by L. C. Davis
"Take it," the alpha urged.
Reluctantly, Connor reached out and grasped the knife. It was heavy in his hand and hard to grasp. Was this a test? Another game, to strip him of his pride? To make him see that even unshackled, even with a weapon in his hand, he was still far weaker than his captors and would never be able to escape?
"Kill her," Aaron said casually.
Connor looked between Lora and Aaron and the realization set in. This scene was so like the others he'd spent countless nights imagining locked away in the original version of this very room that had been recreated for his own personal torment. That night, he had come so close to doing exactly what Aaron was suggesting. To killing Lora. Why he'd had a change of heart, he couldn't say. Maybe it was because in that moment, she had reminded him of his mother, and while he hated both of the older female omegas with equal ferocity, he had never been able to do anything more than walk away from them. Even at his worst, that was a line he couldn't cross.
"No..."
"Kill her and I'll let you go free." Aaron's cruel smile stretched. "That ups the stakes, doesn't it? You can go home to your brother. Of course, no one will believe you if they tell you it was me. That's the brilliant thing about a reputation. If you spend your whole life as a reputable servant of the Federation, never actually getting your own hands dirty, you can get away with doing just about anything. Especially to someone no one will miss. That's the difference between you and me. Between clever and...well, genius."
Connor gripped the blade tighter, finding the strength returning to his hand. He looked at Lora and he had never wanted to shut his emotions off more than when he saw the fear in her eyes. How easy it would be to do it, to take his revenge. He brought the knife closer and he could feel the edges of the emotional landscape he had only begun to appreciate wilting, dying. Killing Lora would settle a score, but it would also mean killing the person he'd become. The very weakness he'd tried so desperately to suppress was something he suddenly wasn't sure he was willing to give up even if it meant dying. Even if it meant staying in that room. He'd lived more fully as Connor the past couple of years than he ever had as Cutter.
The blade fell to the floor with a clatter and all the strength Connor had rallied faded at the very same moment. Lora's shock registered on her withered face. Aaron snarled in indignation but quickly composed himself.
"Well, if you're going to be boring and throw yourself on the pyre, you've lost all your entertainment value," he said, picking up the blade. Lora gasped sharply as he came at her, but instead of stabbing her, Aaron cut the ties around her wrist and offered her the knife that had originally been intended as the instrument of her death.
Her confusion lasted only a moment before her cold eyes locked on Connor. "Kill him and I go free?"
"Free as a bird."
Connor moved back until he was propped against the wall he had been chained to for so long. "Please," he gritted out. There was no more risk now, and his hope of escape was dwindling fast as the other omega rose to her feet and moved toward him. "Please don't do this."
"It's nothing personal," she said, raising the knife. "We all do what we have to in order to survive. You should know that. I'm the one who taught you."
"I'm pregnant!" he cried. Begging was never something he thought he would do again, certainly not on his own behalf. He'd promised himself he would never be in the position again after he'd begged his mother to go after Mel, to undo whatever she had done to make the alphas come to their house and taking him away. His pleas had fallen on deaf ears then, and now, only Lora hadn't drunk herself into a stupor to cope with her sins. The wild glint in her eyes as she held that blade made it clear she had taken a liking to killing. It was no longer just a matter of survival for her.
Connor closed his eyes and tears burned his face as they slid down it. He wasn't afraid to die as much as he was afraid of all that he would miss in doing so. Then again, he thought, maybe that was why people feared dying in the first place. People who had lives and other people who loved them. People who had a purpose. He had never understood then. It seemed cruel to understand so late, when there was nothing left to do but wallow in regret, but he couldn't bring himself to regret understanding. Better now than never.
He just hoped Mel would understand. He hoped they all would, and if they didn't understand, if they thought he had died as selfishly and cruelly as he had lived for so long, he hoped they would take solace in each other. For the first time, knowing that his brother was safe and loved by the very men Connor had previously resented brought him peace. He smiled, almost forgetting the blade pressed to his throat when the door exploded. Lora cried out and he heard the knife clatter to the floor again, but the gunfire began before the smoke cleared. The room turned to chaos and Connor blindly dragged himself to his feet before something collided with him. One of Aaron's guards or perhaps Aaron himself had been hurled like a projectile, slamming Connor into the wall. His head bounced off the plaster and the last sounds he heard as he slipped unconscious were the snarls of a hellhound.
Chapter Twenty-Three
DUKE
The Parlor. In all of Duke's days on the job, from his first mission as a green, wide-eyed cadet in the Federation army to the grisliest scenes he had come upon as head of the Tribunal Task Force, nothing had prepared him for this place. To say it was hell on earth was an insult to the devil.
Hassan had caught up with him by then, and while Duke had never seen the alpha anything other than calm and collected, he soon became an equally bloodthirsty brother in arms. There were seven alphas in the place, six betas, and by the time Duke made it to the top floor while Hassan was freeing the omegas being kept there, there were none. None left but Richard or whoever was still operating this hellhole under his alias.
Connor's scent was everywhere. His blood, his fear, his pain. Duke wasn't human when he broke down that door, but he wasn't fully wolf, either. He was something else entirely, something he'd never before let himself be on the battlefield. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there had always been a voice telling him that if he let go of whatever it was he'd been holding back for most of his life at the wrong time, there would be no going back. If ever there was a right time to let the beast out, it was now.
Finding Aaron Hauser on the other side of that door might have come as a mild shock to Duke in his human form, but all his beast cared about was blood. Aaron's and his guards. He stopped just shy of tearing into the throat of the aged omega. Her aura was clouded with the same dark energy as the alphas and he almost hadn't recognized her as an omega at all. He stared in confusion as she huddled in the corner, shrieking curses at him, before a sound from across the room caught his attention.
Connor.
Duke loped across the room, all fear that he would hurt his mate, even though his mind had shifted to that of a monster, dissipating with one glance. Connor was barely conscious and he looked so frail curled up on his side, battered and bruised, that it made Duke's heart ache and his gut fill with rage once more. He quelled it, knowing that Everett was its only remaining target and he needed that scumbag alive long enough to go to the Tribunal. To clear Connor's name once and for all.
Duke crouched low enough to nuzzle his mate gently, looking him over and licking his wounds. There were so many. None seemed particularly deep, but his smooth pale flesh was covered in hundreds of small wounds and abrasion. It was a torture tactic Duke knew well. Pushing the victim to the edge of tolerance each time, never quite enough to break him so the next session would be just as fresh, and every bit as scarring. His wolf let out a mournful sound as he curled around the shivering omega to keep him warm.
"Duke?" Connor's voice was cracked and frail as his trembling hand brushed over the wolf's dark fur. Duke nuzzled him gently in acknowledgment as Hassan appeared at the door. He was human again and he'd stolen ill-fitting clothes off of one of the dead alphas, holding another set in his hand. He stopped short, his eyes locked on Duke. For a moment, genuine
fear flickered in them, as if he thought Duke would ever hurt the omega within his grasp. Even though his thoughts were still more animal than human, the foremost drive in his mind was keeping Connor safe and warm.
"Great spirits," Hassan breathed, dropping the clothes from his grasp just short of the blood pooling on the floor. "I scarcely noticed in battle, but you... you've changed."
Duke's ears cocked in confusion but he was too focused on getting his mate out of that place that was destined to become rubble to pay much mind to the other alpha's words. He stood carefully without jostling Connor and shifted back with considerably more effort than it usually took. His limbs felt stiff and warped, like something about the shift had been off. He staggered over the bodies and dressed quickly while Hassan knelt beside Connor, looking him over.
"He's badly hurt," he murmured. "But I don't think any of it is fatal." He gathered the omega into his arms before gently passing him over to his mate. "I will handle things here, go. Get him help. There is a shifter hospital not far from here, Mel can give you the address."
Duke gave him a curt nod, unable to quite remember how to speak. He carried Connor out of that three-story building in a daze. He knew he didn't have to tell Hassan exactly what he had to do to. The only way to "take care of" the Parlor was to ensure that there wasn't a bit of it left standing.
~
Duke still wasn't fully human in his mind when they arrived at the hospital, but Connor seemed too out of it to care. The omega was broken, that much was plain to see, and the only thing keeping Duke's pieces together was the knowledge that Connor needed him to. He couldn't fall apart, which meant he couldn't let his mind drift to what the omega had endured while he and the others had searched tirelessly for him. He had to keep blinders on or that beast, whatever it was that had warranted that look on Hassan's face, would return and more carnage was not what his omega needed.
The doctors at the hospital moved as swiftly and efficiently as the ones at Mountain Ridge. Duke was grateful since he found himself useless at communicating with them. He refused to leave Connor's side and they didn't push him, even though they did eventually convince him to settle in a chair in the corner of the room while they examined Connor behind the curtain. The only reason he tolerated that was the fact that the doctors happened to be a female beta and a male omega.
Hassan was right. None of Connor's wounds were fatal, but that didn't mean his mind was intact. He was conscious, but they said he wasn't all there. Duke hadn't believed him, but the one time the omega had gained enough lucidity to realize they were giving him an IV, his screams made it clear he was somewhere other than the safe, sterile hospital room. With Duke's reluctant permission, they sedated Connor and even though the omega relaxed into sleep, the look on his face was anything other than peaceful.
The next few hours were a blur of tests and exams and well-dressed shifters speaking to him in soothing tones. Connor hadn't been sexually assaulted, they announced, as if that somehow lessened the fact that he had been tortured in every other way imaginable. His physical wounds would heal, but they had induced a coma to keep him from hurting himself in his distress. They promised that someone would be by later to discuss other treatment options with him.
Somehow, by some measure Duke couldn't bring himself to call a miracle, Connor hadn't lost the baby but the doctors still weren't sure what physical toll the pregnancy would take on them both. When Duke had told them to prioritize Connor's health above all else, they had assured him there was no need to make any decisions now. He was in reasonably stable condition, physically, at least. When he had healed enough to be lifted from the coma, there was the possibility that completing the mate bond with a mark would help with whatever psychological damage had been done. It had yielded promising results in other case studies, a young alpha with bright eyes and a newly minted MD assured him.
Duke was too numb to feel relief. As the doctors and nurses trickled out the door, returning every hour or so to check on their patient, all he could bring himself to do was sit and stare. He realized once they were gone that he should have called Mel a long time ago and opened his phone to find a dozen missed calls.
Clearing his throat to make sure his voice still worked, Duke dialed Mel's number and waited. "Duke? Are you at the hospital? Hassan said you left, how is he?" Mel's voice was flat and mechanical, but Duke knew from how fast he was talking that he was in a state of pure panic.
"He's..." Duke trailed off, realizing he didn't have the first clue how to answer that. How was Connor? Good enough to be alive, bad enough he couldn't be allowed to regain consciousness. Was there even a word for that? "They said he's stable."
Good enough. Mel's silence told him that word meant about as much to the omega as it did to him. "Hassan told me where you found him. Is Aaron...?"
"Dead and so are all his men," Duke replied in a gravelly voice. "The ones in the Parlor, at least."
"That place shouldn't even still exist," he said, his voice quaking with rage.
"It probably doesn't by now. But I doubt it's the only one like it that's cropped up in Cutter's absence."
"I had no idea." He could hear the guilt in Mel's tone, the grief. He knew them both well. "We just always thought he was the worst thing out there. We didn't know what he was keeping back. God, we were so naive."
"I know. The only thing we can do now is do what Connor did all those years ago as Cutter. dismantle it, piece by piece."
"We will," Mel said, letting out a breath. "When can you bring him home?"
"The doctors said they want to keep him here for a week under observation. They're gonna wake him up then and we'll see," he murmured. "They're talking about marking him like it's a fucking treatment, but I want Doc to look at him first."
"He and Blue are already on their way. Mitchell will send his jet to bring you all back next week."
"Can you do me a favor and fill him in on everything? I'm not really in a good place right now."
"Of course." Mel paused but Duke could still hear his breathing on the line. "Duke?"
"Yeah?'
"Thank you. Whatever happens after this, whatever you need, it's yours. You saved Connor, and I owe you my life for that."
"You don't owe me shit," the alpha muttered, raking a hand through his dust-covered hair. "He's my mate."
Chapter Twenty-Four
CONNOR
"Open your eyes."
The vaguely familiar voice echoed in Connor's ears like it was coming from more than one place at once. He tried to obey it, but his lids felt welded shut. All he could see was a world of gray.
"You should try." The voice was Doc's, the echo had faded enough to make it out.
Connor could hear footsteps before he felt a hand on his arm, grounding him as it pulled his spirit back into his body. Even before that deep, rumbling voice reached his ears, he knew it was Duke. "Wake up, Connor," the alpha pleaded, stroking his hair with an uncharacteristically gentle touch.
Discovering the inclination to obey any other alpha would have disturbed him to no end, but Connor was relieved by the way his body responded instantly the soft command. His eyes opened and Duke was standing over him, his eyes rimmed with dark circles and his usual stubble grown into a full-on beard.
"You're not going to keep that, are you?" Connor asked, reaching up to brush his fingers over the alpha's scruff with a grimace.
A strangled laugh escaped Duke's throat, and Doc smiled. "I'll let you have a moment alone while I go tell the others he's awake."
Others? Connor wondered as the doctor left the room. He looked around, frowning. His wolf could sense the change in elevation and he knew they weren't in the mountains. It took him a moment to realize he was sensing his wolf for the first time since he had been drugged. Not that the lupine side of his nature had ever been strong to begin with. "Where are we?"
"A hospital in New York. I brought you here after..." The alpha's voice broke and Connor could feel the anger stirring within him more cle
arly than he had ever felt an emotion that wasn't his own or Mel's. "They had to put you under, they were worried the stress would hurt you."
"How long?"
"About a week," Duke murmured, stroking his face. "They weren't sure if you'd wake up as...you."
Connor's weary mind struggled to make sense of the alpha's words. "I don't understand," he admitted for the first time in his life.
"After everything you went through, being off the meds for so long, they thought your mind would have broken if you didn't shut down completely."
"In other words, you weren't sure if I'd wake up as me or the old me."
Duke's gentle gaze turned sad. "I didn't care, as long as you woke up."
The words yielded yet another bewildering emotional response, but this time, Connor knew exactly what it was. The way it sent heat to his cheeks and made his heart monitor race left little room to question it. The monitor picked up speed as another thought occurred to him and he pressed a hand to his stomach. "The baby..."
Duke frowned and Connor froze, realizing Duke didn't know. He'd been about to tell him when he went to see Everett to end things first. Pain washed over him anew, not only for the realization that he had almost certainly lost it, but because Duke would have to learn of the revelation and the loss in the same breath. "I'm... I was pregnant, before..."
"I know," Duke said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. "Toval and the others told me after Everett took you. You're still pregnant, Connor. You didn't lose the baby."
Connor searched the alpha's eyes for any sign of deception, even though logic told him Duke would never do something like that. He pressed a hand to his mouth in an attempt to quell the sob of relief building in his throat. It was no use. The sound bubbled over along with the tears and a look of pure panic crossed Duke's face.
"Connor?"
The omega wanted to answer him, to tell him everything was fine, but he hadn't cried that way since he was a child and he couldn't make the tears stop once they started. Duke climbed into the bed next to him, even though the alpha's burly stature seemed at risk of breaking the frame, and pulled Connor to his chest.