Cause Ωf Death (Femme Fatale Freakshow)

Chapter 20

I n the two heartbeats it takes for the back-up generators to kick in, Steve disappears from the master suite, his footsteps silent despite his speed and bulk. He flicks the overhead lights off as he passes, and I quickly move to slap the bathroom switch off as well.

Just in time.

A low humming comes from above us, indicating that the generators are up and running, but no lights shine out from the rest of the house. Muffled thuds and creaking come from the opposite end of the house, and something tells me that they’re trying to break in through the garage. Good luck with that , I think snidely to myself, because to get to us they’ll need to pass through the rest of the house. They’ll also need to get through a sigma who can screw with their electronics, a delta they won’t even see coming, and two alphas just itching to direct some of their pent-up aggression on those preventing them from taking care of their omegas who’re in heat.

A sharp inhale behind us has me spinning to face Kimberly, and her expression sends chills down my spine.

“I think I know who one of these guys is, and if I’m right, we’re fucked! ”

“What do you mean?” I whisper back, and she points at her screen. There’s a man there, an alpha by his size if I have to hazard a guess, one that is even bigger than Henley. He’s walking up to the garage door like he owns the place, not skulking or hiding his identity at all.

Blond hair cropped close to his skull, a nose that looks to have been broken so often it’s given up trying to protrude from his face, a jaw as square and unforgiving as granite, dead eyes, and a thin mouth twisted into a cruel smirk.

“He’s one of the alphas Leslie’s been tracking, one of the ones involved in the group after Kieran. He goes by the moniker of Pyotr the Butcher. We haven’t been able to uncover his real name yet. He’s brutal, has limitless strength, seems impervious to pain, and has been known to tear opposing alphas apart with his bare hands. If he goes up against the others, he’ll kill them all without a second thought. We might be able to overwhelm him, but not without losing people of our own.”

Kimberly’s horrified gaze sends dread flooding through me before she darts out of the master suite, likely in an attempt to find Henley and give him the god-awful news.

Fear unlike any I’ve ever felt before shreds through my body. I can’t lose them, not now. Not ever. Henley, Steve, Leslie, and Kimberly are my family. I’d hoped to include Adam and Kieran in that number by the end of my heat. Now there is a possibility that I’ll lose them all, forever. That is wholly unacceptable. I refuse to lose any of them, not if I can help it.

I pace back and forth before the door to the nest, feeling Kieran’s concerned gaze following my every step. I have no words of assurance for him right now, no glib catchphrase that will make him smile and know that everything will be alright.

I spin around at the sound of soft footsteps rapidly approaching, only to see my family barreling through the master suite door. The look on Adam’s face is furious yet resigned, the one on Henley’s despairing and apologetic. Fuck . Whatever Hen’s about to say, it’s going to go down like a lead balloon.

“Kieran… I don’t know how to say this…” Henley’s voice wavers with the threat of tears, and my heart squeezes painfully in my chest.

“Henley, it’s okay. I’ll do it. They need me alive for whatever they have planned, and you can’t rescue me if you’re dead. We need to know who they are, and where they’re based. This is the quickest way to find all that out. Besides, this way we can fox them in their own lair, and end them once and for all. All of you, go hide away somewhere if you can. I’ll make myself easy prey for them to capture, and then you can turn the tables on them, follow the tracker in my back to wherever I end up.”

Kieran pulls the Sig Sauer and spare magazines from his pockets, offering them back to Steve. He then turns to Adam, stepping up to the alpha and stroking his hand along his cheekbone, brushing away the tears that streak his swarthy skin.

“I have loved you from almost the moment I laid eyes on you, Adam Knight. You have been the alpha of my dreams, and I refuse for this to be the end of our story. Stay strong, stay focused, and when it’s time, come and be my knight in black armor.”

Another agonized creak comes from the direction of the garage, and Kieran takes it as his cue. Without another word he spins on his heels and dashes out the door of the suite and into the main body of the house. Kimberly tugs Adam into her arms, yanking his head down to her chest to muffle his cries as we watch his heart break.

A soft breath tickles my ear, beeswax and lemongrass redolent in my nose as I inhale my alpha’s scent. In the softest bark I’ve ever heard, Hen gives me an order I’m only too willing to follow.

“Disa. Wisp out. Now.”

The house is still and silent as I float through the air, following the lingering traces of Kieran’s exit from the master suite. The others are all barricaded in there, and we can only hope that whatever information Pyotr and his cronies are operating with is lacking. If Kieran is easy to find, perhaps they won’t stick around to go through the rest of the house.

I find Kieran hiding in the walk-in pantry, the door left ajar just enough to let him see out, and to also allow his scent to be followed. I curl around his shoulders, brushing my incorporeal form along his cheek in a gentle caress, hoping he’ll realize that he’s not alone.

“Wisp?” he breathes out, and I shiver a little at the reverence on his tongue as he speaks my name. “If that’s you, tickle my left ear.”

I immediately comply, wanting to give Kieran as much comfort and support as I can.

“Oh, thank fuck for that. I’m glad you’re with me, I don’t want to go through this alone. I’m so fucking scared, but knowing you’re here gives me hope. Just promise that you won’t do anything that could end up with you caught as well, okay?”

I brush against Kieran’s cheek once more in response. I don’t promise him anything, and not only because I physically can’t at this moment. I don’t want to lie to him, and if me getting caught ends up with his safe release, then I’ll offer myself up in a heartbeat.

One last creak that ends in a reluctant squeal of metal grating against metal echoes from the garage before heavy footsteps thud toward the interior door connecting it to the house. A heavy blow thumps against the barrier, then another. A third lands and crashes the door open beneath its force, and it’s like the world holds its breath.

“I can smell his sweet, omega ass from here. Spread out and find him, fast. We don’t want to linger, even if it would be fun to tear his alpha to shreds for the hell of it.”

If I had a spine, chills would be running up and down it from the malevolence in the voice I assume belongs to Pyotr the Butcher. As it is, Kieran is wracked with shudders and his teeth begin chattering in fear, his scent turning sour and bitter from the emotions ravaging him.

A deep breath sounds from close by, followed by a gravelly chuckle.

“Never mind, boys. I think I’ve found him.”

The very earth seems to tremble as slow, threatening steps land, each one bringing malignant evil closer to Kieran’s hiding place. The ambient light seeping in from the crack in the pantry door disappears, an immense body blocking the space. Kieran chokes back a gasp, and I securely anchor myself to his body, wrapping my intangible form around him protectively. I might not be able to do much in this form, but at least I can provide Kieran with some comfort.

The door gradually opens on silent hinges, the movement drawn-out with terrifying effect. The silhouette of an alpha—who I’m pretty sure is Pyotr the Butcher—looms menacingly in the empty doorway, his stench redolent of copper pennies and rotting meat. It’s enough to make me gag.

In a quick burst of movement, he reaches into the pantry, grabs Kieran by the throat, and slams his head into the wall. The alpha then shifts his grip slightly, lifting the now-unconscious omega from the floor by his neck before turning and throwing him to someone else. We both go flying through the air, and I do my best to cushion Kieran’s body as he crashes into the hard torso of yet another alpha. This one’s stink is different to Pyotr's, his odor similar to the beach at low-tide. While the smell of dried and decaying seaweed, sulfurous mud, and rotting fish isn’t as stomach-churning as Pyotr's abandoned abattoir aroma, it’s still not one I want to be around on a regular basis.

The low-tide alpha slings Kieran over one shoulder and follows Pyotr out through the broken door into the garage, and then out through the mangled roller door. It looks as though they used a hydraulic jack to force the metal apart, which is both annoying because now the entire assembly will need replacing, but also a positive, because it means it took them a while to get inside, and that this is likely to be the only breach in our security.

Kieran is carried out to a dark pickup truck, the gleaming chrome of the model standing out against the matte black grille. Pyotr slides into the driver’s seat, while the alpha carrying us shoves Kieran into the rear of the cab and into the arms of another stranger before hopping into the front passenger seat. With a twist of his wrist, Pyotr revs the engine and then peels out of the driveway in a cloud of burning rubber. I hover above Kieran, glancing out of the rear window to see another pickup truck following close behind.

This feels all-too familiar, and I don’t like it.

“What’s the plan now, boss? I mean, whoever took him from Conroy didn’t seem too fussed about providing him a guard since we couldn’t read any other heat signatures in the house, but what if they were monitoring him from a remote location?”

This comes from the alpha in the front, and both he and Pyotr glance at Kieran in the rear-view mirror. Pyotr grunts, reaching into one of his pockets and fumbling around for a moment, only to pull out a switchblade.

“We have him now, and I don’t want anyone following us. Cut that thing out of his back and toss it. See if you can aim for the bed of another truck, send them on a wild fucking goose chase if they’re tracking him.” Pyotr tosses the unopened blade over his shoulder to the man in the back, who catches it and flicks it open with vindictive glee.

“Let’s see how prettily this little bitch bleeds,” the repugnant sack of shit sneers, yanking up Kieran’s T-shirt, and then the undershirt beneath. He roughly probes around on Kieran’s back, pinching around the tracker once he finds it. He shows Kieran no mercy or kindness as he slices open the flesh, Kieran’s blood a crimson torrent washing over his skin. I blanch as the man—another alpha who stinks of sweaty gym socks, bad body odor, and old smegma—sticks his dirty, grease-stained fingers into the open wound.

I shudder to think of the number of germs crawling all over Gym-Bro’s hands, that are now invading Kieran’s body and undoing all of Steve and Henley’s hard work to keep him healthy. By the time this is over, we’ll be lucky if Kieran isn’t hospitalized in an attempt to keep his temperature under control. A spike thanks to his heat, combined with an infection-induced fever isn’t going to do anyone any favors.

That is, of course, if we manage to get out of this before our heats hit. Something tells me that they’re planning on taking full advantage of Kieran’s predicament for their own, nefarious needs.

“Got it!” Gym-Bro shouts, holding up a small, capsule-shaped device covered in blood. The window next to him rolls down, and he flicks it off his fingers and into the dark.

“Did you aim it at another car?” Pyotr barks, and Gym-Bro cringes.

“Uh, no. But it doesn’t matter though, right? As long as it’s out of him, they’re not gonna know where he ends up. They probably think we’re heading south and back to the city, instead of east and over state lines to Reno, anyway.”

Pyotr snarls, but he can’t do much more than that since he’s driving. Gym-Bro wisely shuts his mouth, tugging Kieran’s compression shirt over the wound followed by his borrowed tee. I can only hope that the compression shirt slows his bleeding, and that the amount of antibiotics we’ve pumped into him over the past twenty hours is enough to prevent an infection from setting in.

I keep one eye on Kieran’s breathing and the other on the car interface. The surrounding area quickly goes from built-up with houses and businesses along the highway to intermittent signs of life, to nothing but darkness. The miles fly past, as do the minutes, ticking away as they gradually become hours. According to the dashboard navigation system, by the time we pull up into the parking lot of a warehouse not far from the Reno-Tahoe International Airport it’s been a little over three and a half hours since Kieran was shoved into the car.

And he still hasn’t woken up.

His breathing is steady, if a little faster and shallower than I’d like, and although I can’t make out much in the gloom, it looks like his bleeding has slowed as well. The truck rocks as Pyotr and Low-Tide get out of the car, quickly followed by Gym-Bro. The doors slam shut behind them all, and I take the opportunity to check on Kieran a little more thoroughly.

There’s a nasty lump on the side of his head from where it collided with the pantry wall, but it doesn’t appear to be bleeding. Kieran hasn’t been restrained as yet, which is a good sign, and as I brush myself along his skin, I’m stunned to see he’s cracked an eyelid open.

“I’m awake, Wisp, have been for a while,” he breathes, but doesn’t move from where he’s been left slumped over along the back seat. “I think the guy who was in the back seat dropped his phone earlier, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. It’s on the floor, can you maybe try and get a message out?”

I dart down to where there is, in fact, a smartphone lying face-down in the foot well. It takes some concentration and effort, but I solidify my hand enough to flip it over and tap on the screen. I curse as the request for a PIN-code appears, because I have no clue how to unlock it otherwise. I let the screen fade back to black, mentally cursing my luck.

“Hey, it’s okay. At least you tried. Maybe once we’re inside you can check the place out, see if there are any landlines left that you can use. Until then, I trust you to keep an eye on me, and make sure they don’t do too much damage.”

Kieran’s faith in my abilities is gratifying, to be sure, but at the same time, I’d rather know that back-up was already on its way.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Pyotr and his cronies have in store for him, first.

Pyotr, Low-Tide, and Gym-Bro don’t linger outside the pickup for long, returning within a few minutes to drag a limp Kieran out of the back and into the warehouse. Knowing he’s conscious while they manhandle him is upsetting to say the least, but there’s nothing I can do while he’s out in the open like this and vulnerable. I need to wait until they take him inside, and possibly leave him alone before I go exploring in search of a phone I can use.

The warehouse appears to be attached to a smaller, empty storefront. The faded sign is for a now-defunct construction supplies chain, which does not spark joy inside of me. No, if anything, it means that the interior is likely to be devoid of any sort of tech that can be used to pinpoint our location to my family.

Looks like I’ll have to “borrow” a phone from someone then, and make sure that it’s unlocked when I nab it.

I create a number of different scenarios in my head, each one with differing issues and obstacles I’ll need to overcome before I have any hope of freeing Kieran from the clutches of the alphas. Every single one of them flies from my mind as I set eyes on the inside of the warehouse. While the storefront was empty of everything but dust bunnies, rat shit, and trash that had been left behind when the office had been cleared out, the warehouse is a whole other environment.

The enormous space had been built in at some point, reminding me of the sound stages when I’d taken a tour at Universal Studios several years ago. Whole sets are ready and waiting for their stars, but these aren’t the kind of scenes you’ll see on your television. There are no sit-coms being filmed, no courtroom dramas or hit series about brothers battling the supernatural. Instead, the sets have been designed with a particular viewership in mind.

On one side of the warehouse are bedrooms. Some are decorated to please young boys with beds shaped as cars or trains, others more suited to little girls obsessed with unicorns or princesses. Then there are the rooms designed for teenagers, with posters of celebrities and pop star idols stuck to the walls and some of the latest video games ready to play on whichever console is present. The last style of bedroom is chilling—while some might think it a perfect BDSM playroom, the chains and shackles aren’t padded to ensure a submissive’s comfort. No, these are cold, hard steel, some with spikes lining the inside bands of the cuffs, and many of them are crusted with dried blood.

The other side of the building houses what I can only describe as torture chambers. Each of them has a medical gurney bolted to the floor, the leather restraints thickly studded and foreboding. Some of them are contained in rooms that have been cleaned to an almost surgical standard, resembling actual surgical theaters—or perhaps a morgue—with benches and sinks, while others reside in a cell made of grimy concrete, pitted and stained with various bodily fluids. Both options have shackles and chains attached to the walls, waiting for some hapless victim to end their lives bound in their cold embrace.

Kieran is still pretending to be out cold, and for that I am eternally grateful. I hate to imagine what vile thoughts would be going through his mind if he was actively conscious for our tour through this pit of despair. It’s bad enough that I’ve seen it, and that I know what might be in store for the omega if I can’t get him out of here.

Thankfully, we don’t linger in the main body of the warehouse, instead heading for a steel door in the back corner of the space. There’s an electronic lock on the door, and I pay close attention to the key-code that Pyotr punches in—star zero four zero eight one three hash. I have no idea the significance of those numbers, but I don’t care so long as they grant access when used.

Behind this door are cells. I don’t care if others would describe them as small, secure rooms, because their true nature is to imprison people while they await their demise. Kieran is dragged to one where the same code is used as the previous door—star zero four zero eight one three hash. For a group who seems so set on making this place secure, they’re also lazy as fuck having the doors secured with the same pass-code. Oh well, it makes things easier for me.

The inside of the cell is clean, at least. There’s a bed frame bolted to the floor, the mattress made from the same, unforgiving material as the tumbling mats we would use in the orphanage gymnasium as children. There’s also a metal toilet bowl sticking out from the far wall, but no sign of a cistern or basin. A single hole in the wall above the toilet bowl—obviously housing the button flush—a camera tucked up near the ceiling in one corner, and a recessed halogen bulb in the ceiling are the only other adornments in the room.

Gym-Bro and Low-Tide drag Kieran’s limp body into the cell and dump him on the cot, leaving him hanging half off the mattress, his left arm and leg dangling to the floor. They turn and exit without a backward glance, the click of the lock sounding as they slam the door behind them.

Kieran doesn’t stir for a couple of minutes, and I’m torn between reforming to physically check on him or going for a wander while he’s still. I end up doing neither, because while the camera mounted in one corner of the room is easy enough to spot, I have no idea if it’s recording audio as well as visual, or indeed if it’s recording at all. I also don’t want to leave Kieran alone until he’s conscious and aware of my absence.

When he finally rouses, it’s with a lot of exaggerated moaning and drama. I watch the camera as Kieran stumbles to his feet and around the cell, but it doesn’t move. I untether myself from Kieran’s body and float up into the corner where it’s positioned, taking my time to study it close-up. There are no external wires coming from it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much. It could be a wireless device, sending the camera feedback to a server via the cloud or something. It also has no little blinking lights showing, but again, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I can’t hear any humming or buzzing that would indicate the camera is operational, so I decide to test it.

Moving people around when you’re the consistency of air is not an easy task, let me tell you. Especially when you’re trying to move them while not giving any visual indication that you’re doing so. It takes a couple of cycles of gentle tugging of Kieran’s fingers, then a little pressure toward the cot and the line-of-sight of the camera before Kieran seems to catch my drift. He drops to the horrid excuse for a mattress and rests his head in his hands, shoulders shaking as though he’s trying to hold back his sobs.

He’s not crying, though. Nope, the cheeky bastard is laughing. At me.

“Jesus, what I wouldn’t give for even a wisp of fresh air in here, to feel it brushing against my skin. Alas, there is nothing like that for me in this claustrophobic closet, nothing to refresh the staleness of my existence. Oh, woe is me!”

Dammit, Kieran’s aiming to take my non-existent Oscar away from me with that performance, and I can’t even say it wouldn’t be deserved.

I turn my back on the drama-queen and float up into the corner once more. I wait a beat or two, allowing my hand to reform enough that I can turn the camera to face the wall or ceiling without being spotted myself. To my surprise, when I go to push the device, the entire thing falls to the floor and shatters into multiple pieces.

It’s a fake!

I swiftly dart into each of the other corners, checking them for any potential recording devices, but I can’t find anything. I guess the camera is more for show, to make the victims of the alphas’ abuse even more afraid, and to keep them in line.

Sucks to be them right now, because that knowledge, along with the reuse of the security codes, gives me the feeling that this operation isn’t as successful or powerful as they’d like to think they are. Not up against someone like me, at least.

Kieran stands and stalks over to the shattered camera, stomping the plastic casing into even smaller shards. I take a moment to center myself, to plot out a quick plan, before I release my hold on my powers and slip back into my physical form.

“Kieran, quit that for a moment so we can talk. I don’t know how much time we have until someone returns?—”

“We’re alone,” Kieran cuts in abruptly, jerking his head up to stare at me. “I can read people’s signatures, which means I can tell how many people are in this building right now. For the record, it’s only the two of us. Pyotr and his friends fucked off not long after they locked us inside.”

Huh. That will come in handy while we’re in here.

“Okay, so this is what I’m going to do. I’ll ‘wisp out’ again, as Henley likes to call it, and I plan to search for anything that we can use to get a message out. Help is coming, they just need a location to head toward. While it’s not the most… luxurious of accommodations, it’ll suffice for now. You’re in no state to make a run for it, and we don’t have anything to assist in a speedy getaway, either. I want you to rest, and as gross as this sounds, I want you to flush the toilet a couple of times and use the running water to try and keep yourself cool. We need to keep on top of your heat, and for the moment I think the adrenaline is doing the bulk of the work for us, but that won’t last forever. Don’t drink the water, just wash your hands and face and the new bump on your head. I’ll help you with the rest once I return.”

Kieran grimaces but nods, neither of us liking the prospect of him covered in toilet water, but if it’s on a mains line, it’s probably the most sanitary thing in the room.

“Oh, one last thing. If you sense anyone arriving before I return, pound on the door or something. Hopefully this place isn’t soundproofed, and I’ll be able to hear you.” I instruct.

Ignoring the multitude of aches building inside of me, I once again dissipate, slipping through the holes in the lookout hatch in the door. I quickly do a check inside the empty cells surrounding Kieran’s, but there’s nothing inside them that’s of any use to me, so I quickly abandon the search and head into the main warehouse once more.

The sets are all disturbing, so I do my best to ignore them. Whizzing from one room to the next, I soon realize that, although they’re all designed to record the victims and send the footage out to their paying “customers”, it’s not being done from the sets themselves. There has to be an office somewhere, preferably one with a secure server with all of their footage and records on file. They wouldn’t risk sending it out where it can easily be hacked or accessed, as it would defeat the purpose of their operation.

I head over to the side of the warehouse with the torture sets, staring blindly at the ceiling as I consider where they might have installed such an office. It takes me longer than it should for me to notice how the ceiling above the bedroom sets for the younger children is lower than the others, and not just that, but from a distance it also appears to be the length and width of a shipping container.

Or an office.

There’s no sign of an additional doorway inside the warehouse, but the bedrooms are on the same side as the empty storefront, so it’s not too far-fetched to think that the entrance for the potential upstairs space will be located there.

I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should go back to Kieran and let him know what the state of play is, but I decide against it. It’ll take up too much time going back and forth, and I’d rather just check the space while I don’t have to worry about someone torturing or tormenting Kieran in my absence.

The gods of luck must have decided to smile on me after fucking around with us all. Perhaps it’s merely to give us a false sense of security or something, because behind what appears at first glance to be a storage closet, I find what I’m looking for. Locked with an electronic keypad—a dead giveaway, if you ask me—is a stairway to… well, not heaven. Instead, the stairs lead the way to the hellish den of depravity that houses the abuse and torture of innocent children, young men, and women. The staircase opens up into a fully enclosed space with several workstations set up around the room. I feel the drain on my energy as I become solid once more and approach one of the workstations, jiggling the mouse to wake it up. A login screen appears on one of the monitors, and I send up prayers to any deity listening, that Pyotr and his gang continue to be as lazy with their passwords as they’ve already shown.

They are.

Minus the star and the hash keys, the login is the same six numbers as the electronic door locks. The desktop shows a heap of editing software and other programs, but my gaze spears directly onto the little window silhouette at the bottom left of the screen. As tempting as it is to open up Chrome, it’s likely the main browser used since the icon is both on the screen and pinned to the taskbar.

No, I’m looking for the other browser that most people forget about or ignore. Kimberly has hammered into me time and time again, if I need to be discreet, to open up Edge. It’s not one commonly used despite being installed by default on most machines operating on Windows.

Creating a throwaway email address and sending off an email only takes me a couple of minutes, and I clear the search history and data cache before I close everything down. I’m starting to crash from the adrenaline rush, and my exhaustion is allowing my heat to ramp back up. But I can’t stop, not now, not yet. I need to get back to Kieran, make sure he’s still hanging on and hasn’t succumbed to his own heat.

Fuck only knows what will happen if Pyotr and the rest get their hands on him when he’s vulnerable and needy. They’ll knot him and bite him without a second thought, locking him to them for the rest of his life.

It doesn’t take me long to venture back to Kieran’s side. When I eventually make it back inside his cell, he’s flat on his back on the cot, one leg bent and an arm slung over his face. I return to my flesh-and-blood form, but it’s a slower transition than usual. I’m exhausted from the constant shifting, and my encroaching heat is also sapping my strength and energy at an alarming rate. I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to recover enough to attempt to take out Pyotr, Gym-Bro, and Low-Tide once they return. I can only pray that they don’t have an entire posse along for the ride. And that I’m able to corner them, alone.

“Good news. While I wasn’t able to find a phone, I did stumble across their hub of operations and sent an email out. I didn’t want to wait around for a reply, but fingers crossed it’ll flag one of Kimberly’s alerts and they can come and collect us. How are you holding up?”

I sit on the edge of Kieran’s cot, reaching across to brush his hair away from his face. His skin is beaded with sweat, flushed, and warm to the touch.

Shit. This is the last thing we need right now.

“Kieran, talk to me. Is this a result of your heat, or do you think it’s an infection thanks to Gym-Bro’s impromptu and unhygienic surgery on your back?”

Kieran snorts a bitter laugh, finally uncovering his eyes to look at me. His pupils are blown with lust, and he gestures loosely to his sweats.

“You mean, you couldn’t tell from the raging hard-on I’m wielding? Gee, thanks for that, great way to give a guy a performance complex.”

I glance down at his groin and blush at the rather prominent bulge at the apex of his thighs.

“I was trying to be respectful. Just because you’re an omega rapidly descending into his heat, it doesn’t give me carte blanche to ogle you or objectify you. I might be an assassin with skewed ethics and morality, but I have them, nonetheless. I’m a killer, not a fucking creeper.”

Kieran laughs again, this time with more humor.

“Okay, thanks for that, I guess. Take this as me giving you blanket permission to ogle and grope me at your leisure from this day forward. While I’d like to think that you’ll always see me as a person rather than a cock for you to suck or fuck, we both know that mid-heat our thought processes will devolve into three lines of thought; is it trying to kill me, is it trying to feed me, or is it trying to fuck me? We won’t even see our family as anything more than a form of protection, the bearers of nourishment, or a living dildo or cock-sleeve waiting to fuck us or be fucked.”

He’s not wrong. It’s part of the reason why conversations regarding limits, boundaries, and the like are so important to have before an omega’s heat hits. We become ravenous, slavering horndogs and our only focus is to be knotted or locked and stuffed full of cum. We will beg for the most depraved and deviant acts to be performed with our bodies the way that an addict will beg when in the midst of withdrawal. Consent cannot be truly granted by an omega in heat, or an alpha during their rut, which is why we require it to be negotiated in advance.

“Well, here’s hoping none of that will happen before we’re snuggled in a nest somewhere, and not stuck in a tiny little closet masquerading as a cell, then.” I quip, sending a silent prayer up to whoever might be listening that neither Kieran nor I will be lost to the throes of our heats before our chosen alphas arrive.

But it’s not something I’m willing to place money on.

“Disa, you need to ‘wisp out,’ now! Someone’s coming.”

Kieran’s urgent hiss startles me from the drowsy daze I’ve been floating in, each second ticking by washing away my adrenaline and making way for my heat.

It takes me precious seconds to fully comprehend what Kieran is on about. By the time I figure it out, I can hear the rattle of the main door opening. Body screaming with need and exhaustion, I force my shift, my body disappearing into thin air a heartbeat before Kieran’s door swings open.

“Well, lookey at who’s finally awake. I hope you’re feeling needy, omega, because we have plans to stuff you until you’re screaming. There are a lot of alphas out there without an omega, and they’re willing to pay some serious cash to knot your ass, willing or not. There are even a couple offering the big bucks to not only knot you, but bite you as well. Seems your ass is on a lot of wish lists, although I can’t see it myself. I prefer more junk in an omega’s trunk, and not the flat pancake you call an ass.”

Gym-Bro is a fucking moron. Not only because Kieran has an almost perfect bubble butt beneath his sweats, but also because he’s paid zero attention to the shattered camera in the corner. The guy has more brawn than brain, and it’s my hope that this will be to Kieran’s and my benefit.

I’m not quite ready to take out the entire lot of alphas, although Gym-Bro is sorely tempting me to crush his balls with my bare hands. I need to conserve my energy, protect myself and Kieran as much as possible, and if I’m going to take anyone out, it’ll be Pyotr. Gym-Bro can wait.

“Get on your knees, omega, and open that slutty mouth!” Gym-Bro barks, and Kieran drops to his knees on the cement floor. I mentally wince at the crack as his kneecaps meet the uncompromising surface, but that comes secondary to the realization that Gym-Bro’s bark is completely ineffective on me while I’m in this form. It could be because his bark isn’t as strong as other alpha barks, or it could be that my incorporeal form gives me some additional benefits and protections.

However, Kieran’s not the only thing to drop to the ground. Gym-Bro’s jeans sag as he unbuckles his belt and pushes them over his hips, the stench of sweaty gym socks, bad body odor, and old smegma is even stronger now that he’s partially naked. His erect cock is one of the ugliest I’ve seen, and I’ve seen an assortment of them in my life. Long pubic hairs sprout from the shaft, veins bulge and pulse beneath his foreskin, and the crown of his penis is already seeping with pre-cum. The misshapen bulge of his swelling knot is the craptastic frosting on the shit-cake that is his dick. However, that’s not what makes it disgusting. No, it’s the unclean state of it, with what I can only imagine is dried jizz crusted on the hairs and around the rim of his foreskin.

I seriously want to vomit, and I’m not the one on my knees and about to get up close and personal with the disgusting genitalia.

Kieran’s entire body trembles as he fights the command, his mouth open and panting. But while he’s complying, he’s not as responsive or obedient as Gym-Bro appears to want.

“Open wider, fuckwit, I want you to swallow my cock, not a fucking Slim Jim.” Gym-Bro grouses, and I silently snigger. By the time I’m done with this asshole, he’ll wish his cock was as big as a Slim Jim. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I caress a tendril of air down Kieran’s cheek, letting him know he’s not alone. Then I curl another tendril around Gym-Bro’s tiny, sagging balls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Cursing, Gym-Bro steps back to give himself room, shuffling his feet so his jeans drop lower. Now that he’s no longer in arm’s reach of Kieran, I allow my tendril to solidify enough that I can manipulate matter. Or in this case, an unwashed pair of shriveled up testicles.

I squeeze my tendril around the upper portion of the scrotal sac, close to where it attaches to the body. I don’t let go, tightening my hold until Gym-Bro screams with pain, his high-pitched shrieks and cries music to my ears. I move my tendril lower, trapping his testicles lower in the sac, malevolent glee humming through me as the entire scrotum first turns a rather deep red, then purple as I restrict the flow of blood.

“What the fuck is going on in here? Jerry, what in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

I giggle as Low-Tide shoves into the room, letting Gym-Bro’s real name slip. Jerry the Gym-Bro. It fits. Low-Tide glances over at where Kieran is kneeling out of reach, while Gym-Bro Jerry keeps screaming.

Oops. I better stop strangling his balls.

I loosen my hold on my powers at the same moment I release Jerry’s shriveled prunes. His screams taper off into choked sobs, and I’m glad to see that pain is not an aphrodisiac for him. His dick has shrunk, tucking itself into his body as much as possible. Gym-Bro Jerry drops to his knees, cupping his groin as he sobs incoherently, and I move back to circle myself protectively around Kieran’s neck.

“For fuck’s sake, get a hold of yourself. You’re lucky Pyotr sent me to check in on you rather than coming himself, because he’d have torn your dick off, then choked you with it if he saw your stunt. The omega’s to be left un-fucking-touched until his heat is on him, and we have him set up in front of the cameras. Now, pull your pants back up and stop screeching like a fucking girl, unless you want Pyotr to walk in on this little scene himself.”

It takes Jerry a minute or two to regain his ability to do more than sob and clutch at his junk, but eventually he pulls up his jeans and stumbles out of the room. Kieran takes advantage of Jerry’s now-broken order and scrambles back onto his cot, warily watching the remaining alpha. Low-Tide glances around, his head freezing as his gaze lands on the shattered fake camera.

FUCK!

I steel myself for Low-Tide’s bellow, but what happens next is something I wonder if even Henley would’ve foreseen.

Low-Tide quietly closes the door to the room and kicks the pieces of plastic into the shadows under the cot. His eyes dart from side to side, examining the room for something, and then he opens his mouth.

“Kieran, I need you to listen to me. I know you’ve got an invisible friend here with you somewhere. I need you to tell her that my name is Greg, and that our mutual friend is on their way. I’ll do my best to delay things, and to keep you protected, but I can’t break my cover. You need to stay silent, you hear me? If I can’t stop things from happening, whatever you do, don’t speak . Pyotr is hoping to use your heat against you, to make you agree and beg for everything he has planned. He’s being paid to make you beg, and if you don’t say a word, he loses money. A lot of it.” Greg pauses for a moment, his head cocked to one side as he listens to something beyond my hearing.

“Pyotr isn’t allowed to kill you. He can hurt you, yes, but his life is forfeit if he kills you. He’s the middleman in all of this. There’s another alpha due to arrive in Reno any minute now. He supposedly has a prior claim to you, and he’s paid a lot of money to have access to you. Just try to hang in there, okay? I’m sorry about your back. I’ll see if I’m allowed to bring you something to drink, and if I am I’ll also bring some alcohol swabs to try and clean your wound out. It’s the best I can do while Pyotr is around. I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

Greg. Greg. Leslie’s contact who’s been getting us information on the dark web. I stretch out and brush myself lightly across Greg’s hand to let him know I’m here, and that I’ve received his message. Greg flinches from the sensation, his gaze darting back to Kieran’s.

“Is that her? Your friend?” he mutters in awe. Kieran nods.

“Her name is Wisp, and it’s a good thing for you that she knows you’re a friend. I don’t know what your ‘mutual friend’ has told you, but Wisp is not only my self-appointed guardian angel, but she’s a lethal force to be reckoned with. The last person who abducted and hurt me ended up begging her for a merciful death. What was it she told him, again? Oh, yes.” Kieran’s mouth splits in a wicked grin as he recites the declaration I gave Conroy only days ago.

“She’s the thing that goes bump in the night. She’s the monster of your nightmares, the blade in the shadows. She is the bitter end you never saw coming. She is death disguised as beauty and seduction, and she is sex personified. She’s known as The Wisp, and she’s an initiate of The Guild.”

Greg pales so quickly that he stumbles from the blood loss to his head. He quickly recovers, though, reaching one hand back to brace himself on the wall.

“Sh… she’s a member of the Guild? The Femme Fatale Freakshow ? Fuck me, Pyotr's a dead man and he doesn’t even know it. Well, let me promise you both, I will do my best to assist Wisp in any way I can, as long as it doesn’t expose me. I’m sure she knows how much work still needs to be done to shut these people down, and I can’t do that if my cover is broken.”

I release Kieran and move to the center of the room, making myself tangible enough to be seen, but not enough to be touched. My form is nothing but billowing cloud, swirling and roiling as I move and speak.

“How long do we have until our friend arrives? I was able to get a message out a while ago, but I didn’t want to wait around for a response.”

Greg checks the door over his shoulder, then takes a step forward, his voice low and urgent.

“I was able to get a message out just after we arrived in Reno about two hours ago. They’d already geared up and were waiting for a location before rolling out. Your message arrived about forty minutes after mine, and they were already on the road by that point. Depending on how long it took between receiving my message and heading out, which route they take, and if there are any delays on the way, they’re somewhere between one and two hours out. Will that be a problem?”

I look over at Kieran, the feverish flush of his skin from both his oncoming heat and his wound doing him no favors.

“He needs water and antibiotics. If you don’t have any antibiotics, then find a fucking first-aid kit with sterile gauze pads, tape, and antiseptic cream. If Pyotr bitches at you, tell him that Kieran can’t respond if he’s unconscious from infection. Then get your ass back here so we can plan. I need to know what we’re up against, because the clock is ticking and we’re on the wrong side of the counter.”

Greg nods and exits like the hounds of Hell are on his heels, but my attention is solely on Kieran.

Who is drenched with sweat.

Whose pupils are blown and is panting for breath.

Who is perfuming the air as he unconsciously ruts against the mattress.

Kieran, an omega, who is now in the grips of his first heat in over a decade.

We’re fucked.