The Night Movers, page 4
“What’d you see?” Ryker said.
Ridley assumed he was talking to Titus and stayed quiet.
Before Titus could answer, Jensen chimed in. “Yeah, what’d you see?”
Silence stretched between them. Diesel began to rock gently with Ridley in his arms. His brain felt soupy, his body limp like cooked noodles. Was this still those calming pheromones? Was this just shock? Exhaustion?
“Well?” Diesel said, impatience seeping into his tone.
“I saw what he said,” Titus said, hesitant, like he wanted to say something more.
“And?” Ryker asked. “Was he telling the truth?”
“How should I know?” Titus snapped. “Just because I saw it doesn’t mean it’s true. If he can show me these so-called visions, maybe he can also just make them up and show me anything he wants.”
Ridley couldn’t even bring himself to get mad. Diesel’s tight hold and gentle rocking was soothing him to sleep as the alphas argued over his head.
“Why would he want to be tied to five alphas?” Ryker asked.
“Six,” Ridley mumbled. “There are six of you…the one who smells like candy. He’s mine, too.”
“Sugar…” Jensen said. “He’s never even met him. How would he know about him if he’s just making shit up? Wouldn’t he have only included those of us he’s met?”
Titus scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know what he can do. Maybe he can pluck thoughts right out of our heads. What do you want me to say? That he’s right? That we’re going to claim him? That’s insane. We swore we’d never do that to an omega.”
That last statement tugged at something inside Ridley. There was a pain attached to those last words, something deep and visceral. Titus wasn’t pissed. He was scared. Not scared of Ridley but something else.
I’m scared of history repeating itself.
The words weren’t Ridley’s but they reverberated through him like a tuning fork. Nobody else seemed to notice or react to the thought. Maybe Ridley had simply imagined the words, an exhaustion-induced hallucination.
“But he’s not safe alone,” Diesel said, tightening his hold on Ridley like a kid trying to convince his dad to let him care for a stray puppy. “You know what they could do to him.”
That was nice. Diesel was nice. He was nice and sweet and sexy and so strong he could probably break Ridley in half, but even as he squeezed him, he stayed cognizant of Ridley’s small frame. He could barely keep his eyes open, Diesel’s rocking lulling him to sleep.
“We got into this to help omegas,” Jensen said. “Are you just going to dump him on the street when we get back and leave him to his own devices? That’s fucking cruel. You know what they’ll do to him.”
“What about what he’ll do to us?” Titus shot back. “Do you really think the six of us can share one omega without tearing each other to pieces?”
Oh…did that happen? He’d heard from others that official packs claimed and shared omegas all the time, raising the omegas’ offspring as a group. He shivered at the thought of having their pups. A week ago, he would have thrown up at the thought, but now, it excited him. Maybe he was about to go into heat. He’d only made it through his pre-heat at the facility before they’d pumped him full of some kind of drug to stop it in its tracks so they could perform their invasive and painful tests.
Was this what a heat felt like? If he went into heat on the streets, he’d be torn apart. A giggle escaped his lips but he bit it back. He should be afraid but whatever alpha pheromones surrounded him had him still bobbing along the waves.
“Packs share all the time,” Jensen said.
See. I was right.
“Most packs aren’t like our pack. There aren’t any betas in the mix or other omegas. What if our ruts sync up? You think he can handle six alphas knotting him several times a day for a week or longer? Could we?”
Ryker scoffed. “There are ways to stop that. Meds. Isolation. We’ve all ridden out a rut alone to keep from triggering the others. But it doesn’t even matter. He’s an omega. He was made for this.”
Ridley shifted, biting down on his lip at the way his nipples hardened and his cock leaked. He was already so wet there was no way Diesel couldn’t smell it and feel it.
Diesel chuckled. “I don’t think it's the crisis you think it is. Our little omega seems to agree with Ryker. He likes the idea of six on one. Smell him.” Diesel nosed behind Ridley’s ear, murmuring, “You smell so fucking good. I want to drizzle your slick on my fucking waffles. I bet you taste amazing.”
Ridley whimpered, pushing himself back against Diesel, molten lava bubbling between his hip bones at the idea of taking six knots. Diesel’s strong hands squeezed at his hips, then dragged him back against his thick cock, grinding it against his ass.
“Diesel, relax,” Jensen said around a laugh. “You can’t just mount him in the back of the van. Titus already looks like he’s going to blow an artery over this.”
“For the record, I’ve never minded sharing,” Ryker said. “But our alpha seems a bit…tense over the idea.”
“We’d let you have him first,” Diesel said, his hand sliding beneath Ridley’s thin t-shirt to splay across the bare skin of his belly. “As long as that’s what he wanted, obviously.” To Ridley, he said, “We don’t own you. Even if you’re pack. We’re not about that shit.”
“Yeah, there’s already a pack hierarchy in place. We know our pecking order. The only possessive one is you,” Jensen reminded Titus.
“How the fuck would you know?” Titus said. “When have you ever even seen me with an omega?”
“Here,” Ryker said. “Right now. And you’re not really selling the easy breezy vibe.”
Titus glowered at him. “We don’t do omegas. We all agreed.”
“Things change,” Diesel said. “If Ridley has visions and his visions are never wrong, don’t we at least owe it to ourselves to consider it—consider him—before we dismiss him outright? He’s not safe without us.”
“He’s not safe with us,” Titus insisted, expression pained.
“Look, you’re the alpha and we always respect your authority, but we decided everyone got a vote on the big decisions,” Jensen reminded. “This is a big decision. We shouldn’t be having this conversation without Sugar and Steele.”
“Sugar will never agree to this,” Titus said, obstinate.
Diesel glanced down at Ridley and smiled. Ridley smiled back dopily, another giggle slipping free. How long did these pheromones last? It was so nice to not feel scared or anxious or stressed. He hoped they’d let him have a bath and maybe some food before they turned him out on the streets.
The vehicle came to a stop once more. Diesel flashed pearly white teeth and a devious smile towards Titus. “I guess we’re about to find out, huh?”
Ridley knew they were back where they’d started before the doors to the van even opened. He could smell the dirt soaked in motor oil and the rubber on the stacks of tires. It was so strong it clung to his skin, permeating everything. How did they live around this scent every day?
He needed to move, to get up and make his way back out into the cold, but he found himself rooted to the spot. Outside those doors was a new reality he wasn’t sure he was prepared to face just yet.
The problem with seeing the future was that it rarely showed him how he’d get there. He knew these six men would claim him…eventually, but he didn’t know the series of events that would happen before then. He’d observed the state of his own body in the visions. He’d seen the bite marks, the bruises, just like he knew he’d slept not just with one but likely all of them.
But he was having a hard time connecting the dots from where he stood now to the future his vision said was already set in stone. Especially with half the people in the van looking at him like he was a problem they needed to solve and the others looking at him like a pet in need of a new owner. Ridley couldn’t imagine sealing himself to a group of men who could think of him in such basic terms, but he also didn’t want to spend his life in a brothel or a breeding house.
What was that saying? The devil you know? Being the sex slave of six alphas had to be a better deal than being a whore to thirty men a day or being kept in a room and forced to pump out baby after baby only to have them ripped from him. Yeah, these men, no matter how bad they were, had to be the lesser of those evils.
Still, they were alphas.
Ridley couldn’t let himself forget that.
He could never afford to forget that.
He jumped when the van doors flew open, freezing in place. The others either didn’t notice his reaction or didn’t care. They filed out around him until it was just him and Diesel.
“Are we bedding down here for the night, Strawberry, or…” Diesel murmured in his ear. “It’s fine with me either way.”
“I-I’m just…nervous,” Ridley admitted in a hissing whisper.
It wasn’t Steele standing at the door but the other one. The alpha they all called Sugar. Did they call him that because he smelled sweet? Ridley wished they’d lose the scent patches. At least then he’d have some clue about their emotions. Right now, he was flying completely blind.
Sugar was far hotter in real life than he’d been in Ridley’s vision. He was tall and broad like any other alpha, but he had deep umber skin, a perfectly trimmed beard, and eyes so light brown they almost glowed when the interior van light hit them right. His locs were long, well past his shoulders, the top half pulled back off his face.
He flashed a grin at Ridley. “So, you’re what all the fuss is about, huh?”
Ridley gave a stilted nod but, other than that, stayed silent.
“He’s a little shy,” Diesel said. “But he’s kind of feisty and smells like strawberries.”
“He doesn’t look like he’s got a lot of fight in him,” Sugar said, looking him over.
“Fuck you,” Ridley spit.
Sugar grinned. “There it is.” He stepped back, moving his hand in a sweeping gesture. “Well, come on, spitfire. Let’s go.”
Ridley flushed at how easily they dismissed his hostility. To them, he was a bug buzzing in their ears, easily swatted if necessary. No alpha feared an omega. He wanted to be mad about it, but he was running on fumes. He hadn’t slept in days. He’d had no food and barely any water.
Diesel pushed Ridley up from his lap and Sugar helped him from the van. As soon as Ridley’s feet were on the hardened clay, Sugar ran to catch up with Titus and Steele, who whispered heatedly to each other as they walked. Ridley couldn’t hear their conversation and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. There was a lot of head shaking and wild hand gestures.
Ridley shivered as wind whipped between the steel towers made of crushed cars. His fingers were numb, his toes, too. The thin slippers he’d worn were filthy and did nothing to protect him from the snap of winter in the air. He’d been riding high on adrenaline for so long, but now, his tank was empty and every little inconvenience was grating on his nerves.
He jumped as a large hand wrapped around his wrist. Diesel. His head snapped towards the alpha. He grinned at Ridley, like he was having the time of his life. Diesel struck him as someone who was always making the best of every situation. Ridley wasn’t sure if that was endearing or delusional.
Still, Ridley stepped closer to the alpha and the warmth he radiated, allowing him to drag him along. They didn’t go into the little green shack Ridley had noted when they’d first made the exchange. Instead, they moved deeper into the maze of steel cubes. Ridley bet he could easily get lost among the rows. From overhead, he imagined it looked like a labyrinth.
He was so busy looking around at the shadowy towers that he missed the men ahead of him disappearing one by one until Diesel shook his arm a bit and said, “Duck.”
That was all the warning he had before Diesel crouched beside him and dipped beneath a car hovering above them, held in place by two other stacks of crushed steel. It seemed precarious at best.
On the other side of the car, Ridley found himself in a small clearing in the center of more scrap metal. He watched, curious as Sugar grabbed a chain from the ground, wrapping it around his fist and tugging. Ridley’s eyes went wide as a metal grate opened from the ground. It looked heavy, like no one man should be able to hold it and yet, Sugar held it with ease.
Were they about to drop Ridley into some hole in the ground? A prison cell? What were those ground dungeons called? An oubliette. Was he going to live in a cell until they decided what to do with him?
His pulse rocketed skyward, his heart beating so fast the taste of blood filled his mouth. He thought about yanking his arm from Diesel to make a run for it, but what was the point? He couldn’t outrun an alpha, much less six of them.
Diesel frowned at him. “What’s wrong, Strawberry? Afraid of the dark?”
“Depends on what’s waiting there,” Ridley admitted.
Diesel laughed, shaking his head like Ridley was hilarious.
Titus and Steele stepped forward, disappearing quickly into the hole in the ground. Jensen and Ryker went next. Diesel tugged him along with a reassuring nod. When Ridley was close enough, he was relieved to find that there were concrete steps lit by dim yellow lights set within each riser.
He allowed Diesel to help him down the stairs into a narrow corridor. Ridley tried to keep track as the six of them traversed the tunnels underground, but there were too many of them. Even though they only walked for about five minutes, the numerous twists and turns made him dizzy. He’d never find his way out.
They finally stopped at a door. Titus keyed in a code and it clicked open, allowing them to enter. Ridley’s head was on a swivel as they entered what could only be an old hotel…or maybe a theater? It was a cavernous space with coffered ceilings and a sagging crystal chandelier hanging over a marble staircase.
The carpet beneath Ridley’s feet was old and worn, the red so faded it was pink and the once gold accents now dirty and threadbare. They didn’t go down the massive staircase but instead turned right. Ridley stopped short. This was the room from his vision. Well, one of them.
Seeing it in the context of the surrounding spaces, he imagined that, once upon a time, it was a ballroom or a conference room of sorts. Though it shared the same ugly carpet and fancy ceilings, this room had not fared as well as the mezzanine. Graffiti littered the walls, most of it as weathered as the carpets, but some was fresh, like the large sports car in the hot pink and blue spray paint. There were also giant holes in the walls, opening the space up to other equally empty rooms.
A worn leather L-shaped sofa—the same one from his vision—sat just inside the door, like whoever had been tasked with carrying it had given up once it was inside. There was also a large wooden drum that had once held spools of something, cable maybe, but was now being used like a makeshift coffee table.
Ryker, Jensen, and Diesel flopped onto the worn sofa, slouching into the cushions like they’d done it a thousand times before. They all sat congregated closely despite having plenty of room to spread out. Ridley didn’t want to sit too close to anyone just yet. When Titus, Steele, and Sugar stayed standing, Ridley climbed onto the wooden spool, drawing his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees.
“You can’t really think he belongs to us?” Steele said.
“Steele’s right,” Sugar agreed. “We don’t do omegas. We all agreed we’d never force an omega into a subservient role. Now you want to bind one to us for life?”
Titus made a noise of frustration that Ridley felt in his core. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m only telling you what I saw.”
“You mean what he showed you,” Steele clarified.
What he showed you. Ridley mocked Steele’s voice in his head. Why would he fucking show these men something like that if it wasn’t true? Only alphas could sit around arguing about whether to subjugate an omega without even consulting the omega sitting two feet to their right. Why would Ridley willingly tie himself to them when he could have simply gone to the sanctuary city?
Finding Ren was Ridley’s top priority. If binding himself to six alphas was what it took, that was what he’d do. Besides, just because claiming was supposed to be for life, it didn’t mean it truly was for life. An omega could live free of their pack. It would be painful, cripplingly so at first, but it could be done. He’d endure that—and more—if it meant Ren was safe.
Where was she? Was she warm? Fed? Alive? He silenced the voice in his head that was telling him there was a reason he couldn’t sense her. He couldn’t focus on that right now. His thoughts were too scattered. Everything was so…surreal. How had he found himself here?
“Maybe he was just feeding you that bullshit because he has nowhere else to go?” Sugar said, giving Titus a look. “You’re not usually so gullible. This kid’s scent has got your fucking panties in a twist.”
“Fuck you,” Titus snarled, shoving Sugar.
Steele stepped between them. “See? It’s already starting. He can’t stay with us. It’s too dangerous. For him and for us. We’ve been a pack for six years without incident and now you want to go and change that. For him?”
Ridley should have felt some sense of disappointment in the men’s conversation. They clearly didn’t want to keep him around. This was where he should have been fighting to stay, to prove that his visions were real. But he was so tired. And so cold. Numb. He was numb. Numb in his extremities, numb in his core, numb in his soul.
Nothing mattered anymore except being warm.
He looked at Diesel, who tilted his head, eyeing him curiously before giving him a goofy smile. Ridley didn’t stop to think, he just unfolded himself from the spool and walked to the bear-like alpha, climbing into his lap, chest to chest, collapsing with his head on his shoulder.
The whole room fell silent but Ridley couldn’t bring himself to care. Diesel radiated heat like a furnace. Ridley couldn’t get close enough. He would have climbed inside his skin if he could have. He rubbed his cheek against the alpha’s neck.
“Can I scent you?” he mumbled.
