Page 15 of Slick

“She smells like an alpha,” he admits, “but there was only a beta in the clinic with her.”

“Was it the vagrant who took her from the center?”

It takes me a moment to make sense of her question.Vagrantis a new word, but I’m pretty sure it’s a homeless person. How she knows details about my escape is less troubling than this reference to Kane. I haven’t had a chance to ask him about his living arrangements, but it pinches my heart to think he might be homeless. But then, aren’t I, too? And what could be better than finding a new home with the two men I love more than anything in the world?

“That’s none of your business.”

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, and the blonde’s gaze swivels back to me. Instead of anger, I see a faint glimmer of something that might be respect. Or maybe it’s just amusement. It’s hard to tell when her scent says one thing, and her face another. “I thought all slick dolls were taught the value of silence.”

I frown because I like that term even less than I like being called a slick sleeve. But before I can tell her so, she waves her hands, which are covered in large, gleaming rings, and the omegas leap off their cushions, scattering through the doors like petals dancing on a draft. Royce makes a disgruntled sound at their departure, but the blonde ignores him as she climbs off her throne and saunters my way. She’s wearing pink pumps withhigh heels, which gives her a few inches of height over me, and it’s like gazing up at one of those intimidating statues back at the gate. “Do you understand your purpose in life, Omega?”

I’m certain I’m not going to like her view on the matter, so I lift my chin and hold her gaze. “It’s to meet my scent match and live happily ever after.”

Royce gives a rude snort behind me, but the blonde whips her head around, her eyes like chips of ice as she stares down the large man. “We don’t mock dreams here, Mr. Anderson.” When her gaze returns to mine, some of that hardness lingers. “Isn’t it a testament to her resilience that she still has any hope left at all?”

“I guess. But she’s kidding herself if she thinks Donny will ever…”

“Marcus, take our guest on his tour.” The blonde flutters her ringed fingers at her man and he nudges the other alpha, directing him after the omegas. When they’re gone, she kicks off her high heels, and taking my wrist in cool fingers, pulls me down onto one of the pink cushions. She bends like an elegant reed, settling so close that I’m smothered in her scent. It’s strangely familiar, like I’m lying in a field of sun-warmed flowers. “Your purpose, my dear, is the manufacture of slick.”

I try to pull away, but her fingers tighten. “All omega secretions are valuable, but some lucky omegas have a scent that attracts only the richest of admirers.”

I watch her warily. “I suppose that makes sense.”

She smiles, a little smirk that shows her dimples but makes me feel cold all over. “The thing is, an omega’s scent is like a signature, and a powerful alpha can tell one from another, even in a crowded room.Yourperfume, they could probably track right across the city.”

I’ve always known I have a potent scent. New collectors have commented on it, and Dex often tells me I give him a head rushwhen I first walk into the room. But this woman – Luscious, if that’s even her real name – has a powerful scent that’s almost a mirror of my own. Does she see me as some kind of competition? “I don’t understand. Are you saying you want to do something to my scent?”

Her laughter tinkles like broken glass down a drain. “I’m saying Iownyour scent, my dear, along with everything that goes with it. That’s the arrangement I have with the owners of your facility.”

I blink, wondering if I’ve heard her wrong. “They’ve been… selling my scent. How?” I think back over what I know about the center, and my stomach almost lurches into my throat. “My slick?”

“Distilled into perfumes, lotions, even luxury candles, for that whole-room ambience.” She giggles, like it’s a wonderful joke. “The majority of the product that comes out of those factories is sold on the black market, but I pay a premium to have exclusive rights to every drop ofyou. That makes you important to me, but it also means I’m a very valuable client of your owners.”

My owners. Because they haven’t been using my slick to find my scent match. They’ve been selling it to awful people like the woman in front of me. “But why? You’re an omega, too. Why do you need my scent…?”

Her fingers tighten on my wrist until I gasp in pain. “Well, as you said a moment ago, that’s none of your business.”

“But it’smyslick. My scent. You can’t just steal it!”

Instead of squeezing my bones some more, her hand flies back, then whips forward across my cheek. Her rings bite into my tender skin and I smell my blood on the air, bright and shocking. The sting quickly deepens into an ache, but Luscious grips my chin, yanking my face so close I can taste old apricots – herrealscent – on my tongue. “I can do whatever I want, you stupid little bitch! I own this studio, I own the gash that grindsits wheels, and I definitely own a mindless omega whose own father sold her into slick slavery.”

I don’t know why the image pierces the red haze that fills my mind, but I’m suddenly back in that rusty car with a cracked windshield. A man with lank, greasy hair is sitting in the driver’s seat, while I curl into a tight ball behind him. My heart is thumping, and the man is swearing, long fingers strangling the steering wheel. I can smell my slick in the air, but it’s faint and bruised, like crushed flowers. My father –jittery, angry, his eyes slicing me through the mirror like twin knives– reeks of despair, but he keeps shaking his head and muttering two words:Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it…

It takes me a moment to realize I’m saying it, too. “Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.” Because one of Luscious’ pink pumps is in my hand, and I’m bringing the needle-sharp heel down against the side of her head. Her scream is a breathless wail, but I’m already shoving her into a gap between the cushions, her eyes rolling back as her head strikes the black marble floor. I toss the pump down next to her, then quickly cover her with the cushions. I pant, my chest heaving. I don’t know if she’s dead, or just dazed, but I’m certain she’ll kill me if she ever fights her way out of her pink grave.

Run, Diana!

I can almost hear Dex’s voice howling in my ear, urging me to flee. It gives me the courage to scramble away from the pile of cushions and dash across the room towards a door. It’s in the opposite direction to the one the alphas took, but I still brace myself as I push it open. But there’s only a dimly lit corridor on the other side, and I run blindly down it, looking for a way out. More doors, all closed, and boxes stacked against a wall. I can feel my pulse pounding in my temple – right around where I hit that awful omega with her own shoe – but I refuse to give intomy panic. I said I was looking for a chance to escape, and this has to be it.

Just as I reach the door at the end of the corridor, it opens, and a guy walks in with a clipboard in hand and a phone tucked against his ear. I freeze, but he barely glances at me as he passes, and I catch the door before it shuts. There is a small table outside with some bottled water and a few more clipboards stacked on it, and I snatch up one of each. At the last moment, I grab a baseball cap that someone left behind, and twisting my hair into a messy bun, shove it down on my head.

I walk with no awareness of where I’m going, the passing faces a chaotic blur. I just want to get as far away from that horrible room as I can, and those alphas who will probably kill me for hurting their precious porn star. I can feel the wound on my cheek like a red flag, but I keep my eyes on the clipboard, the brim of my cap pulled low. But my few glances at my surroundings reveal Lily Luscious’ name scrawled across almost every surface in vivid pink script. It seems that everything at Sultry Studios really does belong to her, my scent included.

Fuck that.

The curse feels good, and I let it reverberate in my mind as I stride across her lot. Just like my father said - before he apparentlysoldme - nothing matters except for my own selfish interests. And in this case, that means getting away from this awful place and back to Dex and Kane.

And I don’t care if I have to go through an entire closet of bright pink pumps to do it.

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