Page 54 of Bliss & Her Idols (Pack Bonds Omegaverse #10)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Idol Estate

H as Philomena been punishing Torin all night? Where did she take him? What the hell is she doing to him?

I wipe the tears off my cheeks.

All night, Torin’s pain slashed through the bond.

Now, it’s quietened to a muted despair.

Honestly, that’s worse.

I need him in my arms and to know that both that pain and despair is over.

I furiously push a branch out of the way.

I’m exploring deeper into the forest at the back of the estate, trying not to become lost. The dawn light barely filters through the thick canopy. I stumble over a log, wrinkling my nose at the earthy scent.

It feels like an entirely different world deep in the forest with the rustling of deer, which I can only catch glimpses of out of the corner of my eyes and the dawn chorus.

When I stumble into a nettle patch, I hiss at the sting. I rub the raised, prickly rash on my calf.

This is what happens, when I’m forced to wear tiny skirts like this one that Sarah lent me with a sweet, frilly blouse. My soft ballet pumps, which have a heart shaped buckle, sink into the mud.

How painful must it have been for a tiny kid to have been dropped in a large patch of nettles like this?

How must Torin have felt being abandoned here?

My limbs are weak and heavy.

Although I woke up after my heat feeling refreshed and the best that I have in weeks, last night was draining.

Torin didn’t come back.

Jin, Cricket, and I stayed up, huddling together on the hard floor, since our nest was destroyed.

None of us slept.

We made the decision together that if our Alpha wasn’t returned to us by morning, then we’d split up and search the estate for him.

We’d find a way to rescue him.

Since Jin was banned from entering the woods, it was decided that he would take the Idol camp, Cricket the manor, and I would explore the estate.

It would also give me a chance to investigate.

Torin wasn’t alone with his family anymore, and we wouldn’t allow him to believe that he had to face everything by himself.

“I’m not waiting on Una or anyone else to save us any longer.

” I rubbed my hand over a pillow that was stained with red wine but still smelled of our missing Alpha.

I snatched it up and pressed it to my chest. “I’ve never relied on anyone else and I think that Tor is the same.

Why don’t we show him that we can face this together?

It’s our joint mission. We’re all skilled.

Fuck Mena, the twins, and this entire pack if they underestimate us. ”

“This pack of Alphas need to watch out.” Cricket tilted up his chin. “Nobody fucks with the Knot Crusher.”

Jin looked delighted that Cricket had cussed. “Well said, little Chirp. No one fucks with the Idols. We’ll save Charming and Zero. Then together, we’ll crush this entire empire.”

I lick my finger, rubbing it over my nettle rash.

I squint around the dark forest. “Tor!”

My voice echoes.

I stop to listen.

Nothing.

No response.

“Tor!” I yell again.

Silence.

Maybe the others have found Torin.

Maybe he’s back safely in his bedroom.

Except, nowhere on this estate is safe.

I clench my hands and determinedly march forward, ignoring the scratch of branches against my face. I struggle through the trees, which are growing closer and closer together, before stumbling out into a small glade.

The sunshine is brighter here, breaking through the canopy.

The glade is pretty with a sea of purple daisy-like flowers. Small blue butterflies with gossamer wings are settled on the flowers, rising and falling in waves.

Light dances off the butterflies’ wings.

When I take a step forward, enthralled at the beauty, the butterflies take flight, spiraling up into the streams of sunlight.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A deep voice calls from somewhere above my head. “Like you.”

I twirl around, looking above me into the trees.

Then I catch sight of someone sitting in the far tree on the opposite side of the glade. I can only make out one of their bare feet swinging from a high branch.

The sole is red. It’s encrusted with dried blood.

Alarm rushes through me.

“Tor!” I run across the glade, frantically grabbing onto the trunk, as if it’s Tor’s chest and I can finally hug him. “Fuck, are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Your feet don’t look okay.”

Torin also doesn’t sound okay. His voice is strangely flat and distant.

“What’s wrong with my feet?”

“They’re bleeding.”

“I must have cut them on the forest floor, when I was walking here. I can’t feel it. But then, I can’t feel anything right now.”

Something is really off.

Why is Torin hiding in this tree in the middle of the wood?

Why didn’t he return to us?

Why isn’t he climbing down to me?

“I’m coming up to you.” Worried, I reach for the lowest branch and swing myself up, searching for the next foothold.

It’s not easy to climb in another Omega’s clothes and shoes.

I loved climbing trees, however, when I was a kid. I taught Piper how to climb trees as well.

I would take my brother out to a grove at the back of the playground at weekends.

Then we would act in a way that two Omegas were never expected to.

Like two wild things, we’d swing from branches, laughing and daring each other to climb higher and higher, until the world below looked small and not as frightening.

In the branches of trees, sitting with my brother, we could both pretend that we were free.

I grab for the final branch and pull myself up next to Torin.

The branch is thin and rough against my bare thighs. I edge further along it toward Torin, who is balanced perilously close to the end.

He’s no longer wearing his shirt and only his trousers.

I could fall off into the sea of flowers and butterflies below.

The added danger sends a thrill through me.

I’ve long learned that anything worth having comes with a risk.

And a cost.

Torin’s gaze is glassy.

Concern spikes through me.

I reach for Torin’s hand, rubbing his icy fingers. “You’re shivering. What happened to your shirt?”

“It’s hard to beat someone effectively through a shirt. After all, the shirt didn’t do anything wrong, right?”

My eyes widen.

Horrified, I reach my hand up but stop myself from touching Torin’s back like I’m desperate to. The last thing that he needs is someone touching him without permission right now.

I can’t see his back.

Was that the slashes of pain that I felt through the bond?

His quiet acceptance is troubling me.

It’s unsafe to freak him out this far off the ground.

“May I touch you?” I ask.

Torin arches his brow. “Always.”

I loop my arm around Torin’s neck, pressing our bodies tightly together.

I’m relieved to feel his heartbeat, but it’s thudding fast in his chest, which is rapidly rising and falling.

I take a steadying breath. “Do you have anything that we can put on it to help with the pain? Ointments or…?”

“I told you, I can’t feel anything.” Torin’s hair is mussed, falling over his face.

Somehow, I think that he actually feels more than most people.

“Rory already saw to my back. I used it as a chance to talk to him. He’s never had anyone stand up for him like that before.

He’d take a bullet for me now. Don’t worry, we have his vote. ”

“You did this to get Rory on side.”

Shocked, I study Torin, as it slowly dawns on me that I’ve underestimated him .

Torin’s dedication to rescuing the Idols, as well as bringing down his Head Alpha, is absolute.

He also has the ice cold core of a spy or SEAL who will endure anything to meet his goal.

I never fully realized that until now.

I fucking respect the hell out of him for it.

“Partly.” Torin’s lips curl into a devilish grin that makes me shiver. “And partly to make sure that Mena believes I’m the same beaten pup that she sent away as a college kid. She can’t see me as a threat. Hey, you want to know how much people talk, when they’re beating the shit out of you?”

My mouth is dry.

I nod.

“A fuck load. It’s a better interrogation technique than beating them.

She told me gleefully what Devin and Aran have been doing to Immortal and how he should be in the dance studio this morning.

She has plans for the Idols, which include expanding the hosting duties with VIPs for those who aren’t making enough in sponsorships, restricting their diets further, and increasing the contract to fifteen years with arranged bonding written into it. ”

I hiss in shock. “Forced bonding written into a contract? That’s illegal.”

“See, people don’t think that you’re listening, when you’re screaming in pain. They have fun gloating.”

I narrow my eyes. “Then that bitch has just gloated her way into the Alpha Center. If we can find paperwork proof of what she told you, then she’ll be arrested.”

“Isn’t it funny,” Torin says, dryly, “that when Idols are forced into bonding in the name of entertainment, everyone rates the show five stars. But put it into a contract, and you’ll be locked up.”

“I think the Pack Bonds show was voted 4.3 but yeah, it’s sick.

The problem is that the Betas are too intimidated to speak out.

Would their testimony even be weighed against a powerful Alpha’s?

But if we get it in black and white, as well as splash this into the news and the court of public opinion, then we could pull this off. ”

Excitement rushes through me.

This is the missing piece that we needed to our plan. Torin paid the price for it. But I’m a music journalist — a witness .

My word must count for something, right?

“What if we sneak into the Idol camp.” I rest my forehead against Torin’s.

“I’ve seen what’s happening in your family.

But what if I witness what’s happening in the camp itself?

It would make an explosive story, one that I’ve been investigating for over a year.

If I write that story like I’d already intended but now much amplified because of media interest in our bonding, then it could change the entire industry. ”

Well, I’d wanted to make my name in journalism.