Poison Ivy Ch. 07

"You know, you don't have to stay with me. You've done enough already. I'll be able to take it from here on my own."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" the younger Alpha looked over his shoulder again. His reddish blonde hair was hidden beneath the bulky comm helmet, but the excited grin he flashed Hunter revealed his crooked front tooth. For whatever reason, that flaw in his boyish face seemed to endear him to the opposite sex. Pyle was never short on female company. "I wouldn't miss this for the world, man. You've had my back more times than I can count. We'll get her back, Hunter." His grin widened. The dimple that appeared in his left cheek gave him just enough charisma to hide his inner crazy.

Pyle was a fucking maniac and a hard-core adrenaline junkie if he ever met one. More than one of the situations Hunter had dragged him out of were a direct result of some psychotic thing he did, like the time he'd snuck into enemy territory to kidnap a Torrin attack dog from a kennel on the outskirts of a Factory after he'd witnessed a soldier abusing the mutt. He'd then proceeded to parade it around as if it was a rival high-school's football mascot until the dog had turned on him and attacked his calf like it was a fresh steak. Pyle had kept the savage creature, claiming the attack had been the dog's way of "bonding" with him. His lower leg was still streaked with scars.

"Thanks Brother," Hunter shouted, tipping his chin. He couldn't deny that it felt good to have Pyle on his side. In addition to being a psychotic pilot with a penchant for trouble, he'd also become somewhat of an expert when it came to interrogation techniques. The man knew more about the human body than Hunter cared to think about, and when it came to extracting information, he might as well be a fucking encyclopedia. He knew that those specialized talents would absolutely be utilized before this was all over. Pyle had a wicked soft spot when it came to women, children and animals. That soldier he'd watched abuse the dog he now kept as an equally psychotic pet? He'd been returned to the front steps of the factory.

In pieces.

Over the course of several weeks.

His distracted thoughts were dragged back to Ivy as he felt a pang of frustrated, helpless rage resonating from her side of the bond. He closed his eyes and focused his attention on the invisible connection that ached beneath his sternum with a painful throb, as if it was displeased and punishing him for the physical distance that he'd unwillingly put between him and his mate. Punishing him for not being there to protect her and comfort her. Clearing his head of all other thoughts and distractions, he concentrated on the memory of holding her close, wrapping himself around her as he purred, until her body relaxed into his.

I'm coming for you, Ivy.

I'm coming for you.

..............................

Something was different about today, and despite feeling better than she had since she'd arrived here, it made her nervous as all hell. She hadn't been forced to take her usual pills, although they had given her the same injections. She still felt fuzzy and weightless, but at least she could stand.

A stern-faced nurse gave her expensive shampoo and conditioner and an unscented body wash for her shower, instead of the small, cheap bottles of products she had been using, like she was staying at the world's most fucked up hotel. Instead of her allotted five minutes of supervised washing, she'd been encouraged to spend what felt like several hours, but was probably just 20 minutes, standing underneath the cascade of hot water. Afterwards, the nurse had applied neutral shades of eyeshadow and a light pink lip gloss, and told her to change into a navy blue, A line dress. The look was completed with a simple diamond teardrop necklace and matching earrings. She stared at her reflection in the tiny, warped mirror above the tiny bathroom sink. A cold feeling of dread settled over her, suffocating and nauseating. Whatever this was, it wasn't good.

She heard the door open but didn't need to turn around to know that it was the dickhead psycho. She could smell him. He always stank of clove cigarettes and onions, despite the fact that she'd never seen him smoke, and was pretty sure he didn't eat onions all day every day. Underneath it all, there was an unidentifiable, foul scent that made her skin crawl. He came up behind her and placed his cold hands on her shoulders, slowly spinning her around to face him. His touch always made her cringe, and she had to clench her jaw to avoid shrinking back from him. She wasn't about to show him just how much his presence disturbed her. Hate was a strong emotion to feel for someone, and it gave him power over her. She'd rather feign indifference, treating him like he was a fly on the other side of the room; annoying, but not enough to get up and hunt down with a swatter.

Even though hunting him down with a human-sized swatter was exactly what she wanted to do. Trying to ignore the way his hands on her bare skin caused bile to crawl up her throat, she imagined herself running around the small room with a giant, neon-green paddle, chasing a shrieking Maverick as he flitted from wall to wall. Maybe she'd put spikes on it, like a flattened, modern-day Morningstar. She almost smiled.

"You look perfect, baby girl. Just perfect."

She growled, slapping his hands away and stepping around him to stalk out of the small bathroom. The tiny space forced a proximity to him that she was entirely uncomfortable with. "I hate to break this to you, Mav, but I'm not, and never will be, your baby girl. And whatever you have planned for today, you're a few bricks shy of a full load if you think I'm going to just go along with it."

Maverick smiled in a way that brought to mind a shark with a mouthful of teeth, closing in on its prey. "Oh, but you will. You will be on your best behavior. Come here, Ivy," he drawled, while he walked to the bed and sat down on the edge, patting the thin mattress beside him. "I have something to show you."

He pulled his phone from the back pocket of his navy-blue three-piece suit, with a creamy white undershirt and a thick black leather belt. She stared at the belt, chilled. It didn't match the outfit. Like at all. Why was he wearing it?

He motioned her forward. Ivy slowly and reluctantly inched closer. Whatever it was on his phone that he wanted her to see, it couldn't be good. Quicker than she could react, he shot up off the bed, lunging for her, and captured her wrist with a bruising grip. She snarled and struggled as he pulled her back to the bed, yanking her roughly onto his lap with his arm across her chest. He shoved the phone in her face. When she saw an image of Aella, sitting cross-legged on a threadbare mattress with her infant in her arms, she froze. There was a triangular shape in the middle of the image. Her skin broke out in goosebumps, and she sucked in a ragged breath. It was a video. He was going to show her a video.

No. No. He wouldn't.

Ivy twisted and looked up, meeting Maverick's shit-brown eyes, and shuddered at the cruel amusement she saw there.

"Eyes on the screen, beautiful," he drawled, and as much as she didn't want to acknowledge the threat he was making, she had to see. She had to know how far he would go.

She hesitated for just a second before looking back down. Maverick moved his arm to band across her stomach, pulling her snuggly back into his chest, and propped his chin on her shoulder. His thumb moved across the screen to start the video.

Aella rocked her baby back in forth in her arms, cooing at her as she cuddled her close. Like the earlier photo, there was something eerily familiar about the room she was in. Something about the threadbare mattress, and the single column of grey brick that ran down the middle of the dirty wall behind her. She heard the sound of a door slamming shut, and the blonde Omega looked up at someone off screen. Her face, already gaunt and pale, drained of all color, and her eyes darkened as she pulled the baby into herself protectively.

Ivy's stomach churned. She wanted to tell him to stop. She wanted to scream at him not to hurt them, to let them go, that she would do anything if he would just stop whatever was causing that look of pure, undiluted despair on her friend's face. They hadn't spent much time together, and they were total opposites, but she felt a strange pull toward the older Omega. Watching her nearly bleed to death, watching her baby almost die, had been awful. Aella had been hurt enough. Ivy could take some of that pain, now. She'd take all of it, if she could.

As if sensing she was about to interrupt, Maverick tightened the arm around her middle and snapped out harshly. "Watch."

"Not again," Aella whispered. "Please, not again. Please --"

And then it clicked into place. The wall, the room, the bed... She had seen them all before, in dozens of photos taken by undercover operatives in Torrin. Her blood ran cold.

Factory. Aella was in a Torrin Factory, one of the insidious structures created to imprison, torture and kill fugitives, usually women and children who had tried to flee from the country's oppression of the entire female gender, who were desperate to find a better life.

The video cut off, and Ivy swallowed a scream. Wrenching herself out of his hold, she stood up and backed away from him. Her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to slow her breathing. After a few seconds, she looked up, her emerald eyes glistening with rage. "You can't do this."

He grinned. "Of course I can."

She snarled, the fury running through her blood so potent she was shaking with it. "You... you're crazy. You're a fucking sociopathic, motherfucking, shit-eating, FUCK!"

Maverick cocked his head to the side. "Is that any way to speak to your Alpha?" His monstrous hand shot out and wrapped around her neck, pulling her back to stand in between his legs. He gripped her throat and squeezed. "Apologize," he growled.

Ivy swallowed hard. Her eyes were a wild storm, a tornado of green venom, and she could feel her pulse bounding beneath his thumb. He smirked knowingly, digging his other hand into her hip as he tightened his hold on her neck.

Fucking Christ, he was a bastard. Aella was so soft, so innocent. Defenseless. Sweet. And judging by the look on her face at whatever it was she saw off screen, she was scared shitless. Maverick had hurt her. He was still hurting her. There were no choices here. Ivy was trapped. He really was fucking insane. And dangerous. And he had just done the one thing that could've made her submit.

Clenching her jaw, her hands curled into fists at her side, Ivy did the only thing she could do to help her friend.

She surrendered.

With just a teensy bit of attitude.

"I'm so sorry, oh mighty Alpha," she crooned, her voice syrupy sweet and unnaturally high, while flashing him a saccharine smile.

Maverick smiled and released her throat, threading his fingers through her freshly washed hair. Thankfully, he had chosen to ignore her blatant sarcasm, because she honestly didn't think she could ever actually apologize to him with a straight face. "That's better. Now. Are you ready?"

Ivy tensed. "Ready for what?"

Maverick's smile deepened. "For the reunion, of course."

Right. Like she had any fucking clue what that meant. It was kinda bullshit that he wouldn't even tell her what certain doom she was headed toward, but whatever.

He led her out of the room and down the hall, gripping the back of her neck possessively. It was the first time she'd been let out of her room, and because of the tiny, unreachable, frosted window, not to mention the fact that she'd been passed out cold when they first brought her in here, it was the first glimpse she'd gotten of the rest of the building. The floors were the same ugly green color as the scrubs they usually made her wear, speckled with dark blue flakes, and the walls were all padded with sterile white panels.

Ivy tried to concentrate on where they were going, what turns they made, the number of tiny-windowed doors and the community areas they passed, the locking mechanisms and the number of guards, orderlies and nurses circulating the halls. Details that might prove useful later on, but for now were just ways to keep her mind sharp and occupied while she tried not to think about where they were going or what Maverick was expecting her to do. Everyone they passed averted their eyes, clinging to the opposite wall to put as much distance as possible between them. A few even turned around and walked quickly in the other direction when they saw Maverick approach. Obviously, these toolbags were either terrified of Maverick or on his payroll. Or both.

Suddenly, they were outside, and she was being led to a non-descript black sedan parked at the roundabout entrance. She tried to look behind her to see how the door locked, but his hand around her neck tightened painfully, keeping her head forward. "You're hurting me," she growled through clenched teeth.

He glanced down at her from the corner of his eye. "Mmmm. Good."

Man-handling, wife-beating, daughter-abandoning, Omega-kidnapping asshole.

Ivy was hustled into the backseat by Maverick and a grey-haired Beta driver wearing an all-black suit with a headpiece in his ear. She turned her body to stare out of the tinted window as The Mav climbed in beside her and the vehicle began to move.

She tried to keep track of the turns they took, looking for any other buildings they might pass. There were none. Wherever they'd been keeping her was surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, just a bunch of oak and maple trees. Maverick had thrown his arm around her and was keeping her pressed tightly to his side. The car quickly became saturated with his scent, making her gag.

She felt like a child, up close to him like this. He wasn't as big as Hunter, and not nearly as muscular; but strangely, being around Hunter had never made her feel this small and helpless. Obviously, she knew he was fucking massive, with his ridiculous body rippling with his ridiculous muscles. And yet, she'd always had the feeling that, despite their difference in size, they sort of matched each other. Like she fit him, and he fit her. It felt... right.

Maverick was different. Nothing felt right about him. Not his smell, not his size, not his touch. Everything about him felt distinctly, entirely wrong. She was completely outmatched by his size, strength and height. She was easily half his body weight, maybe less, and he towered over her by more than a foot and a half. Pretty boy or not, in any kind of physical altercation, deprived of a weapon, she would lose. Simple as that. She had to figure out a way to balance the scales.

He picked that moment, as she was gazing out the window imagining fun ways to dismember and kill him, to lean down and whisper in her ear. To outside eyes, the gesture would look tender, affectionate even. But his words chilled her, as did the warm breath that fanned across her neck.

"I know what you're thinking about, baby girl. Even if you could slip away from me, I know you won't. You won't even try. Because if you did, very, very bad things might happen. Torrin is a dangerous place." His arm around her shoulder drifted lower as he spoke, dipping beneath the neckline of her dress to grope at her breast. "I have heard those Factories are just awful places." His thumb brushed over her nipple before he began roughly pinching and twisting it between his fingers. "I know you've seen the pictures. Just imagine what sort of things could happen to Aella in a place like that." The claiming mark on her neck began to burn and throb as his mouth hovered dangerously close and the bond screamed its aversion to another male touching her.

Ivy gritted her teeth against the pain. She looked up at him and smiled sweetly. "I promise you, Maverick, if it's the very last thing I do, I'm going to chop off your balls and let you bleed out as I shove them up your ass with a very large pair of salad tongs."

Maverick threw his head back and laughed. Ivy just kept on smiling. He thought she was adorable, with her empty threats and fiery attitude.

He had no. Fucking. Idea. How very, very serious she was.

......................

Hunter clasped hands with the very large Alpha standing in the darkened doorway. "Good to see you, brother," Fowler growled in his low, rumbling voice. The man didn't know any other way to speak. He was a beast, and he talked like one. His shoulder-length hair and long, bushy beard were both wild and unruly and matched the dark brown of his eyes. He was a wall of muscle, his thick arms bigger around than Ivy's waist, and he loved to fight. Bar fights, battlefield wars, boxing ring matches, wrestling, friendly brawls... It didn't matter. Fowler came alive when he had someone to throw punches with, and he'd have a shit-eating grin pasted on his face the whole time.

"Pyle filled me in on the basics. They fucked up big time. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. We'll get her back, don't you fuckin' worry about that." He folded his arms across his massive chest and stroked his beard. "I've been looking forward to this, my man."

"Thanks brother," Hunter grunted, suppressing a smile. He was with two of the craziest motherfuckers he'd ever met, and all three of them were geared up for a serious fight. "You gonna let us in?"

"Oh shit, man, of course. Come on in, make yourselves at home. Just keep it down, will ya? My old lady is sleeping, and if you wake the kiddos up, you get to deal with 'em." He chuckled as they walked into the darkened entryway and made their way back toward the living room, where a small lamp lit up a round table. A bottle of whisky and three glasses had already been set out, and he poured three fingers into each of them before offering them up to Hunter and Pyle. Pyle grinned, lifted his glass, and downed it all in two thick swallows.

Fowler had gotten into some trouble when he was still in the Army. Something about a stolen ammo bucket and an unauthorized reconnaissance mission that had ended badly. He'd never reached a rank high enough to be gifted an Omega, not that he cared about that. He'd found himself a sweet-as-pie Beta girl, possibly the only girl on the planet who would put up with his particular brand of crazy, and had filled her belly with baby after beautiful baby. Hunter tried to remember what number they were on. Four, or maybe five. Every wall was filled with framed photos. Family vacations, school pictures, holidays, birthdays... You name it. Fowler might be a growly, rough-around-the-edges powerhouse with violent proclivities, but he was also a family man. Where the rest of the world saw a wild grizzly, his wife and kids saw a teddy bear.

Hunter sipped his whisky as Fowler and Pyle refilled their glasses and caught up, speaking in low tones that gradually got louder as the bottle got emptier. He let his thoughts drift to Ivy, imagining her with a swollen belly, pregnant with his child. His dick hardened just thinking about it. Her last estrous had been unfruitful. Her body, no doubt, had been recovering from the insane amounts of heat suppressants she had been unknowingly ingesting. Her next cycle, he'd make damn sure she'd come out on the other side saturated with the scent of a pregnant Omega.

And he would have her back by then.

The thought of her going into estrous without him there, or, even worse, with that fuck Maverick sniffing around her, made him see red. The two men looked up at him, and he realized he had started growling threateningly. He looked down at the rocks glass in his hand. A small spiderweb of cracks had started to appear with the strength of his grip. He forced himself to relax.