Page 32 of Bonds of Pain
As I climb into the bed that smells too enticingly of Logan and Cillian’s combined scent, I grab a pillow to muffle the sound of the scream I can’t keep inside.
Raised voices come from the living room, and I feel the surging discontent through the bond.
The dogs didn’t stop fighting just because their chew toy was put away.
My rage has simmered into a startling clarity. If I can’t ever escape, then I can make them regret locking themselves in this cage with me.
The cracks are already showing. I just need to figure out what will make them break entirely.
Chapter Ten
ARES
Something is very fucking wrong here.
We’ve always known that Logan is a possessive asshole. He has always been protective of anything that he considers his.
But it’s supposed to be different with pack.
We share everything. Women, riches, responsibility. We’ve had each other’s backs for years and anything that belongs to one of us, belongs to all of us.
Things have been weird with Maya since she arrived, but I chalked that up to growing pains, to Logan adjusting to the king’s requirement for him to bond and deciding whether to trust an Omega who had already rejected him once before.
I told myself that once he got over himself and bonded her things would be better.
How the fuck is everything even worse?
The handful of times he let us see Maya in the days after her heat, she looked like she just wandered out of a trench on the battlefield, hair tangled and a shell-shocked expression on herface. Logan practically growled like an animal if any of us got within a foot of her.
Now that she has her senses back, he doesn’t act quite like a dog guarding a bone. But the level of possessiveness Logan still displays makes absolutely no sense.
The bond should make him more secure with her, not less. So, what the hell is going on?
I stare at the security monitors, flipping through camera feeds with a flick of my finger. The new systems we installed in the palace after the breach need testing, and I’m not about to let another attack happen. Not on my fucking watch.
But my mind keeps wandering back to Logan and Maya. Not to mention Cillian’s skulking ass always hanging around in the background, looking like he wants to be anywhere else.
The thing is, I served under Logan in the Restoration Wars. I know how he operates, especially with women. Pack hierarchy means we all get a taste eventually—pack Alpha might get first claim, but the rest of us aren’t not meant to starve.
What other reason is there to pack up in the first place?
I’ve reviewed the same line of code for the tenth time when Poe slides into the security room like a shadow.
The fact that I heard him come in at all means he isn’t trying to take me by surprise.
“You look like you’re about to snap that monitor in half,” Poe says, leaning against the doorframe. “Bad day?”
I aimlessly click around the screen, just to make it look like I’m doing something. “I’m busy.”
He saunters across the room without waiting for a response or an invitation and takes a seat at the side of my desk.
I swivel around to face him. “Why do you look so fucking relaxed? I’ve never seen you let your guard down for a single moment in your life, and suddenly you’re all...” I wave my hand at his general demeanor. “Oozing calm.”
The corner of Poe’s mouth twitches upward. Not quite a smile, because Poe doesn’t smile, but something close to one.
“Spending time with Maya left me feeling pretty good.”
I snort. “Murder and torture don’t work like that for everyone, you know.”
