Page 57 of Shaken Knot Stirred

Beg was actually stunned into silence. Nico coughed to cover a laugh. I didn’t know what to feel. I’ve never seen anyone go after Beg like this and not get beat down.

“Five hundred dollars?” Beg said, slowing like there was a joke he wasn’t getting.

“Yeah, at least, I’ll have them bill you for the rest, m’kay?”

“The rest of what?”

Moxie folded her hands primly in front of her and spoke to Beg like he was a child, nodding her head sharply to emphasize certain words. “You wantmeto mess upyourbrother’s chance at a pack. You think I’m going to do thatwithouthairandmakeup?”

I watched Beg’s face as he tried to process this. Blindsided, without knowing what else to do, he pulled his wallet from his back pocket. He unfolded it and fished out a bill. Moxie batted that away and pinched the remaining cash out instead. Then she snatched the bill out of his fingers. She tucked the cash in her back pocket and then rocked on the balls of her feet, like she hadn’t just didn’t stolen from the Mired District’s crime lord.

Stunned, Beg ripped open the passenger door. He tried to step up on the running board to get into the truck, but his damp pants stuck to his leg. He had to hike them up and readjust.

“Aww, you need a boost up into your wittle truck?” Moxie said in a baby voice. She bent slightly and cupped her hands as if to give him a leg up.

A bark of laughter came out of Nico, not covered by a cough this time. He turned and gave Beg his back as he walked away.

Moxie turned to me and skipped, actually skipped, hooking her arm through mine and pulling me away with her.

I was too shocked to resist or even look back. An omega just put Beg Knightbridge in his place and lived to tell about it.

Chapter 32

Moxie

Her feelings of guiltwere so strong that not only could I see it in her aura, but I could taste it as it soured her floral scent.

“Cora,” I said as I touched her arm gently. She shivered slightly. Omega auras could have a healing effect even on other omegas. With one last glance, she tucked her phone into her little clutch purse as the elevator doors opened.

“My alpha,” she said weakly. “She is… unhappy. I seem to have lost a necklace.”

I made some murmurs of sympathy as I patted her arm and escorted her off the elevator. I had to bite back my own guilt. Lana had stolen that necklace, and it was causing upset for Cora.

“Eric Grayhouse?” she asked for the thousandth time.

“I’ve heard such good things about him,” I said, doing my best to beam and batting my eyes like a lovesick omega. Cora pursed her lips. She didn’t want to come out and dash my hopes outright, but it was clear she didn’t approve of the potential match. All the information I could dig up on Eric Grayhouse was stereotypical alphahole shit. He was from a wealthy pack, went to all the right schools, and still didn’t have a pack.

Lana was nervous about the idea. Duping someone like Grayhouse into a pre-bond agreement and then skedaddling was risky. My con game skills were a little rusty, but running this type of scam wasn’t actually complicated, especially if you knew exactly how an alpha was feeling.

We stepped through the cut glass crystal arch and into the heart of Sanctum, the most exclusive part of Paramour. The Pax and Paramour were virtually twins in their conception. Now that I knew they were both owned by the Knightbridge Pack, I was pretty sure they were both constructed in the same way, maybe even at the same time.

Except Paramour was dripping with wealth. There were no dance clubs with thumping, cutting-edge House music. Here, it was all cigar bars, several piano bars, a jazz stage, and a whiskey bar that had its own distillery.

Sanctum occupied the entire top floor with panoramic views of the Floating District. It was vast and spacious, but it felt intimate. Instead of booths like in the Vig, there were small seating areas with loveseats, armchairs, and small round tables to hold ashtrays and glasses. I looked up at the ceiling. There were recessed spotlights angled meticulously to keep the roomdark but have enough light to see by. This was a nest, or it would be if there was a giant round bed for fucking.

And it smelled divine, like they were pumping in fragrance that would mute and compliment all the individual scents in the room. Another stark difference was that there were women everywhere of every designation. While it didn’t seem to be a 50/50 split, there were many more women, especially omegas, here than at the Vig.

We were escorted to a seating area with a loveseat and two armchairs. They were all arranged so that everyone could have prime viewing of the center of the room, as if an impromptu performance would erupt. On their website, they showed a photo of a young girl playing the violin, captivating everyone from there. I’d been a bit shocked to discover that she was Perfume, the daughter of a paragon, child star, and now an emerging punk rock artist. But there’d be no performances tonight.

The Dinghy Races were like the Olympics of matchmaking, and paragons often served as gold medal matchmakers. Through their clientele and connections, they knew everybody who was worth knowing and ruled high society with a slick-clad fist.

I was taking it all in when a server in a black sequin cocktail dress brought us glasses of champagne. Now I knew where Beg got the cocktail dress idea from for the bottle girls at the Vig. I took a sip, and the bubbles snapped at my nose. I smiled.

Nico and I had been making plans to bust out of B.O.W. custody since the day after the fire. He’d even gotten a landscaping job at the facility just so that we could sneak time together and scheme.

The doctors and staff had been giddy with the prospect of observing an omega when she perfumed. But it was how they talked about heat that made me desperate. They wanted to runexperiments on it, on me. Test my slick, evaluate how big of a knot an omega could take, that sort of thing.

I could feel I was going to perfume. Auracles were the only people on Earth who know their designation at birth. Everyone else knew it too. When you pushed out a baby with shocking white hair, that was a giant neon sign screaming, “Oh look, an omega with creepy skills!” Then everyone just had to sit tight and wait.

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