Page 55

Five Worms, One Rat

The next two weeks were so filled with tension that they felt like the strained final breath of a mountain right before an avalanche.

Toward the end of the second week, there had still been no collapses or explosions, but the weight was there, creeping, crawling, pressing in from all sides.

Every forced smile on camera felt like a fresh dump of snow weighing down that mountaintop.

Every polite laugh was a crack in the rough rock below.

Something was coming. They all felt it. Even the sky seemed to hold its breath, the air thickening and crackling with each weekend that rolled around.

Isobel was convinced that Mikel was slowly losing it.

Two more weeks, two more chances in the Stone Dahlia, and they had picked wrong both times.

The hounds of hell weren’t just chasing them through this hellscape anymore. They were snapping at their heels, teeth bared, slobbering with anticipation, the weak tendons of their plan one foul breath away from snapping off into the jaws of the officials.

Isobel hadn’t slept properly since Christmas break a week ago, and the Alphas were growing increasingly restless.

Even if she couldn’t feel them through the bond, she would still be able to see it in the twitch of their muscles, the tremors in their hands, and every flicker of their narrowed eyes.

They were getting worse. Their tension felt sharper. Wilder. More dangerous.

They couldn’t keep sending her to the Stone Dahlia to perform in the kink room. Kalen couldn’t stand another night of “dating” random women. None of them could stand the fact that they couldn’t talk about it, but not talking about it was the only thing holding their group together.

Even their sleep schedule had gone to shit.

The previous two Friday nights, after her time in the mirrored room, she abandoned her own bed for Mikel’s again, only to slip into Kalen’s afterwards, touching him everywhere she could in an effort to reclaim him after the dates he wouldn’t speak about.

She could tell that his clients hadn’t pushed too far, but they both knew it was only a matter of time.

At the start of each week, after the rawness of the weekend, she usually begged to share her nights with Theodore, Cian, and Kilian.

She crammed all three of them into her bed and lost herself in the comfort of her more indulgent Alphas—soaking up their warmth, sensuality, and kindness into her skin until the weight of that mountain seemed just a little bit less.

By midweek, she wanted Gabriel and Elijah.

They grounded her again and helped to clear her head.

They patched up those cracks threatening the foundation until she didn’t feel so unsteady on her feet anymore.

Niko, Oscar, and Moses rotated through the end of her week.

They were more volatile and needed more alone time with her to anchor themselves through the bond, and she wanted to feel their fierce protectiveness during those nights coming up to yet another Friday.

She craved the possessive weight of their bodies curling around her at night.

It felt like even her nightmares had to fight past them to get to her.

It wasn’t true, of course, but she still slept more deeply, convincing herself of it.

Without their fierce energy, it was harder to build up her armour before she walked into the Stone Dahlia.

Tonight, though, it didn’t feel like enough. The Alphas were doing their best for her, and she was doing her best for them, but they had reached a natural tipping point. Ironside was chipping away at them, and Isobel was starting to think it was all a horrible, cruel joke.

Six doors.

Six gold tickets.

No signs from the gods. Still no fucking locusts . She had no idea if Amina was even waiting behind one of those doors .

Mikel’s footsteps echoed behind her in the mirrored room, slow and deliberate, each one trembling that mountain beneath them. Last week, he shoved a tight black mask over the head of the man who came through the door. A slippery black hood with only a mouth hole cut into it.

“Now you even look like a worm,” he had snarled, looking like he hoped the tight black material would cut off the man’s circulation, and he would drop to the ground and start wiggling.

The wall of sex toys gleamed under the downlights—rows of straps and blindfolds, riding crops, spreader bars, and collars.

The glitter of the instruments, polished and stacked like fine silverware waiting for the right guests, made her dizzy.

She stared at the floor instead of the toy wall and listened to Mikel’s footsteps threatening to topple everything, her heart stuttering as she registered the glint of six golden tickets, all resting beneath the mirrored doors.

Six rooms. Five worms. One rat.

All waiting.

All watching.

Mikel stopped beside her, not close enough to touch but close enough to feel.

“They all want you,” he said, the words a dangerous scrape of sound.

She swallowed, unable to answer.

His nostrils flared. His reflection in the glass was barely human—shoulders coiled, mismatched eyes wild with a storm he couldn’t let out but also couldn’t keep in.

Rain had already lashed at the campus as they entered the boathouse that night, and she imagined the storm had grown even worse since they stepped into the mirrored room.

“Which door will it be tonight?” he asked, his voice hard and quiet.

She swallowed back bile and surveyed the tickets.

No markings. No clues. Just six perfect golden tickets.

There was no way Amina could mark one of them—it would immediately alert Yulia to the fact that something was going on when she collected the tickets again at the end of the night—and perhaps their little viewing rooms were recorded.

Yulia had assured them the mirrored room was free of surveillance equipment, but she hadn’t made the same assurance about the viewing rooms.

The candlelight from the chapel flickered in her memory as she stared at the glinting gold tickets. The smell of smoke wafted back to her. Show me which door to pick , she had begged. Like a fucking idiot.

Something shifted before she could even finish the thought, and she frowned, blinking down at the tickets. It didn’t seem to be coming from anything inside the room. Not the air. Not the tickets. It wasn’t Mikel or the bond.

It was … her ?

She narrowed in on the feeling, suddenly certain of it. Something was shifting inside her.

It was like a tiny pulse. She could feel a tug beneath her skin, a flittering heartbeat in the wrong part of her body. It compelled her to reach out, so she did, her breath halting as that avalanche threatened.

She crouched and picked up the first ticket.

It was warmer than it should have been.

She stood, unlatching the door.

The mirrored panel swung inward, revealing a woman already standing on the other side, waiting to be picked.

Her posture was elegant and poised, just a little too composed.

Isobel was briefly struck with disbelief and uncertainty, but she could see the vague resemblance in the woman before her to the scant, unsatisfactory pictures of her online.

Amina Al-Fahim didn’t look like someone about to watch a kinky humiliation scene.

She looked like she was heading into a charity gala dinner.

She looked like a chancellor, a governor, a politician.

She wore a dark green dress, the silk jersey fabric draping modestly over her shoulders and falling in long sleeves that peered out from beneath her black coat.

She was striking, but not necessarily because of her appearance.

It was something contained within her eyes.

It was as if she were accustomed to navigating perilous waters, perfectly assured with a razor-sharp intelligence.

Her features were clean and narrow, her face framed by a sleek, dark headscarf that curved like ink around her jawline, setting off the bronze undertones in her skin.

For a moment, Isobel was stuck wondering why Amina was wearing a coat before remembering that she was supposed to slip Amina the USB currently wedged into the top of her thigh-high leather boots.

Amina fixed her with steady dark eyes, and a flicker passed between them. A little breath of relief. The journalist smiled, just barely. The careful curl at the corner of her mouth seemed to be an attempt at brief reassurance. It was all she could afford.

“Where do you want me?” she asked demurely.

Isobel released the gold ticket, flicking it back into Amina’s room.

“Invite the worm inside, pet,” Mikel rasped behind her, their bond buzzing with a sickening mixture of anxiety and fraught hope.

“She’s too pretty.” Isobel stalked back to the centre of the room. “The other worms are already getting a treat—they shouldn’t be allowed to hear her when she’s so pretty.”

“Then switch the sound to music. Uh-uh,” he quickly chastised when she turned to the wall. “Secure your worm to the pole first.”

Isobel took Amina’s arm and pulled her to the pole in the middle of the room before holding her hand out in demand. “Your coat, worm.”

Anima shrugged out of the soft garment, handing it over.

Isobel marched back into the viewing room, surreptitiously tugging the USB from the top of her boot and slipping it into one of the coat pockets before she tossed the coat onto the chair and slammed the door, making the mirrored walls shudder slightly.

She handcuffed one of Amina’s wrists to the pole and then drifted past one of the mirrored doors, trailing her nail across the glass and making a soft tutting sound.

“Too many treats make the worms all spoiled,” she said before stepping up to the sound button and pressing it to fill both their room and all the attached rooms with music, cutting off the broadcast.