When I found the lockboxes, I kicked them gently, the sides of them dented in and contents melted. Fireproof my ass! The plastic inside seeped out in a slow bubble from the seams, and I winced. I prayed to anyone that could hear my mute thoughts that there wasn’t much in them because that would make Goober mad. And a mad Goober left me the target of his ire.
When he eventually joined the dragon and saw what my shovel unearthed, he swore under his breath and used my real name. It was then I knew I was in trouble. “G-d fucking dammit, Whisper!”
I flinched as he drew back, claws shining at the tips of his hand.
“Stop that stupid-ass hunkerin’ up like a dog shitting a peach seed. Take your licks, idjit!” Goober had that hiss in his voice that told me he was growing madder by the second, and I closedmy eyes and stood up to my full, but still shorter than him, height.
It wasn’t claws I got at first but a fist that sent my head spinning. A foot sent me tumbling through the ash. The well-placed kick made my inner core spasm, and I knew I’d wet myself a little.
“Enough,” the cool voice of the dragon said. Marcus, was it? “I don’t need to witness you beating this young man over your own stupidity.”
“If he’d done moved fast enough, my cash might not be burnt to shit right here!” Goober hauled back as if he were going to kick me again, and I waited for the bruising force that didn’t come.
A scuffle filled the silence, and Goober’s strained voice told me to go back to my cabin and sleep. I still had chores to do, and I made a hand-up gesture, but he waved me off. “Git on! You can do the rest t’morrow night.”
I sagged and dragged myself up and slipped away. I’d get it worse when the dragon wasn’t around, certainly.
As I made my way back to the shack, I opened the door and glanced up at the foreign scent in my space. Goober’s son, one of them, anyway, raised his head from his place lounging on my nest. Foster, they called him. Like the banana ice cream. “Kitty wampus,” he nearly purred. “Daddy’s had a hard night and needs a little stress relief.”
He waved a twenty-dollar bill at me, and I lit my kerosene lantern, pulled out a jar of Vaseline, and dropped my pants out of habit. I just had to remind myself it was only a few minutes, and I’d have sweet cash. My growling stomach reminded me that I’d not eaten, and I could almost taste the hot food off the gas station grill, one of them tortilla things with meat inside that rolled around on the machine.
I’d heard some woman telling her daughter to just lay there and think about the queen when she was getting married. Didn’t know what that was all about, but I could bend over and think about them taquitos for a spell and be much happier.
Just another Tuesday.
Chapter Three
Marcus
The petite omega wearing layers of filthy clothes stared at me like I was an angel from heaven, eyes wide with awe. Gordon spoke and told me the creature was simple, but intelligence lay in those bright, pink eyes of his. Skin pale as milk and hair just as shimmering like diamonds peered at me from the brim of a dirt-caked hooded sweatshirt more patch than cloth at that point.
So, when Gordon decided he’d earned a beating, I couldn’t help but step in and have the boy sent away. Nobody deserved that, at least not an omega. A dragon would never treat their omegas with such disdain.
Throwback, he’d called the albino omega. Couldn’t shift. Poor boy. I’d stop by to check on him once I was finished with Gordon, I promised myself. See for myself if he wassimple.
I hated that term. Measuring someone’s worth by the hand they were dealt in life. And mute? It wasn’t uncommon for there to be flaws with an albino shifter. Some were deaf or blind.
After thirty minutes or so of talking with the alpha, I’d gotten precisely nowhere. He promised he’d try real hard to keep hisbusinessunder control, despite the urgency I impressed upon him tostop making drugs! It wouldn’t happen.
The place would be better off burned to the ground.
“Besides, I gotta do something to get my ten g’s back, or the clowder won’t have no food for the next few months.” As if ten thousand dollars was anything. If anything, it was pocket change to dragons and embarrassing that they’d stooped so low for change.
I grunted. “Then, I’ll just have to come back again.”
I dismissed myself from the alpha’s presence and made my way through the village without even so much as an escort.
On my way through, I followed the trail the albino had gone. Whisper, the alpha had called him, and I wondered what sort of name it was. His real name or one of their silly nicknames.
As I made my way back that direction, the scent of lust and filthy bodies hit me in the cold like a slap, and my dragon inside me roared in offense.How dare you!
How dare I not be the one getting laid?I thought to my dragon and earned a snort of flame. Someone was touching what my dragon thought belonged to him, and as a dirty alpha slid from the door of what appeared to be a utility shed, tucking his dick back into his pants, I spied a withdrawn Whisper standing not too far behind next to a stack of pallets covered in egg crate foam and dirty blankets, a twenty-dollar bill clutched in his fist. The expression on his face was painful to see, disgust, but delight, as if he’d done something particularly foul but earned a reward.
A growl curled in my throat, and the alpha stared at me with wild eyes before stepping back. “Sorry, man. You can have a turn if you want! Didn’t know anyone was waiting.”
He ran, and a pit sank deep in my gut as the omega within, Whisper, stared back to me, his pink eyes full of curiosity, unease, and a willingness to submit.
“A turn?” I forced myself to ask, and with a shaking hand, the omega held up his fisted hand, the money peeking from the top. For twenty dollars, I could have the alpha’s sloppy seconds… I saw red. Violent rage burned within me, and fire flicked from my nostrils in a way that sent Whisper tumbling back. He threw the money down and climbed atop his bed, waving his hands as if to tell me I could have the money. Then he pointed to himself and started unbuttoning his pants, and I stormed in, my nose assaulted with body odor, weak rut, and not even a hint of omega arousal. He’d done it and not even liked it. I put my hand on thepoor guy’s scrambling fingers and shook my head to tell him to stop.
