Pack Bliss, page 14
part #2 of A Blissful Omegaverse Series
The footsteps stopped in front of my cell, and I looked up without interest. “You’ve got a visitor.”
Keys jingled, and a key turned in the lock. My heart leapt.
It was probably one of the guys—most likely Rafe. Part of me almost hoped it was Bliss, but a larger part knew it wasn’t and was glad of that. The guys would have her on lockdown now, and that was exactly how it should be.
In the last few hours, I hadn’t felt much of anything from Bliss. The bond had been growing steadily stronger again, and her flashes of emotion were more frequent and vivid until today, suddenly, they stopped. I hoped that just meant her blockers worked and not the more paranoid thought that she’d shut me off completely. Either way, there wasn’t anything I could do from in here.
I stumbled to my feet, slipping on my socks—they’d taken my shoes for some fucking reason, as though I would have time to hide a weapon in one before my surprise arrest—and followed the guard into the hall, the fluorescent lights flickering and casting long shadows against the walls.
The police officer was an alpha, so he wasn’t bothering with a riot vest or ear protection. I sized him up—he was fairly dominant, like on a scale from bunny rabbit to wolf, this guy would be a Doberman. A small part of me—okay, a large part—wanted to bark at him, just to prove I was a wolf, but I’d probably just end up with a literal bullet to the chest. Not worth it.
See, I have some self-restraint.
We stopped outside a door with a glass window, and the officer opened it slowly. “You’ve got thirty minutes.”
I stepped inside, expecting to see one of the guys, and deflated a little when our lawyer, Mr. Homer, looked up at me. He sat on one side of a metal interrogation table, a briefcase in front of him and a half-drunk cup of coffee in hand. He stood, holding out his other hand for me to shake. “How’s it going, Ares?”
I sat down hard in the chair opposite him without shaking his hand. “Awesome. It’s like fucking Christmas.”
He pursed his lips and sat back down, evidently deciding not to comment. For an alpha, Homer was pretty submissive. He was dominant enough to be aggressive in court, but not so dominant that he scared betas and got into fights—at least, that was my read on him. He smelled sort of mid-level threatening to me, but nowhere near Doberman level. More like a fox.
He gave me a shrewd look. “You seem to have some powerful and determined enemies.”
I clenched my jaw. That was one of the truer statements I’d heard in a while. “I know.”
“This is going to be a rough run. The Assembly will charge you with the murder for sure and probably some kind of kidnapping.”
“I didn’t fucking kidnap her.”
“Sure, okay, but the only way out of either of those charges is if you really were bonded.”
I growled low in my throat at his phrasing. “You don’t believe we are?”
“I didn’t say that. I just can’t prove it. Without the omega there to testify, no one can.”
“She can’t testify. I don’t want her anywhere near this. I’d rather go to prison than let her get near the Institute or Nero again.”
Homer clicked his tongue. “That’s probably decent proof in and of itself that you really are bonded, but that’s just my opinion. I don’t know. I’ll see what I can do.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t think there’s much of a chance though, do you?”
He tightened his jaw, deliberating. “I didn’t say that. I think there’s a slim chance they’ll hang themselves on technicalities.”
“Fucking perfect,” I muttered, gloom washing over me. “Good thing I look great in orange.”
I rolled over on my thin mattress, somewhere between sleeping and waking.
The dirt road stretched in front of me through the windshield of the old Impala. Someone shouted outside and waved a T-shirt they were using as a flag. I shifted gears, heart pounding, and slammed my foot on the gas.
Footsteps sounded down the hall, the clink of keys threatening to pull me back to reality.
I took a turn too fast and glanced to the right—a mistake. I should have kept looking forward. My eyes connected with the driver next to me as he sideswiped my door, pushing me off course.
My wheels spun, and my stomach bottomed out. I turned the wheel frantically, trying to straighten out, but there was no point.
“Hey!”
I sat up immediately, as though I’d never been asleep at all. It felt like I hadn’t been—this place didn’t allow any real rest.
I blinked, clearing the memory of the weeks after they took Bliss from my mind. At least that dream had been mine—I could swear lately I was having her dreams, waking over and over again in the middle of the night from nightmares and memories that didn’t make sense or belong to me. It was like the early days of Bliss being at the Institute all over again, when we’d all been separated for a few months. All the while, I could feel her misery, and that was worse than the physical pain of my body literally trying to force me to return to the group.
“Hey! Are you fucking listening to me?” The guard jingled his keys against the bars.
“No,” I said honestly. “What did you say?”
“Get up. You need to shower. Your trial is today.”
“What day is it?” I asked—it had felt like it was maybe three days since I’d come in. Four? I honestly wasn’t sure.
The guard sneered at me. “Worst day of your life, I’d bet.”
I laughed genuinely. “Not even fucking close.”
Several hours later, I fell into step beside Mr. Homer as he rushed down the empty hall of the courthouse. He looked sideways at me, and I tensed. “Remember to let me do the talking.”
“Got it,” I grumbled.
“I’m fucking serious, kid.”
I raised my eyebrows. He must be serious—he didn’t seem like the type to swear for emphasis. “I fucking get it,” I said sardonically.
We stopped outside a heavy oak wood door, and Mr. Homer turned to face me. His brows pulled low, and his mouth became a thin line. “I hope you do. This is already a losing case, and I don’t like losing. Don’t make this worse by getting yourself thrown out of the courtroom.”
He pulled the door open, and we stepped inside the cavernous room. I kept my eyes on the floor—gold-and-blue carpet—avoiding looking up at anything that was going on around me. It was impossible to avoid the scent though. There had to be sixty, maybe seventy people in here.
“Let’s go,” Mr. Homer said quietly, and I followed him toward a bench at the center of the room, finally looking up as we sat down.
It didn’t look like any courtroom I’d seen on TV or in a movie. Instead of one raised dais with a single judge, there were rows of bleacher-like seats in a semicircle around one-half of the room. Fifty or so people—mostly men—sat facing me. They sat almost completely still, most of their expressions blank, some curious, some angry.
In the front row, only slightly raised off the floor, Headmistress Omega DuPont sat in the center of a nearly empty row. To her left stood an armed guard—clearly only there for her protection, and on her right sat a blonde woman, her face half obscured by the screen of her laptop. I squinted at her. She was familiar.
At the very top of the rows of seats, there was a row of reporters with cameras pointed down over the entire room. My gaze zeroed in on them—since when were cameras allowed in courtrooms?
I leaned over to ask my lawyer, but he shot me a look. Right. No talking.
Instead, I refocused on the crowd of people behind DuPont. The Assembly, obviously. Somehow, when Mr. Homer described them in one of our pretrial meetings, I hadn’t pictured it so literally.
I scanned their faces. There were only three women, including DuPont. A tan, dark-haired woman with a plaque reading “Arizona” in front of her and a very tiny elderly woman from Maine who looked like she must be nearing 100.
Aside from them, there were a few alphas I sort of recognized—maybe from TV, maybe because they’d been at the auction, it was hard to tell—and at the end of the second bench… My blood boiled, my heartbeat kicking up.
My lawyer reached out, putting a hand on my arm as though he sensed danger. He probably did—or at least, he could smell my sudden rage.
“Stop,” Homer hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
I ignored him. There was no way to stop. No way to sit in the same room as Nero and remain calm. Nero knew it too. He was sitting at the end of the bench, smirking at me like he’d already won. In some ways, he had—this case was a formality. I knew I was fucked.
The headmistress had made that completely clear when she’d shown up the other day, and if I’d understood how the Assembly worked, I would have realized what she’d meant.
The only thing keeping me sane was that Nero still didn’t have Bliss. She was safe at home with the rest of the pack. I didn’t give a fuck what happened to me as long as she was far away from here, where he couldn’t find her.
DuPont cleared her throat, and the woman taking notes snapped to attention. “Sarah, are you ready?”
The blonde nodded, and I realized why she looked familiar. It was the woman who’d been with the headmistress the other day. The same woman who’d picked up Bliss from that gas station parking lot years ago. Who the hell was she?
“Excellent,” DuPont said, speaking loud enough that the entire room noticed. In the back, the cameras swiveled to face her. “Sarah?” DuPont prompted.
“Right, sorry.” She clicked around for a moment on her laptop, then stood, lifting the computer to chest level to read from the screen.
“Sentencing Number 0089372.” Her voice was monotone, as though she were reading without actually processing what she was saying. “Assembly vs. Ares, Constantine Moore, Alpha. The Assembly charges the accused, Moore, Alpha, with the following offenses.” She said all of this in one breath and paused to breathe before continuing. “One: Theft of an asset greater than or equal to forty million United States dollars. Two: Possession of an unregistered omega over the age of twenty-one. Three: Murder in the second degree.”
“Thank you, Sarah,” DuPont said pleasantly.
I gaped. What the ever-loving fuck was going on? I leaned over to my dickhead lawyer. “That is not what you said they were going to do.”
“Quiet,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
I breathed heavily, playing back what Sarah said as she sat back down. Had I caught that right?
Murder. Fine. I’d expected that—that was the whole reason I was here. It was the rest that tripped me up.
“Is the defense ready?” DuPont asked.
“Yes, Madam Chair,” Homer muttered, still not taking his hand off my arm. He didn’t need to leave it there. I was too stunned to say anything else.
“Good. We are now in session.” I expected her to bang one of those judge hammers or something, but she didn’t. Maybe that was only for regular courts. Instead, she looked down at a piece of paper.
“Ares Constantine Moore.” She read out my full name again, and I wondered if by the end of this, it would start to lose meaning to me. “Do you understand the charges that brought you here before the Assembly today?”
I didn’t say anything, and she looked up at me, obviously expecting a response. I glanced at Mr. Homer, and he nodded. I reached over and grabbed his little microphone, pulling it toward me. “No.”
My lawyer audibly groaned.
DuPont narrowed her eyes, and a couple of people behind her muttered, turning to each other. DuPont shuffled her papers, and Sarah typed furiously fast notes.
“You don’t understand?” DuPont asked again pointedly.
“No,” I repeated.
“What don’t you understand?”
“You said theft of an asset.”
“That’s correct.” DuPont’s eyes narrowed even further.
“Yeah, and that’s the part I don’t understand. That sounds like a fucking car or something.”
I’d expected them to cry kidnapping, and we would say it wasn’t kidnapping—it was a rescue. What the fuck was theft of an asset? They were acting like Bliss wasn’t even a person. How could there be omegas in this room and they didn’t even react?
Mr. Homer kicked me so hard under the table my chair scooted a few inches to the left. “What my client means to say is the phrasing is a little over his head, Madam Chair. I apologize for the profanity.”
I sneered and opened my mouth again, but DuPont cut me off. “Sarah, please strike the last minutes from the record. Mr. Homer, the charges refer to the value that Omega Nero’s mate insured her at, as is common with all omegas. We will move on from this, unless there is anything else?”
I could have gone on about this indefinitely, but clearly, there was no fucking point. I noticed that the cameramen and a couple of the reporters at the top of the stands were now facing me instead of DuPont. Interesting. Did they always do that?
“Wait a minute,” a huge alpha in the third row boomed into his microphone.
I turned to him, unable to ignore his loud voice. He was dark-haired and had shoulders so large the men on either side of him were having a hard time moving their arms.
“The chair recognizes the representative from Nevada,” DuPont said quickly.
The man was already speaking over her. “This is about Omega Nero? Can the representative from New York be in this hearing?” The man glared over at Nero, and I immediately decided that of all the people in the Assembly, Nevada and I would probably get along alright.
“The chair recognizes the representative from New York.”
My eyes snapped up as Nero rose from his seat on the bench and leaned into a microphone I’d only just noticed in front of him. All the representatives had one next to their little plaque declaring their state. I glanced around for my microphone—no dice.
“Thank you, Madam Chair,” Nero said, barely concealed glee in his voice. “I will of course refrain from the vote as a courtesy to the Assembly, but I think the evidence will speak for itself. My personal opinion has no bearing on this matter.”
My lip curled, and I noticed the alpha from Nevada mirrored my expression.
“If we might move on,” DuPont said, “I’d like to finish reading the facts of this case.”
She appeared flustered now, as though we were already off to a rocky start. I smiled. I hoped it only got worse for her from here.
“Ares Constantine Moore.” She used my full name again, this time saying it with such force it was like she was trying to assert dominance over the entire room. I raised my eyebrows. Some omega that woman was. “On the evening of the Agora Ceremony, did you knowingly enter the home of Alpha Nero and leave with his omega?”
“No,” I said into the microphone.
The court erupted into whispers.
“Order,” DuPont demanded, and everyone fell silent. “No, you did not come into possession of Mr. Nero’s property?”
“No.”
She blinked at me, evidently stunned. There was no need to make anyone swear to tell the truth in this kind of setting; everyone would know immediately if I so much as told a half-truth, and I wasn’t lying.
“Why do you think Mr. Nero believes you did, then?” she said finally.
Mr. Homer cut across me. “Madam Chair, the question calls for speculation. The accused already answered the original question. We respectfully ask that the chair moves on.”
She didn’t move on; she simply rephrased the question. “Alpha Moore, were you in possession of the omega when you murdered Alpha Carver?”
“Allegedly,” my lawyer interrupted, leaning over to speak into the microphone.
DuPont again didn’t rephrase, just stared at me, waiting for me to answer.
“No.”
She blinked at me. “You were seen on camera.”
“I was not in possession of an omega.”
Her lip curled, and I watched the proverbial light bulb go on over her head. “Is it the phrasing of the question that you object to?”
“No.” I was tempted to leave it there and make them pull every answer out of me word by word but added, “It’s the damn caveman ideology.”
Sarah looked up at me for a moment, her fingers stalling on her keyboard. DuPont looked over at her sharply. “Sarah, please retract the last page from the record. We’ll start again.”
I raised an eyebrow. Was that a thing? I wasn’t an expert, but could they do that?
Mr. Homer stiffened. “Madam Chair, why—”
DuPont spoke over him. “Ares Constantine Moore,” she started again, “did you enter Alpha Julian Nero’s house on the evening of the Agora Ceremony?”
I ground my teeth. This clearly wasn’t going the way DuPont wanted, and she was going to redirect until it did. I looked for a way around that question and couldn’t find one. “Yes.”
DuPont’s face split into a genuine smile that sent shivers down the back of my neck. “Why did you enter the house? Be specific.”
My eye twitched. “He had her drugged. He was going to fucking rape her. I could feel her terror. We all could.” I took a deep breath. “I literally couldn’t stay out of that house if I wanted to. It’s physically impossible.”
The room erupted in chaos, whispers and voices rising above each other to speak. DuPont’s face drained of blood, and by contrast, Nero turned a dangerous shade of red.
“Order!” DuPont yelled.
Nothing happened. My gaze fell on the alpha from Nevada, whose booming voice rose above the others, yelling something at Nero across the room. I looked for the two omegas, Arizona and Maine, but neither was tall enough to be seen through the chaos of everyone else. The scent of anger, anxiety, curiosity, and, oddly, excitement rose in the air, adding to the confusion.
DuPont reached around and grabbed someone’s microphone and banged it against the head of her own, causing it to screech. Everyone stopped talking immediately, alarmed at the sudden sound. “Quiet,” she said primly, sitting back down. “Please be seated.”
