Page 94 of Caged

I’m panting, my hands slick with sweat. “Godsdammit, Dax. Put the fucking lid back on, please.”

I’m not above begging. I can’t lose control right now. I have to keep my shit together.

Dax complies, capping it and shoving it back into the fridge. The tension in the room is so thick I can fucking taste it.

Gav’s phone rings, and the sound slices through the strain like a knife. I’m so on edge that my head snaps toward the sound like a predator scenting a threat.

Gav answers in a clipped tone.

“Riven,” he greets, placing the call on speaker.

“Hey.” Riven’s voice is a smooth, lazy drawl. “You and your merry band of Bastards might want to get down to Redmark.”

Gav frowns. “Why?”

“One of my fighters found a girl in the alley, hiding in the dumpster. Looks like she crawled in there at some point during the day. Stinks to high heaven, but I can smell the Omega perfume underneath.”

That puts Gav on alert. “Is she one of us?”

“Nah,” Riven replies, sounding amused. “She’s human.”

“Then what the hell do you need us for?”

I’m wondering the same. Missing Omegas showing up aren’t out of the ordinary, but unless this one is a vampire, protocol is to call local human PD. Not us.

Riven chuckles, and the sound is dark enough to push back my anxiety and make my hair stand on end.

“You ever seen an Omega glow, Gav?”

Chapter 14

Daxen

Ispend the ride to Redmark with my nose buried in my phone. Deep in the dark web, going down rabbit holes in chat forums and dodgy websites.

I’m looking for hits on glowing Omegas, Omegas who can make sparks appear at their fingertips, or stories of Omegas doing other weird shit.

Not surprisingly, there’s nothing outside of some bad anime porn and Tumblr fanfic. Which leaves me exactly where I was when Gav hung up with Riven—with no idea of what the fuck is going on.

My head pounds relentlessly thanks to all the chaos of the last week.

Between magic blood, a human in league with a Severed, random Omegas showing up out of nowhere with never-before-seen abilities, Vae’s curse going ape shit, and trying to keep Caelan from claiming a fucking Omega I don’t trust, I’m about to lose my mind.

I’m not innocent in this, either. For the first time ever, I’m keeping a secret from Gavran.

Caelan disobeyed a direct order. He muted me on comms and stayed with that Omega for far longer than he should have.

And I didn’t report it.

I should have. It would have normally gone straight into the mission report. But Caelan’s my brother, and my loyalty will always, always be to him first.

Ratting him out to Gav feels like a betrayal I can’t even begin to stomach. I keep telling myself I can handle it, but I’m starting to question if that’s actually true, or if I’m just deluding myself.

It’d help if Caelan gave me some fucking answers, but he’s sticking to his bullshit story that he thought the Omega was close to her heat. Sure, he relayed the information he got from her, but it’s not much to go off of.

As if getting confirmation that Alexander is meeting with her father is somehow helpful. We already fucking know that. I’m even more certain now that the Omega knows more than she’s sharing.

We pull up to our destination right at 9 p.m. Redmark isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s essentially what you’d get if a bar, fight club, and mafia syndicate had an orgy in a previously condemned warehouse.