Текст книги "Jace"

Автор книги: Hall Sam

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13

Jace

She needed me.

That was the beginning and the end of it.

I was trying to keep it together, be rational, and make this good for her in every way, but I was an alpha, and I had a beastly side that was clamouring for his time.

Rut.

The word rattled around in my brain. He was taunting me with it, reminding me, as if I could forget, that this was who I was. What had happened to my sister had left scars on us both, not the kind you could see with your eye, but the deeper ones we carried around inside. It was time for me to move on, and my beast was ready to push the matter this time.

I rolled fully above her, her legs falling open instantly, wet cunt on display, hips already lifting, encouraging me to ease the ache. An ache I understood, since the same fever was calling to me.

My mouth found the crook of her throat, and I nipped, relishing her little hiss. Fingers skittered over her belly all the way to her slick pussy, then farther down until they brushed against the base of the plug. She hissed again, then it turned into a groan as I sucked hard against her throat, careful to keep my fangs from breaking the skin because I wasn’t ready to bite her yet.

As my lips trailed, sucking more marks against her flawless skin, I toyed with the small plug, rocking it inside her just enough to wake everything up. My cock was stone hard at the thought of replacing it with me, making her mine in every way. I was sinking, I could feel it—the way my body was rising with a kind of feral hunger, even as my intellect was slipping. I’d never been with an omega before Sloane, never rutted one through their heat, but the guys had talked about it plenty.

Instinct. I needed to trust my beast for once. I needed to give him the lead in this and believe he would know what to do. He paced under the surface, goading me to let go, goading me to pull this little plug out of her virgin arse and give her something that he knew she would enjoy more. She whined and whimpered, hips lifting, getting impatient the longer I made her wait.

“I’m going to knot you while the plug is still in,” I said, the words a growl against her ear. “It’s going to feel so fucking tight and hot, and you’re going to take all of it like a good little omega.”

“Yes, please, Jace. Yes.”

I shifted, taking her hips in hand, hauling her down the bed and snagging her pussy with the tip of my cock, then I pushed.

“Fuuuuuck,” she groaned. The plug made her a dark kind of tight as I worked my length in deep.

“Fuck, yes,” I agreed. My beast threw his head back and roared. She was so fucking slippery, cunt fluttering around me as I began to rut her with deep thrusts, watching her tits jiggle with the force and her pretty face contort, while her nails were on my forearms, raking down my skin.

“Good girl,” I encouraged. “Mark your alpha.”

She did, and here I fell. The sounds, the sensation of my flesh piercing hers, her breathy gasps and groans, the flush creeping over her face, neck, and upper swell of her tits, it all called to me. My thumb found her fat little clit fully exposed and eager for attention. That quickly, she was coming over my cock, coating me with more of her slick, showing her alpha how well she enjoyed what he did, but I was ever sinking.

I powered through the muscles fisting over me, letting them coax my knot, while her cries turned guttural as I pushed one arm under her arse, braced my knees wide, and thrust deep over and over. Her nails moved to my shoulders, and my strokes slowed as I growled out my pleasure, working the thickening knot in and out of her slippery cunt. She turned wild in my arms, no longer welcoming, bucking, thrashing, sinking her teeth in and marking me, squeezing her cunt like a vice around me.

I was deep into the rut, and I knew what she wanted—an alpha, a man who would protect her, a beast who would force her to submit. She wasn’t trying to stop me. No, my beautiful, wild omega was testing me, her mate.

I had viewed such tales with a little distaste before, but now, now I understood.

“No!”

Her hiss accompanied me pulling all the way out.

I pinned the squirming little thing to the bed, took my cock in hand, and to her cries of outrage, came all over her pussy, belly and tits, thick ropy coils coating her pretty flesh.

“Mine!” I growled, lips curled back.

She arched, sobbing in frustration when I easily held her still.

“Tiny, weak little omega,” I taunted. “Where are you going to go?”

Scooping my cum up in my fingers, I offered it to her lips. “Open up, baby.”

She shook her head, eyes spitting fire. Smirking, I smeared it over her lips, and in an instant, her tongue was out, lapping it up, eagerly taking more from my fingers like a dutiful little mate accepting her dues, all the fury forgotten as she got my seed inside her. She needed this, needed to feel me in every way, and she would.

It didn’t take long before the impatience rose in her again.

Flipping her over onto her belly, I dragged her hips back, lined up my cock, and sank deep.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted, pushing back, arching, wriggling.

I grinned. This right here was fucking heaven. Hands bracing her hips, I took her with measured strokes, my knot swollen and sensitive in a way that spoke of imminent climax, eyes roaming over the curve of her arse and back, her hair falling over her like a silken curtain, and the plug in her arse. I played with the rubber flange as I rutted her, reading her little gasps and twitches. “It’s going to feel so fucking good when I work my cock inside here, omega.”

Her answer was a sharp climax that had me gritting my teeth. My knot bloomed and locked, and with my head thrown back, I roared my release. Her pussy milked me, coaxing more of my seed, and I kept on coming. Leaning down, I drew her hair aside and sank my fangs into her throat.

Mine!

Her blood was scalding on my tongue, a chemical cocktail that went straight to my cock, ripping another savage climax as I dumped cum deep in her belly.

Awareness shifted, the air thickening, the scent of her lust, her slick, her sweet omega pheromones like a blow between the eyes. Deep in the centre of my chest, an awareness bloomed.

Pleasure.

Her pleasure, my pleasure, twisting up.

“Jace.”

Her whine reached through the euphoria, my fingers finding her throat, holding her still and to me. Her little whimper said it comforted her as she battled the same emotional storm I did. Her pussy fluttered, and she rolled straight into another savage climax that ripped another heavy spurt of cum from me. My teeth sank deeper still, the beastly side of me demanding I mark what was mine well, so that no other male would be confused.

Mark.

Yes, we needed to mark her pretty skin. My lips popped off, shifting, finding fresh flesh and biting again. As soon as my knot softened enough, I turned her over, pushed her face into my throat, and putting my full alpha bark behind it, ordered her to, “Bite.”

She did, small teeth savaging me. I cupped the back of her head, glorying in the sharp sting. “Good girl, mark your mate.” And she did, over and over, nails and teeth finding my chest, arms, throat, hips, belly as she showed me that she claimed me too.

I rutted her with the lazy regard of a predator who has fully claimed his prey, taunting her with what she needed, my cum, but never giving her quite enough, instinctively knowing that would drive her heat higher still. I played with the plug, between working it in and out, moving to a thicker one, relishing every guttural cry that left her lips as I tormented us both with what was to come. I ate out her pussy, lapped at her clit, pushed my cock between her teeth and fed her my cum, smeared it over her body, her throat.

Finally, when we were both so deep into the haze of collective rut and heat, I tossed the final plug aside, slicked up my engorged cock, and taking the wriggling little omega in hand, worked my thick length in.

Her cries were ones of tormented pleasure, begging and demanding I give her her due.

There, with my little omega on her hands and knees, my cock shuttling in and out of her arse with the same ease I’d earlier taken her hot cunt, I found a rapture that transcended all former experiences of my life. This here was the pinnacle of human understanding. This filthy, earthy, bliss, this dark skittering pleasure from her tight sphincter trying to strangle my cock, and the raw garbled cries of joy that felt like they were being ripped from deep inside her belly.

“Come for me, omega. Come now. Encourage me to give you my seed everywhere, like a good little omega needs.” I swiped my fingertips back and forth over her swollen slippery clit before plunging three thick fingers into her well ravished cunt.

She came, ripping another shuddering climax from me as I emptied into her arse, and all the while, Sloane groaned and convulsed around my cock and fingers. The ecstasy was like endless waves, her pleasure, my pleasure, all rising together.

My chest felt full, too full to contain all the potent emotions crashing through me, but overriding even the pleasure was a feeling of finding what I never knew was missing from my life, a feeling of belonging.

“Jace!”

“I’m here. I’ve got you.”

My cock slipped free, and I gathered her into my arms, my beast gentle now, sated in the hazy buzz.

She clung to me in a way I’d never experienced before. I felt like a fucking god to have this woman, this omega, pouring her love into me, battering me, commanding me to give love in return.

“I love you,” I said, lips against her hair, and my mate cried, small hands fierce as they gripped me.

I felt like I’d been hit by a semi. Love? The word didn’t feel adequate for the tsunami that was destroying my previous notions of the term. This wasn’t love, this was something else—an all encompassing melding of souls.

It was only later, much later, when the fuzzy haze dissipated, that reality crashed in hard.

Beyond my apartment window, daylight was rising, casting my room in shades of grey. It might as well have been a harsh spotlight and not the soft glow of approaching dawn.

The nest, what there was of it, was scattered to the floor, the covers screwed up and soaked with slick and cum, but my omega, the most precious thing in my world, was what stopped my heart before it kicked back into a sick, languid thud.

When you love someone, you care more about the other person’s feelings than your own. I’d heard that but hadn’t expected to be true, so when I looked at Sloane, my mate, my heart, my fucking everything, all I could feel was pain. I knew what this was, I’d seen it before. The bites, the smears of cum, the stringy hair, the marked skin. Fuck, had I seen this on Ella…but this time, I was the perpetrator.

Forcing my weak legs to move, I eased from her arms, went to the bathroom, and turned the water on, waiting a few minutes to check the temperature before returning to the bedroom.

“Come on, baby,” I said, gathering her in my arms.

“What’s happening?” she mumbled, small hands clutching out of fear I would put her down. Through the bond, I felt her alarm that I might set her aside.

“It’s okay, baby, just going to get you cleaned up.”

I felt sickness roil in my gut. Sloane would be screaming and pushing me away in a moment when she realised what I’d done, what my beast had done to her.

Inside, the fucker was preening. He liked the marks and her languid state. To him, she was a well rutted and claimed omega wearing the evidence of his prowess. The man in me recoiled at everything he rejoiced over.

“Do you need to go?” I asked.

More mumbled protests and clinging followed when I tried to disentangle her. So with her still in my arms, I carried her to the toilet. She went, hissing and cursing me out the whole time because apparently, “it fucking stings.”

That, that was the first strike. I’d fucking hurt her, just like all alphas did.

Once done, I lifted her up again, carried her to the bath, and with her still clinging, stepped into the tub. She sighed, burying her nose in the crook of my throat as the warm water went to work.

My hands stroked over her body. I couldn’t fucking help myself. This last moment, where she was still glowing with warmth and love, I wanted to gather it all up, ready for when she came down and ordered me away. My beast growled at the thought of being pushed aside. He had his own opinion on how to handle an omega who resisted, and it involved putting her on her hands and knees and rutting her into submission. My fucking cock jerked, and my omega wiggled on my lap, arse rolling over my stiffening cock with a groan of delight. Her teeth nipped at my throat, startling a low growl of pleasure from me, and she bit again, harder.

“Baby, look at me,” I said, lifting her chin, forcing her to meet my eyes. This was fucking torture, and I needed to skip to the part where she told me to fuck off because I fucking deserved it.

Then she did, and her eyes… I swear, I was drowning in her eyes and all the emotion there. “I can feel you,” she whispered, small hand pressing to her chest and then to mine. “Inside. I can feel you inside.”

I swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry, Sloane. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Her face fell, smile crumbling and brows puckering in confusion. Through the bond, I felt the first notes of discord. Her gaze lowered to my throat, eyes widening now, following a trail as she passed over the marks she’d put upon me.

“Jesus! I—” Her eyes dropped, as I knew they would, to her chest, her creamy tits littered with marks and…bites.

Then she did something I wasn’t expecting. She lifted her hand, fingers brushing over the nearest welt tentatively before she pressed firmly against the skin…and groaned.

She fucking groaned like she was in the throes of ecstasy.

Her fingers moved up, skimming over her collarbone all the way to her throat, pausing just below the mutilated flesh.

I swallowed, and our eyes locked, only hers weren’t filled with revulsion. They were filled with heat.

“I need to see,” she whispered.

I shook my head.

“Jace, I need to fucking see.”

“No,” I growled, letting out my alpha bark and stilling her instantly. I’d told myself I was ready for her revulsion, that I would handle it, but I wouldn’t fucking handle it. Seeing my marks on her, my claiming mark in particular, drove both the man and beast in me fucking nuts, only we were perfectly aligned in this because I loved seeing my mark on her and I wanted it to leave a scar.

“Will it scar?” she asked like she could read my mind.

I nodded once, slowly.

Her lips tugged up, like the cat that got the cream. “Good,” she said. “I want it to.”

I was supposed to be cleaning her up, but I was out of the tub with the slippery bundle of woman in my arms and striding off to the bed. Here, I dumped her, sopping wet, upon the ruined nest and buried my nose between her thighs, filling my lungs with her scent. Later, we would talk. Later, I would unpick the nuances of her reaction and work out what the fuck it meant, but now, I needed to soothe her poor, sore pussy with my mouth and tongue.

I needed her to come apart for me.

He wanted remind her why I was her alpha.

He wanted to remind her of why she should stay.

“Nummnnnn.” Her mumbled cries of pleasure as I lapped at her soreness, her fingers tearing into my hair, told me this wasn’t unredeemable.

I needed to get her off, and I needed it hot and fast.

She did, wet pussy riding my face, gifting me her sweet slick in a great rush, and I was fucking greedy for it. If I lived to be a hundred, I would never tire of this, and my beast agreed. I got my tongue deep into her hot cunt as she rode out the last of her climax before I turned my attention to her clit and took her tumbling again. I was a fucking addict, and I was getting my fix.

The third time, she screamed herself hoarse, and finally, her fingers ripping into my hair registered enough for me to come up for air. I swiped a hand down my face, taking in the beautiful woman sprawled out on my bed, soapy in places, hair wet where it had dipped in the water. Her body was still littered with the evidence of my possession, but her eyes were glazed with lust…and love.

“Jesus, Jace. Are you trying to kill me?” she murmured with a contented sigh. Her reprimand lost its edge when she performed a lazy, catlike stretch. “I want to be held. I need to scent you close. Then after, when I can think straight, you’re going to tell me what that bullshit in the bathroom was all about.”

Like a good alpha, a slave to his omega mistress, I did exactly as she asked, climbing over her, gathering her in close, and letting her breathe in my scent as I purred for her.

The bond, I realised, didn’t just go one way.

I had some explaining to do.

14

Jace

We fell asleep wrapped up in each other, but I woke up feeling alone. Bright sunlight streamed through the window, showcasing the marks upon the sleeping omega’s body. She still hadn’t seen what I’d done to her, not properly.

She was always ours, my beast taunted, all fucking smug.

I didn’t feel smug, I felt like a fucking animal. I paced the bedroom, eyes on the sleeping omega, feeling her peacefulness like a balm trying to hold my demons at bay, but nothing could keep them back.

There I was, a kid again, watching my sister sob and scream, nails clawing into her own skin to remove the marks alphas had left there. Our fuckup of a mother, fag hanging out her mouth as she tied my sister down to stop her hurting herself. And me, fucking helping her because I couldn’t stand to see my sister tearing her own flesh, even though those marks made me want to hurl too.

That’s not us, my beast said. She wanted what we did, she begged for it.

My sister had begged for it too, asked for it while the alphas were with her. It was only afterwards that the trauma reared its ugly head.

Rinse, cycle, repeat.

Sloane hadn’t been thinking straight when I’d taken her from the Dawn Agency, and I’d fucking known it too. I was no better than Snake, no better than a fucking dog.

Sloane fretted in her sleep, and instantly, all my focus shifted to the omega. I was upsetting her just by being in the same fucking room. I stalked to the closet, pulled on some sweat pants and a T-shirt, shoved my feet into sneakers, and headed for the door, ignoring the pain radiating from my chest.

I had no destination in mind, but what I found was Ma in the kitchen, putting together the finishing touches on a tray of what looked like lasagne she was about to shove in the oven. My stomach rumbled loud enough for her to hear.

“Jason!” Her smile was beaming as she pushed the great tray into the oven, but it dropped immediately after.

“What’s up? What’s happened? Is Sloane all right?”

I shook my head, somehow making it to the big kitchen table and slumping down.

“I’ve marked her,” I said, arm around my stomach. “I’ve mated her.”

“And?” Ma demanded, hands on her hips. “From what I heard, she wanted you to. Has something happened? Why aren’t you with her?”

“Yeah, something happened. I fucking marked her while she was in heat.” I stood and started pacing. Suddenly, the room felt too small to contain me. “Just like those alphas marked my sister.”

There, I’d said it, putting it out into the universe—my shame.

“Jason! You get a grip this minute! You’re not too big for me to box your damn ears. You have an omega now, a mate. You don’t get to skip out. If she told you to leave, then you damn well fight for her. You tell her you can work this out together.”

“She didn’t tell me to leave. I just—” I had no idea how to put this into words, but it was like a riot going on inside my head. “Ella.”

“Your sister? What does she have to do with you and Sloane?” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see where this self-pity is going, and I’m not buying into it.”

Damn, for a tiny beta, Ma sure didn’t pull her punches. “It’s not self-pity,” I gritted out.

“I was there, remember,” she said. “I was the one who nursed your sister after your mother left. Jason, you’re nothing like those men, not even close, and don’t you dare suggest that you are.”

I gave her a baleful look.

After my mother got hauled away by the cops for stealing one too many times, it was Ma, Dane’s Ma, who took Ella and me in. I rubbed absently at the centre of my chest, my eyes lifting unerringly to where I knew Sloane would be. She was stirring, perhaps by my own feelings reaching her through the bond.

“When was the last time you spoke to Ella?” Ma persisted, because the tiny beta never let a matter drop.

“A while,” I said noncommittally.

“When was the last time you spoke to her about what happened?”

Never was the answer, and Ma saw that in my face, in the tic thumping in my jaw.

“You should go to your mate, but if you can’t do that until you put this to rest, you should talk to your sister now. She had an early breakfast, and she’s in her room. Then after, you need to see your mate and set straight with her whatever this nonsense is before you do real damage.”

“So, you’re saying that you wanted to be with them?” I rubbed absently at the centre of my chest, trying to focus on my sister’s words.

Her apartment was on the top floor, the penthouse, because when we were growing up, she was obsessed with stars. You couldn’t see them from the shitty place we’d called home back then. You couldn’t even see the sky between the layers of high-rise buildings. I remembered her saying that the stars were forever free.

When she was younger, she’d made a nest in the hall closet. Mum and I came home to find she’d thrown everything out and taken her blankets in there, said something about wanting it to be dark so she could see the stars. Our mum went fucking nuts about the mess, which was funny in hindsight, given the rest of the place was a shithole and you could barely tell more shit had been added.

Soon after, she’d revealed as an omega, and that was where it had gone from bad to worse.

“Don’t try and tell me that Mum was looking out for you, because I saw that shit happen too many times,” I ground out.

“Much of what happened is hazy for me,” my sister said. “I was suffering and in pain, but don’t believe even for one moment that I didn’t need them. They filled an empty space, and I can’t explain it any better than that. I was hurting. The betas who came around took that away.”

“Betas?” I frowned. I’d been sure they were alphas, but thinking back, I only knew that they’d seemed monstrous to me.

“Some even offered to take me away and give me stuff, like a nice place to live. I think Mum, even with her addled mind, realized that was a bad idea. You were still a kid, Jace, you hadn’t even revealed. You couldn’t be expected to understand adult situations. Why would you? Then afterwards, you never asked me about it. I assumed it all went over your head. If I’d thought for one minute you were carrying this around for all these years, I would’ve talked to you about it. I feel terrible now.”

“You have no reason to feel bad about anything, and none of this sounds fucking right. Mum was still high half the time, and you were barely an adult yourself.”

Ella pulled a face, managing to look cute. “I get all that. Mum, she was trying to make the best of a difficult situation. There were rumours about Desparion. We both know now that they’re true. If she’d taken me there, it would have gone so much worse. She made a lot of mistakes. You haven’t spoken to her for a long while, but well, she’s different now.”

Her lips tugged up at my derisive grunt.

“She did the best she could at the time, Jace, and well, I survived. Don’t get me wrong—I prefer your approach. It’s on my terms now, all of it. I haven’t found my one yet…” She looked out the window, as if he could be found there. “The one I want to be with. I’ve never marked a man. One day, I think I will. I’m happy for you, that you have, so damn happy.”

Her smile was genuine. I didn’t talk to her often, almost like I’d been afraid to lift the cover on the pain, and it was difficult to take all of this in. I felt like the ground was moving underneath me.

Was she trying to put a positive spin on it to make me feel better? I stared into warm brown eyes that were a mirror of my own. That was the beginning and end of our similarity. The rest of us were as different as night and day. Yet there was nothing fake in what she was saying, nothing screamed at me that she was lying for whatever reasons she might have.

Then I remembered what that arsehole said before I gave him a beating.

“Snake?” I grit out. “Don’t pretend like you wanted that man.”

She surprised me by blushing. My sister was a free omega who, by her own admission, used men to scratch an itch when her heat came. I didn’t think she had a blush in her.

“Snake is complicated,” she said evasively.

“Like fuck he’s complicated. I put a beatdown on him for putting his hands on Sloane. Put him on the fucking floor, and I’d put him there again.”

She grimaced. “If you put him down, he let you, Jace. Have I been with him? Yes. Has he marked me? Also yes. I encourage men to mark me. I like it, both the act of putting it there and the feeling after, but I never mark them. I never talk to you about this stuff. You’re my baby brother. Some things are not open to discussion, and you need to accept that.”

I rubbed the centre of my chest where the buzzing had picked up.

“You’re hurting,” she said.

Sloane

Before the death of my parents, I’d lived quite the privileged life. Some of it I was aware of. We had money for the things we needed, and our family never argued about it, but the rest? I’d grown up in a household of love, where I was seen, cared for, my parents a constant presence in the background, making sure I was OK. When I’d gotten the news about their deaths, that was when I saw it, what I’d taken for granted—that continual warm regard, the feeling that no matter what happened, someone had my back. Em tried now, but…that wasn’t her burden to shoulder, so I’d gone without, until now. As I hovered on the edge of sleep and wakefulness, I felt like I lay within a golden cocoon of warmth. All that loss, that pain, it was muted, right up until I opened my eyes.

How many women go through this? Wake up after a night of what felt like the most intense sex you’d ever experienced, feeling like what happened transcended bumping uglies to get what you want, feeling like you’d made a connection, literally. My fingers found the incredibly sensitive spot on my neck, playing with the scarring flesh there with a gasp and a smile that soon faded as I rolled over. The space beside me was empty, and the place where Jace had slept was as cold as the knife sliding into my heart.

I’d run from this place, from him, from being an omega, and just when I’d finally accepted that, he’d run. I forced myself out of bed, finding a pile of clothes I assumed had been left for me, given their size, and got dressed before striding through the apartment. Not in the bathroom, not in the kitchen, the place had that still feeling of an empty house, because that was what this was. I shook my head, once, twice, then strode over to the elevator, punching the button hard. The wait for the carriage to come, then to take me down to the ground floor, felt like it went forever, but then it opened on a familiar sight. I scanned the long tables, saw everyone was there—the omegas, the alphas, and everyone else between, grabbing a bite to eat before they started their day, but not him. I searched the group, but knew I wouldn’t find him.

“Sloane,” Ma said, getting to her feet with a smile, “come and have some breakfast! You must be starving.”

“Where is he?” I asked, pinning her with my gaze.

The smile faltered, and that told me a lot, as did everyone else’s reactions. The betas’ eyes flicked between us, trying to work out the source of tension, while the alphas just sat there, still as stones, watching everything unfold. And the omegas? There was some of that pity, that scorn from before, but most of all, their eyes remained fixed on the bite mark on my neck. My fingers went up, trailing over it and feeling a flush of heat and shame as I did so.

How could it be like this? How could we have had this moment of complete oneness, where I’d felt like our souls had touched, yet when I woke up, he was gone like I was just a one-night stand? In the centre of my chest was an odd pulling sensation like a slightly off-key note. I was ready to hear the answer to my question, my hopeful heart concocting legitimate scenarios to tear him away from me—security, some catastrophe at the bar, anything. Anything but this.

“Where is he?” I asked again, of all of them this time.

Initially, there were only sidelong looks, making it clear everyone knew but were reluctant to confess, which only made the pain cut deeper. I wasn’t going to like the answer, I knew it.

“I need to know where Jace is, where my mate has gone.” In my chest, the little discordant pull was rising to a roar. I was trying for reasonable, no doubt sounding unhinged, but those words, that seemed to break the spell over the table. There were gasps in response to my announcement, but the two alphas, they remained perfectly still until the one with the black hair, Dane, replied.

“He’s with Ella.”

Ella, the name I’d heard last time, the mysterious woman that kept Jace from committing to me, the name that had driven Jace to a frenzy when he’d beaten on Snake… How could I have erased that from my mind? But where was she last night? Where was she when he…?

“And where the hell is she?” I snapped. I didn’t care what my designation was, I was done with this completely. This and the dead silence that seemed to swallow everything I said, absorbing it until it was like I’d never said a word. “Fine,” I hissed. “I’ll find her myself.”

And so I turned on my heel, ready to flounce out of the room, through the bar, and into the zone beyond, but a voice stopped me in my tracks. Rich and deep like his, but not the same, this one had a rusty rasp to it.

“You go outside, you run the risk of coming across Snake and his fuckers,” Dane said. “He’s got an axe to grind after what happened.”