by Addison Cain
And there was soap. Soap!
Things to clean her hair. Another bottle to soften it.
These precious items would have cost her three month’s income. They would have been stolen from her house had anyone in the Warrens known she possessed them.
She ran the bar over her shoulder for the third time, purring like a well-fed cat.
Who knew something as simple as a bath could heal so much?
The morning had been difficult. If she let herself ruminate over how completely fucked she was, she’d start screaming. The evening was going to be worse. She was going to be shared by all three of them. Something larger than a fist was going to tear through her body for the pleasure of a gangster she only knew by reputation and insinuation. All her fear had to be crammed into a little box in her head. The lid shut tight.
Warrens rats lived only in the moment, and took the small pleasures a hard life offered. She took the bath and relished every finger pruning moment.
Right now, she was a sleek mouse. One who’d been fed more food than she could hold. Who had swallowed not two, but three glasses of clean water. One who was still alive.
Whose boys were still alive.
The moment had to be savored. Small victories had to be enjoyed.
Even when the steam exacerbated her cough, she didn’t mind. Purring as loud as her tight chest might allow, she dunked her head and doused all that hair with shampoo. Bubbles, glorious bubbles, ran down her temples.
It was scentless, made for Omegas—so her natural odor would not be spoiled by perfume.
And it felt wonderful.
The Alpha who’d brought her here watched from the door. The creeper…
Always spying, that one. In the handful of days she’d known him, Kieran had watched Caspian fuck her. Watched Toby lick her. Watched Toby fist her.
And now he watched her take a bath.
Of all the moments he’d witnessed, this one seemed to intrigue him most. Not that Wren was paying him any mind. There wasn’t much to like about the good-looking one. And he didn’t seem to like much about her. Yet still he’d hovered all day, buzzing his irritated purr at her side like a mosquito looking to bite.
Gathering her hair at her nape, Wren drew the suds down, pulling the tangled locks over her shoulder so she might scrub what hung down to her waist.
It was too long. A constant reminder of another sad day in her life.
Maybe it was time to cut it... considering the reason she’d let it grow long.
A remembrance of someone special lost to her. The one who had pulled her out of the mud.
But not now. Not here with these men.
When it was over and she was home with Alec and Mikael, all of it would go.
Inching forward so she might lean back and dunk her hair, for a brief moment lavender eyes met green. Brief, because she immediately lowered her lashes and submerged. Underwater was a different place, with different rules and no males in it to spoil the whoosh in her ears.
Soap dissolving, years of dirt floating away on that wave of warmth, Wren indulged until a coming cough urged her to break the surface.
As air tore from ailing lungs, Wren ignored the sharp pains and foul taste of what came up. Those things were not allowed in this moment. Those things had to wait.
“Catch your breath.” The Alpha invaded her peace, coming over with a small square of clean towel. He held it up for her to spit into. He even looked at what came up. “No blood, that’s good.”
No. No blood. Not yet at least.
Considering his behavior from before, Wren jerked when the male began to push wet hanks of clean hair off her face. “Do well tonight and I’ll take you to the doctor in the morning. We’ll let him take a look at you, and… you can see your boy.”
She grabbed his wrist with a strength that made the Alpha’s eyes go wide. Tugging it to make sure he was paying attention, she nodded enthusiastically.
“I ain’t saying he’ll fix you. You don’t sound so good.”
Who cared if he fixed her? Shaking her head, squeezing his wrist all the tighter she mouthed the word, Mikael.
It seemed to dawn on him what this really was about. “You want to visit the child…”
Yes! More than anything.
He seemed to grasp the leverage the situation offered. “You’ll nest properly on the bed?”
Yes!
“You’ll greet me with a smile and kiss, the way a fancy Omega pleases her mate?”
Forever, if that’s what it took.
“I’ll make a bet with you. You play along with what we want to do to you tonight. Fuck Caspian like you did on the couch—I better see his eyes roll back.” Fingers splaying on the back of her skull, Kieran give her a winning smile. “Make no complaints when Toby takes his turn. You take everything he gives you with all the enthusiasm you can muster. Do that, sell it, and I’ll take you to see your kid.”
The men’s evening entertainment was going to happen either way, but the whole horrible scenario was made more palatable if there was some tangible reward. Wren pressed her wet forehead to where his hands rested on the lip of the tub and nodded.
He hadn’t mentioned what he wanted sexually for himself, and that made a slow creep of warning itch up her spine. Men like Kieran, didn’t just want to be smiled at and kissed. He was going to make a demand. And it was going to be something she would hate.
She would do it with a goddamn smile if it meant even five minutes with Mikael.
***
Clean, so clean that even her fingernails didn’t hide a trace of dirt, Wren played dress up. Her hair had been brushed free of snarls, left to hang like a waterfall of white down her back. Kieran had painted her mouth with shine, the slip on her lips strange and tasting of cherries.
It had been years since she’d had cherries.
“Stop rubbing them together, you’ll ruin the effect.”
She obeyed, stealing one last lick when the Alpha turned his back to grab another other oddity from the armoire.
The devilish glitter in his eyes when he turned let her know she’d been caught. “You’ll be punished for that later.”
Pressing her hands together in supplication, Wren took a step toward him, ready to beg.
“Our deal still stands.” The male smirked and stood his ground when she put her hands to his chest, pleading with her eyes. “I’ll take you to the doctor, if you win our bet.”
Before she might back away, he swooped down and tasted her lips, sucking them clean until every last molecule of cherry flavor had been stolen. Arms fixed around her middle, the purr he pressed into her was of a different nature than the ones he’d lavished upon Wren before. Nothing like the rattle after Caspian had wrung her neck or the hum when the Second had fucked her. Different than the irritated buzz that had filled the air in the nest and followed her about all day.
This was rich and masculine… expectant. This was from a different person entirely.
This was appealing.
Play the game… be his fancy Omega.
She was already dressed in soft blue, already scrubbed clean and new. How hard could it be to play for one night?
Wren let Alpha music work upon her, opening her mouth to him. Even groaning when his tongue stole in.
A fancy Omega like the ones thriving in the upper levels, with mates who loved them and children who didn’t starve before their eyes. It was a dream she could easily fall into, just as she melted into Kieran’s arms.
Wren had spent a lot of time pretending since she’d been cast down into the mud. She was good at it. Pretend life wasn’t so awful.
Compartmentalize. Survive.
The purr she made was honest in the sense that it rang out with true hunger even if it wasn’t for this male. She was hungry. For life. For safety the strong arms wrapped around her could offer. For a future.
She kissed him back, eager and willing to play house if only for a few moments. She kissed him back and lied to herself.
Husky and warm, Kieran broke away, blinking down at the thing in his arms. “That was… that was good.”
A soft smile back was offered. It had been good. Considering the man and how much she disliked him, it had even almost felt real.
In a heartbeat, his expression cleared of bewilderment, skepticism inching into those piercing eyes.
Skepticism was a second language to her.
Signing, knowing he couldn’t understand and would make no effort to, Wren let her fingers dance. “I want to be happy too. I never wanted to be abandoned, to bury children, to live one hungry day to the next. You want a fancy Omega? That’s a game I can play.”
“What did you say?” he cocked his chin toward the pad of paper on the desk. “Write it down.”
Lips wistful, she shook her head, signing, “It means this.”
Wren stepped forward again, put her lips to his mouth, and gave him a very real kiss. One she wished she could give to another.
Chapter 5
Wren hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings when she’d been brought into the Pipeworks, lugging an armful of goods. She’d kept her head down, embarrassed… knowing everyone who saw her pegged the exact reason Caspian marched her forward.
That they could smell that it was his sperm that had leaked out and soaked her pants.
But it was different now that she had been prepared for him and his pack. They stared, and she had no blankets or shapeless clothes to hide behind. All she had was Kieran, who she clung to as if he weren’t the cause of her humiliating parade.
He didn’t seem to mind her arms entwined around one of his, or how she half-hid herself against his body. “None of them will touch you.”
Bullshit. Men didn’t look at a woman like that unless they were damn well planning to touch them.
Christ, if these men with Caspian’s symbol, the black hand, engulfing the lower half of their faces found out where she lived when this was over, she would be literally and figuratively screwed.
And this couldn’t be over soon enough.
The room Toby had prepared for her wasn’t exactly close to Caspian’s. The walk involved changing levels, various halls and corridors, a complete change in scenery back to the gritty underbelly of the water filtration plant Caspian controlled.
He lived in the thick of it, away from the lush corridors upstairs.
Guards flanked an ominous door across a catwalk, so high above the churning systems below, that Wren kept her eyes locked straight ahead. One stupid glance down and all that water Kieran had made her drink would come back up.
Her courier noticed the hesitancy in her steps. “You’ll get used to it. Close your eyes if you want. I won’t let you fall.”
What was worse? Keeping them open and knowing what was ahead, or trusting the smirking gangster at her side?
“I can carry you across… just this once.”
No way. Shaking her head, stinking of dread, Wren took that first step. Because that’s how life was. No one was going to carry you, unless there was a price. And Wren had already bought more than she could afford.
The door was almost within reach when Kieran pulled her to stop. “Wait.”
Perking her ears, Wren heard what had stopped their progress—very vocal sounds of a man at the cusp of orgasm.
Caspian.
The muffled grunts came to an end, the male words that followed dampened by concrete walls and that guarded door, indecipherable.
The portal ahead slid open. A woman wiping a lipstick-smeared mouth still dripping with cum stepped out.
She was a beauty if ever there was one. Buxom, tall. Dressed to appeal, and even sporting expensive cosmetics on her face. Caspian’s scent wafted from her, as did the sweet smell of Omega slick.
This specimen was what all men wanted.
The stunning blonde startled when she found an audience waited, and what had been a victorious smile turned into a glower. “Who are you?”
It was always awkward when someone asked her name, Wren already pointing to her mouth and shaking her head.
Kieran answered for her. “This is Jax.”
Hand to her hip, licking up a dribble of cum at the corner of her mouth, the beauty smiled again. It was not friendly. “It’s always good to meet a new girl. I look forward to some chit chat when you get to the pen. I’ll show you the ropes.”
“She can’t speak, Rosie.” Kieran was enjoying this exchange, his saucy response making no secret of it. “And this one isn’t sleeping in the pen. Caspian put her up in the big room.”
The woman scoffed. “Yeah, well, he put me up in the big room at first too.” Lashes darkened by smeared mascara, fanned down, Rosie taking a good, long look at the tattoo on Wren’s cheek. “We’ll see how long you last.”
Kieran tutted, a playful bend to his voice. “He’s given you more than he ever gave the others. Don’t be sore.”
“I get it. She’s punishment for mouthing off last week. Message heard loud and clear, Captain.” She saluted the male, even winked provocatively before turning back to Wren and shrugging. “I’ve already sucked him off twice. I doubt he’ll even touch the defective merchandise.”
One could only hope.
The blonde edged nearer, pinching Wren’s blue hem. “That’s my dress…”
Kieran spoke the woman’s name softly but with clear warning. “Rosie.”
Blue eyes made extra bright by open invitation darted up to dance over Kieran’s smile. “I haven’t seen you all day. Walk me back, would ya, handsome? I’ll make it worth your trouble.”
A male hand landed with enough force against Wren’s ass to smart. “Head on in, sweet cheeks. Tell Caspian I’ll be back later.”
And like that, Wren was abandoned before the lion’s den.
Blinking at the guards, not sure what to make of the feminine giggles and male laughter at her back, she let go a long, troubled sigh.
In the blink of an eye, clean skin and a borrowed blue dress were no longer special. Stomach in knots, she could no longer pretend. Not after those few awkward minutes with Caspian’s woman.
They already had an Omega, a perfect Omega. Wren had no idea where that left her or why she was here.
The nervous habit of touching the tattoo left her fingers pressed to her cheek, teeth worrying her lower lip.
The taste of cherries was no longer a treat.
Behind that door was a man who’d just had another woman, who had been sated twice. A man she’d sold herself to, who’d taken her from her home only this morning so he wouldn’t have to slog through mud to fuck her.
A man who had Mikael taken to a doctor and saved his life. How did one come to terms with such a dichotomy?
Both guards openly watched her standing there, one kind enough to say, “You don’t have to knock. He’s expecting you. Go in.”
She knocked anyway, buying a few precious seconds before she was faced with whatever confusing reality was beyond that door. After an agitated grumble, the door was yanked back, an irritated, shirtless Alpha leaning against the frame.
He took a long look at her standing there alone, dressed in blue, clean, with fresh shiny gloss on her lips. “Mouse.”
She nodded once at his greeting, signing hello.
“Where’s Kieran?”
Wren looked over her shoulder and back, peals of feminine laughter ringing out from the nearest corridor.
“Hmmmm.”
She wasn’t sure why, but the petulant look in his eye made her smirk. Offering the same purr she would have given a moody Alec, Wren stepped forward, ready to be off of the lofty gangway and perched in a room reeking of a man who did not require her attention.
Small blessings and all that.
He let her pass under his arm, giving her hair a not so subtle sniff.
The inside was not what Wren had expected. Masculine, yes, but tidy. Well, organized chaos more like. Papers stacked up, piles of books, clutter. A large bed dominated one wall, a leather armchair facing i
t. A nearby table, large enough to seat eight, sported a half-eaten plate of food and a bowl of something unidentifiable.
“That’s for you, pretty mouse.”
By the size of dainty teeth marks in the sandwich, Wren knew whose leftovers these were. They belonged to the same woman who had left her discarded underwear on the floor. But food was food, so she reached forward.
“Not that.” Caspian jerked his chin toward the bowl of wiggly mush. “That.”
Wren would have rather eaten the sandwich, but took a chair and lifted the waiting spoon to taste green slop. It didn’t have a flavor worth mentioning… though it had a lot not worth mentioning. Slimy, it squished on her tongue, going down like swallowing a live slug.
Eyes darting back to the plate with a sandwich and beautiful, fat grapes, Wren swallowed another bite.
There must have been an unpleasant expression on her face, for Caspian narrowed his eyes, and growled, “It’s supposed to be good for you. And you’ll eat it all, every day.”
Spoon in her mouth, she offered a conciliatory smile. Food was food, and she was grateful. Displaying her gratitude the only way she know he might grasp, she ate with vigor. Which was honestly easier—swallowing quickly dulled a portion of the non-taste.
“Good girl.” When the last glob was swallowed, Caspian pointed to a pitcher under a dripping spout. “Water is there. You can drink as much as you want.”
Kieran had said something similar when he’d fed her lunch, but it was still an almost jarring thing to hear. All the water you want, whenever you want.
The Alpha obviously expected her to drink some now, so Wren stood and filled two glasses. Handing one to him, she saw bewilderment on his face. But he took the cup and drained it as she drained hers.
“Have you had enough?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’m tired of waiting.” Snatching her empty cup from Wren’s hands, Caspian tossed them to patter over the table, and was on her a second later. Back to the wall, hot Alpha muscle melting her front, she gasped in surprise and found his tongue twisting into her mouth.