Wallace stares at me. Then he laughs. It goes on two beats longer than it should. “Oh, Ms. Vidal. Oh. You really don't know.”
The drop starts in my belly, moves to my chest, and reaches the back of my throat.
“Ah. I see you don't. Gods know you would have felt the pull. Never mind, I'll spell it out to you now, such is the power of scent-matched omegas.” He leans forward on his elbows, his voice dropping into something almost reverent.
“They're a conduit. Any alpha bonded to a scent-matched omega becomes, by extension, scent-matched to every other alpha in that omega's pack.” He leans back. “You've been scent-matched to those three males since the moment your omegas claimed you. No one knows why and I'm going to be the first to offer that to the everyday beta. Can you imagine how much I can charge for a scent-matching drug that bonds? My name will go down in history for eons.”
The fluorescent stutter and the hum and the cold concrete under my feet all stop registering. My pulse thuds in the cuffs.
I'm remembering the drive out of Kev's driveway. The feeling in my sternum when I put the car in reverse and backed out. Itwasn't only grief. It was a bond pulling at me to go back to my family. The pain started behind my sternum and spread outward through my lungs and my spine and the base of my skull. I told myself it was the price of doing the brave thing. It was the sound my body made being pulled off a scent-match, and it wasn't one. It was five.
I am scent-matched to all of them, and I walked out the door.
My hands curl against the cuff. The wound on my wrist screams and I don't care.
He is not getting near my pack. That is the only thought holding me together right now. Everything else can wait.
“Kev, Lex and Ezra will never let Aubrey and Espie out of their sight. You'll never get your hands on them,” I say.
“So let's give them some motivation.”
He clicks his fingers and three males walk through the door, one of them holding a surgical tray. Two come to me, ozone and chemical-copper, flanking me. I thrash in the chair and the cuffs bite and the chair doesn't move. A third male stands next to Wallace and lowers the tray. The instruments are laid out in descending size on a folded sterile drape.
One beta unlocks my left cuff. The other pins my wrist down. They wrench my arm forward and slam my hand flat against the arm rest.
Wallace crouches in front of me.
“Don't you fucking touch me.”
“It's the fastest guaranteed draw.” He says it the way a man explains which screwdriver is correct for a job. “A scent-matched pack will respond to severed tissue of a mate. Besides, you’ll need them soon enough. A scent-matched alpha without their mates turn feral after a while.”
I jolt, eyes flaring wide before I can stop my response. Wallace takes it all in. Of course he does. “Another thing you didn’t know, I take it. Well, let’s get them here as fast as we can.” He picksup the scalpel. “The smallest finger. Clean cut. I don't want you bleeding out. At least, not yet. Your blood is too valuable.”
My heart pounds. My hand is on metal. The male holds my fingers splayed, pinning each one separately.
Wallace brings the blade down. The pain is white. I go rigid and a sound rips out of me. I am going to burn this place to the ground. And I'm going to make sure Wallace is incinerated in the inferno.
Wallace inspects my finger under the light, his head tilting. His thumb finds the cut edge and traces it.
“Beautiful,” he says. Quietly. To himself. “The capillary structure in female alpha tissue really is distinctive.”
He wraps the finger in sterile cloth and hands the parcel to the male who has been waiting at his elbow.
“Adrian Blackwood will have this at the OHC by breakfast.”
Rage surges up so hard it burns.
“I’m going to end you, Wallace.” My voice comes out raw. “I’m going to end you so completely there’ll be nothing left to send to hell.”
I spit in his face.
It lands on his cheek.
Wallace reaches calmly into his pocket, unfolds a handkerchief, and wipes it away.
Then he backhands me hard enough to turn the world black.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
