This man, the one who had spent a week fucking a stranger who looked like her, was beyond saving.

  And that—that one horrible notion—was what made her eyes sting.

  Before he might see and misunderstand, Wren stepped back.

  Her foot never landed. Wrist caught in a flash of male grip, Kieran held her still, pinned her with the anger in his tone. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Each gaze a little more naked, more exposed, their eyes met again.

  She let herself really see him, not just his position as Second Alpha. Deeper than his physical perfection, under the chiseled lines of his face and the cocky arrogance he used as a shield, he was bare.

  No longer brilliant, the male’s green eyes had dulled since last she’d seen him. Bloodshot and sunken, he looked even more tired than she felt. Sallow, unsmiling. Miserable.

  A creature—if the astringent smoke and the lingering scent of rotting food in the air were any indication—determined to self-destruct.

  What haunted his gaze was a look she’d seen enough times to know. That look he thought he hid behind disdain and narrowed eyes.

  Heartbreak.

  It was the look all children abandoned to the Warrens had etched into their features before it sunk in that they would never get out. Most died still wearing it.

  Alec had been unable to smile for years.

  Mikael still harbored a ghost of early pain.

  Those they trusted most abandoned them—whether through death, through deceit, or through neglect.

  A fraction of Kieran’s past was known to Wren, and that small sip had been more than enough for this man to be intimately acquainted with those sticky, unrelenting feelings. But for an Alpha of his stature to indulge them...

  He was in agony.

  For the rest of her days, Wren would hate the woman who had birthed and abused this male. The female who had essentially created the monster unleashed on the city.

  Hate was infectious, yet there was nothing to do for it. She’d already spent years hating those responsible for throwing her kids into the mud.

  And though she was not a violent woman, she’d slaughter every last one of them if they tried to harm her kids again.

  Including this man who had slipped her boy a healing boost. She’d kill Kieran with her bare hands if he set so much as a violent finger on Alec… who was so much like him it turned her stomach.

  There was nothing to do for it.

  Not while both of them were trapped and haunted by what they were, how they had failed, mistakes they had made, and what life had fashioned them to be.

  She was a mother, and he was an abandoned child who’d grown up loveless.

  She was Omega. Kieran was Alpha.

  It could be that plain and simple.

  Tall as he was, staring down his nose at her in an obvious stance of superiority, Wren chose not to reach upward and stroke his hair the way that quieted his thoughts.

  She might have squeezed his shoulder, touched over his heart.

  Instead, her fingers brushed the buttons of his shirt, fumbling to undo them while still holding a burning gaze. An intake of air, held, was the male’s only response before her hands slunk between fabric and flesh. Skimming fingertips over the rippling muscle of his flank, she hooked her arm around his torso, and pulled herself closer.

  The hug was selfish on her part.

  Wren needed his support, his superior strength, and a moment to prepare herself.

  She was so filthy next to his freshly scrubbed skin, and though she knew it was no fault of her own, she felt ashamed.

  He should have been the one ashamed, bringing her here to use her in the ruined nest of another woman. He should have been ashamed for dressing up his doll in her handmade frock.

  He should have been on his knees begging her to forgive him.

  But they both knew it would be her on her knees. Sucking him off. Being mounted from behind. Forced to kneel.

  She held him tighter.

  Kieran didn’t purr, not while he exuded the acrid stink of impending violence, so she did. And the light rumble offered her some small measure of comfort.

  Like his warmth.

  His presence.

  The fact he had yet to tear her away.

  Had she the ability to speak, she would have whispered secrets to him—shared those little private moments that made this hellish life bearable. She would have comforted the broken child who worked the limbs of a man’s body. She would have rebuked this recent behavior, and broken the fogged pipe stinking of spent drugs she could clearly see lying on the bed.

  Having made the Warrens her home, Wren didn’t miss the black dust he’d packed it with, the burn marks on furniture and blankets where he’d set it down after sucking poisoned air deep into his body.

  The worst kind of drug to dull the greatest type of pain.

  And high, he’d bitten that girl.

  A thing she knew the male regretted, and that the doll would most likely suffer for.

  Cheek to his chest, Wren held him all the harder and took in the chaos of the room.

  If a space might reflect the owner’s mental state, the big room was Kieran from head to foot.

  Filthy.

  Used.

  Scattered with leavings.

  Her shoulders shook and the male shoved her away, barking, as if the tone might hide the tremor in his voice. “Drink water first. There’s food over there.”

  Stacked trays, old plates, half-eaten things the population of the Warrens would be desperate to eat, moldered atop the room’s desk.

  She stared at it but made no move to walk through the mess.

  “What? Do you want me to hand feed you, or something?” Anger brought the wrong kind of light to his eyes. “Move!”

  It wasn’t just that she didn’t trust her legs, she didn’t trust herself at all. Wren stood her ground.

  Or she would have had a wet cough not stolen her forced bravado.

  Before she might compose herself, he had her by the elbow. Rushing her through the carnage, he dragged her into an equally messy bathroom, and bent her over the sink.

  Without being told, she angled her head under the spout, sucking down cold, trickling water between rattling pants of breath. Somewhere between the fifth swallow, the clump working its way from her lungs broke free.

  Spitting it against the basin, she saw the same thing Kieran did.

  Blood.

  That’s what broke him.

  “You’d rather die in the Warrens, choking on shit, than be here?” His question, though spoken softly, was so very angry.

  And instantly, so was she.

  Pushing off from the sink, letting bloody phlegm swirl down the drain in a parade of clean water, Wren wiped the back of her mouth on her arm.

  Yes, his life had been hard.

  But she’d lost her family.

  She’d lost her innocence.

  She’d lost her home.

  And she was going to slowly lose her life to mud and fetid air.

  No one—NO ONE—wanted to exist in the Warrens

  Chest heaving, Wren turned her back on him and went back to swallowing water.

  Gathering her ratted hair in his fist as if to hold it for her to drink, Kiran held her skull under his power.

  He could have flung her across the room for her insolence. He could have stoppered the sink and drowned her in the basin. But he just held tight, watching while she sucked down water like an animal.

  And then his fingertips traced over the healing scratches on her back.

  Scratches he had put there fucking her against the wall of her home, knotting her atop a pile of refuse, and pinning her down in the night to keep her warm.

  20

  Skin pricking, stomach near bursting from the amount of water hastily guzzled down, a shiver passed over Wren.

  It was his touch. The way the edge of blunt nails dragged down her spine. How he released a possessive low hum under his breath.

  Kieran intensified the awkward moment, his words distant, as if he spoke to himself. “Is what Toby claimed true? Even though they cast you off, you came back for your mates?”

  Both Toby and Caspian might have marked her, both might have possessed some sort of intention toward her, but neither was a mate. A bite mark didn’t make a mate.

  Love, trust, and mutual respect did.

  Toby may have wanted her forever, but Wren suspected that any Omega female might have served his need to bond. Yes, he’d taken the time to learn her language. But he had also used what she’d taught him to manipulate all those around him. He’d beaten her boy, and he’d lied.

  It had been his hand that had flung her into the mud before his guards. Where was his kindness then? Where was his mercy? How about his love? Wren almost snorted at the thought.

  Delusional male; one she was so angry with, she had no idea how she’d stomach his body rutting into her.

  And Caspian? The First Alpha had already told her he’d set her free upon estrous. This half-formed bond was just some experiment—an oddity for the First Alpha to experience between knotting the myriad of women in his pen. More importantly, unlike Toby, Caspian would not have bitten her had she not excited him in the frenzy of her violence. He truly didn’t want her, not when it tarnished his infamy.

  Caspian merely made the best of a bad situation and his slip in judgment—he used her for his personal indulgence, fully prepared to sever ties.

  No, she had not returned here for her mates.

  Sighing, trying her damnedest to dismiss the shudders Kieran’s fingertips still drew from her flesh, Wren shook her head.

  Still bent over the sink, resting her weight against the basin, she glanced through the mess of her hair. No longer did Kieran cut the image of anger. In fact, he seemed abnormally settled when he met her eyes, smeared in her dirt, as he was.

  There was a clarity to his next question that was very unlike the frivolous and cruel Second Alpha. “You could have run away… avoided us, but you came back here. Why?”

  It seemed he was expecting a grand statement, but Wren hardly knew where to begin.

  Ran to where? The Warrens was vast, but not endless. She didn’t have access to the upper levels or any way out of the city without a great deal of money to bribe the guards at the gate.

  Pushing up, Wren straightened and let the man get a good long look at her—bare, dirty, dripping fluids, and clearly unhealthy. It was pointless to sign to him, he wouldn’t understand. So, squeezing filth from her hair, she muddied her fingers, and smeared them over the cracked white subway tiles that coated the wall at her back, writing:

  My boys.

  A hint of evil in his smirk, a flare of light in green eyes. “You think we’d give them back to you?”

  Throat bobbing, Wren swallowed, incapable of answering.

  “Did Toby lie? You didn’t know Caspian was searching for you?”

  A single, subtle shake of her head.

  “Because he threw you out. You thought he was done.”

  A nod.

  “And you came anyway…” Crossing his arms over his chest, Kieran cocked his head. “You must have suspected he’d most likely kill you.”

  A debt was a debt, yet she’d come expecting it to be her last day. She’d swam through filth anticipating her body would be tossed right back into the sewage to rot. Not once did she figure Caspian would want her back. Turning to the wall, she pressed one hand to her heart, and pointed again at the two words that summed up her entire motivation.

  My boys.

  “You wasted your chance to be free.” Kieran’s next words fell with an odd ring. They fell unsure, as if what he shared he didn’t wish to. “Before you get your hopes up, know that you won’t find your kid here. Alec is gone.”

  That couldn’t be right…

  Eye twitched, her breath stopped mid exhale. Alec couldn’t be gone! Caspian assured her he’d live, and that was even before Kieran had slipped the boy a healing boost.

  Had they disposed of him when she was no longer here to entertain them? Had they hurt him?

  “I didn’t say he was dead, Omega. I said he was gone.” The Second reached out to stop her wobbly forward assault, giving her a rough shake when her stray hand landed a pathetic slap to his chest. “Toby took your boy to the upper levels to serve as a runner for his offices in Council. The psychopath wanted to honor your memory.”

  Eyes wide and spilling fresh tears, Wren tried to find the world under her feet.

  Toby got her boy out of the Pipeworks? Even though he thought she was dead?

  He did that for her.

  Upper levels? Clean air. No mud. Food on every street corner…

  Head falling against Kieran’s chest, Wren began to sob. And immediately the male misunderstood.

  “I bet you wish you’d hidden now.” Dropping his hold, he let her sink to the floor and stepped back as if she disgusted him.

  The fraying threads that held her mentally together snapped. Just like that.

  One moment she had a purpose, the next her purpose was served.

  Alec was in the upper levels, safe, where he could take care of himself better than anyone might imagine. Even without her, he’d thrive. Now that he was no longer blind to what Caspian could and would do to the both of them, he’d sharpen up. He’d know when to run, and Wren was sure, if that kid put his mind to it, not even the Syndicate would find him.

  Her child was rebellious, unruly, and completely underestimated by these bad men.

  And Toby had unleashed him upon the upper levels.

  Cracking, as if her body was stone and she was about to shed that craggy old skin, the weight just fell off of her.

  And she cried all the harder for it. Right there, on the floor. Emotional vomit purged until she began to laugh.

  Mikael was going to heal. Alec was safe.

  And where did that leave her?

  Shouldering a terrible new feeling—gratitude toward Toby.

  She appreciated Toby for doing something selfless, felt in that moment a flicker of fondness the insane Third Alpha didn’t deserve. Unsure if she’d be able to reconcile how much she loathed him for whipping her boy with how much she adored him for taking Alec from this horrible place, she put her forehead to the floor.

  After an embarrassing length of time, her mind ceased reeling, and she was able to push back to her haunches. Twisting so her legs splayed before her, Wren leaned against the coolness of the wall, breathless and… smiling.

  This must be what it felt like to die.

  A lightness that fooled her body into believing it drifted, not slumped on dirty tiles. She couldn’t even smell the mud and shit that she’d crawled through.

  Not when out of nowhere Kieran leaned over her, so close that if she turned her head just a touch, she could lay her cheek to his.

  Before she might lean into his heat and draw in his scent, the male shoved to his feet. Bracing his legs on either side of her hips, he tore down his zipper, and shoved a fully hard cock past her teeth. Unprepared, Wren instinctively swallowed against the rising water that was moments from escaping her belly, and found his pelvis met her lips.

  In all the times this demon had worked his evil down her throat, he’d never shoved his meat so deep.

  Not that she particularly noticed.

  She couldn’t even comprehend the words he was shouting as he held himself there beyond her ability to hold her breath.

  Kieran keened, jaw clenched and teeth exposed in the following hiss.

  What shot into her belly warmed soul-deep, shooting zings of feeling from tummy to fingertips. Filled her.

  Becoming an active participant to the mauling, Wren swallowed again, and set her teeth to the root of his cock. Should he pull away what fed her, she’d bite down. Hold him until she’d had her fill.

  More and more flowed thick and creamy from him to her, bloated her belly, yet still she refused to let go.

  Rough fingers pinched her jaw, forcing it apart. “You have to breathe!”

  The entire length of him was drawn from her esophagus, slimed with her mucus, and pulsating as it continued to spurt on her parted lips and waiting tongue.

  But it wasn’t cum.

  Thick, viscus, and white as snow. Stringy like taffy.

  Addictive.

  A nutrient substance rutting Alphas fed their Omegas in estrous when females were unable to eat.

  When they could hardly drink.

  A substance that would tax the Alpha’s strength as he gave his vigor to his female.

  Something Kieran could have only been able to produce if he’d been with an estrous high Omega.

  He’d force-fed Wren another woman’s due. And she, the slut that she was, lapped it down like ambrosia.

  Immediately buoyed, feeling reason and strength return, the panting Omega met burning green eyes and knew.

  Kieran had lied.

  21

  Lightly laughing at a mildly funny quip, Rosie kept her face bright, her smile winning, and let the Alpha who’d pulled her to his lap think he was the only man in the world. Twirling his hair around her finger, easing close enough the sweetness of Omega scent might charm him, she drew in a decent option for nightly protector.

  Someone who would keep her out of the orgy in his greed to have Omega cunt to himself.

  This game, she’d played it a million times. Same smile, same giggle, different cock.

  Play the part, and food and water were available in abundance—as was a sort of safety. The protection of strong males, the comradery of other females who lived and breathed the same sorry life. Everything in the pen was organized and in its box.

  But it was a job. Unpaid even.

  Generally, Caspian gave his whores everything they needed beyond the standard food, shelter, water. Spoiled them as far as pimps went with clothing, luxury items, even the occasional excursion into the city. He didn’t beat them, not unless they had it coming.

  But he sure as fuck didn’t care about them either.

  The male liked holes. Preferred those holes to be of the female variety and trained in how to make his dick cough up cum like a geyser.