Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
DEACON
A dream, that’s what this feels like. I’m not one prone to hysteria, but I just sent my scent match into the snow while hurt. My heart feels as if it’s being cranked into shreds by a cheese grater, and there’s no end to this nightmare.
Balor keeps giving me glances as he stalks across the foyer, his nostrils flaring as he scents our girl.
He’s the most connected to her after she bit him.
I shake my head slightly as I squat on the ground and shove the discarded blanket back into the vent, making sure nothing sticks out.
Then, I quickly screw the panel back into place, wincing as it’s now very hot.
We need to get the hell out of here. The fire department won’t come until we call them, and I can tell that the fire won’t remain contained. The doors are pressure cooking everything inside the room, and opening them will cause the fire to race through the halls.
Standing, I walk quickly to catch my father, where he’s glaring at the doors.
“Think about what would happen if we open the doors,” I murmur softly. I don’t want him to think I’m challenging him, because he’ll simply open them anyway.
When he dies, I want to be the one to kick him off this mortal coil.
“Shit,” he sighs. “Start the evacuation and call the fire department.”
Making eye contact with Dorian, I nod at him and he lifts his phone to make the call while yelling at everyone to get the fuck out. I no longer have my phone, so I’m unable to make the call. A gorgeous, burned, dark haired beauty made off with it.
“We’re evacuating!” I yell, directing my father toward the front door. There’s a sea of people as the manor continues to burn. He doesn’t really care about the house, insurance will pay for him to rebuild it.
I just don’t plan for him to make it alive through the night. He’s hurt our tiny dancer long enough. I need to use the chaos to my advantage. I have gloves in my joggers and I pull them out to tug them on slowly.
My father doesn’t pay attention as I lead him out a side door at the last minute, which exits us into one of the gardens. It’s dormant and only a few winter flowers survive, but he and I need to have a conversation in private.
“It’s so much quieter here,” he mutters, looking around. Not far from us, I can still hear the shouts as people continue to shuttle others from the house. Even still, it’s the middle of the night and people will be upstairs sleeping.
The reason so many people were caught unaware in the ballroom is because they passed out from drink and exhaustion. Dad made certain their glasses were always full, and the whores did a very good job keeping them occupied.
Unfortunately, my father doesn’t value life or service, and the whores are dead or dying as well.
“Did you hear anything from your guards?” I ask innocently.
“Ronan admitted that he left her in the ballroom,” he says. “I broke his neck for his admission. He’s still alive. I left him to burn. I figured that was sufficient punishment. He’ll feel every lick of the fire and be unable to pull himself out of the house.”
Damn. My father has a very twisted way of punishing people. Shoving my hand in my pocket nonchalantly, I rub my finger over my knife. It won’t be a prolonged death due to time constraints, but he’ll know it’s by my hand.
“So the little dancer is gone,” I say, though I mean in a different way than he thinks. Once things settle, I’ll have to go after her with my brothers.
I hope she runs hard and fast from us. It’ll be safer for her.
“I wasn’t done with her!” he yells, his expression full of disgust and distress. “The only upside is that my competitors are dead and we can scoop up all of their business.”
Hmmm. I don’t think so. I have no interest in his work and I never have. To keep people from coming after us, my brothers and I will step in to fill the gap in leadership. There are men who enjoy the trappings that wealth affords them, and I expect we’ll be able to use that to our advantage.
Moving closer with my knife in my hand, I nod sympathetically.
“It’ll be easy to believe that a candle lit the fire,” I muse. After all, the flames began with the curtains. A guard lit several up with table candles before walking out of the room.
My brothers and I didn’t know this was his plan until all of the doors were locked and the screams began minutes later as the fire began to rage. By then, it was too late to check on Róisin.
Dad chuckles, proud of himself, and doesn’t notice anything is amiss until I stab him in the throat and wrap my hand around his mouth. He gurgles on his own blood as he reaches for the button that’ll kill my brothers and I.
“No,” I growl, knocking it out of his hand so that it skitters across the snow. He made it so that the button will trigger all three of our kill switches. It’s taking ride or die to an entirely new meaning.
Wrestling him to the ground, I hold him down as he thrashes around. I manage to keep most of the blood off of me, and the cold seeps deep into my bones now that I’m only wearing a pair of sweatpants and a thin shirt. My father was so involved in his own thoughts, he never mentioned it.
His distraction is the only reason this is going so well. The blood stains the snow red, and I kneel on his back to keep it from getting on me. Finally, the life bleeds out of his eyes as well, and the shackles begin to break away.
Standing, I walk over to pick up the kill switch’s trigger and pocket it before dragging my father to a ditch where they’re fixing the basement. It’s being extended and at the moment, it’s just a hole. Dropping him in, I smirk as I pick up a forgotten shovel and quickly cover up my misdeeds.
“Deacon!” Dorian yells, making me wince. I’m going to have to pretend that I was taking a leak back here. Tossing the shovel back where it belongs, I trudge through the path to the front of the house.
“Sorry, I had to piss,” I shrug, noticing the way people chuckle under their breath. “Is the fire department on the way?”
Dorian’s gaze is full of questions but he simply nods. He notices that Dad isn’t with me and is smarter than to mention it.
“We’ll be answering questions all night,” he finally says.
“Sucks that I forgot my sweatshirt then,” I say. “Let’s get ready for company.”
The sirens are getting louder as they come closer, and my brothers move until they’re flanking me on either side.
“Welcome to the keys to the kingdom, boys,” I say under my breath. “The king is dead.”
“May he burn in hell,” Balor whispers.
“Was Róisin really caught in the fire?” Dorian asks as the fire trucks scream through the open gates.
Everyone moves out of the way, and we all spill out into the road.
“Yes and no,” I reply. “As far as I know, she’s alive.”
“Will we go find her?” Balor asks, limping.
“Did you hurt yourself?” I ask, my eyes on his sweatpant covered leg.
“I checked. I didn’t, but it aches,” he explains. “No fucking idea why.”
I think I know. The bond can act in really odd ways. We may have lived and breathed at the pleasure of my father, but our internet searches aren’t something he’s ever thought to monitor.
When a bond isn’t completed, it finds a way to make you pay attention to it.
“Hmm,” I grunt. “We have some shit to take care of here, and then we’ll go hunting.”
My brothers murmur in assent as we prepare for the shit show that’ll be our circus for the near future. There will be lots of questions, and at some point I’ll need to see if these kill switches can be dug out of our bodies, or if they’ll need to remain there forever.
Some souvenirs are a constant reminder of how life has fucked you over, and I have a bad feeling my father’s memory will linger like a bad smell.
One year later
BALOR
Sitting in the VIP section of Club Serene, my eyes are glued to the cage being lifted up. There are other dancers in cages, but I don’t care about them.
I only care about my tiny dancer. It took ages to find her while we were cleaning up the fallout from my father’s death.
She’s done very well disappearing from the world.
Dorian has been scouring the video cameras with her photo around the world, and nothing has been picked up. Not until a few weeks ago.
Róisin works four days a week, and we only come in for two of them so as not to attract attention. It’s been difficult to keep our distance, but it won’t be for long.
I find it strange that she chooses to cage dance after spending two years inside of one.
Her dancing has also evolved from classic dance to more modern dancing as she loses herself to the club music.
Yet, she still wears ballet shoes as she goes en pointe as she leans back and raises her leg straight up in a stretch.
Every one of us in the club is entranced as we watch her.
She’s wearing a pair of tiny shorts and a corset, and her legs seem impossibly long.
There’s a tattoo on the leg that Deacon told me was burned, and it’s a ballet dancer rising from the flames.
It covers the skin that melted from the fire, and I’m almost certain it needed multiple skin grafts to get to this point.
I’ve been researching burns since Deacon told me about it, desperate to know what she may be experiencing.
My leg aches in solidarity. Deacon thinks it might stop once I fully bond with her one day, but I don’t know if it will.
It’s a constant reminder that we didn’t act fast enough. We didn’t find a window to save her and ourselves in time. Deacon keeps the kill switch button as a reminder of it, though the battery is dismantled in it.
Róisin dances in her cage, ignoring the crowd that dances below her.
The floor is full of people writhing and kissing, yet she’s untouchable.
The club owner has a very strong stance on not touching her employees without consent, and there are rumors about the time that Cerenity beat the fuck out of a man with a bat for bothering Róisin.
I appreciate her feral protective nature. There are bouncers who walk her dancers out to their marks, and I imagine that she chewed out the bouncer who didn’t do his job. Still, my brothers and I don’t want to make her suspicious, so we maintain a respectful distance from Róisin.
The more I watch our tiny dancer, the more I can see that she feels safe in the cage. She’s untouchable here. No one is asking her questions, forcing her to do anything, and her boss pays her very well for doing her job.
Deacon, Dorian, and I leave when staying any longer will draw attention to us, and wait in the truck for Róisin to finish with her shift. She walks to work, having left Deacon’s SUV at the hospital.
She didn’t want any part of us, and I don’t blame her for it. I wonder achingly how she’s getting through her heats, if she’s found someone else who cares about her as much as we do.
“There’s no one else,” Dorian says, watching as Róisin steps out of the club at the end of the night. Oh, I said that out loud. Fuck. “Now that I’ve been able to pinpoint her location, I watch her on every camera she passes during her day. Róisin is completely alone.”
“Not completely,” I grunt. “She just doesn’t know she has us yet.”
“That’s true. Let’s go,” Deacon says, sliding out of his seat to follow Róisin.
The three of us become her shadows as she walks quickly through the streets. It’s so dangerous here. I want to scream at her that there have to be better jobs out there that’ll allow her to move in the safety of the day, but I don’t think she cares about that.
Róisin ó Cléirigh wants anonymity. Club Serene doesn’t want or need much of her information, they keep her safe, and they don’t ask questions. What better way to heal than this way?
No one is on the streets but us as she gazes up at a building finally and smiles. It transforms her entire face, and I nearly trip over my own feet as I see it. She's bundled tightly in a long coat, jeans, and top in deference to the cool Minnesota weather.
I have no idea how she managed to cross the country on her own, but I am grateful to see her beautiful smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.
“This is a sanctuary for displaced omegas,” Deacon says to us. He’s careful to make sure that his voice doesn’t travel, and we’re standing in the shadow of the building across from Róisin. This is the first time we’ve followed her home.
Soon, it’ll be time to reveal ourselves. For now, she’s comfortable, but we’re going to blow all of that up. My lips press together as I hold back my thoughts. She should be with us, she has alphas, she’s not fucking displaced.
“Soon,” Dorian promises softly, watching as Róisin disappears down an alley. “Enjoy your serenity, Tiny Dancer, because it’ll end very soon.”
The promise and threat feels heavy in the air, but I’m done waiting. The kingdom belongs to us, for better or worse, and we need our Queen.