by Addison Cain
They had already been treating her for days. She already owed too much to ever pay when the bill came due.
Ink flowed over white paper. Paper with not even a dusting of dirt or a stain of mud. Paper that had not begun to mildew. I’d rather be sick.
Steely eyes took on a glint that didn’t fit such beautiful features. “You’ll die.”
I can’t pay! I can’t go to the debtor’s quarry. Not yet. My boys need me. I can die when they’re old enough to take care of themselves.
The curl of Kieran’s lip was not from amusement, or even scorn. It was from absolute incomprehension, as if what she said was unfathomable. “You’re not going to die, Jax.”
Wren said nothing, only stared at him, her lip trembling despite the drugs. Of course she was going to die. Everyone died. Especially in the Warrens. She’d be lucky to live to thirty even with perfect health.
No one lasted. Everyone ended up buried in mud, weighted down with stone so their bodies did not float up once they started to bloat and decompose. Just like the children buried behind her home. Just like all her dreams. Tie a rock to it and let it sink deep, deep down.
The Second Alpha glowered, a look far too similar to Caspian’s. “What good would you be to us sick? We take care of the girls in the pen. Caspian already spent a fortune on that special science muck he’s been feeding you, and Toby’s paying for your care. Me, I’ve been relegated to nursemaid… and believe me, I’ve got much better things to do than sit by the bedside of an ungrateful Omega.”
Sit at the bedside? Had he been here all this time?
Sinking into the pillows, and there were many, Wren took notice. She was in her own room. There were no curtains dividing her from other sick patients. There was even a window showing a view she had not seen since her father tossed her out of his moving vehicle right into the stinking mud.
This wasn’t a Warrens’ shanty town clinic. The posh facility was midlevel, there was even a little bit of horizon between the tall buildings.
“Haven’t seen it in a while, have you?”
It wasn’t exactly as she remembered. Drab… it was drab, no less spectacular than the light reflecting off the morning mud down below. But it was light, and it did hold a certain appeal.
The shuck of a belt, the metallic click of the buckle, all ignored while Wren took in the view. Tooth by tooth, the sounds of a zipper descending, then the atmosphere grew full of a scent that softened the astringent air.
From the corner of her eye, Wren could see Kieran pumping his fist in a measured stroke down an impressive erection. Slow, the way she’d learned he liked it. Staring at her watching the view.
How he found any of this stimulating, she’d never know, but she met his heated gaze and held it.
“Right there, that fucking look in your eye is so goddamn hot.”
What look? Resignation? But Wren was fooling herself. She’d been staring doe-eyed and full of nostalgia—maybe even wonder at that drab bit of sky. There had even been a soft smile playing at her lips as if this was her normal and she’d get to smile at the view every day.
She used to…
It hadn’t been all bad with her family. There had been times it had even been... nice.
And she had never gone hungry.
Starvation and how to cope with it was something she’d learned in the Warrens.
In this moment, in this room, even if her body ached under the drugs, she wasn’t hungry. Caspian had fed her. Kieran had bathed her. And Toby…
“Fuck… keep looking at me just like that.” Fist dragging upward, he pulled foreskin over a swollen crown. His slit oozed, a thumb running a circle over the mess before Kieran reversed direction and stroked from tip to base.
He liked to watch. Apparently that extended to her just sitting still. But she let him, that view cascading over them both, holding his eyes as he fucked his hand and made enough noise anyone outside that door would know an Alpha was seeking pleasure.
Standing from his chair, cock and balls framed by an open zipper, Kieran closed the small distance between them. “You don’t have to suck me, but I want you to swallow when I shoot my load. I want to be in your belly, sweet thing. Your first real meal that wasn’t jammed down a tube.” He took the back of her head, drawing her closer. “I can be gentle. Be a good girl and show me that you’re grateful.”
Spermy slime smeared her split lip. It stung, Wren unblinking as she met that gaze. And then he pushed inward, gently. Crown popping between her lips, the man managing to throw back his head, yet still hold her eyes.
Fist moving at a furious pace, he grunted in time with his hand.
Unsure why she did it, Wren gave a lick to the weeping slit staining her tongue. That was all it took, that one simple enticement before her cheeks flooded with flavor, and the Alpha groaned out a string of expletives—calling her a dirty slut no less than three times.
Cunt. Whore. Pretty, pretty tart.
That last one almost make her smirk.
It took several measured swallows to get it all, to feel his spend coating her esophagus and churning in her belly. A portion dripped from the corners of her mouth, running down her neck to blemish the collar of her hospital gown. The Alpha didn’t mind it one bit. Cock still bobbing in her face, he rubbed what leaked into her throat, sighing as if this was something he’d needed.
Maybe he had. A swallow from his fancy, dazed Omega set him at ease.
The doctor cleared his throat.
The connection was severed, Wren’s cheeks hot with shame to realize another person been witness to whatever insanity was just shared between them.
Backs of his fingers ran over the bone of her cheek, Kieran chuckled to see her so undone. “It never lasts, this look. All the girls in the pen lose it in time, though sometimes they try to fake it, but I can always tell.”
It never lasts because every last one of those women had been broken. It faded because those women were not loved, not by the males who kept them. Maybe even not by themselves.
Wren wanted to tell him this, but the pen and paper were gone, and unlike Toby, he had no interest in learning sign language. The Second may have been beautiful, maybe on some level he even thought his intentions were good—he certainly spoke in passion as if he did—but he was missing a fundamental piece of his soul.
Like Caspian, like charming, crazy Toby, Kieran was not a good man, and probably never had been.
And if she let them, the three of them would try to eat her until she was no different than jaded Rosie.
Caspian who stole her from her home. Kieran who liked to fuck her at her weakest moments. And Toby…
Her shoulder began to itch.
Absently scratching at the hospital gown, a gurgle of heartburn burned in her breast. Abandoning her shoulder to press against her sternum, Wren winced.
The noise she made drew the attention of the two men. Both watched very closely, but it was the doctor who asked, “Are you in pain?”
She wasn’t in anything, not with whatever drugs he’d pumped into her system, but she was something. Confused? Suddenly uneasy?
She’d played Kieran’s game; she had submitted to his pack… and found oblivion speared by Toby’s malformed cock. Pain, pleasure, all thoughts skidding to a mental halt until only the body existed and the mind had floated far away.
She let the Third do as he wanted with her, and her body had relished Toby’s brand of defilement in its own way. Because Caspian had been holding her, and Kieran had watched over.
But, Toby must have damaged her badly enough that she ended up here.
God, her chest hurt. She could feel pain, horrible gnawing pain no matter if she exhaled or held her breath. The room was spinning, the sounds of beeping machines fading into the hum of blood in her ears.
A pin light clicked, searing brightness burning through her pupil as the doctor forced open her lid. “She’s going to pass out if he doesn’t calm down.”
“I’ll deal with it.” Again, K
ieran gave her that look before he left the room.
Down the hall it sounded like something was breaking, shouts and roars. “I want to see her!”
The thumping pain redoubled until black crept through Wren’s vision and all went quiet.
The next time she woke, Kieran was back, the catheter was gone, and a second IV port was in her other arm. “Breathing treatment first, then food. And if you submit like the good girl Caspian says you are, I’ll take you to visit your boy.”
She sucked in air from the misting cup made to fit over nose and mouth. Without complaint, she ate a bowl of the same green sludge Caspian had fed her in her room. Sludge she now knew was more than food. It was alive, worked on the body from the inside out. Cost a fortune.
Because she was no good to them as a whore if she was sick.
And for some reason, she had woken up in a foul mood. Clearheaded, finally, she obeyed Kieran so that there would be no more injections or random swallows of creamy cum.
But bitterness tinged her actions. Wren had played their twisted sex games. She had kept her part of the bargain. And if Kieran didn’t keep his and take her to Mikael, he was going to pay. All this was in her glare as she swallowed the last taste of sludge, and slammed down her spoon on the tray.
“Feisty.”
Fuck you. Everyone knew that universal sign.
His attention piqued, Kieran raised a brow. It made him even more handsome, and made her even angrier.
“I can’t tell if that’s you or him, but I like it.” He helped her up, his normally cold sneers replaced with an oddly chipper wink. “Don’t be sore. I always keep my word. You can have your day with your boy.”
And she did. She had the perfect day sitting on the edge of Mikael’s bed and talking with someone she loved so much it hurt. She had a day of seeing him eat until he was full. A day of smiles.
A day to remember why she was doing this.
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 own 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.
