Angelica’s gaze drags over me slowly. “She’s a rather big omega,” she says, voice cutting like glass. “Are you sure the dosage was appropriate?”
Her words land like a slap.
I feel weirdly…massive. Too tall. Too fat. The kind of ugly only my mother ever manages to make me feel.
Dr. Plume’s mouth pulls down, the faintest frown, and I can only assume Angelica is right.I’m too big.
Seeing the doubt on his face, Angelica makes a sharp sound in her throat. A warning. Then she steps closer and snarls at the doctor, low and vicious, the sound slicing through the tent. “Double the sedative for this one, and make sure shegets a strong dose of heat-suppressant. We can’t have her lashing out once she’s on display,” she snaps. “Frantic omegas rile up the customers. And that puts everyone in danger.”
Her voice cracks like a whip through the room, making the omegas whimper with fear and the betas go still. Including the one holding me.
Dr. Plume bows his head quickly. “My apologies. It won’t happen again.”
Right beside my ear, the beta restraining me finally speaks, his breath brushing my cheek. “Is she going in the auction?”
A cold shiver detonates down my spine.
Angelica doesn’t answer him at first. She snatches the chart right out of Dr. Plume’s hands and scans it, eyes narrowing sharply.
“No,” she says, crisp and final. “She’s too valuable for open bidding.” Her gaze cuts to me, slicing me apart. “She’s unmated and has never taken a knot. Something that valuable goes in the display room.”
A violent jolt tears through me, jerking my body like something inside has snapped loose. Feeling floods back into my limbs, slow and shaky, and my voice finally claws its way to the surface.
“No!” I manage to yell, straining to get free. “You can’t?—”
There’s a flash of movement, and a sting in my upper arm. My words cut off as the needle plunges in, and a cold warmth spreads under my skin.
“No—wait—” The floor tilts. My vision smears like wet paint.
Voices warp around me.
Dr. Plume calls for an extra dose of a heat-suppressant.
The beta holding me adjusts his grip as my body sags.
Then I hear Angelica’s voice, smooth and decisive. “Put her in something with a corset,” she says. “It will be the most flattering for her size.”
The world collapses inward.
And everything goes dark.
The Morder
Grason
The Morder isn’ta building like I expected. It’s a whole damn encampment with massive tents that rise out of the tree line, their peaks disappearing into the dark canopy overhead.
There’s a stage on one side, setup with lighting rigs and speakers pointed at an open field. Music thumps low, vibrating through the ground. A huge fire burns in the center clearing, crackling beneath metal spits and a makeshift outdoor kitchen. Smoke, meat, alcohol all blend together in the cold night air.
And alphas areeverywhere.
Hundreds of them crowd the fire, the paths between the tents, and the bar lined with mismatched bottles. Their voices overlap, their bodies pushing and shoving all around us.
It feels wrong being here.
Cass should be with us.
My arms tighten as I cross them. It feels like I’m peeling out of my own skin, standing here without my pack alpha. Warren and I have no right to make such a massive decision for our pack.
