Page 23 of Chain Me Knot

“We'll go directly to the SUV. Police escort front and back. It’s about a fifteen-minute drive to the compound,” Asher says, breaking into my spiraling thoughts. “Nothing will happen to you while you’re with us.”

Yet it already has in the form of another permanent mark on my skin.

The elevator doors open to reveal a bustling hospital foyer. Before I can process the crowd, they're moving in perfect synchronization. Phoenix continues to carry me as Asher and Soren flank us, creating a wall of alpha protection that parts the crowd like water. People scuttle out of the way, no alpha bark needed for this wall of flesh. Outside, a black SUV waits, doors already open.

Asher slides behind the wheel, Soren taking the passenger seat. Phoenix climbs into the back, still holding me.

“You're safer in my lap,” he explains, pulling the seatbelt across both of us. “Better shock absorption if anything happens.” He says it lightly, but I see the seriousness in his eyes, feel the tension in his body. It’s so tempting to let down my guard around him. So easy, but that path is dangerous.

Too dangerous.

I stay in his lap because I don’t know these alphas and I won’t do anything to upset them. Let them think I’m a meek omega. Lull them into a false sense of security where they’ll let down their guard and then I’ll slip away where they’ll never find me. I’ll use this safe house as a stepping stone to my freedom.

The motor purrs to life and as our convoy pulls away from the curb, the city flashes past outside the window. I focus on what’s outside the windowinstead of the muscular thighs beneath me, the strong arms and false safety of his panty-melting scent.

I focus on the tall buildings. The traffic lights. People going about their normal lives. It’s all so strange. They’ve been living their lives while I’ve been endlessly imprisoned. Lives being lived while mine was stolen. It's been so long since I've seen the outside world that it’s surreal, like watching a movie about someone else's life.

“Where are we?” I have no idea where we are. “What city is this?”

This could be any city, in any country. After the auction, I was drugged for transport. I have no recollection how long that was for. My next coherent thought after that spectacular experience was waking up chained in the basement. My new luxurious home until the end of my miserable life.

A heavy silence fills the SUV. Soren turns in his seat, brow furrowed. “You don't know where you are?”

“They never told me. I guess they didn't think it mattered.” I shrug. Knowing the reason doesn't make it easier to say. “Not like they planned to let me leave that basement.”

Something dark passes between the three alphas. The scent in the SUV sharpens with controlled rage. Every muscle in my body tightens and I’m one second from leaping out the door no matter how fast we’re flying down an expressway, but Phoenix just nudges my temple gently with his nose, his hands making soothing circles on my back.

“We're not mad at you, sweetheart. None of this is your fault.” His voice drops lower. “But now we're going to have to come up with an even more colorful way to make Pack Carmichael pay for what they've done to you.”

“Canton City,” Asher grinds out between clenched teeth. “You're in Canton City, Emma. And I promise you'll never be locked away in the dark again.”

Chapter Nine

Phoenix

She weighs almost nothing in my arms, this precious omega who has no idea how valuable she truly is. Every single bone pokes through the borrowed clothes. I can count every rib where my arm supports her back and if she weren’t dressed in a bulky sweater, her spine would mark a corrugated line down her back. She’s unnaturally pale, her skin nearly translucent, both because of being so malnourished and being locked away in darkness for so long. Fuck if that doesn’t gut me alive.

She stares out the window as though she's seeing the world for the first time, which I suppose she is after two years in darkness. Two years of hell while we were living our lives, unaware our mate was suffering just across the city in that shitshowof a basement. As if bars alone wouldn’t be enough to contain a tiny omega, they had to chain her too.

Asher, Soren and I have had conversations about how we’ll make Pack Carmichael pay. All illegal as hell, but we’re not letting something as trivial as that stop us because the field we’re operating in isn’t exactly legal either. My heart cracks a little more with each breath our omega takes. And sheisours. There is not a reality where she isn’t. Her scent weaves through me, settling in places I didn't know existed. It's subtle, muted by trauma and malnutrition, but undeniably ours. Mine. Soren's. Asher's. Our mate, found at last in the worst possible circumstances.

Asher is beating himself up pretty badly through our pack bond. His remorse is crushing and real.

As it should be.

Our prime alpha, so controlled, so disciplined, lost his shit completely when he saw those chains, that basement, our mate living like an animal. But one impulsive moment has destroyed any chance of her trusting us anytime soon. That’s going to work against us with the need to keep her safe.

Pack Carmichael came too close today. We underestimated their determination. They're in custody again, but legally they have rights to her that make me sick to contemplate. I fucking hope that Adrian and his pack can enact real change on their end.

Now that Hardwick is implicated, we understand this goes right to the top, and if the commissioner is in bed with the Carmichaels we need solid, irrefutable evidence to convict both of them. We would if omega statements could stand up in the courts, but they aren’t and they don’t. Not one of the omegas we’ve saved has a voice in the eyes of the law.

The number of omegas we’ve discovered in hiding, taking black market suppressants that wreck their system, is staggering. Mira is a prime example. None of it becomes public knowledge, either. The black ban on media is a troubling issue, a decree handed down by Hardwick. As is the dire situation for anyone withan omega designation, due to no fault of their own. The removal of their rights has been slow yet systematic.

The claiming bite on our mate’s neck is the only silver lining in this fucked-up situation. As scent-matches, we hold more ownership over her than Pack Carmichael. Owners. I fucking hate that word. It’s degrading and immoral. All kinds of wrong. Ultimately, though, it has legally bought us rights, time, and protection for Emma. The silver lining is that she can heal. The possibility of burning away her partial bonds from Pack Carmichael is my latest mission.

Emma shifts in my arms, her gaze jumping from the city outside to each one of us. Does she know we're trying to help her? Can she conceive of alphas who want something other than ownership? After what she's been through, I doubt it. And that's the real tragedy here.

The SUV slows as we approach the compound gates, an imposing barrier of reinforced steel set into a twelve-foot concrete wall topped with security cameras. Motion sensors. Biometric scanners. The works. Soren supervised every inch of this setup, obsessing over every potential vulnerability until it was as impenetrable as modern security can make it.

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