Page 8 of Deadly Ties

“No. I told her the truth. Or some of it, anyway.” He lifts his chin, his undamaged eye as belligerent as ever. “Only I said Kelly was our real sister.”

The words drop between us, somehow worse than all the rest of his bullshit. “Oursister?What the fuck?”

Link just stares at his hands, leaving Cam to give a barking laugh. “You wanted her to feel expendable. Like we already had a better sister, and she was just a stand-in.” Cam narrows his eyes, his scent prickling with disgust. “Let me guess. You told her we’re all Hilas, and her dad screwed up our lives, meaning sheowesus. And she owes our precious omega sister who’s suffering because of her and her fucked-up family.”

Link snarls, but he doesn’t deny it, and my stomach pitches into my boots. “What the fuck do you want to hear? I wanted her to do what I needed her to! If I’d said Kelly was male and my mate – not to mention one of the richest, most famous shifters on the planet - she might’ve turned me down. Told me to sort out my own fucking mess. But if she thought Kelly was an omega in need, and that he was one of us…”

I throw my hands in the air at his twisted logic. “Heisone of us, you gigantic shit!”

“I know that! But I meanyours. Really yours. Not just because of me, or because we had to form a pack to keep him safe, but because we’re a proper fucking family.” His black eyes drill into mine. “I knew she’d do it for you!”

Meaning he used her feelings for me against her. I can just see her listening to his bullshit and imagining our sister up in her nest. Thinking that if she sacrificed herself, she could save Kelly. That our missing sister meant more to us than our Little Angel.

“Okay, enough of that crap!” I snap. “You took her to Boston, and then what?”

Link shrugs his shoulders. “You’re not gonna like it.”

Cam throws his hands in the air, a vein bulging in his neck. “Are you fucking kidding? Just spit it out. You’re wasting time we can spend getting our omegas – and I meanbothof them, you asshole – out of whatever shit you got them mixed up in.”

Link doesn’t deny it, which might be the scariest part of all, and then proceeds to tell us about a database that tracks omegas, and his secret side business with Arben Marku, deadly assassin and our almost-mate. Cam and I exchange a silent glare as Link lays it all out – the auction house, having to offer an omega up for entry, going to meet his contact and getting punched in the face by Arben. It answers a couple of things, like the barcode I saw stamped on the back of Elvi’s neck, and why Link was so eager for us to all go to the Red Poppy. But it doesn’t explain why Link is sitting here, and not being tossed in a landfill in a hundred different pieces. But before I can voice my skepticism, he mutters, “But it was all bullshit. Kelly was never there. They said it was an administrative error, but I think Marku was just fucking with me. Kelly’s still as lost as he’s ever been.”

Instead of launching at him again, Cam just laughs. He laughs so hard, he has to walk over and lean against a tree. Although, the smile falls off his face fast enough when he plucks the drugged bottle of Champagne off the ground. Sniffing the neck, he dumps the dregs on the ground, then tosses it into the lake. When he turns back to Link, his face is a stony mask. “For the planner in the pack, you’ve got the perception of a fucking rock. I get you want Kelly back so bad you think it gives you a license to do whatever you want. But Arben Marku isdevotedto Elvana Bisha. So much so, he let Rory and me tend her through her heat, because he thought he wasn’t good enough to touch her. But she brought him round – in some of the best sex of my goddamn life - and then the most powerful and deadly wolf on this continent invited us to join their pack. We were gonna talk to you about it, but she didn’t want you to think we’d forgotten our mission. She was worried about yourfeelings. And then you drug us and drag her off to be sold to some horny fucking alpha. Just like Kelly was, in case you’ve forgotten. And then you’re surprised Marku won’t give you another omega to fuck over.”

Link is on his feet, his face twisted with a weird mix of hope and fear. “You think he knows where Kelly is? If you talk to him and smooth shit over, do you think he’d help you find him?”

Instead of answering, Cam turns and starts walking back towards our rental house. I follow, shooting Link the finger just so he doesn’t get any ideas about coming with. We don’t speak until we’re back at our deck, and we both stare in the glass window at the urn sitting in the circle of flowers and candles. Fuck. Little Angel has already lost so much, and now she thinks we screwed her over, too.

“We fucked up, Rory,” Cam says, clearly in mind-reader mode. “Link might have traded her away, but he just fed off the bullshit we planted.”

I grind my teeth, tempted to put the blame all back on him. It was their stupid fucking plan to convince her we were her stepbrothers. But as much as I hated the lies, I had plenty of time to come clean. I sure as hell shouldn’t have joined her heat without telling her the truth.

Goddamnit. Last time I felt this devastated, I slunk off to a bar in Bisha’s territory, my bruised ego joining forces with a death wish. But not this time. Our omegas deserve better than a bunch of unhinged alphas chasing their tails. I groan and rub at my throbbing head. “We’ve gotta talk to Marku.”

Cam sighs, looking as ragged as I feel. “Yep. He either has her, or he knows where she is. There’s no way he’d let some other alpha buy his mate.”

My wolf snarls at that; both pissed I didn’t let him out to rip Link a new one and because Elvi is my mate just as much as she’s Arben’s. “Okay, but how are we gonna find him? We didn’t exactly swap deets after her heat.”

Cam grins and I know we’re both back there in that orgy of omega need. It was like someone cracked open my skull and pulled out all my filthiest fantasies, while taking a good chunk of my heart in the process. I’ve always loved to fuck, but during Elvi’s heat I was all in; no part of my body was off limits and in turn, nobody denied me a thing. I fucking loved every moment of it and the idea that we could form a pack, that we could be together every day, made me happier than any asshole deserves to be.

And despite all the shit that’s gone down, nothing’s changed for me. I still want it all, with all of them, again and always. Maybe that makes me a greedy shit, but I’ll do anything to make it right.

And Link can go suck a bag of dirty dicks.

“We have two choices,” Cam says, jerking me away from all things dick-related. “We either sit back and wait for Doctor Death to pay a house call, or we retrace our steps.”

I wince. “The Red Poppy?”

Just because it was the scene of our heat-fest doesn’t mean I want to go back to Bisha’s club any time soon.

“Yeah, but it beats another trip to the Tower, doesn’t it?”

Not fucking wrong. “Okay, but I think we should check in with Rita first. See if the Omega Unground knows about this auction house.”

Cam nods his head, and while he heads inside to replace the clothes he shredded with his shift, I grab my cell and call the Balkan restaurant where Rita works. Her dad owns the place, so she’s been pulling shifts there since she was a kid, but her heart is with the work she does for the Omega Underground. No idea who runs the organization, but when we started our search for Kelly, one of the girls I hooked up with mentioned Rita. She wasn’t interested in my dick, since she’s happily mated with two firecracker kids, but she took pity on me and said she’d ask around. I’d been checking in with her the night Elvi stormed into the alley and threatened to drag me away by my lying, cheating ankles.

I smile a little as Rita answers, sounding as breezily happy as ever. No one would ever guess her own sister had been kidnapped by rogue alphas and only released with the help of the shadow network. “Hey, Rita. I need to ask you about some shit that went down in Boston last night. Has anything hit the underground radar?”

“Jesus, Rory. That’s not the sort of thing you just blurt out over the phone.”

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