Forget Me Knot (PoisonVerse #2), page 6
“It was very inappropriate of me. I don’t know what came over me…” I swallowed. It was the truth. I’d never slapped anyone in my life. “I’m very sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Arsenal shrugged. “Barely a scratch, really. Shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”
I nodded, the smallest amount of tension from the night ebbing from me.
“There’ll be no need to drive me home,” I went on. “I can call another ride.”
“Nah. Rob got off ten minutes ago, and I don’t trust the midnight drivers.”
“I have a company on call—”
“You’ll take the ride,” he said, jabbing the oil stained rag at me. “And not say another word about it.” He tossed it aside and grabbed a clean one to wipe his hands off.
I was too tired to argue. Emotionally, I felt like I’d been put through the ringer tonight. Flutters of panic still skittered in my veins as I thought of Ice, even though I knew now he was fine. He’d always been fine.
I nodded mutely.
He grabbed a set of keys from the desk and started toward the door. “Right then. Be back in—” He cut off as I followed. “What are you assholes doing?”
The three others were grabbing coats as if readying to leave.
“The fuck, Ice?” Arsenal asked. “You never leave.”
“It’s dark out, anyway. And I want to know where she lives.”
“And you?” Arsenal glared at King and Malakai.
King grinned. “BetaBatter’s Waffle truck is at the Crimson Bullet until 3am tonight.”
“It’s a food truck,” Arsenal said flatly. “It travels.”
“Come on, it never crosses the tracks—they lie about that.”
“I’ll bring it home.” Arsenal said, hustling me out of the door. The other two were not deterred.
“Like fuck you will. I want it fresh.” Malakai grabbed a pair of boots that were out on the porch.
“Don’t even know if she lives in that direction.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Arsenal,” King scoffed as Malakai turned one of the boots upside-down, letting a few old leaves fall from it before jamming his foot in. “She don’t live anywhere but Westside. Isn’t that right, Duchess?”
Arsenal glared at me, but I shrugged with a self-conscious nod.
“Fuck. Fine.”
EIGHT
Ice
She’d come back for me. And now we were taking her home.
That felt wrong, but there was no other option. I knew that. We were all looking at the same woman. She wouldn’t last five minutes in our world. Except… she’d come back for me.
Guilt twisted in my gut, and I tapped the jeep’s panel because Arsenal really fucking hated it when I did that.
Why had she done that? Come back for me?
It threatened a whole lot of walls I’d put up.
And then there was the fact she’d searched for us. There was no reason I could think of that a woman like that would seek us out, scent match or not. In fact, most women like her—if they discovered they had a scent match like us—would run in the opposite direction. They’d never risk the idea that we ever caught a whiff of her.
Instead, she’d hunted us down.
Which meant she was hiding something.
My anxiety loosened. That was good, because she couldn’t be as perfect as she’d been today.
It meant it was okay to drop her off, even though the idea of it was insane. I couldn’t take my eyes from her in the rear-view mirror. She was crammed between Malakai and King, and I had to war with the little bubble of warmth that rose in my chest at the sight of it. As if it was right, somehow.
As Arsenal drove us closer to the address she’d given him, I noted Onyx change. It was subtle at first, almost impossible to tell. She straightened in her seat, her hands that gripped her coat and bag were taut, nails digging in just slightly to the bag. Her scent, though, that was what I noticed first. It shifted. She hadn’t exactly been relaxed before, but it wasn’t like this. Now, though, she was outright terrified.
My gaze shifted to Malakai and he shared a narrowed eyed look with me, his eyes darting subtly to the side, scanning her.
She was scared, doing her damndest to hide it from us, too, but it was becoming impossible. It was getting worse the closer we got to her home.
Eventually, even Arsenal noticed, glancing back at me with furrowed brows. Onyx, by this point was staring at her knees, handbag clutched in her arms, clearly trying to compose herself.
I saw her glance up to the window, clearly calculating where we were. She took a breath, but her scent became outright bitter. She caught me looking and offered me the slightest smile that tried too hard to be reassuring. Arsenal glanced to me, then into the mirror where he caught King and Malakai’s eyes. We were all watching him.
There was a long, long pause, and then he screwed up his face, stretching out his scowl and nodded.
I knew what that meant.
Onyx was more scared of her own home than she was of us—the pack of criminals that had just terrorised her to almost tears.
And, by the tenseness of everyone in this car, that wasn’t something we were willing to let lie. Could be anything; something private or personal that we couldn’t fix, but none of us were comfortable dropping her off and leaving.
I tapped on my phone and opened up the app we needed, letting it load up.
“Arsenal’ll walk you up,” King was saying to Onyx as we pulled in. On her other side, Malakai tugged a bag from the trunk and dug around before slipping Arsenal the little box he needed.
Onyx nodded, trying to focus, then paused as if King’s words were just catching up to her. “Oh. No need.”
“Not our way, Duchess, bringing you home and not making sure you get to your door safe.”
She stared at King, opening her mouth, and then shutting it again. “Alright. The door only.” Her voice was quieter than before, all the command gutted from it. I wasn’t expecting the flare of anger in my chest at that. Something waiting for her in her home was frightening her enough that it was stealing away who she was.
“Course,” Arsenal grunted, hopping down from the jeep and striding around it to meet Onyx on the other side.
“Well.” Onyx gathered her bag against her chest as she turned back to us. “Lovely meeting you all.”
There was something wispy and unfocused in the words. Pure formality—and obviously a total lie. Her mind was far from present right now. There was no colour left in her cheeks.
I nodded, trying to shoot Arsenal a look that said ‘don’t fuck this up’. It was unnecessary. If there was one thing that could be said for Arsenal, it was that he was the most protective alpha I’d ever met. If I was feeling like this, he would be boiling over.
The door shut and I waited until the two of them had walked away before turning to the others.
“She’s fucking terrified,” King murmured.
I nodded. I looked at neither of them, instead tapping away on my phone furiously, setting up exactly what we needed. I was already halfway there, shifting a view around. A few more moments and the cam software went live. This was good tech—most of which we’d borrowed a while back to do a monitoring job for one of Arsenal’s contacts in exchange for some better tools for the shop.
The bug might be small, but Arsenal was going to have a time finding a way to put it on her.
Arsenal
I could be honest. Whether or not it was completely primal, whatever was making Onyx frightened left me blindingly full of fury. Simmering rage would put an edge to my scent and give me away to Onyx, except for the fact my scent was always a little charred.
I wasn’t a rogue, but my aura had come out early from a traumatic event. It was unstable as fuck, and anyone who met me knew that. Right now, the strings holding it in place were taut.
Onyx said nothing as we stepped into the elevator, nor as she led me down the hall to her place. A few times I thought of asking her, but dispelled the thought. We were strangers, and she was working hard to keep her fear from us. If I asked, and she didn’t want to share, she’d be on alert.
“Thank you for walking me up. Good of you,” she said.
I stared at her, unable to rip my gaze away. It would be too easy to get lost in those eyes, to forget exactly why I’d come up. I could take her praise for being the kind of alpha that would walk her to her door simply for the sake of being a gentleman. I breathed a laugh, coming back to myself.
I wasn’t that sort of alpha at all, and I had a job.
Very slowly, so that she could see every move I made, I lifted my hand to her cheek. Her brows furrowed, as if she couldn’t understand what it meant. But then, for the briefest moment, she leaned into my touch.
She wasn’t a touch deprived omega—couldn’t be. She was a duchess, with alphas at her beck and call—even if that thought twisted the knot of rage just a little. But I was a touch starved alpha. Ruts spent alone, a scar scabbed over a million times. And that slightest motion undid me, peeling back a thousand layers to the need beneath.
She drew away, as if sensing the shift. A bit embarrassing, really, but my job was done. The small black bug was fixed to her earring.
She fumbled with her key for a moment, her scent shifting just a bit, and for a moment the fear diluted in lieu of something else… Sorrow…? Want…?
For me?
I almost shook my head to dispel that thought. No.
She’d come to us with intention, not desire. She didn’t want us and we didn’t want her.
The moment the door opened, it was as if I didn’t exist. I noted when she stepped into the space, she didn’t turn her back to it, instead sliding in sideways. She threw one last glance back to me with a nod, and then the door closed with a click.
King
I held the ancient radio in a tense grip.
We were all staring at Ice’s screen as Onyx headed into her apartment. Arsenal would have a view of her on his phone, waiting at the door.
I was wound too tight as I stared. I could feel the tension of my brothers through the bond. Ice, who had his bond locked down at all times, was absolutely fixed on the screen, but his sweet scent of roses and cookies was flooding the car, giving him away.
Onyx had taken a few steps into her apartment and stopped. She turned her head side to side, examining the whole space. Was there someone else waiting for her?
My thoughts flashed to a partner, someone who would be angry she was gone. But that wouldn’t make any sense.
Slowly, she stepped into the room. It was open concept, with high end finishes and furnishings. With too much caution, she set her coat down on a barstool.
She didn’t move, her head turning side to side occasionally. A minute passed, then another.
“What is she doing?” Malakai asked.
Ice shook his head with a shrug.
Finally, Onyx stepped into the lounge. She hadn’t taken off her shoes, I noted. Too distracted? Or was she not planning on staying long?
She crossed the room and adjusted the curtains that hung from a huge window. It was sheer fabric and closed for privacy, though it let a bit of light in from the street outside—her apartment was only a few stories up. I peered across the street on a whim, scanning the apartment block, and sure enough I could see movement in one of the windows, the shape of her a shadow against the curtain. My heart tightened at the sight of it.
Not doing much of anything with the curtains, Onyx moved to the couch and sat on its armrest. Again, she stopped, though this time she pulled her phone from her pocket.
I saw then that her grip was trembling. I glanced up to the others, and this time Ice even caught my eyes, his brow furrowed, that sharp mind of his working quickly.
She opened her phone and opened up her texts. The first she went to was a contact named Detective Ash. She began typing.
Onyx: I fucked it up, Jane. I’m not even wanted by a pack of—
I heard Malakai release a breath of a laugh, leaning back slightly and shooting me a ‘I knew it’ look, but then Onyx was deleting the words until there was nothing remaining but the first four.
Onyx: I fucked it up.
She left it there for a long time, fingers hovering buttons. Then slowly she typed another sentence.
Onyx: I fucked it up. I don’t have anything to offer them.
Sorrow tangled with my tenseness momentarily at seeing those words. Mal had gone silent, too.
What could she mean?
There was another pause, then she set her phone down and crossed the fancy kitchen for a bottle of wine. She poured herself a glass, and sat back down, the drink clutched in her hand as she stared at the unsent message. She took two large sips before deleting it and typing out another message, this one quicker.
Her: Do you know how small my selection was at the institute? There were 23 packs left that might want me. Out of how many? This pack didn’t even get to opt out. They didn’t need to know a damn thing about me to know—
Onyx placed the phone down to finish the glass of wine. Then she picked it back up and deleted the whole text.
Instead, she scrolled back through walls of conversation that moved too fast for me to read them. Finally, she paused, and Ice snapped a screenshot with each frame as she lingered. They popped up on the screen and he cropped them quickly so we could read. One after another, until the conversation pieced itself together.
Ash: Have you considered what we discussed last time?
Onyx: I thought about it.
Ash: Look. Let me level with you. This threat is no joke. Our hands are tied. The detail sat at your place for days but it’s not a permanent solution. A bodyguard at least is a must.
Onyx: I can’t. Not after Devin.
Ash: There are agencies that provide special training.
Onyx: You haven’t caught a trace of this guy. How is training going to help if the police can’t touch him?
Ash: Please think about what we talked about.
Onyx: This guy won’t just vanish because I find a pack.
Ash: I’ve dealt with duchess stalkers before. I can’t emphasise enough how much a bond might change things. Studies show that if an individual is already unbalanced at this stage, things can be driven by more than just emotions. Auras can’t be understated.
Onyx: You’re convinced this is an alpha.
Ash: Not considering that possibility would be too dangerous. You’re an unbonded omega.
Onyx: I don’t want to find a pack this way.
Ash: I know it’s shitty, but right now, escalation is the only outcome I can see.
Onyx: Couldn’t I be putting them in danger too?
Ash: I don’t have a better option for you, Onyx. I’m speaking as a family friend, not a professional. I’ve never seen anything this bad before, not without any leads.
Onyx: How am I supposed to approach a pack like that? What do I do? Lie to them until it’s too late and they’re stuck with me?
That was where the conversation cut off. Onyx had scrolled down a few pages until she rested on a list of things that Detective Ash had given to keep herself safe in her home.
I glanced up at the others.
“A stalker?” That was Arsenal through the comms.
“How bad are we talking?” Malakai looked torn. It looked bad to me, but… bad enough to get involved? I was glad it wasn’t my call.
“Did we just read the same thing?” Ice asked. “She’s fucking terrified—enough to turn up on our doorstep after reading your files. And if I recall, they all show your ugly mugs, too.”
I was barely paying attention. While we were talking, Onyx had gotten to her feet and made her way to her bedroom. She looked to be searching for something before she paused, turning toward a bathroom. From here I could see the door was cracked open.
“Alright, but—” Malakai began, but I cut him off.
“The fuck is that?” My voice was hoarse. Onyx had frozen in the doorway, staring into the large bathroom. It was, like the rest of the apartment, all fancy with marble and fluffy bath mats and towels. But it was in disarray. Drawers were ripped open, their contents spread across the floor and countertop. That wasn’t the thing that made my heart sink in my chest.
The mirror was split, as if it had been punched, cracks webbing out from the centre. Across it, in red, five words were scrawled.
“You will never escape me.”
Every hair on my body stood on end. I heard the little whimper through the cam’s audio.
Onyx’s terror.
The stalker… They’d been in her house—could still be there.
I was smashing the comms button.
“Arsenal—” I began, but it was unnecessary. I felt his own fear and rage rocketing through the bond.
NINE
Onyx
I couldn’t move.
The words scrawled across the mirror—written in my lipstick—pinned me to the spot. Terror was like shards of ice spiking my veins. It was a terror I’d felt before, and no less paralysing for it.
They’d been in my home while I was gone.
And they were angry. Furious. It was etched into each crack of the mirror and sharp edge of shattered bottles.
Could they still be here?
Then I heard a sound from the living room. My doorknob turning.
My breath caught.
My body moved before my mind. I had one chance. I raced to the kitchen, ripping open my drawers, where was—? The lock clicked—fuck. All the other locks that I’d slid into place still held. They had been expensive to install—the best on the market.
