Chapter Forty-Six
ARINA
No.
The world felt like it was crashing around me and imploding all at one. My lungs ached from a sudden lack of oxygen, and I couldn’t think.
He wanted to sell me.
No.
My wrists ached from the rope around them, but even that pain was beginning to fade. Everything was slipping out of focus, and all I could do was stare at Zero’s maniacal grin.
No. No. No.
The last thing I wanted to do was beg this fucker for anything, but I was running out of options. The future I’d started to grow attached to, the one with me performing across the country with the Knotty Sideshow, was going up in smoke.
The friendships I’d made, the people I’d met, the freedom I’d tasted…
It will all be gone.
“Zero, please…” My voice barely sounded like my own. It was broken, desperate, and pain filled. “Please, don’t do this.”
“I like it when you beg.” His grin widened. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll change my mind.”
He had to.
He had to change his mind.
Things couldn’t end here, not after everything. I knew our fate was tethered together because of the scent match, but that didn’t mean he had to ruin my goddamn life.
Even now, as I was fighting tears and a panic attack, his scent called to me.
The sticky-sweet caramel and salted popcorn overrode the dusty smell of the warehouse, infiltrating my system.
I was convinced that without it, I would be an uncontrollable, sobbing mess, but the fucking aroma soothed me in ways it shouldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I said, grasping at straws. Was there anything I could say to get through to him? “For everything. I had to do what I had to do. I had to get away?—”
“From what?” He arched an eyebrow.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. What was the hurt in telling the truth now? He already found the suppressants; he knew half the story. If his plan was to sell me off to the highest bidder, what difference did it make?
“A pack of alphas.” The words came out weaker than I intended. “My father sold me to them without telling me, and I ran. I don’t want to be bonded to someone I’ve never met, especially now…”
Especially now that I’ve met my scent match.
It shouldn’t have been my first thought, but it was. Probably because he was glaring daggers through me.
Zero laughed and began to pace again, slipping out of my field of vision. When he replied, his voice was everywhere. “Ironic, isn’t it? You ran from alphas only to find yourself among several more.”
“I’m glad you find my misery amusing,” I grumbled.
He reappeared right next to me and grabbed my chin, lifting my face so I met his eyes. His golden irises nearly glowed in the dark.
“I don’t find it amusing,” he said, deadpan. “I find it exhilarating. Your fear, even more so.”
I shook my chin out of his hold and glared at him; he really was fucking insane.
“Is that why you dragged me here?” I looked around at the shitty, abandoned warehouse. “To intimidate me because your knives didn’t work.”
He grabbed my face again, less gently this time, and squeezed until my cheeks ached. “I brought you here so no one would hear you scream should I decide to use them on you.”
My stomach pitched, and my throat throbbed where he’d cut me. I knew I was bleeding, but I didn’t know how bad it was.
“Who says I’d scream for you?” I asked, knowing I was playing with fire.
Darkness flashed behind Zero’s eyes, making my heart skip a painful beat, and he ran his tongue over his lip. I’d never seen him look more calculating or predatory.
“You’re lucky I intend to deliver you in one piece,” he warned, turning his back on me. “Otherwise, I’d carve up that pretty flesh of yours. Your tongue might not be very important, but your body is.”
Nausea rolled in my stomach, and I shivered.
I didn’t want to think about alphas touching me, bonding me, or breeding me. Maybe it would be better if I antagonized Zero until he took his knives to my skin; maybe that way, no one would want me, and I could stay with the circus.
A grim fucking prospect, but I was clinging to any whisper of hope at that point.
I can’t leave the sideshow.
It was all I had.
There was a singular card I had left to play, one final plight I could make that might appeal to Zero enough to let me stay. But it was the one thing I didn’t want to share.
If I told him about the scent match, if I admitted that he was the reason I’d been unable to leave in the first place, would it make a difference?
Probably not.
But at this point, I was out of time and ideas.
I squirmed in the chair, trying to get comfortable with my arms stretched behind my back, but it was impossible. I didn’t even understand why he tied me up in the first place, except to appease his masochistic side. It wasn’t like I could run away.
“There’s something you don’t know,” I started shakily, still not sure I should bring it up.
Giving him that much power over me, another thing to lord over me, wasn’t a good idea, but it was better than being sold to another pack.
This time, I knew I wouldn’t be able to escape.
“The reason I joined the circus, the reason I stayed at all.”
He tried not to react, but I saw his eyebrow twitch. I’d piqued his interest.
“And why is that?” he asked when I hesitated.
“Because…” I cleared my throat, trying to shake the desperation out of my tone. “You’re my scent match.”
He stared at me for a long moment, probably processing the words.
And then he tilted his head back and laughed, the sound reverberating off every surface in the room. His shoulders shook, and he clapped his hands together, as if I’d just told the best joke he’d ever heard.
“You’re funny,” he said when he finally looked back at me. His eyes were watering. “I’ll give you a crumb of credit where it’s due; that’s a good one. But you really expect me to believe that?”
I took a deep breath, clinging to his caramel-popcorn scent. The scent I’d become obsessed with since I laid eyes on Zero for the first time, the one I dreamed about. I’d done my best to shut it out, to escape it and ignore it, to no avail.
This crazy-ass clown was my scent match; of that, I was sure.
Jaw flexing, I nodded slowly.
“Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not going to work.” His face morphed with faux sympathy. “Scent matches don’t exist, haven’t for years. They’re a fallacy, made up to keep omegas from accepting bonds so they can be fed into the system. Everyone knows that.”
My brows furrowed, and I stared at him in disbelief.
What kind of fucking nonsense is he talking about?
Of course they were real. Rare, but real.
“I’m telling the truth.” I glared, finding my courage. “Why would I have put up with you being such an ass? Why would I have stayed if I clearly wasn’t cut out for the circus?”
“It benefited you.” He canted his head to the side. “You said so yourself. You needed to get away, and we were an easy out.”
My brows furrowed as my anger flared, and I tugged against my restraints in vain.
“You’re the last fucking person I’d ever want to be scent matched to.
But you’re the only reason I auditioned, the only reason I stayed.
If I could stand to be away from your psychotic ass, I never would have joined. Trust me?—”
“Trust you ?” His cackle echoed off the barren walls, and he stooped so that we were almost eye level. “You, who snuck illegal drugs into our circus? Who lied about her identity? You expect me to trust you , of all people?”
My face fell. It wasn’t working.
The truth isn’t working.
I could try and come up with a lie, but I’d never been good at that; my face would give me away.
No, this had to work.
“I didn’t believe in scent matches either; I barely know anything about being an omega,” I admitted, being vulnerable.
My eyes were burning, tears threatening to spill over, but I kept talking.
“But when it hits you, you know. In your bones, in your soul. No matter what you do, or how far away you are, that person’s scent still calls to you.
No matter how much I hate you, or how much you hate me, your scent still calls to me… ”
To my surprise and horror, Zero’s face suddenly scrunched up in anger.
“Shut up,” he gritted out. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” I argued, tugging again at my restraints.
There was too much anxiety in my system, and I was beginning to feel claustrophobic.
Desperation clawed up my throat. “And I can prove it to you. Once the suppressants wear off, you’ll see.
But if you send me away, if you sell me to whatever godforsaken pack offers to buy me, you’ll never know the truth. ”
A long, painful beat of silence dragged between us.
Zero stood there watching me, and I could see the gears turning behind his eyes. He was thinking, calculating, wondering how a scent match could possibly benefit him.
“I’ll do anything,” I said finally. “Anything you want. Just please, don’t make me leave. The circus is all I have.”
“Hmm.” He ran his hand over his chin in thought, and I silently prayed to any god listening that he would say yes.
I knew he’d believe me once the suppressants wore off, but what would he make me do in the meantime? What would he make me do after?
It was a dangerous game, and not one I wanted to play with Zero.
But if I had to pick between the demented clown or being pawned off to the highest bidder, I’d take him.
Seconds dragged into minutes, and I began to wonder if he was going to answer at all. Then, when I’d nearly given up completely, he nodded.
“Alright,” he said, pacing over to me again. He stopped right in front of me, and my pulse spiked. “I’ve reconsidered.”
I breathed a shaky sigh of relief. “Thank y?—”
He held a hand up to cut me off.
“If you accept my terms, you can stay. Your secret will stay between us,” he said carefully, leaning down so that we were at eye level again.
“What are your terms?” I asked, afraid to know what this chucklefuck had come up with in the last few minutes.
“You belong to me .” His eyes gleamed with malice. “You do what I say, when I say it, without complaint. You’ll be my personal pet, my circus slut.”
My stomach turned at the thought of being at this alpha’s beck and call, and I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t be so bad. Hallow wouldn’t let him torture me in front of the whole troupe, would they?
“What about my suppressants?” I asked.
“Play your role well, and you can have them.”
“And if not?”
Zero’s knife was back at my throat before I registered that he’d moved. He dragged the flat side of the blade down the column of my neck and back up again.
“I guess everyone will find out the truth when you go into heat,” he taunted. “Do we have a deal?”
It was a shitty deal if anything, but it beat being sold off to strangers.
I could stay with the sideshow until I figured out an alternative, performing as Zero’s little circus slut— whatever that means .
And at my earliest convenience, I’d run. I’d run so far away that this fucking psychopath would never find me.
“Yes.” I nodded. “Whatever I have to do to stay in the sideshow and keep my secret between us.”
The smile that widened across his face had chills racing down my spine, and I hoped with every fiber of my being that I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.