I cleared my own throat, my eyes hooding at the mere memory of her taste on my tongue, making my cock harden in my jeans. “What about the lake?” I prompted.
She clammed up and I frowned. Finally, she took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “Well, you gotta remember that I’ve had two overprotective Alphas and seven dads all up in my business forever, okay?” She took a deep breath and met my eyes. “So, I’m kind of a virgin. Which is fucking weird and annoying and I don’t want it to be a big deal. Though I’m thinking that maybe I now know why all my dates never progressed to second dates.” She glared at Bobby over her shoulder. He shrugged and looked completely unapologetic.
She huffed, and a resoluteness crossed her face, the fierce woman I knew coming back into her eyes. “What I’m saying is that I’d like you guys to divest me of this tool of the patriarchy asap.”
Bobby was frowning and Flint looked confused as he mouthed, “Tool of the patriarchy?” to himself, before his eyes shot back to her face. “You want us to have sex now?”
Bobby reached down and slapped the back of his head. “No, not now.”
Mouse crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at Bobby. “Why not now? Shouldn’t it be my choice? It’s my virginity.”
I watched the tension between them pulse as he huffed so hard that stray bits of her hair flew into her face. “You’re my mate. When one of us,” he indicated the three of us, which I both appreciated and was terrified by, “makes love to you for the first time, it won’t be on a cramped twin bed that hundreds of asses have probably been on, while watching an action flick.” His face softened, and he lifted his hand to her cheek, his warm skin contrasting so beautifully with her milky paleness. “I don’t care if I’m your first or your fortieth lover. I’d still want our first time together to be special.”
Flint groaned. “Told you he was a romantic.”
But Bobby was looking past her to me, like I was the most likely candidate to steal her virginity in a janitor's closet or something. “Whatever Carmen wants.”
I wasn’t stupid. I knew I couldn’t deny her a goddamn thing. I’d give her rose petals and candles, or a dirty fuck against a wall.
She had me wrapped up, and I never wanted to get away.
23
Carmen
Despite my grand announcement in Flint’s room last week, none of the guys had tried to deflower me. I snorted. Deflower was such a stupid terminology. If I was a flower, I’d be the pretty kind that lured you in then poisoned you.
Still, I don’t know if I was disgruntled or relieved that the guys hadn’t made a move. It gave us time to settle into something like a routine and to spend more time both one on one, and as a group. It was… nice.
I rested my head against the passenger window of Christopher’s SUV. Enit was a roiling ball of emotions in the back, but I ignored it. Enit and I were currently fighting. No, that wasn’t right. Enit didn’t fight. But I was pissed off that she’d known for so long that Bobby was my fated mate, and never told me.
Her betrayal cut me the deepest, even more than Bobby’s himself. Enit knew how I felt about Bobby. She knew that I’d loved him for years. She knew how much I’d hated seeing him date other girls in Nîso and at the Academy, and yet she’d said nothing.
Christopher heaved out an annoyed sigh. “You two need to get over this shit. You’ve been giving her the silent treatment for a week, Carmen. You know how much ill feelings affect her. You’re being cruel now.”
I shot him a glare. Protect the Omega, it was always the way. “You know what affects me, Christopher? Being lied to for years by the person I loved and trusted the most. But doesn’t it count, because I’m not a super special Omega, just a regular old beta? Well, guess what? I still have feelings and that shit hurts.”
Enit gave a little whimper and I momentarily felt guilty. In all honesty, it was pretty hard to maintain my anger towards her, every instinct in me wanting to soothe her hurts. Shifter biology blew.
“I said I was sorry, Carmen. I didn’t know he was your fated mate until very recently. I just knew that he, well, that he loved you. It wasn’t my place to tell you. I know these things, but it's incredibly intrusive to interfere with someone's emotions like that.”
I waved her away. She’d said all this before. While I saw her point, it didn’t soothe my anger. I pointed to a mall in town. Not Dark River, but the large town on the other side of Eden. It was our parents’ anniversary coming up or maybe the anniversary of our adoption, I didn’t know the specifics really. But it was a day we all celebrated together, and we bought each other small gifts. Kind of like Christmas, but when two of your parents were older than Christianity, we didn’t really have a big Christmas celebration. Instead, we had Family Day, and every year I loved it.
“Drop me here. Pick me up when you guys are done,” I grumbled, and Christopher heaved another sigh.
“If you are going to pout and wander off by yourself, you should have brought your boy toys.”
I gave him the middle finger. “I don’t need anyone to protect me, Christopher. Not you, and not my boyfriends. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself. Now pull the fuck over or I’ll roll out of this fucking car myself.”
Christopher swore, swerving to the side of the road to let me out. I slammed out of the car and ignored Enit’s tiny whimper.
I would forgive her soon, because it was physically impossible not to, and because I knew my sister. She would never purposefully hurt anyone, least of all me. But she deserved to stew in it for a little while longer.
“So let me get this straight. You want it to say, ‘I just want to drink tea and kill people’?”
I’d broken the girl at the engraving stall.
I gave her my most innocent look. “It’s an inside joke.”
She still gave me an odd look and took the teacup from me, taking it over to her workbench where she would hand paint on the words.
I looked down at my bags of presents. I’d gotten something for everyone, from pjs with dachshunds for Nico to a framed photo of the family for Mom. It was funny now, because we almost all looked like friends rather than parents and children. Because in a photograph you couldn’t see the agelessness of Nico’s expression, or the slight creases around Walker’s eyes. “I’ll just be right back,” I said to the girl working on the teacup, walking toward a quiet corner of the mall to call Christopher to come and pick me up. I’d gotten him a shirt from his favorite band, and I’d gotten Enit a delicate crystal lion.
I looked up as someone crowded me, and then fear stilled the breath in my lungs. The man reached out, placing his hands gently on my shoulders, and my whole body went lax. I couldn’t move my legs, my arms, my vocal chords. Nothing. I was completely paralyzed.
“Hello, Carmen.”
His face was familiar. He had a long face, a patchy beard and several scars littering his cheeks. But it wasn’t until I got to his eyes that my brain finally caught up, my heart beginning to thunder in my ears. I’d seen him at the fights, though I’d never been introduced. But in my gut I knew.
Rook. This was fucking Rook, Flint’s former owner. Oh fuck.
“It would only take a little more of my power to paralyze your heart, you know that? I will not, it isn’t worth the fucking hassle of dealing with your owners. But I have a message for my property. And you will give it to him and no one else. Blink if you understand.”
I blinked rapidly.
“I am taking him back, little wolf, and I will kill everyone you love if you stand in my way, starting with your sweet little Omega sister. Perhaps, I will play with her first though. So few truly submissive Omegas left in the world. I could truly degrade her before I killed her, and she would let me.”
My chest started to burn as he stopped my lungs from drawing in air. Blackness began to edge my vision as he leaned in closer until his lips nearly brushed mine. I wanted to gag.
“You tell that little fuck that he better return, or I’m going to kill
them off one by one, starting with the youngest. Their blood will be on his hands.”
With that, he stepped away and I slid to the floor, sucking in air that felt like acid. Beside me, my phone was shattered when I’d dropped it, but the screen was lit up. I could make out the fragmented picture of Christopher’s face.
I answered, my voice cracking. “Christopher. Help.”
I must have blacked out, because when I woke up, the girl from the engravement place was standing over me, shaking me awake. “Hey, hey are you okay?”
I blinked as my brain came back online, and then Christopher was there, gently moving the girl out of the way and sliding to his knees in front of me.
“Carmen, what happened?” He sounded frantic and I knew it was probably because he would have been able to feel my fear through our sibling bond. It was something we hadn’t used since we were kids, but if I concentrated hard enough, or in times of great stress, it roared to the front.
“We need to get out of here.”
I could feel both Christopher and Enit’s panic as Christopher hefted me into his arms. Enit was soothing the shop assistant, gathering up my bags. “She gets low blood pressure and sometimes she passes out. She’ll be fine. Thank you for caring,” she said softly to the shop assistant, who pushed my teacup into her hands.
Christopher strode out of the mall with me in his arms, and for the first time in years I felt like I needed my Alpha brother, like I could hand him all my responsibilities and he would take it onto his shoulders without protest.
I rested my cheek against his chest as he strode to the front doors of the mall, and to his SUV mounting the front steps extremely illegally. He slid me in the back and Enit climbed in after me.
She curled her body around mine, and her very presence soothed me. “Call X so he can check her out,” Christopher barked at Enit from the front seat as he roared back into traffic.
I was shaking my head as Enit reached into her back pocket for her phone. “You can’t, Christopher.”
He looked at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes shifting to the wolf. He was about to lose it. “I felt what you felt, I know who it was. You’ll let X check you out and then we’ll figure it out, Carmen.”
I winced, not realizing I’d projected my panic quite that bad. I looked over at Enit, who was pale and shaky. “I’m sorry.”
She squeezed me tightly into her arms, her Omega energy wrapping around me like a fluffy blanket. “Me too. I love you.”
“Love you too,” I sighed heavily. If they knew, they weren’t going to keep it to themselves. “You better call my guys as well. They’ll want to hear this.”
Enit swallowed hard. “I already messaged Bobby. He’s going to get the others and meet us at the house.”
Well, I guess I now knew how Bobby turned up every time I was in trouble. He had his own insider. After being faced with the evil of Rook, I didn’t have it in me to be mad at her about it though. She did it because she loved me.
I rested my head against her shoulder and tried not to replay that complete and utter helplessness as Rook had kept me paralyzed and pinned to the wall. I tried not to think of his cruel, shadowy face, or the sneer, or the hot feel of his breath against my cheeks. I wanted to pretend I was tough. That I was bulletproof.
But that man? He made me realize I was still a naive little girl who was good with her fists. He made me feel helpless, and I hated it.
24
Flint
Panic flowed through my body like poison. I was jammed between Sammie and Bobby in the pickup as we tore toward Dark River and Carmen’s house. Bobby had come and grabbed me from where I was training in the gym, saying nothing except that there was something wrong with Carmen.
I’d busted out my wings and flown the short distance to Sammie’s place, bursting through the door and startling the shit out of Sammie’s family. It had been the little one—the girl cousin, Attica maybe?—that had grabbed me by the arms, told me to breathe and then called for Sammie.
I needed to work out what that kid's ability was, because while she'd been holding my arms, I’d felt like I’d taken four Xanny with tequila chasers. But when she’d stuffed me out the door, all that fear and panic had roared back.
Bobby had broken several Canadian traffic laws, but in what seemed like the longest minutes of my life, we were roaring to a stop outside of Carmen’s house. Bobby didn’t even turn the car off before he was out of the driver’s seat and through the front door of the house. I leaned across, switching the car off and pulling on the handbrake before scrambling out after Sammie. I pocketed the keys as we ran through the still open door.
Then I skidded to a stop because the level of danger in that room hit me in the face. I’d been in some dangerous situations, obviously. But the sheer level of contained violence in here made me sweat.
Carmen sat on the kitchen island, and the big guy, X, prowled around her with a stethoscope and a little eye flashlight while she rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, X. I promise.”
Bobby stood a few feet back, twitching and desperate to get to his mate, but everytime he took a step closer, X snarled at him.
Carmen put her hand on X’s arm, squeezing it a little. “I’m okay, Dad.”
He seemed to relax a bit, stepping away, and that was all that Bobby needed, beside her in a single jump and pulling her into his arms. She wrapped herself around him and I went over, needing to touch her too. Sammie seemed frozen, which was probably his human hindbrain saying danger, danger. So I grabbed his hand and dragged him in with me until we were all crowded around our girl. I kissed her cheek.
“What happened?” Sammie growled, and I suddenly saw the cold-blooded MC killer in his eyes.
But she found me, reaching out and grabbing my hand, anchoring me to her. “It was Rook.”
I felt my knees turn to water and my eyes nearly bug out of my head. “What about Rook?”
I held my breath as she dragged me a little closer, and somehow I knew what she had to say. “He found me at the mall. Told me to give you a message.”
I could barely hear her over the panic rushing through my brain. Rook was here. Rook had been close to her. Had touched her.
All over again I was a scared little kid, beaten down until I no longer knew how to fight back. I swallowed repeatedly, like if I could just get the giant lump out of my throat, maybe I could breathe.
I was distantly aware of Carmen nuzzling her face against my throat, but I kept wondering what would have happened if Rook had caught her in some dank alley rather than a crowded mall.
I knew first hand what the paralysis under his hands was like, not being able to escape. Being trapped while Rook—
I hissed as Carmen bit me on the column of my neck. “Ow.”
“Out of your head, Fireball. I’m okay. Stop getting lost in the what-ifs.”
“What was the message?” My head whipped around, and I realized that all Carmen’s family was here. That question had come from one of her twin dads. I’d forgotten their names, but not the sheer animalistic terror that ran down my spine when I looked them in the eye.
Carmen hesitated, and I could tell Rook was in her head. He excelled at mind games. She looked back at me and sighed. “You’re safe and not alone anymore. You’re mine. I want you to remember that, okay?” I nodded, but it didn’t stop the dread. She took a deep breath. “He said you had to return or he would start killing them off, one by one.”
Dark spots danced across my vision. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t destroy his merchandise just to spite me, to bring me to heel. I hadn’t thought twice about leaving because I didn’t think his greed would overrule his pettiness.
Bobby grabbed my face, the pads of his fingers rough on my cheeks. He dragged my eyes towards his, and I got lost in their warm depths. “What is he talking about, Flint?” There was a touch of Alpha in his voice, enough to soothe me.
“He means the Kindergarten.” When Bobby looked confused, he continued. “I’m not the only k
id Rook has bought from the black market. Like ancient gladiators, he buys us young, and injured or crippled fighters train us. Once a kid’s old enough to put on an entertaining fight, he puts them in the ring.”
Carmen’s mom sucked in a breath. “How many?”
I cast my eyes at my feet. “Fifteen to twenty at a time. Some as young as I was, around four. Some come in older, around twelve. But they push us into the ring not long after that, so those kids usually don’t last long.”
My tone was flat, emotionless. Like I didn’t care about those kids, and to a degree, I didn’t anymore. Watching them grow up, only to bury their bodies in darkened burial grounds, had killed off that little part of my soul.
But I wasn’t dead enough, and Rook fucking knew it.
“There are fifteen kids being tortured somewhere, and you’ve been shacking up with my sister and didn’t tell anyone?” Christopher yelled, and shame made me numb. He was right. I should have told someone as soon as I was rescued. Should have told Azar, or the Board of Eden, or something. But I didn’t because I was scared. Scared that I’d summon Rook like Bloody Mary in a mirror. I wanted to hope that once the cuffs come off, Rook would fuck off back to the States, and I could catch my breath. I would have gone back for them.
I would.
But Christopher was still right. I’d known and said nothing. “Yes.”
“You piece of shit—”
Carmen was off the kitchen island and in wolf form before my brain had a chance to catch up. She was fucking beautiful though, tawny brown with golden highlights striped through her fur.
But Christopher shifted just as quickly and he was black. Solid, deathly black.
They fought in the middle of the living room until Bobby stepped toward them and growled, “Enough!”
The feel of his Alpha power permeated the room, and I noticed that not all of Carmen’s parents were here. The Alpha with the big energy, and the snake shifter weren’t home.
Rebels and Runaways: Eden Academy Book One Page 15
