This was rich and masculine… expectant. This was from a different person entirely.
This was appealing.
Play the game… be his fancy Omega.
She was already dressed in soft blue, already scrubbed clean and new. How hard could it be to play for one night?
Wren let Alpha music work upon her, opening her mouth to him. Even groaning when his tongue stole in.
A fancy Omega like the ones thriving in the upper levels, with mates who loved them and children who didn’t starve before their eyes. It was a dream she could easily fall into, just as she melted into Kieran’s arms.
Wren had spent a lot of time pretending since she’d been cast down into the mud. She was good at it. Pretend life wasn’t so awful.
Compartmentalize. Survive.
The purr she made was honest in the sense that it rang out with true hunger even if it wasn’t for this male. She was hungry. For life. For safety the strong arms wrapped around her could offer. For a future.
She kissed him back, eager and willing to play house if only for a few moments. She kissed him back and lied to herself.
Husky and warm, Kieran broke away, blinking down at the thing in his arms. “That was… that was good.”
A soft smile back was offered. It had been good. Considering the man and how much she disliked him, it had even almost felt real.
In a heartbeat, his expression cleared of bewilderment, skepticism inching into those piercing eyes.
Skepticism was a second language to her.
Signing, knowing he couldn’t understand and would make no effort to, Wren let her fingers dance. “I want to be happy too. I never wanted to be abandoned, to bury children, to live one hungry day to the next. You want a fancy Omega? That’s a game I can play.”
“What did you say?” he cocked his chin toward the pad of paper on the desk. “Write it down.”
Lips wistful, she shook her head, signing, “It means this.”
Wren stepped forward again, put her lips to his mouth, and gave him a very real kiss. One she wished she could give to another.
Chapter 5
Wren hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings when she’d been brought into the Pipeworks, lugging an armful of goods. She’d kept her head down, embarrassed… knowing everyone who saw her pegged the exact reason Caspian marched her forward.
That they could smell that it was his sperm that had leaked out and soaked her pants.
But it was different now that she had been prepared for him and his pack. They stared, and she had no blankets or shapeless clothes to hide behind. All she had was Kieran, who she clung to as if he weren’t the cause of her humiliating parade.
He didn’t seem to mind her arms entwined around one of his, or how she half-hid herself against his body. “None of them will touch you.”
Bullshit. Men didn’t look at a woman like that unless they were damn well planning to touch them.
Christ, if these men with Caspian’s symbol, the black hand, engulfing the lower half of their faces found out where she lived when this was over, she would be literally and figuratively screwed.
And this couldn’t be over soon enough.
The room Toby had prepared for her wasn’t exactly close to Caspian’s. The walk involved changing levels, various halls and corridors, a complete change in scenery back to the gritty underbelly of the water filtration plant Caspian controlled.
He lived in the thick of it, away from the lush corridors upstairs.
Guards flanked an ominous door across a catwalk, so high above the churning systems below, that Wren kept her eyes locked straight ahead. One stupid glance down and all that water Kieran had made her drink would come back up.
Her courier noticed the hesitancy in her steps. “You’ll get used to it. Close your eyes if you want. I won’t let you fall.”
What was worse? Keeping them open and knowing what was ahead, or trusting the smirking gangster at her side?
“I can carry you across… just this once.”
No way. Shaking her head, stinking of dread, Wren took that first step. Because that’s how life was. No one was going to carry you, unless there was a price. And Wren had already bought more than she could afford.
The door was almost within reach when Kieran pulled her to stop. “Wait.”
Perking her ears, Wren heard what had stopped their progress—very vocal sounds of a man at the cusp of orgasm.
Caspian.
The muffled grunts came to an end, the male words that followed dampened by concrete walls and that guarded door, indecipherable.
The portal ahead slid open. A woman wiping a lipstick-smeared mouth still dripping with cum stepped out.
She was a beauty if ever there was one. Buxom, tall. Dressed to appeal, and even sporting expensive cosmetics on her face. Caspian’s scent wafted from her, as did the sweet smell of Omega slick.