Page 1 of Broken Dreams

PROLOGUE

My hips move to the music the way they always have. My arms lift my body to swing around the pole in a move that shows off how strong my body is, even as the smoke in the room makes my senses feel dull.

There are drugs being pumped into the club tonight. Bret enjoys changing things up pretty often, as we travel for his clientele. It’s a guaranteed way to keep the new girls in line, cut off from resources if they won’t bend in exactly the way he wants them to. I never know what city I’m in as I’m shuttled from place to place, because it doesn't matter.

Everything I am belongs to him, and the men and women who pay for my time. My body is on full display, the alphas’ warm gazes on me, forcing me to preen for them. It’s a response I can’t control, my pussy already slicking to fill the room with my scent.

Tonight I’m priming the scene for the other omegas in the club, teasing the alpha men and women who are here. It’s a very exclusive guest list, invited by Bret for specific reasons. There are things he wants from each of them, and he’s going to pay for those favors with what our bodies promise.

Illicit sex, any way they want.

My skin begins to glisten with sweat as I dance, my nipples stiff peaks, my breasts bouncing slightly. Their eyes may be on me as they choose the omegas they’re fucking tonight, but my cunt is empty. Bret is punishing and protecting me in the same breath.

My job is to stay off limits tonight as I twirl around the pole, or roll on the ground to flash them a look at my slick core. Moans and whimpers fill the air as alphas fuck the male and female omegas who are as trapped here as I am.

The drugs make the omegas believe they want the knots being pushed inside of them, while the alphas have a safe place to lose control as they fall into their ruts. There have been many accidents while I’ve worked here, but Bret is just quietly paid the cost of what the omega is worth without a word.

What’s a dead omega in the face of living out a fantasy or a really good orgasm?

It’s why I’m dancing and not fucking tonight. The other omegas are expendable, while I’m not for some reason. Any time the boss is worried about how rough things may get, he has me dance instead, teasing those in the room with the promise of what they can’t have.

I’d rather run the risk of being killed though. I’ve been here so many years, the time is hard to keep track of. Death would be peaceful, quiet, and blissful.

My face is a mask of desire as I continue to dance, eyes refusing to land for long on any of the rutting alphas with their chosen omegas. Some are sharing omegas because there’s multiple holes to fuck and knot. It’s what we’re made for after all. There’s one omega in particular that I would mourn if something happened to them.

Instead, I take a deep breath of the drugged air and allow myself to drift, because it’s safer that way.

I don’t want to think, feel, or wish for anything more than I have. Hope has dangerous consequences. This is my life, a trafficked sex worker who only works to line her boss’ coffers. It’s all I can ever be.

CHAPTER 1

June 13th

CALLUM

It’s a bittersweet day. There are many regrets that I have, things I wish I had done differently in the past. It’s also the day my other best friend was born, someone who’s become very important to my brother and I.

Today is the day we lost Quinn, twenty years ago. My heart cramps so hard, I’d worry it was a heart attack if it didn’t happen so often. Every time I think about my childhood best friend, I’m reminded of how she was stolen from us. I don’t even know who was responsible for her kidnapping, because it shouldn’t have happened.

Not if her bodyguards were paying attention.

The more I think about it over the past twenty years, the more I think it was an inside job. There isn’t a soul alive who can convince me otherwise. How did so many people not seeher being kidnapped, yanked from our lives without a second thought?

Gazing at the photo in my office, I see my pretty girl with a straight smile, long, wavy blonde hair, and the beginnings of curves at fourteen years old. Duncan and I lazily have our arms thrown over her, smirking at the camera. God, I wish we’d told her how we felt about her then.

It wasn’t that we didn’t love her, it simply felt wrong when we were seventeen and eighteen years old. Her father continually reminded us to let her be a kid, to hold back our alpha instincts until she at least presented. He didn’t want us to push her to become romantically involved, and it made sense back then.

While we agreed at the time, I regret it now. Duncan and I can feel it in our bones that she was meant to be ours.

Now, here I am with years between us, and Quinn is lost in the wind amongst the ashes of regret and grief.

“Hey,” my brother says, leaning on the door jamb as he watches me. I don’t think he’s been there long, I would have noticed. “We have to go see Adira and the guys. It’s her birthday, remember?”

There’s no way I’d ever forget her birthday, not when it’s tattooed on my skin in Roman numerals. I don’t know how she’s never noticed. The tattoo of a crown, the name “Quinn”, and the date of her disappearance takes up a large portion of my upper arm. There are other tattoos that grace my skin, but Quinn’s is one of the first ones Adira noticed when we bought her at an auction.

The reasons are lengthy for why we insisted on paying an exorbitant amount for her, but we immediately felt responsible for Adira. Our friendship transcends both reason and time. It’s important for us to go celebrate the first birthday anyone’s given a shit about in a long time.

She reflects our broken pieces, and simply fits in with Duncan and I. Unfortunately, she’s not our scent match, happily packed up with assholes that kneel and bend only for her. Pack Dresmond isn’t a normal pack, which somehow fits our best friend, Adira, perfectly.

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