Axel: The Unchained Omegaverse Read online

  AXEL

  THE UNCHAINED OMEGAVERSE

  CALLIE RHODES

  CONTENTS

  Axel

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  Also by Callie Rhodes

  AXEL

  There was only one place she left for her to run…straight into the arms of a monster.

  The beta world is changing. Fears over rogue alpha attacks have peaked, and so has the public's suspicion of anyone that has a connection to the Boundarylands. So when Maggie Harrington refuses to publicly disavow her alpha brother, she isn't just disowned by her wealthy parents and cast out of her community—she's also threatened by mysterious government agents who demand her compliance…or else.

  As hellish as his years of imprisonment were, Axel is finding it hard to adapt to life outside his solitary cell. In the escape, he may have found freedom, but peace still eludes him. At least until a woman fleeing the same people that locked him away trespasses onto his property. She may have come from the outside world, but Axel can tell at first glance she's no beta.

  She's an omega…and that makes her his.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A knock at the door slammed Maggie Harrington out of her anxious fugue. She ripped out her earbuds, the Apocalypse Barbers reduced to a faint, tinny echo, and held her breath.

  "Miss Harrington."

  Son of a bitch —they'd found her.

  Maggie had been expecting this moment ever since she arrived at her friend’s luxury condo two days ago, carrying only a backpack with the bare essentials and a change of clothing.

  She had called Gabby, knowing that her old friend was on an island vacation and not using the place. Maggie hadn’t been completely honest about why she needed a change of scenery, of course. She’d just said she needed a creative reset, which wasn’t a total lie.

  Gabby had hedged before reluctantly giving her the entry code. “I don’t know, Margaret. Darren doesn’t like it when I let people stay at my place when we’re not there.”

  Maggie had rolled her eyes. Ever since Gabby got engaged, her fiancé had rubbed Maggie the wrong way. For one thing, he insisted on calling her by her full first name, something no one but her parents did—and now he had Gabby doing it too.

  Maggie was pretty sure it had everything to do with Darren Snyder’s political aspirations, especially now that he was running for Congress. It was bad enough that Gabby’d ended up with an uptight prick, but Darren had robbed her of her fun-loving party girl side, wearing her down into little more than bland arm candy for his public appearances.

  “But I’m not asking Darren,” Maggie implored. “Besides, why does he get a say? It’s not his name on the lease.”

  Gabby heaved a heavy sigh before finally relenting. “Fine. But please, Maggie, the place has to be spotless when I get back. Seriously—like you were never there.”

  At least Gabby hadn’t pressed Maggie about why she needed the place. That was one advantage of being an artist—everyone expected you to be flaky, so you could get away with quite a bit without having to explain yourself.

  Though whoever was at the door probably didn't feel that way. In fact, Maggie would bet they were expecting a lot of explaining from her. Or maybe they'd skip the explaining part and go straight to the threats and torture.

  Maggie briefly entertained the possibility that the visit was innocent—a lost delivery man, a curious neighbor—but the fact that whoever was out there knew her name, not to mention the authority in their voice, shredded her hope to ribbons.

  Maggie frantically scanned the room for something to defend herself with, but there wasn't a lot to choose from among Gabriella's clean-lined, modern furniture and original art. The best Maggie could manage was the crusty spoon still resting inside this morning's cereal bowl on the chrome-and-glass table.

  Then again, maybe the better option was to just ignore whoever was out there, stay perfectly quiet, and pray they would eventually give up and leave.

  The problem with that option was the neighbors who probably already had their ears pressed to their doors, wondering what was going on.

  In a sense, all Maggie's most pressing problems had to do with neighbors.

  First there were the ones she'd known all her life, the ones who'd gathered on the front lawn in a show of support when her parents called a press conference so they could publicly sign the Repudiation Declaration that legally disavowed Maggie's twin brother.

  Maggie had given up on her parents five years ago when Xander's alpha nature emerged and they privately disowned him. When the rest of her siblings also agreed to sign the official document, Maggie wasn’t surprised; her father had undoubtedly threatened to cut them out of his will. Since every Harrington other than her and Xander loved money more than each other, her parents almost always got what they wanted.

  Still, Maggie would never have guessed that these people she’d known forever—playing in their backyards, babysitting their children, trading Christmas cards every year—would be so eager to take part in Xander's public shaming.

  But she should have known better than to expect more from her friends and neighbors, none of whom offered their support when the story of Xander’s years of suffering hit the papers. Her parents’ wealthy friends had nothing but contempt for the hundreds of alphas who had been imprisoned and tortured in a government-sponsored laboratory—because that same government had launched a propaganda campaign that cast alphas as a dangerous, violent threat to beta society.

  When Maggie realized that the rest of her family had turned against her brother, she moved out, crashing in a pool house belonging to a friend—until reporters started shouting questions over the fence and blocking the neighbors' driveways. After that, the ‘friend’ kicked her out.

  Then came an ill-considered stint at an ex's apartment in a sketchy part of town, where Maggie was pretty sure the media wouldn't think to look for her. Her ex's neighbors didn't mind her presence, but they called the cops whenever her ex’s customers showed to buy drugs. After waking up to red and blue lights flashing through the window a few times, Maggie knew she had to move on.

  At that point, she started sleeping on the floor of her studio, a tiny room in an artists' collective in Denver’s trendy River North neighborhood.

  At first, it seemed like a genius solution. The building was full of activist types who supported alpha rights. But there was no kitchen or bathroom, just piles of canvases in various stages of completion…and since Maggie had cut off all contact with her parents, she had no money for rent. She'd gone days without a shower when the landlord came to evict her.

  Maggie had given him the rest of her cash to store her paintings for a few months until she got her life figured out, then called Gabby. But it was a temporary solution at best. If the wealthy, powerful residents of Gabby's building discovered that the new public face of the alpha rights movement was living among them, there would be hell to pay.

  Hell, Gabby herself would be horrified. Ever since she’d taken up with Darren and his prominent, old-money family, she'd lost her appetite for any kind of conflict. But fortunately, because she in a social media blackout on a remote South Pacific archipelago, Gabby hadn't yet seen the viral images of Maggie flipping off the reporters.

  The photos were taken seconds after her parents and siblings signed the Repudiation Declaration in front of a crowd of journalists and officials. Maggie had played along right until the moment that her younger brother handed her the ornamental pen. She threw the pen on the ground and raised both hands high in a one-finger salute.

  It felt good...in the moment. Less so when government agents started calling her around the clock, pressuring her to sign the document. Maggie tried being evasive, promising to come in ‘soon,’ and finally refusing to pick up—then ditching the phone entirely for a pre-paid drugstore model when the messages the agents left started to include words like 'involuntary' and 'detention' and 'arrest.'

  Maggie had thought she was so fucking clever, a renegade on the run, outwitting the law. She should have known that, like every damn thing she ever tried, she'd fail at this too. And if she didn't answer the door, the neighbors would learn who she was and—

  And things would turn to even more shit than she was in now. Maggie took a breath and squared her shoulders. How much worse could things get, after all?

  Don't answer that, she warned her inner voice as she headed for the door.

  "Coming!" Maggie shouted so they'd quit knocking. She straightened the grimy robe she'd found in Gabby's closet, the one she’d been wearing since her arrival, knowing it would probably show up online within hours. It was too much to hope that the feds wouldn’t have tipped off the press, since they seemed to enjoy the spotlight even more than her parents did.

  Maggie braced herself for a hostile throng of agents as she unlocked the door. But only two people stood outside, a man and woman in cheap-looking dark suits.

  "May we come in, Miss Harrington?"

  Maggie peered around them, but this appeared to be the
whole party. Just two cranky, badly dressed undercover cops.

  Or agents.

  Or detectives...or whatever they were.

  The woman pushed past Maggie into the apartment, the other detective on her heels.

  "Wait a second," Maggie protested. "I didn't say you could—I don't—who the hell are you?"

  "I'm Agent Hoss." She stood in the center of the room with her hands on her hips, taking in the place. Her suit wasn't doing her any favors, and the mint green blouse underneath clashed with her sallow skin and graying short hair, but none of that seemed to interfere with her confidence as she held out her badge.

  "Agent Singh," the other one said, flipping out his own badge from his post by the door. Maggie couldn't make out the words under their photos before they snapped their badge holders shut and returned them to their pockets.

  There was something else—Maggie could make out the holster underneath Hoss's unbuttoned jacket, a glint of the gun inside.

  Of course they were armed…and yet seeing the gun sent a prickle of fear up the back of her neck.

  Maybe she shouldn't have let them in. She could have joined them in the hallway, in full view of the neighbors spying through their peepholes. Better to be the subject of gossip than dead.

  No, she was just being dramatic. Maggie looked from Singh—tall, expressionless, and relaxed—to the dumpy and contemptuous Hoss. This wasn’t the A-team, but a couple of tired, jaded veterans. The kind that got sent to deal with low-level problems like her.

  "I'm sorry, exactly which agency did you say you were with?" Maggie asked politely, channeling her socialite mother, while Hoss swept take-out containers off the pale leather couch onto the ivory rug.

  Hoss ignored the question. "We've had our eye on you," she said, patting a gray silk ottoman. “Sit.”

  Maggie tried again. "How did you know I was here?"

  Hoss smirked. "People looking for privacy probably shouldn't stay in buildings that have windows for walls."

  Which, while true, also didn't exactly answer the question. Maggie felt her face flush as she thought of agents watching her mope around in Gabby's robe, binging on dumplings and reality TV.

  She moved slowly to the ottoman, tugging it further away from Hoss before sitting down. "Will you please tell me what you want? Am I in some kind of trouble?"

  Hoss's smile didn't come close to reaching her eyes. "Why don't you tell me what you're doing here instead? There must be a reason you're holed up in your friend’s fabulous apartment while she's out of town. Does she even know you're here?"

  "Did you talk to Gabby?" The words were out of her mouth before Maggie realized she was giving information away. She was turning out to be a terrible fugitive.

  "We know everything we need to about Gabrielle Pineda." Another non-answer. Damn, Hoss was good at those.

  "Don't think you can scare me," Maggie said sternly, though the tremor in her voice probably gave her away. "I have the access code and I come and go pretty regularly. So no, she doesn't know I'm here."

  Hoss looked amused. "That's very noble of you, trying to shield your friend," she said. "But you can relax—we're not here to threaten Miss Pineda."

  "Then why are you here?"

  Hoss held her gaze. "To threaten you, of course."

  Maggie’s fear ratcheted up a few notches. But it didn’t make sense—the Feds surely wouldn’t send such an unimpressive team to threaten her. There had to be another explanation.

  "Did my parents put you up to this?” she demanded. “Are you even agents, or just actors they hired? Either way, you can tell them to go to hell. If I haven't signed that stupid Repudiation Declaration after all the shit they've put me through, there's no way I'm doing it now."

  Agent Hoss abruptly dropped her smirk.

  "I hate to disappoint you, Miss Harrington," she said in a voice as soft as it was deadly. "But this visit has nothing to do with your parents. You are correct about the Declaration, however. We're here to ensure that you sign it."

  Despite the terror making its way through her body, Maggie crossed her arms and glared at Hoss. "And if I don't?"

  Hoss gave Maggie an icy smile and shifted slightly so that her gun was in plain sight.

  "Then we'll kill you."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

  Maggie did her best not to react to the gun resting far too comfortably in Agent Hoss' hands, but it was almost impossible to tear her gaze away from the menacing, cold steel.

  "I'm glad to see I finally have your full attention, Miss Harrington," Hoss said smoothly, regarding her with a mix of self-satisfaction and sadistic pleasure. "You see, I've made plans to enjoy myself in your magnificent city tonight before I fly home tomorrow."

  Maggie snorted. Sarcasm had always been her kneejerk reaction to conflict, something that had never served her well in her family and probably wouldn't help now—but compared with sniveling terror, it seemed the better option.

  "Gee, I'd hate for you to have to waste your free time cleaning my blood off the walls."

  Hoss gave her a thin smile. "Fortunately for me, cleanup isn't part of my job description. We have a special crew for that."

  Maggie swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Let me guess. That mysterious agency you're with is the same one that kidnapped my brother and tortured him for five years?"

  Any trace of mirth vanished as Hoss narrowed her eyes. When she spoke, her casual tone was utterly at odds with their flinty, dangerous depths. Maggie felt like a fool for underestimating her. "My line of work isn't for everyone, of course. But I genuinely enjoy my job, Miss Harrington."

  "I'm not sure I understand exactly what your job is, Agent Hoss." Shut the fuck up, Maggie's inner voice urged, but when had she ever taken its advice? "It seems like a waste of taxpayer money to fly people around so they can threaten innocent civilians."

  Hoss went on as though Maggie hadn't spoken, as if they were two old friends chatting over coffee. "The best part is I get to travel all over this great country of ours, meeting all kinds of people. I just love meeting new people, Miss Harrington. Don't you?"

  Maggie said nothing.

  "But everyone I visit in my line of work has one thing in common. Do you know what that is?"

  "They all regret answering the door when you knock?"

  Hoss raised one thin gray eyebrow fractionally. "They all have so many questions for me. Truly, it's a little overwhelming. What are you doing here? Who do you work for? Do you know who killed my kid, my cousin, my partner? It's like I somehow bring out people's natural curiosity."

  Hoss’s act was starting to get old, now that Maggie saw through it. If she’d run into Agent Hoss at the grocery store wearing yoga pants in place of the ill-fitting suit, Maggie would have assumed she was just another suburban housewife picking up a few things for dinner.

  Which was probably the reason Hoss had risen through the ranks. At the rate the current administration was rolling back women's rights, the mere existence of a female government agent was surprising. It was no secret that most of those already in the job had been forced out.

  Which made it a smart move to keep a few around—especially harmless-looking ones. How better to gain the trust of unsuspecting citizens than by ensuring they would underestimate the agents who came to call?

  But this wasn't Safeway, and Hoss wasn't picking up a pound of ground beef. Maggie crossed her arms and glared. "So, did you kill all those people?”

  "Oh, dear." Hoss gave her a disappointed shake of the head. "You're not keeping up, Miss Harrington. That curiosity I mentioned—well, it's the reason people like you catch my boss's attention. I'm afraid he finds it even more annoying than I do." She tilted her head and spoke in a mocking falsetto impression of Maggie. "Who kidnapped my brother? I wonder what would happen if he and I hid out in the family cabin for a few weeks? Gosh, will people be mad if I refuse to sign the Declaration at my family's big press conference?" Hoss dropped the act. "And now you know the answer, Miss Harrington."