They could live without access to that cage, right?
Jesus.
Sin and Karma were currently working hard on a plan to get contacts. Dominic had told them he was getting the contacts—he just wanted the right payment. Sin had taken that as a challenge.
The insane fool wanted tobreakinto the contraband room.
And I didn’t have a better plan.
So while one of our omegas worked ononedeath wish, I was managing the other’s.
I held the library keys up in front of me and groaned, scrubbing a hand down my face. “How did she even manage to snatch these?” I asked Vandle.
Our pack lead wasn’t concerned by how good a thief our omega had turned out to be. He’d watched me from the opposite bunk as I went through her entire nest, noting each key and putting it back where I found it. Hadn’t bothered to help at all.
He shrugged. “She’s real small.”
“She was in the middle of a group of people the whole time we were in the fucking library. And these other ones?” I gestured vaguely to her nest. “Crescent said she took them from people’s pockets. She’s reaching her tiny hands into random pockets and taking things without anyone noticing. That’s insane.”
“Everyone needs a skill here—maybe this is hers.”
I seized fistfuls of my hair. “She doesn’t need a skill!” I snapped into his stupid, nonchalant face. “We’re going to protect her, and she’s making it a thousand times harder by stealing from people all over the place!”
I paced the room, back and forth across the floor, with the library keys jingling at my side. “She’s been here for days. Not even weeks, and she’s already got this many. We have to make her stop or she’ll get herself killed. Or one of us. Is there an easy way to get her some better keys for her nest until we’re out?” It was only four days. “Can you work with me here? Do you have a single goddamn idea about how we’re going to get her keys in a place like this?”
Bartering for keys was kind of just… crazy. Keys were too important to barter for. Giving up a key was giving up access to the thing the key opened.
Unless we could ask the Redgrave pack to get us a bunch of decommissioned keys through the stockroom. But considering they were trying to force Crescent and Sin back into the cage inexchange for the contacts, asking them to get nesting items for my omega didn’t sit right.
“We should talk to her about it,” Vandle said, finally throwing me a bone.
I stopped to glare at him. “How?”
He cocked his head, then tilted his chin up and rubbed his thumb along his neck. “This, Phantom, is a vocal chord, and it—” He cut off with a chuckle as a pillow from Crescent’s nest caught him square in the face.
“You didn’tseeher yesterday.”
He shrugged. “I think it’s cute.”
“Cute?”
“She’s nesting.” He looked so smug, puffing up his chest.
How was our pack lead so fuckingunserious.
“Iwill talk to her,” I said through gritted teeth.
I didn’t trust him—not even alittle. He’d spent most of the time I’d known him feral and rutting. No way.
First, though, I had to return the irreplaceable library keys. Ideally, without getting killed in the process.
I knocked once on the metal door to the Archiva pack’s cell.
The sound echoed down stone walls ominously, and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I might truly die here.
Finnian and Lucian from the Wakefield pack had caught sight of me turning down the hall to the cell and joined me, seeming unsure why I was prowling around alone. The truth was, I knew how mad the Librarians would be, and I didn’t want to risk anyone else caught in the crossfire.