Текст книги "Jace"

Автор книги: Hall Sam

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8

Sloane

I woke up groggy and thirsty, although I’d drank the whole two-litre bottle of water that Emma had left for me. It was dark outside, the kind of dark that told me it was the middle of the night. I felt like I’d been hit by a train repeatedly, like I’d been torn inside out and then somebody had given me a beating for good measure. Plus, I was hot, sticky, and a little bit crusted in places, and I had a bad feeling that it was my slick. Jesus, I was a mess.

I could hear the mumble of voices beyond the door as I pushed the covers back, relieved, despite the pain, that I didn’t feel any of the burning need. It was there, simmering under the surface, but at least it wasn’t incapacitating me.

Hands trembling, I gathered my dressing gown from the chair and slipped it over my shoulders before pulling the belt tight. My eyes went unerringly to the bed—nest, I amended—a great jumble of clothing pilled deeply, then on to the decimated closet, where I’d tossed my rejected clothes to the floor.

The ground felt like it was shifting underneath me as I came to terms with what I had done, how I’d behaved, making me question who I was, because a stranger had invaded my body and taken it for a wild ride. Only it wasn’t a stranger and these urges were now part of me, had always been part of me, lying latent and unrealised, until I’d met Jace.

The sound of a cell ringing on the other side of the closed bedroom door drew my attention, and I padded over, ears straining, but I didn’t want to open it. What if it was him?

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” I heard Jude say. “I don’t know why you’re playing hard to get. We both know you want him.”

“It’s not that,” Emma replied. “I just—”

“What?” Jude demanded. “Girlfriend, he’s been wearing out that ringtone all day long. Why don’t you put it on mute?”

Suddenly, the ringing stopped. I thought at first that she’d answered it, but then it went quiet.

“I’m going to head off,” Jude said. “Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “I’ll go and check on her in a minute.”

“Good,” Jude replied. “Maybe take some more water.”

“I will,” Emma said. “I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”

A loud bang told me the front door had closed behind Jude. Knowing I needed to face this, I pushed my bedroom door open. Em’s eyes met mine from where she sat cross-legged on the couch, studiously ignoring the cell phone, which was buzzing incessantly on the coffee table.

She reached down and hit the button to turn it off.

Suddenly, I knew exactly who it was, who was calling. Hadn’t Emma mentioned being with an alpha last night…? Ryder… Was it the same Ryder that Jace introduced me to this morning? The same Ryder who was best friends with the alpha I’d bailed on?

“Who’s calling?” I asked, my voice little more than a croak.

“Nobody,” she said evasively.

My teeth clamped down tight, and I felt an answering ache in response. Shuffling over, I dropped down on the couch opposite Em. “Who is it?” I asked again.

“It’s just a guy I met last night. You know, the one I was with.”

Only it was more than just the guy she was with, because I’d bailed on his friend, and something told me an alpha didn’t take well to omega rejection. He’d wanted to take care of me, but my foggy mind couldn’t work out what that meant when all I could hear was the blonde girl’s words taunting me. I had my pride. I didn’t want to be just another omega in his stable.

I should have known better. Men like Jace, they weren’t for me. For Em, for Jewel, for any of the glittering, beautiful girls who brought men to their sides like bees to honey. Yeah, that made a whole lot more sense. Me? Jace would never have come near someone like me, not without those bloody hormones.

My hands shook as I brushed my hair back. Fool that I was, I had jumped in headfirst.

“I’ll get you some water,” she said, untangling her legs and rising, then she disappeared into the kitchen. As I heard the clatter of the cupboard opening followed by the tap as she filled up a glass, I took a moment to compose myself.

Handing me the drink, she took the couch opposite. “You seem different.”

“I’m an omega,” I replied.

Her face went deathly white. “What? How can you be an omega? Are you sure?”

Later in life reveals were rare, but despite the tests run and the reassurance from the doctor, I’d always known something was wrong. Now I knew why.

“I’m very sure,” I said. “I’ve just built a nest.” The nest building was the least of what had happened and the only part I felt comfortable discussing.

A giggle escaped her lips, and she pressed a hand to them like that might stifle it.

I laughed too, not a happy sound at all but…it was ridiculous. Then my smile faded because what followed was like experiencing a personalised hell.

“I need to get some suppressants,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Okay, how do we do…that?” She picked up her phone again, which immediately started buzzing. She frowned and declined the call, before tapping away on the screen. “Do you have other omega urges?”

“Yeah, and I wish I bloody didn’t.”

Emma laughed again, fingers lying over her phone screen. Given she’d been with an alpha last night, at least she wasn’t an omega. It would have tipped her over the edge, like me, had that been the case. “Em, you used protection, didn’t you?” Why was I asking her if she used protection? Had I? No, I hadn’t. I hadn’t used a bloody thing. Jesus. I was going to have to get myself checked!

Her face flushed bright red, her fingers paused, and she shook her head. “We didn’t,” she said. “We talked. We fooled around for a while, and he kept his pants on the whole time. I’ve never been so frustrated in all my life. Well, not that frustrated. But yeah, I wanted it. He wouldn’t let me have it.”

What the hell kind of guy didn’t take what was on offer?

“I think he’s a Dom.”

“A what?”

“A Dom, like you read about in the books? BDSM. I think that’s him in a nutshell.”

“He’s not a Dom.” I swiped a hand over my face. I wasn’t mentally present enough to cope with this conversation right now.

“Well, he’s got some very Dom-like tendencies,” she said, using her hand to fan herself. “I’ve never been so desperate to get into a man’s pants in my life, and he was having none of it. That’s iron control if ever I saw it.”

Yeah, I’d also experienced a lot of that last night…and this morning.

“So did you…” She nods her head at me. “Did you…with the other one?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what triggered me.” I searched for the point where I could have pulled away, could have made the right call. There were several points where I wasn’t yet wholly lost to my instincts. The most memorable was when I was standing there in Jace’s room.

“Take them off,” he’d said, no alpha bark, merely a suggestion I could refuse. “Take them off and show me the fucking beautiful body that makes mine ache. I’m so fucking hard, Sloane. Take them off, if this is what you want. If you want me.”

Then I’d stripped like a good little omega, especially for him.

I had picked him.

“I’m glad you’re not an omega,” I said. “Because everything is hell.”

“I thought it would be hot, you know, to be that into a man.”

Not all of it was bad, none of it was terrible. If I were honest, it was the most amazing experience of my life. Then he’d taken me for breakfast, introduced me to his little omega harem, and left me alone with them so they could fill me in. There had been cattiness, but there had also been a ring of truth. I was just another helpless woman that he’d picked up and cared for, driven by a weird kind of alpha protective urge.

I didn’t want to be looked after. I wanted to be claimed, wanted what he’d promised as he’d fucked me in the early hours of the morning, the sweet words about how he would share the burden with me, be a partner. Only he didn’t want to be my partner. He wanted to add me to his little harem.

I still wanted him. Jesus, I needed to take some suppressants, or I was never going to think straight.

My stomach flip-flopped, and heat washed over my body in a new and yet familiar way.

Fuck! No, don’t let it be starting again. I groaned and pressed my hand to my belly. I could feel slick seeping. I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I can’t. I’m gonna make a mess on the couch! “Emma, I need those suppressants,” I said, the words half lost in another groan as savage contractions spasmed through my gut. It felt like a tiny little fist was abusing my womb. I was sinking already, lost…burning hot.

“Sloane?” Em’s worried voice came at me from a great distance as I rose, staggering to my feet. Nest, I needed my nest. I needed someone to come and take this away.

Someone came all right, but not with the suppressants I needed. I was buried in my nest, but even that tight ring of fabric and the darkened room wasn’t enough. What was happening to me made period cramps feel like foreplay. I was being ripped in two, my whole body convulsing with the pain that racked me, and I couldn’t even scream. Every muscle, every ligament strained to bear whatever the fuck this was, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, they came. The door cracked open, and with what remaining strength I had, I cringed back, the light stabbing me in the eyes.

“Sloane? Oh shit—!”

“Just leave it to us, ma’am. You said she was with an alpha last night?”

“Ah…yeah, but what does that—”

“No way he’d leave a tasty little morsel like this alone. He’s rutted her, sent her into a frenzy. She’s one step away from her heat.”

“Yes, that. She said she needed suppressants, like right now.”

“We’ll need to get her down to the Dawn Agency. At her age, fucking around with an alpha so soon after discovering her true nature… It complicates things.”

“What? But I thought—”

“Please, let us do our job. You’ll be able to come and see your sister once we’ve got her settled and sedated. Damn omegas, when they get fixated on something, they can be a bloody nightmare to deal with.”

As if on cue, my lips moved of their own accord.

“Jace…” It was a whisper, a plea, a bargaining with forces I didn’t understand, because somehow, I knew he was the answer to this. We’d called the wrong people, because they weren’t able to give me what I needed, only he was.

But instead of my alpha, his dark woody scent, his strong hands, his taste in my mouth, I got several pairs of harsh, biting fingers that dug into my skin, then gripped tighter still when I started to thrash.

“Jesus fucking Christ, the little bitch has gone deep! Shoot her up with something to calm her the fuck down!”

“No!”

I screamed, Em screamed, it felt like the world screamed, and I imagined somewhere out there in Desparion, he heard us, but they paid us little mind. My skin was pinched before a needle stuck in, sending a cloud of icy cold haziness through my limbs. Like a good little omega, I went limp, everything starting to fade.

“What the hell did you do? I asked for suppressants!” I dimly heard Em shout, but that soon faded.

“You don’t get to make the choices now. She’s an omega. She belongs in the Dawn Agency until a suitable alpha can be found for her.”

“You’re banishing her to an alpha zone? Who the hell do you think you are? She’s independently wealthy. She’s not going to live in some slum, popping out alpha babies!”

“Not any more she’s not. The assets of omegas are seized by the state until such time as a family member is approved to transfer them to. You’ll need to put in an application with the Office of Omega Affairs.”

“I don’t want her ‘assets,’ I want my sister! Where the hell are you taking her? Sloane? Sloane!”

And with that, I was carried out in a series of rocking movements that made my gut twist, then even that faded away. All there was, was nothing.

9

Jace

Time had stopped, there was only one endless moment of fucking waiting, my hands clenched tight into fists. No one came in or out of my office and there was only this suffocating fucking silence, so maybe that was why I heard her.

I jerked upright, as sure as if someone had shot a thousand volts of electricity through me, because I could hear her as if she were standing in the same room with me. “Jace…” But I knew she wasn’t. Her voice, my name, it was choked out, as if between gritted teeth, the voice of pain. My omega was hurting—no, in agony.

My omega…

I could feel her consciousness snuffing out like a blown candle and knew who would be doing that. There was only one organisation in the whole city who’d see an omega and think sedating her into oblivion was the right way to go. I shoved that thought aside as I got to my feet, striding to the door before throwing it open.

“Get a car ready!” I snarled, at who, I didn’t know. People jumped to their feet though, ready to do my bidding. “We’re going to the Dawn Agency.”

“I hate to throw a spanner in the works,” Ryder said, stalking over to fall in step beside me, “but we’re not the only skin in this game.”

“What’s happened?” I demanded as we hustled down the corridors before pushing out the double emergency doors and taking the stairs down to the underground garage. It was only a couple of floors, and the stairs were quicker than the elevator.

“Snake just went mobile,” Ryder said. “I’ve long had a suspicion that he has contacts in the Dawn Agency. That place is corrupt as fuck, makes Desparion look like a kindergarten picnic. You can feel her?”

“Yep. They’ve got her, Ryder.” I stopped, and it felt like the world stopped with me when I did. I stared at the man I considered my brother, my heart smashing inside my chest. “They’ve drugged her, have to have taken her to the Dawn Agency.”

“Figured as much. The guys have been on high alert since she left. They’re ready to roll.”

We slammed out the next double emergency doors into the wet parking garage, where two blacked out SUVs waited, along with the rest of the team.

“We both know those centres are run by dodgy arseholes who want nothing more than to eliminate alphas and omega from society, take whatever hard-earned cash they have, and funnel it off somewhere,” Ryder said, a familiar rage simmering in his voice.

The SUV doors were flung open, and we piled inside. As the door slammed on us, we rolled out.

“What’s the deal?” Dane demanded from the front, throwing a glance over his shoulder at me.

“She’s been taken,” I said.

“Centre?” he asked.

He didn’t question how I knew. I’d been going nuts ever since Sloane had left. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that we had already begun to bond. I nodded.

“Fuck,” Dane muttered.

Betas, they dealt with the emergence of alphas and omegas in their midst through the Dawn Agency or the Agency for Alpha Control. If you were smart, you avoided them, and I’d hoped Sloane was. The Dawn Agency was corrupt as fuck, but at least they offered a pretence of being civilised. Alpha Control was more about rounding ’em up and throwing ’em into the zone. Dane and I had battled it out on the streets until we were finally caught and tossed into the zone without a care. Ryder had come from money, a pretty future mapped out for him before he late-bloomed as an alpha. So yeah, your life was fucked-up if you didn’t reveal as a beta, and for some, the transition was harder than others

“When was the last time you tried her sister?” I asked Ryder.

“An hour ago,” he said, already fishing in his pocket and dragging out his phone. “Maybe the little brat will be up for talking now.”

He thumbed his phone and hit a button before switching it to speaker mode.

It picked up on the first ring, and a hysterical “Ryder!” came down the line.

“I’m here, Emma,” he said, his voice the calm, smooth one that insisted everything was going to be just fine. I’d seen him use that voice on lowlifes to get information from them right before he coldly put a bullet between their eyes.

Hard to believe Ryder was a born to rule prick who’d once attended a prestigious school.

“They took her!” Emma wailed into the phone. I might have laughed at the notion of Ryder needing to up his game if I hadn’t been so fucking wired myself.

“Who, baby?” Ryder asked. “The centre? Tell me what happened. But first, are you somewhere safe?”

“I—yes. Jude is coming to pick me up. I’m outside. The apartment is in Sloane’s name, so they have taken possession of it. There’s security tape over the door! She was going into heat or something. She was in pain, so we called the Dawn Agency.” Her words tumbled out faster and faster. “I thought they would be like, a doctor or something, maybe give her tablets to ease the symptoms, but they gave her an injection and she just went limp. That was when they carried her out into an ambulance, wouldn’t let me go with her. Told me I would be contacted at some point.”

She fell into sobbing.

“I didn’t know what to do. She’s always been the strong one. I needed to help her, and now I’ve made everything worse. I’m so frightened for her.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Ryder said. “How far away is Jude?”

“He said five minutes.”

“Okay, you stay on the line until he gets to you. We’re going to get your sister out.”

“You can do that?” Her tears had settled down, and there was a note of hope in her voice.

“Baby, you’d be surprised what we can do.”

“He’s here!”

“Good girl, now go with him. We’re about to lose signal, but keep your phone with you and charged. When I call you, I expect you to answer. We’re going to be having a long chat about your disobedience next time we meet. Don’t make that any worse.”

“Okay.” There was a loud sniff followed by a click as the car door shut. I heard the other guy yelling what the fuck was happening and her shushing him. “But, Ryder, you better get my sister.” She hung up just as we hit the tunnels.

The full beams came on, and the car dipped down into the darkness. It was always wet in the tunnels, and our passage sent a spray up as we bounced and rolled over the rutted ground. “Little fucking brat,” Ryder rumbled at the phone. “Gonna be begging me to give your arse the spanking it needs.”

I snorted out a laugh because I wanted to strangle Sloane’s sister myself for not answering the fucking phone, but seeing Ryder lose his shit was gold. At least Sloane’s location had been confirmed, although my spidey sense said I could lead us there anyway.

“We got a clear path?” I asked Dane, who was in the driver’s seat.

“Clear-ish,” he said. “Reports of a higher than average number of roadblocks today, so it might be slow going and I can’t guarantee we won’t come up against resistance, but we’ll get it done.”

The concrete tunnels that welcomed us were affectionately known as the catacombs—a network of passages that ran like rabbit warrens between Desparion and Beta Zone. Various beta agencies had tried shutting them down with limited success. Most of the remaining exits came up in the rough parts of beta turf, and the inhabitants there were happy to keep them open, given the trade and passage was lucrative.

“Switching to short wave radio,” Dane said, flipping a switch on the dash so we could keep in contact with our SUV following behind.

We were going in to get my girl, dressed like we were Alpha Control agents to explain our presence. They always used the biggest, baddest betas they could find, and sometimes we wondered if there were some alphas on the downlow there. Didn’t matter. We’d get in, get out, and the betas? They’d let us in the front door. Without a word, we readied weapons, slipped headsets on, and buckled into Kevlar vests that were kept in readiness under seats. After the wait, I welcomed the action that felt like a fever coursing through my blood. My baby was hurting. Someone had fucking drugged her.

My beast growled, pacing within me. The cage I kept him in was battered and starting to fail. His snarl was as much for me as for the people that would dare to touch our omega.

My mate, he insisted, declaring once and for all what we both knew—Sloane was ours and we were hers, and no amount of running would change that.

Fuck with what was mine, and you would get fucked up twice as hard. And if Snake had poked his nose in this, I was going to end that prick as well.

Sloane

My return to consciousness was a long and painful one.

“Well, well, look what we have here.”

The voice was a heavy, deep purr that seemed to crawl all over my skin. It had none of Jace’s rough rasp, and I hated it. This was an unctuous voice that dripped over me, marking me as his, and his hands, they followed soon after. I shivered when I felt the warm pressure of them around my ankles, pulling my legs apart, prying them when I fought his grip, then came a long exhale.

“Well that’s some grade A omega pussy right there. Look at how fucking swollen she is. That clit, it’s like a little grape, waiting to be plucked, and her slick…” I shivered on the table I was lying on, twisting and turning but not getting very far. My limbs felt like lead, my head spinning so violently, I felt like I was going to be sick, but his voice, it stopped me, kept me pinned to the bed, kept my bile where it belonged, kept my thighs spread, showcasing my stupid omega cunt to him. I blinked and blinked, forcing my eyes wide, flinching when I did, because there they were.

I’d seen men like this, that looked you over like you were a side of beef, weighing you up and dissecting you, searching for the weak spots. As a beta, I would never be anything but a thing for them, but as an omega? Less rights, less brains, just an instinct driven little bitch that was destined to spend her life on her knees.

I’d run out on Jace, and never had I regretted that more than I did now, as the alpha with the ice blue eyes stared down between my legs, his tongue flicking out to coat his lips, while he imagined exactly what he was going to do with me.

“What do you want for her?” he asked, feigning a degree of disinterest, but I wasn’t fooled. His alpha pheromones choked me—menthol, basil, and cigarette smoke. I swallowed furiously, trying to clear my throat, but I couldn’t.

“Snake, this is a preview,” an orderly said, trying for decisive but only sounding whiny. “We can’t sell her off to you yet. This one, she’s connected to one of the hoity toity beta families. She can’t just disappear. People will ask questions and—”

“How. Much?”

Then my body did something that just drove home the shittiness of the situation. I didn’t want this man’s hands on me, didn’t want those freakishly pale eyes staring down at me, piercing me, but the very cunt he’d described so thoroughly? A gush of slick oozed out at the sound of his growl.

It’s an instinctive reaction, I told myself furiously. You know this. Omegas can be raped, just like anyone else. This is sexual assault. He’s touching you without your permission!

That last bit somehow brought my body back under my control. I jerked my knees shut, scrambling off and away from the examining table I’d been lying on, even as my legs threatened to give out. I shoved down the hospital gown I was dressed in, my lips pulled back in a snarl.

“Ohh, baby… That was exactly the wrong thing to do,” Snake said, a slow shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “You wanna run, little girl? Fucking run. I love it when you put up a fight.”

“Snake, we can’t do this, not yet. You’ll need to pay more—”

“Name your fucking price. This little bitch ran from me twice now, and my beast? He can’t let that shit slide.” His arm twisted, revealing a long, highly detailed snake tattoo all the way down one arm. “I need her taste in my mouth and my fangs in her flesh.”

I didn’t know why I moved, since there was nowhere to go. Back to the wall, I kept him in my line of sight while I tried to ascertain a way out, but the room appeared to be locked down tight. The orderlies got twitchy, moving towards the door, a hand shifting across the wall to a red button that seemed to be an alarm.

Yes, that, a primitive part of my mind shrieked. Alarms brought people, attention, even fire sprinklers, and I was willing to bet no one here wanted an audience for the shit they were trying to pull. So I did something I really didn’t want to do.

“Leave me alone,” I cried piteously, only partly making this shit up. Real tears pricked my eyes, because fuck this arsehole and fuck the weasel dicks who let him near me. “I don’t want you. I want Jace.”

Ouch. I was trying to goad the alpha, get him angry and stupid, so why did it feel like someone had detonated a bomb behind my sternum? My words had an instant effect, Snake’s gorgeous face becoming monstrous as his lips pulled back in a snarl. Great, now what?

Omegas were supposed to have greater speed and agility, my human biology teacher at high school told me, and I was about to put that to the test.

“You’ll want what I tell you,” Snake snarled and then lunged as a pitiful little squeak escaped me.

But I was ducking out from under his arms and scrambling over to the doors before slamming my hand down on the alarm, when the orderlies went to stop me from leaving.

The place erupted. Sirens wailed, red lights flashed, and best of all, the doors swung open on automatic, obviously in preparation for an evacuation.

“You stupid bitch!” Snake snapped, grabbing for me, but the bed was now in his way and he had to scramble over it.

“We need to get her out of here and into containment, now,” one orderly said to the other, also trying to catch me and getting in Snake’s way. “An omega running loose during an evacuation? Our heads will be on the block! Get her!”

But I didn’t give a damn about that. With adrenaline pumping through me, giving me speed and strength I wouldn’t have thought possible, I was out of that room and down the hall. The problem was, where to go?

I sprinted along the corridor, weaving through the beta orderlies as I went, somehow empowered when we went running in the same direction, but then they caught sight of my gown, marking me indelibly as what I was.

“Stop her!” came familiar voices down the hallway.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” someone called.

Where? I had no idea, but something told me that the swinging doors in front of us might have the answer, so I put on speed, getting closer and closer until…

A strong hand slapped down around my wrist, stopping me mid stride and yanking me to a stop, pulling me out of the flow of rushing bodies. My eyes jerked up, seeing him for the first time.