Page 19

The Bomb

“There’s been a change,” the woman who usually admitted them into the Stone Dahlia announced coolly the next Friday night.

Isobel stared at her, dread dropping into her stomach, but she didn’t speak. They all waited for Kalen.

“What change?” he demanded, voice a little too quiet, a little too soft. It was impossible not to feel the thickening of the air, the sudden heaviness of his influence.

Vanilla-scented violence.

The woman began to tremble, but her cool demeanour was otherwise unaffected. She tapped away at her computer for a few seconds more before lifting freshly assured eyes and addressing Kalen.

“Yulia Novikov will be along in a moment to explain. Please wait to the side.”

There was nobody behind them waiting to enter or to speak to the receptionist, but she had uttered the magical words, and so they silently obeyed, taking a scant few steps to the right.

Yulia Novikov.

The woman in question arrived before they could even begin to discuss what this change might mean.

Kalen didn’t need to assert his dominance to draw her attention from the rest of them and to ensure that she only addressed him.

She did it naturally … because she wanted to.

Because she always ignored the rest of them to focus on Kalen.

Isobel swallowed back a scowl as the other woman’s perfectly manicured hand wrapped around Kalen’s bicep.

Thankfully, he was wearing a suit jacket, so she wasn’t actually touching his skin, but Isobel still had to fight back the irrational urge to rip off her arm.

“West,” Yulia purred, her accented voice indulgently tasting his last name. “There’s been a change with the scheduling.”

Kalen’s bulky form was fraught with tension. “What change?” he demanded.

He would obey, in most cases—they had him by the noose around his neck—but he was on his guard.

“We’ve decided to shake things up a little,” Yulia said smoothly, still not giving any specifics. “The fights are getting a little boring. So are the performances.”

Isobel’s performances .

Fuck.

Someone should have told her.

Kilian shot her a look, subtly shaking his head.

Her brow furrowed, her attention fixating on Yulia’s sleek, swinging ponytail as it swished against her tailbone. This had nothing to do with fights and performances.

“And?” Kalen prompted, his voice turning soft and dangerous again.

He wasn’t even pretending to be polite, and unease prickled along Isobel’s spine.

It had been a week since they implemented their sleeping schedule, but it didn’t seem to be putting any of them at ease—Mikel and Kalen even less so than the others.

That probably had more to do with Isobel putting off bedtime for as long as possible every night, or until one of the professors threatened her with repercussions if she didn’t go to sleep.

She barely had time to even garble out a goodnight most nights when she finally tumbled into her mattress.

“And,” Yulia’s icy blue eyes cut sideways, drifting over Kalen’s stern features, her perfectly painted lips quirking up at the sides, “yet the demand for your”—she waved a hand over her shoulder, apparently indicating all of them—“attention has only increased, so we’ve decided to give the people what they want. ”

Kalen’s jaw tightened, a muscle pulsing in his neck. “Explain,” he gritted out. He was the only one who could get away with talking to her like that .

Yulia’s laugh tinkled. It seemed a cultivated sound. Isobel wondered what her real laugh sounded like.

“Ah, so serious,” she teased, her other hand rising to stroke along his wide chest, spilling bile over Isobel’s tongue. “Don’t stress so much, West. This is for your benefit. Twice the pay for a quarter of the effort.”

“Specify the effort.” Kalen plucked her hand off his chest, but she still clung to his arm.

“Private dates,” Yulia chirped brightly, leading them further through the marbled passageways. She stopped before a guarded door, nodding to the men on either side before Kalen could formulate a response to push through his gritted teeth.

One of the men opened the door, and Yulia released Kalen, ushering them all through. She caught Isobel’s arm before she could follow the rest of the group.

“You may pick your clients for the evening,” Yulia called through the doorway as Isobel’s stomach twisted further.

The Alphas were gathering in a waiting room of some kind, with even more armed guards inside.

There were several binders waiting on a coffee table in the middle of the room, the space surrounded by armchairs. “Enjoy!”

The door slammed shut, and Yulia’s dark-painted nails dug into the skin of Isobel’s wrist. “This way, Carter.”

Isobel’s breathing was laboured as she bit back her panic .

Guys? she called out through the bond. What do I do? Yulia was walking fast, her longer legs eating up the walkway, her heels sharp against the stone floor.

Use the stones if you have to , Elijah responded after a moment.

Her panic only increased. Why would I need to use the stones?

I don’t know . His voice echoed through her mind with so much tension it had her head aching. And whatever you do, don’t go quiet on us ? —

His voice faded away as Yulia tugged her to the bottom of a staircase. They turned a sharp corner, coming to another room with two men standing guard on either side of the door. They opened it as soon as they saw Yulia, and Isobel found herself tugged into a surveillance room of some kind.

There was nobody manning the monitors, but the guards from outside had followed them inside and were now guarding the door from the other side.

Yulia dropped Isobel’s wrist and walked up to the single office chair facing the monitors, pulling it out with a deceptively soft smile. “Sit.” Somehow, the word sounded like a threat.

Isobel clenched her fists, trying to call out to the others through the bond again.

She couldn’t reach them, but she caught sight of movement on one of the monitors.

She had thought they were all showing empty rooms, but not this one.

The chair had been blocking the only populated monitor.

This screen showed the Alphas gathering around the coffee table.

“Why am I here?” Isobel whispered as one of the guards on the monitor checked his watch and announced that the Alphas had exactly three minutes remaining to pick their date.

Their … date .

Something told her this wasn’t going to be like the “dates” in the Icon Cafe every Saturday morning.

“Because I wanted to offer you a choice, Carter.” Yulia’s voice was still indulgent, her hands sneaking around the back of the office chair to settle onto Isobel’s shoulders.

“You can sit here every Friday night, watching your friends on their private dates, or you can choose to take clients of your own.”

Isobel opened her mouth, but Yulia chuckled and interrupted before she could speak.

“If you choose to take on clients of your own, you can pick one of your friends to be spared from their date. Every night you choose to serve, one of your friends will be spared from service. They will still be paid either way, but you only get paid when you serve. The exceptions are Mikel Easton and Kalen West. They will serve regardless. Are you following along here, Sigma?”

Isobel worked to calm the tremor in her limbs, holding back her response as none of the Alphas made a move toward any of the binders.

“If you don’t choose, a date will be chosen for you,” one of the guards on the monitor announced to the Alphas. He sounded like he was bored. Like he had been warned this would happen.

Isobel tightly twisted her fingers together, wishing she could surreptitiously find a way to press Gabriel’s stone.

If she could just figure out Yulia’s intentions …

but the blonde woman was watching her too closely, her hands heavy on Isobel’s shoulders, her cold blue eyes drilling into Isobel’s reflection in the monitor.

“All of them,” Isobel croaked. “Trade me for all of them, not just one of them.”

In the reflection, Yulia’s lips twitched, her nails scraping lightly along Isobel’s collarbone.

“I knew I liked you,” Yulia murmured, something dark hiding in her soft tone.

“And,” Isobel tacked on, her stomach bottoming out, “no cameras on my dates.”

Yulia laughed. It wasn’t a light, tinkling sound. It was deeper, sharper. It was the sound of broken glass raining down over fragile skin. “Without cameras, you won’t have any protection, Carter.”

“You’ll be able to charge even more for complete privacy. Keep all the money. Keep my cut.”

Yulia’s nails stroked gently over her collarbones. “The dates will go for an hour.”

“Fine.”

“An hour is a long time.”

“I can handle it,” she lied .

Her mates were going to kill her.

“Hmm.” Yulia released her, tugging a phone from her pocket. One of the guards on the monitor answered his phone. Yulia said, “Give me a few minutes,” before hanging up.

She switched off the monitor and gripped the back of Isobel’s chair, spinning it around until they were staring at each other.

“Both you and your guests will be bound by strict confidentiality,” she said.

It sounded very much like a warning. “Nobody will be able to ask you what happened in there, but that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want.

If we’re to recoup all the money we’ll be losing by offering private dates with the Alphas, you will need to provide a very exclusive experience. ”

“Just tell me what you want me to do.” Isobel barely controlled herself from spitting out the words.

“You’ll dance.”

“In what,” Isobel flinched, “capacity?”

“There’s only one thing I can charge that much money for, Carter.”

“I won’t have sex with anyone.”