17. A Collar For Every Occasion

Isobel surveyedthe chaos of her dressing room, slowly bringing her inner turmoil under control before she began to clean. She was tucked into bed by the time the rest of the group returned home. They used the group chat to check back in with each other, revealing that they had been split up, searching different areas, and that nobody had found anything.

The disappointment and fear she felt was muted, her body and mind exhausted.

She still didn’t know who had knocked on her door, but she had a feeling they were discussing her in a separate group, because Kilian messaged to check that she was okay and to ask if she needed anything, and when she replied that she was fine and just wanted to sleep, the others left her suspiciously alone.

She had also received a few messages from her father—the first since she had been taken to the hospital.

Call me.

We need to talk.

It’s important.

Go to the family centre, where it’s private.

She ignored the messages and turned off her notifications, placing her phone face down.

Her body was relaxed, muscles aching in the best way, her core feeling battered and bruised, her arms tender from the ropes Kalen had used—and she loved it. But her mind wasn’t so settled.

Her thoughts were so twisted up that she didn’t even jump when her mother appeared beside her bed. She only grew still, maintaining eye contact with the older woman like she was scared the apparition would disappear if she glanced away.

She stayed still. She didn’t speak. She waited.

For Crowe. For anyone. For wraiths and demons and ghosts.

But it was just her mother. Dressed in silk and a soft smile.

Isobel released a tense breath, getting up to pull the canopy around her bed. She grabbed her dorm tablet and turned on the white noise, glancing up as it spilled from the speakers above, a soft wash of noise that dispersed the sound of her rustling sheets as she turned to her side and settled her eyes onto the apparition again.

“Please don’t go,” she whispered, barely giving sound to the words.

“I’m here.” Caran Carter knelt by her bed, a hand hovering over Isobel’s cheek. There was no heat, no pressure. Nothing. “You’re doing so well, Illy.”

“Why did you stop coming?” Isobel asked quietly.

“There are forbidden topics,” her mother replied. “To protect our souls. You can’t ask about what happened to me.”

“Okay.” Isobel breathed, her chest constricting. She grappled with the question that had been playing on her mind since the year before. “Why didn’t you visit me after you dropped me off? Why wouldn’t you reply to my messages? It’s like you forgot I existed at all.”

“It is,” Caran agreed, smiling sadly. There was a vacant look in her eyes. Something detached. It was as though she was there but not really listening.

“Are there other forbidden topics?” Isobel asked, and her mother’s attention sharpened again, a spark of approval in that honey-brown gaze.

“If the living who can see us seek to upset or hurt us, we will not be permitted to stay.”

Her mother had disassociated from the question Isobel had asked, so it was likely an upsetting one. Isobel chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“Can you see me all the time?”

“I’m not like this all the time.” Caran spread out her arms, glancing down at the silk dressing gown she wore. “Sometimes I’m just light, just floating.”

“Where do you … live? Where are you when you’re not here?”

“The river of souls,” Caran answered happily. “That’s where we float. But sometimes I feel that you’re scared, and I climb out, and when I do, I can see you. I’ve visited your father a few times. You’re the only one who can see me.”

Isobel struggled to word her next question, not wanting to drive her mother away. “He wasn’t your true mate, was he?”

Caran smiled sadly. “He wasn’t, was he?”

“What … what was your real mate like?”

Caran wavered, her eyes flashing. “He had a demon,” she said, her voice cracking. “Just like your?—”

And she was gone, just like that. Like the flame of a candle extinguished by a powerful, icy breath.

Isobel pulled the duvet up to her mouth, muffling a frustrated sound before flopping onto her back to stare at the top of her canopy.

Just like her … what?

She frowned, recalling Luis mentioning demons as well.

Just like … her mates?

Snatching her phone up again, she sent a message to Sophia.

Isobel: Got your phone back?

The response came after a few minutes.

Sophia: Sure do! And before you ask, the answer is no. I will not help you kill yourself. You made your very wide bed and now you have to sleep with everyone inside it.

Isobel: Hilarious.

Sophia: Right?

Isobel: Have the officials left you guys alone?

Sophia: They dismissed us quicker than you dismissed the concept of a traditional nuclear household.

Isobel: Wow. You’re on a roll.

Isobel: Heading downhill, by the way.

Sophia: I’ll let you know when I hit bottom.

Sophia: Or will you already know, since your poor vagina is already there?

Isobel: I actually texted you for a reason.

Sophia: You need an ice pack?

Isobel snorted, a laugh breaking out before she shook her head, texting back.

Isobel: I might. But what was Luis talking about yesterday? He said something about demons.

Sophia: Ugh, you heard that. He says Moses and Theodore Kane have demons. He says, “Kane and his demon.” He’s been saying it for so long, I thought he was calling Moses the demon.

Sophia: He wasn’t trying to insult them.

Sophia: Theodore seems nice.

Sophia: I’m sure Moses could be nice if he wanted to. Or if he wasn’t Moses.

Isobel frowned at the screen, her mind turning over.

Could it be a coincidence?

Her father had owned a book on ferality. It was how she knew the signs when she first came across Theodore in the library.

Could it be possible …

Could her mother’s true mate have had ferality? And if Theodore and Moses both had it …

Did that mean it passed to all siblings?

The next morning,Cooper attempted to corner her on the way out of the dorm, but Kilian intervened.

“Your father is insisting you contact him!” Cooper called after her as Kilian ushered her to the door, making excuses about how they were late for practice.

He joined in her dance practice in the morning with Gabriel and Elijah, his skills almost matching the other two Alphas. She was impressed and slightly star struck when she watched him, happy when he said he would join them again in the afternoon.

Kalen announced that her sixth period with him was being replaced by another group intensive with both him and Mikel, and she realised they were moving forward with their plan. That intensive would be filmed every week, showcasing the slow forming of their group.

During the first session, they sat around in a circle as Mikel and Kalen explained their first “task.” A challenge for each of them to perform the same set of lyrics to one of eight varied backing tracks.

Mikel piled coloured balls—each representing a different backing track—into the middle of the circle, and Isobel grumbled something about his obsession with balls that earned her a terrifying look from the scarred Alpha.

That look told her everything she needed to know.

He knew everything.

He knew she hadn’t obeyed him. She hadn’t obeyed him hard. Several times.

She decided to ignore him and pretend she didn’t know that he knew. She sat back with Kilian, sharing an eye roll with the calm Alpha as the rest of them dove forward and wrestled for their favourite coloured ball.

Niko wasn’t snapping and snarling like he had been the day before, but he also wasn’t speaking much. He was withdrawn, his frown lines etched deep, his eyes sometimes soft when he looked at her, and sometimes hard.

But he was always looking at her.

When she tried to speak to him, he grunted in answer and walked away, planting himself somewhere else to stare at her from a distance. If she couldn’t feel the hints and brushes of his inner chaos at all times, she would have been insulted. Instead, she just yearned to hug him.

Since he looked like he might stab anyone who came at him with open arms, she grabbed a tennis ball from his bag and shoved it into his hand. Moses thought it was hilarious, but Niko didn’t react at all, other than to squeeze the ball like it was Isobel’s neck.

For four days, that was how they proceeded. With a very deliberate, curated, light-hearted air. They trained hard, at all hours of the day, and they stuck together in the classes they shared, at mealtimes, and during their practices. She trained with Elijah, Gabriel, and Kilian in the mornings and evenings, while Theodore, Cian, and Niko preferred to train in the gym. Moses and Oscar—to her surprise—were spending most of their practice time in one of the studios, producing possible demo tracks for the group.

She looked out for Eve during mealtimes in the dining hall, but the Omega seemed to have disappeared completely. It should have eased Isobel’s fear, but it only increased it.

On Friday morning, half of the Alphas were missing from their group intensive with Mikel. It was just her, Oscar, Elijah, and Gabriel. When Kalen walked in twenty minutes after the session was supposed to start, with all the missing Alphas behind him, Isobel knew something was wrong. They were shielding their emotions from her, but the hairs along her arms raised, and an uneasy feeling churned in the pit of her stomach. As soon as the door closed behind him, Kalen pointed to the stretching mats.

“Everyone gather up.”

They fell about in a circle, faces tense, Mikel and Kalen closing the circle and sitting down. The professors were still in workout clothes.

Usually, they were showered and suited before everyone else, making use of the gym and other facilities before the students were awake.

“The Track Team has made their move on the rest of Dorm A,” Kalen announced, a look of distaste pinching his features. “Cian received pictures of his brother, Logan, this morning. Pictures of him walking alone, playing with his friends, and sleeping. There was also a handwritten list of prices and codewords. We think it’s a trafficking … menu. The threat was clear.”

Isobel swallowed, her eyes running over Cian, whose expression was pale. He was shielding himself from her Sigma ability, and she was shielding her mind from the bond, but she didn’t need to read his mind to know how he was feeling—it was there in his face.

He was torn between murderous rage and stone-cold fear.

“Kilian received a video,” Kalen continued, “of someone loading powder into a pill press machine. They tipped the powder out of a hazard-labelled container with As on the side, the abbreviation for arsenic. They coated the pills and then emptied another pill container, replacing the contents with the arsenic pills they had created, which had been made to look the same. The label on the pill bottle they used was for Kilian’s adoptive mother, Sao-Yeong. Kilian sends home money every month so that she can afford medication for her advanced osteoporosis—it costs three times as much to have it sent into the settlement.”

Kilian looked violently angry—an expression she wasn’t used to, from him. Her heart was lodged in her throat, but before she could ask any questions, Kalen was speaking again.

“Niko got an email from his dad saying that the officials have doubled the rent he has to pay at their health clinic in the Rock River Valley settlement. A lot of people rely on that clinic, and since Taichi isn’t allowed to charge for his services—because he isn’t a registered doctor—Niko’s Ironside stipend and some of our Stone Dahlia income is the only thing keeping them afloat. They used to scrape by when people had enough to trade food and other services for treatment, but since the commissary prices went up last year, people haven’t had anything to offer the Harts.”

Niko was staring at the mat, his jaw twitching, his eyes dark. Isobel hesitantly cracked her wall, reaching out to latch onto the emotion they were all shielding from her. She tried to be subtle, but Mikel felt it, his mottled blue-black eyes cutting to her in a warning look. She closed herself off from the toxic flow of emotion, sitting with the new darkness bubbling inside her stomach.

She gave him a brief, defiant look, but when he raised a brow at her, her eyes dropped quickly back to her knees.

“Theo and Moses got the same email …” Kalen stalled, considering his words, the first sign of unease rippling over his broad, impassive face. “It was a room with a line of threaded necklaces hanging on a stone wall—the same type of stone they have in the Stone Dahlia. The Track Team aren’t just baiting them into the club—they’re baiting them into a specific room. This isn’t something we’ve encountered before, and we don’t know what to make of them using you as their collateral.” He settled his attention on Isobel. “Any way we look at it, it doesn’t look good.”

She nodded, and the others grumbled sounds of agreement.

Elijah sucked in a fortifying breath. “Gabriel and I are fully fledged members, and floaters, now. We can split up sponsorship of everyone.”

“You may not be able to claim Moses and Theo,” Mikel warned. “Not if they’re hoping to assign them to a particular room.”

“I guess we’ll find out tonight,” Moses drawled.

“They didn’t actually poison your stepmom, did they?” Isobel asked Kilian.

He shook his head. “No, she’s fine. She’d already be dead if she had taken one of those pills. Kalen has people looking into testing her pills, though.”

“What if they haven’t given her the pills yet?” she asked nervously.

“She can test them herself,” Gabriel murmured thoughtfully. “If she grinds down one of her pills, separates a small amount into a dish, and adds a few drops of white vinegar, the presence of a carbonate compound in arsenic will react with the acid in the vinegar. It’s not foolproof, but the powder should bubble and fizz if it’s dangerous.”

Kalen was already texting Gabriel’s words to someone.

“Thanks.” Kilian gave Gabriel a tight smile, gratitude and relief colouring his ethereal features.

“How do you even know that?” Moses asked Gabriel, looking surprised.

“Because I read?” Gabriel shot back, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I read too,” Moses grumbled, looking put-out.

“And your brother?” Isobel asked Cian.

“Just a threat,” he sighed out. “But they’re more than capable of following through on all of these threats. They own us, and they didn’t even have to try very hard to prove it.”

“But they don’t know about the bond,” Elijah said. “That’s something we can hang onto. If they did, they wouldn’t have bothered going to all the effort of threatening everyone individually. We already remotely disabled the failsafe Eve Indie had set up on her phone to trigger an email about our bond to the officials if anything ‘happened to her’, but we won’t make any more moves against her until we can be sure that’s the only failsafe she had.”

“The officials don’t know for now,” Mikel corrected. “We need to stay obsessively on top of things to keep it that way. I don’t like that they know that threatening Isobel is enough to bring in Theo and Moses.”

“I have a bad feeling,” Theodore admitted.

Moses nodded his agreement, and Isobel tried to shake off the awful feeling of expectation and premonition settling over her shoulders.

“Right.” Kalen nodded at everyone. “I need to reach out to my settlement contacts to get eyes on Cian, Kilian, and Niko’s families. Keep your heads down today. I’ll see everyone tonight.” He paused after pushing to his feet, his eyes finding Isobel. “We may have additional spectators. Oscar and Mikel’s fights happen later than my show, and floaters are allowed to visit the rooms as spectators. If you don’t want the group to watch tonight, you should say so now.”

Isobel glanced around the room, but nobody seemed surprised by Kalen’s announcement.

They wanted to watch her?

She felt a little spark of pleasure, accompanied by a wash of nerves.

“I don’t mind,” she said.

Kalen surveyed her a moment more, before sucking a hiss of air between bared teeth. The expression was … expectant. He shot Mikel a quick glare.

“No punishments before the session. The smell drove me fucking insane.”

Mikel chuckled, and Kalen yanked the door open, leaving the room.

The rest of them fell into their usual routine for Mikel’s morning sessions, dividing up into two groups to start warming up. Mikel drove them doubly as hard, foregoing everything but the physical aspect of their training, making up for losing the first half of his session. Isobel was dripping in sweat by the time they finished, and she was forced to stop by the dorm to change before first period.

During the week, there had been a subtle battle for dominance between the human group and the Alpha group. On one hand, the humans were popular with the rest of the students, most of whom already thought of them as celebrities and had already been following them on social media—or were at least aware of them. On the other hand, the Alphas were terrifying and had only grown more so.

They were bigger than last year, and Cian and Kilian had retreated from their sociable personalities. The incident with Eve and Aron, and what the officials had done to Kilian, seemed to have changed him. He had withdrawn into himself, his smiles to anyone outside the group growing cooler, harder. He now looked entirely unapproachable with his small frowns and guarded, pale eyes.

Cian had simply stopped flirting with everyone, though videos were circulating of him speaking to Isobel, where his aquamarine eyes smouldered and he licked his ruby lips, those delectable dimples furrowing as he grinned at her. The new tattoos that crawled up his neck, his new piercings, and his suddenly closed-off personality had shifted the public discourse about him from the man whore of Ironside to some sort of scary, unattainable trophy.

The Alphas had claimed the right wing of the auditorium for Icon Matters, and for their fifth-period class, Influencer Intensive, which was in the same auditorium. They were the only two classes that brought together all of the Alphas and all of the humans, so naturally, most of the talk online was gossip generated inside that auditorium. Since the new season of the Ironside Show wouldn’t premiere until Friday night, all the public had to go on were the chat rooms and the photos all the students had been uploading.

The public was obsessed with the third-year group, the Alphas, and the humans … but the officials had the power to turn the tide and set the tone in their premiere, so all of that could change.

Their only option to keep the momentum going for Eleven was to create enough drama that the officials had no choice but to air it.

“Hey, Mei,” Cian called out as the humans settled into their seats in the front row of the middle section. “I heard you did an episode on your podcast about educational inadequacies in lower socio-economic areas.”

“I did,” Mei exclaimed, sitting up in her seat, her entire face lighting up. She flicked Niko a quick look—she did that often, confused about the change in him and how he had cut her out of his acquaintance in the blink of an eye without explanation. Niko ignored her, uninterested. “Did you?—”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be sitting in the front row, then,” Cian cut across her. “Since some of the people behind you came from the remote Gifted settlements and have pre-secondary literacy skills at best. It’s hard enough to read that screen without trying to see it over all your blowouts. Nice cut, by the way. I heard you go down to the glow-up bar every morning. Expensive, but worth it.” Cian winked at her, and it was somehow both smug and cold all at once.

Mei stared at him, her mouth dropping open, her face flaming red as she dropped back into her seat, now visibly uncomfortable. Some of the students behind her were snickering, some peering over at Cian like he was offering to be their new Gifted spokesperson. He turned away from them, leaning over Isobel to speak to Theodore.

In fifth period, the humans had relocated to the second row, and most of the class whipped out their phones to snap pictures of the change, as though a war had been declared and the Alphas were claiming their first victory.

During lunch, the humans chose to sit by themselves instead of pushing several tables together to chat with their fans as a group. They had their heads bent together and seemed to be furiously discussing something, a few of them gesturing angrily at the Alpha booth. Just before lunch finished, Kahn and Kostas walked over to the booth arm in arm, Kostas flicking her long blonde hair over her shoulder. She walked like the model she was, and Isobel had absolutely no idea how a chocolate sculptor was supposed to walk, but Kahn matched her friend well, the two women a striking pair.

“We just wanted to formally introduce ourselves.” Kostas preened, batting her lashes at Theodore, who sat on the outside of the booth.

“Great to meet you.” Moses didn’t even look up from his phone. “See you later.”

Cian rolled his eyes at Moses. Nobody else spoke.

The Alphas just stared—except for Moses, and Niko, who was pushing his food around on his plate with a frown, as he did every mealtime.

Kahn eased back a step and Kostas paled. Neither of them seemed to know where to look.

“Ah, hello,” Isobel quickly spoke up. “Nice to meet you.”

This time, it was the girls’ turn to stare. They appeared uncomfortable.

Because they hadn’t come to meet her, Isobel realised.

She slumped back down.

I tried, she spoke through the bond.

Commendable effort, Elijah returned dryly, before speaking aloud, his attention drifting between their two visitors. “Is that all?”

“We were hoping to collaborate,” Kahn squeaked with renewed enthusiasm.

“We aren’t available for collaboration,” Gabriel said calmly.

“You’re collaborating with the Sigma!” Kahn declared, pointing at Isobel. “We all know the whole ‘Alphas and the Sigma’ thing is a bit—we’re just saying, we think you could reach a wider audience if you work with us, instead.”

Oscar stood, and both girls scrambled backwards.

“S-stop being rude,” Kostas admonished her friend, dragging her back by the arm. She avoided looking at Oscar. “Um … think about it? Nice to meet you all.”

“Move,” Oscar grunted. “I lost my appetite.”

Their group spilled from the booth without a word, but Isobel grabbed a protein bar on the way out, slipping it into Niko’s hand. He flipped his grip, snatching her wrist in the blink of an eye, his pupils dilated.

It was like he thought she had been about to attack him.

His eyes returned to normal, surveying the protein bar now on the ground, and his hand, still gripping her wrist tightly. He lifted it off, finger by finger, his voice an echo in her mind.

Sorry, mate.

Her stomach flipped.

Niko picked up the protein bar and tried to hand it back to her, but she shook her head. “Eat something,” she suggested.

He nodded absently, slipping the bar into his pocket, and decidedly not eating anything. He gestured for her to keep walking, and when she did, he fell back, following several steps behind her. She could feel his eyes boring into the back of her neck.

They all separated as soon as they got to the studio Kalen and Mikel were running their group intensive out of, squirrelling away in their own corners to pour over the lyrics they had been given and the track they had been assigned. Isobel’s was a dragging, haunting instrumental—a little slower than she would have picked for the lyrics, but since Mikel had said they could sing in their own style, she assumed that meant she could manipulate the lyrics a little. She considered what she would do with the song for the rest of the day, but finally put it out of her head when it was time to head to the Stone Dahlia.

This time, they walked there as a group, but the woman in the foyer ushered her, Kalen, Mikel, and Oscar down the stairs instead of allowing them to wait with the rest of the Alphas.

Elijah and Gabriel were permitted to stay.

Kalen claimed a booth in the hall for them to wait in, waving off the waiter who shimmied out of the crowd and approached, half of his enthusiastic greeting stalling as he realised he wasn’t needed. Isobel twisted her fingers together nervously, glancing back to the door they had entered through every few minutes.

“There’s a lot of paperwork to sign,” Mikel said calmly, crossing one of his ankles over his knee and running his scarred hands down over his vest.

Oscar, who had claimed her other side, slipped his hand onto her thigh, squeezing firmly. “You’ll be floating soon, rabbit. Don’t worry about the others.”

“Floating?” she asked, ignoring the tingle that shot through her body. “Am I going in the air this time?” She looked from Oscar to Kalen.

Kalen was drumming his fingers on the table impatiently, but he stopped at her question, regarding her with a measured look. “He didn’t mean that kind of floating.”

She blinked, whipping her head back to Oscar. He knew about the floating feeling? “Have you been tied up too?”

Oscar laughed, the sound husky, as though he didn’t do it often enough. And he really didn’t, because he was beautiful when he laughed, those dark curls tickling his neck as he tilted his head back, his sharp incisors flashing.

Even Kalen chuckled.

“No,” Oscar finally said, his hand slipping further up her thigh. “I don’t have that kind of patience.”

Oscar was calmer than she had ever seen him, a kind of anticipatory focus simmering in his dark eyes. It was likely the promise of immediate violence in his future. He had been sneaking off to the Stone Dahlia more often than not since their bond was formed, and he usually returned to the dorm with several fresh bruises or cuts. On Wednesday, he came back so late that she caught him as she slipped out of her room in the morning. There had been a limp in his step, his teeth bloody as he flashed her an almost manic grin before disappearing into his room. Mikel also seemed to be indulging in violence within the Stone Dahlia with an alarming regularity, though he returned with fewer injuries.

Isobel’s response died before she could even begin to formulate it. Her attention snagged by a familiar figure flashing in her periphery across the busy hall. She narrowed in on the brunette, her breath catching at the two patches covering Eve’s eyes. She was being led by a chain around her neck.

Isobel couldn’t breathe, her head pinging in panic and alarm, even as her chest constricted … because what she was seeing wasn’t right.

Eve had a golden collar locked around her thin neck, a slender gold chain attached to the collar. A man in a black face mask was leading her, walking ahead, uncaring of how Eve stumbled and hurried to stick close to his back. Isobel jerked to her feet, but Oscar tugged her back down again.

“She tried her best to kill you,” he snarled, his dark eyes snagging on the Omega. “Don’t fucking feel sorry for her.”

“They’re treating her like a dog,” Isobel hissed back.

“I’m failing to see the problem.” Oscar turned away from Eve, dismissing her. “She made her choices. She was warned.”

“Nobody makes choices down here though, do they?” Isobel couldn’t tear her attention away. Not from the collar, or the chain … or the patches.

Her throat felt tight, her eyes hot.

“You’re just as stuck down here as she is,” Mikel warned, gazing across the hall as Eve was tugged into a passageway, out of sight. “I wouldn’t feel too sorry for her. She was the one who made sure you were brought in. She’s the one who collected your collateral. She’s the one who threatened you into compliance. Whatever happens to her down here—just remember she’s the reason it might happen to you too.”