by S. M. Reine
“I just know what I saw. What everyone is seeing.” Gage sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank under his weight. His earthen scent was stronger than usual, and it was only then that Deirdre realized he was all sweaty. He’d been working out. “It looks bad.”
“Huh?” She’d missed that last part. She was too busy staring at him.
He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Are you listening? Conscious?”
“No to both,” Deirdre said. “Listen, Gage, you have no idea what I went through at that benefits office. I don’t—”
“Nine dead and one OPA agent in critical condition.”
So he did know what she’d been through at the benefits office. “It wasn’t my idea of a party.” It felt important that he believe her, but Gage still looked skeptical. “Do you think I’m a killer?”
“No,” he said. “But your allegiances are hazy.”
He unmuted the TV.
The news channel was showing video of Stark’s team emerging from the benefits office. Not just a clip—the whole thing. All of them looking cruel yet majestic.
Deirdre could only watch in sick horror as she stepped forward—stepped in front of Stark—and got shot. They didn’t censor the clip. She watched as the red circles of bullet holes appeared on her stomach and chest. The healing wounds hidden under her baggy shirt twinged with remembered pain.
In the video, she fell. Jacek and Geoff opened fire. People screamed.
And then Stark picked Deirdre up in his arms and carried her out of the camera’s view.
“He carried me?” She would have expected him to drag her by the hair like a caveman. This looked more like the hero on the cover of a romance novel. The extremely sadistic hero who liked to kill people. So basically nothing like a romance novel at all.
“I think he likes you,” Gage said.
“Or he just didn’t want to lose another flunky. His Beta, Sancho—he didn’t survive.”
“I know.”
Deirdre didn’t like the way Gage was looking at her. “It’s not like that.”
He lifted his hands in surrender. “All right. I believe you.”
January Lazar was talking about Rylie now. The title along the bottom said “Response to Stark’s Allegations Expected at Upcoming Town Hall.”
Gage turned off the TV.
“Tell me that something good came out of the mission,” he said. “Like some piece of info that will mean we can bail out of this asylum.”
“I found the doctor who worked at the office while I was alone,” Deirdre said. “I gave him Rylie’s phone number and what little information we have. You know, like a headcount. But…I don’t know if he called Rylie before Jacek killed him.”
“So we didn’t get anything out of this.” Gage’s jaw clenched. He took two steps toward the door, like he was going to run out, then stopped. Turned back to her. The energy of his beast just barely contained within his flesh seemed to vibrate, like the berserker might explode right out of him.
He shut his eyes. Took a few deep breaths.
“We’ll find another phone,” he said. “We’ll call them soon.”
“Yeah,” Deirdre said.
And then he really did open the door to leave.
“Why were you exercising?” she asked, her words stopping him in the doorway. “I mean, I know you were at my surgery, and you’re here now, but why the break to exercise in between? It hardly seems like Pilates time.”
“I like to work out stress on a punching bag,” Gage said.
“You’re stressed? You’re not the one who almost died.”
“It’s not like I’m thrilled about your near-death experience either, Deirdre. Dinner’s at seven. That’s in an hour. You should probably make an appearance.”
He left the room, and she felt weirdly alone without him.
—XIII—
Deirdre went to dinner with Gage. She also went to breakfast the next morning, group training sessions that afternoon, and every other event throughout the house for the week. All she wanted to do was hide out in her bedroom, but she dragged her sorry carcass out of bed and participated anyway.
“You look like whatever a werewolf craps out after eating a deer,” Niamh announced when Deirdre collapsed at the lunch table.
“I got shot a week ago,” she said, letting her face drop onto her arms. “Am I supposed to look good?”
“Yes. You’re a shifter.”
“Newsflash,” Deirdre said. “Still an Omega.”
She had been forcing herself to use the word more often, trying to reach the point where it wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like she could get away from it, after all. The other people in the asylum whispered the word behind her back, and they were the nice ones.
Jacek spat it in her face at every opportunity. And he was gathering a group of people who felt just as disdainful toward her.
They were seated on the far end of the dining hall right now, Jacek and his cronies. There were a couple of werewolves and some other shifters Deirdre didn’t know yet. The odds were decent that they’d be trying to kill her at some point and she’d have to shoot every last one of them.
That was the main reason Deirdre was forcing herself out of bed every day. She couldn’t look weak.
She also didn’t want to be caught alone. When Jacek finally attacked, she wanted witnesses.
“Rumor has it that Stark’s vetting a Beta to replace Sancho,” Niamh said.
“Don’t tell me. He’s picking Jacek,” Deirdre said. It would be just what she needed—giving authority to Jacek so that he could make her life even more miserable.
“Gods, I hope not. That guy’s such a prick.” Niamh took a long drink of water. How she could guzzle that rusty crap from the tap was beyond Deirdre. “I bet we’ll know who Stark picks soon, though. We’re all about to leave.”
“The asylum, you mean?”
“Yeah, we’re mobilizing. Stark’s street team has stolen a few vans and parked them in the loading bay out back. They’re putting in food, guns, the usual stuff. Won’t be long before we leave.”
Deirdre frowned. “How many of us? Everyone?”
“I think so. Stark told me to close up shop and stay in the asylum for the next couple of days, so it’s gotta be soon. He’s been pulling everyone in who lives in the city.”
“So we’re up to something big.”
“Really big,” Niamh agreed.
It must have been the attack on the town hall.
Deirdre pushed her food around her plate, appetite suddenly missing. Not that the food served at the asylum was palatable in the first place. Volunteers cooked big batches of beans and rice on the weekends, and then served that along with cheap cuts of raw meat. She almost missed the groceries she’d gotten with the food stamps.
Gage returned from the buffet line. He had a steak on his plate, chopped into pieces.
“What’s going on, ladies?” he asked.
“We’re mobilizing for another mission, I guess,” Deirdre said.
He took a big bite. “Really?”
“Yep,” Niamh said. “I bet Stark will even take you this time.”
Jacek brayed with laughter on the other side of the dining room. Considering that his cronies kept glancing in their direction, Deirdre was certain that she was the butt of the joke.
She pushed her plate away.
“I’m going to work out,” she said.
Niamh wiped her mouth with a paper napkin that had the Taco Bell logo on the corner. They stole a lot of supplies from grocery store dumpsters and fast food joints. “Really? You look like you’re about to fall over dead.”
“I go without makeup for a couple days and you freak out,” Deirdre said lightly. “I’m rationing my foundation, you know.”
“No need. I’ll get some for you. I remember your brands.”
It was a stupid offer, but it warmed Deirdre. There was the Niamh she remembered with all of her pleasantly shallow priorities. “Thanks,” Deirdre s
aid.
Niamh stood with her to leave. She was surprised when Gage did, too. He shoveled a few bites into his mouth and followed them out of the dining hall.
“Don’t you want to eat?” Deirdre asked.
He swallowed. “I need to blow off steam, too.”
“You can’t do that in the training room,” Niamh said with a wink.
Deirdre’s cheeks heated. “That’s not what he meant.” Gage had been nothing but a gentleman when it came to sharing their too-small bed in their too-small room for the last few nights. She hadn’t woken up with him touching her since that first night.
The training room wasn’t nearly as fancy as the one at Rylie’s sanctuary, though it had its own gritty charm. There were a few foam mats and a lot of free weights. It looked much like Deirdre imagined a prison weightlifting room must have.
A few shifters were training in the corner, occupying the weights. Another pair were sparring with bamboo sticks.
Niamh and Deirdre did some static stretches while Gage watched from the wall in amusement. Deirdre wondered if he’d be looking so smug when he pulled a muscle.
She wrapped her knuckles in tape, preparing to fight alongside Niamh. Neither of them were good at hand-to-hand combat, so they’d been working on it together, using the practice dummies along the north wall as their targets. They occasionally fought each other too, but Niamh refused to hit Deirdre very hard.
“I’ll cut in,” Gage said, pushing off the wall.
Niamh planted her hands on her hips. “It’s girl time. No boys allowed.”
“The two are you are the blind leading the blind. You practically get into slap fights.”
“I know how to defend myself,” Deirdre said. “Just give me a gun and enough space to run away.”
“You can’t always run,” Gage said.
He was serious. He wanted to fight with Deirdre.
Niamh shrugged and backed away, taking the position against the wall that Gage had abandoned.
“It’s not going to make you go berserk if we fight, is it?” Deirdre asked.
A playful smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Not as long as I win.”
“Cheap,” she said. “Very cheap. But why not? I’m game. Fair warning, though—I’ll beat the snot out of you.”
“Big words, Dee,” Gage said, using Niamh’s cute nickname for her.
She lifted her fists in front of her face. “You’re the one who’s not attacking.”
So he attacked.
Gage moved with shocking speed, darting across the mats to swing a right hook at her.
Deirdre dodged.
She wasn’t as fast as him, but her reflexes were decent enough to avoid getting hit. Evasion wasn’t the problem. She’d been evading people trying to beat on her for years.
The problem was fighting back.
Deirdre kicked at him, but Gage caught her leg, trapping it against his side.
He jerked her off balance.
She hit the mats on her back—but not for long. Deirdre flipped back onto her feet. He was there when she was upright again, and it was all she could do to dodge his next swing. Gage kept throwing punches without pausing for breath. He didn’t leave any opening for her to go on the attack.
But after a few seconds of taking his blows on her arms and shoulders, she realized that there was a pattern to it all. Gage telegraphed his moves in advance. He always shifted in the direction he was going to attack.
Deirdre retreated, continuing to duck under his strikes and take the ones she couldn’t evade on her forearms.
He was holding back. It barely even hurt. The pain was just enough to get her attention.
The fact that he’d be so gentle made her angrier.
She waited until he shifted his weight again, then shot in the opposite direction, bringing in a hit from the side.
Her knee finally connected with his ribcage. And she wasn’t trying to be nice about it.
Gage staggered, grabbing his side. Niamh cheered.
“Hey!” he laughed breathlessly.
“Told you,” Deirdre said, blowing her hair out of her face. It was escaping her ponytail. “I’m going to beat the snot out of you.”
“Feel free to start any time now,” Gage said.
“Knock his block off!” Niamh shouted.
It was only then that Deirdre realized that the shifters who’d been sparring and lifting weights had stopped to watch.
Worse than that, Deirdre became aware of a new presence in the room—someone powerful and new. She turned to the door to see Stark watching them.
She hadn’t seen him since they got back from the benefits office. He’d been too busy holding secret meetings that Deirdre could neither attend nor listen in on, since Jacek was always lurking.
Deirdre caught Gage’s eye and jerked her head toward the doorway. “We’ve got an audience.”
“Then let’s put on a good show,” Gage said.
He lunged toward her, jabbing low. He telegraphed the move by the way his torso shifted yet again. Deirdre sidestepped it easily.
At least, she should have sidestepped it easily—but Gage’s fist was right where she moved, connecting with her gut, forcing the oxygen out of her lungs.
He’d tricked her.
She stumbled into one of the practice dummies, catching it with both hands. It was weighted down by a large sandbag. Heavy, but not too heavy for Deirdre. She hauled it off the ground and hurled it straight at Gage.
He leaped out of the way, rolling on the mats.
Deirdre flung a second practice dummy at him, distracting Gage long enough that she could run to the weapons on the wall. There was a little bit of everything. Swords, knives, guns, even whips. Everything a crazy-ass terrorist could dream of having at her fingertips.
She ripped a pair of batons off of the wall. They felt pleasantly solid in her fists. She could break a few bones with those.
“Hey!” Gage protested. “I thought we were doing this bare-fisted!”
“You’re fifty pounds heavier than me,” Deirdre said with a shrug.
And he was fast, too. She swung the batons at him, and he dodged every move with supernatural speed. For a bear, he sure didn’t lumber all that much. He was barely any slower than a werewolf.
Every blow that connected met the shield of his forearms, and never where she intended to hit him.
Worse, Deirdre was sweating—but he was barely winded.
“The batons are making you worse,” Gage said, blocking another strike with his arm. “You’ve never used them before, have you?”
“Practice makes perfect,” she grunted.
Deirdre moved harder, faster, raining blows at his head and shoulders—and he kept up with the pace just as easily.
The other shifters were laughing now, too. Yeah, it was hilarious—Deirdre would have laughed at anyone else being so easily blocked—but the sounds just spurred her on, made her angrier. Her blood was boiling.
Gage caught one of the batons and yanked it out of her grip.
He brought it down on her collarbone.
Crack. The bone snapped.
She cried out, hand flying to cover the injury. The healing fever was swift to crash over her.
Gage dropped the weapon. “Oh, damn. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Deirdre whipped her baton across his face with all the strength she could muster.
He hit the floor hard, and she was on top of him in a second, pinning him with her knees.
“Ha!” she crowed.
Gage didn’t fight anymore. He laid back on the mats, his expression somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “You cheated. You acted like I hurt you.”
“You really did break my collarbone,” she said. It hurt pretty bad, but not as badly as losing would have hurt with that many people watching. “It’s your fault that you dropped your guard.”
His hands skimmed up her thighs. “Cheater.”
“Keep on telling yourself that, if that’s wha
t it takes to heal your manly pride.” Deirdre hopped off and offered him a hand up. Gage took it.
Once he was on his feet, he used her arm to pull her close and kiss her.
Shock washed over her.
What the hell?
Her survival instinct kicked in quickly. She had entered the asylum claiming Gage was her boyfriend—or at least someone she used for sex—and that meant they should have already kissed a hundred times before. If she looked too surprised by it, that would give them away.
She melted against him as convincingly as she could, letting her hands climb his shirt to encircle the back of his neck.
Gage chuckled into her mouth.
“I will kill you later,” she murmured as he pulled away. “You’re so dead.”
“You’re welcome to try it,” he said. “I won’t let you play possum this time.”
A strange thrill twisted through her stomach.
Niamh met Deirdre on her way off the mats, still laughing. “That was nice. Psychologically manipulative. Screw with his head!” She rubbed at the sweat on Deirdre’s neck with a towel. “Boys are stupid.”
“Very stupid,” Deirdre agreed, watching Gage rub his jaw where she’d hit him. He looked good when he’d been exercising, all sweaty and flush with blood.
He wasn’t exactly the kind of nerd that she’d used to date, but he wasn’t bad.
Before Deirdre could step off the mats, Stark approached.
“My turn,” Stark said. He pulled his shirt off and handed it to Jacek, who had just entered the training room with his stupid friends.
Gage wasn’t exactly a skinny guy, but Stark still dwarfed him. The man was roughly the size and shape of a boulder, and his muscles could have been carved from stone just as easily. The tattoos on his arms looked military—he even had the Marines logo on one shoulder, so it wasn’t hard to figure out where he’d come from. Deirdre wondered if Stark had been a shifter while he was in the Marines.
Deirdre started to move aside, but Stark stopped her.
“I want to fight you, Tombs,” he said.
Jacek gave a whoop of delight.
Calling what Deirdre felt trepidation would have been far too kind. It was terror, immediate and powerful. “I don’t want to fight with you. If I did, I wouldn’t have joined your pack.”
