Page 4 of Prodigy & Tybalt
But as I walked past a painting of an abstract woman rendered with a single swish of black paint, a memory struck. I’d dug my fingernails into the frame, trying to rip myself out of the bruising arms of my abductors. Then pain cracked across my cheek when my buyer’s hand slapped me. His low hiss resounded through my head even now.
Shut the fuck up, or you’ll wake up my neighbours. This is a civilised building, not used to feral whores screaming the building down, and you don’t want to know what I’ll do to you if you keep making noise.
I’d bitten his hand, and kept shouting, but he slammed his hand over my mouth and muffled my voice all the way to the flat I just escaped, and then I’d been locked up. For weeks. Fuck, it could have been a month.
Now, I had to wonder if he wanted to shut me up because his neighbours would investigate the sound and save me. Like he said, it was acivilisedbuilding. Full of dignified art and doors that were unlocked by keypads and cards instead of metal keys. Not all alphas were like my buyer; he must have thought the chances were high someone would take one look at two men dragging me kicking and screaming towards an apartment, and intervene.
Of course that had never happened. The universe hated me.
I massaged the spiked pain in my chest as my legs carried me faster towards the gleaming door, towards freedom and outside.
“So, where are we going?”
I jumped, whirling around to hiss at whoever had followed me, the sound coming from deep in my throat. No matter what my buyer said, I wasn’t feral, but I wasn’t a sweet, submissive pushover. I could be sweet, and I could scratch someone’s fucking eyes out.
“Weare going nowhere,” I snarled at the man, tipping my head back—and back; Jesus, how tall was he?—until our eyesclashed. Alphas didn’t like that, didn’t appreciate that I refused to cower under their impressively idiotic displays of toxic masculinity. This alpha was insane. I saw it with one look into his chocolate brown eyes. Of course, watching him beating the shit out of my buyer had tipped me off, too.“Iam going home.”
His mouth curled, nothing like a smile, vaguely smirk-adjacent. Mostly, it was a taunt. Mostly, it was sharp amusement. I gave him the finger and whipped back around, striding down the corridor towards the door, ripping it open.
I stiffened at the sight of another leather-wrapped monolith beside the door. This man had skin as dark as espresso, steady watchful eyes, and the same assortment of patches and shit sewn on his jacket. SHADE, one of them said. I glanced at the alpha behind me. His said TYBALT. I wondered if my dickhead mate had one that said SWEETIE.
I clenched my teeth as pain splattered across my chest like blood spray. I needed to move, torun.I needed a fucking drink. And some pants, goddammit.
“I’m curious,” Tybalt said, following me as I stormed into the street, devouring the sight of the dock and the sky and the sea like a drowning woman gasping down air. “How are you planning to get home?”
“I have legs. I have feet. Take a wild guess.” I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, holding the white shirt closer to my skin as wind kicked up the edges, slicing into my skin until goosebumps covered me. I didn’t have any underwear on. I hated this entire fucking world.
“It’s not safe for you to be alone,” the other man, Shade, said in a voice so deep it momentarily paused me. I resumed walking faster, aware they were both pursuing. “It’s not safe for anyone to be alone, man or woman, omega or beta. This place—”
“Was my prison for weeks,” I interrupted in a voice hard enough to shatter glass. “So how about you cut the patronising crap and go mind your business somewhere else?”
Tybalt murmured something too low for me to hear, and I took advantage of their distraction to quicken my pace, veering around the side of the building that housed my buyer’s apartment and swearing viciously when I met a dead end and a six-foot-high wall.
I turned back around and chose a direction at random, casting a wistful glance at the ship tied up in the dock. If I had any idea how to sail, I might try and flee with it, escape to the high seas where no alpha would ever find me again. Where I could forget all about the look in Sweetie’s eyes when he first saw me—horror and sickness and something like hatred. My own mate hated me.
“It’s fine,” I bit out, muttering under my breath. “Everything isfine.I don’t give a shit about that prick anyway.”
I stormed past the Albert Docks sign and across a bridge, snapping my teeth when a woman in a red coat with hands full of shopping bags gave me a wide-eyed stare.Fuck with me at your peril, lady.Her face bleached with a satisfying pallor of fear, but her eyes fixed on something behind me and then she turned and ran.
I sighed. Great. Dumb and Dumber had followed me. I walked faster, storming alongside the long stretch of water, my teeth gritted against the graze of the ground against my bare feet. The flash of constant, white-hot pain up my ankle made my eyes water, but I breathed through it, cursing under my breath because it helped me cope with the pain.
“Alright, that’s far enough,” Tybalt called from behind me, his voice not a growl but full of authority and arrogance. A man used to being obeyed. Fuck him. “Omega. I’m not letting you run off into a city full of fuck knows what predators. If youwant to run, I’ll take you somewhere on my bike, but this isn’t happening.”
I turned around to walk backwards and showed him both my middle fingers. “Good thing I don’t need you toletme do anything, motherfucker.”
Fucking weirdo’s eyes lit with delight instead of anger at my insult. But his voice was deadly serious when he said, “At least come and get checked out by our medic. I can see you limping.”
“How aboutyougo see your medic about the dick hanging from your forehead, and leave me the hell alone?”
He laughed. It was an abrasively attractive sound. Shade shot Tybalt a disapproving, heavy look, all alpha nonsense. He probably thought Tybalt ought to be breaking me to his will for daring to insult him. Or worse, that I should be bundled up and wrapped in cotton wool and bubble wrap, conveniently in whatever shithole they lived in. Well, I’d been kidnapped once, and I had no interest in being captive twice.
I whipped back around and walked away, every muscle in my body tight, rage masking all my fear, all my broken hurt. It was a relief to be angry instead of everything else. I stormed down the waterside path, glaring at anyone whose paths I crossed, justdaringthem to say something about my lack of pants. And god forbid anyone realise I wore nothing beneath. Could they smell it? I knew any alphas who passed me would be able to. The two stalking me could, too.
Every footstep channelled my rage, the soles of my feet slamming the perfectly even slabs of stone beneath me. A wolf-whistle came from the pile of rubble to my right, where construction workers were attempting to build something out of the mess.
“Fucking cliché,” I snapped. Now was not the day to ogle my legs. I clenched my teeth and flipped around to give thebastard my middle finger too, but my ankle buckled. The ground threatened, racing up far too quickly.
I hissed when arms locked around my middle, saving me from a bruise, concussion, broken teeth, or broken neck. But I couldn’t be grateful when the touch burned every place it touched, and my entire soulscreamedthat the hands on my body were wrong, everything was wrong,Iwas wrong, mymatewas wrong.
