Chapter 32 In which I experience bondage

My head feels like it’s full of cotton. No, not cotton, something heavier. A lot fucking heavier. Sand. Cement. Pea gravel. The back of my neck is pulling in a way that lets me know I’m going to have a massive crick in my neck when I finally get my head up. But as previously mentioned, my head feels like it’s filled with rocks, so it probably won’t be for a bit, anyway.

My eyes flutter open, and I find myself looking down at my chest, my chin resting on my sternum. The space between my shoulder blades aches in a way that lets me know I’ve been like this for a while, and the skin on my neck pinches painfully.

There’s red on my white t-shirt and it takes me a moment to realize its blood. What the hell?

But then, in a flash, it comes back to me. The alpha grabbing me in the penthouse, the bite of pain, the severing of my bond with Luca. I scramble for it now, trying to find that connection that has been my lifeline for the past few weeks, as much a part of me as my heart in my chest and the blood in my veins.

It’s not fucking there.

A sob rattles in my chest, silent and painful. How did this happen? How did he break my bond? I’d thought that was impossible. It should be impossible, right? Once a bond is created, it can’t be broken , it can only fade if it’s not nurtured. My bond with Luca sure as fuck has been nurtured. So how come I can’t feel him anymore?

My heart clenches painfully. Is he… No. Don’t go there, Sadie. Luca is not dead.

There’s a tentative tug in my chest. One that feels like sunshine and rum, coconut and sunshine. Swift.

Oh, thank fuck. I open the bond with him, and he’s there immediately, flooding me with reassurance, with love and relief, with his fear and his fury. I send him back a confusing mishmash of emotions, ones that don’t even make sense to myself. But he just keeps sending me reassurances.

I can almost hear his voice in my head. You’re okay, Cherrybomb. You’re okay. We’re coming for you. We’ll always come for you. You’re fucking ours.

I send back the reassurance that I’m okay for now, that I trust them to help me. And just in case I don’t get out of this alive, I send him all the love in my heart for him, for them. I hope like hell he’ll share it with the others.

I keep the bond open as I lift my head and look around. The room I’m in has no windows. Not surprising since I’ve been kidnapped. The walls are dark gray with white trim. I’m strapped to a medical chair that reminds me of one of those ones at a dentist’s office. That can be upright or reclined based on what the dental hygienist needs.

There’s a bright light overhead, a rolling stool and a metal rolling tray with medical instruments on it. There’s no door in my line of sight.

I twist my head, trying to see behind me, but the back of the chair is too tall and I’m strapped in too tight. Still, there must be a door there. I got in here somehow, right?

I push away thoughts of the door, and instead focus on the binds on my wrists. Thick leather with metal buckles. Tight enough that it’s cutting into my skin, but not my circulation. I pull and twist, but the leather doesn’t loosen and the only thing I accomplish is making my skin red and irritated, scraped raw.

Okay, I’m not going to just yank my hands free, but I might be able to undo the buckle. I slide down the chair as much as I can, tilting my body to the right, to get my teeth on the leather, to pull it free. The skin on my left wrist cracks and splits as I pull against it. I’m almost there. I can practically feel the leather in my mouth when I hear the door behind me open.

Fuck. No.

I shift, straightening up in the chair as best as I can, trying to pretend like I’m not trying to escape even though it’s ridiculous. Of course, I would try to escape when I’ve been kidnapped and strapped down. Anyone in their right mind would.

I squint against the bright light as footsteps click toward me, and then Claudia rounds the chair. Her blue eyes widen, like she hadn’t expected to find me here. “Sadie!”

I sag against the chair, relief flowing through me. She escaped somehow and now she’ll help me get out, too. Surely, even she can’t be so petty as to leave me in the hands of our abductors. “Claudia. Quick. Untie me.” She flicks her gaze to the door uncertainly, tears filling her eyes. “Please, Claudia, don’t leave me here.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” she asks, her voice wet with tears. “Why shouldn’t I leave you here? You stole my pack from me.”

I don’t want to argue with her, not right now, not while I’m tied up, and she’s free and I have no clue what the assholes who took us want us for. I’ve heard of omegas being kidnapped and sold into what amounts to sex slavery. Either to a pack as their private omega or to flesh houses where alphas can find out what it’s like to fuck an omega without the hassle of caring for one.

I can only imagine what Claudia and I would fetch as a matching set. Two women with the same scent. What a fucking novelty.

Or it could be one of the Falcone Pack’s enemies. Who the hell knows what they plan to do to the two omegas living in their pent house?

“Claudia, please. Whatever you think about me, about our situations, you can’t just leave me here. Please.”

She leans over me, getting her face right into mine. “But I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Leave you here and go find my mates. Tell them you’re lost to them for good. They’ll have to pick me then, right? They won’t have any other option.”

I frown. “Now is really not the time to discuss this. Please, Claudia.”

She leans closer until her minty fresh breath wafts over my face. “You can beg until you’re blue in the face, Sadie, but it won’t change what’s happening here.” It’s at this point that I realize her pupils are clear, her gaze isn’t hazy, she has none of the wooziness that I’m fighting. Her words aren’t slurring and she seems steady on her feet.

But most damning of all? She’s free and I’m tied up.

I might have been abducted, but Claudia certainly wasn’t.

“You did this,” I whisper. Swift must be feeling something from me, because I get a spike of emotions on his side of the bond, a tug demanding that I give him an update. “You helped that alpha get into the penthouse. You helped him take me.”

She grins and pats my cheek condescending. “There you go. You got it. I’m surprised it took you that long, honestly. I thought you were smarter than that.”

Tears fill my eyes as I realize she will not be my salvation. I turn my attention to the connection with Swift and think, Claudia. Don’t trust Claudia, at him as hard as I can, over and over. Because I know, whatever happens to me here, she will return to them. She’ll try to weasel her way into my pack, to take my place.

“You let him break my bond with Luca.”

She beams at me. “I did. He probably thinks you’re dead, which will make the entire pack think that, too. It’ll make it easier for me in the long run.”

I grit my teeth at her glee. Of course, she would be happy about breaking my bond. She hated that Luca bit me, hated that he never even looked at her, never responded the way an unbonded alpha would to any omega.

“Why would you do this? I know you want a pack, Claudia. I get that, but… orchestrating a kidnapping to get me out of the way?”

She straightens up, glaring down at me with so much hatred in her eyes it’s a struggle not to shrink away from her.

“Do you have any idea how hard I had to work?” Claudia says, arms folded under her generous breasts. “Do you think becoming an omega is easy? Cause it’s really fucking not. I was in the doctor’s office more than you were.” She leans over me, her hands braced on the back of the chair. “I underwent surgery after surgery to look like this, to get that perfect omega figure. Hours under the scalpel, weeks in recovery.”

My eyes scrape over her, over the ample chest and the wide child bearing hips. No wonder she looks like the definition of omega. It’s all fucking fake.

She leans even closer. “The doctors knew I was going to be a beta. They tested me when I was ten. Every year, they tested me until it was clear that I wasn’t going to present as anything other than beta. And my daddy really didn’t like that. At first, he wanted to have me change into an alpha. He thought it would give him more power. But I convinced him an omega is a better choice. I don’t want to be the one taking care of someone, I want to be taken care of. You understand, don’t you?” She says it conspiratorially, like we’re in on this together.

“It’s so much nicer when you don’t have to think about anything. Just let your alphas handle any little mishap that comes up.”

I frown. “That’s not how alphas and omegas work. It’s symbiotic, Claudia. Yes, alphas supply stability and safety to their omega, but omegas provide grounding and balance to the pack. They take care of them, help them just as much as alphas help omegas.” She tsks, like I’m wrong. But I just keep going. “If that’s how you view pack life, no wonder no one wants you.”

Pain erupts in my head, making my ears ring, and it takes me a moment to realize she punched me. I’ve only been hit once before and that was by an alpha trying to kidnap me, so her little omega punch isn’t nearly as bad as that. But it still makes my drugged up brain swish inside my head, and then ache fiercely.

“Ow,” I groan. “Jesus, Claudia. Really?” My hands yank at the leather binding me. “I’m tied up! What the hell was that for?”

She folds her arms over her chest and sniffs, looking down her nose at me. “You never fucking shut up. No. You’re always talking about things you have no fucking clue about. I’ve done my research, cherrybomb. ” There’s no hiding the flinch at her use of Swift’s nickname for me and she smiles meanly. “I’ve studied omegas for fucking years. Practiced the omega whine and the submission. I’ve put in the fucking work. And what have you done? What do you actually know about being an omega?”

Her points hit a hell of a lot harder than I care to admit. I don’t know what it’s truly like to be an omega. That I thought I was a beta for the last twenty-five years means I’m not naturally submissive. I’ve tried to smother my omega instincts to whine and purr and nest. I hate that I broadcast what I’m feeling all the fucking time through my scent.

The only thing I actually like about being an omega is my pack, having a scent match, and being knotted. Everything else is… bullshit, in my opinion. Especially since Swift has made it clear that even if I wasn’t an omega, they would pick me. They all have.

I lift my head and meet her gaze. “I might not be a traditional omega, Claudia. But I am an omega. I’m their omega. Even with all your study and practice and surgeries. Even with your theft of my hormones and my scent, that is something you will never be.”

My ears ring and I taste blood as she hits me again. I blink the spots from my eyes to find her shaking out her hand and hissing in pain. Her knuckles split and oozing blood. Fucking good, she deserves to hurt.

“They don’t want you,” she scowls. “Not really. How could they? You look nothing like an omega. Look at you. You’re not even pretty. You just got to them first.”

“Claudia,” a wry voice chides. One that I recognize all too well. “That is enough.” Dr. Funkle rounds the chair I’m in, sliding into the pool of light. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have a pack to comfort?”

I stiffen at that. The last thing I want is for her to go to my pack while they’re distraught over me. Claudia is a master manipulator with using omega wiles on alphas. How many times in the last week has she whined at just the right time and made one of my alphas comfort her? How many times has she looked at them with her big blue doe eyes and they’ve given in to her? With the bond between me and Luca gone, he won’t have any resistance to her.

Claudia , I think harder at Swift. Don’t trust fucking Claudia.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Claudia snarls at him. “This is your mess. You promised me she wouldn’t present as an omega, and look what the fuck happened. Fix it. ”

She stomps out of the room with that directive, wide hips swaying in her skirt. I hear the door close behind her and then I’m left alone with the man who did this to me. Who used my body as an experiment for years.