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I tried to ignore them, focusing instead on angrily stuffing a Yorkshire pudding into my mouth with as little table manners as I could possibly muster.
“Did they starve you before you arrived?” Umbra asked, watching me with a startled expression.
Dusk’s snort of laughter had me swallowing the pudding with painful speed, which drew tears to my eyes.
“No,” I snapped, scowling.
The stress was getting to me. I was taking Dusk’s bait like the child he was treating me as. I shoved the plate away, folding my arms and then unfolding them, for the bratty image it so clearly gave.
“They uh… didn’t put up much of a fight, then?” Umbra asked, peering at me as he began on his mince pies. “Are theyreallyyour mates?”
“Yes.” My temper flared. “They don’t know who I am yet.”
“Ah.” He cocked his head. “That’s the answer then? Once they know, they’ll rescue you?”
I glared at him, but Dusk was leaning forward, clearly interested.
“I told youto smile for me, and you disobeyed.” His glittering eyes scanned my face as he watched me, searching for the response I refused to give him. “Do you think you looked like youwantedto leave with me?”
“I don’t think anyone in this room believes I want to be here,” I hissed.
Iwouldn’tgive them that.
They could blackmail me, but they wouldn’t get me to smile so everyone else could believe I was happy. They didn’t know what I’d survived—the lengths I’d gone to, so I could keep that last bastion of flickering fire alive in my soul. They didn’t know how far I would go to find a place where I could rekindle that.
They didn’t know that more than anything else in the world; I wanted to be me again.
I wanted what had been stolen.
“So, your mates,” Dusk mused. “Yoursaviourswatched me sweep away an unwilling omega before their very eyes and didn’t intervene?”
“There are rules,” I spat. The necklace I’d put on marked the choice they couldn’t contest. “They can’t, and you know it.”
“Right…” He nodded thoughtfully. “They would have intervened—wantedto—but couldn’t. They weretornby guilt, knowing they should step in. Instead of banging their new omega tonight, they’ll be restless with the knowledge of what they saw and couldn’t prevent.”
My mouth was dry as Umbra breathed a small laugh.
Panic clawed at my chest, and my eyes darted to the table that hosted my mates. There was someone seated with them.
Raven hair and porcelain skin… She was beautiful. Roxy Vasilli was one of the morewell-offomegas attending today.
A perfect match for them…
“Do you think there’s a single alpha attending tonight who doesn’t know what goes on here? That aren’t herebecauseof it?” Dusk was asking, and the question drew me back to him. “It’s a place to watch desperate omegas fight over alphas. There’s nowhere else you can guarantee such blind, docile compliance—as every omega in this room will be so happy to offer. And that’s if there wasn’t a deal struck behind closed doors.” He leaned back, waving a hand in the air to the room in general. “You think you’re the only one here hiding golden eyes?”
A stone dropped into the pit of my stomach as he said those words so casually. I almost lunged for him, halfway from my seat, before I could stop myself. I scanned the area quickly, but the room was buzzing with conversation and the nearest tables were distant enough that his low voice wouldn’t carry. My heart was pounding in my chest, and all thoughts of Roxy Vasilli wiped away as he went on.
“You think you’re the only one with a haunted look, seated at a pack table with no flirting or courting or competition?”
Again, I looked, an icy dread settling over me as I took in the room with a different gaze.
“What your precious mates saw wasn’t special,” Dusk said.
But… he was right.
Some tables were quieter than others, and the dividing line didn’t seem to be wealth or status. There were some, like ours, that hadn’t seen much movement at all. An omega had arrived and slipped into a seat, and that was it.
“Your mates aren’t heredespitethe depravity poisoning every corner of this room, they’re herebecauseof it.”
