I snarled, my beast throwing himself against the bars inside me and bleeding through. Ryder smiled, slow and cocky, not cowed at all, and that made him mad. But the fact she wasn’t here, curled up on my lap, my nose buried in her throat, followed by my teeth…
“You’re marking her,” Ryder said, shaking his head, the smile fading somewhat. “When you get your head out of your arse, you’ll do it.”
How the fuck did I find myself trapped? Why the fuck did it feel so right, knowing I needed to do this? I was rationalising the monster in me. It’d never been like this with an omega. There was a part of my alpha side rising that I’d never seen, never even known was there. When I brought her in, when she softened for my purr, turning to me, instinctively seeking my comfort and protection, the only thing that had been missing was me beating my fucking chest and then tearing that bloody dress off, making her mine.
This was a mess. Jesus, save me from myself and my own demons.
My eyes went to the door again.
“So we keep her safe until dickhead here works through his ‘issues,’” Dane said.
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right—I have to mark her.” I looked down at my hands, flexing my fingers, feeling the need to form fists and fight what ailed me, but there was no fighting this. “She just needs time,” I said. “She needs time to work out how this goes. I’m not the right man for her, but I’ll do it to keep her safe.
“Hate to break it to you,” Ryder said, “but even omegas have a certain free will. What if she wants one of us to do it?” He finished up with a casual shrug.
And didn’t that really wind me up? My teeth ground hard. If Sloane was going to be attached to anyone, that someone would be me.
“And the way she was gazing up at you,” Ryder continued, “I’d say she’s imprinted on you pretty heavily. You might not get away with just a chomp on her wrist.”
Right then, I could picture it, feel it, how it would really go. Slamming her up against the side of the shower stall and fucking her like a savage. Watching her put her clothes on, my blood thudding when I just wanted to peel her out of every single piece as it went on. She was classy. She came from money, prim little schoolmarm, but elegant, same with her jewellery.
So yeah, she was out of my league, a rough alpha from the fucking slums. Nothing about my upbringing made me suitable for Sloane, but I still wanted her. I would be lying to myself if I said otherwise. Still, I could do this. I could be rational, give her time to get used to who she was and what she was and all the emotions coursing through her.
Then I would mark her.
“So what’s the plan while we’re all waiting on you to find your balls?” Dane persisted, a belligerent set to his jaw. Only Dane could get away with that. “She can’t leave the place.”
“I get that,” I said.
“And we need to be careful about who comes in and out,” Dane continued. “If we don’t, then somebody’s gonna tell. It’s gonna be a case of damage mitigation while you find your nuts. Anything out of the ordinary, and the workers here will start to talk. It’s not like we hire people who are in Snake’s back pocket. Most normal people hate the bastard. They want a job here because it’s a decent establishment, and we pay the fucking wages without harassing them at the same time. But you know, people talk. They tell a friend who tells his friend that security is suddenly beefed at our bar. Then that person tells another person who they trust, and they tell another person. Before you know it, Snake knows all about it. How long do you think it’s gonna take before he realises something’s going on?”
“I need some fucking time,” I rumbled.
“Well, then we’re going to have to go with plan B,” Ryder said.
“And what’s plan B?” I asked, surprised that he had anything sensible to add.
“Plan B is full-scale anarchy. Let the chaos begin.” Ryder chuckled, the arsehole.
I rolled my fucking eyes.
A great screech came from the room next door, and everything within me went rigid. I was up out of my seat and running for the door, eyes skimming the occupants. Ma had just dropped a tray of drinks over the floor. The omegas were all cowering on the other side of the table, clinging to one another, eyes wide, like they were all fucking terrified. Omegas… I passed over them one, two, three…What?
“Where the fuck is she?” I rumbled.
Baby Doll pointed a trembling finger towards the door.
“She left,” Baby said. “She didn’t want to be part of…whatever the hell this is. I wish I’d left with her.”
I just stared at her for a minute, looking into those pretty blue eyes, but rather than seeing someone I’d thought was part of our weird family, I saw a stranger. That same feeling of alienation, I got it from all the omegas sitting there, but as I grit my teeth, I knew I didn’t have time to deal with that now. Sloane was gone, but where?
“How long ago?” I asked. Behind me, Ryder was running towards the door, punching the button for the elevator. Which I should have already fucking done.
“Five minutes maybe,” one girl said.
“She won’t have gotten outside yet,” Ma said. “Everyone, calm down.”
I looked toward Dane on his mobile talking to someone, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“What,” I demanded. “What the fuck happened?”
The elevator arrived with a ding.
“Outside the zone,” he said. “Out the back and through the fucking gate. There’s a fucking riot down there.”
The elevator journey was an exercise in patience that I hadn’t known I possessed. We exited at the bottom into a wall of four men loading up with weapons.
“Stand down, guys,” Dane said before pulling his cell away from his ear. “She’s left the zone. Got into a car. Someone picked her up at the gates before Snake’s crew could get through.”
He flipped his cell sideways and hit play on a recording. It was grainy as fuck, but it showed the gate slamming shut, a beta with her, pulling a chain around the closed gate just as a fuck ton of alphas collided with it, nearly buckling the whole structure. A car pulled up, arms waving frantically to Sloane, then she climbed straight in. Her sister, maybe?
And the guy with her, her liberator? Art, our barman, if I recognised that mop of curly dark hair, locked the chain and then pulled a fucking gun out. He had a key for deliveries, so that part made sense.
“We had an agent for Alpha Control in our midst,” Dane snarled.
Meanwhile, inside the zone, the crowd had turned ugly, alphas driven by their animal instincts by a whiff of omega, the beta calling for backup, it appeared.
“Shit!” Ryder muttered. “That still going down?” Dane fast forwarded to the camera feed. “Nope, looks like they’ve mostly dispersed. What a fucking mess!”
My heart was pounding out of my chest. The need to fuck something or someone up battled with the calm I needed to assess the situation. “You think Snake will try to track her down?” I asked.
“Yes,” Dane said. “Fresh meat and all that. The license plates are grainy on this image, but it might’ve been clearer for anyone on the ground. If Snake had any sense during that frenzy, which he may not, he’d have clocked her plate. You need to call her and warn her.”
“Call?”
“He doesn’t have her number,” Ryder said.
“I don’t have her number,” I agreed through gritted teeth. It hadn’t been a priority when I was… “Check her ID she came in with.”
“But I’ve got something almost as good,” Ryder continued. “Her sister’s number.”