“That’s pretty. You’re Elysian? From Springfield Gardens?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re with this one—” he gestured toward Riot “—by choice?”
“Yes. Riot is my—he’s—yes.”
Cole studied him for a long moment. Something calculating moved behind his eyes—not cruelty exactly, but something that ran numbers and reached conclusions and didn’t let sentiment interfere.
“Okay, Cassiopeia.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Here’s the situation. Your Alpha paid the vehicle toll. But you’re a different matter. You’re an Omega in my territory, that’s a separate toll.”
“I don’t have any iscs.” Cass’s voice came out small. The arm around his ribs made breathing difficult and thinking harder. “But I maybe if you ask Riot? Or if he doesn’t have enough, I could help you with something? I’m not smart or very strong, but I’m good at plants. And laundry.”
A sound went through the men. Not laughter—something lower, something that vibrated at a frequency Cass didn’t recognize but that made the skin on his arms prickle.
“Not that kind of help, sweetheart.”
“Oh.” Cass tried to think. “I could organize? I’m okay at mending clothing, I can—”
“We want to borrow him.” Cole said, glancing back at Riot. Casual. Friendly, even. “Just for a few days. You can stay and watch if you like—join in. There’s only twelve of us when the relief crew rotates through. Nobody gets rough.”
Cass didn’t understand.Borrowwas a strange word for labor. Generally someone didn’t borrow a person to cook for them— they hired them, or they asked, or invited them to contribute harmoniously. Hammers and things like tools were borrowed, not people.
“What do you want me to do?” Cass asked.
The silence that followed was the loudest thing he’d ever heard.
Every man in the group was looking at him. Every single one. And the quality of their attention had changed—it had thickened, concentrated, become something that pressed against Cass’s skin like heat from an open oven. He didn’t understand it. He just knew it was bad. He knew it the way a rabbit knew when the shadow overhead was a hawk—not through understanding but through every nerve ending in his body screamingwrong, this is wrong, whatever this is it’s wrong.And he felt a strange pressure in his hands, like he wanted to punch something, but that wasn’t right. He didn’t punch things.
“What would you do?” one of the Berserkers asked, watching Cass with an expression that had too many teeth in it. “If we borrowed you. What do you think we’d have you do?”
“I don’t—” Cass’s voice was shrinking. He could feel it getting smaller, pulling inward, the way he used to get small in the Elders’ hallways when the energy was disharmonious and the safest thing was to take up as little space as possible. “I don’t know. Whatever you need, I suppose. I just want to leave with Riot. Please. Whatever the toll is, I’ll do it, and then we’ll leave.”
“Whatever the toll is,“ the younger one repeated. Something was wrong with his smile. Something was very wrong with all of their smiles.
Across the distance, Cass could almost feel through the asphalt, through the arm holding him, through the air itself, Riot practically vibrating.
“He doesn’t know.” Cole said it to his men. Quiet. Matter-of-fact. The voice of a man confirming something’s value. “He genuinely doesn’t know what we’re asking.”
“Please let me go,” Cass whispered. “I don’t understand what you want. I’ll do the toll—just tell me what it is and I’ll do it and we can leave—”
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Riot said, and the man with the rifle shifted his weight because Riot’s stance had changed. “You are going to put my Omega down. You are going to step away from him. And then I am going to leave with him, and everyone here is going to live.”
My Omega.Again. The warmth bloomed again in the worst possible place at the worst possible time and Cass hated his body for its timing and its priorities.
Cole looked at Riot. Really looked—the claws, the stance, the vibrating stillness, the gold pressing at the mesh. He was doing the math. Five armed men versus one Endeavor Berserker with claw weapons. The math should have been obvious.
But something in Cole’s expression said the math wasn’t as simple as it looked.
“Look, you’re lucky you caught us on a day when we’re all pretty calm, but my boys and I run on expired suppressants and our hands for entertainment. We don’t want to keep him, we’re just going to borrow him,” Cole said with a shrug. “You’ll get him back. We—”
“Sage,” Riot was pressing the talk button on the walkie, his voice disturbingly calm, “green light.”
CRACK.
The rifleman’s shoulder jerked sideways. His hand spasmed. The rifle barrel swung wide, away from Riot’s chest, toward the sky, and before the echo of Sage’s shot finished bouncing between the overpasses, Riot was moving.
He did not go for Cole first.
