Forget Me Knot (PoisonVerse #2), page 10
“If you let me have my phone to text my lawyer, I can be more specific on that, though.”
Eight grand?
That was the taxes on this dump for the year sorted. Then the loan Arsenal and Malakai got out to start the shop… And maybe we could get a proper room for Ice sorted. He insisted on living down in his nest, but he needed more space than that—
“Fifteen. He won’t go for less.”
I spun on Arsenal so quick I got a crick in my neck. I winced, grabbing it as I glared at him.
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarled. He was a prick, and she was stubborn. He’d ruin it without a thought.
Arsenal’s eyebrow rose as he glanced at me. “Eight is fine.” My voice was hoarse.
He didn’t fucking get it.
Malakai and him pulled in enough with the shop. The worst he looked like was some goddamned gang runner with all of his tats. And what did people care if they worked out who he was? He’d murdered his fucking dad, a notoriously violent alpha. People praised him. But me? They only saw a child killer. It didn’t matter that I’d also been a kid when it had happened—I was an alpha. When fear got involved, they didn’t see a kid anymore.
I was between jobs.
Again.
Finally Malakai and Arsenal were training me on the bikes, but I was shit at it—and years late. And I took up too much time with them trying to explain shit to me over and over just so I could fuck it up.
I was stressed anytime I was working without one of them watching me. I’d cost us almost a grand because last time they’d left me alone, and the bike had ended up more broken than it had started. They kept telling me it didn’t matter, but how could it not fucking matter?
Arsenal would never say it, but he was tense about me being shop-side when his clients came into the garage. Just in case. They could look the pack up and I’d be listed, but best not to draw attention to it.
Now, I was the only one who said I’d go tonight. She wanted to pay me more money than the other two would see in months—and he thought he would ruin it?
My blood chilled.
She hadn’t wanted Arsenal because of how he looked. What if I…? What if someone recognised me while I was with her? I wasn’t famous enough that I was spotted on the street. Well, not often, anyway, and I’d be standing back. It… should be fine.
“Alright.” Onyx took another sip of her coffee. “Well. The date's at seven. We’ll leave an hour early so we can get you an outfit on the way.”
“What am I supposed to wear?”
“A suit.”
“I have a suit.”
“A decent suit,” she said. The curve of the smile on her lips as she set her mug down wiped away any offence I might have felt at that comment. “Don’t worry. I won’t deduct it from your pay.”
Shopping?
How ridiculously… mundane. I caught Arsenal’s eye roll beside me and kept my expression neutral as I shrugged. “Sure.”
Yet, inside, I was warring with a childlike excitement I hadn’t felt since… Well, since before my sister had died.
Onyx
Malakai’s scent of riverside and clove was far too soothing for an alpha as cold as he was. I was straightening my hair in one of their small bathrooms when he came to grill me.
“Want to ask you a bit more about the stalker,” he said, folding his arms and leaning against the doorway.
I nodded, glancing at him. He was unfairly gorgeous up close. His skin was a smooth, brassy brown, and his nose was too straight. His lean face was a host to some good cheekbones, cut by two strands of black hair loose from his bun. The furrow to this strong brow seemed fixed in place.
“You set up any cameras?” Malakai asked.
“Yeah. I had them around the apartment,” I told him. I’d been over this with the police a few times already, so I was expecting it. “They caught nothing, but a few times they’d been shut off.”
Malakai’s brow furrowed. “Before the break in?”
“Seemed that way, but I could never tell if it was before or during.”
“So he was hacking your stuff?”
I considered that. “I think he was. But when I paid someone to take a look at my devices, they said he was good enough there was no trace.”
“Damn…” Malakai muttered. “What did he do when he came in before?”
“The first time he returned something—the earring I’d given my bodyguard as a gift. After that, he’d come in and take my things.”
“How did you figure that out?” Malakai asked.
“The forget-me-nots.” They were left every time, scattered across the place he’d stolen from. Each time I saw them, my heart would sink. Sometimes it would take me a while to figure out what was missing, but a pattern emerged.
“And those match… the tattoo?” Malakai was looking at my arm. I lowered the straightener to show him. He examined the tattoo beside the long thin scar.
“Police said it was a taunt, most likely.”
“What sort of things did he take?”
“Any gifts I was given by the packs I date. It’s why the police think it’s definitely an alpha. If one of my dates gave me a gift, it would be gone or smashed in a week.”
“What about messages?” he asked. “Any others like the one on the mirror?”
“No,” I said, returning to my hair with the hot iron to distract from my tremor of fear. “That was the first one he left.”
It was one thing knowing someone was watching me, and another entirely to know he had a voice.
I saw him nodding to himself from the corner of his eyes. “We have an old camera already at the door. I’ll get it hooked up again just in case it catches anyone. Footage is grainy, but seems worth a shot.”
Well, it couldn’t hurt.
He looked about to leave when he paused. “How did you find us?” he asked.
“I…” I chewed on my lip, even more fixated on my hair than before. “Well… the Institute had a file on you—”
“And they gave it to you?” He sounded sharp.
“No…” My voice was quiet all of a sudden. “Well, they… showed me the pictures. But then I took the file.”
“You… took it? As in—”
“I stole it, alright?” I said quickly, glancing at him. The look he was giving me was far too judgemental. “Who wouldn’t have?” I demanded.
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t respond. I swallowed. “Where’s Ice?” I still hadn’t seen him, and I’d rather change the subject.
“In his nest. Was upstairs earlier.”
“Upstairs?”
“We have a roof… deck… sort of thing.”
“Is he… upset?”
“At who?”
“At me?” I asked. “I was in Arsenal’s bed.”
The first smile crept onto Malakai’s mouth as he ducked from the room. “His words were, and I quote: ‘if one of you oafs can seduce her she’ll be more likely to stay, but I’m not holding my breath’.”
I frowned “Then why is he—?”
“Hiding?” Malakai asked. “Not that he’ll ever admit it, but he’s shy.”
Ice
I could go up any moment.
She was there. With my pack. And yet I was holed up down here, and I couldn’t move as I hugged my knees to my chest, leaning against my wall. The room around me felt colder than ever, doing the job it was designed to do, while she was up there with them right now.
A sick feeling twisted my gut. There was so much I wanted that I could never have. She couldn’t stay with me like she was the others because no one could see this place.
The room was musty, with no windows and peeling wallpaper.
Today, another girl had been shoved into my room. She was too fragile for a place like this. She was in the corner, huddled up on her bed. She had perfectly straight hair, soft features, and couldn’t be older than fifteen.
An omega with the scent of blackberries and orange.
She was too young.
Taken, just like me. The room was small and grimy, the peeling wallpaper a weak attempt to distance it from the truth of what it truly was.
I wanted to ask her a million questions.
What year was it? Was it summer or winter outside? I didn’t even know how old I was anymore.
But… that wasn’t fair.
“What’s your name?” I asked instead.
She just stared at me, terrified. So I told her stories about anything I could think about that wasn’t here. The same ones I told myself so I wouldn’t forget. I’d grown up in the Gritch District, and those streets had character and a whole lot of tales. I’d been a no one until I’d perfumed, an idiot street kid just surviving.
I didn’t tell her the other parts. That becoming an omega was the worst thing that ever happened to me. That I would have gone to the Institute in a heartbeat if I hadn’t perfumed in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Finally, she shuffled a little closer, whispering one word to me.
“Hannah.”
I decided in that moment I would get her out. What had happened to me wouldn’t happen to her. I hadn’t had a chance to contemplate an after, but maybe she had. Maybe, if I got her out soon enough, she would chase dreams I couldn’t.
Her eyes weren’t yet gold. Perhaps, if I got her out, they never would be.
It had been in this room that I’d woken up one day to find the gold ring around my eyes. Once upon a time, becoming gold pack would have been my worst nightmare, marking a life as an outcast. A life in which my freedom could be stolen at any moment.
In here, that was a threat made of nothing.
Clinical sharp silver glinted back at me from all around. A constant threat that calmed my nerves. I reached out, running my finger along a sharp edge, not enough to break scarred skin, but enough to remind me of the truth. Onyx wouldn’t want me. Not really. I had tried to sabotage her even when she fought for me. It was worse that she still wasn’t even mad.
This was different to anything before. And I couldn’t fight the fact it might be something good… Only I didn’t deserve something good.
I reached out and clutched the mug from the side table. It wasn’t a good object for hosting scents, but I could still smell her lavender and brownies on it, diluting the poison of my own scent that touched everything down here.
I could feel the draw to her, and the terrifying notion that I didn’t feel afraid when she was near.
And that was the most dangerous thing of all.
THIRTEEN
King
Onyx was relaxed around me.
Hired muscle or not, it was surreal to be strolling down the street at her side. I didn’t do normal—couldn’t have it. If I was out with the pack, I was wearing hoods, constantly worried someone would recognise me. But the man in a suit staring back at me in the mirror—I didn’t even recognise him.
It gave me confidence I wasn’t used to.
We ducked into the back of the limo, and her driver pulled away. The more distance I got from my brothers, the more I shed the weight of their expectations that we alienate her. It was stupid and shortsighted. The universe had given me two good things up until yesterday. Of the two, only my brothers loved me back, so I couldn’t afford to fuck this up with Onyx.
Most people in the world would be horrified at having me as a scent match. But somehow, she wasn’t. In fact, she was sitting close, peering up at me like I was a puzzle.
Malakai was already doing a good enough job of making her dislike us. He’d grilled her all afternoon. Was there anything the police could have missed? Was she sure she’d done everything she could to catch him? The guy had been stalking her for over a month and it was getting worse, didn’t Mal think she would have done everything in her power to make it stop?
She reached up and touched the silver sword earring dangling from my left ear, cutting me from my thoughts.
“Does it have a meaning?” she asked.
“Not really,” I lied. Much too heavy to bring it up, and would beg questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
A gift from Sarah. I’d had my ear pierced while she got both done on our birthday. That was the last shared birthday I’d ever had.
“Should I… take it out?” I asked her, trying not to sound like the idea wounded me. I didn’t want to, but it was just one night and I didn’t have room to screw this up, not with that kind of money on the line. Again, my stomach twisted at the thought of it. At the thought of giving something back to my pack at last. Of not being a burden.
It still felt too good to be true.
“No.” Her brow furrowed. “I like it.”
Somehow, she wasn’t anxious or uncomfortable at all. Not outwardly, anyway. This whole day felt surreal.
Yesterday, I hadn’t known we had a mate. Now it felt to me like Onyx was the centre of the world.
Onyx
King was actually a ridiculously good bodyguard.
He was quiet, and I barely had to give him any instruction on where to stand—or how to stand, or anything. Once I was settled into the pack, he all but vanished into the scenery.
King had given me my phone back at last, but I was ashamed to say I’d not had the faintest urge to contact anyone. I didn’t know exactly what I’d say or what I’d ask for. Arsenal was right, I didn’t have anyone. I had been so career focused the last few years, my family and friends had drifted. And this pack was—in their own fucked up way—doing what I wanted.
Right now we were at a large lounge in the Khoven pack’s choice of venue, with dim lights, and daybeds, and a coffee table of food and drinks constantly cycled in. Currently, sports played across a few TV screens, but the event was focused on the socialising. I couldn’t stop my eyes from finding King. I’d never been anxious on these dates, not since my first, but today I found myself off balance.
Taking him shopping before the date had been pleasant. I would be lying if I said it hadn’t surprised me. I’d seen his file. I got a little flutter of horror in my stomach every time I thought about it actually. I could ask him about it, but what would it matter what he said?
He could deny he did it, tell me he did, or a thousand things in between. I was stuck with him either way. Perhaps it was the hormones talking, but I didn’t feel he was a danger. I knew danger. I knew paranoia, and this wasn’t it.
There was what I saw, and what I read.
The King I knew was the man who’d stared, wide-eyed, at himself in the mirror in his new suit with a blush on his cheeks. The man whose apricot champagne scent left me with an unreasonable sense of safety.
Ink printed on paper described a different King. A boy found beside the body of his sister. No reason. Just a confession. The perfect enigma for the world to gape at.
Just like I was.
The duchess with no memories. No pack had come forward. No history revealed. So the world was left to muse on a wound that I was told I couldn’t cradle. Couldn’t dream of. Because how dare I throw away something others wanted so dearly, and dream of them, too.
I was more of a dreamer than those who reduced fate down to scents and science. I believed there was more to scent matches. Let’s say there was a chance—just the smallest, tiniest chance—I could have this bond the world had told me I didn’t have the right to dream of…
That was worth a little faith.
No use fearing a thing until you had reason to, and King had given me no reason to at all.
The Khoven pack was my date tonight; they were a pack of four alphas—Lor, Nixon, Percy and Evan—each pompous and rich. I was in contract with a few different packs. They had all requested me—along with many others—and I let them fight over the contracting. My manager informed them I went on eight dates a month, no more. If they wanted more than another pack, they paid up. I went out with the Khoven pack twice a month. They were my least favourite, often dull and a lot more about political manoeuvring.
Lor, the pack lead, was a tall, dark-haired alpha who had—in the last few months—gotten a little more comfortable with me than I liked. Not physically; the boundaries in the contract were airtight, and he was a man who played by the rules. Rather, he had taken to dropping hints about opening the contract further. I’d informed him I had no interest, yet his pack had continued to make offers on my time. They’d even explicitly requested physical boundaries within dates be broadened.
Last week he’d even made a rather obnoxious bid on a particular intimate request. It might have been sweet, I supposed, but I still wondered if he’d been drunk. As it stood, the hand Lor currently had rested on my waist as we sat together was as far as he was allowed to go, and he never failed to take advantage. I couldn’t help shooting a glance over at King every time he did it, but my alpha mate was rigid, hands clasped, eyes drifting between me and the rest of the occupants in the room impassively.
Strangely enough, I had to stifle a wave of disappointment. Which was foolish, because it wasn’t as if I wanted him. Or a scene, for that matter.
Tonight, I knew, was a big night for the Khoven pack. The Khoven pack’s company dealt with shipping, and they were trying to entice a new contractor that they claimed would change the game. He’d informed me on our last date that my presence was an absolute must. Not just for status, but Lor Khoven liked that I knew the finer details of their company’s process. I took my job seriously enough to do my research. They found it rather effective when I spoke to any of their prospectives about the opportunity they were offering.
During this date, there was a particular issue they’d asked I jump in on if concerns were raised—conflicting schedules between them and a fellow sub contractor. They could say what they wanted, but the truth was clear to me. They asked that I speak on the solution to their biggest concerns, because if a hired duchess could see the solution, then it was obviously a non issue.
A few packs arrived early, and though some had omegas, there were no other duchesses hired in. But now, the star guests, those visiting packs, were filing in, presenting gifts—mostly bottles of wine—and greeting everyone. Every time eyes snagged on me, which wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, I practically felt Lor puff up at my side. They settled, and one rosy-cheeked alpha who went by Endrick Jr, could not seem to keep his eyes from wandering back to me or the hand Lor had on my waist. Lor made a point of turning to me with a smile.
