Page 113 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two
“Is it?” Ace asked, fingers tracing Thistle’s arm to one of his bites on her skin, once more catching Banner’s eye with too much intensity. “Perhaps by the end of the night, you’ll see how well we match.”
I hadn’t thought, before now, a statement like that could be wielded like a threat, but Ace was a special case.
“Hmm.” Bella seemed thrown, too. Anxiety didn’t suit her, and her eyes darted around again, landing on the chain Rogue was holding, this time not meeting my eyes. I could see she was burning to bring it up, but instead she changed tactics.
“Is the Ring to your taste, or were you chased out of the city?” she asked. “I heard the Brotherhood fell in a matter of days.”
“Luckily for me, it was just a means to an end,” Ace said, and I noticed his eyes drift about the room. If he meant to create tension in the air, it was working, and Banner followed his gaze before he could stop himself. “But I’m not here on Brotherhood business,” Ace said. “Since you dragged me and my mate into youroperation, I’ve done it a favour.”
“Favour?” Bella’s eyebrows rose.
Ace glanced back at me. “I found a traitor.”
A deadly silence hung in the air, and my heart jumped into my throat. I knew the cards we intended to play tonight, but I wasn’t prepared for how boldly Ace would place my head on the chopping block before monsters.
Every eye locked onto me.
The tension was broken by Peter Hadley, who was already rosy-cheeked from too many drinks. “What was it you said, Bella? Tonight you’d be letting us in on a big secret about Knox?” he chuckled.
“It seems I beat her to it,” Ace said.
“How serious?” Lorelai Hunter leaned against the back of her chair, watching me curiously.
“Serious?” Ace shrugged. “Just an Alpha with a bleeding heart. But I found the other two he released. They’ve been dealt with.”
“Two others?” someone down the table called. “That’s all?”
“Was almost three. My Omega discovered how malleable he is.”
“The others he bought?” Lorelai asked. “There were quite a few over the years. I won’t risk his weakness getting back to us.”
“Dead, or at the Mansion. I consider them mine, just like him. Retribution for putting his hands on my Omega.” He said it so off-handedly that it didn’t give anyone room to argue unless they wanted to challenge him directly.
No one did, and Bella’s usually plush lips were drawn thin, as if she were working out exactly how she might go about it.
“You are aware, Maverick, that he’s in my pack—my scent match.”
Ace let out a low laugh. “He bought and chainedmysoul match—a bid, I heard, you almost won…” He let that linger for a long moment. If Bella had seemed uncertain before, it was nothing to the way her skin blanched as that sunk in. “Perhaps you should count your blessings you aren’t in his place.” He looked down at Thistle for a moment. “My Omega is invested—she wants her revenge and so do I. Perhaps, when she’s sick of him you can put in an offer?”
Bella looked like she’d been slapped—and in fairness, it was possibly the most offensive thing I’d ever heard.
“Sounds fair to me! Everyone gets a turn,” Peter Hadley slurred, tipsy enough but too far gone to read the tension in the room. “You know, I never thought Knox would be the one with a soft spot.”
There was another pause, then Fernando—Peter’s pack mate—snorted. “Doe eyes and a silver tongue—enough to put a fool six feet deep.” In the last arena they’d set up, that’s exactly what had happened. A Ring traitor had been dropped in with the rest, and Fernando had been the one to claim the kill.
“Anticlimactic…” Peter said, eyes sliding to me. “But then again…” He smiled as he took in the chain coiled in Rogue’s fist. “Might be better than a kill.”
He hated me. I hadn’t carved out my place in the Ring by being nice, and most members attending tonight would enjoy nothing more than to see me chained and muzzled. “Perhaps soon we’ll get the story of how he subdued you in the first place.” Peter was addressing Rogue now.
Rogue grunted, but said nothing.
Bella wasn’t done, of that I was sure—but for the others, would this be all it took?
Ace hadn’t brought proof of what I’d done—or that he’d dealt with it, but he had the claim Bella had already made which legitimized his words, and… well… me. In chains. Silenced and humiliated.
Was that all it would take? Enough humiliation tonight, leaving them all to dream about my endless fall from grace, and I was… free?
Well.
