Killing may not be the best topic of conversation at the moment, all things considered, but I wanted to know. Who was the worst? I assumed her first answer would be Kylan, and I was right.
“Kylan,” she said without hesitation, glancing down the hall. “He’s the worst one. There’s one named Luther. When he pulls me out of the cell, I come back as one big bruise. And Jett… he got close enough to draining me of blood that he’s banned from seeing me, but I would still kill him.”
“What about Grey?” Shan asked.
Sliding her gaze back over to us, she shrugged. “No need to kill him, really. He’s never visited me. He sends healers down if it gets bad, and occasionally gives me extra food. I’ve never been certain if he’s in control of how much food I get in the first place, or if he breaks the rules by giving me more when I’m injured. Either way, I wouldn’t be the one to kill him. There are a thousand worse Alphas I would go for first.”
Huh. Why wouldn’t Grey take advantage of the benefits of being Kylan’s right-hand man? If this poor Omega could be pulled from her cell by so many of the men, Grey would have been allowed to use her in the same way.
Maybe he had a soul, after all, and didn’t want to take advantage of a helpless Omega.
Then again, maybe he hated fae more than Kylan did. If he hated them enough, he wouldn’t be keen on sticking his knot in one, Omega or not.
For Freya’s sake, I hoped for the first, but I knew reality was more likely to be the second. Though it didn’t explain why he gave her extra food or medicine.
It didn’t matter. Even if she wouldn’t kill him, he was near the top ofourlist.
“What’s your name?” I asked, leaving the musing for later.
“Iris.”
“I’m Caspian. This is Shan.”
“Nice to meet you. For what it’s worth, you seem nice enough, and if your Omega is a badass that gives you points in your favour. I wish you quick and painless deaths.”
She offered a small smile before crawling back into her cell. We couldn’t see more than vague shapes in the corner where she settled on a tiny mattress, covering herself in a couple of blankets.
It was an abrupt well-wish and exit, but I couldn’t blame her. The air was cold down here, and she was thin. Not to mention how she’d been talking about her trauma. It was a feat she was able to speak to us and didn’t cower in the corner when new Alphas were brought in to occupy the cage across from hers.
Unfortunately for me, the lack of conversation left me to focus only on my predicament again.
There was precious little arousal coming from Iris — for obvious reasons — and we weren’t close enough to anyone else for me to feed. Shan and I couldn’t touch ourselves or each other. All I could do was take deep breaths and try to focus on something else. Anything else.
“Hey,” Shan spoke soothingly, his tone low. “Hold on to our bonds, love. Think of her. Think of me. You’ll be able to hold it off until we figure out what to do.”
I offered him a wobbly smile, but then I spotted the vein on his neck and couldn’t stop staring at it.
He clanked his chains against the floor, bound in metal in addition to the shadow restraints, breaking me out of the trance.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. Focus on Freya and him. I could do it. I could shove off the desperate need to fuck or kill or both.
But for how long? And what would happen when Grey came back to find one of his prisoners practically foaming at the mouth?
TWENTY-SEVEN
Freya
In the private VIP lounge of Club Chaos, Oswald followed me around like a lost puppy as I drew wards on the walls with my wand.
Matthias had given in as I’d known he would, letting us stay. There was still the debate as to whether or not he would tell the AEA about our presence, but I was choosing to trust him. He’d kept the secret that I was an Omega for years, so I felt like he was committed to keeping me safe at this point.
My only doubt came from the fact that keeping me safe could possibly put his Omega in danger this time around. And Gemma, whom Mattie and Thereon were still discreetly flirting with, from what I’d gathered.
He was our only option, anyway. Nolan was waiting on a call back from Julian, a Zemterran Duke who was a friend of his, but until that panned out we were stuck. Plus, Mattie had promised to let me go through security footage from when I’d seen Kylan. It had been months ago, before Shan and Cas had shown up but after the amount of Alphas discovering my designation had begun to increase. I couldn’t recall the exact date, which was a pain in the ass, but if I sped through the footage I’d be able to spot him.
“Ozzy, can you go sit with Nolan or something?” I said after the third instance of me nearly running directly into him.
He bristled. “I’m helping.”