Page 19 of Sawyer

That’s because I passed out in a dumpster last night, but I don’t tell him that. “You can’t pull me off this.” I try to get up, until dizziness washes over me and I slump back in my seat.

“Yes, we can.” Riot leans into my space. “You had months to find something, hell, anything in those mountains, and now more women are dying because of your failures.”

I push Riot back, earning a possessive growl from Bast.

“I don’t need either of you to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“Apparently, you do,” Bast says, nodding to someone at the door—probably someone from the rest of his pack. They keep him safe and sound from cameras and flashing lights.

I don’t have a pack. I don’t need one. The thought of always having someone breathing down my neck feels stifling.

“I’ll keep looking, no matter what you say,” I tell him, feeling defiant.

“Not if I lock you up,” Bast retorts, sighing down at me. “Look, I’ve known you a long time, Sin. You need help, man, and I don’t think looking for a facility in the woods will help you.”

“You asked me to find it, and I will.” Am I pleading? Hell no, alphas don’t plead, but the problem is if anyone can lock me up, it’s the monarch of Terra, the one who came here to this hole-in-the-wall stripper bar to find me.

“You had your shot.” Riot crosses his arms and stares down at me.

“Get home. Get sober. I’m sending someone for you in the morning,” Bast says, and I know he won’t say a damn thing more on the matter.

Nodding to me, they both walk off, leaving me speechless.

I should have known it would come to this. Months ago, Bast asked me to search the mountains for a facility he suspected existed. Neither of us knows what they are doing there, but the bottom line is that it shouldn’t exist. Considering he’s the monarch of this forsaken world, he would know.

According to him, it doesn’t exist, but according to his mate, it does.

He also told me to contact a specific reporter because she has information. I never did that either, and I ignored the delta he hired to babysit me.

Now he’s sending another babysitter, and I guarantee this one won’t put up with my bullshit.

“I fucked up.” The weight of what they told me settles around my shoulders. Five dead gammas.

Maybe I’d have found something if I hadn’t been stuck in my head. Guilt burns like acid in my throat. I didn’t kill those women, but I may as well have.

And here I am, sitting in a strip joint where gammas twirl around a pole.

“Another one?” She’s both sweet and sultry, an odd combination, but that is the power of a gamma.

Glancing at her, I see she has brown eyes, dark hair piled into a ponytail on the top of her head, and bright red lips. She’s wearing a black nightie, and her nipples peek out at me, saying hello to my pupils.

Earlier, I’d have asked her to meet me in a hallway.

Now all I see is her corpse on the forest floor.

“No, I’m good,” I tell her, swallowing bile.

She pouts, and her eyes drop to my lips, then slide back up to my eyes. I know that look, and I know it well—seduce and serve. That’s probably all she knows.

“Shame.” She saunters off, swaying her hips.

Crackling echoes around the speakers, and I stand up, stealing forty bucks of the cash Bast threw down. He told me to get some food, and I assume he meant from that cash.

“Gentlemen!” a voice booms, cutting through the last of my high. Every nerve in my body vibrates, and not in a good way. I already want to strangle the annoying fucker. Small and weaselly, the alpha stands at the corner of the stage. “I have a special appearance for you tonight, years out of retirement!”

What a piece of shit. I cross my arms and stare at the stage, snarling. He sets my teeth on edge. Hell, his entire existence feels wrong. An alpha?

Bullshit.

---