Chapter 11

Hope

“Can you walk?” Lincoln was there and waiting for me when I finally emerged from that room of pain and humiliation fully dressed.

I stared at him. Noticing the way his eyes kept darting down the length of my body before guiltily lifting again. It was almost like he was trying to be a gentleman. He had even turned his back on me when I had scrambled to get dressed.

Like he hadn’t seen me naked and spread out on a metal table. Like he hadn’t held my hand when she had examined me both inside and out.

He had been kind.

Slowly I lifted my eyes to meet his, and nodded. Only he didn’t make any move to get out of my way or even leave. He just stood there and stared at me like I was some kind of alien and he had never seen anyone like me before.

In a way that was exactly what I was. Human just like him, sure but from a different time. A really different time. I might as well have been an alien for all the similarities we shared.

“You are going to have to use your words Hope.” He said finally with a sigh. “As alpha I have many powers but I don’t possess the ability to read your mind.” He paused. “If only I could. I would be able to pluck all of your secrets out of your mind with ease.” He added so quietly that I barely heard him.

I blinked in surprise. “I can walk. Alpha.” I added with a small shrug. “I need to -“

He held out his arm and it was my turn to fall silent. Did he expect me to take his arm?

“You need to walk with me for a while. I will make sure you get home.”

From behind us a scream rent the air and I flinched back. My lips twisting as another even louder one sounded. Nell had her hands on another Omega. I didn’t need to imagine what she was doing to her because she had almost done it to me. I wanted to cross my legs at the memory of that huge rusted phallic instrument she had just tried to force into my body.

At least that other woman wouldn't be sexually assaulted by a guard on top of everything else. He was dead. Lincoln had killed him without even breaking a sweat.

I really didn’t know how I felt about taking the arm of a killer. Even one who had been kind to me.

“Are you going to help her?” I whispered.

His eyes flicked over my head to settle on the door and for a second I held my breath. I could see the indecision in his eyes. He was tempted to go and help. I could see it.

Surely that made him a good person? He had hurt someone to save me, he could save that other woman as well.

“No.” His shoulders straightened and again he held out his arm for me to take. “I have been here too long and interfered too much already. Let’s walk.”

I shuffled forward. Placing my hand in the crook of his arm lightly. I watched as he reached up with other hand and pulled the thick swathes of black cloth over his lips and nose and lifted the hood of his coat over his dark hair.

“Let’s go.” Almost dragging me from the building, we stepped into the clean street. Up here on the hill where the alphas and rich peoples lived there was no litter. Everything was almost spotlessly clean.

It was such a stark contrast to what lay just a few minutes walks down the street. Up here people could live. Really live.

Down there , we just fought not to die.

We were completely different.

Being alive was so different to actually living.

“Why do you wear that over your face?” I asked as I rushed to keep up with him.

“I don’t always want people to know who I am.” He answered without hesitation.

“And why is that?” I asked as I looked around. Truth was I wasn’t really that interested in why. I didn’t care about his answers. I was too busy looking around and trying to memorise everything I saw.

For two years I had searched for a way back. I had searched every inch  down in the slums of the city but I had never been up here before.

Maybe-

“I’m new to this settlement Hope. Even newer than you are although I seem to be better informed.” His eyes met mine for a second before looking around. “And I like to see what the people I am ruling are really like. What makes them tick.”

I froze so suddenly that he had taken three steps before he realised my hand had slipped from his arm. He turned, confusion narrowing his eyes over his mask.

“You spy on us.”

He turned, coming to stand right in front of me. So close that if I breathed out too heavily my breast would brush against his chest.

And he was tall. So tall that I had to tilt my head back to stare into his face. Something I did even though I knew I shouldn’t.

Rule number 1 of being an omega was not to look an alpha in the eye and show submission at all times.

Oh well, I had never been one to follow the rules anyway.

“I don’t spy on anyone.” There was an almost animalistic growl to his voice. I had never heard a man sound like that. He sounded like a wild animal.

A DANGEROUS wild animal.

“No?” I tilted my head to the side and didn’t break eye contact.

“No.” His chest rumbled. “I don’t spy on anyone. I learn about them.”

“And what have you learnt Lincoln?”

His hands lashed out and curled around the tops of my arms. His grip was brutal , his strength like nothing I had ever felt before.

How was he that strong?

“I have learnt you like poking the beast, Hope.” He said and stepped back. The blood rushed back into my arms and I shook them out. “It’s a habit you should unlearn and quickly. If you want to survive.”

“I- uh well yeah I guess you are right. But I wasn’t talking about me. How do you expect to learn about anyone when you don’t know them?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.” He muttered.

“You can’t do this living in your mansions. You can’t even try to understand us when you have no clue how we have to live down there.”

“You think I live up here?” His laughter blocked me. “I have a house here , I won’t deny it. All alphas do but it’s just one of my homes.”

One of his homes? We were down there starving and living in hovels and he had multiple mansions.

“My main home.” His hands came down on my shoulder and turned me. Pointing into the very heart of the city. “Is right there.”

I eyed the jagged tower of metal and glass and my mouth fell open. “You live?” I breathed. “In the Shard?”