Fire, Fury, And Freedom
~ROSEMARIE~
"If you're going to be a douche and kidnap me on the night of Valentine's Day when I was anticipating being fucked left, right, and upside down, theleastyou could have done is have some damn chocolate on hand."
The words leave my mouth like venom wrapped in silk, and I watch them land exactly where I intend them to—right in the collective faces of the three men standing before me like they have any right to still be breathing the same air I'm currently rationing.
All three of my ex-pack members turn to glare at me.
Good. Excellent. Let's make this a party.
The warehouse they've chosen for this little reunion smells like mildew, rust, and the desperation of men who peaked in high school. The scent curls into my nostrils—damp concrete layered with motor oil, the musty decay of water-damaged cardboard boxes stacked in forgotten corners, and something vaguely metallic that I refuse to examine too closely. It mingles unpleasantly with the acrid tang of cheap industrial cleaner, likesomeone tried to mask years of neglect with a single bucket of Pine-Sol and a prayer.
Overhead, fluorescent lights flicker like they're having a seizure, casting everything in that sickly greenish glow that makes everyone look half-dead. The bulbs buzz with that particular frequency that drills directly into your skull, a white-noise headache waiting to happen. Shadows pool in the corners of the cavernous space, stretching long and dark between rusted support beams that look like they haven't seen maintenance since the Reagan administration.
How fitting. A budget villain lair for budget villains.
I roll my eyes with enough force to strain something, shifting against the zip ties cutting into my wrists behind the industrial chair they've so graciously provided. The plastic digs into my skin with every movement, a persistent burn that's probably going to leave marks. My arms ache from the unnatural angle, shoulders screaming in protest, but I refuse to give these assholes the satisfaction of seeing me wince.
I've been in worse positions. Usually involving better company and far more enjoyable restraints.
The thought flickers through my mind unbidden—Tank's hands securing silk ties to the headboard of his massive bed, those dark brown eyes watching me like I'm something precious, something worth taking his time with.This really isn’t the time to be thinking this.Yet, I can’t help it. His scent—smoked leather, dark woods, saffron, and amber—wrapping around me like a protective shield even as he made me come apart.
Focus, Rosemarie.
Sexy thoughts later.
Survival snark now.
"I'mstarving," I continue, because apparently my mouth has decided survival instincts are for the weak. "Do you see this D&G lace slit dress I'm wearing?" I gesture as best I can with boundhands, which isn't much, but the dramatic intent is there. "It's giving exquisite fine dining vibes, and I'mpositivemynewpack would have been dressed to the nines of high fashion luxury to make sure we were coordinated. Since everyone and their aunty wants to besofucking involved in my life!"
The dress in question—a stunning black number with intricate lace panels and a slit that climbs dangerously high on my left thigh—is now wrinkled and smudged with dust from this godforsaken hellhole. I'd spent an hour getting ready, layering my skin with scented lotions until my natural omega fragrance bloomed perfectly—cinnamon sugar, roasted coffee beans, dark vanilla, and soft amber.
The kind of scent designed to drive my Alphas absolutely feral.
The open back that Tank had traced with his calloused fingers just three hours ago—following the path of my fine-line butterfly tattoos like he was mapping constellations—is probably ruined now. Dirty with whatever was on the van floor. The corset top that Julian had helped me cinch with the focus of a man diffusing a bomb, his cool green eyes warming as he adjusted each lace with meticulous precision? Definitely stretched wrong from whatever manhandling got me from my apartment to this chair.
And Elias had looked at me in this dress like I was made of starlight and sugar, that sunshine smile of his going soft and reverent before he'd leaned in to press a kiss to my temple and whisper that I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
I'm going to bill these bastards for dry cleaning.
And emotional damages.
And the chocolate truffle cake that's sitting uneaten on my kitchen counter right now.
AND the absolute travesty of ruining what was supposed to be our first official Valentine's Day together.
I huff out a breath that disturbs the loose strands of my dark hair—usually worn in an effortless low wave that makes my features look soft and approachable, now a chaotic mess that's probably giving "recently electrocuted" rather than "recently ravished," which was the wholepointof tonight's look. I can feel strands sticking to my lipstick—a deep wine color that Julian had selected after a fifteen-minute deliberation in Sephora, and my mascara is probably smudged to hell from whatever chloroform bullshit they'd used to knock me out initially.
At least my eyebrow piercing is still intact. Small victories.
"Butno," I ramble, the words tumbling out faster now, powered by hunger and fury and three years of repressed rage finally finding an outlet. "Just kidnap me from the three cynical 'touch me and die' Alphas. One who surely has OCD and is trying to hide it—" I'm thinking of Julian, with his color-coded calendar and his need to have his ties arranged by exact shade, not just color, his desk always at perfect right angles, his need forcontrolthat somehow never felt suffocating with me. "While the other is a massive walking red flag with stalking tendencies—" Tank, who had somehow known my coffee order before I'd ever told him and who tracked my location the first week we met, 'for safety purposes,' who runs background checks on everyone who so much as looks at me too long. "And I'm not even going totalkabout Elias because I'm sure if he didn't become a firefighter, he would have been a trained assassin for the FBI at this rate."
Sunshine smile, murder-sunshine skills. That's my Elias. The kind of man who brings you breakfast in bed with a side of "I know twelve ways to kill someone with a spatula."
I groan, letting my head fall back against the chair with a dramatic thunk that probably hurts more than I'll ever admit. The ceiling is industrial exposed beams and rusted pipes, the kind of aesthetic that screams "we couldn't afford an actual villain lair so we went budget." Somewhere above, I can hearpigeons cooing, their sounds echoing in the vast emptiness. A single window, grimy and cracked, lets in weak moonlight that does nothing to improve the ambiance.
"Andyet," I say to the ceiling, to the universe, to whatever deity has clearly decided that my love life needs to be a Telenovela, "here I am.Hangryas fuck. Andnoneof you—who literally were forced to be around meandbullied me, by the way, could have brought some snarky snacks?"
