I grab the nearest guard, a burly beta with a scraggly beard. "Where can I find Geo?" I demand.
The guard sneers, jerking his arm free. "Fuck off, outsider. Geo don't talk to just anyone."
My patience, already worn thin, snaps. In one fluid motion, I have the guard pinned against the wall, my forearm pressed against his throat. Not hard enough to cut off his air completely, but enough to make breathing difficult.
"I have been in this cesspit for hours," I growl, my voice low, dangerous. "I am tired, I am filthy, I have been robbed, and I am absolutely not in the mood for your attitude. So I will ask one more time. Where. Is. Geo?"
Fear blooms in the guard's eyes, followed by the sour smell of urine as his bladder releases. Pathetic.
"He-he's gone," the guard chokes out. "Left earlier today with the omega."
"The omega?" I echo, easing the pressure slightly to allow him to speak.
"Y-yeah. Silver hair, curves for days. Real classy-looking. The brothel don't usually get omegas like that. Figures he's been keepin' her all to himself," he mutters bitterly.
I force my alpha instincts to settle at the implication. "Describe her appearance. Exactly. Don't miss a single detail."
I already know it's her, but I need to know what state she was in when she left.
"Uh, silver hair down to her ass. Purple eyes. Vrissian. Was wearing some fancy dress when they left. Red, I think."
"Burgundy," a drunk I'd barely noticed chimes in from his position on the floor a few feet away.
The guard glares at his "helpful" clarification.
"Did she look injured?" I demand. "Or like she was in distress?"
The guard is trembling in my grasp, and he gulps hard, clearly aware his fate depends on choosing his next words carefully. "N-no, not at all. The others she was with looked kinda rough, but she was fine."
Relief floods through me, followed immediately by a fresh wave of concern. "Others?"
"Two other alphas, plus Geo and Raven," the guard says, words tumbling out now. "One alpha was huge, like scary huge, wearing a silver mask. The other had white hair and weird red glasses. They all left together."
White hair. Red glasses.
Vlakov. It has to be.
So she's with this Geo, Nikolai Vlakov, and the monster. That only leaves a thousand other questions in my mind, but there's one that takes priority at the moment.
"Who is Raven?"
The guard swallows audibly again, grimacing as if he knows his words are going to get him killed one way or another.
"Speak now," I say slowly, tightening my grip around his throat, "and you just may live to flee this hellhole before your boss finds out you betrayed him."
That erodes the last of his reservations. I see it in his eyes. "Come on, man, everyone in these parts knows who Raven is."
"I am not from these parts," I say pointedly, drawing out my words with patience I don't possess.
He tries to groan, but it comes out like a cracking sound in my grasp. "He's a merc. Fastest gun this side of Surhiira. And he owns the Alpha's Alpha up near Belvast."
"The Alpha's what?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.
The man suddenly looks sheepish. "You know. The brothel?"
Rage and a dozen other emotions run through me at that revelation. The pieces are beginning to fit themselves together, forming a picture even more detestable than I feared.
Cosima was wandering the wastes with a giant monster who, by all accounts, is following her around like a lost puppy rather than tearing her apart. Somehow, they ended up here and left with the owner of the black market and a whoremonger.
