Page 43 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two
“Fixed?”
I would fucking fix it. “Iknowhow to keep her safe.”
“Ah. But doesshebelieve that?”
Something bitter rose up my throat. The obvious answer hung between us, unspoken. If Thistle thought we could keep her safe, Ace wouldn’t be awake.
“If Carrion’s after you, youarein trouble. He strangles dissent with an iron grip.”
I paused, considering him as he named the leader of the Ring we were running from. He knew the circles Rogue and I were a part of. Carrion’s reputation went far, and I wasn’t surprised he knew the name.
Bella had been the one who’d turned up, but I knew she would blow my cover.
Ace had frozen, though, the casual smugness that radiated from him was suddenly gone. “You let that oaf walk out of here with her—alone?”
“He doesn’t know yet.” Bella was licking her wounds, and she didn’t have a direct line to Carrion, who kept himself isolated.
“How long?” Ace asked.
I took a breath. There was nothing in this world that might compel me to give this vile piece of roadkill an inch. Nothing, except her.
My eyes traced his frame, head still leaning against the wall, a picture of nonchalance despite the muzzle and collar. All except for the clench of his jaw and the faintest tremor as his fist balled just a little too tight.
As the silence stretched, he only became more tense. His scent of redwood and roses turned just the slightest bit bitter in the air.
Damn.
I believed him. He really did need to know she was safe, no matter how much he hated it.
“The next gathering is soon. I expect the word to get to him then.”
“Who is it he wants? Her, or?—”
“Me.”
Ace’s eyebrows rose; it was the only indication of the calculations I knew he must be making.
“What do you know about Carrion? The Brotherhood never touched the Ring,” I said. That much I knew.
“My father dabbled, but he was a pragmatist. He preferred drug runners in the end—easier to deal with. They start off for the money but become addicted to the power that comes with it. They get careless. Easier to manipulate.”
“And traffickers?” I asked.
“They’re different,” Ace mused. “They start wanting power as much as money. They’re addicted to that, and all the more insufferable for it. It’s why so many are Alphas and Omegas, and unstable ones at that. It feeds their desire to claim and control.”
I watched him, processing those words. I hated him, but he had a unique insight into the world I’d been tangled up in for so long. He had a perspective I never had.
I wasn’t too prideful to throw that away.
“Was it money that drove Rogue when he claimed you?” Ace asked.
I considered that, weighing what I knew of the day Rogue had claimed me in the woods. “He was in that arena as a symbol of initiation. He wanted nothing to do with the business,” I said.
That at least, was the truth. If Rogue, who inherited a kingdom of poison from his late parents, had never taken part after seeing past the curtain, it would have spelled his death.“It was a token—he’d never sell them out, and they’d leave him alone.”
“Yet, once a Manzo, always a Manzo,” Ace murmured. “One brush with that power, and he couldn’t let you go.”
I didn’t answer. We both knew how true it was, but I didn’t want to give him any reaction he didn’t need. The way he looked at me sent a shiver down my spine, as if he was internalising every tiny detail.
