by Addison Cain
“You’ll share.” Dragging out the offensive statement with a raspy growl, Caspian left the bed, the bleeding mouse, and Kieran’s disgust behind. He left because the smell of her blood was itching his nose and causing him to salivate. “Do you think that will appease me, Toby? To share something of mine that you stole?”
Breaking his silence, Kieran all but ignored the raving Third. Wisely, he turned to his First, met his eye, and announced, “She’s not in estrous. Unless reinforced, this bond will be weak. Keep them separated for a few days and she’ll have nothing but a scar that could be overtaken by another Alpha.”
“No.” Like hugging a ragdoll toy to his chest, Toby gathered her close and clung. “Boss, you told her a few months of riding your cock then you’d set her free. Have your few months with my mate. When you don’t want her anymore, she’ll nest with me.” Throwing a finger toward Kieran, Toby snarled, “And I know what this ignorant fucker has in mind. Breed her then sell her to some stodgy old fucker. It’s not going to happen.”
“Call me ignorant again, and I’ll cut out your goddamn tongue!” Kieran might have had all the beauty a male could ask for, but unlike Toby, he’d had none of the education… He’d never hidden resentment well, and in that moment Caspian could see how it burned him to be mocked for his shit childhood. “Watch yourself, friend. I’m not opposed to Caspian’s bleeding you dry.”
And there it was—the smug arrogance only a highborn patrician of Dale City could wield with such scorn. Toby let it loose: the accent, the air, the roll of his tongue. “You know who my father is. What I bring to the table can’t be replaced with dumb, brute force, pretty boy, or even fear of the Syndicate’s power.”
“You might be Governor Ross’ spawn, but there are other means to keeping a stranglehold on the Council.”
Deranged laughter, even a snort, and Toby said, “Good luck finding a single one of them willing to leave the lap of luxury for the astringent stink of this torture chamber. I’m one of a kind, Kieran. I made sure of that when I murdered all my brothers.”
Finished watching from the shadows, huge, menacing, and only too happy to smile, Caspian made his threat. “You still have a sister, Toby. A pretty one…”
Eyes going dark, Toby’s jaw grew twitchy. “Females are barred from the Council. Even if you took Henriette, even if my pussy of a father continued to bow to your every whim, once the old man dies, you’d lose the seat, you’d lose your spy, and all you’d have is another bitch for your pen.”
Hitching a brow, Caspian purred, “You care so little for the pampered miss?”
“I care. But the only way you’d lay a finger on my Etta is if I were dead. Not much I can do from the grave but laugh while your hold on the city slips away...” Rocking the unconscious mouse on his lap, Toby ground his hips against her supine form as he hissed, “There’s always someone willing to do what it takes to steal what you got, Caspian. That’s why pack holds power together. I don’t even mind standing as Third—” The man’s words caught for a moment, Toby’s eyes rolling back on a groan.
Incredulous, Kieran looked down where the mouse was still speared by Toby’s enormous cock, scoffing, “Are you... are you still cumming in her?”
“Ummmm….” Toby took a deep, satisfied breath before opening his suddenly sanguine eyes. “Yes. And she’s still milking my cock for more.”
Kieran just shook his head. “You’ve got some balls, Toby…”
“She could be your mate too.” White hair was carefully pulled back to expose the sleeping woman’s other shoulder to the Second. Tempting him with the smooth, unmarked skin. “You could breed her just like you want, get her fat with your baby.”
Caspian spoke, but the words were gnarled with grit and broken glass. “Careful, Toby. You can’t sell what’s mine. And make no mistake about who she belongs to.”
He nodded, oddly agreeable. “And when you’re done with her, she’ll come back to me. After you’ve grown bored, it should make no difference if I keep her. Fuck, I’ll kidnap any bitch you want as a replacement. My gift to you, boss.”
No act against the First would go unpunished. Toby would suffer for this. “I want Henrietta.”
Lips thinned, Toby’s expression vicious, but his answer was collected and compliant. “Done.”
“You’d give us your sister?”
Eyes tracked back to the sickly woman bleeding in his arms. Fingertips brushing at the weeping crescent wounds on the mouse’s shoulder, he speculated. “I often wonder if it’s really fear that pushes Alphas to reject the call of the bond. All the posturing, all the power, I never found it nearly as satisfying as I do the sight of my mark on her skin. The ultimate taboo. A truly criminal thing to do.”
Scoffing, Kieran muttered, “Fucking Socrates over here.”
Arranging her body so she might rest more comfortably against his chest, Toby drawled, “I’ll give you Etta on the same terms you promised our ray of sunshine here. When you’re done with her, she goes home—pockets full, enough water for a year.”
“Oh…” Caspian crossed his arms over his chest. “That was only the beginning of my demands. You won’t be walking out of this room. You’ll submit to every last degenerate thing I can imagine. Starting with sucking my cock while you’re still inside her. Then Kieran’s. You don’t even want to know what I intend to do after that.”
Brow lowering, eyeing them both as if considering making a challenge, Toby said, “She’ll wake up and see it.”
Caspian nodded. “Yes, she will. She’ll see you bleed far more than she did.”
Chapter 13
She could not stop the tears. Sobbing, throwing herself over the boy, Wren clung. And wept, and wept, and wept.
Mikael hugged her right back, their various IV cords tangling and pulling where ports had been stabbed into soft flesh.
She’d never seen him as anything but sickly and skeletal. But now, after only a few days in a proper doctor’s care, tended in a clean room, fed, he almost looked like a regular boy from the upper levels.
Almost.
He was still sick, sicker even than she was, and the doctor had not made her prognoses with a smile. Acute pneumonia that would kill her if not treated immediately. This he’d said after she’d woken from a horrible nightmare filled with screams and pain. This, after coming to in a strange bed, over-bright lights burning her eyes.
There was only one familiar thing in the moment. Watchful, Kieran stood in attendance, scowling from the door.
Already she had been hooked up to machines, various fluids cascading into her veins, a catheter between thighs that ached. The doctor had told her she’d been kept under for three days, that she’d been fed with a tube, and that was why her nostril was sore and crusted with blood. That she had been ordered to follow treatment and he was permitted to sedate her if she attempted to resist.
And she did. She fought back wildly because she could not pay.
Of course she wanted to be well. Of course she wanted to live. But she only had to live long enough for Mikael to get better. If she was dragged off to pay off her debt in the mine, Caspian would throw him out. And her boy would be sick, alone, and have no one to provide for him.
There would be no one there when he inevitably died…
From disease, or hunger, or the unending violence of the Warrens.
It had taken two grown men to hold her down, dour Kieran and the stunned doctor finding the malnourished Omega stronger than she looked.
When she dared to set her teeth to his arm, Kieran slapped her hard enough to split her lip. He boxed her ear the moment she tried to pull out her IV and scramble away. And then in a voice so unlike the rage on his face, he calmly asked her why.
Shaking her head, feeling foreign food roil in her stomach, she begged with wide, wet eyes.
“Is it that you are afraid of needles?”
Confession was the only answer, one that was all the easier when a surprise prick of a needle left her floating on undulating a
pathy. Two blinks, a stuttering breath, and she let him press a pen into her fingers. Glancing at the sharp object, at the crumple of paper he pressed to her thigh, Wren coughed… and found it didn’t hurt that much.
They had already been treating her for days. She already owed too much to ever pay when the bill came due.
Ink flowed over white paper. Paper with not even a dusting of dirt or a stain of mud. Paper that had not begun to mildew. I’d rather be sick.
Steely eyes took on a glint that didn’t fit such beautiful features. “You’ll die.”
I can’t pay! I can’t go to the debtor’s quarry. Not yet. My boys need me. I can die when they’re old enough to take care of themselves.
The curl of Kieran’s lip was not from amusement, or even scorn. It was from absolute incomprehension, as if what she said was unfathomable. “You’re not going to die, Jax.”
Wren said nothing, only stared at him, her lip trembling despite the drugs. Of course she was going to die. Everyone died. Especially in the Warrens. She’d be lucky to live to thirty even with perfect health.
No one lasted. Everyone ended up buried in mud, weighted down with stone so their bodies did not float up once they started to bloat and decompose. Just like the children buried behind her home. Just like all her dreams. Tie a rock to it and let it sink deep, deep down.
The Second Alpha glowered, a look far too similar to Caspian’s. “What good would you be to us sick? We take care of the girls in the pen. Caspian already spent a fortune on that special science muck he’s been feeding you, and Toby’s paying for your care. Me, I’ve been relegated to nursemaid… and believe me, I’ve got much better things to do than sit by the bedside of an ungrateful Omega.”
Sit at the bedside? Had he been here all this time?
Sinking into the pillows, and there were many, Wren took notice. She was in her own room. There were no curtains dividing her from other sick patients. There was even a window showing a view she had not seen since her father tossed her out of his moving vehicle right into the stinking mud.
This wasn’t a Warrens’ shanty town clinic. The posh facility was midlevel, there was even a little bit of horizon between the tall buildings.
“Haven’t seen it in a while, have you?”
It wasn’t exactly as she remembered. Drab… it was drab, no less spectacular than the light reflecting off the morning mud down below. But it was light, and it did hold a certain appeal.
The shuck of a belt, the metallic click of the buckle, all ignored while Wren took in the view. Tooth by tooth, the sounds of a zipper descending, then the atmosphere grew full of a scent that softened the astringent air.
From the corner of her eye, Wren could see Kieran pumping his fist in a measured stroke down an impressive erection. Slow, the way she’d learned he liked it. Staring at her watching the view.
How he found any of this stimulating, she’d never know, but she met his heated gaze and held it.
“Right there, that fucking look in your eye is so goddamn hot.”
What look? Resignation? But Wren was fooling herself. She’d been staring doe-eyed and full of nostalgia—maybe even wonder at that drab bit of sky. There had even been a soft smile playing at her lips as if this was her normal and she’d get to smile at the view every day.
She used to…
It hadn’t been all bad with her family. There had been times it had even been... nice.
And she had never gone hungry.
Starvation and how to cope with it was something she’d learned in the Warrens.
In this moment, in this room, even if her body ached under the drugs, she wasn’t hungry. Caspian had fed her. Kieran had bathed her. And Toby…
“Fuck… keep looking at me just like that.” Fist dragging upward, he pulled foreskin over a swollen crown. His slit oozed, a thumb running a circle over the mess before Kieran reversed direction and stroked from tip to base.
He liked to watch. Apparently that extended to her just sitting still. But she let him, that view cascading over them both, holding his eyes as he fucked his hand and made enough noise anyone outside that door would know an Alpha was seeking pleasure.
Standing from his chair, cock and balls framed by an open zipper, Kieran closed the small distance between them. “You don’t have to suck me, but I want you to swallow when I shoot my load. I want to be in your belly, sweet thing. Your first real meal that wasn’t jammed down a tube.” He took the back of her head, drawing her closer. “I can be gentle. Be a good girl and show me that you’re grateful.”
Spermy slime smeared her split lip. It stung, Wren unblinking as she met that gaze. And then he pushed inward, gently. Crown popping between her lips, the man managing to throw back his head, yet still hold her eyes.
Fist moving at a furious pace, he grunted in time with his hand.
Unsure why she did it, Wren gave a lick to the weeping slit staining her tongue. That was all it took, that one simple enticement before her cheeks flooded with flavor, and the Alpha groaned out a string of expletives—calling her a dirty slut no less than three times.
Cunt. Whore. Pretty, pretty tart.
That last one almost made her smirk.
It took several measured swallows to get it all, to feel his spend coating her esophagus and churning in her belly. A portion dripped from the corners of her mouth, running down her neck to blemish the collar of her hospital gown. The Alpha didn’t mind it one bit. Cock still bobbing in her face, he rubbed what leaked into her throat, sighing as if this was something he’d needed.
Maybe he had. A swallow from his fancy, dazed Omega set him at ease.
The doctor cleared his throat.
The connection was severed, Wren’s cheeks hot with shame to realize another person been witness to whatever insanity was just shared between them.
Backs of his fingers ran over the bone of her cheek, Kieran chuckled to see her so undone. “It never lasts, this look. All the girls in the pen lose it in time, though sometimes they try to fake it, but I can always tell.”
It never lasts because every last one of those women had been broken. It faded because those women were not loved, not by the males who kept them. Maybe even not by themselves.
Wren wanted to tell him this, but the pen and paper were gone, and unlike Toby, he had no interest in learning sign language. The Second may have been beautiful, maybe on some level he even thought his intentions were good—he certainly spoke in passion as if he did—but he was missing a fundamental piece of his soul.
Like Caspian, like charming, crazy Toby, Kieran was not a good man, and probably never had been.
And if she let them, the three of them would try to eat her until she was no different than jaded Rosie.
Caspian who stole her from her home. Kieran who liked to fuck her at her weakest moments. And Toby…
Her shoulder began to itch.
Absently scratching at the hospital gown, a gurgle of heartburn burned in her breast. Abandoning her shoulder to press against her sternum, Wren winced.
The noise she made drew the attention of the two men. Both watched very closely, but it was the doctor who asked, “Are you in pain?”
She wasn’t in anything, not with whatever drugs he’d pumped into her system, but she was something. Confused? Suddenly uneasy?
She’d played Kieran’s game; she had submitted to his pack… and found oblivion speared by Toby’s malformed cock. Pain, pleasure, all thoughts skidding to a mental halt until only the body existed and the mind had floated far away.
She let the Third do as he wanted with her, and her body had relished Toby’s brand of defilement in its own way. Because Caspian had been holding her, and Kieran had watched over.
But, Toby must have damaged her badly enough that she ended up here.
God, her chest hurt. She could feel pain, horrible gnawing pain no matter if she exhaled or held her breath. The room was spinning, the sounds of beeping machines fading into the hum of blood in her ears.
&nb
sp; A pin light clicked, searing brightness burning through her pupil as the doctor forced open her lid. “She’s going to pass out if he doesn’t calm down.”
“I’ll deal with it.” Again, Kieran gave her that look before he left the room.
Down the hall it sounded like something was breaking, shouts and roars. “I want to see her!”
The thumping pain redoubled until black crept through Wren’s vision and all went quiet.
The next time she woke, Kieran was back, the catheter was gone, and a second IV port was in her other arm. “Breathing treatment first, then food. And if you submit like the good girl Caspian says you are, I’ll take you to visit your boy.”
She sucked in air from the misting cup made to fit over nose and mouth. Without complaint, she ate a bowl of the same green sludge Caspian had fed her in her room. Sludge she now knew was more than food. It was alive, worked on the body from the inside out. Cost a fortune.
Because she was no good to them as a whore if she was sick.
And for some reason, she had woken up in a foul mood. Clearheaded, finally, she obeyed Kieran so that there would be no more injections or random swallows of creamy cum.
But bitterness tinged her actions. Wren had played their twisted sex games. She had kept her part of the bargain. And if Kieran didn’t keep his and take her to Mikael, he was going to pay. All this was in her glare as she swallowed the last taste of sludge, and slammed down her spoon on the tray.
“Feisty.”
Fuck you. Everyone knew that universal sign.
His attention piqued, Kieran raised a brow. It made him even more handsome, and made her even angrier.
“I can’t tell if that’s you or him, but I like it.” He helped her up, his normally cold sneers replaced with an oddly chipper wink. “Don’t be sore. I always keep my word. You can have your day with your boy.”
And she did. She had the perfect day sitting on the edge of Mikael’s bed and talking with someone she loved so much it hurt. She had a day of seeing him eat until he was full. A day of smiles.
A day to remember why she was doing this.