Wren's Song: Volume One

by Addison Cain

  When Kieran told her it was time to go, she didn’t argue or sneer. She smiled at the Second with real joy, and thanked him.

  And obeyed.

  Back in her room, despite the aches in her joints, she unhooked his buckle and let her unskilled fingers show him just how grateful she really was. She would be the best whore they ever had, please them in every despicable way so long as her boys were healthy and happy.

  When Kieran growled and bent her over the bed, it wasn’t like the last time in Caspian’s room. He didn’t hurt her or try to make her cry. The calculating caution he used when he shunted forward left her pushing back against him. She took his cock, sighing as he rocked her against the mattress.

  Reaching under her hips to tease her clit with the soft stroke of a lover, Kieran brought her to orgasm in seconds. Wren kept her eyes open through the pitch and roll of pleasure, hissing at unexpected discomfort when his knot swelled to tie them into one.

  She bore it looking out the window at a drab city and the sparking pink of a distant sunset as he shot his cum against her womb and pinched her clit until another wave of shimmering warmth left her milking his cock.

  Praise was given with a kiss on the shoulder and long minutes of sure strokes down her spine. “My mom never looked at me the way you looked at that boy. She sold me for more crack in her pipe. It would have been nice to have been looked at like that.”

  Glancing over her shoulder at the Alpha standing between her dangling legs, Wren made the mistake of showing pity.

  Kieran, more beautiful than one man should be, sneered. “Tell anyone I said that, and I’ll kill you.”

  Chapter 14

  It felt strange to be back in the pipeworks. This wasn’t her home. The ‘big room’, as Rosie had called it, was unfamiliar in every way. Wren had only spent one disastrous day here, served Caspian, Kieran, and Toby one night before she’d woken in the hospital. And just like that was expected to nest here.

  For now. In that brief encounter with Rosie, Wren had gleaned another key lesson. None of the girls were offered this room for long. Some of them coveted it.

  Wren missed her true home, and knew it would not be long before Caspian found some new toy to play with and sent her packing. So long as Mikael was well, it would be a relief. This place made her skin crawl. As did the unfamiliar tapping in her chest.

  A sign of the shrinking infection she hoped, but a sensation she was happy to see long gone.

  One day she’d be able to forget about all of this. One day Caspian would fill her pockets with credits and send her off with a fortune in water. She’d be rich enough to see that both Mikael and Alec would have real futures away from the mud.

  And that—that one dear thought—filled her heart with joy and made the stinking room bearable.

  That… and she’d be remiss to pretend that finding new machines dotting the blank spaces between gaudy furniture in the big room wasn’t also a little touching. Dehumidifiers, something that looked an awful lot like the contraption she been attached to for breathing treatments, and other things she couldn’t account for… which considering her experience in salvage, was something to say.

  It seemed the males really did want her to get better. Even if it was for their own selfish purposes, it made her feel like more than just a hole to fuck.

  Kieran had carried her all the way from the hospital, pensive after their mating, to set her down in this transient place. He’d then ordered her to rest on that gross bed.

  She had tried, but Wren was too…

  Happy. Grateful. Hopeful for the first time in years?

  There had been nothing in the world like watching Mikael talk about things he’d seen on the Cinema hologram. She’d never been able to provide anything but old junk she’d dug up, ancient tech, and now he had access to the panel in his room and the wonders people who mattered in the city enjoyed every day.

  And now he wanted to star in holos.

  Cute did not even begin to describe his enthusiasm.

  Mikael was a good boy, but he’d never been a particularly optimistic one. And now he was going to be well; he was going to know the feeling of a full belly. He was going to thrive.

  She’d make it happen no matter the cost.

  She’d find him a place far away from the mud. Already a plan was forming. Caspian had promised her a year’s worth of water when he was done. She would offer that with the boy to someone who could teach him a skilled trade. Someone would take him, train him; someone she got to hand-select.

  Of course, they would take Alec too. That one wouldn’t want to leave, there was too much of the wild thing in him, but she’d convince him. She had to.

  The farther both of her boys were from The Syndicate the better. There was no future in the mud.

  The ghosts of kids buried behind her house could speak to that. And Wren had sworn she’d never bury another. It wasn’t in her. Not again.

  Not ever.

  Heart thrumming on this high, genuinely delighted, Wren ignored Kieran’s order to rest and went to the small desk where paper and pen had been left for her use. The joyous minutes were filled with putting all that feeling onto paper.

  Gratitude. An explanation of love. A promise.

  Heartfelt letters written and folded.

  Before she could contain herself, paper grasped in her fist, Wren threw back her door and rushed through the pipeworks so she might give them to Caspian herself.

  Slaves—she would not mock their position by calling those mulling about paid workers—gawked at her. Several tried to grab, but she was fleet-footed and had a sense of where to go.

  It was as if a glowing cord lead her right to him—a world of possibilities. Instinct.

  That should have been her first warning.

  Her heart sang. It led her to turn right, go down stairs, make a left, and scurry over some scaffolding. It called her forward past dangerous men marked with the black hand of The Syndicate, Wren’s white drawstring pants and large borrowed shirt Kieran had dressed her in before leading her out of the hospital flapping at her back.

  She could see the Alphas, all three of them gathered on the same deck where she’d gone to barter for her boys a week ago. She saw them and she smiled.

  Toby’s eyes glowed as if he’d waited just for her, already gazing in her direction in anticipation of her rush from the shadows. Toby, grinning despite a face pinched with many cuts and terrible bruising.

  Was his arm in a sling?

  It was. The sight of it slowed her feet to the point she almost tripped head over ass. Instead that momentum kept her shuffling forward, her clumsy approach immediately noticed by the rest of the party on the platform.

  Kieran gave a sharp shake of the head in a definite signal for her to leave at once, but Wren was determined: to thank the First who paid for Mikael’s care. To thank the Third who saw that she’d been treated for a disease far worse then she’d suspected. Kieran had already been thanked with the willing use of her body and… what she suspected he really wanted. Wren had held him after the knot had diminished. She’d held him and purred, toying with his hair as she would have cuddled with her boys.

  And because it was secret and because there had been no one to see, he had closed his eyes and reveled in it. For all his odd ways and his little cruelties, he might be the most damaged out of all Caspian’s pack.

  Yet there he was, glaring.

  She would make this quick then.

  On the catwalk ahead, Rosie hung on Caspian’s arm, her blue summer dress splattered with rose print and unbuttoned down to her waist. That loud pattern was fitting, glamorous even, for a woman so beautiful. It showcased the perky breasts still on display, drew the eyes to dark nipples that jutted toward the mouth of the man bent over her.

  Wren didn’t need to sniff the air to know what ran down the Omega’s thigh was Caspian’s cum. He was still tucking himself away.

  The stab that came with the sight, Wren would grow accustomed to. She didn’t ow
n these men. They owned her for a time. And so long as they kept their word, she would play their games and remember what this was.

  Natural feelings were unnatural here. They were to be ignored and forgotten.

  And so Wren tucked that unwarranted stab of sadness away and smiled all the larger.

  It didn’t matter that the other Omega hissed at her approach. It didn’t matter that she reeked of Caspian, and even a little of Kieran… whom Wren had given herself to less than an hour before.

  Letters tight in her fist, Wren went to the First.

  To the male who had stolen her.

  To the first man who had told her she was not defective.

  To a person she greatly feared and could never thank enough.

  And slipped her arms around the stiff Alpha’s middle to give him a genuinely heartfelt hug. She didn’t even mind the hideous coat touching her, or the shock she sensed when he braced as if she’d burned him. She embraced him, her ear to his heart, and smiled as if all was right in the world.

  He didn’t purr. That was okay. She did, loudly, so loud it rang in her ears.

  Pulling back, she went on quick tip toe and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek before stepping back.

  Eyes on her mouth, he scowled, dragging his thumb down her split lip. “What’s this?”

  Miming waking surprised and thrashing, she tried to get him to laugh. He didn’t.

  His loss.

  Letters somewhat rumpled from her fist, she smiled at the male and held out the one with his name scratched on top. Pinching it from her fingers, face utterly blank, Caspian waited.

  So she spoke in her way. Hands flowing with her excitement, Wren ignored all others to tell him exactly how she felt, knowing he could not understand, but hoping the sentiment came across.

  Mikael is going to live thanks to you! Do you know what that means to me? There is nothing in the world I love more than my boys. Nothing. And today I saw my youngest smile, I saw him feel like he might have a shot at the world. I saw him come alive.

  He laughed and it didn’t hurt him.

  Thank you! Thank you with all my heart!

  I will repay this kindness. I swear it.

  Glancing toward the seething Rosie, Wren gave her a friendly smile, knowing she had interrupted time the other female prized with Caspian. Pressing her hands together in supplication, she wordlessly asked the Rosie’s forgiveness for intruding. And backed away, still smiling.

  The other Omega’s disgust was obvious. “What the fuck is she doing here?”

  “Shut up!” Caspian snapped at his guest, pulling open the letter to read it over. It didn’t take him long to absorb the message or to turn rich brown eyes back upon the bearer.

  They were furious. “You were told to rest! I forbid you from ever stepping foot down here again!”

  The unexpected boom of his voice made Wren jump, avert her eyes in immediate submission, and back away. But she still had Toby’s letter to pass forward, so she held it out, glancing quickly to where the Third edged forward.

  Caspian snatched the paper from her hands, tore it lengthwise, and threw it over the ledge. Sailing end over end, the two halves were caught up by all the pouring water. Ruined.

  Wren’s eyes tracked the path, earlier exuberance melting into a chill when it fell into the churning cistern. Her page was caught up by clean water and washed down a path that led right where Wren had first entered Caspian’s domain.

  A figure far below was waving, face alive with excitement to see her. A boy with the painted black handprint of the Syndicate marking his face shouting, “Jax!”

  Alec.

  The boy she had bought with her body, jumping and exuberant to get her attention.

  This… no…

  Why was he here? Why marked as if he’d joined this band of criminals and murderers?

  Like a snuffed out candle, the joy in her heart extinguished. Horror wormed its way into the hollow place, snapped through sinew and limb, and the icy clarity that she should have known better.

  Daring to look at the seething male who’d forbidden her to come here, accusation sat clear on her face.

  Caspian held no guilt in those mud colored eyes, only the glinting sting of entitlement. Clutched in his fist was her letter, a physical manifestation of her gratitude, and she could not help but stare at it as if it might come alive and destroy her.

  Toby marched closer, speaking as if moving his jaw was difficult. “Go back to your room, sunshine. Now! I will come to you later.”

  This sinking feeling… this was what those who lived in the Warrens choked on every goddamn day.

  Disappointment. Betrayal.

  Wren looked to the Second. Kieran wouldn’t even turn his head her direction.

  She’d been dismissed.

  As if these men had a right to do so.

  They’d made an agreement, she’d held up her bargain… and it began to dawn on Wren that all the while, all those days, Alec had been right here. He’d probably marched right back to the pipeworks once she’d dragged him home and demanded a place.

  And to get that mark, Caspian himself had accepted him into the fold.

  Stolen him. LIED.

  Caspian, Kieran, Toby… all of them had lied to her. Used her.

  Churning behind her breast, swishing anger began to wash away sticky shame. It pushed it out her fingertips and into the air to coat the males who should be cursed to suffer it.

  Teeth on edge, she cut a glare back to the eyes of her betrayer.

  She could feel the veins pulsating behind her eyes, knew her nostrils flared and an intense look of hate shaped her face.

  There had been times in Wren’s life when she had felt anger. This was so much more.

  Rage flowed through her spirit, and sent her dashing away. Rage moved her feet on a path not one of them might impede until she’d jumped off rotting planks, ran over crumbling cement, and swung her way down rickety ladders all the way below where the child laborers were whipped and abused.

  Where her boy looked to now be in charge. Of innocent slaves. Of fellow people.

  One look at his Jax, and Alec’s enthusiasm became the sullen frown of a culpable accomplice.

  The kid thought to placate. “I know what you’re going to say…”

  Wren struck him. And it was not the open-palmed slap of a mother correcting her young. It was the backhand of a pissed off Warrens’ rat ready to harm.

  Alec hit the floor with a yelp, pushing himself to scream, “You don’t have a say in my life!”

  Hands flying, Wren had her fucking say. “Do you have any idea the things I’ve done so you wouldn’t have to be here? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID TO ME?”

  “You’ve been put up special in the big room! Get anything you want.” Sullen but loud in the way of embarrassed adolescent boys, Alec shoved her back and shouted, “Besides, the girls in the pen are taken care of!”

  “HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW?”

  Dusting himself off and raising his chin, Alec boasted, “I’m a full member of the gang now. I’ve been there. It’s nice. They have lots of food and water. Everyone smiles when they touch you.”

  She was going to be sick. He was a fucking boy already corrupted by this horrid place and the filth that gathered amidst so much clean water.

  Seeing her pant, taking in the horrified whites of her eyes, Alec lost the smirk and cleared his throat. “Caspian is a great man—”

  Never had she been so tempted to wrap her hands around Alec’s throat and end him. “He is not a great man. He’s a criminal who enslaves the most vulnerable so he might climb higher on their corpses. And you want to be just like him?”

  Stubborn, obstinate and angry, her boy, her sweet Alec spat. “Yes.”

  Wren hit him again, harder, knowing it would leave his ears ringing and linger in a bruise.

  And while she reached for her kid’s shirt, while she hoisted Alec up with unusual strength and shook him, Wren had heard the cause of all this pain ru
sh forward.

  It was their fault! She’d face down the males who had stolen her child and ruined him. Who’d ruined her!

  Seething, glad her lungs could take on so much damp air, Wren dropped the kid they thought they might steal and turned her back on him to face down the enemy.

  Ready to burst from her flesh, she snarled, hissed, and flexed her fingers. Water rained down upon them, soaking her white hair, her borrowed white clothes, and left them all filthy in its decadence.

  Caspian, massive in his hideous coat of human flesh breathed fast and angry. He dared to glower at her as if she had broken their contract. As if she has threatened his family.

  A year of water he’d promised her. Pockets full of credits. Two boys.

  Bastard!

  Behind him, Kieran held up his hand in caution. And Toby, that psychopath crooked his finger at her, calling out. “Come to me, darling girl. Step this way.”

  Never again.

  Cracking his neck, Caspian crossed his arms over his broad chest, announcing, “Think of the other boy. It would be a shame if something—”

  Color leached out of her vision, leaving greys and shadows, and a deep, abiding hate.

  Wren didn’t hear the rest of Caspian’s speech or threats. How could she when a perfect piece of corroded rebar stuck out from the ancient cement, close enough that she might brace her foot against the ground and tear it out. Roaring, she hefted half the slab upward until it cracked. Watching the dust flake off her weapon, smiling to see a quantity of hardened rock still clung to the end of her perfect cudgel, she hoisted it high.

  Caspian stood taller before his men, before his slaves, and demanded, “Put that down before you hurt yourself.”

  There would be pain alright. Theirs. She’d kill every last one of them.

  And then he sealed his fate. “This farce of an agreement is behind us. You are mine, the boys are mine. Every last life in this fucking city is mine. Don’t think I won’t hesitate to harm the other one if you don’t obey.”

  The other one? This bastard didn’t even know the name of the boy he threatened.

  Animal noises came from her chest, a mournful wheeze twisted in a raw, chattering growl.