“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Freya has two other mates who are currently with her. Both of them are going to be more helpful than you at this moment, despite the fact that Oswald looks like a flailing baby deer when he holds a weapon.”
“I—”
Emmett cut off Shan’s tirade this time, shaking his head. “Don’t, Shan. She’s got it, and you’ll be useless. The plan is solid. If we had the time we’d tell you about it, but we don’t, and if anyone overhears us, the plan is shot to hell. I’m not letting you go to her, and if I have to get Altair to bind you again, I’ll do it.”
My mate deflated, and I slid down Em’s body to go to him instead. Going up to my toes, I kissed him softly. “I’m sorry I drained you,” I murmured. “If she… if anything happens, it’s my fault.”
His hand grabbed my neck with a surprising amount of force. A fire lit in his deep brown eyes that I hadn’t seen in days. “Fucking angels, Caspian. Nothing is your fault. Ever. Don’t say shit like that.”
I blinked, trying to believe him.
The hand on my throat stroked my primal instincts, and the deep kiss he landed on my lips in the next moment made me squirm.
“If you want the Omega to come with us, someone needs to get her out of this cage,” Altair said. “We’ve wasted too much time already. This also isn’t the moment for you to make out, I hate to say.”
Shan released me with a scolding look, and I scurried over to Iris. She’d curled in on herself, her head pressed to her knees. Her frail body was heaving as she hyperventilated and I paused at the entrance to her cell. “You don’t have to come,” I said softly.
Should I be the one talking to her? She’d seen me go berserk, had watched as I’d reached through the bars in my eagerness to kill people, while iron burned my skin. If she was terrified of Alphas, as she should be, I had an extra layer of ‘scary’ to me.
“We can lock the cage back up and it’ll be like we never tried to take you.”
Through her mass of dark blue hair, she shook her head.
“No. I want to leave,” she said. “Even if I die on the way out, that’s better than staying here.”
“You won’t die on the way out,” Altair said. “We’re professionals.”
Her gaze snapped up to his, her wet eyes shining in the faint light from the hall. “Professionals who aren’t actually here for me. I know I’ll be the first one sacrificed if things go wrong.”
“I’d never sacrifice a defenceless woman, let alone an Omega.”
“So you’d sacrifice Caspian, then? Because he’s a man and an Alpha?”
Altair snorted. “Myself.”
Iris’ eyebrows drew together. She doubted him, obviously. I didn’t. Stepping into the cell, I reached out a hand to help her up. Her hesitance showed, but she took it. Her legs gave out beneath her when she stood, but I caught her under the arms and held her up. “Sorry,” I said as I laid an arm around her shoulders. “I know you probably don’t like my scent getting all over you.”
She shook her head. Her feet were bare except for a thin pair of slippers, and her clothes were well worn. I wished I had something to give her, but I wasn’t wearing much for clothing myself and it was all covered in blood. “No, your scent is fine. It’s very weak because you’ve been claimed.”
I reached my free hand up to rub the mark on my neck. I’d forgotten it made me less appealing to Omegas, but I hadn’t realized it would make my scent weaker too. It worked in our favour right now. I didn’t want to terrify Iris.
Altair led the way down the hall, past rows of empty cells. He asked Iris if there were any other prisoners, but she confirmed there weren’t. Sky took up the back, casting a cloak of invisibility over us as we wandered out the door and into what appeared to be a basement of a vast mansion.
A guard was dead beside the door, his body held up by tendrils of shadow like the restraints that had held Shan. It made the scene look less suspicious to anyone wandering by. He wouldn’t appear dead unless you got close enough to see the darker stain on his black shirt and the lifeless staring of his eyes.
Iris didn’t flinch at the sight of death.
Through the halls we wandered, seeming to be going in no clear direction. Maybe I was disoriented because I’d only wandered these halls while feral or with tears blurring my vision. When Altair held up a hand, we all stopped behind him. Emmett had kept one hand on my back this whole time, as if scared to let me go.
Voices came down the corridor, and a second later two men turned the corner.
Luther.
Iris and I froze in unison. She released a little squeak of terror that drew Altair’s attention, while my sudden anxiety made both of my mates draw closer to me. Shan knew why Luther created such a reaction, but Emmett had no idea. His hand gripped my hip, stopping me from moving.
“Wonder how many people the hybrid will kill this time around?” Luther said with a laugh, the other man guffawing along. “He’s so pathetic. Cries himself to sleep after he comes out of it, as if he didn’t kill a bunch of worthless townspeople.”
I leaned into Emmett’s touch, unsure if I could keep myself standing upright. Luther’s words made me remember. Blood. Guts. Throats torn out with my fucking teeth, like I was an animal. Bodies strewn across the floor of the high-ceilinged lounge where they’d contained me with my carefully chosen prey.
