Anarchy, p.5
Anarchy, page 5
He was in his late thirties—or early forties, if I were to guess—with a thick, more-salt-than-pepper beard. He was huge, with tattoos covering him head to toe, and piercing blue eyes that didn’t seem to miss much.
Leaving Phantom, Bug, and Rick to poke about at the goods, I approached Dominic.
The Redgrave pack were dwellers, which meant they’d let the last appeal lapse—and they’d done so over a decade ago.
Dwellers were most often packs with enough established dominance and comfort in Anarchy, that they’d decided they preferred this to the life waiting for them outside.
I got it, to an extent.
I’d been here a year and a half, and this was my only normal.
It was worse for those who had no memories from before, like Karma. I had a few flashes, but they were messy and not reflective of the world that might wait for me.
Bright lights.
Violent fights.
Injections.
I was an anomaly with blood-red eyes that unnerved anyone who looked at me. This place was better than that, a thousand times over.
Well, it was after I found my pack.
Dwellers like the Redgrave pack also had alliances that were hard to shake, which is why I was glad we were going to be out of here in less than a month. I didn’t want to stick around long enough to know where Holden’s pack would be in a few years.
“Looking for something in particular?” Dominic asked, eyes flashing with delight as he took me in. “I heard you did something rather… out of line today.”
I folded my arms, leaning against the metal bedpost. “Only if I didn’t get away with it.”
“You stepped on a dweller’s rights.”
“New dweller. And he shouldn’t have made it so easy.”
Dominic snorted, then tugged out a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it, then burned through a quarter of it in one inhale—which was as close to a power move as you could get in a place with such limited resources. He let out a plume of smoke and glanced at me.
“You want my blessing?”
“I thought we had something special,” I replied. He held it in, but at Dominic’s chuckle, I felt Phantom’s flash of irritation through the bond as he picked his nail absently with a knife we definitely couldn’t afford. He was close enough to be listening to every word.
“Is there any chance you might have something for a…” I threw a glance at the ceiling. Fuck this. He already knew. “I need supplies for her.”
“Supplies?”
I shot him a bitter smile. “Clothes. Underwear. Pants.”
I think we could manage with oversized tops for her. Everyone in here wore varying shades of light grey to white outfits.
But the rest was needed.
“That’s all?” he asked.
“Drugs for heats?” There was no way we could risk that with Crescent.
I’d known her for less than an hour, but I did know I would never risk allowing her to go into heat in this place. Omegas in heats were where heads rolled, bonds were stolen, and blood clogged the gutters.
“I’m out,” Dominic said with a bitter smile. “Someone keeps burning through my whole supply.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was already doing calculations in my head. Could I make it work without? We already had—
The sharp scent of eucalyptus drew my full attention. I glanced over to see their omega, Matt, skulk into the room. He was in his mid thirties, scarred from head to toe, one of which cut a line into his buzzed, dark hair, and he had an unnerving, crooked smile. He was, however, most notable for the fact he was missing three fingers. Rumours told of his own alphas biting them off during a heat in which he’d gone rabid, but I’d only heard hearsay, so who really knew.
It was hard not to be on alert in the room, since he was as feral and unpredictable as any alpha in here—but with far more immunity.
He shot me a lazy smile that was more threatening than pleasant, eyes flicking to the scars he’d left me, then climbed up onto his nest, which was stuffed with more contraband than any other individual in Anarchy.
I was very lucky that a pack with this much power was content with Matt, or they’d already be sweeping our blood down the drain in the corner for claiming Crescent.
“You have the rest?”
“You know,” Dominic mused. “I do.”
I paused at that. He had… underwear for a female omega?
I’d been expecting to have to wait on another delivery. He laughed, then took another drag of his cigarette. “I wouldn’t usually share this, but the Bradford pack had certain… interests they didn’t want aired publicly. They died before I got my payment.”
Ah.
Right.
Dominic lifted a bundle at his side.
I took it, pulling back the fabric to confirm he was exactly right. Inside were a few sets of sweats that I assumed were small, and a bundle of lingerie. All of it aside from the sweats were beyond scandalous, but it would do.
I covered it up, looking back at Dominic. “Price?”
There was a shit-eating grin on his face as he flashed a crooked tooth. I knew the words before they were out of his mouth. “I’d like to see them put to use.”
“No.” The answer was out of my mouth before I could even think it through.
He wanted to see Crescent in this?
I’d die first.
“Come now,” Dominic mused. “We’re all dying to see what happened to what should have been Holden’s… What a show that would be.”
I’d been in enough of Dominic’s shows to know that she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Not the delicate, clingy omega that I’d carried back to our cell. And Karma and Phantom already hated it enough when I was in those damn cages.
They wouldn’t let her go in.
No way.
“There’s gotta be something else you want.” It was a challenge not to growl the words.
He chuckled. “You’ve already given me everything I want. Unless you have some trump card you’ve been hiding?”
My jaw tightened. I wasn’t yet out of options when it came to trade, but the time between now and our appeal felt eternal and I wasn’t willing to give it up yet. To do so might mean death, and there might still be other ways out of this.
“Thought so,” Dominic said into my heavy silence. “This’ll be the event of the century.”
It was hard, keeping his words from setting me off. Instead, I swallowed back my fury. “Who can come?”
“Anyone that pays the entry fee.”
“No.” That could mean Holden. “Besides, I’m not speaking for her if she’s not bitten in.”
“Then get her a pretty bite. Won’t that make the show so much better?”
I remained silent, mind working a million miles a minute.
Dominic continued, unprompted. “I’m going to see that omega in a cage, one way or another. The question isn’t if, it’s who will be ruining her when she’s there. Count yourself lucky, Sin, that I find you a desirable option.”
Still, I remained, trying to decipher the level of commitment he had to this threat.
“Take them,” Dominic said, nodding at the bundle.
Walking in here was a fucking mistake. He’d decided what he wanted before we even came, and I should have known what it would be.
All I could do was try and buy us some time.
“The deal isn’t complete until she’s bitten,” I said.
Dominic raised his eyebrows, then shrugged, taking the last drag of his cigarette before dropping it to the stone.
“Fine.”
I nodded. I would talk to her first. If she didn’t want this—if we had to fight the Redgrave pack… Well. That would be an all out war…
Fuck me.
I’d figure it out.
“If she agrees. That means protection,” I added. I wouldn’t take any deal without that.
“You’re spoiled.”
“You could set all of Anarchy on us—take her anyway. You know I don’t go anywhere without causing problems. If you want what you’re asking for, it means protection, plain and simple. Bite or no bite.”
There was a long pause as Dominic crushed the cigarette beneath his foot, humour dancing in his eyes. “Alright. I’ll keep an eye out. But the more of my protection you use up, the more it’s gonna cost you.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Vague as it was, it was more than I could have reasonably hoped for.
At the end of the day, this protection might be the only thing that kept our pack alive.
Art.
Entertainment.
That was the true currency second to only one—if you distinguished between entertainment and omegas.
But some in here—well, they didn’t distinguish at all.
8
CRESCENT
“You tried to damn him!”
I couldn’t see the one who said that through my blindfold, but I could hear the wrath in their voice. The hatred.
“N-no.” This was a misunderstanding. “I didn’t. I swear—”
“You little liar.”
Panic gripped me.
I was forever a curse.
I never meant any of this. I’d repented and begged. But now, I was here again in this room, surrounded by stone walls.
Karma had caught my scent and completely lost his senses.
I was trapped between his massive, warm body and the bed. He was everywhere, a fresh ocean storm, laced with insanity. His fingers gripped my hair, holding me in place as, for the second time since arriving here, teeth grazed my neck.
My breath caught, an unexpected shot of warmth seeping into my heart.
He wanted me. It was a desperate, joyous whisper. We were destined for each other, and he wanted me.
My heart choked instantly with guilt.
What was I thinking?
“She would have seen him suffer hellfire. I need her to feel what that means.”
I was so selfish.
Karma let out a wounded sound, drowning my nightmare. He drew back, and then once more, his teeth grazed my skin. But again, there was no full bite.
I frowned, shaking fingers finding his chest before I realized.
Oh.
He wasn’t pack lead.
That was why he couldn’t bite me into the pack.
And then reality set in.
The inky blackness swallowing his rich brown irises whole. There was nothing left in those eyes but a beast.
What had I done?
I’d corrupted him.
And they were all next.
Sin had claimed me as theirs before they left—they wanted to keep me, I thought, but that would only make this worse.
Karma was mad, already. Corrupted before he’d even completed a bond.
He drew me close, teeth resting against my flesh as he curled up around me as if torn between trying to bite me again, and just holding me close.
I tried to calm my breathing, tugging carefully on the blankets, trying to get another layer between us.
How much more could he take?
Could I corrupt him more?
But I knew the answer to that from the sparks that rolled through our contact. He tensed at my movement, and I slowed, stroking his arm, desperately trying to calm him as I tugged at the towel and sheets. I hummed a shaky tune, something my mother had hummed as she folded laundry or cooked.
She’d been taken away for damning me, sent to the Convent so I couldn’t harm anyone else. But in the end, I’d been banished, for the alpha I’d damned was Luke Anderson—the son of a High Priest.
And now, even in my punishment, I couldn’t stop. I was more of a blight than she had ever been.
There was a faint banging in the distance.
A rhythmic, metal-like thump, thump, thump that kept going. The shouts and howls of a thousand broken alphas in this place. The noises were sometimes louder, sometimes quieter as I kept up my melody.
It felt like forever before I heard footsteps, then the metal creak of the door.
“Karma—ah shit!” That was Phantom’s voice. His scent of gunmetal. It was like my senses were heightened, and it was a perfect pairing with ocean storm and desert eclipse.
Devastatingly good.
Like the scents could wrap me up and make me forget how awful I was.
I shook the thought loose.
They’d come back.
Oh…
My prayers were rarely real, but right now I sent one up to the heavens. That they wouldn’t lose themselves, too.
Not Phantom or… or Sin. This was his pack, right? He would be able to offer me that bite.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
He couldn’t.
I heard Karma’s growl. It vibrated down to my bones, daring me to curl up closer, to accept his claim. His protection.
But I shouldn’t.
How cruel and wrong.
I dared a glance up, keeping my eyes mostly shut. The room was blurred through lashes, but I could see Phantom standing over the bed. Karma drew me closer, growling again.
For the first time in my life, I was being held the way I dreamed—and it was among the ashes of pure destruction.
He was completely gone.
I’d done that.
I choked back tears.
They were right. The Sisters had been right.
First Luke Anderson, and now… now this beautiful alpha, who’d been cursed for offering me protection.
Ash had always muttered during lessons that ‘corruption’ was a stupid lie, and she knew so because they never told us exactly what it meant. But now I was seeing it—and it was real.
Karma was letting out a threatening growl to his own packmate.
This was true evil.
I jumped at a cool touch on my arm and shifted to see Sin was climbing into the bed beside us both. Karma didn’t react like he had before, though he still drew me tighter. I watched as Sin nudged Karma’s chin with his knuckle, turning his palm and resting it on his packmate’s cheek.
Karma didn’t growl this time, and I thought maybe his grip on me might have loosened somewhat.
Was that a pack lead thing?
Sin shifted closer, hand winding beneath me. His touch was so safe. So cool. He drew me up, towel and blankets and all, forcing Karma to adjust.
I looked into Karma’s eyes properly again, voids of black.
Nothing left…
“W-what…” I could barely find my words. “What have I done?” My voice broke with a flood of tears.
“You, angel?” Sin asked, sounding surprised.
I nodded, hot tears leaking down my cheeks.
Just minutes ago, he was in the shower room, a beautiful smile on his face.
I’d… I’d been too close. Too… much for him. I should have known.
“It’s just more than he’s used to,” Sin murmured. “More than any of us are used to.”
This was all wrong.
“You alright?” Sin asked, and I saw he was fixated on Phantom.
I followed his gaze.
Phantom looked strained as he stared at me, like he was seeing a ghost. His rich olive skin was ashen, and he had a scattering of freckles on his cheeks. He was running anxious fingers through messy, dark brown hair, and intent eyes were fixed on me, the deep brown almost gone in lieu of dilated pupils. I hadn’t got a good look at him before, or been able to focus on how pretty he was.
They all were. And kind.
But I’d be their ruin.
Phantom looked sickly, staring at me, jaw clenched tight enough to crack, as if I was hurting him by being here.
I dropped my gaze, guilt twisting me up.
He… knew.
He knew and he hated me.
I’d always despised the blindfolds back in the Convent. But now I knew why they’d made us wear them.
Too curious.
Too selfish.
Tempting those around us just because we hadn’t the restraint to keep our eyes down.
Sin adjusted again, just carefully enough he didn’t upset Karma, who still had his arms around me tight. He was beneath me, now, easily able to keep me on his lap, which should make me more unnerved since there were no towels or blankets on that side.
But he was safe.
I couldn’t explain it.
I felt like he was a whole piece of me in a way I couldn’t describe.
But I didn’t know what it meant.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I should move away from them alright now—it was the only way to save them. My first twitch of movement made Karma growl, though, his grip tightening on me.
Sin flicked him in the nose with a gentle scoff. “You don’t need to apologize,” he said, continuing under his breath. “Never thought he’d meet his scent match, I bet. He wasn’t prepared.”
My gaze snapped up to his, icy shock seeping down my spine. “S-scent match?”
No, that wasn’t what this was.
It couldn’t be. Scent matching a gold pack omega… It was a true curse. I was cursing them.
Once realized, a scent match was absolute. It locked out all other possibilities. I was all they’d ever have in a match until the moment I died.
I stifled a low whine of panic.
Phantom sat on the bed opposite us, eyes fixed on Karma with concern, which sent another shot of panic through my system.
His friend.
His packmate.
My… No.
I shook my head. “No, I… I’m just not used to being around alphas. T-touch starved. That’s why your scents are all…”
Sin tucked a strand of wet hair behind my ear, a little wrinkle between his eyes. “You’re ours.”
A fresh wave of tears streamed down my cheeks, and I struggled to choke down my sobs. Why did they all seem so comfortable with being cursed?
I corrupted their packmate, cursed them with my scent, and Sin only held me tighter against his chest as I cried.
And like the selfish sinner I was, I let him comfort me. I let their scents wash over me in soothing waves, Karma’s fresh ocean, while Sin’s desert eclipse only clung faintly to the blankets, his blockers still stopping me from experiencing it straight from the source.
