Chapter 4 #2
While I wasn’t opposed to having a good time with a date, we did not know each other even remotely well enough for me to be comfortable here.
I wasn’t sheltered. Okay maybe I was, but I’d had boyfriends before; just no one I was ever with long enough to trust with sharing a heat, and I certainly wouldn’t be doing that for the first time in a place like this. My heat wasn’t due for another month and a half, anyway.
We passed a string of five, six, seven guys all pressed together, front to back against the wall, moaning and grinding into each other’s cocks.
One omega gasped, eyes squeezed shut as he rocked into the alpha behind him.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his knot, swollen and nearly purple under the flashing strobe light.
They both shuddered when it popped inside, locking them together.
Fuck, that was hot.
My own cock pulsed in my pants, and I craved to feel that close to someone. There may not be anyone here I was comfortable with, but I still wanted.
Maybe with one person at a time first, though. Baby steps.
Out of the corner of my eye, a large, dark shape moved through the crowd parallel to us. I glanced over, heart skipping a beat, but there was nothing there; only more couples gyrating to the beat of the throbbing music.
Something midnight blue and velvet-soft brushed up against my baser instincts, sending shivers down my spine. He’s not here, I told myself. You’re just afraid he’ll find you. Loosen up.
Fear wasn’t the only thing that dark presence made me feel, but I chalked it up to our surroundings.
I also tried to console myself with the knowledge that at least the scent of my stalker had finally disappeared, but at what cost? The deeper into the crush of bodies we went, the stronger the scent of heat and bodily fluids grew, until it was stifling and made my head pound.
Joey’s fingers, clammy and unforgiving, slipped along my arm and all my desire dried up. Setting aside the fact that he’d been an ass all night, he didn’t smell right. We were clearly not scent compatible.
Shaking off the fog of the rutting couples around us, I frowned. “Look,” I yelled over the music, “I’m not into this. I’m gonna go wait outside and call an—”
He stopped abruptly, and I smacked right into the back of him, cutting me off.
“Eric!” he called.
Who the fuck was Eric?
Someone bumped into me from behind, knocking me forward so I stumbled into Joey again. “You’ve outdone yourself this time.”
I whipped around to find an unfamiliar alpha leering at me. “Back up,” I said, shoving him away. He clearly thought I was someone else.
His leer turned into a grin that sent chills down my spine.
“Where’s Dain?” Joey asked.
Now sandwiched between them, I turned to him. “Who?”
Except, he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to the alpha behind me.
“Right over there,” the stranger, Eric, said, motioning to his left. He lifted his hand above the crowd and waved someone over. “He’s got the stuff.”
Joey nodded. “Good. Let’s find a room.”
Confused as fuck, I tried to figure out who they were talking about, but my head was really starting to hurt. The vein in my temple throbbed with each beat of the music.
Scanning the crowd, I saw someone headed our way who also looked me up and down in a way that was uncomfortable, but that wasn’t what made my stomach plummet to the floor. No.
It was the hooded figure a few paces behind him, looking right at us.
Primal instinct screamed at me to bolt. It was him. He’d found me here.
Acute fear made me dizzy. I ducked behind Joey’s friend and tried to find the exit, but my vision spun, and he was everywhere. Standing in every corner of the room, hovering behind every clump of sex-crazed people, blocking every path out of this crush of bodies.
That faceless, hooded figure stood, watching. Always watching.
I didn’t have time to process what Joey and the strangers were talking about, or fight when he grabbed me by the arm again and pulled me away. All I knew was I needed to escape that terrifying figure stalking my every move.
Sweat poured out of me, making my shirt stick to my chest and back. We moved behind a large clump of people and lost my stalker in the crowd.
This was my chance to flee.
“Joey,” I said, “I need to go. Someone followed me here. I think he’s dangerous.”
Joey completely ignored me.
“Hey!” I shouted, trying and failing to wrench my arm away. “Let go. I need to leave. I need—”
“Shut up,” he snarled, dragging me toward a darkened doorway on the opposite wall from the entrance. No one turned to look; my protests went unheard and unobserved in the throng of people surrounding us.
A new fear, even more acute, choked me when he pulled me through that door and down a dimly lit hall, the two strange alphas right on our heels. The only illumination came from the pulsing strobe at our backs, and strips of light along the floor at even intervals.
More doors. Sounds, faint through the thrum of the music, emitted from behind them as we passed. Moans, cries, and outright screams of pain.
Run! My inner voice told me, but I couldn’t, blocked in on all sides with a psycho stalker lost back in the crowd.
We stopped in front of the second-to-last door, and Joey flung it open, throwing me inside. The three of them piled in and slammed it shut behind them. He flipped the lock and wiggled the knob, ensuring it wouldn’t budge.
They stood between me and the only exit, staring. Dread so visceral I thought I might be sick pooled in my gut. My instincts blared like a runaway train. Get out! Get out! Get out!
“Joey,” I said, voice trembling. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I need to leave, right now.”
I’d take my chances with the creep out there. He at least hadn’t tried to hurt me yet, and judging by the way the three of them looked at me now, they definitely planned to.
He ignored me again. The other alpha he’d called Dain stepped up and took a deep whiff. “Good choice,” he said with a low chuckle. “This one’ll be fun.”
I cringed away. “Stay the fuck away from me.” I hated the way my voice shook, and the tears that sprang to my eyes without my permission.
How had this spiraled so quickly? So focused on the first threat, I was completely oblivious to this one until it was too late. Had Joey planned this all along? Is that why he brought me here? To… to…
I couldn’t even think about it. A glance around the room said enough; a stained mattress was pushed into the far corner with a handful of used and discarded knot-compatible condoms scattered across the floor.
A single red lightbulb dangled from the ceiling.
Combined with the screams that had nothing to do with pleasure coming from next door, the whole scene underscored the horror permeating from the scent of helplessness and terror.
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if it was mine or leftover from the poor soul who was last in here. This room was not for consenting participants of the debauchery happening out in the main hall.
This room was for pain and fear.
The alpha named Eric sniffed the air, nostrils flaring. “He’s not ready yet. Needs something stronger than the fog.”
The fog? What did the fog have to do with—
Oh. Oh, no. My headache, dizziness, and the sweating. Was that from the fog? Was it laced with something? What would it do to me?
The room spun. Whatever it was, my short, shallow breaths did not make it better.
Joey’s eyes dragged me up and down, dead and cold. How the fuck had I ever liked him? It was like two totally different people: the Joey before he picked me up tonight, and the one after. I couldn’t reconcile them.
His mouth stretched into a sharp smile. “Just needs a push over the edge.” He looked at Dain. “Do it. We don’t have all night.”
Primal fear, the likes of which I’d never known before, shot through me.
Dain lunged forward, and I sprang away, instinctively going for the door, but he was already on me, shoving me back against the wall to hold me still while he covered my mouth and nose with a piece of cloth pulled from his pocket.
The smell was pungent and rank, like perfumed rot. I gagged and choked, trying to fight my way out of his grip, but there was no point.
Realizing too late I’d inhaled whatever was on the cloth, the room tilted sideways. I flailed, attempting to steady myself, but he let me crumple to the ground with a cruel laugh.
Joey merely watched, eyes glazed.
The world kept spinning when I rolled onto my back. I tried to stand, but my limbs wouldn’t work right. Heavy and uncoordinated, I could barely lift an arm before it flopped back to the ground.
Panic choked me. Hyperventilating, my fear only ratcheted higher each time I tried to move and couldn’t. The three of them multiplied into six, and then twelve, until they circled me, spinning, spinning, spinning.
What was happening to me?
“The paralytic worked quickly this time,” one of them said, head cocked to the side.
Joey only hummed in reply.
My mouth was sluggish, and I couldn’t form the words to beg him to help. It wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway. He’d brought me here. He was meant to be my friend, and he’d brought me to this hellhole so he could… so they could…
Breath ragged and shallow, I stared at the door. And stared. And stared. I just wanted to leave. That was all. Just to go. I’d never tell anyone what they’d already done, as long as they let me go.
But right when I thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, they did.
The room grew even hotter, and I felt funny. Almost lightheaded, but not like I was going to pass out. It was closer to the way I felt while in the middle of—
A sharp pang shot through my belly. I groaned and instinctively tried to double over, but ended up rolling sideways into the fetal position instead.
We’re not safe, my omega wailed. I really only ever heard its voice when I was in heat, which meant…
We need to hide and make a nest, it said. Quick!
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! This couldn’t be happening.