Page 6

Chapter six

Dirus Morales

This woman was the source. The beacon that managed to get our pack’s attention. A growing power big enough, we decided to investigate it. Mission complete.

This woman wasn’t carefully guarded like the celestial witch back home would be, though. She had the stomach of a hardened soldier who’d been to war too many times. In a way, that was probably true.

Best guess said she was eighteen or nineteen. Otherwise, we’d have recognized her magic sooner. We investigated anything that affected the stars, trying to find more omegas.

“What’s today?” she asked softly, as if she were afraid of the answer.

I looked at my watch and realized that these idiots didn’t think to take off my body. A sloppy mistake, since my men knew exactly where I was because of it. “The fifteenth?”

She chewed on her cheek. “Of September?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyebrow quirked with annoyance.

“You asked a question. Now I get one.” I waited until her eyes flicked to me, acknowledging my demand. “Why was I targeted?”

She shrugged. “The governor is threatened by you.”

“Why?”

“Am I supposed to pretend that isn’t a dumb question?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the second question. So I get another one after this.” She waited until I nodded my agreement. “There are spiders in the woods that are huge. They spin giant silk, works of art that’s a pain to get off your skin and hair. These giant fangs on their face would make you think they were so poisonous, you’d die with one bite. They shake their webs and it looks like they’ll leap out and attack you.”

She stared me in my eyes, deep enough to think she could see my insides. “But they’ll run if you keep approaching.”

Well, that story took an interesting turn. “Is that your way of calling him a pussy?”

“I don’t understand how you are using that term, but he shakes his web a lot.”

Finally, someone with a competent bone in their body. “So he uses you to kill the other spiders that he’s scared of?”

“Depends on the occasion. My turn.” She shrugged. “Do you have food on you?”

“No.”

“It was a stretch, anyway.” She blew air out of her cheeks dramatically. Her skin was tight to her bones. She probably did need food. I’d toss a protein bar at her in a heartbeat, but they were smart enough to at least clear out my cargo pants. “A girl can dream.”

“Remember that deal you mentioned? Maybe we can figure out a way to help each other.”

She stared at the wall behind me. “What do you want? Pussy? Ass? My mouth? Some special menu item? What gift should I be grateful for in return?”

This woman was so numb to the harsh words leaving her pretty lips.

“I want information. And I’ll grant one seat of passage to get the fuck out of here.” My words made her pause. Like the poor thing couldn’t possibly conceive what I was saying. “I’m offering freedom.”

“You expect the rest, right?”

Fuck, these people were wrecked. “None of my men or me will touch you if you don’t want it. I’ll even sweeten the deal, and make sure no one else does either.”

Nevermind the fact that as an alpha I couldn’t allow anyone to touch her, anyway. She didn’t need to know that, though.

She rolled her eyes as if the deal was too good to be true. “Give me a second seat and I’ll do anything you want.”

Easy. “Deal.”

I approached her, and she stared up at me with those dead tired eyes that fucked with every wolf instinct I had. She was ready for me to take what I wanted from her, and I hated that. Celestials weren’t supposed to think that wolves would hurt them. We were the lap dogs at her feet.

What the hell was I even thinking? I didn’t believe in that shit.

I put my hand out for her to shake. She jerked as if she was ready to dodge an attack, but then realized my hand stayed where it was. I gritted my teeth, so that I wouldn’t outwardly react to how skittish she was.

She stared at my hand with confusion.

“You shake it,” I explained.

“Your cock?” One eyebrow went up.

“If I wanted you to shake my cock, I would have put it out there.” Which honestly wasn’t the best thing to say, all things considered. But it seemed to work for her, since she just scrunched her face and hesitantly grabbed my index finger, then shook it like she was trying to get a spider out of a shirt.

A laugh burst from my chest before I could control it, and she yanked her hand back as if I burned her.

“Let’s try again.” I kept my hand where it was. She grabbed my fingers, but I grabbed her hand, putting it in the proper place, and shook her hand instead.

“What’s that mean?”

“That we both agree to the deal, and promise to uphold our ends of the bargain.”

“Okay,” she answered softly, as if I disarmed her.

“My name is Dirus Morales.”

“I’m Astria.”

Crying and laughing echoed down the halls and I went to sit back where I was. “What’s all that noise?”

“What noise?”

“The screaming. The laughing.”

“Bedtime rounds.”

This place was brutal. Even by my standards. Boots squeaking on the floor made both of us look up. She grabbed a metal spike that I assumed she jimmied out at some point while we were talking and palmed it like a pro.

A couple of drunk men stopped in front of the doors to our cage, and one pointed at her. “I want that one.”

“Whoa there.” A soldier laughed, clapping his hand on his shoulder like a proud father would. “Maybe start with the smaller fish. You know what she’s in here for. Bunson gave explicit orders that her door doesn’t open without him present.”

Right. Because she was already prepared to fuck someone up. The bigger part of me wanted them to let that younger generation come in and learn a lesson he soon wouldn’t forget. Go ahead and let Darwin do his thing on these pions.

But it was also the perfect opportunity to show her I meant what I offered her.

The door creaked open and that dumbass young blood walked in, with his eyes locked on her. She held her ground and didn’t move.

His belt jingled, and I came up behind him, grabbing the pen from his pocket, stabbing him in the throat. The pen snapped, but not before arterial spray blew across the bars and her. I turned to face the rest of the men, but they slammed the bar doors back shut before I could do anything else.

I tossed the dead body off to the side of the cage.

They scrambled off, and she used her tattered white shirt to wipe the excess blood off her face. She wasn’t too concerned with the fact she was still soaked in blood. I assumed it wasn’t the first or last time.

“The jugular is messy.”

“It’s fast and effective.” I grinned at her. “But I do appreciate your way.” A wolf could happily tell the moon he had died between an omega’s thighs.

“You’re going to need to prove you aren’t a threat to their way of life if you want to get out of here.” She shot a pointed look at the dead body pooling blood on the floor.

“Wise advice. Any suggestions that don’t include raping and abusing women?”

“Raping?”

She wasn’t serious. “Sex where a party, usually the woman, is not consenting.”

“Consenting?”

Fuck my– “Permission.”

“Women can give permission?”

I rubbed my eyes. The longer I stayed here, the worse it got. It was a train wreck that just kept going. I’d need at least a week to get my head on straight after I left this place. “Yes.”

“That’s not a thing here.”

“I’m getting that.” I groaned.

She pulled her tank-top a few inches down to show me the clear brand on her breast.

“The mark of the bitch. We’re property. You don’t ask for permission to use property.”

“Noted.” That was exactly the kind of information I needed. And my stunt obviously earned me enough trust for her to say that.

“So women get assaulted here in the prison.”

“You don’t understand.” She shook her head, sending her straight, raven hair flying around her.

“Explain it then.”

“You’re the only man here not wearing the standard issue.”

“I should have guessed that. Surely there is something that is considered a crime for a man to do. Fuck someone else’s wife.”

“That’s her fault,” she answered.

“Steal someone’s kid.”

“The men don’t care about their children until they are old enough to be sold. Non-issue.”

“Theft of property.” Since we liked to call things property.

“Stealing has never been a problem.”

“Desertion.”

“Where would they go?” She chuckled pitifully. “No one runs.”

So you’re born with a free pass or a life sentence. “Let’s change gears. What are the crimes that land women here?”

She pointed to the cells across the way. “She’s here because she told her husband no.” Her finger moved down the row. “She was caught reading. That one was eating too much.”

“I think I’ve got it.” I tilted my chin to her. “What about you? They made it sound like you committed some high crime.”

“I did.” Her fingers trailed along the ground. “Male mutilation. I’m the worst woman here.”

“Don’t say that,” a woman from a cell across the way said.

“At least on paper,” she amended to satisfy whoever spoke up to defend her from the shadows.

“Their paper. Not ours,” someone else said.

That managed to get a smile out of her. Hated by the men. Respected by the women. The perfect inside person.