Pack of Lies, page 25
“You give an order we don’t like, and I’m challenging you for pack lead,” Reese threatened.
“Challenge me if you fucking want. Until you’ve decided you’re going to, do what I fucking say,” I growled. “Quentin and Jubilee, do what I told you. Reese, use any of your old connections you can to get information.”
“What are you going to do?” Quentin asked.
Protect the fucking pack, as I always do.
I kept the thought to myself.
“I’m going to go see an old friend.”
The only place you could ever find Dash Loranger at this time in the evening was a high-end lounge, or a beta’s bed.
Luckily, I’d caught him before he’d found a bedmate for the night.
He was less than pleased to see me, but I’d expected that.
This lounge was fancier than any place I’d ever had a drink. Everything was sleek and modern, done in trendy metal and glass finishes. The bartenders and servers were all gorgeous and smiling and made up, wearing uniforms that were pressed and clean.
I’d come up to lean on the edge of Dash’s VIP booth where he sat with a bottle-blonde beta who looked like she would rather be on his lap. It was directly beside the intimate dance floor with convenient tucked-away corners where a rich person could get sucked off by a willing participant before the bouncers were any the wiser.
I bet Dash had been in those corners more times than he could count.
His flinty eyes glared from a movie star handsome face, his hair professionally cut in the latest style and done up with gel. I was pretty sure he was wearing light makeup to highlight his features, but it was possible he looked that perfect naturally. “Security, get him out of here,” Dash barked.
“Not even going to say hello?” I asked.
“Not to you.”
A beefy bouncer grabbed my arm, and I was losing my chance to avoid getting tossed out on my ass. “I just need some information, Dash.”
“I’m not interested in giving it to you.”
“Not even for Marlowe?”
His glare softened, then hardened to be even more intense than it had been before.
“Fuck off, Denzel. You know I never want to see your fucking face again, and you know why.”
“It’s not my fault he rejected you. He didn’t know us yet.”
“But you’re the one who took our chance at wooing him away.”
“He wasn’t going to be wooed. Everyone in your damn pack had figured that out, except for you.”
The bouncer was strong enough to dislodge me from the booth. He led me out and I let him, not willing to be thrown to the curb like trash when I could walk on my own two feet.
By some stroke of luck, Dash wasn’t the only member of the esteemed Loranger pack spending time at the lounge tonight.
Mercury stepped in front of me, his burgundy hair done in two French braids that trailed down his back. He was slimmer than Dash and didn’t have any groupies hanging off him. I was shocked he was even here.
“Let’s chat,” he said coolly.
With one flick of his wrist the bouncer let me go, heading back to take a place by the wall.
He didn’t speak, instead leading me down a back hallway to a private room. A bottle of champagne sat in an ice bucket, and I was tempted to crack it open. I didn’t, partially because I needed to drive home tonight and partially because I knew it cost more than I’d made on my last bodyguard gig.
“Are you enjoying ruining Dash’s life?” Mercury asked.
He sat on plush red velvet, the couch a piece of art all on its own.
“I need information.”
“I can’t imagine why you thought asking Dash would work out in your favour.”
Rolling my eyes, I sat my ass on the arm of a velvet chair. Mercury’s expression flashed with distaste, but he’d never been the type to call someone out verbally. He judged silently.
“It’s not like you other bastards are easy to find out and about. Does Ambrose ever leave your condo?”
“Tell me what you want.”
“We need to find someone with enough political influence to shut down an unethical testing Centre that the GPRE probably already knows about and is ignoring. Think Dash has had anyone on his little talk show that fits the bill?”
The popular internet show Dash Loranger had rocketed to fame with his family money hosted all sorts of people. From celebrities to politicians, from betas to alphas. The main thing they all had in common was that they all had money and fans, enough to generate buzz around whatever they were talking to Dash about.
He knew people we could never get access to on our own.
“I thought your pack didn’t care about politics or anything other than your little suburban life,” Mercury said.
“There are extenuating circumstances.”
“That was my polite way of asking what the extenuating circumstances are.”
The ‘you idiot’ was silent but portrayed by the pure disdain in Mercury’s expression.
This pack had irritated me from the second I met them, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold back my growls of annoyance. I wanted to shake this absolute asshole until he told me what I needed to know, but he wouldn’t crack.
“In the process of looking into how some of Jubilee’s research was used, we discovered that the Centre for Omega Enhancement has purchased kidnapped omegas and forced them to turn gold pack. They are then experimented on against their will,” I explained through gritted teeth.
Mercury showed his first hint of true emotion. Concern flickered across his face, and he sat up straighter.
“Do you have any proof of this?”
“Nothing I’m willing to share with you.”
He shut down again.
Anyone else in the pack would have been a better choice for this venture. No one else would have done it. If Marlowe knew I was here? He’d slap me across the face all over again.
My mate was insistent we leave his scent match pack alone.
The guilt over rejecting them was intense, and it was what had sparked his obsession with our pack finding our scent match.
“I can’t exactly go to our associates with a half-baked theory,” Mercury said.
Closing my eyes, I took a few deep breaths through my nose. I couldn’t avoid telling him about Thorn. She was the key to this, and this was one thing she wouldn’t fault me for. Especially not if it worked.
But she was ours, and the more people knew she existed, the more danger she would be in.
“Our scent-matched mate is one of the experiments, and she’d be willing to talk to whoever the fuck you want her to talk to if it helps shut the Centre down,” I said after my pause. “Not on the talk show, but in private.”
I didn’t want to watch the expressions that were no doubt playing over Mercury’s face. Realization. Shock. Hurt.
Marlowe got a second-chance scent match by creating a pack with us, but he was still the Loranger Pack’s match. Until he died, they’d never get another scent match. The way it worked was fucked up. An omega’s scent functioned as its own entity, while a pack scent was malleable and able to change as members were added or, infrequently, when they left.
Jubilee was the one who could go into excruciating detail about the science behind auras and pack scents and matches.
The long and short of it was, Marlowe had rejected the Loranger Pack when they’d discovered they were each other’s match.
He’d joined our pack — in fact, he’d created it. You needed three alphas to make a pack by Institute standards, and we’d only had two plus Quentin. Jubilee and I claimed him, making him the pack anchor.
And now he was getting his chance again, as part of a pack finding their scent matched omega.
It had to be a bit of a kick in the balls to Mercury.
By the time I opened my eyes, he’d gotten himself together. I’d known he would. You couldn’t afford to be surprised and vulnerable for long when you were playing with as much money as he was.
“Is it obvious she’s been experimented on?” he asked after clearing his throat.
“To any arkologist who’s earned their fucking degree or any seer in existence, yes.”
“Fine. That’s passable proof. I’ll ask around to some of my associates, but only under one condition.”
I lifted an eyebrow in question, already having an inkling about what the condition was.
“Never go near Dash again, and he’s never to know about your experimented-on omega,” Mercury continued.
Nodding, I stood up again. “Better give me your phone number then, because you’re my contact now.”
The other alpha grudgingly stood up and slid a business card from the pocket of his high-end jacket. I shook my head.
“Your personal number. If I have to talk to your secretary, I’ll march right back to this lounge and tell Dash all about Marlowe’s new scent match.”
He glared scornfully but pulled a pen out of another pocket. The numbers he wrote on the back were made of perfectly articulated curves, a level of pristine beyond my wildest aspirations. Nodding to him, I took the card and waved it in the air as I headed out of the private room.
If I wasn’t mistaken, I heard the pop of a champagne cork before the door closed behind me. And possibly the sound of the liquid gurgling as he upended the bottle into his mouth.
THIRTY-THREE
THORN
There was a constant ringing in my ears, a pounding in my head that would only be eliminated by pills or sleep. I took a single dose of pain medication, but I couldn’t sleep.
Not now.
Today had been the best day of my life.
I’d felt normal and safe; not like I had to be on guard all the time. Marlowe had listened to me and hadn’t wanted me to shut up and pretend I didn’t exist like my parents had been fond of.
Being at such a high point had made the crash back to earth more pronounced.
They’d listed me as a missing person. The Centre claimed I was a danger to myself and others, which was about as far from the truth as they could get. I wasn’t the danger. They were. But they had the power, and they controlled the narrative and now I would be stuck here, inside, until the threat had passed.
And how was the threat going to pass?
Would they ever stop wanting me?
I doubted it.
The Centre for Omega Enhancement would try to get me back until the day they were shut down, if they ever were.
“Thorn?” Marlowe asked, his fist knocking lightly against the bedroom door. “Can I come in?”
I rubbed at my eyes, knowing they were red-rimmed from hours of crying. Part of me didn’t want to let Marlowe in. I hated the idea of the perfect omega seeing me like this, but I knew he wouldn’t judge me. That wasn’t in his nature.
“Yes,” I said.
Pushing myself to sit up in the bed, I clutched a pillow to my chest, the other behind my back. There weren’t that many in this room and a base part of me wanted more, but this was still the coziest place I’d ever stayed.
Marlowe opened the door just enough to slide inside, then closed it behind him. I’d let the room darken as the sun went down, so his face was cast in shadow. Only faint light from the streetlights glowed on him, revealing just enough about his nervousness that I calmed down.
If I wasn’t the only unsure one, that was better.
“Are you… OK?” he asked.
“No.”
He stepped farther into the room, stopping at the foot of the bed. “Can I get you anything?”
Was there anything that would fix this? Not really. Not unless he could bring me Jessica and Three and everyone who I’d left behind or lost because of the fucking experiments.
But I did want him. I wanted the comfort of having someone who cared.
“Cuddle with me?” I asked.
He was quick to crawl onto the bed and slide under the blanket beside me. His head rested on my shoulder and arms wrapped around me. We were similar in size, but his shoulders were broader and form a little thicker.
His cotton candy scent tickled my nose when he got close, mixing with the remnants of Reese’s scent. I wanted to gather them all up to roll around in this bed before I slept in it again, but that was absurd.
I wasn’t staying.
I couldn’t.
Now that I was a missing person, it wouldn’t even be possible. Someone would find me eventually.
Marlowe didn’t speak, only pressed against me. I relaxed in his grip and curled around him in return, burying my nose in his hair. We stayed like that for a while.
“I had a great day,” I whispered.
I’d been successfully holding back tears since he’d arrived, but it was a losing battle. Sniffling, I pulled back.
“We’ll do it again,” Marlowe promised.
Laughing softly, I shook my head. “No, we won’t. I can’t leave this house until I leave for good.”
“You’ll be able to leave again. I know people. They’ll take that missing person poster down.”
“People will have seen it already.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “It won’t be valid anymore.”
“That one might not be valid, but the Centre will still be looking for me. They’ll always be looking. My only choice is to go into hiding. Change my face and live a fake life.”
It sounded horrible when compared to what I’d been given a taste of today. There would be no affection or companionship. I’d already decided that, because I would have to lie to anyone I befriended. I wouldn’t do what Denzel had done; I wouldn’t lie even a fraction as much.
Marlowe moved back, giving up on clinging to me. His fingers brushed my new green bangs out of my face. “We’ll shut them down.”
“How?”
“Denzel has a plan, I’m sure. He always has a plan.”
I snorted. “I don’t have the same trust in him that you have.”
His green eyes narrowed, his annoyance at his mate showing through. “There’s only one thing that I trust Denzel to do right now,” he claimed, “and that’s keeping a gold pack omega safe. He won’t let you get hurt.”
There was something behind his insistence, but I didn’t know what. It was a past that I wasn’t privy to, and never would be.
“I’ll believe that when I see it. Right now, all I want from him is what he lied to me about. I want him to find the Madame, and I want to start a new life.”
The words sounded hollow. I didn’t want any of that. What I wanted was to give this cute suburban life a try. Marlowe seemed to want me here, not treating me like I was invading his pack even though I was. Quentin was a centering force, easy to be around. Reese hovered, careful not to impose himself on me even though I couldn’t blame him for the lies when he’d been the one to expose them in the end. Jubilee was cute, still shy and looking like he had something to tell me on the tip of his tongue.
And Denzel…
He was a grump, but a broken one.
I could relate to him, despite how much I hated it. If Jessica had been here, I might have been hyper-protective over her after the way she’d been kidnapped. There was something comforting about being safe, rather than sorry.
“What will you do when you start a new life?” Marlowe asked. “Is there something about it that appeals to you more than staying with us?”
“Freedom,” I said immediately. “I would be anonymous. Unknown. A beta, possibly, or at the very least a normal omega and not gold pack. I’d be able to go and do and be whatever I wanted.”
Marlowe didn’t say anything right away, pausing to nibble his lip. His hands were on me still and I wanted them on me differently, touching me the way they had at the mall. That wasn’t fair, though. We shouldn’t have done it there, and it would be harmful to do it again.
He could fall in love with me if we kept interacting like this.
Or me with him.
“Would you be free, though?” he asked. “You would be under pressure to stay unknown. You’d never be able to be yourself or have the kind of friendships or relationships you would if you weren’t hiding something.”
It would be the illusion of freedom.
I’d come to the realization, recently, that I was content with that. Should I be? Maybe not, but my last couple years at the Centre I hadn’t been unhappy. They’d conned me into believing I wasn’t a prisoner and test subject to be used at their whim.
Or maybe I’d conned myself into believing it. A coping mechanism.
“What else am I supposed to do?” I asked quietly.
“Stay with us.”
“But—”
“Denzel will never let anything happen to you,” he said adamantly. “I know you don’t trust him but trust me. In his own fucked up way, he was trying to protect both of us by keeping us apart, and now he’ll protect both of us by keeping us together. He left the house as soon as we got home, and I bet he’s out trying to find someone to help shut the Centre down. It’s what we’ve been trying to do since we found out about it.”
My heart fluttered. Knowing that place was gone for good was the dream. There would be no more young omegas forced to go gold pack. If it was done soon, Twelve might even be able to get her injection before she went gold pack.
“It’s not that simple,” I said, ignoring the way my soul strained to stay with them.
That had to be the result of the scent match.
Yeah, the one I hadn’t realized was real until days after meeting them.
Our scent match was definitely strong enough to make my heart hurt at the thought of leaving, and it clearly had nothing to do with the feelings I was developing for them.
“I guess it’s not. Not after what he did,” Marlowe said with a frown. “Can we at least get a chance to convince you to stay, kitten?”
I wanted to say no.
It was impossible when faced with his sad little frown.
“Fine. Try to convince me if you want to.”
“Come to the nest, then.”
Marlowe sat upright, sliding off the bed as I stared dumbstruck at him. He’d made it halfway to the door before he looked back at me.
