13 #2
He isn’t focused on killing me. Is he here to rescue Bird?
Something about the way that he let me put on those handcuffs felt wrong.
Why does it feel like he has me just where he wants me?
My heart skips a beat.
Joker’s lips quirk. “The apprentice is the one who does the true magic.”
My gaze shoots to his hands.
He let himself be bound, and I’ve realized it too late.
When Joker slips out of the handcuffs, I know that it’s a trick he must have pulled off hundreds of times before.
He’s dangerous. And I fucking respect that.
I hold up the knife, scrambling off the bed.
Joker’s grin is vicious as he leaps after me.
He’s a force of nature.
He knocks the knife out of my hand, slamming me into the wall.
I dodge his punch, before blocking his kick.
When I try to jab him in the jaw, however, he dodges faster than anyone I’ve fought. I can’t land a single punch.
“I won’t tell you where the Omega is.” I shove Joker away from the pile of knives, blocking him from grabbing one.
Joker’s eyes glitter with amusement. “You never needed to.”
“What?” My pulse rushes in my ears.
What have I missed?
I raise my fist again.
Suddenly, the door smashes open.
From the corridor, the furious Alpha smoky scent of dark rum floods into the bedroom.
Then a giant Alpha barges inside.
He must be at least six feet nine, muscled and broad chested.
He is the most striking looking Alpha I’ve seen.
Like a god of the underworld, he has snow white skin, sensual curved lips and luminous emerald eyes that are disturbingly flat and dead.
His ice-white hair is slicked back from his head.
He is dressed in tight black jeans with buckles and chains, a white shirt, and floor-length black leather jacket.
Half of his face is covered with a mask like the one in Phantom of the Opera.
I knew that the masked Alpha would be watching through the window. No Alpha could witness their Beta being bound and tortured through the window and not intervene.
But I hadn’t expected him to appear this dramatically.
Was this arranged between the Hunters from the start?
“Skipper!” Joker salutes the new Alpha.
I spin, snatching Joker by the hair and dragging him to my chest. Then I hold the knife to his throat.
I had intended to lure the Alpha here, while I had the Beta at my mercy on the bed. I would then have made a deal with them to back off and stop hunting us…or kill them both, if I had to.
But I can improvise.
“Oh no,” Joker leans against me, fluttering his eyelashes, “whatever will I do now?”
Is he seriously being sarcastic right now?
I tighten my arm around Joker, pressing the knife harder against his throat. “Stop taking the piss to start with, or I’ll slash your throat.”
The Alpha growls, deep and rumbling.
“This is Phantom,” Joker says. “He doesn’t talk. But I talk enough for both of us.”
“I’d noticed,” I mutter.
Is this Alpha feral like the Switch side of my dynamic is? I have heard that feral Alphas are mute as well.
“I’m just going to sign to him, well, our own code. Don’t kill me.” Joker does a pumping motion with his closed fist.
Phantom replies with a thumbs up.
Wait, isn’t that an army hand signal?
Instantly, Phantom turns with a swish of his long coat and reaches out into the corridor.
On edge, I press the knife harder against the soft line of Joker’s throat.
Then Phantom crouches down and picks something up. He gently lifts something…someone…into the room.
My eyes widen in horror.
He’s carrying Bird.
Is he…?
He can’t be…
I can’t feel Bird through the bond. I didn’t sense any distress from him. I have been carefully monitoring my Omega ever since I left him by himself in the room down the corridor.
How the fuck did I miss something happening to him?
Bird is dressed in the flannel pajamas, which he was meant to be wearing safely in his bed.
“Stop touching him.” My hand is shaking, as I hold the dagger at Joker’s throat. “Put him down. Don’t… If you’ve hurt…or killed…my Omega, then I will slaughter you both.”
“He’s fine, I swear,” Joker says with a quiet earnestness, which is entirely different to how he’s spoken before.
“You may have noticed, but it was my job to keep your distracted, while my Alpha extracted the Omega. Phantom shouldn’t have brought the Omega here but he’s ridiculously loyal and devoted.
He worries that I can’t get myself out of these situations.
Minibars can be dosed with clever things to make Omegas sleep.
Your Omega will have a headache when he wakes up in about twelve hours but nothing worse. ”
“You’ll have worse than a headache. You’ll have no head.”
“Funny.”
“Not for you.”
Phantom’s eyes flash. He growls.
I watch intently, as he lays Bird down with surprising tenderness in the armchair. I wouldn’t guess that a giant killer like him would treat such a smaller Omega with that type of gentleness.
When Phantom straightens, however, his blazing fury is focused on how my knife is nicking his Beta’s throat.
Normally, I would fight them both.
But Phantom is still towering over my unconscious Omega.
See, pack bonds make you weak.
“Put the knife down,” Joker insists.
“So you can tear out my throat?”
“If I’d wanted to do that, I could have already done it. We intend to capture you both and take you to our secret safehouse.”
“Then what?”
Are they going to hand us back to the ABO Facility? That is worse than a death sentence.
“That depends on you.”
I close my eyes, taking a shuddering breath. Then I elbow Joker in the stomach and twirl away from him.
I stand between the two men with the dagger still raised.
“See?” Joker meets Phantom’s cold gaze. “She’s an amazing psycho, yeah? Knew that she’d fit in with us. She’s just as unhinged as you are.”
Phantom crosses his bulging arms over his chest.
He says as much with his body language, as if he was speaking.
His connection to Joker is deep; it’s obvious.
Joker points at his jacket, which is lying over the armchair. Phantom snatches it up and tosses it to him.
Joker shrugs on the jacket and pulls out a small pistol, which was hidden inside.
He tosses it between his hands, and I stiffen.
“You missed this one,” he says, cheekily. “Daddy missed you baby.”
He kisses the barrel of the gun.
Phantom and I snort at the same time and then glance at each other.
My throat becomes tight.
Phantom’s look is complicated in a way that I don’t understand.
But these are the Hunter pack.
Killers.
Maybe I was once like them. But not anymore.
“No hard feelings, yeah?” Joker offers.
“Very hard feelings.” I bare my teeth.
“Good.” Joker shivers. “Scold me again.”
I stare at him. “You’re fucked up.”
“Never said I wasn’t.”
Suddenly, I catch a flicker of light through the window.
Joker notices the direction of my gaze.
Panic sheets across Joker’s expression, before he yells, “Down.”
He hurls himself over me protectively, as we both hit the floor.
My face is ground into the carpet, as Joker lies over me.
Shit, what about Bird? He’s lying in the armchair.
Bullets spray through the window, which detonates, spraying glass over the bed, nightstand, and Joker. The Beta covers me with his body, sheltering me from both bullets and glass.
Why?
The bullets thud into the back wall, exactly where we had been standing.
Joker leaps up, rushing to stand by the fangs of glass, which are all that remain of the window. His grin is devilish, as he shoots back through the gaps.
I crawl over to the armchair.
Phantom has dragged Bird off the chair to the floor, covering him with his own body.
My eyes widen.
Phantom is bleeding from his shoulder. The leather jacket is torn, and a dark stain is blooming from it. His arm is hanging wrong.
Why would the Hunter pack protect my Omega?
Are we being hunted or protected?
Who the hell is shooting at us now? Have the other guards from the ABO Facility found us? The other bounty hunters?
Will running with the Hunters actually save us?