Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Winthrop Mansion, Blue Valley Woods
Bird laughs, gripping tightly onto my arm, as we tumble down the snowy bank toward the silent mansion.
Gray clouds stream across the moon above, shielding us in shadows.
I shiver.
Bird and I are swaddled in floor-length dark coats with matching scarves and gloves, which Phantom insisted on wrapping us in before we left like we were about to scale Everest.
Phantom shook his head, however, when I asked if he was coming with us. Then he gestured to the cabin window, which he was busy updating with what I could only describe as booby traps.
The Hunters are taking the scheme of trapping the Krakens, who are planning to murder Bird and me and once tried to forcibly claim Joker while burning his Alpha, very seriously.
Joker glances over his shoulder. “This is a mission. Isn’t my training working at all?”
But he’s grinning.
“I thought that this was your idea of a date, Jokes?” I whisper back. “Breaking and entering, before skinny dipping in your wealthy neighbor’s pool?”
“Not really a neighbor. We’ve had to hike for an hour through the forest to reach their house.
” Joker hunches his shoulders in his thick coat against the feathering of snow, leading us toward the stone terrace.
“Be honest, you were going as stir-crazy as I was trapped inside for so long. We needed to get out into the fresh air and then do something scandalous. It’s in our nature. Also, can’t a date be a mission?”
“Why not? As long as you’re sure that we won’t be shot during it.”
“No one has found our safehouse yet. Phantom and I check the entire area each day. It may look low tech to you in our cabin, but in fact, I have some of the best tech in the world hidden away.”
I believe him.
Breathlessly grinning, while our boots crunch on the icy stone, Bird and I stumble behind Joker. We jostle the Beta accidentally on purpose.
“Oi, minions.” Joker’s eyes are glittering. He snatches up what looks like a large stone, which lies to the side of the oak door. “Do you want to see a magic trick?”
“That’s my line,” I point out.
When Joker twists what turns out to be a fake stone, the front door key falls out of its false bottom.
“Ta da!” Joker holds up the key. “This grants us access to their swimming pool.”
I shake my head. “People need better security.”
“Sad, right?”
Bird bites his lip, guiltily. “Should we be doing this shit? I feel bad enough that I stole some campers’ clothes. Now, you’re tempting me into becoming a burglar.”
“Don’t I make a pretty devil?” Joker flutters his eyelashes.
Joker’s honey over peaches scent becomes stronger.
Instantly, I am drawn to him as irresistibly as I was the first night that I saw him in the bar. I become wet, and my pheromones bloom from me.
Joker is a dangerous siren.
Joker gives me a half-hooded look like he knows exactly how he has affected me, before he reassures Bird, “Don’t worry, Cookie.
We’re not robbing the place. Anyway, I’m the one who would be charged with unlawful entry and put in prison for using the key.
You’d be guilty of trespass. But you’re an Omega. You’d only be sent to the Institute.”
Bird’s eyes widen. “Only…?”
“Never happening. Not while I have a gun in my hand. And I have a lot of guns.” Joker twirls to the door, opening it.
“Of course, I have already disabled their cameras and sensors, so no one is catching us. To be fair to the Winthrop pack, knothead Traditionalists that they are who own half the oil in the country, this is just one of their portfolio of properties. They only visit their lodge to hunt once or twice during the summer. It would be criminal of me not to make use of their pool to keep myself in shape when I stay in my cabin, right?”
“Criminal,” I mutter.
“We had a pool,” Bird says, suddenly serious.
“I mean, when I was a kid. It was in the penthouse. I loved swimming with Grace and Hatton. I could only do it when Mom was out because she didn’t think that I should be playing with my favored brother.
I was just the breeder’s son, after all.
A bad influence. But when we swam together it was… ”
I stroke the back of my Omega’s arm.
“I’m glad you had that, Little Bird. I would have loved to swim with my brother.
I could only watch Mars and Gianna playing together.
” I huff at the memory. “What the fuck am I saying? They didn’t play together.
My sister bullied my brother. If that was playing, then I was lucky to have never experienced it. ”
Joker looks determined. “Then for my next trick, we get to play together. And we will forever.”
What does he mean?
Probably something kinky, knowing Joker.
I have never experienced actual playing.
I have broken the law many times. I have never done it, however, with this giddy feeling.
How does Joker make everything fun? Like a game? As if he’s giving Bird and me back something that we missed out on as kids? Possibly, that Joker himself lost?
Joker hushes Bird and me, before ushering us inside the building.
Instantly, we are hit by a moist heat.
Sweat drips down the back of my neck.
The room is heated with glass walls and ceiling. I tip back my head and look up at the sky through the roof. The snow lightly falls onto the glass and melts like frozen tears.
I wrinkle my nose at the overpowering scent of chlorine.
The room is dim, apart from the silver moonlight, as if we have entered a secret, forbidden realm.
Joker’s excitement is infectious, as he sprints beside the side of the glassy blue rectangular pool, which glows with underwater lights.
“No running!” I yell like I’m a lifeguard.
Joker doesn’t slow. Instead, he gives me the finger over his shoulder.
Bird laughs.
“No respect for your Alpha,” I grumble.
“It’s how you like me, baby.” Joker stops at the base of a high diving board at the end of the pool.
He turns to me, grinning with a genuineness that thrills me.
I can imagine Joker as a young Beta practicing to be a professional swimmer, dreaming that one day he would go to college and show Alphas that he could swim as well as them.
A young Beta with ambition and hope, before they were burned to ash.
A young Beta who didn’t cradle guns and use his body as honeyed bait.
“Watch me?” He asks.
“As much as you watch me,” I reply.
Joker winks, before he strips out of his clothes with a startling efficiency.
“Skinny dipping, of course.” I tilt my head. “I should have guessed that you didn’t intend to steal swimwear.”
“Honey has the best ideas.” Bird squirms away from me, throwing off his gloves and scarf.
I copy him as fast as I can.
It’s hot, and it’s a relief to disrobe.
Bird turns to me, unbuttoning my coat and pulling it from my shoulders. I return the favor, as he smiles.
In moments, we are standing naked beside the pool.
Then Bird and I stand shoulder by shoulder, watching as Joker climbs the ladder up to the diving board.
Joker climbs like he is about to show off a trick.
My heart is in my throat.
Joker is reckless. Yet there is a confidence in how Joker moves, just like when he is fighting.
I crane my neck to watch Joker’s outline, when he reaches the top and walks along the board.
The moon breaks from the clouds. Its bright light shines across Joker’s athletic form, as he balances on the edge of the board.
His body has been honed to perfection.
That god is my Beta.
It looks like it shouldn’t be possible for him not to fall, but he balances like it is easy.
Then he bounces up and down, once and then twice.
The board flexes.
Bird edges closer to me, tense.
I take a breath.
Hold it.
Then Joker jumps.
He rises in the air and turns smoothly in a reverse dive. It is a rotation that carries him briefly away from the water before drawing him back in.
It’s breath-taking.
The move is more beautiful than a perfectly placed bullet between the eyes.
Under the moonlight, Joker is all lines and angles.
I trace the arc of his dive. It is impossible to believe that someone can train their body in such movements.
Just for a second, Joker appears suspended in the air. The moment appears private between him and the water.
I’m seeing behind Joker’s mask. It is a glimpse of his past and true nature, and he’s choosing to share it with me.
Bird wraps his warm arm around my bare waist.
My heart races.
Is Joker going to hit the surface?
He’s too close.
At the very last instant, he extends his arms and lengthens his spine.
I let out my breath in a relieved gust, when Joker enters the water in a single, narrow line. He barely disturbs the surface with ripples.
“You’re bonding that Beta,” Bird says with a steel to his tone. “I want him as my permanent pack member. He’s incredible.”
I smile, while never looking away from the still surface, waiting for Joker to reemerge.
Part of me can’t shake the image of Joker weighted down at the bottom of the pool in his SEAL training, struggling for breath until he blacked out, not knowing that he’d been left there to die by his own brothers-in-arms because he was a Beta.
Seeing how in control he is in the water has made me sickened that the SEALs chose drowning as their method to reject the trainee who they didn’t want in their ranks.
I want Joker, however, in my ranks.
Anyone who can’t see this man’s strengths is a fucking idiot.
My shoulders slump with relief, when Joker’s head and shoulders finally break the surface of the pool. He is almost at our end again, but then, what do I expect from an ex-SEAL?
Bird, however, yelps. “He’s a fucking shark.”
Joker also gives a shark-like smile, as he swims toward us.
He’s not fighting against the water, as I tend to, he’s in sync with it.
I clap. “I’m officially offering you the magician’s apprentice role because that dive was magic.”
Joker leans his elbows on the edge of the pool. “I’m honored. Are you two coming in?”
Bird politely gestures at the water. “Alphas first.”
“Omegas first.” Joker leaps out, dripping with water.
He grabs Bird by the shoulders.