The burned-out rune in the MeatMan vision. What had it been?
The door to the office opened.
Second Beta Romero stepped inside, carrying envelopes in his hands.
“Lady Gianna,” he said after a moment of startlement. “I was not expecting to see you in Alpha Gabel’s office.”
“Oh? I am often here,” I reminded him.
“I meant alone.”
The way he said alone curled off his tongue like the flicking hiss of a viper. Beta Romero and I had nothing to talk about. He could finish dropping off the mail like a good little pageboy and get out. If he wanted to tattle, fine. I’d deal with that monster and not this little ant.
The low-hanging clouds shifted in the sky, and some columns of sunlight peeked through them. It was late, lazy summer, but those clouds said autumn was coming. Had I already been here a full season? Different wolves were sparring now. Gabel’s bronze form moved in a cluster of wolves. Perhaps he would soon be on his way up to the office.
The notion sent a shudder of unbidden pleasure through me, followed just as quickly by embarrassment.
Romero had taken up a place behind my right shoulder. He had no business lingering. I almost was getting used to the interruptions. Gardenia snooping, Romero skulking around, Flint just barging right in... although Flint had done us both a favor, embarrassing as it had been. “Do you need something else, Romero?”
He chuckled under his breath.
My blood froze in my veins.
“Don’t pretend, Gianna,” he told me in a mocking tone. “The lady-of-the-manor act might impress everyone else, but not me. Don’t think I’m going to heel like a good little pup.”
Romero had dropped off the mail. He could get lost now. “What do you want?”
Romero’s fingers snatched a handful of my hair and yanked my head backward.
I squeaked and instinctively grabbed at his rough, iron-claw hand. My throat spasmed.
He leaned over my shoulder, his chest against my back. He grinned at me. “You have a neck like everyone else, Gianna. It is a very pretty neck. Gabel said you smelled like the Moon. Do you taste like the Moon?”
His fingers curled into my hair. My scalp burned and seared with pain. My heart punched against my ribs, but I couldn’t move. Romero dragged his tongue along my throat. “No,” he hissed in my ear, “you just taste like every other female.”
“Get off me, dog!”
“I could snap your neck.”
“What do you want?” I struggled and scratched at his hand, but every movement pulled shreds of my scalp off my skull. What was he doing? Why was he doing this? I never had anything to do with Romero, and it wasn’t like Gabel had suddenly become a weak, ineffectual Alpha since my arrival. Oh no, Gabel’s balls were still firmly attached!
Romero shoved me forward. My balance shot over my toes, and I staggered into the windows. I caught myself, the panes rattled under my weight. I flipped around, but he closed the distance, pressing his entire body against mine.
The Bond howled and writhed, and Romero’s touch seemed all the more nauseating.
Romero laughed at me. “All that training, improving yourself, and you’re still pathetic.”
I screamed when he licked my throat again. He yanked my shirt down, and his filthy, slimy tongue bathed my skin.
I shrieked, and every drop of my blood churned with revulsion. “Get off me!”
“Do you like this?” He gripped my left hand and pinned it back against the glass, his whole body pressing us both into the window. His tongue found the hollow of my throat, and he laughed as he toyed with it. “Gabel doesn’t need you. Soon you’ll be thrown to all the rest of us.”
“No!” I tried to get my knee up to kick him where it counted, but he just laughed.
My entire body protested everything that was happening, my soul wanted to crawl out of my skin, the Bond screamed and fought. What the hell was the Bond fighting against? Didn’t it know I was fighting? It needed to shut up already, and let me think!
Romero stank. He stank of lust, power, desire, something crazy and horrible, something far worse than I had ever smelled on Gabel. Just pure, sadistic cruelty mixed with weakness.
Weakness. Weakness?
He didn’t seem weak to me! My nose was off the scent.
Didn’t matter. Had to get him off me. Had to at least fight for all I was worth. No way he was going to get the satisfaction of me giving in! Gabel hadn’t gotten it from me, and like hell Romero would. Gabel had my soul. Romero wasn’t going to get my body or my dignity or whatever it was he had come for.
No.
Raw anger replaced my panic.
I raised my left knee again, just as much as I could with his body shoved against mine. I wasn’t going going to kick, and he shifted, expecting it. I stomped down on his foot.
He yelped and shoved his face right in mine.
Dark hatred bubbled up inside me and curdled my blood. “Gabel isn’t done with me, dog, so you’ll have to keep begging for table scraps.”
Out of the corner of my eye, movement. Gabel was on his way. Bronze and obsidian thunder with every footstep.. “There he is,” I hissed at Romero. “He’s coming. He knows you’re here. Run while you can, little dog.”
His eyes glanced over my shoulder.
Thunder with each footstep reverberating within me. “Or stay and face him. Let him catch you like this.”
“You’ll be scraps sooner than you expect, Gianna,” he hissed.
He shoved off the glass and fled.
The heat of anger and panic faded away, and chilling cold replaced them. Shaking and shivers took over my body.
My knees knocked into each other, my hamstrings trembled, and I slid down the window glass onto the floor.
Had Romero been telling the truth? Had Gabel promised me to them when he was done with me?
The Bond shuddered and wept from the trauma of another male’s touch.
The door shuddered on its hinges as Gabel stormed in.
He stopped dead, stared at me, face twisted in fury and bewilderment. His feet were still bare and filthy with mud, and he reeked of sweat, dirt, and wolf. I’d never seen him so paralyzed or bewildered.
“What’s going on?” Gabel asked in a wary tone, stepping slowly toward me.
I closed my eyes. Tears swam, and I didn’t want them to fall, but it was too hard to talk. I pointed at my neck. It still felt slick and gross, like it was covered in slime.
“It looks fine, Gianna,” Gabel’s fury clouded his voice and rattled my bones.
I jabbed my finger and managed to choke out, “Smell.”
He crouched down next to me, his breath soft on my skin. I opened my eyes again and stared at the point over his desk, the opposite wall covered in books. The tears started.
His hands seized my arms, ran all over my body and thighs, then clapped behind the back of my neck. I resisted, but he pulled me forward. His anger churned another notch higher. How could he even breathe around that much rage?
I whimpered and flinched and swatted at his hand when his fingers touched the sore, tender spot on the back of my head.
He looked at his bloody fingertips as if he did not understand, then my neck, then growled deep in his throat.
“I’m bleeding?” I stared at my own blood.
“He pulled up a patch of scalp,” Gabel stated. “It is minor.”
Minor. Such a cold diagnosis from his lips. Tremors hit me again. Gabel couldn’t honestly think I had let Romero do that. Gabel had to have known something was wrong, and he knew something was wrong now. He had to. As much as he might not want to, and might even be enjoying this, he had to know I was upset.
Gabel wiped his fingers on his kilt and crouched next to me. He was almost at eye level, his body coiled muscle, and his anger transmuting into something far darker, colder, and more terrifying than a burst of hot temper. My breath came quick and shallow.
“I swear I—” I started to say. I hadn’
t invited Romero to touch me!
“He dared to put himself upon you.” Gabel’s every muscle tight under his skin, his lips curled back over his teeth.
I faltered, confused and lost.
His teeth clicked together. “Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
He growled.
“He... he said you promised me to them. When you were done with me.”
Gabel barked a cruel laugh. “No. If they want their own females, they go out and get them for themselves. I do not provide whores for their pleasure, and I do not let them rape along with their pillaging. Romero has often disagreed with that.”
Gabel rested his elbows on his knees and considered me. “How did you get away from him?”
“He wasn’t expecting me to fight back. Foot stomp and...” I gestured pathetically to the window.
He clicked his teeth again and straightened. He lowered one hand to me. “Come on, buttercup. You reek of another male. I do not like it, and I am sure you despise it. You shower while I think of what I am going to do about Romero.”
I gripped his hand. “Do something?”
“You do not want me to do anything about Romero?” Gabel’s tone made it clear that wasn’t an option.
“What are you going to do? I’m not your mate.”
“You are mine.”
“Right of blood belongs to mates,” I whispered, “you can’t claim right of vengeance.”
“We can.” He corrected darkly.
“Think about it for a minute.” I trembled in absolute fear and cursed the Moon, and Flint, and everything else. The pack will have expectations. You should decide before the time comes. No! This would not be that time!
“Do not cut my balls off, Gianna,” Gabel growled. “Romero needs to be dealt with. Be grateful I am not charging off and beating him into a bloody pulp in a fit of rage.”
My Mark thumped, reminding me it existed, that it had not festered.
Gabel stood at the center of our room, kilt crooked on his hips, still barefoot and dirty, while I showered. I scrubbed my skin raw before emerging to stand naked and dripping wet and miserable before him. His anger built several more notches as he looked at my raw, bloody skin.
Gabel had Marked me. We’d consummated the Bond. The vows were a formality. A public acknowledgment of what had been settled privately between us. The final nail in the coffin. He could have claimed right of blood vengeance for what Romero had done. And if he did, it was as good as announcing our intentions, that I was the future Luna of IronMoon.
“You don’t know what you’re going to do,” I realized.
Sharp annoyance from him. “No. Romero wants a confrontation, and it’s what he expects. Romero has never managed to corner me until today.” Gabel’s tone hardened with each syllable, although doubt rattled around within him. “He is violent, and he is wily. He lost the First Beta position to Hix, and since, he has been eyeing me. I’ve avoided giving him the fight he wants.”
“What fight does he want?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Any fight. He’s like a dog chasing a car. No idea what to do if he catches it. Something has changed if he’s become this bold.”
My Mark thrummed. Romero had been disgusted with me from the moment Gabel had Marked me. He’d despised me when I’d challenged him. He’d resented me when Gabel allowed the traitorous IronMoon to be chained rather than hunted. He took sick enjoyment watching me humiliated in front of Anders, like that’s where I’d belonged. “Me. I’m here. That’s what changed.”
Gabel looked at me directly, eyes bright, ocean-blue. “The what does not matter.”
But it did. “Gabel, what color is his wolf form?”
“Pale, smoky grey.”
“Is he about medium sized, rangy, but with big shoulders?”
“I would say so.”
I seized his hand. “Gabel, he was the castrated wolf you were fighting with. In the jungle vision. Be careful of him.”
“I thought Oracles did not interpret visions.”
“I’m not interpreting anything. I’m recognizing he was the wolf you were fighting with.”
He frowned. “Are you sure? It was him?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Yes, yes, I’m sure. So why were you two fighting over Flint’s corpse?”
Gabel gripped my chin in his hand, his thumb and forefinger tightening into a squeeze. “My question, my vision, buttercup,” he reminded me. His handsome face twisted with a dark light. “Now,” he bent and kissed me very lightly, the tenderness of his lips balanced against the relentless vise of his fingers. “Let’s go. I know what I have to do.”
From The Moon’s Void
After Romero had finished with me, he had gone down to the training rings to wait for Gabel’s response.
And Gabel was playing right into his plan for a big glorious confrontation with his Alpha.
“Be careful, Gabel.” I tugged against his grip. “He used me to get to you.”
“Of course he did, buttercup,” Gabel snarled. “Can’t fight the male, go for his female.”
“I’m not yours!” I hissed. “Don’t talk like that.”
He ignored me and dragged me right to the edge of the ring.
I stopped, aware of all the IronMoon warriors around me, and how vulnerable I was. Gabel kept going into the ring, stopped halfway in, and pointed at Romero.
“Romero!”
The air shuddered. Everything stopped. Even a few birds burst out of the trees and fled into the sky.
Romero turned to face Gabel, rolling his shoulders. His face curled in a half-grin. “Gabel.”
Gabel’s back tightened at the casual address, and his voice was as taut as his shoulders. “You put your hands on Lady Gianna. You put your tongue on her. Against her will.”
Well, technically so had Gabel when he had Marked me. There was some uncomfortable irony to this.
But Romero and Gabel were not the same. Romero was a mongrel dog. Gabel was something else entirely. It didn’t make things right, it just made things more complicated.
Hix shoved his way to the front of the training ring, and Flint stepped down off his box. Most of the wolves startled and shifted, exchanging nervous glances and looking at me. Their eyes pawed over me as if trying to guess what parts Romero had tasted. A small wave of them crept toward Romero’s end of the ring, and the wolves around me pressed backward, creating a small and terrifying halo of emptiness. Romero had allies to compliment his bad intentions.
Hix snarled something, pushed wolves aside, and placed himself next to me. His dark bulk dwarfed me. “I will stand with you, Lady Gianna,” he whispered.
“You said she tasted like the Moon,” Romero told Gabel, “but she doesn’t. She tastes like every other female.”
“Mongrel!” I lashed out.
“Be quiet, female. Do not speak to me!”
Hix growled. Flint titled his head to indicate disapproval.
“She is not meant for you.” Gabel’s shoulders bunched with the effort of not pouncing on Romero and ripping his arms out of their sockets.
Romero held up his hands in a large, unapologetic shrug. “She’s a female, Gabel, and I am a male.”
“I have made it clear I do not tolerate this sort of behavior.” Gabel’s voice rattled the air.
“You demand too much and give us nothing but scraps in return! You took her for yourself but say we can’t do the same!”
Gabel churned. The Bond was full of furious, confused clots of emotion: anger, jealousy, violation, possession, fury. “You will apologize to Lady Gianna. On your knees. Beg her to excuse your actions. You will be stripped of all title and rank, but if she excuses your actions, I may let you keep your balls.”
I tossed my hair. If Gabel was going to give me Romero’s balls, I’d bronze them and wear them as a bracelet.
“Apologize for what? To her? You should apologize to us!” Romero pointed at Gabel.
“For what?” Gabel laughed at this absurdity.
> Romero flung his arms out wide again, then paced back and forth, gesturing to the onlookers. “For what, our Alpha asks! He Marks her and brings her back here. She is weak, not beautiful, and a sorry example of a good mate. She does not respect her Alpha. She dares to come here and pretend she is worthy of training. She lets other males put their hands on her. She disobeys, she talks back, she fights with him and dares to question his authority. And he lets her! She demanded he give her teeth of worthless wolves because she thought they had died good deaths, and he did. She needs to be reminded of her place and be grateful to the males around her!”
Romero spat on the sand.
“And who was that mangy little wolf who dared come here and ask for visions? Gabel permitted that. He permitted that pathetic little wolf in this territory, this house!” Romero shouted, gesturing wildly. More than a few heads nodded. “Then he let her see the wolf alone! I would never let my woman be alone with another male. Never! She keeps secrets from him, and he tolerates this? He is supposed to be an Alpha.”
Romero snarled to Gabel, “No more! I want an Alpha who is strong. Who lets us crush our enemies, show them who is mightier, stronger, better, not this Alpha who conquers like a human businessman. Once you let us put fear into them, now you don’t hunger for blood. You’re a lapdog who has forgotten what power and strength really are. It is just a matter of time before Gianna takes you to the groomers and has you nails painted and little bows put in your hair like a poodle!”
A number of heads nodded to Romero’s wrath. The IronMoon was like no other pack. That’s what they’d signed on for. Blood, glory, death, loot in the old style. Females used as weapons and commodities and breeding stock.
Gabel’s grin suffused his face with dark glee.
I almost pitied the horrible end Romero was about to come to.
Gabel yanked off his kilt, flung it aside, and sprang at Romero.
His war-form was horrific. A thing from human nightmares. Oily, dark-grey-brown fur in shaggy patches over a dark, leathery hide, muscled limbs, eyes of burning yellow-blue, and a maw dripping acidic spittle between yellowed fangs the length of my fingers. His clawed feet tore up huge clods of dirt.
Romero screamed the challenge, and pale, ash-grey fur bloomed over him, his body swiftly reforming to meet Gabel’s. The howl choked short as Gabel impacted him, and the two somersaulted head over head to the edge of the ring.
The Alpha's Oracle Page 17
