“Is that Kit?” a deep voice asked Cressida. “Give the phone to me.” I heard it being handed over. “Kit, where the hell are you?” It was Theo, and his voice had that contained wrath we’d all mastered. “Cressida said you were going to the Chadwick thing, but you know that we were due at the Lasseters’ tonight.”
“I’m at Abaddon,” I told him, having a hunch and wanting to see if it was correct.
His silence was telling, the muffled sounds of a party in the background the only noise for a few heartbeats until he growled out his response.
“You need to stay where you are.” Alpha bark, sharp and decisive. “I’ll come and get you.”
“Come, brother,” I said, eyeing the old factory that had been recast in crimson. Black painted walls, red lights, it looked like the mouth of Hell. “Come and enjoy the delights within, but you’re not dragging me to yet another stuffy fucking party where I have to listen to boring alphas talking over me like I’m nothing.”
“Kit, you—”
That was the thing with Theo. He’d been an alpha for a lot of my formative years, but for some reason, that seemed to make it easier for me to shuck off his orders.
“Tell me brother, was I supposed to bring Tristan with me to this soiree?”
No response.
“Was I supposed to stick by your side at all times, as my alpha protector?”
Still nothing.
“Was I supposed to push the two of you together, just like Daddy wants?”
Fuck, bile surged in my guts, my vestigial fangs aching as I chewed off the words and spat them out.
“You want us? Come hunting, brother. Search for us in Abaddon if you dare.”
I clicked the end call button and then turned the fucking thing off, shoving it into my bag, every eye on me, but it was Len’s eyes which I met with mine.
“Tell me to shrug off my brother’s compulsion, to walk with you into that club and have an insane time. I feel…itchy. I’m used to disobeying his orders, but it makes me unsettled.”
Len smiled slowly, then growled at me with a voice that sounded like rumbling thunder.
“You should do whatever the hell you want tonight, omega,” he ordered, and right then, I loved him a little. I grinned, and when I looked at Tristan, he was grinning too.
“So, a runaway princess and her beautiful prince?” Jackson asked, looking over the two of us. “Then we need to prepare you for what we’re walking into. In Abaddon, literally anything goes, with consent. You choose silicone bracelets that indicate what you might be up for, but every engagement, no matter how small, needs to have your consent. People who break the rules are thrust out of hell, which let me tell you, hurts a shit load more than heaven.” He winked at us. “Their drinks are crap and the décor is really dated.”
“You’re building this place up too much,” Tristan said, eyeing the place through the glass. “It can’t be that fucking wild.”
He was wrong, so bloody wrong.
You couldn’t take the place in all at once. One, it was a cavernous space, an old meat processing plant that had been stripped bare and then repurposed for pleasure. Red lights cast everything in a hellish glare, white graffiti arced over black walls, drawing stark, almost tribal looking figures on the walls, but they were nothing compared to the people themselves. I felt my heart pulse in time with the rapid EDM beat, my chest starting to tighten. Beyond the velvet rope, beautiful people of every shape, size, and designation strutted past, often in outfits so eye wateringly chic or cutting edge, it hurt to look at them, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away.
“You’re getting excited.” Tris grinned at me, his teeth seeming sharper, more feral in this light. “You always liked new playgrounds.” He searched the surroundings like a predator. “What did you want to try tonight, my love?”
“We need to get past the door bitch first,” Jackson said with a slight frown, but Len seemed to have that under control. A woman sat on a plexiglass throne, completely clad in strips of silver, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She surveyed us, much like a queen looking down on her subjects, but Len was anything but servile.
“Looking good, Athena,” he said in that low rumble that seemed to cut through the raucous noise. Those scarlet lips twitched, then curved into a smile as she stared at him.
“And you, delicious Len. It’s been so long since you’ve come to play, and with your partner in crime, of course.”
“Hey, Athena.” Jackson moved up, taking her outstretched hand, on which an oversized ring sparkled. That had to be a factory made diamond, right? He kissed it and then pulled back.
“And what do we have here?”
I almost flinched in the face of her regard. Her eyes were like ice blue lasers cutting into me.
“Who,” Len corrected. “Kit and Tristan, this is Athena.”