Faith & the Dead End Devils (Sweet Omegaverse, #8)(128)

For Omikron? It didn't make sense.

I twisted and found the club all staring at us, the two packs with their omegas in danger. Would they even give a shit? Rider wouldn't care what King lost, not now that he had the club for himself. And Skid was Rider's man. But if my brother had one good fucking quality, it was how ass-over-head in love with the club he was. Skid had killed Wave and Mikey. Wave was another legacy brother and he'd grown up with Rider.

I wove through the members of the club I'd lived in my entire life but never really felt like I belonged to, until I stood in front of the brother I'd never related to.

"Who was Skid helping?" I asked Rider. "Who would Skid have killed our brothers for?"

Rider gaped at me, but the club was turning to him now. "I knew fucking nothing about this," he said, but his eyes were growing wider as he stared at the faces around him.

He was supposed to lead them. He might be inclined to protect Skid, if the man were still alive, but he was dead, and the rest of the club would never trust Rider, even if he feigned ignorance.

"Chance, we need to follow Eve," King called, voice so close to a bark it took everything in me to keep from flinching.

"Who was Skid talking to, Rider?" I asked. I would go to my bike, let my brother deal with the fallout of his friend, but I'd seen those two together. Rider would know something.

Rider stared back at me, mouth shutting and the shock settling into a shield. You are my brother. You should fucking help me, I thought.

"Preston Bowers," Rider said, looking to King. "He went with me to meet up with Bowers, to get evidence for the trial. I noticed the number on Skid's phone, but I thought he was pulling petty shit, drugs and shit like that for him."

"Bowers," I repeated, turning to King.

King's eyes were narrowed. "We'll fucking eat him alive. Now let's go."

"We'll come with you, Prez," Buck announced, seated on his bike.

"No," King said. "Go to the club, check on Frost. Clean things up. This is pack business."

I hurried to my own bike, started it, and pulled out after King and Bear and Ghost. My brother was watching us from the cluster of the club.

Preston Bowers or Omikron, it didn't matter. We were getting our omega back, and then we were destroying whoever tried to take her away from us.





44. FAITH





Scents, cloying and clawing at my lungs.

"Prest, I thought you said she was recovered."

Growls too close, my own answering.

"I saw pictures. She was crawling all over those alphas."

"We should've tried a subtler approach. Seduced her to join us. Now we're as bad as the bikers."

I snarled, my head down, the figures distorted through the curtain of my hair. Three alphas stood at the end of a fussy canopied bed, staring at where I cowered against the wall at the corner of the room.

The drive had been a dark and horrifying blur, but I'd kicked and clawed and screeched as they’d dragged me into the fancy house, forcing these alphas to send their beta staff scurrying out. We were alone. I was kidnapped. I would kill them.

"She has a bite mark. This is getting very messy, Preston," one of the men said.

"We just bite over the marks," another hissed back. Preston. Familiar and awful. "No one is going to contest our claim when the alternative is a fucking character like King or anyone from his gang. He offered her up to me in the first place, and we're the obvious better choice."

"Hmph. Do you hear that, you rabid little creature?" the third man called to me. "Once you calm down, you'll see. Someone call down to the kitchen, get some cake for her or something."

"We sent everyone away, remember?"

"Damnit."

"We should bite her first. The sooner we have the bonds, the better."

"You said this would be easy."

"We have her, don't we?"

The more I listened, the more I hated these men. These weren't alphas. They were lazy cowards.

There was a beleaguered sigh. "We have a snarling bundle that tries to scratch us every time we come close. We don't have a lovely omega to knot and breed and take to functions."

"It's been less than an hour," Preston drolled. "Watch. Omega. Stand up and come here."

A bark. My muscles seized, legs trembling, the urge to bounce up from my corner running on urgent repeat.

This was not Omikron. These were just men, alphas who had stolen me because they thought they could get away with it. Thought they could bite me and take me away from my pack. Like King or Bear or even Ghost would give me up if their bite was cut. Like these men hadn't signed their death warrant by grabbing me.

So I stood, keeping my eyes just high enough to be sure they didn't come any closer.

"She's in better shape than the first time I saw her," Preston noted as I took one step forward and then another.

The demand of the bark softened with every step until I could breathe fully again.

"Something can be done with her, I suppose," one alpha said, crossing his arms over his chest. "For now, she looks like a bar rat."

I glanced up to glare at him. The three men in front of me were dressed tidily, even Preston, who’d made some beta lackey grab me from the bar's backyard as he’d barked commands. They were handsome in a plain way, and the room around me was rich in a boring way, furniture large and simple and the space far too open. It smelled sterile, aside from the bland scents in front of me.