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The opium made me forget, for just a moment, what I had become in service to the Lee pack. I forgot that I was an omega, a whore, a witch. I forgot the stench of the alphas in their ruts. I forgot their hands, grabbing and moving my body this way and that. I forgot what it felt like to be impaled on their cocks, ripped open, and fucked into until I was bleeding and raw. I forgot that I was Red Ruby Lee and became simply Ruby.I sat back against the hay and closed my eyes. I was safe there in the loft above the stables. I was safe because the Peaky Blinders had welcomed me in their embrace. The Lees wouldn’t touch me as long as I was with Charlie. I wouldn’t let them touch me again.Charlie Strong was my father, and he owned the salvage yard where the stables sat. He hadn’t known I existed until that fateful night I escaped the Lee pack for the final time. I had shown up on his doorstep with a letter in my hand from my mother, explaining my orphanage. She had written it before she left for the war to be a nurse, just in case she didn’t return – and she didn’t. My three brothers didn’t, either. All dead, taken by the Great War.“Ruby!” Curly called.I raised myself on my elbows and opened my eyes to peer at him. Curly stood, big and tall, inside the doorway of the stables.“Ruby, Tommy’s coming,” Curly said. “Coming up the lane with Monaghan Boy.”The wood creaked beneath me as I stood and brushed off my trousers. Charlie didn’t like me wearing trousers, but I had told him already that it made no sense for me to work in the salvage yard and wear a dress. In response, he had tried to get me to apply for the barmaid position at The Garrison, to which I had aptly refused. I had no interest in being anything other than what I was: a gypsy.“Okay, Curly,” I sighed. “I’ll stable the horse, and you can get back to work, eh?”Curly nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, Ruby.” He turned back around and headed off toward the warehouse.I almost fell as I crawled down the ladder from the loft, but at the last second, I managed to release my hold from the slide of the ladder and jump down onto the floor. With a head full of opium, my limbs were heavy and loose. Every movement took more effort than the last. I opened up Monaghan Boy’s stall just as Tommy Shelby walked the horse through the entrance to the stables.Tommy Shelby was a gypsy beauty sitting on top of Monaghan Boy. The alpha reminded me of the tall, lean, muscled statue of Apollo I had once seen in a picture book as a child. He was a pale man with creamy skin and a light spray of freckles over his high-cut cheekbones. He had a strong, solid jaw that I knew had taken more than its share of punches. His nose sat center in his face, above his perfect set of feminine lips where a cigarette perched precariously. A dark brow and long lashes adored the alpha’s crystal-clear ocean eyes. His hair was shaved around his head, and his black quiff fell over the broad expanse of his forehead. He wore a flat cap that glinted with razor blades at the edges.Tommy slipped easily from the horse’s back, and I watched the way the alpha’s black pants hugged his hips and arse as they rid up his legs. The omega inside crawled to get out, to strip those pants from his body and take him right in the stables, and I pushed her down deep inside of me. I wasn’t Red Ruby anymore.Together, Tommy and I guided Monaghan Boy into his stall.“Have a nice ride, Mr. Shelby?” I asked, patting the horse’s neck.Tommy’s blue-green eyes regarded me over the smooth back of Monaghan Boy. “I’ve told you to call me Tommy.”“Why should I?”One of Tommy’s dark eyebrows ticked up. “Because it’s my name, and I’ve asked you to.”I nodded seriously. “Well, then, if Tommy says so, it must be done.”Tommy didn’t answer. He didn’t look amused, but there was some spark of mirth swirling in the depths of his ocean eyes. The witch in me could feel his good humor.Monaghan Boy raised his head, brushing his cheek and his leathery lips across my cheek. I laughed. “Did you miss me, boy?”Tommy picked up the brush that sat on a stool in the corner of the stall and petted the horse’s flank. “I rode him to Garisson court for powder.”A haunting dread pierced my heart like an arrow, and I snapped my gaze to Tommy’s face, studying him. There was a glint of misfortune behind his blue-green eyes and a finality to the press of his lips, and I knew that Tommy had begun something he could not take back. If he had taken Monaghan Boy to Garrison court for the powder trick, he intended to influence the bets in the horse’s favor. Tommy did everything for a reason, and if he influenced favor of Monaghan Boy, that meant Monaghan Boy was going to win the race on Saturday. He had fixed the race without Billy Kimber’s permission.“Taking on Kimber and his men, then?” I ran my hand over Monaghan Boy’s mane.“Testing the waters,” Tommy corrected.I nodded. “Just the first step of your plan, then.”We stayed with Monaghan Boy, lavishing him with pets and brushing out his long mane and tail. My eyes lingered on Tommy for far too long. He had abandoned his suit jacket over the stool that sat in the corner of the horse’s stall. He looked more relaxed, at home, like he belonged in the stables with the horses. His sleeves were cuffed short, and the sleeve garters he wore just above his elbows complimented the rigid muscle underneath. I wanted nothing more than to fall into Tommy’s arms, and I hated myself for it.I respected Tommy, and not just because we were distantly related or because Charlie respected the alpha. I respected him because I liked him. I had always liked him, and with how often he tolerated my company, I would have liked to think that he liked me, too.That’s what made my next words so difficult. I had no interest in sticking my nose in Tommy’s business, but I was afraid for him. I had seen the guns stacked in the armory. I had heard the rumors about the robbery from the Birmingham Small Arms Company.I took a deep breath. “Fifty semi-automatic rifles.”Tommy stopped brushing Monaghan Boy.“Two hundred pistols and shells,” I continued. “Twenty-five Lewis machine guns.”Tommy was as still as a statue. It was like the air around him was a vacuum that sucked all the breath from his lungs.“Ten thousand ammunition rounds,” I finished. I petted Monaghan Boy’s black mane. My fingers were numb with nervousness, and my heart pounded in my chest, but I continued. “Charlie said the boys went out for motorcycles. But they came back with guns.”When Tommy spoke, his voice was gruff with concealed restraint. “Enough, Ruby.”I wrung my hands together, twisting my fingers. “It was an accident,” I stated.It wasn’t a question, but I needed him to confirm it. Tommy Shelby did nothing without purpose, and stealing guns from the BSA was not something I imagined him contriving. I needed him to tell me that he hadn’t intentionally put Charlie in so much danger. I needed to know that his family was still his priority. I wasn’t sure what I would do if that wasn’t the case, but I couldn’t stand the thought of more danger for the people who had taken me in so kindly and with nothing in return.Tommy crossed the front of the horse to stand in front of me. He wasn’t the tallest man I knew – Charlie was taller – but I was small, and he loomed two heads taller than me and twice my width. This close, I could smell his alpha cologne beneath the whiskey and the cigarettes. He scented of the earth, like green pastures and clear blue skies as far as the eye could see. I wished he would touch me so that his scent lingered on my clothes. I wanted to smell like him for the rest of my life.“It was an accident,” Tommy said in his voice like silk.I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, and my hands dropped loosely to my sides.“You’ve been smoking it again,” Tommy said.It wasn’t a question. If I could smell Tommy, I was sure he could smell the honey of my scent and the sweet opium that stuck to my clothes. I couldn’t have hidden who I was from Tommy if I had wanted to. He was all-seeing, all-knowing. He was a god and I was a mere mortal beneath his feet.“It keeps the heat away,” I admitted.Tommy’s rough hand reached down toward my face and brushed a strand of long red hair from my forehead. His touch left a trail of sparks in his wake. “I can arrange for an alpha to attend to you.”I flinched away from Tommy as if he had burned me. “That’s not what I want.”Tommy closed the space between us and set his strong hands on either side of my face, lifting my chin so that I was looking into those startlingly clear eyes of his. “It wouldn’t be like it was before. It would be nothing you don’t want.”“I don’t want that, Tommy,” I said.“If it was someone I trust?”I watched Tommy’s eyes, considering. His face was unreadable, a mask of composure that he always held when he was conducting business.When I had come to Charlie Strong’s yard, I had decided that I would go through my heat alone. The nearer it came, the more scared I became. Unlike alphas’ ruts, heats were unbearably painful for an omega to endure alone. I wasn’t sure that the doctor’s prison tablets would be enough to curb the pain. I wanted the help, needed the release of spending my heat with a real alpha.No one had touched me since that night. And I had never known the kind touch of an alpha. Even if Tommy suggested an alpha I could trust, I wasn’t sure that I could go through with it.“Who?” I asked.“I’ve already talked to John,” Tommy confessed. “He offered to make you a nest in his apartment when the time comes.”My mouth parted in surprise. John Shelby? Tommy was offering me to spend my heat with his younger brother, John. I had met him once before when we danced at Esme’s wedding to Joseph. I hadn’t been able to forget his hot, fiery scent since that night under the stars.I shook my head. “I – I don’t think I can, Tommy.” My cheeks blushed stark apple red. “It’s not John, John is – John is fine, but I don’t think I can, not so soon after.”Tommy nodded as if he understood. “Think about my offer.”“Yes, Tommy,” I agreed. “I’ll think about it.”And I did. When I pleasured myself with my fingers that night, I imagined it was John Shelby’s hands on me.

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The Garrison pub wasn’t as busy in the afternoon. Men scattered across the tables, drinking their poison of choice. Sunlight filtered through the frosted windows, lightening the space into an airy, yellow-tinted paradise. Tommy stood at the bar with Freddie Thorne, and I found it unusual that he didn’t have a cigarette slouched between his lips.I sidled up to the end of the bar and raised my hand to get the bartender’s attention. Harry was wearing a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up above his elbows. He sported a grey vest that revealed a gold pocketwatch chain tucked beneath his white shin-length apron. Harry himself was a tall, lanky man with large ears and a prominent nose set beneath a square forehead. I liked Harry because he was the only bartender in Small Heath who would serve me even though I was a female omega.“Changed your mind about the barmaid position, Ruby?” Harry asked.“Here to get a bottle for Charlie,” I said.“Coming right up.” Harry turned back to the stock and returned a moment later with Charlie’s favorite brand of Irish whiskey.I passed the money over the counter and accepted the bottle in return. “Thank you, Harry. I’d stay to chat but Charlie said to hurry it over to the yard.”As Harry nodded, I turned away from the bar and made my way out of the pub.Someone big and tall slammed straight into my chest, and I stumbled backward into the glass window outside The Garrison, wincing as the force pushed all of the breath from my lungs. The whiskey bottle in my hand fell to the ground and shattered. I ducked a punch and reeled forward in retaliation, taking a hard swing at Danny Whizz-bang’s jaw. His head swiveled to the side, and blood splurted over his teeth and lips.Danny’s eyes were wild and blue, and I couldn’t see him in them past the mud and the blood of the war. “They’re gonna get me! They’re gonna get me!”Danny’s eyes locked onto mine. A heavy fist cracked against my temple, and the world shifted sideways for a moment. My vision distorted red at the edges, and I blocked the second hit and threw another. My fist crashed against Danny’s nose with a loud crack! but the man himself didn’t falter. Danny continued to throw punches, and I blocked as best I could, but the momentum of his swings knocked my arms so hard into my mouth that I might have chipped a tooth.Familiar hands yanked Danny away from me. Freed from the ceaseless onslaught of Danny’s fists, I hit him back, punching him again and again and again until another set of arms wrapped around me, ripping me away from Danny.“Calm down, gypsy, calm down and I’ll let you go,” Freddie Thorne said in my ear.I could barely hear over the roaring in my ears and Danny’s screams of “They’re gonna get me!” I couldn’t see past the red and the blur of the adrenaline in my veins.“Danny!” Tom called over his yelling. The silk in his voice was a rough growl, and for some reason that soothed me. Tommy would protect me.“Danny, you’re home. We’re all home in England. You’re not in France. You’re not an artillery shell, Danny. You’re a man, eh?”I didn’t know when I had stilled in Freddie’s arms, but he released me, and I took several steps forward to catch myself before I fell.Tommy had Danny on the ground with his arm pinched behind his back. He was speaking into his ear as Danny slowly returned. “You’re not a whizz-bang. You’re a human being, Danny. You’re all right.”In one swift movement, Tommy released Danny and brought him to his feet. “It’s all right.”Danny’s face was covered in blood from where I’d hit him. It ran down his nose, over his mouth and chin, which was scrunched with the fear in his face. He looked at Tommy, and then he looked me up and down and whispered, “I’ve done it again.”Taking a deep breath, I started forward. Danny took a step backward, but Tommy stopped him with a hand on his shoulders. I placed my hands on either side of Danny’s face, turning him to look at me so that I could see his injuries. “Sorry for hitting you, Danny boy.”Danny stared at me in shock. Then he laughed, and the laugh was hollow and without mirth. Just as quickly, his bloody lips pulled into a deep frown, and he took my hands from his face, clutching them tightly in his. “Oh hell, I’m sorry, so sorry, miss, I would never hit a woman.” He looked from me to Tommy. “I would never hit a woman, Mr. Shelby, I’m so sorry, hell.”There was a violence in Tommy’s eyes that I had never seen directed at one of his comrades. He buttoned it tightly inside, but the muscles in his arms tensed and released, revealing his hidden anger.I clenched Danny’s hands in my own. “It’s all right, Danny.”“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry –”“No harm done, Danny, it’s all right.” I smiled, but the stretching of my lips throbbed pain through my mouth, and I winced despite myself.Tommy clapped Danny on the shoulder, and he flinched. “You go home to your wife now, Danny. And get all that smoke and mud out of your head, eh?”Danny nodded. “Yes, Mr. Shelby. I’m sorry, Mr. Shelby.”Danny looked back at me as he left, and Freddie Thorne nodded to him. “Go on.”When Danny was gone, I nearly crumpled to my feet. Tommy’s arm rested around my back, tethering me to the universe. He said some words to Freddie Thorne over my head and then began walking me down Garrison Lane toward Charlie Strong’s Salvage Yard.Dizzy and numb from the adrenaline, I fumbled in my pocket for a cigarette. My hands were shaking so hard that I couldn’t light the cigarette, and Tommy took it from me, placing it between his lips and inhaling it as he sparked it with his lighter. He lit one of his own and then settled his arm back around my waist, pulling me possessively to his side. His hand dug into my hip, which must have been hit in the scuffle with Danny because it felt bruised.I inhaled sharply. “Mr. Shelby – Tommy,” I breathed. “You’re hurting me.”Tommy loosened his grip on my hip, but he didn’t let me go. He walked with me by his side like he owned me, and I hated that I liked that so much.“Tommy, are you mad at me?” I questioned.Tommy said nothing, and it wasn’t until we passed by the yard that I realized he wasn’t taking me back to Charlie’s.“Where are we going, Tommy?”“Home,” he told me.Tommy Shelby brought me back to Watery Lane and sat me down at the kitchen table. I watched as he retrieved a bowl of water and a white cloth and sat them down in front of me. Then he brought out two glasses and a bottle of Irish whiskey and poured us two drinks. I downed mine in one gulp before he even sat.“Tommy?” I prodded. He had been silent the entire walk home.Tommy’s jaw locked as he looked over my face. His usually clear eyes were dark with something I couldn’t recognize. He dipped the cloth in water and raised it to my eyebrow, and I tried not to back away from the sudden stinging pressure. When he cleansed the cloth back in the water, I was surprised to see the clear liquid color pink with blood. I tried to raise my fingers to the cut above my brow, but Tommy’s hand clasped onto my own, bringing it back to the table.“Don’t touch it,” Tommy commanded. “Let me clean it.”I hissed as Tommy wiped at the cut on my brow. I could tell that one of my eyes would be badly bruised because it ached and I could barely keep it open as Tommy swiped the cloth over my skin.“Next time you get into a fight, you need to run.”I met Tommy’s gaze directly. “Hell will freeze before I run from a fight, Tommy Shelby.”Tommy’s teeth grit together, and a muscle feathered along his jaw. “Do I have to remind you that you’re an omega, Ruby? Your body is frail. You’re not meant to be fighting.”“Who are you to tell me what I’m meant to be doing?” I demanded.“I promised I would keep you safe.” A frown pulled at Tommy’s firm lips. “I’ve already failed at that.”I laughed and reached out to take Tommy’s hand, still holding the bloody wet cloth. “Is it Birmingham if there’s no trouble?”A ghost of a smile twitched at the corners of Tommy’s lips. “I suppose not.”“Will Danny be all right?” I queried.Tommy pulled his cigarette case from his pocket and lit two cigarettes in his mouth. He passed one to me, and I breathed in his earthy cologne with the cigarette smoke. “I have something in mind, Ruby.”I nodded. If Tommy had a plan for Danny, I trusted it. He took care of his family, after all.“Ruby, I have some business with the Lees next week.” Tommy exhaled a puff of smoke. His eyes were imperious. “I would like you to come with me, as a show of strength.”My jaw tightened. I wanted nothing to do with the Lees, but if Tommy was requesting it of me, I couldn’t rightly refuse him after all he had done for me and Charlie. I imagined what it would feel like to walk into camp with a gypsy king by my side. Finally, I nodded. “Yes, Tommy.”“Have you given any thought to my offer?” Tommy discarded his cigarette in the crystal ashtray in the center of the table.A red blush bloomed up my throat to my cheeks. I ashed my cigarette and poured myself another glass of whiskey. “I have to decline your offer, Mr. Shelby.”“Tommy, Ruby, call me Tommy.” Tommy sipped his whiskey and leaned back in his chair, regarding me with eyes as clear as the ocean. “If it’s John who displeases you, I can ask Arthur, but he’ll not be as gentle.”I wanted to tell him that John suited me just fine, but the idea of having Arthur in my bed made my mouth water. I had only met the older Shelby alpha once, but he had clearly made an impression on me because the omega inside screamed yes.“Are all the Shelby brothers on the table?” I blurted. My words spilled from my mouth before I could catch them, and my face flushed red.Tommy’s eyes drew from my cut eyebrow down my tunic where I was sure he could make out the silhouette of my breasts. He rubbed a second cigarette against his lips, and oh, how I wanted those lips kissing a line up my neck.“Do you want me, Ruby?” Tommy lit the cigarette and dragged inward, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Tell me the truth.”I couldn’t lie to Tommy Shelby even if I tried to.“Yes,” I whispered hoarsely. I swallowed and tried again. “I want all the Shelby alphas in my bed, Mr. Shel – Tommy – but I – Even if that was decent, I couldn’t, I can’t. ” I swallowed again. “What I mean to say is that I’m determined to see through this heat by myself.”Tommy’s hand crossed the table, and he brushed his hand up and down my arm gently. Electricity thrummed through my veins.“You don’t need to be afraid.”My mouth felt suddenly dry, and I gulped at my whiskey like it would save me from drowning in Tommy Shelby’s eyes. He had offered me his older and his younger brother but had not said a word about taking me himself. More than disappointed, the omega inside curled in on herself, shying from the rejection of her alpha.Right as I opened my mouth – to say what, I wasn’t sure – the door to the apartment burst open and two men launched themselves inside, shoving each other.I recognized John Shelby by the scent of burning wood crackling in the home fire. He stepped through the doorway first, all broad shoulders and muscles. John had an oval-shaped face with a crooked nose, broken in two places, that stood out to attention. His lips were curved into a delightful smile, and tucked into the corner of his mouth was a toothpick that in that moment, I wanted to be. His blonde eyebrows raised when he saw me, and I realized his eyes were as green as the pasture and the trees beyond.The second man was Arthur Shelby. Arthur was the tallest Shelby alpha, with thin shoulders and even thinner hips. He wore a mustache on his upper lip, and his hair was blonde like gold and shone in the light. His eyes were blue like the clearest sky and the deepest water. There were wrinkles on his forehead, below his eyes, around his mouth, but they suited his rugged and wild essence. He exuded a smell like whiskey and metal and petrol, and I had to hold my breath for fear of starting my heat right then.Arthur let out a low whistle at the sight of me. “What’s a beautiful gypsy girl like you doing in our kitchen?”John grinned at me, and I noticed there was a boyish sparkle in his eyes when he smiled. “Heard there was a scuffle with Danny at The Garrison. Looks like you took the brunt of it, angel.”Tommy turned in his seat to look at his brothers. “Ruby, I think you’ve met my brothers, John and Arthur.”I poured myself a third glass of whiskey and started nursing it. I needed the alcohol to soothe my nerves. Already, the edges of my vision were starting the blur and my head felt foggy.Arthur plopped down in a seat beside Tommy and stole the bottle of whiskey from the table. He took a long swig and swallowed, then sighed with relief. I knew the feeling all too well.“If Danny wasn’t one of our own, I’d take his eyes for you, gypsy girl,” Arthur said roughly. His blue eyes roamed the deep cut on my brow, my swollen eye, and my busted lip.I shrugged. “I’m accustomed to a little pain.”Tommy frowned, but Arthur laughed. “‘Course y’are, gypsy girl. Call me Arthur now.”“Arthur,” I agreed.John retrieved two whiskey glasses from the kitchen and sat next to me, opposite Tommy. He moved his chair as he sat so that when he did, our knees brushed together. When he smiled at me, my heart fluttered. I remembered that Tommy had spoken to him about my upcoming heat, and a wicked flush crawled up my face.The apartment door opened, and an older alpha female walked through the living room into the kitchen with a smaller beta by her side. The first woman was old enough to be Tommy’s mother, but I knew she was his aunt. She was small, but she held herself with such a straight posture that she appeared larger than life itself. She had hollow cheekbones and the darkest brown eyes I had ever seen. Her companion was Ada Shelby, a tall and slender woman with short brown waves that decorated her face to her chin.Polly Gray’s piercing brown eyes speared me to my seat. “Who is this, then?”“Aunt Polly, this is Ruby Lee,” John introduced.Polly crossed the room and held out her hand for me to take. I accepted, shaking it firmly. “Polly Gray, and please, first names only in this household.”“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Polly,” I said, and I offered her a genuine smile.“Ada,” said the beta. “I’m the sorry sister of this lot. I’ll apologize in advance if they’ve done anything to offend you – Oh, are you all right?”Ada had seemed to notice the injuries on my face and the washcloth still held in Tommy’s free hand. She came forward so close that I could smell her perfume, and she grasped my head gently and tilted it to better see my face.“Tommy’s cleaned it up nicely,” Ada noted. “It doesn’t need stitches, and I doubt it’ll even leave a scar. I trained as a nurse, so if you have any trouble, you can come to me. I live next door.”“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” I said with a smile. “I’ve had plenty of scrapes and bruises over the years.”Polly snorted. “Now you’ve caught the attention of my nephews, I doubt not another scrape will go by without someone trying to coddle you.”“Damned right.” John knocked back a drink, but his bright green eyes lingered on my face. “You’re a Peaky girl now, Ruby.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When I awoke at dawn and walked downstairs for breakfast, I found Charlie sitting at the kitchen table with a letter at its center, addressed to me in messy, lopsided handwriting.“What’s that?”“Dunno, Ru.” Charlie picked up his teacup and sipped at it loudly. “Peaky boy dropped it off as soon as the sun rose.”I collected the letter and headed out the back door toward the Cut. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, I brought the letter to my nose and sniffed it. Arthur Shelby’s cologne of whiskey, gasoline, and exhaust fumes filled my nose. I ripped open the letter.“Dearest Ruby,” I read to myself. “Have you ever been to the cinema? I’ll take you. Please come by Watery Lane at 6 p.m. P.S. Polly says to wear a nice dress.”Arthur Shelby’s handwriting was atrocious and his lettering was off, but he had written me a letter nonetheless, and I pressed it over my heart as if I could absorb the meaning hidden inside. Arthur Shelby had just asked me on a proper date. A blush graced my cheeks, and I swallowed down my feelings. I had a whole day in front of me before my excursion with Arthur Shelby to the cinema.When 5 o’clock came, I stuffed myself into the bath with my opium pipe. I smoked to forget my nerves, but anticipation ran in my veins like a second high. I dried my hair and combed it out until it was silky and smooth, falling over my shoulders and breasts to my hips. I dressed in one of my only dresses – the dress I had worn to Esme and Joseph’s wedding – and twirled in front of the mirror set up on my vanity.I was a small wisp of a creature with broad hips and an average bust. The dress was slightly too small, and it hugged my figure a little too well so that my hipbones jutted out from the fabric and my breasts stood out against my chest. It was low cut enough to reveal my collarbones, and the sleeves were short enough to show off the expanse of my muscled arms. The girl in the mirror had waist-length red hair and dichroic green eyes with brown in the center. My skin was tan from working outside, and freckles sprayed across my body. My bottom lip was slightly swollen from Danny’s punch, and the slice across my brow stood out against my skin, but the swelling in my eye had surprisingly receded. I didn’t enjoy makeup, so I didn’t bother covering the injuries. I preferred a clean face. I did, however, spurt myself with a little of my reserve perfume to cover the natural honey scent that was exuding from me in nervous waves.By 5:45 p.m., I stood knocking at the front door of Watery Lane. The door opened, revealing a grinning Arthur Shelby. He looked delectable in his multi-piece suit and his flat cap, and I wanted to kiss him right on the doorstep, but I could see Tommy and John sitting on the couch just beyond the door.Arthur’s bright blue eyes looked me up and down, and I shivered, feeling bare and vulnerable underneath his wild eyes. The grin on his face stretched across his cheeks. “You look stunning, gypsy girl.”“Cleans up nice, doesn’t she?” John called from behind the door.Arthur shot his brother a look.“Don’t leave her standing on the doorstep, Arthur,” Tommy chided softly.“Right you are, brother,” Arthur said in his deep voice. He took his coat from the hanger near the door and stepped outside with me.“How was your day, Arthur?” I asked as we began walking up Watery Lane.Arthur blinked at me as if he didn’t know what to say. “My day? It was –” He cleared his throat and started again. “It’s just business.”I nodded in understanding. “Mine too. Been working in the yard all day in the sun.”“Why do you work at the yard?”“Charlie and I made an agreement when he took me in,” I explained. “I could stay as long as I work. So I work.”Arthur was looking at me curiously, and I stared back into his eyes like I was staring at the whole sky. “No, gypsy girl, I mean why at the yard, eh? Looking as pretty as all that, you could work any damned place you please.”I considered his question. Decidedly, I said, “I like it in the yard with the boys. They don’t treat me any differently for being an omega.”“That’s a problem for you, then, eh? Being an omega?”When I’d first moved to Birmingham, it had seemed like the whole of the city knew the rumors about Red Ruby Lee. They had thought me a witch and a whore, and they hadn’t been entirely wrong. Tommy, of course, knew the truth of my history with the Lee pack, but I doubted he would have told even his brothers about my past. I wondered how much Tommy had told Arthur about my struggles with my heat and if he had talked to his older brother on my behalf like he had talked to John.“The only problem about being an omega is being an omega in heat.”Arthur was quiet for a long time after that. He was rumored to be a madman, a raving drunk spewing fire with no regard for those around him. Instead, I found him curious and intelligent.“Arthur?”“What is it, gypsy girl?” Arthur’s arm snuck around my waist, and his large hand pawed at my hip. I didn’t mind.“Why did you ask me on a date?”Color rose to Arthur’s stubbly cheeks. “Tommy told me, didn’t he, about your problem. I wanted to speak to you first, get to know you.”I fished my cigarette case and my box of matches from my bag, and we stopped on GT Barr Street so I could light up. “Would you like a cigarette, Arthur?”Arthur shook his head. “Don’t smoke the stuff. You shouldn’t either, eh?”Shrugging, I took a drag and deposited my case back into my purse. “It clears my head.”We picked up our pace down the street. Arthur clutched me closer as a car drove by, and I was suddenly so near to him that I could smell the whiskey and the metal of his cologne.“I don’t mean to disappoint you, Arthur, but I don’t intend on having an alpha for my heat.”Arthur didn’t seem offended, but he scrunched up his nose in bitter distaste. “Don’t like thinking about you going through that alone, gypsy girl. Can’t say I’d be gentle with you, but I’d make you feel good.”“I’ve been through worse.”We picked up our pace down the street and reached the cinema in no time at all. There was a line out the door, but the door concierge nodded to Arthur and let us in without a word. Heads turned to Arthur as we passed, and I pressed into his side, unsure of the attention.In a moment, we were in the movie theater. White static played on the screen from the projector set up high in the back window. The theatre was empty except for us, and Arthur took me by the waist and led me straight to the center of the rows of seats.Arthur’s heavy arm settled over my shoulder, and I leaned into his whiskey-and-gasoline-scented touch. I was so close to him that if I had dared, I could have lifted my nose to the scent glands below his ear and brushed it with my nose, marking him.“I’m excited,” I announced, sitting up a little in my seat. “I’ve never been to the pictures before.”When Arthur spoke, his whiskey breath brushed against my ear, and gooseflesh raised across the backs of my arms. “You’ll like this, then.”Without warning, a man clad in an officer’s uniform snatched Arthur from the pits of his arms and dragged him up and out of the seat.“What – Get off me!” Arthur shouted. “Get off me!”I jumped from my seat. There were three officers in total, two who had Arthur by the arms and were dragging him through the row of seats behind me. The third officer advanced on me. Stepping forward, I balled my hand into a fist and cracked it against the side of his face. Pain burst through my hand, but I hardly felt it for the punch that came at my stomach.“Don’t touch her!” Arthur yelled as the two officers dragged him back up through the cinema. He wrenched around in their grasp, blue eyes wild as he stared back at me.The third officer swung again and caught me in the ribs, and I coughed, crumpling to my feet. My hand ticked toward my boot where I always kept a knife, but I resisted the urge to slice at the man’s legs. It wouldn’t do me any good to get myself arrested before I told the Blinders what had happened to Arthur.The officer aimed a kick at my ribs. He kicked me one last time before leaving me curled up on my side between the cinema seats. I waited for the sound of the door closing shut before I shoved myself to my feet and started running.I ran and ran and ran. My legs pumped until I was wheezing for breath, and the wind blasted past me like torrential rain. My boots beat against the mud, splashing it up onto my dress as I ran. I ran as fast as I could as if it was my life that depended upon it – I wondered if Arthur’s did. I ran all the way down GT Barr Street and swiveled around the corner down Watery Lane until finally, finally, I made it to the apartments behind Shelby Company Limited.I burst through the front door so fast that the men in the room pulled guns at my head. I scanned through their faces, skimming past Polly and John and his little brother Finn until my eyes landed on Tommy’s surprised ocean eyes.“They took Arthur,” I gasped. “Coppers came to the cinema and took Arthur.”Tommy holstered his pistol and walked toward me, leaning over me to close the door behind me. “Poll, tea. Ruby, sit down,” he said, indicating the space on the couch he had just risen from.Polly left the room, and I sat. My breath came out in heavy gasps, and I held my hand over my heart, trying to calm my nerves.“Jesus, Ruby, are you hurt?” John asked. He knelt in front of me, taking my face and looking over both of my cheeks. His green eyes reminded me of the fields and open air of a gypsy camp, and it calmed me.“Nothing I can’t handle,” I replied, brushing away his hands. I looked to Tommy, who was deadly calm behind John’s shoulder. His own blue-green orbs rushed over my body. “Tommy, I’m sorry, I tried to stop them but –”“You did what?” John exclaimed with a solid, singular laugh.“ – They just took him,” I breathed. “They just took him right from my arms.”Tommy’s deep, even voice quieted me. “I know you’re shocked, Ruby, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”John’s strong hands found mine, and I held onto him, trying to calm my breathing as I explained. I told him everything I knew, everything that I could remember until the tension in Tommy’s shoulders softened and he nodded.Polly returned with a cup of tea and pressed it into my hands. “Drink this, Ruby. It will help with the nerves.”John sat on the couch next to me, so close that our thighs touched. He slung his arm around the back of the couch and loosely around my shoulders. With John’s familiar warm scent cloaking my body, I managed to stop trembling. I cursed myself for being so weak, being so useless when Arthur Shelby was in danger.“Tommy, what’s going on?” John asked, and his voice rumbled against the side of my body.“Chester fucking Campbell,” he answered with a sigh. He was quiet for a moment while he poured a glass of whiskey for himself and settled in the highback chair in the corner. “I was waiting for him to make the first move. He’s shown his cards now.”“How can you be so bloody calm?” I demanded. I clutched the teacup so tight in my grip that my knuckles were white and I thought the cup might crack. I despised Tommy Shelby and his cool composure at that moment. “Arthur’s in a bloody cell, likely being beaten half to death, and you’re just sitting there with your whiskey like it’s nothing!”“Drink your tea, Ruby,” John said to me softly. He put his hand over mine and helped me raise the cup to my lips, and I drank, only because he had asked me to so nicely.Tommy sipped his whiskey. He lit a cigarette from the case he kept in his pocket and inhaled a long drag. I could smell the smoke in the air before he spoke. “Ruby,” he said slowly, “They won’t kill him.”I exhaled a long breath. “You’re sure?”“Yes.”“Why not, Tom?” John questioned.“Because Inspector Campbell is playing a game he doesn’t know the rules to,” Tommy answered. One corner of his lips twitched upward in a smirk that raised the little hairs on the back of my neck. “And he’s got the wrong man.”We waited in pregnant silence for Arthur to come home. When a black car swerved down Watery Lane with the bright lights on, I was the first out the door. A uniformed officer threw Arthur from the car, and I caught his fall, coming to my knees as I held him in my arms.John and Tommy were there, picking up their older brother and dragging him, stumbling, through the threshold. While the alphas settled Arthur on the couch, I rushed around the kitchen for a bowl of water, some clothes, bandages, and whiskey.“Ruby!” Arthur howled. His voice sounded pained, and there was a rough growl in his tone. “Ruby, I saw him hit her, where’s Ruby?”Polly took the supplies from my hands and set them on a little table next to the couch. “Go to him,” she murmured. “He needs a gypsy’s touch.”I sat on the floor in front of the couch between Arthur’s legs and leaned over him. He lifted his head to look at me, and I gasped. His cheeks were bruised purple, and there was a gash across his forehead where someone had struck him with a ring on. Blood streamed down between his eyes, in his eyes, over his broken nose. It dribbled down from his bottom lip like smears of red paint. His shirt was covered in blood.Arthur’s hands were rough as he explored my shoulders and my neck. He used one hand to brush my hair over my shoulder so that he could see my unbruised skin. When his eyes rose to meet Tommy’s over my shoulder, they were steely blue like ice. “He laid a hand on our woman, Tommy,” Arthur said, and his voice was dangerously low. “He laid a hand on our gypsy girl. I’ll kill ‘im with my bare hands.”Arthur tried to rise, and I pushed him back down with gentle hands.“I’ll kill ‘im, Tommy!” His wild eyes found mine again. “You understand, don’t you, Ruby? All three of ‘em gotta die for touching what’s ours.”I petted Arthur’s cheek, mindless of the blood that stuck to my skin. “Hush, now, Arthur, let me clean you up.”Arthur shook his head. “You understand, eh, Ruby? Anyone who lays a finger on you is a dead man.”A shiver of excitement ran up my spine, and with it, a twin comfort. I had been right to trust the Peaky Blinders.With careful hands, I cleaned up Arthur’s face and stitched up the cut across his forehead. As I worked, Tommy interrogated Arthur as to what was said during his arrest and subsequent beating.“We’ll go to The Garrison tonight,” Tommy concluded.“Tonight?” Polly snapped incredulously. “You have to go tonight?”“Tonight, Polly.”I snipped the wire tale of the stitching I’d added to Arthur’s brow and turned my head to look at Polly. “It needs to be tonight. A show of strength.”John patted me on the top of my head. “That’s our girl.”When had I become John Shelby’s girl? I hadn’t even agreed to sleep with the Shelby alphas, but all three of them hovered around me like guard dogs as if I were their kin.“Get Arthur up to the bath, then,” Polly said. She looked at me pointedly.When I guided Arthur up the stairs, he graciously leaned more against the wall than he did on my shoulders.Arthur winced when he tried to remove his vest, so I stepped around him and slipped it off of his shoulders. He stood obediently in front of me, his hands flexing and shaking while I unbuttoned his shirt with tentative hands. In the presence of his sharp whiskey cologne mixed with adrenaline and pheromones, I was dizzy and nearly panting for air.Arthur’s calloused hands caught mine as I worked at one of his buttons. I raised my eyes to meet his and found in them the creek I’d played in one summer as a child. His eyes were cool and comforting, but deep inside was a roiling chaos that I felt might burn me if I reached too far inside.“Why are you afraid of your heat, Ruby?”“Curious, are you, Arthur?” I whispered with a sad smile.Arthur’s breath brushed across my mouth. His eyes pleaded with me. “I’m not like my brothers. I know women don’t pick me.”“What is it, then?” I asked softly. I couldn’t manage to tell him that I wanted it to be him.Arthur’s hands wrapped around mine. He stroked a circle in the back of one of my palms. “They say a heat alone is worse than giving birth. I watched my mother give birth, listened to her screams through the night. Don’t want you to suffer like that when you don’t have to, gypsy girl.”“You don’t understand.”“Then you can tell me, eh? Explain it all to me. I’ll listen. I’m good at listenin’, even if I don’t understand.”I squeezed Arthur’s hands and let them go, working again at the buttons on his shirt. My hands shook now, and I tried to focus on the buttons instead of how my limbs trembled. “I know you’ve heard the rumors that I was a whore for the Lees,” I started slowly. Arthur didn’t nod or make a sound as I unbuttoned his shirt. “They call me Red Ruby.”“Red Ruby,” Arthur muttered, and I flinched away from the title as if he had just hit me. Arthur went quiet.“They call me Red Ruby because I bleed so pretty when I’m raped,” I spat.Arthur’s hands curled into fists, and the muscles of his shoulders tightened. A vein feathered along his jaw.“I wasn’t a whore, Arthur, I was a plaything for alphas in their ruts.”Arthur’s shirt hung open, unbuttoned. I watched the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. His chest was layered with lean muscle, although he was so skinny I could almost see his ribs as his chest heaved with the effort of breathing. A spatter of white blonde hair glistened down his abdomen and picked up again just below his naval. There was a cross tattoo over his heart, and the expanse of his stomach was littered with reddening bruises.I slipped Arthur’s shirt from his body. “During my heats, I perfumed so much that the whole caravan could smell me. Alphas would come to me, use me, and leave me.”Arthur’s hands grasped suddenly at my hips, and he brought me toward his body. He was inches taller than Tommy, and he towered over me. He smelled like a hot forge, and I could barely breathe so close to him. My perfume bloomed around us, hot and suffocating like a bath of honey.“Meant what I said in the parlor.” Arthur used one hand to tip my chin up until I was looking into his melted-ice eyes. “I’ll kill any man who touches you without your permission. You understand, don’t you, gypsy girl?”“Yes, Arthur,” I murmured appeasingly. “I understand.”Arthur nodded his head once. He released my chin but held me close to him, so close that our hips almost met. “Anyone touches a hair on your head, you come to me or Tommy.”“I know, Arthur.”“Gypsy girl, take this from someone who knows what it feels like to be alone and in pain. You’ll want someone near you when your heat starts.”I jutted out my chin and set my shoulders straight. “I can do this by myself.”“Never said you couldn’t,” Arthur said, and he drew back a strand of hair from my face. “Charlie has a phone, eh? It gets bad, you call over to Watery and ask for one of us alphas. We’ll take care of you.”“Yes, Charlie has a phone.”“Promise me, Ruby girl,” Arthur insisted.I sighed, and a blush crept up my cheeks. “All right, Arthur, I’ll call Watery if I need help during my heat.”“Promise me,” Arthur demanded. “I need to hear you say it.”“I promise.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The Garrison pub was packed at night. Tommy Shelby stood to my right, his arm slung over my waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The fire on my skin said otherwise. The omega inside was content to be held by her alpha. Arthur Shelby stood to my left, his lean muscled arms brushing against my shoulder. John lingered beside Arthur, looking around the busy pub with a proud glint in his bright green eyes. The pub stared as Tommy led me into the snug.I slid into the angular booth inside the snug while Tommy opened up the little window that revealed the back of the bar. Arthur slid in next to me, and John encased my other side. The boys set their flat caps on the table in front of us. It seemed it was the youngest brother’s turn to hold me because John Shelby tucked me into his arms like I belonged there. His hand lingered on my hip a little lower than necessary, his pinky brushing against the top of my thigh, and heat coiled tight in my stomach. All I breathed was John’s wash of burnt firewood cologne.“I need a bottle of rum,” Tommy told Harry through the little window to the side of the snug.“Trying to get drunk tonight, Tom?” John called.“White or dark?” Harry replied. His brown eyes lingered on me settled in John’s arms, and he raised a curious eyebrow. I shrugged back at him. I would take my comfort where I could find it, even if it was within John Shelby’s arms – especially if it was within John Shelby’s arms.“Don’t care,” Tommy said. His eyes were on me, analyzing John’s arm around my waist. He didn’t seem to mind – In fact, he almost smiled.“Trying to get our gypsy girl drunk, maybe.” Arthur nudged me, grinning.I smiled back and shrugged my shoulders again. There was a dull ache in my side where the officer had hit me, but I sucked in my cheek and bit back the pain. Alcohol was exactly what I needed after a night like tonight.“I’m not opposed to getting drunk,” I announced. “I think I’d rather like that, actually.”Tommy came back to the table with a bottle of dark rum and four glasses. Arthur took the bottle and poured a generous portion into my cup before sliding it across the table toward me. “Drink up, gypsy girl.”I tossed back the contents, letting the smooth dark rum roll across my tongue as I drank it. I returned my cup to the table and reached for the bottle from Arthur, who had just finished filling the alphas’ glasses.John laughed. “You can drink, can’t you?”I raised a red brow. “I’m a gypsy, John.”“A game, then?” John suggested, raising a mirrored blonde eyebrow. He turned the toothpick at the corner of his mouth, and I watched his tongue slide over his lower lip. “Fill the cups to the brim, Arthur. We’ll see who can drink the most first.”I tilted my head. “And what do I get if I win?”John leaned forward until his pink lips touched the shell of my ear, and I shivered. His voice was rough and husky in my ear. “To be determined.”Whatever the prize was, I wanted it. I would take anything John Shelby deemed to offer me.“Let’s shake on it,” I said, and we did.Arthur obligingly filled our glasses to the brim and shoved them in front of us, sloshing the rum a little as he moved the cups across the table toward us. “Drink in three, two –”John picked up his glass, and I pressed my own to my lips so that when Arthur said “one,” we were both knocking back the glasses of rum at the same moment. I drank the rum as fast as I had drank any alcohol in my life. I tipped the glass a little too far, and the rum ran down my chin and my throat, collecting in the hollow of flesh between my collarbones. I laughed and pulled the glass from my mouth, setting it on the table half-finished. There was a clink as John placed his empty glass on the table with a triumphant grin.Seeing the mess that had dripped down my throat, John Shelby drew his finger across the hollow of my neck where the rum had pooled. He brought the finger to his lips and pressed it into the warm cave of his mouth, sucking the sweet liquor off of his skin. I brushed my legs together beneath the table and felt the slick pool between my thighs just as my amber perfume clouded the room. John grinned knowingly at me, and I reddened.“Cigarette, Ruby?” Tommy had stationed himself on the wooden chair closest to the snug window, one leg crossed over the other. He leaned back in his chair, watching me like he couldn’t tear his eyes away. His cigarette case was already in his hand.“Please, Tommy.”Arthur passed over the cigarettes and a lighter. My head was fuzzy, and my vision was already tinted at the edges with a drunk haze. My fingers felt numb as I pressed a cigarette between my lips. Arthur’s rough hands drew against mine as he took the lighter from my hands and lit the cigarette while I inhaled.“Thank you, Arthur.”“Least you can have is a cigarette after that horse shit at the cinema,” Arthur grumbled. His blue eyes sparked with a sudden thought. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”I was drunk. I had been drinking slowly all evening until John’s drinking game, and now it rushed through me like a current, sweeping me away from my instinct to lock everything inside. Just like the opium, the rum set me free.“My brothers taught me,” I confessed. “William, George, and Charles set up a boxing ring in the caravan. They hosted the fights, and I did the books. I was always good with the numbers.”“Good with the numbers, eh?” Arthur shot a knowing look at Tommy, who ignored him.John pressed me close to his side. “Where are your brothers now, angel?” He said it softly as if he knew the answer.I took a deep inhale of my cigarette and let it swirl above me in a cloud. “They died in the war with my mother.”Arthur sat up straighter. He ran a hand over his slicked-back blonde quiff. “In the bleak midwinter.”“In the bleak midwinter,” Tommy and John echoed.I recognized the phrase from Christina Rosetti’s poem, and the words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them. “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago.”There was a reigning silence for a time in which we drank to my brothers’ honor. Then Arthur started up with a story, and I laughed as John pulled me onto his lap, wrapping me up in strong, safe arms. I chain-smoked several cigarettes until I was dizzy and giggling in John’s lap. I held his arms tighter around me, hoping he would keep me from falling over, and he did.When we finished the bottle, Tommy attempted to order a bucket of beer for the rest of the night. Arthur stood next to him at the snug window, arguing about getting a bottle of rum instead. Lightheaded from the laughter, I rested back in John’s arm, lazing my head against his shoulder.John ducked his head to my throat, and he pressed a simple kiss to my neck just below my scent glands where I was sure he could taste my honey arousal. “You owe me a prize, angel.”“What would you have of me, John?” I whispered back.“A dance.”I wiggled against his lap, all too aware of the growing bulge that had risen against my arse sometime after I occupied John’s lap. “I love dancing!”“I know. I saw you dance at Esme Lee’s wedding,” John reminded me.I slid myself off of John’s lap and pulled him out of the booth just as Arthur and Tommy left the window with a bucket of beer and several glass mugs. Tommy moved the chair aside to make room for me and John and then slipped into the booth in the snug with Arthur.I danced like a gypsy whore, and I didn’t care. A tune played between my ears, and I rocked my body against John’s, reveling in the heat of him, the muscle on him, the way his strong arms flexed as he clasped onto my hips. His hands dipped lower and lower until they grasped full handfuls of my arse, and my lips parted in surprise. My eyes fluttered to meet John’s, and he stared back at me with pupils blown out with lust. He smelled like a bonfire, like fresh meat roasting over the fire and charred wood crumbling to dust in his flames.We danced until I was breathless and dizzy and my bruised sides squeezed at my stomach painfully. I thought I might fall, but John caught me as I stumbled out of a spin, and I threw my weight into his arms, laughing. “I’m on top of the world,” I exhaled breathlessly.John’s hands tucked my long red hair behind my small ears. “Yes, you are, angel,” he agreed raspily. “At the top of the fucking world.”John sat back in the wooden chair beside the booth and tugged me onto his lap with a lazy arm around my waist. He pulled a toothpick from his suit pocket and placed it between his lips. Where the previous toothpick had gone, I didn’t know.I fumbled on the table for my discarded cigarette case. I managed to place a cigarette between my lips, but I had to hold it there to keep it in place. Tommy struck a match, and John held me on his lap as I stretched far over the table to reach the flame. My sides and abdomen ached from the copper’s blows and the laughing and the dancing and the drinking. The cigarette smoke was like ambrosia in my lungs, the sweetest fumes I had ever breathed in other than the Shelby brothers themselves.Tommy stood to grab his overcoat. “I have business at the yard.”Arthur groaned. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Tom, let us have a little more fun.”Tommy ignored Arthur and turned his striking ocean eyes on me. “Ruby, say goodbye to John and Arthur. I’ll take you home.”I stood from John’s lap and then leaned over him to press a chaste kiss to John’s cheek. John’s skin was like fire, and I was the poker that stoked it. Little smoky bonfires lit up on my lips, and I pressed them closed to keep myself from kissing him again. “Goodnight, John.”I moved to Arthur and kissed his forehead. He smelled mostly like whiskey now, but not even that could override the scent of metal and petrol on his skin. This time I didn’t stop myself. I kissed his forehead again for good measure.The disappointed wrinkle of Arthur’s blonde brow smoothed into a light smile. “Sleep tight, gypsy girl.”Tommy set his wide hand on the small of my back, stabilizing me as I stumbled out the entrance of The Garrison. He had been in good humor during our miniature celebration, or “show of strength” as I had noted before. However, the longer we walked, the more Tommy seemed to lose himself in the depths of his mind.A chill breeze swept down Garrison Lane, and I wrapped my arms around myself. I had been warm in the pub, but the cool night air raised goosebumps across my sensitive skin. Now it was dark and brisque out, and although I thanked the cool temperature for sobering me slightly, it still made me shiver.Wordlessly, Tommy slipped out of his overcoat and rested it around my shoulders. Tommy’s arm lingered around my back as he led me down the street. A heavy silence permeated the space between us, but it was a soft, considerate silence. I appreciated the break from the buzz of activity at The Garrison. As much as The Garrison made me feel alive, it also made me forget myself. I wondered if, briefly, Tommy Shelby had forgotten himself as well, and was now finding himself again.“Danny killed a man today.”I nearly paused in my step. Instead, I dug my hand into Tommy’s coat pocket for his cigarettes and lighter.“A man with very significant connections.”Numb, my fingers worked to pry apart the cigarette case and withdraw two cigarettes. I stuck them both in my mouth and used Tommy’s lighter to set fire to the tips. I inhaled both cigarettes, taking in double the smoke in my lungs, and passed one on to Tommy. His fingers brushed purposefully against mine as his hand retreated with the cigarette.“Italian connections.”My body went rigid, and I stopped walking. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the rest, but if Tommy needed to talk about business, the least I could do was lend him an ear.Tommy turned to face me. “I should’ve done something sooner, Ruby.”“Tom –”Tommy’s exhaled cigarette smoke drifted past my face. “I knew he was shellshocked. It was my job to do something about it.”My hand brushed Tommy’s cheek. He blinked at me, his ocean eyes fixated on my face like I was a gypsy queen and my next words were law. “Do something about it now, Tommy.”Tommy blinked at me as if he was seeing something for the first time. He took a breath of cigarette smoke. “The Italians demanded Danny’s death,” Tommy worked out slowly.“So you give the Italians what they want,” I agreed. “And you give Danny –”“Freedom.” Tommy smiled at me for the first time.It was like looking into the sun. Like Icarus, I had flown too close. I was being consumed. And I found that I didn’t at all dislike it.We continued walking, and I looped my arm with Tommy’s, smiling softly to myself. I had helped him, in some small way.“You’re always certain about the right play, Tommy,” I commented. “What makes today different?”“Today, Ruby, I bury my secret.”My secret, he said. He meant the guns that he had stolen from the Birmingham Small Arms Company.“You’re burying them?”“Until I’m holding all the cards.” He was sure of himself then, like the Thomas Shelby I knew. A flash of light like machine gun fire sparkled inside the ocean of his eyes.My eyes caught against an officer’s uniform across the street.*The third officer swung again and caught me in the ribs, and I coughed, crumpling to my feet. He aimed a kick at my ribs, and then a second.*Pain dawned like the sun across my torso, and I removed my arm from Tommy’s to wrap it around my center. I was aching and sore from the night, and I couldn’t wait to be at home beneath my sheets with a pipe full of opium. I wondered if Tommy would have joined me in bed if I asked him, but the omega inside remembered his rejection from the night before.“The BSA was transporting the guns to the Italians in Libya,” Tommy told me. “Winston Churchill himself sent Inspector Campbell all the way from the Royal Irish Constabulary to Small Heath, Birmingham. It’s Campbell who’s investigating the BSA robbery, and him who recruited the Protestant Irishmen as special constables.”“That’s why they’re fucking everywhere?” I spat.“That’s why they’re fucking everywhere,” Tommy agreed, nodding. His eyes roamed my face as if looking for something in my expression. “Tomorrow, I will kill the officer that laid hands on you, Ruby.”I imagined stabbing the knife from my boot straight through the third copper’s throat. I relished the thought of his blood gushing over my hands. I wasn’t scared of Tommy Shelby’s violence, not the way any proper girl should have been. Then again, I wasn’t a proper girl. I was a gypsy, and so was Tommy, and gypsies took their revenge in the most savage ways possible.Just like you did to Matthew, the omega inside reminded me. Matthew’s brown eyes loomed in my vision as clearly as I had seen them that night when I watched the light die as he passed from this world to the next. I had enjoyed it then, even if his dark eyes still haunted my nightmares.“I want to kill him,” I agreed, “but why do you?”Tommy’s hand snagged my hip, and he pulled me into the side of his body, looking down at me with something unseen behind his blue-green eyes. “He harmed you,” he said as if it was the simplest truth on the entire earth. His eyes sought understanding in my own but met with only confusion.I yanked myself from Tommy’s grasp and stepped in front of his path just as we stopped in front of Charlie’s salvage yard. “But why does that matter to you, Thomas?”Tommy looked at me for a long moment. “I promised I would protect you. From the Lees, from anyone. I promised you that I would keep you safe, and I will.”I wanted that to be enough, but the omega inside clawed to get out, to be free, to ask him the question I wanted to ask him the most. Did Tommy Shelby care about me in any way other than as his ward?Did I want him to? I asked myself.Did I care about him?Before I could fathom a response, Tommy took the small of my back and guided me into the salvage yard. I let him lead me around the back of the yard, where Curly was hauling the boxes of guns onto The January barge by the light of a lantern.I rushed out of Tommy’s grip to the stack of wooden boxes sitting beside the Cut. “Let me help you, Curly.”I tried to lift one of the boxes. It wasn’t too heavy, but my muscles spasmed with pain from the beating I had taken earlier in the day, and I would have dropped the crate if Curly hadn’t taken it from my hands.“No, no, Ruby. You’re drunk.” Curly said the words like I didn’t know it myself, and he sniffed me for good measure.“Get her to bed, Tom,” Charlie called over my head. “We’ve business.”I glared at him and stuck out my tongue. “I’m not a child, and Tommy’s already told me all about your business.”Charlie shot Tommy a harsh look over my shoulder. I didn’t see the look on Tommy’s face, but Charlie saw it. He shook his balding head from side to side and sighed.When Tommy’s hand wrapped around my waist, I melted into his touch and followed him into the apartment. The apartment smelled like Charlie’s nutty almond cologne mixed with my thick honey perfume. Tommy’s nose twitched, and I didn’t have to bring him to my room as he scented the air and led me instead.My face was red when we reached my bedroom and I opened the door. A hot wave of my familiar honey scent blasted outward, and Tommy tensed almost imperceptibly as he inhaled my perfume. I stepped inside the bedroom, and Tommy stepped in behind me and closed the door with a click behind him.My bedroom was small and simple. The walls were papered but yellowed from age and smoke and sunlight. My two-poster bed sat on the far wall against the shaded window, sheathed with a simple white blanket. The nightstand where I kept my opium sat next to it, and a tea table was pressed into the corner at the end of the footboard. In the center of the right wall, beside the doorway to the adjacent bathroom, sat my vanity with a small mirror tacked to the wall in front of it. A small wardrobe sat to the left of the door. There was a chair on the right side beside the doorway, and Tommy sat in it, pulling out another cigarette and rubbing it across his mouth before conquering it with his pale pink lips.It was completely inappropriate, but for some reason, it didn’t bother me to change in front of Tommy. After all he had said and done for me, I knew that he wouldn’t touch me without my express permission – I wasn’t even sure that he wanted to.Tommy’s eyes, as clear as sea green, told me otherwise. His pupils were wide and black, and a small muscle twitched in his jaw as he smoked.I’d changed into my typical work outfit before our night out at The Garrison pub. I took off my vest and splayed it on top of the bed so I could fold it for the wardrobe after I undressed. I untucked the white collared shirt from my trousers and unbuttoned the shirt one button at a time. I slipped off my shirt and took off my belt, setting both carefully on the bed. With my top half stripped, I stood in the center of my bedroom in only my undergarments and the low-cut evergreen chemise tucked into my trousers.“You wore a dress for Arthur when he brought you to the cinema,” Tommy commented as I undid the buttons of my trousers.“It’s one of my only dresses,” I admitted, remembering the care in which I had prepared for my date with Arthur and the delicate way in which I had hung the red dress in the wardrobe afterward. “There was never much use for them at the camp. Neither here when I’m working in the heat and the muck all day.”Tommy was quiet while I shimmied my trousers down my petite legs. I leaned forward, blushing as the bottom of my chemise raised to expose the backs of my freckled thighs. His eyes trailed me as I organized the clothes back into the wardrobe, where I would pick them up again tomorrow for a hard day’s work.“What’s your favorite color, Ruby?”“Red,” I answered immediately. I perched myself on the bed, tugging at the length of my chemise. I combed my long red hair over the bare skin of my chest exposed by the ‘V’ shape of my chemise’s low collar. “Ladies say it disagrees with the color of my hair, but I like it.”“I’ll buy you as many red dresses as you like.”I laughed at the ridiculousness of such a suggestion. “As many as I like? You’ll go broke, Tommy.”“I’ll make more money.”I giggled at Tommy’s absurdity and the gravely serious expression plastered across his face. I crossed the room and plucked his second cigarette from his lips, inhaling a drag. Before I could move away, Tommy’s hands caught my hips. A heat in my core stirred to life as I recognized that I stood half-naked between Tommy Shelby’s knees and only the thin fabric of my chemise separated his hands from my bare skin.When Tommy breathed, he exhaled the green scent of his arousal over the exposed flesh of my collar. His eyes were lazy and pleased and hazed-over with something like lust mixed with amusement as he looked up at me. My gaze drew from the relaxing of his lips to the subtle sag of his strong shoulders and down to the concealed half-hard cock trapped by his pants. Tommy moved no closer to me, and I found suddenly that I couldn’t accept that.I perched myself on Tommy’s knee and laid my legs across his lap until my feet dangled over the opposite end of the chair. One of my hands reached tentatively into his black hair, stroking his scalp beneath the soft pads of my fingers. I leaned closer and closer to Tommy until our noses brushed together. My honey perfume permeated the air around us, and Tommy drank it in with flared nostrils. His blown-out pupils extended until there was only a clear rim of ocean iris visible.“Can I kiss you, Tommy?” I breathed against his lips.Tommy captured my mouth with his own. His kiss was firm, his lips warm as they slotted against mine. His tongue licked at my lips, and my mouth parted to allow him inside. The earth and the grass and the green of Tommy Shelby burst across my tongue. Tommy’s hand stroked up and down my back, and I melted like butter into his mouth. I never wanted to stop kissing.I broke away from the kiss with a gasp, and saliva strung between our lips and broke. Tommy and I looked at each other, sea green against green-brown.In the silence between us, I whispered a secret question that I’d been pondering since that day in the stables when Tommy offered me his brothers. “What if I want you, Tommy?”“You have me.”Elation rose high in my head like sweet opium, and I kissed Tommy again. His lips were like velvet, his tongue like chocolate. We kissed until I was panting and breathless in his lap, and his deep green scent mixed with mine in the air.Tommy held me like a bride in his arms. Without leaving our kiss, he picked me up in his arms and walked toward the bed until I felt the fronts of his knees hit the edge. He dropped me onto the bed and I bounced, giggling and winded.Tommy knelt on top of me, one strong knee pressed between my legs, and kissed my laughter into breathy moans. His hand tangled in my long hair, and I surged upward into his mouth. The movement ground the apex between my legs against Tommy’s knee, and I keened. My perfume bloomed around us, cocooning us in heavy honey and vanilla.I wrapped my legs around Tommy’s slender hips, conscious of my chemise riding up my hips to expose my bloomers. Tommy’s muscles shifted under my grip. My hands scrabbled beneath the shoulders of his suit jacket, wishing there was less clothing between my body and his.I whined when Tommy separated our lips to throw the jacket to the side. When I realized what he was doing, my fingers fumbled with the buttons on his vest, and his hands overtook mine as he unbuttoned the vest and threw it, too, to the side. I couldn’t stand to be without him for any longer. I leaned off the bed to reconnect our lips, and my hands worked at his button-up white shirt, bringing it out of his trousers and high enough that I could slide my hands underneath the back and grab at his bare skin. I ground against his knee desperately.Tommy’s hands found my bare legs, and his warm touch ghosted up the outside of my thighs until he found my chemise, pushing it up until it bunched around my middle and my naval was exposed. Tommy’s hands gripped securely around my hips, bringing my body down further into his knee until he was helping me rock against him.Tommy’s lips left mine, and I whimpered from the loss of his mouth, but then he was nosing the scent gland below my ear, and my whimper transformed into a whispered moan. Heat coiled in my belly, rolling across my skin like a fever.Tommy kissed a trail across both of my collarbones. He turned his attention to my neck, licking a stripe up my throat until I shivered and shook beneath him. My mouth popped open in a silent ‘O’ as his mouth sucked my scent gland into his mouth.“Tommy, please,” I begged. “I need your touch.”Tommy slipped one finger into my mouth, quieting me. My lips pulled around it, drawing the finger further into my mouth as I swirled my tongue around it. His finger was rough and calloused, and his hand tasted like bitter tobacco. Saliva smeared on my lips and trickled out the corner of my mouth as I sucked his finger.Tommy’s other hand slid beneath the hem of my bloomers and dipped through my slick folds. I was soaking, and a pool of my pre-cum wettened my thighs. Tommy’s thick fingers found the hood of my clit and circled around it, and I let out an open-mouthed moan around his finger.Tommy’s finger withdrew from my lips, and he stroked my cheek with his thumb while his other hand stroked against my clit beneath my bloomers. Tommy raised his head from my lips, and I moaned when I saw his swollen lips shiny with his spit from where he’d kissed and licked up my neck. Tommy’s arousal was a dark forest cologne, smokey and steamy all at once, and I drowned in it.He looked like that because of me. He smelled like that because of me.Tommy’s voice was husky with lust when he asked, “Has anyone made you come like this, Ruby?”*The Lee alpha’s hand rubbed roughly against my clit, so forcefully that it hurt. I writhed beneath him, hands shoving at his elbow. Three thick fingers entered me, and I stretched painfully around them as he fucked his fingers dry into my core.*I went rigid in Tommy’s arms. I clutched at his back with sharp nails, and Tommy’s hand stilled immediately.“Ruby?”*A different alpha’s meaty hand held my throat until black shadows roamed the edges of my vision. The ghosts watched as he shoved into me hilt-deep, and I screamed.*Tommy’s hand had left my bloomers, and he moved over me, straddling me, his hands on my cheeks and thumbs stroking my cheekbones as he watched me. “Come back to me, Ruby.”Tommy’s voice, deep and strong and no longer thick with lust, startled me back into the room. It was dark around us now, the sun having gone down long ago. The air was hot and thick with our mingled scents of arousal, the only hint of what we had shared mere moments ago.I looked into Tommy’s ocean eyes. “Tommy.”“You’re safe,” Tommy reminded me softly. “You’re here with me now, Ruby. It’s just me.”Tears welled in my eyes and fell over his thumbs. “Oh, Jesus, Tommy, I’m sorry.”Tommy swiped away the tears as quickly as they came. He didn’t answer, but when I hugged him to my body, he held me and turned us on our sides until we were chest to chest. I buried my face in his neck, finding his scent gland with my nose and gulping down his familiar green cologne.I awoke when the door shut behind Tommy, and I listened to his footsteps as he creaked down the hallway to the stairs. He must have dressed because his clothes were no longer strewn across the bed. My chemise was pulled delicately down my legs as if he had tried to return my modesty.I sat against the headboard and pulled my opium pipe and my case toward me. That night, I smoked until the sun came up, trying to forget the Lee alphas’ hands all over my body and what I had almost shared with Tommy.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Two days later, a Peaky boy delivered to Charlie’s yard a small oblong package wrapped in red ribbon and a letter addressed to me in a fine cursive script.I opened the letter first. The handwriting, I discovered, belonged to Ada Shelby. Ada wrote to invite me to late afternoon tea at her flat with Freddie in the Brum. I wrote her a letter affirming I would attend and passed it to Charlie downstairs, who gave it to Curly to run to Watery Lane. Then I rushed back upstairs to open the gift.There was a note attached to the box, secured by the shiny red ribbon. It read, “Show the Lees who you are now. From Tommy.”Who am I now, Tommy? I wondered. I wasn’t sure of the answer.I raised the lid of the box and gaped at the dress inside. I lifted the fabric to my shoulders so that the dress cascaded along the front of my body, and I turned to the mirror of my vanity to look at the way it would surely hug my curves. The fabric was smooth almost like velvet, and the color was a deep ruby red that didn’t quite match my red-orange hair.I smiled at my reflection, and the gypsy in the mirror beamed back at me. Tommy had remembered that I preferred red.Rosy pink splashed across my cheeks as I remembered the way Tommy’s lustful gaze had drawn across my body two nights before, mapping with his eyes all of the places he wanted to touch me – and he had. I imagined him thinking of me as he searched the shop for a suitable red dress. I held the dress closer to my body, cherishing the thought of Tommy extending so much effort on my behalf.I hung the dress on the back of the bathroom door and began filling the tub with cool water. The Shelby alphas would pick me up in the family car at 8 o’clock. I had an hour to prepare for the meeting with the Lees.Dread filled me from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head as I stepped into the bath and sunk into its cold depths. The icy water numbed my jittery limbs, distracting me from the cold apprehension that spread from the base of my skull.I drew my washcloth over my skin, where the bruises from my encounters with Danny Whizz-bang and the copper were yellowing into splotchy patches. The bruises reminded me of the ones the Lee alphas decorated me with during their ruts. After my mother and brothers had abandoned me for the Great War, the Lees had taken advantage of the unclaimed omega within their midst in every way possible. Slowly, as I grew accustomed to the rapes, I had stopped struggling against the force of their hands on my body. Still, the alphas had seemed to enjoy beating me black and blue, and the abuse had been endless.I didn’t want to back to the Black Patch gypsy camp. I had never wanted to go back. But if Tommy needed me for a show of strength, I would give him what he asked. I owed him my life.“Show them who you are now,” Tommy had written. I didn’t know what I was meant to show the Lees. I had been Red Ruby for so long that I no longer knew who I was without her.As I rose from the bath, I remembered John agreeing with Polly that “not another scrape would go by without someone trying to coddle you.” I remembered Arthur telling me, “Anyone who lays a finger on you is a dead man.” I remembered Tommy confessing he would murder the copper who had laid hands on me, and briefly wondered if he had already carried out the killing.Squaring my shoulders, I reminded myself that the Shelby alphas would not allow the Lees to touch a hair on my head. This was a show of strength, and I would be strong for them like they were for me.The dress was meant to be worn by a gypsy. It was a short, knee-length dress that revealed my stockings pulled up close to my knees so that only a sliver of skin was visible. The collar of the dress was a square scooped neck that revealed just the slightest bit of my cleavage and hugged my breasts and torso tight. I didn’t wear a corset beneath, so the tight muscles of my trained abdomen were visible through the thin fabric. The sleeves were short and ruffled, reaching halfway down toward my elbows and exposing my slender arms. The bottom half of the dress hung from my waist, flowing around my body to my knees.I couldn’t help but stare at myself in the vanity mirror. I would have never chosen such a bold dress for myself, but now that I was wearing it, I saw my slight form through Tommy’s eyes. For the first time in my life, I felt beautiful.I waited outside the threshold of Charlie’s apartment, which was attached to the back of the warehouse in the yard. I smoked as I waited, trying to calm my nerves. I wished I had smoked opium this morning, but part of me was glad that I hadn’t because I didn’t want Tommy or the brothers to smell it on me. A dull ache echoed through my core, and I wrapped a free arm around my torso, hoping the pain didn’t mean what I thought it meant. I wasn’t ready.At 8 o’clock sharp, Tommy pulled the family car to a stop in front of me. All three alpha brothers piled out of the car while Finn stayed in the front seat, peering out the window at me.Arthur was shouldering John, laughing, when he saw me. His mouth fell open.I twiddled the hem of my dress in my free hand. “Hello, boys.”“You look…” Arthur’s husky voice trailed off as if he didn’t have the words to describe how I looked.“Yeah.” John nodded, and his eyes drew down the curves of my body. He met my eyes, smirked, and winked. “You’re an angel, baby.”Tommy cleared his throat. “We need to get going if we’re taking Finn to the fair after.”It was a short drive to the Smethwick fields. I was wedged in the back seat between John and Arthur. Arthur had his arm around my waist, his strong hand pulling me to his side until I could smell the whiskey and petrol on him. John’s hand found my leg and stayed there the entirety of the ride. I talked mostly to Finn, who was surprised to learn that I hated the fair.“I ran the ring toss booth every year as a kid,” I explained. “I hated all the people and the scents and the lights – one of the problems of being an omega, I guess. I argued with my mother about it, and that was the first and only time she hit me. But she never made me go back.”“You won’t go then?” asked Finn from the front seat. “Not even with me?”I smiled softly. “I would go with you, Finn. But not today. Maybe next year.”I couldn’t go anyway, since I was meeting Ada for tea in the afternoon.Finn’s face lit up in a wide smile. He seemed satisfied with my answer and turned back around in his seat.Arthur’s arm shifted around my hip, and he brought his lips close to my ear. “You’re good with ‘im, my little brother.”I could only nod because his warmth so close to my body and the metal and engine exhaust of his cologne washed over me like a bath that was too hot. I could feel my temperature rising.Arthur’s presence was a comfort. The nearer we traveled to the camp, the more unsure I felt.The Black Pack gypsy camp was just as I remembered it. Wagons scattered across the open pasture, circling around Madame Zilpha’s carriage. Children played in the nearby creek, and women and men toiled outside their wagons and their tents.Tommy parked the car just off the road at the top of the hill, and Arthur helped me out of the car. When my worn shoes touched the mud, I wished more than anything to take them off and press my feet into the earth like I always had when I had lived here.“Tommy!” called a boisterous voice.A gypsy beta swaggered up the hill toward us. He was as tall as Tommy, although a little larger around, with small shoulders and even smaller hips. The nearer he drew, I could make out the sunkissed skin, bulbous nose, and large ears. He was smiling, revealing a row of long yellow teeth. The gypsy was dressed in an old grey suit with a red vest underneath and a colored scarf tucked into the color. There was a flat cap on his head, and I wondered briefly if he was a Peaky Blinder.“Johnny Dogs!” Tommy greeted.Johnny came to stand in front of us. “Tommy, how the hell are ya?” he asked in a thick Romani accent.“All the better for getting the city smoke out of my lungs,” Tommy replied. He drew his cigarette case from his pocket, drew one out to smoke, and deposited the case back into his jacket.“I thought you became a bit too grand for us,” Johnny admitted, but he was smiling.Tommy lit his cigarette and inhaled. “I’ve been busy.”“I’m riding with the Lee family now.”Tommy’s jaw tensed. He exhaled a long stream of smoke into the green air. “I heard. Myself, I’d rather live among pigs.”“Come on, Tommy. No disputing.” Johnny’s deep brown eyes flickered to my face. “Gonna introduce me, Tom?”Tommy nodded me forward, and he placed a protective hand on my back. I straightened my posture and extended my hand to Johnny Dogs. “Ruby,” I introduced.Johnny looked at my hand with a raised dark brow. He wiped his hand on the jacket of his grey suit and then clasped my hand, shaking it once. “Ahh, I’ve heard about you.”“Everyone has,” I said coolly. I had left my bag in the car, and my fingers twitched for a cigarette.Johnny brought us to his wagon at the edge of camp near the creek, where a stark white horse stood out against the many colors of the caravan. I recognized a group of alphas stoking a fire near the water, and tensed. Tommy had left my side to walk with Johnny Dogs, but Arthur seemed to recognize my discomfort and offered me his hand, which I clutched onto like a lifeline.“So your first fair since France?” Johnny questioned.“What do you know about France? You war-shy, gypsy bastard.” Tommy approached the white horse. “So this is the horse.”“And that’s the car,” Johnny said, eyeing the black automobile greedily.Tommy petted the horse’s neck, inspecting his hooves and his flank quietly. Johnny moved toward the car and caressed it like it was a lady in his bed.“Hang on a minute.” Arthur, seeming to realize what was happening, tugged me forward a step. “You’re not swapping the family car for a bloody horse.”Johnny stepped back toward us. “Course we’re not swapping it. Huh? That’d be mad.”“We’re gonna play two up,” Tommy said.Arthur pulled me forward with John at my other side, and we circled around Tommy and Johnny, who flipped two coins in the air and let them drop to the grass. They picked up their coins, spit in their hands, and shook on it. Tommy passed the car keys to Johnny.“I knew it!” Arthur said. He still hadn’t let go of my hand, and his fingers pressed closed tightly against mine until it almost hurt. “See, I knew it. Tommy, you bloody idiot.”“Shut up, Arthur, I won,” said Tommy calmly. “I promised Johnny I’d let him have a spin in the car if he lost.”The Lee alphas were standing separate from their fire, laughing loudly. Anger sparked through my veins, and red blurred my vision. I released Arthur’s hand and stalked toward the alphas. They stared as I approached, their eyes raking across the curves beneath my red dress. I felt suddenly vulnerable, and that made me angrier.“You laughing at Arthur Shelby?” I demanded. I could feel the Shelby brothers at my back, walking forward with me until we stood toe to toe with the three Lee alphas. “Eh? Are you laughing at the grandson of a king? Answer me.”“Ms. Ruby –” Johnny Dogs started forward, stepping dangerously close to me, and Tommy stepped to the side, blocking his path to me.“She asked you a question,” Tommy said to the Lees. “You’d do well to answer her.”“Tommy, come on,” Johnny pleaded. “Tom, come on, it’s just the craic.”“She asked you a question,” Tommy said, and his tone was so dark that I thought I heard the devil in him.“Get your family out of here and go and enjoy yourselves at the fair before they start a war, huh?” Johnny beseeched. He turned to the Lees, saying in Romani, “Go on. Go. they’re from good people. Their grandad was a king. A fucking king.”The Lee in the grey suit stepped forward to the lost, too close to me. His beady grey eyes bore into my skull. “Yeah, but they keep a didicoy whore like Red Ruby around.”*His grey eyes sparked with something evil as he fucked into me. A harsh slap stung across my cheek. “You like it rough, don’t you, Red Ruby?” Another slap. “Don’t you?”*I swung on my heel and snatched Tommy’s peaky cap from his black quiff. I held it high in my hand as I wheeled on the man and swung the razor blades of the cap against his face. The man shouted, and I watched blood splurt from the wound across his eye and pool over his cheek. It wasn’t enough. I swung the cap again, but he caught it razor-blade first with his hand, blood streaking down his wrists as he wrenched it from my grip.Around me, the Shelby brothers pounced. John took one of the three Lees to the floor, and Tommy picked up his bloody cap and struck the second across the forehead. Arthur surged forward, pinning my victim’s hands behind his back as I beat him. I hit with a right hook so hard that the force of it ripped him from Arthur’s arms and he curled on the ground. I kicked him, and kicked him, and kicked him until he was bloody and panting and crying like a child. Arthur was saying something to the man, and John was laughing hysterically as he shoved the blade in his cap into the mouth of the man on the ground in front of him. Tommy wailed at the second man with a look of such ferocity that I turned back to my victim and aimed another several kicks to his abdomen.Johnny Dogs fired a shot into the air. I stumbled backward into Tommy’s arms. John got to his feet, brushing off the grass stains on his light grey suit. Arthur spat on the man at my feet and kicked him several more times.I didn’t realize I was crying until John held my face in his hands. “You did good, baby, you did good.”Tommy passed me into John’s arms, and I clutched onto the lapels of his grey suit. “They called me Red Ruby,” I stated numbly.John nodded in understanding. His usually smiling lips were pressed into a grim line as he watched the streams of tears fall from my eyes. “You did the right thing, angel,” he assured me.“I’m not Red Ruby anymore,” I confessed. “I’m not her anymore.”“No,” John agreed. “You’re not her. You’re our Ruby. Our angel of death.”Arthur’s strong hands ripped me away from John. His bright blue eyes were wild with anger, drawing from the three crumpled Lees on the ground to my tear-streaked cheeks. He had a gun in his hand, and he was waving it at the Lees.“Which one?” Arthur shouted. “Which one is it? Which of these fuckers had you?”My eyes drew across the Lee boy with the grey eyes wearing a grey suit. The man was bleeding heavily from his face, but I still managed to watch that one uninjured grey eye widen in fear and the harsh back-and-forth shake of his head. Arthur growled, a low and husky growl that caused the omega inside to whine. A shot rang out in the air, blowing a bloody hole through the Lee alpha’s forehead, and the man slumped to the bloody grass beneath him, dead.Tommy marched forward, smacking Arthur’s hand down so that the pistol was pointed toward the ground. “What did you just do, Arthur?”“I killed the fucker that raped our Ruby,” Arthur said, and there was an unhinged violence in his voice that made me shiver. He looked at me. “The others?”I stared at the Lee boy dead on the ground. His two companions were scrabbling backward on their hands and knees, beaten to a bloody pulp by John and Tommy. But I couldn’t take my eyes away from the bloody mess of the alpha’s head.My perfume rose hot and heavy like honey and burnt syrup in the air, and I clutched an arm tight around my middle as a wave of cramps rocked through my body so harshly that I felt I might fall over. I hissed with pain as my heat began.Tommy was quiet now, watching his brother with an unseen expression deep in his eyes. He said nothing about the body lying in the grass feet away.Arthur moved closer to me, and the gruff pad of his hand swept across my cheek. “The others, gypsy girl?” he said, softer this time.I shook my head from side to side. No, the two other alphas had never raped me. They had only participated in several beatings, and for that they had gotten their due. Arthur slid his gun back into the holster beneath his unbuttoned suit jacket and nodded once.Tommy approached, blocking my view of the dead Lee alpha. “Are you hurt?”“I want to go home,” I said in a small voice. The pain was intense, and I didn’t know how long I could hide it from Tommy’s piercing gaze. I hoped he assumed my sudden perfume was fear.“Are you hurt?” Tommy repeated. His ocean eyes raked over me, eyes strong and hard.“She’s not hurt,” John said.John piled me into the car, keeping a steady hand on my back as I slid into the back seat. Arthur joined me on the other side, and I stared at the paneled flooring, gritting my teeth through another wave of crushing pain.Finn was looking over the front seat at me with curious, troubled eyes. “Why did you kill him?” he asked Arthur.Arthur sat away from me, packed in tight against the open window of the automobile. “Because he hurt our Ruby girl,” he answered stiffly.I reached my hand over and tightened it around Arthur’s. The knuckles of his hand were swollen and bleeding, and he looked at me with unreigned surprise. “Thought you wouldn’t want to touch me after that, eh?”“Thank you, Arthur,” I said softly, squeezing his hand. “Thank you.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

I held the pipe to the flame and inhaled. The opium smoke made me cough, and the cough made me dizzy and lightheaded.I didn’t mind if Ada smelled the opium on me. I needed it, and anyhow, it at least served to cover up some of the sticky honey perfume that stuck to my skin. I’d washed the blood from my arms, and now I sat in bed, smoking the entire glob of opium resin until the pain washed away with the blood in the drain.I had surely started my heat, and it was an effort to walk from Charlie’s yard where Tommy had dropped me off, all the way to the Brum in my trousers that chafed against my newly sensitive skin. Inside the apartment, I could hear the squeak-squeak-squeak of the mattress and masculine groans mixed with Ada’s airy voice.“Freddie…” Ada moaned.I knocked on the worn wooden door. The squeaking mattress stopped immediately.“Shit, I forgot!” Ada said inside. Her voice was louder as she called to the door, “Coming!”I waited outside, listening to the shuffling in the room as Ada and Freddie Thorne scrambled on their clothes. Ada slid the door open. She was dressed in a lacy pink chemise that reached just above her knees, and she had wrapped herself in a black silk robe with pale green trimming. She was wearing bright purple socks that sagged down her calves.“Sorry, Ruby, sorry,” Ada apologized breathlessly. Her cheeks were still flushed with arousal. “Please, come in. I’ll make you some tea.”Ada moved the door open to let me inside. The walls were plastered and yellowish green. The room itself was sparse with a wire-framed two-poster bed in the corner, and a nightstand beside it topped with several bottles of beer. There was a chair by the door where Freddie’s black coat hung behind, and a stack of communist books sitting next to it. There sat a small table to the side and several shelves lined on the walls. Half of the room was dedicated to the bedroom, and the other half to the kitchen. On the kitchen side, there was a small table with several chairs pressed into the opposite corner, next to where the stove stood out beside the countertop. The only light shined through the window on the far wall and from the gas lamp attached beside the entryway.“This the girl, Ada?” Freddie Thorna, a beta, sat on the bed. He wore a pair of dark pants attached over his shoulders by strappy suspenders, and he was buttoning up a thinly striped white shirt with a round collar. He was a lean and muscular Jewish man with a full brown beard trimmed at the edges and pointed ears. His eyes were dark enough to match his straight brown hair, styled so that wisps of bangs cut into his rectangular forehead.“Ruby, this is my beau, Freddie Thorne,” Ada introduced.“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Thorne.”“Never seen a woman wear trousers before,” Freddie commented.Ada rolled her eyes. “That’s because you live under a communist rock. Would you like tea, Ruby?”“Please.” I sat at the kitchen table where Ada gestured.“I’m Freddie to you.” Freddie rolled up his socks over his feet. “Just Freddie, none of that ‘mister’ business. I’m not Tommy Shelby.”I eyed him, interested. I knew of Freddie Thorne. I was sure I had met him as a child although I couldn’t remember when. I had heard that he and the Shelbys had grown up together, and I wondered what strife lay between him and Tommy Shelby. They had seemed thick as thieves that day when Danny Whizz-bang had attacked me.“Surprised you trust me with this secret, Ada,” I said to her in Romani.“Of course I trust you,” Ada said from the kitchen, where she piled a tray high with biscuits. “We women have to stick together.”“Can I smoke in here?” I asked, fingering the case of cigarettes in my bag.“‘Course,” Freddie said.I retrieved a cigarette from the case and deposited it between my lips, lighting it with a matchbox and smoking.Freddie’s brown eyes flicked over my hand. “Your knuckles are bloody.”Ada turned sharply. She snatched my right hand, and I watched her, taking the cigarette from my lips with my left and ashing it on the ashtray in the center of the wooden table.“What have my brothers gotten you into now?” Ada sighed. She spread my hand open so she could examine the small cuts across my knuckles from where I’d hit the grey Lee alpha. “You cleaned them well.”“I hit first.” I didn’t want her to think her brothers had caused me any trouble. I trusted them, and I could see that she didn’t. I didn’t want to push her distrust any further.Freddie let out a low laugh, and in that moment he reminded me fondly of John Shelby. He plucked a cigarette from the nightstand and lit it. “You hit first?”Ada abandoned my hand and walked over to Freddie, snatching the cigarette from him and taking a much-needed inhale of the tobacco smoke. Freddie lit a second cigarette for himself, waiting for an explanation.“A Lee alpha was laughing at Arthur.” My head swirled with anger at remembering how they had mocked him. “There was… someone I recognized among them.”Ada’s green eyes blinked, and she looked at me with sudden understanding. So she had heard of Red Ruby, too.“He called me a didicoy whore and made out like that was an insult to the Shelby pack. So I stole Tommy’s cap and cut the bastard.” I didn’t mention that Arthur had killed him when he’d learned the true meaning of what the alpha had said.“You didn’t!” Ada gaped at me, open-mouthed.But she didn’t seem scared of me, so I told her the truth in a voice as hard as steel. “He deserved it.”Freddie laughed, a loud booming laugh that shook the room. “You sound exactly like Tommy.”Ada cringed. “Don’t let him catch you saying that. He’ll be too proud of himself.” She turned to me. “He likes you, you know. Liked you since the first second they laid eyes on you, all of them.”My face blushed red, and I went quiet. Ada smiled and hummed as she turned back to the kitchen in the room to work on the tea. I didn’t want to admit that I liked her brothers. When I arrived at Charlie’s yard, I had determined never to trust another alpha again. Then Tommy Shelby had stepped into my life, and I had made an exception for him. Sometime along the way, that exception had extended to Arthur and John Shelby. They had all three welcomed me to Small Heath with open arms as if I was already family. And god, I more than liked them. I wanted them.Shortly later, Ada poured out the tea, and Freddie came to sit at the table with me.I sipped my tea thoughtfully. “What do the ladies say about me, Ada?”Ada’s brown brow pinched together. “It’s just rumors, Ru.”“Women’s rumors,” I corrected. “Women’s business. If I’m ever to make friends outside of Shelbys, I should know.”“Alright, I’ll tell you,” Ada sighed. “Mostly, they say you’re a gypsy whore. That you’ll take any man into your bed. Some say you’re a witch.”“The men say you’re a succubus,” Freddie added, his brown eyes glinting with amusement.I laughed. “What else?”“Well, I heard a rumor you fuck on your period and use your menstrual blood to cast curses,” Ada announced. “Sex magic and that nonsense.”I nearly spit out my tea laughing.“What’s wrong with a good fuck during a girl’s period?” Freddie sounded offended.Ada blushed red, but her eyes flicked back to me, rolling over my face as if analyzing my good humor.“What is it?” I asked Ada.She frowned. “Well… They say you belong to the Shelby pack now.”A good-humored smile twitched on my face, and I nodded. “At least no man will be touching me.”“Except my brothers, right?”It was my turn to blush.Ada, Freddie, and I talked and laughed about everything. Over the period of an afternoon, Ada and I became close friends.A knock sounded on the downstairs apartment, and the front door opened. “Mr. Thorne!”“What is it?” Freddie called down.“The police are rounding up the communists!” came the reply.We all looked at each other with wide eyes.“Fuck,” Freddie muttered under his breath. “Come on, girls. If the cops find me, we’re screwed. Fuck!”The apartment was a flurry of activity as Freddie threw on his shoes and Ada scrambled to find hers.“Ruby, come on!” Ada urged.I followed Freddie and Ada out of the room to the stairs just as there was another raucous pounding at the door. “Open up! We have arrest warrants for Freddie Thorne and Ruby Lee,” an officer shouted with a heavy Irish accent.I tripped on my way to the stairs and struggled to pick myself up with the pain of the heat in my all my limbs. Above me, Freddie shuddered open the window that looked out onto the roof. He took Ada’s hand and helped guide her through the window. I jolted forward and skipped up two steps before the door banged open and a pair of officer’s boots tattooed against the wooden floor.I was too late. My hair ran behind me as I jumped up the stairs, and the officer on my tail grabbed a fistful of the ends and yanked me backward. My body followed my head, and I crashed onto my back with a yelp. The air rushed from my lungs, and pain wracked my body. The cramps restarted anew, spreading through my core and lighting my skin on fire.I crawled backward until my back landed against the wall. As I tried to get to my feet, the officer’s fingers wrapped around my throat and he dragged me upward.“Don’t struggle.” His voice was thick with an Irish accent.“Fuck you,” I hissed. He was holding me up by the throat, and I wheezed for breath, my words coming out in strained gasps. “Let me go.”When he didn’t, I brought one arm down on the crook of his elbow. He released me, and I kneed him in the crotch. He doubled over, and I raced past him and out into the street.It was a bad decision. The whole street was in disarray. There were black horses along the apartment fronts and black automobiles parked in the street. The officers were in full uniform, with black helmets dawned with silver and holding wooden batons. The air was ripe with shouts and scents as the coppers kicked in doors and dragged people out of their homes, beating the uncooperative. Two children huddled together on the ground near the doorway, and two others, a boy and a girl, ran past Freddie’s apartment.There were two officers crowded outside Freddie’s doorway, and they scooped me into their arms, one copper holding each of my arms. “Ruby Lee? You’re coming with us.”The third officer emerged from behind me, kicking the backs of my knees so that I stumbled forward. The other two coppers scraped me across the gravel and into the back of a police vehicle. Once I was inside, the copper who’d brought me to the ground fastened my arms in front of me with a pair of iron cuffs, cruelly tightening them until the skin chafed an angry red.I rode in silence to the police station. I tried to walk myself into the brick building, but the officers pulled me so quickly that my shoes dragged behind me. They brought me past the receptionist’s desk and between two long rows of six desks stacked high with papers.The two coppers stuffed me in a long rectangular office at the back of the building. Along the far wall sat two large filmed windows. A long desk sat in front of them, with two small cushioned chairs placed in front.The coppers released me into the room, and I slumped on my knees in front of them. Then they were gone, and I watched them through the long, clear glass lining the wall closest to the door, which they locked behind them.I stood despite the pain rippling and convulsing tight in my muscles. My heart beat like a bird against its cage, and I clutched a hand over my heart as if that would stop the blood pulsing hot in my veins. My burnt sugar perfume spread around me like the heat of a fire. Six sets of eyes carefully avoided mine through the window as the betas and alphas returned to the work at their desks.Calm down, I told myself. Think.I could think of a handful of reasons why the coppers would have dragged me out of Freddie Thorne’s home with my name on their lips. It might have had something to do with Danny Whizz-bang – I had fought with him publicly, and he had been involved with the death of an Italian – But that didn’t make sense because Danny Whizz-bang was rumored to be dead. It might have had something to do with how I had fought back against the coppers when they had arrested Arthur at the cinema – I was pretty sure that was considered interfering with an investigation – But if that was the case, wouldn’t they have come for me sooner? Then again, it might have been because of what the Shelby pack and I had done to the Lees that morning – But I doubted Madame Zilpha would retaliate without getting her own hands dirty. That left my association with Freddie Thorne – But the coppers had also had an arrest warrant specifically for me.No, there was only one reason for my arrest. Tommy Shelby.The name on the door read “Inspector Chester Campbell” in big gold letters. The Minister of Munitions, Winston Churchill himself had sent Inspector Campbell to Birmingham to search for the missing guns stolen from the BSA factory by the Peaky fucking Blinders. On accident, of course.I shook my head. After he had beaten and interrogated Arthur, after he didn’t get what he wanted, I should have known that Campbell would come for me sooner rather than later. The title of Red Ruby extended far beyond my control, and I knew from Ada the rumors that I was Shelby pack property. I should have expected that associating with the Shelby alphas would only bring me trouble, but then again, I had never had any sense of self-preservation.That’s why I moved to the desk, conscious of the way the officers in the outer office were avoiding looking at me. I would have guessed that the perfume of my heat extended far beyond Inspector Campbell’s office.The file on the top was labeled in red, “Top Secret: Special Branch” and underneath in blue print, “BSA Munitions Robbery: Prime Suspects.” I opened the file immediately, clenching my jaw when I saw Arthur Shelby’s photo front and center. He didn’t look like himself as I knew him. He stood in full military uniform with his hands behind his back, staring at the camera with open eyes. His hair was invisible in the hat he wore, and his Adam’s apple stood out against the collar of his dark uniform. He was younger, with a clean-shaven face free of the wrinkles he’d earned during the Great War. On the paper beneath his name was a description of his profession: “Gangster, Racketeer, Illegal Bookmaker.” Was that all that Arthur Shelby was to Campbell?Halfway down the paper was his listed association with the Peaky Blinders, and I smiled. In clear blue print, the paper read, “Leader of the Peaky Blinders.” So that’s what Tommy had meant when he’d said he’d shown his cards. Campbell hadn’t realized that Arthur wasn’t the boss. Now that he knew Tommy was, he had made his move. Not just in the Brum, I realized. He must have hit everywhere in Blinders territory.I flipped to the next page. The name “Thomas Shelby” stood out in blue against the manilla sheet. To Inspector Campbell, Tommy was only described by his associations with “Racketeering, Protection, Armed Robbery.” So that was it, then. They knew he had something to do with the robbery at the BSA.I frowned, and Tommy’s picture frowned back at me, his eyes grey in the photo and staring off to the space at the left of the photograph. Like Arthur, he stood in uniform with his arms secured behind his back and his chest puffed out with pride. His jaw was set with the perennial seriousness that he always wore, and his short dark hair was swept to the side. He looked younger, too, less troubled, not quite as old, not quite as sad.From the corner of my eye, I saw the door to the outer office open. I snapped the file shut and rounded the table, resuming my pacing. I scanned the backs of the officers sitting at their desks in the outer office and nodded to myself. No one had noticed me. Good.Campbell entered the room. He was a portly older man three times my size around, with meaty hands that he clenched excitedly at his sides. He wore an all-black suit that fell around his wide figure and shoes that had been recently shined. He looked distinctly Irish, with large ears and a thin, long nose. His brow was overbearing, pushing bushy dark eyebrows out from the hollow of his foggy grey eyes. He sported grey hair hidden by a black bowler’s cap.As he stepped into the room, a low growl ripped from his throat, and I stiffened and stopped walking, coming to a stop mere feet away from him. A bitter cologne like cranberries and pure cocoa wafted in the air around us.Campbell slammed closed the door and snapped, “Can’t you stop that perfume?”“Don’t like it?” I taunted, and his jaw locked. “An omega’s scent is rather overwhelming when you drag her out of her friend’s home.”Inspector Campbell smiled. It was a look of pure delight that made me fight to keep my hands open at my sides. I was in danger around this man.“On the contrary,” said Campbell. “I quite like the scent of your fear.”“You’re sick,” I sneered.Campbell’s smile fell – his displeasure was just as dangerous as his pleasure. “I need you afraid, Ms. Lee. I need you afraid because you’re going to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth.”“I’ll tell you nothing.”Campbell moved toward me, and I stepped backward closer and closer toward the desk. Instead of touching me, he moved to the long, clear window closest to the door and pulled down two shades, one after the other. The backs of my thighs touched the oak desk.“Sit down, Ms. Lee.”I didn’t move.Campbell struck out like a snake, so fast that the room blurred around me as I toppled to the floor with a bang. Pain struck through the side of my face, making me dizzy. Campbell snatched a handful of red hair and pulled me upward. My skull throbbed as he threw me into one of the chairs in front of his desk.“It would be a pleasure to beat you black and blue until you’re too ugly for the Shelby pack to fuck.”I laughed, throwing back my head of thick messy hair and shaking it across my back. Campbell watched me, stunned.“Do you think I’m afraid of you, inspector?” I mocked. “I’ve been beaten by much stronger men than you.”Campbell seized my chin in his hand, and I struggled not to flinch away from his fingers pressing harshly against the newly-forming bruise across the side of my face. He drew so close to me that speckles of his spit blew across my face as he spoke. “You’ll tell me everything I need to know.”“I’ll tell you nothing,” I repeated.Campbell growled, but he released me, rounding the desk to settle back in his comfortable chair. He took his pipe from his pocket and lazily loaded it with tobacco. He lit the bowl of the pipe and took a long inhale from the mouthpiece. How I wished for a cigarette, or better yet, my own pipe of opium.“Ms. Lee, this situation can result in two separate conclusions,” Inspector Campbell began. “If you acquiesce and tell me what I need to know, I can provide you with the perfect life. Wouldn’t you like to have a steady career, wealth, a prospect for marriage?”It was true. I wanted those things. But I didn’t want them at the expense of the Shelby pack, of my pack.“And if I don’t?”Campbell smiled his unsettling smile. “If you don’t, I will take pleasure in bringing about the early demise of each and every one of the Shelby family. I would describe their deaths to you in great detail, but I’m still undecided as to the order of the killings.”A cold trickle of sweat dripped down my spine. In its cage, my heart beat like a bird trapped by a cat. Oh, Tommy, I thought. What have you gotten us into?I set my shoulders and raised my aching head, pretending that I was the cat. I cocked my chin to the side in a silent question. “How does a man who never fought in France threaten a man like Tommy Shelby?”“You’ve heard of me.” He sounded surprised.I ignored his question. “What is it you really want? The Holy Grail, perhaps?”Campbell’s eyes sparked with recognition, and he frowned to himself as he realized his error. He had meant to threaten Thomas Shelby by detaining his whore. He hadn’t actually expected me to know anything about the whole affair.I chewed the inside of my lip and tried to hold down the bile rising in my throat. I probably shouldn’t have let him in on that little-known secret.“As a matter of fact… It is the Holy Grail I’m looking for. Something precious. Something stolen.” Campbell leaned across the table and smirked as I leaned backward away from him. “Perhaps you know what I’m talking about.”I nodded my head seriously. “I read in a journal that they found a glass dish in Glastonbury in the 17th century.”A low growl rumbled in the back of Inspector Campbell’s throat. “Arthur Shelby said you people would help us.”“If we don’t know what you’ve lost, how can we help you find it?”Campbell flipped open the same file on his desk that I’d been perusing before he’d arrived. He overturned a page, then slipped out Tommy’s file and held it up so that I could read it. “But I’ve found out subsequently that I was speaking to the wrong man.”“It’s a message you want to convey, is it?” I realized.Campbell stood from his desk and walked around it, holding out a key for me to take. I plucked it from his fingers, shuddering when his smooth wrinkled fingers swiped against mine. He grabbed my wrist, letting go only when I yanked my arm from his grasp. His bitter cologne swelled in the empty office space, and my lip curled in disgust. With fumbling hands, I worked to unlock the iron cuffs still locked furiously tight onto my wrists.“Next time I want to talk to the boss. The Lickey Tea Rooms. Friday. Ten o’clock.”Campbell opened the door to his office, and I rushed out. As I left, he called behind me, “And when I say the boss, I mean Thomas.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

I barely made it to Watery Lane. As the rain started, I hobbled down the street, clutching my arms around me as I trusted my weak and aching legs not to let me fall in the mud. The pain was worst in my core, where my empty womb clenched tightly with wave after wave of sharp cramps like knives stabbed into my center. My face pulsed with the sharp red pain of Campbell’s blow. He must have cut me with the ring that flashed in the light as he’d hit me because blood streaked from my cheek into my mouth. My jaw was stiff and locked from where he’d grabbed me, and my wrists were bruising a bright purple from the cuffs. The pain was so intense all over my body that I didn’t quite make it to the door of number 6.Hissing with the effort of breathing, I slumped onto my knees in front of the Shelby apartments. I gritted my teeth and tried to stand to no avail. I could barely feel my legs.“Come the fuck on, Ruby,” I swore to myself in Romani. I needed to find one of the brothers, get the message to Tommy and tell him what Campbell knew.The door next to number 6 opened, and through blurry vision, I watched John Shelby step outside. In moments, he was at my side, taking my ruined body up into his arms like I was a gypsy bride.“I’ve got you, angel, I’ve got you,” John said to me. “Let’s get you inside.”I grasped at the lapels of John’s suit from where he held me to his chest. “John. Tommy – get Tommy.”“Let’s get you inside,” John repeated firmly.I expected John to deposit me on the long thin couch in the living room by the entrance, but instead, he carted me up the stairs toward the bedrooms. John wedged open a door at the end of the narrow hallway upstairs, and I gasped. It was a small, dark room mostly filled with a bed that had a large oaken frame and was covered with drapes that parted to reveal a soft bed topped with expensive pillows. There was little other furniture in the room, and the windows were shaded with a thick dark fabric to block the light from sensitive omega eyes.John’s arms retreated from me, and I reached out, clinging to his suit jacket.John smiled, and his green eyes lit up. I felt clingy, but he was pleased. “I’m going downstairs to call Tommy. You wanted to see him, right?”I nodded viciously, shaking my thick red locks around my face. “Campbell. Need to talk to Tommy about Campbell.”“Okay, angel.” John smoothed my hair behind my ears. He pressed a kiss to the top of my sweaty forehead. “I’ll be right back.”I listened to John’s heavy footsteps as he rushed downstairs to the phone I guessed was sitting in the kitchen, if it was in the same spot as the apartment next door. With aching limbs heavy like lead, I slipped off my boots. Then I curled in on myself on top of the bed, shivering as a cold sweat sheared across my body.Despite the pain that soaked through my skin like rain, the rubbing of my thighs together pressed the thick crotch of my trousers against the waiting heat of my cunt beneath my bloomers. I felt myself grow wet at the contact and feared I would drown in the puddle of slick that stained my bloomers before John had a chance to scale the stairs.It felt like hours, time slowed as I curled up by myself with only the pain to keep me company. Then John slid into the bed behind me, dragging me closer into his fiery embrace. He was hot, so hot. His hands secured around my stomach, and I tangled my fingers with his, holding him closer to me. John was large and strong, and the scent of his ember arousal slid down my throat. He pressed the full length of his clothed cock against my arse, and I wiggled back into him.John’s voice was husky with lust, and gooseflesh rose on my skin as he breathed against the exposed curve of my ear. “I know what you need, baby. Can you wait until you talk to Tommy?”“Yes,” I breathed, but I knew that I couldn’t. I should have been focusing on warning Tommy about Campbell, giving him time to formulate a plan of attack now that we were on the back foot. I pushed my arse back into John’s hard cock, and this time he released one of my hands to grab my hip, keeping me pressed right up against him.“Naughty girl,” John whispered huskily. “Do you want my brothers to find you like this, all cozied up against my cock?”A blush painted my cheeks, and I shook my head into the pillows even as the fever took over. I was dripping in my bloomers, the viscous liquid smearing across my inner thighs even as I rocked myself against John’s pelvis. With every movement, my thighs ground together up against my wet, needy pussy. I couldn’t stop. The idea of Tommy and Arthur walking in didn’t help me.“Fuck,” John groaned. “That feels good, baby. Your perfume is intoxicating, you make me so hard.”*”You want to be raped, don’t you, Ruby?” The alpha with the blue eyes held my hands above my head and pounded into me ruthlessly. “Your perfume is so sweet for me.”*I froze, my hands clutching tight around John’s hand even as my wrists throbbed with pain from the shackles I had worn less than half an hour before. John recognized the shift in my demeanor immediately, or perhaps he smelled the sudden burnt honey perfume transposing in the air.“Do you want me to let you go?” John asked me in a voice so soft I couldn’t believe he’d just been saying such naughty things in my ear.I moved, and John let go immediately, but I only turned in his arms and buried my face beneath his, into his neck that smelled like embers sparking off the campfire and marshmallows melting on the stick. John pressed the scent gland at the tip of his nose to my cheek and drew it across my soft flesh, marking me with his own fiery cologne. I was surprised that I wasn’t bothered by the familiar scent-marking gesture. In fact, it caused my limbs to soften instantly, and I curved my body against his, hugging myself further into his chest and closing my eyes. For what felt like a long time, I didn’t even remember Inspector Campbell.I jolted up from the bed as Arthur slammed through the nest room’s door. His blue eyes were as wild as I had seen them right before he’d killed the Lee alpha with the grey eyes. There was violence in them like a storm of ice. Tommy followed Arthur through the door.Arthur stopped short. His blue eyes hailed like an ice storm, raking me over from the ugly bruise that must have been swelling on my face, to the cut on my cheek I still hadn’t cleaned, to the fingermarks that were surely along my jaw, down to the purple splotches along my throat where the copper had strangled me.“Gods above,” Arthur cursed.“How do you feel, Ruby?” Tommy’s voice seemed at first steady and composed, but the question cracked at the end and I knew he was just as worried about me as I was him. It was as if the whole ocean froze over when he looked at me.My voice cracked with rust when I spoke. “Like hell.”Arthur finally reached the edge of the bed, and he waved me to come to him. “Come ‘ere, gypsy girl.”My eyes traveled from the ice in Arthur’s to Tommy’s frozen ocean ones. Tommy nodded.“Go to him,” John said, releasing me. “He won’t calm ‘til he knows you’re okay.”With heavy limbs, I dragged myself to the end of the bed, sat, and hung my legs over the side until my toes just barely drew across the wooden panels. Arthur knelt before me, staring at me as if he was seeing me for the very first time, and what he saw surprised him.Behind Arthur, Tommy moved to the liquor cabinet next to the open bathroom doorway. “Go fetch the medical kit, John.”“I’ll do the stitches,” I volunteered. When all three alphas looked at me like I was insane, I only shrugged. “Done them plenty of times before. Just need a mirror.”John left the room, bounding down the stairs.Tommy started to pour a half-drank bottle of whiskey into two glasses, but he stopped as he noticed the shake of my head. “Bring me the bottle, Tommy?”Tommy took the bottle and walked carefully toward me and his eldest brother as if he could spook Arthur like a horse. I wondered how many times the two alphas had fought, when it had become Tommy who acted as the head of the household, but shook the thoughts away. Arthur’s hand was resting on my knee, and I covered his hand with my own as I reached diagonally across him to take the whiskey bottle from Tommy with my other.Arthur was silent, panting like a rabid dog as he looked over my injuries. “Who do I need to kill?”“You can’t kill him, Arthur,” Tommy said knowingly.Seething, Arthur turned his head to look at the younger Shelby alpha. His hand tightened around my knee, but I slipped his fingers into my hand and caressed the veiny back of one of his own. “Why the bloody hell not?”“He’s part of my plan,” Tommy conceded.I looked only at Arthur when I spoke. “I can tell you the whole story if you’ll just listen.”“I’ll listen, gypsy girl.” Arthur held my hand with both of his now.Tommy nodded for me to continue.I swallowed a large gulp of whiskey. “They picked me up in the Brum.”“With the fucking commies?” Arthur scoffed.“I was visiting a friend for afternoon tea.”“On the first day of your heat cycle?” Arthur seemed irritated. His thick blonde eyebrows pinched together as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.I sighed. “I smoked some opium before I went. That would have been enough to get me through a couple of hours at tea.”Arthur looked surprised. “You shouldn’t be smoking opium, gypsy girl.”“Always have, always will,” I said, shrugging.“Continue, Ruby,” Tommy reminded me.“He clearly had someone tailing me because he knew exactly where I was when the coppers came barging through the door with an arrest warrant with my name on it.”“The arrest, then? They were rough with you?” Arthur asked, clearly wanting to know who had put hands on me.“I may have… fought back. They caught me off guard.”Arthur rose to his feet in a hurry, nearly yanking me up with him when he didn’t release my hand. He was clutching it in a tight grip. “You did fucking what?”“Arthur, calm down, brother.” Tommy stalked slowly forward, like a wolf stalking its prey.Was Arthur Shelby that dangerous, so dangerous his own brother was on guard around him? Was that just Tommy, or should I have been afraid for myself?I didn’t care. It was my turn to rise to my feet. The stress and the hormones and the memory of the day came crashing through my brain as I stood and pointed my finger into Arthur’s chest. “And what’s that supposed to mean? What was I supposed to do, go quietly?”Arthur clutched tighter onto my hand. “Yes, girl, if the coppers come for you, you go quietly until we can take care of it.”I laughed under my breath, yanking my hand away from his. I ignored the way Arthur’s face crumbled. “That’s what you would do, eh?”Arthur pressed me forward, and I almost fell into a sitting position when the backs of my knees knocked against the bed. “I’m a Peaky fucking Blinder,” Arthur growled, and I watched the war soar through the blue sky of his eyes like ghostly clouds. “You’re just a wee gypsy girl, Ruby.”I shoved Arthur so hard he stumbled back several steps, shock wild in his blue eyes. The Romani poured from my lips like acid. “That’s what you think of me? You think I’m some pathetic wisp of a toy you can just boss around?”“Oi! What’s the commotion up here?” John called as he rounded the corner into the bedroom. He froze like a deer in the headlights of an automobile, staring between the remaining three of us.“You’re the omega of the Peaky fucking Blinders now,” Arthur snapped, ignoring his younger brother.I stepped forward several steps and shoved him backward with one hand splayed out across his chest. The other held the whiskey bottle in a tight grip. “Get out.”“You can’t tell me to get out of my own apartment,” Arthur said indignantly.“Get. out!” I roared in Romani, and I threw the whiskey bottle to the left of Arthur’s head. It wouldn’t have hit him, but he ducked it anyway, and the bottle shattered against the wall beside the doorway, staining the washed-out wallpaper.Arthur whipped on his heel and stalked out of the room, shouldering past John, who stood standing open-mouthed holding a medical kit.“Never seen Arthur that worked up over a girl,” John noted, eyes trailing after his brother. “Must be he’s smitten.”“That’s an understatement,” Tommy said, ocean eyes rolling like the sea over my seething form, hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Ruby’s got Arthur wrapped around her little finger.”“Shut up,” I sighed. I crashed back into a sitting position on the bed, rubbing my fingers between my eyebrows. One of my eyebrows was bruised from Inspector Campbell’s blow, and I winced. “And don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”“Yes, ma’am.” John winked at me, amused and not slightly bothered by the eldest alpha’s outburst. He took Arthur’s place, kneeling before me with a medical kit that he placed unceremoniously on the floor. “Arthur will come ‘round. He’s not used to a modern gypsy woman.”I nodded numbly. I regretted lashing out at Arthur. It had been a long day, too long, and the pain of my heat and the beatings were a constant distraction. “Can I have a cigarette, Tommy? I dropped my bag when the coppers picked me up.”Tommy lit a cigarette for me, and I could taste the rainforest when I dragged from the cigarette between my lips. He stood near the bed, sipping his in-tact glass of whiskey. I wished I hadn’t thrown the whiskey bottle, because I craved the burn of the liquor down my throat and the blur in my head that made me forget.“You can continue your story while John stitches you up.”“Just get me a mirror. I can stitch myself,” I snapped, reaching down for the medical kit.John caught my hands gently. “Not this time. Let someone else take care of you for a change.”“I’m not used to that,” I said quietly, but I acquiesced and allowed John to turn my face down toward him so that he could see me clearly.John unpackaged a bandage and opened up a much-used, half-empty bottle of saline that he tipped onto the bandage. He dabbed the bandage against my bruised cheek, and holding the back of my head with his free hand so that I couldn’t flinch away from him.“The coppers picked you up in the Brum,” Tommy coaxed.“They took me to an office at the police station. I managed a look at a file on the desk. It was labeled for the munitions robbery from the BSA station, and inside were files of you, Tommy, and Arthur, and I imagine John too, though I didn’t get that far into the file before he walked in.”John managed to clean my face as I talked, and I stopped between sentences to breathe through my mouth. Every touch pressed into the fresh bruise spread across half of my face. When he was done, the previously pure bandage was soaked with deep red. I looked at it curiously, wondering how I hadn’t realized I’d bled so much. I’d been so intent on getting this information to Tommy.For his part, Tommy was still as a statute, regarding me with calculating eyes. The eyes of the businessman more than the gangster. He was waiting for me to continue.“The man was Inspector Chester Campbell,” I said. The cigarette lay forgotten in my hand with the press of John’s gentle hands against my bruised face distracting me from the smoke.“Sorry, angel, this is going to hurt.” John had been fumbling with a needle and stitching wire and now pressed the needle through the cut on my cheek. It took every ounce of willpower in my body not to jump away from the needle.“He’s the one who left the mark on my face. Hit me when I wouldn’t sit, and forced me,” I continued. “He wasn’t too happy when I refused to tell him anything. Wasn’t too happy with my heat starting, either.”John tried to lighten the mood. “I love your scent,” he sighed dramatically, fluttering his big green eyes until I almost fell into them. I laughed, and this time I winced as the needle pierced my skin again.I talked to keep myself distracted more than anything. “He offered to make a deal with me, provide me with protection, a career, wealth, marriage. The perfect life.”“Why didn’t you take it?” Tommy’s face was unreadable.I screwed up my face. “What do you take me for, Tommy? Like I would take anything that bloody scurf offered me. Besides, I like my life here.” With you, I wanted to add.“What else did he say to you?” Tommy inquired.I held my breath and released it as John pierced the needle through my cheek. “Said if I didn’t ‘acquiesce,’ he’d kill you all.”“Typical,” John snorted.“He asked about the guns. I told him nothing,” I added. I looked at Tommy as John tied off the stitches in my cheek and snipped them with a pair of medical scissors. I thought I saw something like pride inside his clear eyes. “He knows Arthur’s not the boss. I didn’t tell him, but then again, it was only a matter of time.”“Only a matter of time?” John looked up at me as he packed away the supplies back in the medical supply kit. “Baby, you sound like Tommy. See everything, both of you.”Tommy nodded, to me or John I wasn’t sure. “The message John mentioned.”“‘The Lickey Tea Rooms. Friday. Ten o’clock,’” I quoted.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

My heat wasn’t so bad yet that I was delirious enough to let John Shelby sleep in my nest, although I was almost sure he would have if I asked him. Still, I hadn’t been too shy to let my inner omega win something. As John tucked me into bed, I pilfered his suit jacket, vest, and shirt and wove the different fabric through the nest of blankets and pillows around me. When I was satisfied the nest sufficiently smelled like John’s unique cologne, I nestled inside and drifted off to sleep with John petting my back.When I awoke, my entire body was stiff like my voodoo doll had been pierced with needles and thrown around and bent every which way until none of my organs would ever feel intact again.I was no longer sure I wanted to suffer through my heat alone. I had done it before, but only a day at a time. Never had two days passed before I reached some sort of vile release at the harsh hands of Lee alphas in a rut. This heat tore through me like a tornado, ripping to shreds anything and everything in its wake, and I didn’t know if I would make it through the second day before I was begging John to ease the pain.I hoped he had enough restraint to resist going into a rut. Once an alpha did, you never knew what they were capable of.*Hands stained red with my blood smeared it across my thighs as the alpha shoved my legs open. He positioned his hips beneath mine and drove home into my bloody entrance.*A pounding on the front door startled me from my memories. I had been curled up inside the nest of the canopied bed, but I rose to a sitting position, eyes flying around the room for some sort of weapon. In undressing the night before, I had set the knife that I usually kept hidden in my boot on the nightstand. I snatched it from its place and brandished it in front of me, searching for the enemy.The floor in front of my bedroom creaked, and the door, which was slightly ajar, pushed open slightly. John’s green eyes raked over my exhausted, panicked form, and his blonde eyebrows bunched together, his original purpose forgotten as rumors clicked together in his head like puzzle pieces. Damn it. Curse my shellshock for giving me away. I lowered the knife.“You slept most of the day,” John informed me.There was another pounding at the door, and my shoulders jumped to my ears. I cowered against the headboard from the sound.“It’s Ada at the door. She called over while you were asleep, said she was bringing some of your things from Charlie’s.”I nodded my understanding.John didn’t move. He ignored another round of loud knocking, but I bristled and tensed at the uncomfortable beat of the noise in my ears, all too aware of his intelligent green eyes trained on me. “Are you all right, angel?”“I feel like a train ran me over.” The Romani spilling from my lips surprised me, but then again, it always arose when I was at my most exhausted. I yanked the blanket around myself, letting the familiar language flow from my throat. “And I’m fucking freezing.”“It must be the fever. Is it getting worse?” John switched to our gypsy language easily.“The nightmares don’t help,” I admitted. I wondered if he had heard me thrashing in the night, but by the surprise buried in the grass of his eyes, I knew I was wrong. No – Despite my request for space the night before, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from coming to me if he knew what plagued my dreams. I missed my opium.Ada knocked loudly at the door downstairs. “Let me in, you fucker!”This time, I nearly hit my head on one of the posts of the wooden headboard. I cursed. “What are you waiting for, John, an excusal? Go let Ada in.”There was something like a war going on inside the green of John’s big eyes, and I knew. All I had to do was ask him to come to me, and he would leave Ada at the door and lay me down and take me until the whole of Watery Lane heard my moans. But I had given John an order, and he finally nodded, tearing his eyes away from my own as if he really would fulfill my fantasy if he looked at me for even a moment longer.“Won’t take long. Run you a bath when I get back, alright?” John disappeared from the doorway.I bundled myself back in the blankets of my nest that smelled like John and fire and honey, and I closed my eyes.*The sound of my blood rushed through my ears. Distantly, I could hear my heartbeat slowing into a gradual rhythm like the wheels of a train turning against the tracks, dnt-dnt-dnt, but slower, slower, slower, until it was ddddnnnn-ddddnnnn-ddddnnn, and the train conductor screamed the whistle and everything went black and I was one with the void.*“Ruby, baby, you’re dreaming.”John? No, it couldn’t be John. I was dead.His touch felt real, two strong hands holding my face, tilting it upward, pressing water to my lips, and I awoke, gasping and sweating and shivering and so, so thirsty that I gulped down the entire glass of water, looking wildly around the room, half-expecting to find myself in hell where I belonged. But no, my hands weren’t red, and the only fire in the room was John’s flaming orange-yellow aura crouching beside me in the nest. How much time had passed since John had roused me from death?“Ruby, are you here with me? Look at me.”I was hunched over, curled in on myself, staring at my hands wound in the sheets sticky with sweat. I needed to know if the red on my hands was real or if I was dreaming with my eyes open. Everything felt far away.“Look at me, baby.” There was a plea in his husky voice, and suddenly all I wanted to do was please him, look at his eyes, get lost in the green, ride out through the fields, and run away with John Shelby.Where were John’s eyes? He sat cross-legged like a child in front of me. The angular bend of his legs stretched his muscles tight against the black fabric of his pants. He was wearing only a thin white undershirt, and my eyes magnetized to the jaunt of his hips and the ripple of his abdomen and the curve of his strong chest. His arms were bare, exposing a startling amount of muscle. I realized suddenly that John could strangle me with those strong arms and I would let him. I almost begged him. I was dead anyway, already a ghost. Surely it wouldn’t be too much to ask.“I shouldn’t have left you alone.” His voice was so small, so so small, and so sad, and I wanted to tell him that it was okay because I was already dead. “I’m going to touch you, alright, angel?”I fell back to earth when John’s hands found my face again. His touch was like fire, and the pain receded as if confronted with an enemy too powerful to defeat. My eyes found the green pasture in John’s.“John.” I liked the way his name felt on my lips.John smiled, soft and pink, and I wasn’t sure if I had really said the words out loud when John told me, “I like the way you say my name.”I wanted to kiss him. I wanted opium. I wanted to forget.“What were you dreaming about?”At that moment, it struck me that I was, indeed, dead. I was no longer just a whore, only useful for a Lee alpha’s rut. I was my mother’s gypsy child. I was William’s bookmaker, and George’s fortune teller, and Charles’s playmate. I was John and Arthur and Tommy’s omega. I was Ada’s sister, and Pol’s daughter, and Curly’s best friend. I was Charlie’s daughter. I had family. I had pack. I was safe. I was loved.“I’m not Red Ruby anymore.”“You never were, baby.”I met John’s eyes then. “Yes, I was,” I confessed. “But I died today, John. Not just when Matthew killed me. I died today, in my nightmare. Red Ruby died today.”John seemed to understand because he smiled. A wide, toothy grin spread across both cheeks and glittered like emeralds in his eyes. “Does that mean what I think it means?”I laughed, free and airy. “All it means is that I’m accepting your help.”John pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. Fire met fire. Flames soared high inside my core, heating me like the kettle over the stove, and the tea boiled over, shattering my self-restraint. I melted into John’s body, pressing myself against his chest until I was fully straddling him. I pushed my wet cunt down into the hard cock standing at attention in his too-small pants, wondering if he could feel the pre-cum that stained my bloomers. John’s hands roamed up and down my back, my sides, finding my arse and squeezing. It was as if he couldn’t keep himself from touching me. I drank him in, lapping my tongue in the wet cave of his mouth, whining for more.John broke away from my lips, kissing a line from the corner of my mouth over my bruised cheek. His hands betrayed him, running over the hem of my chemise until he had bunched it up around my hips, exposing my bare legs. “Let me run you a bath.”I nosed my face into John’s neck, drinking in his heavy moan as I latched my lips onto the scent gland just below his ear. I nearly jumped off John’s lap when he clutched too hard onto my bruised hips, and a startled noise escaped my throat as he rubbed himself against me.But John heard the mix of pain in my tone, and as much as I wanted him to continue, he didn’t, and I knew by the hearty steel in his green eyes that he wouldn’t continue if he would hurt me further.“There’s some morphine in the bag,” John told me, indicating the shiny green trunk stuffed haphazardly at the end of the bed.Spurred by the prospect of pain relief, I crawled to the end of the bed and threw open the trunk. Ada had nestled the little packet of prison tables in the top pocket of the trunk, and I removed them, popping two little square pills from the pack. I swallowed them down dry.I started to bury myself back into the nest to get warm, but John played the record player sitting atop the little shelf in the liquor cabinet. It was my favorite jazz record, a new hit from New York by Al Jolson himself.“Gonna run you a bath so you can get warm, eh?” John was already in the little bathroom attached to the nest room. He leaned over to light the stove, and the muscles of his shoulder blades rippled beneath his undershirt with the movement.“Oh boy, you oughta meet her,” I hummed with the music, crawling off the bed and hopping to my feet despite the pain striking hot like a poker through my limbs. “Oh, boy, you oughta greet her.”John’s laughter pervaded the air, which was beginning to warm from the heat of the stove.“I mean that girl o’ mine, I’ll say she’s simply divine!” I twirled in place, moving my hips and arms to the beat of the music as I sang. “Oh boy, I wanna tell ya! My heart is gone, Maybe’ this’ll give you some idea how we carry on.”In the next verse, John’s deep voice rang out, mingling with mine over the record player. “Say, when I call, she takes my hand, but you ain’t heard nothing yet. In the hall, we act as grand, but you ain’t heard nothing yet.”We sang and sang until I was lightheaded from the lack of oxygen and the record reached a halt. For a moment, all I could hear was the rush of my blood in my veins, my heart fluttering against its cage, and the quick panting gasps I swallowed back.“Ruby, baby, come in here,” John called from the bathroom. He was breathless, too, and I smiled.I skipped into the bathroom. It was a small room, with an oversized tin tub lining the left side of the wall, filled to the brim with steaming hot water. On the right side was a stove next to a metal shelf that held a basin of water for washing hands and face. Surprisingly, there was a large mirror attached to the wall above the stove and sink combination. John was relaxing in a chair in the far right corner of the oblong room, smoking a thick brown cigar. The smoke filled the room, dancing with the moist tendrils from the heated bath and the recently abandoned stove.“Martha liked to look at herself,” John said, as if that explained everything. I knew he meant to comment on the mirror, but questions rose in the back of my head unwarranted.John made no move to rise from his relaxed position and leave me in the room to bathe. He crossed one leg over his knee at the ankle. My eyes lingered on the way the fabric of his pants bunched around his crotch, how they sat on his hips without a belt, sagging dangerously low to reveal the tight muscles of his abdomen. John rested one bare arm against his crooked knee, and he drew from the cigar in the same hand, blowing the grey smoke in my general vicinity. “Well? Are you going to take a bath?”“Do you mean to stay while I undress?” I asked boldly.“You plan to have me, don’t you?” John challenged. His pretty pink lips pulled into a smirk. “You’ll be naked for me soon enough. Why not now?”I couldn’t think of any excuse to argue with his logic. I couldn’t wait to be naked beneath his rippling muscles and creamy skin and slanted mouth.But I probably should take a bath. It had been nearly two days since my last bath – since before I had started my heat, before the trip to the Black Patch gypsy camp, before I had beaten the grey alpha, before I had died, before I had kissed John fucking Shelby.My hands hesitated at the bottom hem of my chemise. John’s eyes flicked from my face to where my fingers danced along my thighs, lifting the fabric. I wasn’t cold anymore. Sweat from my dancing stuck to my skin like gasoline, and John’s green eyes were the match. Heat licked up my limbs, flushing my throat and cheeks a vibrant bright red. I raised the chemise above my head and let it fall to a heap at my feet.“Who was Martha?” I asked for a distraction. “The girl who hung the mirror?”“She was my first love,” John said, and his voice was as tragic as the memories that played behind his eyes. I was almost jealous of the soft love inside his irises. “She liked to dress up. She wouldn’t have liked you. So Birmingham, enthralled with the city – She could never have been a gypsy.”I neared the steaming tin bath and dipped my hand inside, testing the temperature. It was warm, but not quite as warm as the heat coiling low in my belly.“We were to be married when she fell pregnant. I built this nest for her.”“What happened to her?”John cleared his throat, and the memories passed from his eyes like a dream from before. “Pestilence took her. Her and the child, just after I went off to war.”I slipped my bloomers from my hips and kicked them down my legs until they fell into a puddle on the floor. I watched through the long mirror as the witch in the reflection reached back and undid the clasp of her brassiere, letting it fall down her arms to join the rest of my underclothes on the floor. Her breasts were perky and soft, her pert nipples standing to pink attention in the cool air of the room. The expanse of her stomach was tight with muscle but so thin that her hip bones stood out against the wide curves of her hips. Her waist was narrow as if pinched tight by the strongest corset. The evidence of her obvious arousal glistened wet on the neatly trimmed orange curls between her slick thighs. Waves of red hair cascaded down the dip of her back, and she reached fine-toned arms upward to tie her long hair into a gypsy knot at the crown of her head. Freckles stood out against sunkissed olive skin like sprinkles on caramel ice cream always served at the fair.The gypsy in the mirror might have been a goddess if it weren’t for the scars littered across her freckled skin. Thinly raised scars stood out pale pink against the tan skin from rings bitten into flesh, nails scraped into skin, blows that drew blood. Several scarred bitemarks raised against one of her breasts near the nipple, the muscled tendon of her shoulder that was usually hidden by her clothes, the jutting hipbone sticking out from her curves, the smooth inner thigh right next to her cunt where her legs brushed together. It was the beaten and battered body of a whore that stared back at me in the mirror. That wasn’t even to mention the black-and-yellow bruises that stretched from beneath her breasts all down her abdomen. Campbell’s handprints had bruised a purple necklace around her throat, and the side of her face was still swollen, the cut on her cheek recently stitched from John’s own hands.Her eyes were the only feature untouched. They were gypsy eyes, the pupil rimmed with a wide ring of the darkest brown. Ringed around the brown was a wild, untamed green, framed by thick red lashes that gleamed like gold in the lamplight.John let out a low, rumbling growl when he saw me, and his green eyes flashed dangerously. “Tommy and I are gonna have a talk about Campbell.”I shrugged, drawing my hand across the bruised tone of my stomach. “I don’t mind taking a beating for Tommy, or any one of you Peaky boys. Just wonder if Arthur was right. Would’ve been easier for me if I hadn’t fought.”“Arthur was only right about one thing. We should be the ones protecting you.”I stepped into the warm water of the tub and sank down inside, sighing as the warm cocoon of water wreathed my muscles aching from the heat.“Should teach you how to shoot.”“I know how to shoot,” I said, and when John raised a blonde eyebrow, I only smiled at him. “Do you miss her, your Martha?”John shook his head. His green eyes roamed over my face, dipping only once to my breasts standing out above the water. “Not anymore. Not since I met you.”“I wonder what that says about you, John, if a gypsy whore like me can steal your heart away from a darling like Martha.”John abandoned his cigar on the side of the bathroom countertop. He marched swiftly to the side of the tub and leaned over it, holding my face just tightly enough not to agitate the bruising. “You’re not a whore anymore, baby. Don’t let me catch you using that word again.” John’s eyes were hard, but they softened the longer he looked at me. “And I know what love feels like. Martha would want me to chase it.”I wrapped both of my arms around John’s strong neck and pulled. With a splash, he fell into the tub on top of me, one of his soaking pant legs landing between my thighs. I threw my head back against the tub and laughed a tinkling laugh like bells ringing.John watched me like a man enraptured. “You’re an angel. You make me believe in love again.”I couldn’t stop myself. I surged upward, pushing myself forward with two hands on the back of the tin tub, and kissed John. My mind reeled, fuzzy from the morphine, and all I could think was that John had all but told me that he loved me. He had said he knew what love felt like, and I trusted him, because I had never felt something so cataclysmic in my life as kissing John Shelby.I pulled one of my legs forward to my chest and kneed John lightly backward. He fell against the opposite side of the tub, letting me crawl on top of his form splayed out in the bath. His hard cock stood at attention in the confines of his pants, and I pressed down on top of it, heat rising through my body as I realized that all that was between me and John Shelby were his clothes. Although his thin undershirt was soaked from the wetness of the bath, it offended me, and I started to push the hem up his sculpted chest.John caught my hands. “Are you sure about this?”“Tommy said you’ll be gentle with me.” My words came out in a breathless rush, and I hardly cared about the desperation in my voice. I needed him to be gentle, but more than that, I needed him.John’s hands roamed up and down my bare torso, landing on my breasts and squeezing until I arched into him. “We can take things slow, baby,” John murmured, pressing a kiss just below my scent gland. “I’ll like fucking you slowly, until you’re begging me with that angelic voice of yours to pick up the pace.”I rocked myself against John’s clothed cock, moaning into the friction as I let the omege take the reigns. I wasn’t afraid anymore of my heat – I needed John, just John, only John, all of John. I ran my hands over John’s chest, worshipping the angular contour of his abs. I dipped one hand down the V of John’s hips, intending to feel the hard cock I wanted inside me right that moment.John caught my wrist. I whined needily, raising my head to look at John’s green eyes, begging him not to deny me.“Not here,” he said huskily.“Where?” I demanded. I was dizzy and needy and there were far too many clothes between me and my alpha.“The nest. Only proper place to fuck your omega.”I had never liked my designation. Never wanted it on the lips of a lover. And then there was John fucking Shelby calling me his, and I never wanted the words to leave his lips.“I want the whole nest to smell like you and me.” John’s lips found the hollow of my throat and sucked. “Wrap your legs around me, baby.”I wove my legs around John’s back, and he cupped my arse as he stood from the bath. Ignoring how the water flushed down our bodies, John held me in his arms, kissing my neck as he brought me to the large canopied bed that took up most of the space in the nest room. He set me down gently on the bed, never rising to breathe from the ceaseless kisses he pressed down my throat. One of my hands pushed up the soaked shirt stuck to John’s back, feeling the way the muscles in his back tensed and rippled as he licked at my throat. My other hand reached upward to the shaved back of John’s head, wishing he would never stop worshipping the sensitive flesh of my neck.John licked a stripe over my scent gland, and I moaned. He brought the little sack into his mouth, prodding it with his tongue and teasing the sensitive flesh with his sharp teeth. His hands moved from my arse to my breasts, kneading.“John.” I didn’t know why I was saying his name, what I was asking for, but it felt right in my mouth. “John.”One of John’s hands whispered down my body to my wet, waiting pussy. We’d left the bath moments ago, but my thighs were again sticky with my slick. He groaned when he plunged his fingers through my sopping lower lips, exploring the sensitive bundle of nerves until he found the hood of my clit. He stroked small, light circles against me, and I convulsed forward, a surprised moan escaping my lips as I clutched suddenly at his arm.John stopped his ministrations, unlatching his lips from my scent gland to meet my wild, open brown-green eyes. His other hand left my breast to lightly touch my hand, where it was latched onto John’s arm between my legs. “Is this okay?”“It’s more than okay,” I laughed, smiling with bitten pink lips. “I – I didn’t know it could feel like that, that I could make these noises.”John’s blown-out green eyes darkened. “I live for the noises you make. If you’ll let me, I’ll make you sing like an angel.”“Really?” A childish giggle passed my lips, and John’s eyes melted.John’s fingers, wet with my slick, ghosted across my clit. “Really.” His fingers picked up a solid pace, and I moaned, releasing my grip on John’s arm. “You don’t need to be embarrassed around me, baby. This is all for you. So don’t hold back.”I wrapped one hand around John’s back, digging my nails into his skin as he stroked me between my thighs. With my free hand, I wound my fingers into the tuft of slicked-back blonde hair at the top of John’s head and pressed him closer to me, slanting our lips together. I licked into his mouth, imploring, and he drank in my moans as he brought me closer and closer toward a mountain peak and I teetered at the edge, fearing how I might topple over it into the abyss.“You’re still holding back,” John whispered huskily against my lips. “Let go, angel.”John’s commanding voice threw me over the side of the mountain. I didn’t fall to crash. I flew. Every nerve in my body crackled with electricity. White hot pleasure exploded through my core like fireworks I had never seen before. I cried out, no longer holding myself back from the edge. I fell into John’s embrace, clutching onto him tightly as if he was the tether of my kite soaring high above the green fields of his eyes and mine.I floated in the clouds, and only John’s lips slotted against mine and his fingers stroking slowly against my folds fettered me to the earth below. John was the earth, solid and safe and so, so warm. He tasted like fire itself, and I wound my legs around his hips, bringing him closer until the twin apexes of our bodies thrust his fingers harsher against my cunt.“Tell me what you need, baby.”“You,” I gasped, but that wasn’t enough for John because he ducked my needy kiss, holding himself away from me so that only his fiery breath brushed against my mouth. “You, John, I need you. I need your knot inside filling me up until I can’t take anymore.”John granted me a kiss. “My knot is big, angel. Gotta take my fingers and my cock first.” His fingers danced from my clit to my entrance, and he pressed one finger just slightly into my waiting entrance. “Is that what you want?”“Yes!” I cried, and his finger slipped through my passage. “Yes, please, alpha, I’m yours.”“Fuck, baby, you’re so tight,” John groaned. “I’m going to put a second finger in now.”I whined when John withdrew his index finger from my wet folds, but he filled the space quickly with two fingers, curling them toward the top of my walls. Still crooking his fingers against my upper wall, John pumped his fingers in and out. I wailed into John’s waiting mouth, and he drank in my cries, groaning as if he couldn’t help himself. I had pleasured myself with my fingers before, but never like this, never finding just that right spot that wrung pleasure through my every limb.“You look like an angel squirming on my hand,” John told me reverently. He praised me with his eyes, almost entirely black with lust. “I thought you were an angel that first night I saw you, dancing by yourself with your head raised to the stars.”I didn’t know how John could speak such poetry when his fingers were inside me, thrusting in and out right against that button of pleasure that sent me hurtling toward the edge again. If I had been coherent, I would have told him that I wasn’t alone that night – I had been dancing with the ghosts. I had died once since I met him, and his fingers brought me closer and closer toward my second little death.“You can take one more finger, can’t you, angel?”“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, give me everything, alpha, I want everything.”John stretched me on three fingers, three fingers prodding the little button of pleasure inside, three fingers filling me up, three fingers pushing me nearer and nearer over the edge of the mountain.“John,” I moaned.“Come for me, angel.”I came undone at his command. White stars winked across my vision, filling it until the white of my orgasm and the green of John’s worshipful eyes were all I could see. John’s fingers never stopped moving, and I threw back my head against the pillows and moaned as I came apart for the third time in quick succession from the second. John was all I could think, all I could smell, the nest now covered in the warm fiery scent of his arousal that was so uniquely and undeniably him.I shivered with the aftershocks, my core muscles clenching around John’s fingers as they stilled inside me. When I was relaxed and pliable beneath him, he slipped his fingers from my leaking cave. I tightened my legs around his back, pressing my wet cunt against John’s thick, hard length, sliding against him until the underside of his clothed cock pressed against my clit and I nestled against the knot swelling at his base.John’s hand was slick with my cum, and I could only blush as he pressed the three fingers that had moments ago been inside me onto his tongue. He took them into his mouth, licking them clean while I rocked myself against the rock-hard cock still trapped in his pants.“You taste divine,” John moaned.“Let me taste,” I demanded.John pressed his chest against my bare breasts as he leaned down and captured my lips with his own. I licked across his lips, tangling my tongue with his, tasting him. He tasted like marshmallows that melted in your mouth along with the heavy syrupy taste of my honey arousal.I never wanted to stop kissing John, but he was still wearing his damned undershirt. I moved my hands to the front of his collar, bunched the fabric in my hands, and ripped.John startled backward, leaving me shivering from the waist up as he parted from my body and my lips to stare at me in surprise. I ripped the shirt the rest of the way down and tore it from his body.“You could have asked me.” John smiled his crooked smile, and the amused expression filled the balloon of arousal in my core. I needed his knot.“I’ll rip your pants off too if you don’t take them off,” I growled.I released John, and he stepped back to unbutton his pants. His shirt was still in my hand, and I balled it up and pressed it to my face, watching him with lazy eyes as he shoved his pants down over his legs. He worked off his socks, and I pushed my nude body up against the headboard until I was lying back against the pillows. My mouth fell open as John’s cock sprung free of his shorts, bobbing as he kicked the last fabric of his clothing to the floor.“You’re staring,” John said, dragging my eyes away from his large, perfect shaft to his sparkling green eyes. He walked to the bed and crawled on his hands and knees up my body, nudging my legs open to accept him. His cock hung heavy between his legs, prodding against my bare cunt, and I shivered.I reached down and wrapped my small hand around John’s cock. He jumped in my hand, and the man himself let out a sound between a hiss and a growl. I slung my legs over John’s hips, pressing him down into me and using the flat of my hand to rub his cock against my wet slit.John bent over me to kiss my forehead. “I’m going to put it inside, baby. Is that what you want?”I met John’s eyes with large, begging brown-green ones. “Yes, that’s what I want.”John took his length from my hand and inched back his hips so that he could slot the leaking head of his cock against my entrance. He hesitated, eyes roaming my pleading face staring back up at him.“Please, John, I want you to fill me up with your cock,” I whispered. I’d been scared the last time I’d taken an alpha as big as John, but I wasn’t scared now. I wanted him. I trusted him.John pressed himself into my entrance, and my pussy stretched painfully around to accommodate him, but along with that painful stretch was a pleasureful pressure that had me digging my heels into John’s back, pushing him just that much farther into me.“It’s too much, John,” I whispered, even as I inched him in deeper. “You won’t fit inside.”John kissed my forehead once, twice. “Does it hurt?”“Only a little, it… It mostly feels good.”John nodded. There was a sadness in his eyes that told me he understood, more than I did in that moment, why I was so surprised that an alpha’s cock could feel oh, so good inside my cunt.“Do you want me to stop?” John murmured, kissing my lips.My hands on his hips raised around his back to clutch under his arms at his shoulders. “No! No, don’t stop, I need you, John, I need you, alpha –”That was all it took for John to sheathe himself in my wanting cave. “You can take it for me, angel, you can take it. Trust yourself.”John’s mouth lapsed over mine, and he drank in my heavy moans of mingled pleasure and pain as he withdrew, slowly, and sunk back into my passage all the way down until the head of his cock nudged my cervix and the bulge of his knot stretched at my entrance. I scratched at his shoulders until he hissed and groaned, and I locked my legs around John’s back, stilling him for only a moment inside me. He picked up a slow, shallow pace that rocked into every empty space inside me.“Bloody fucking hell, angel, you feel so good.”I released one of John’s shoulders to tangle my fingers in his blonde hair, bringing him back to my lips so that I could lick into the flames of his hot mouth. John thrust into my waiting cunt, his balls slapping against my thighs and ass, and I tightened my legs around his hips and threw my weight against his shoulder. John tumbled over, and I rolled him onto his back until I was straddling him, pressing down so hard that the head of his cock nosed against my cervix and the thinnest part of his knot stretched into my cunt. I gasped with the force of the sudden thrust, and my lips popped from John’s. I buried my face in his throat, using my hips to raise myself upward just slightly on John’s cock before I sheathed him down to his knot again.“That’s right, good girl, angel,” John grunted. “Take what you need.”I splayed my hands across John’s chest, pushing him down as I rode his cock, curving my hips with every bounce. In this position, he filled up every possible inch of my cunt, and every drag up and down drew his thick length across the sensitive button of pleasure at the front of my walls.“You’re perfect, alpha,” I mumbled. “Perfect, so perfect, filling me up.”“Just for you,” John promised me. He leaned upward, grabbing my hips to help me bounce on his lap as he latched his lips around one of my sensitive nipples.I threw back my head, moaning, pressing my breast further into his mouth. One hand found his hair, pushing him further into my breast until he was smothered by the doughy flesh, breathing hot against my collarbone as he fiddled with my nipple between his teeth. John lifted his hips to meet mine, and the room filled with fire and honey and the slapping of flesh against flesh.“Like that, just like that,” I gasped, holding onto John’s head and shoulders like he would keep me from flying away. He picked up a rhythm from beneath me, hitting my soft spot just right over and over and over again.“You’re an angel, baby, an angel.”John lifted from my breast and surged forward, overtaking my small form and pressing me to my back across the bed. He kissed my lips, ignoring my whine when he separated from my mouth, dipping back to kiss over my cheek, down my jaw, over my ear. He took the shell of my ear into his mouth, his teeth nipping against the sensitive skin, and little bonfires stoked to life across my limbs, raising the little hairs across my skin.“I’m close,” I panted. “Don’t stop, John, please –”But I needn’t have begged him because another orgasm crashed through my body like a tidal wave, and I whimpered and trembled in John’s arms. His rhythm slowed until he was drawing long, measured thrusts in and out, stoking along the aftershocks of my orgasm as I shook and wailed beneath him.“Good girl, coming for me so sweet,” John growled huskily. “Can you come for me again, baby? I want you to come while I’m knotting your tight little cunt.”“Yes, alpha,” I moaned, eager to please. I would come for John as many times as I could until I was crying and begging him to stop.John’s pace picked up into a solid rhythm, and I watched the taut muscles of his abdomen and the curve of his hips and the tightening of his thighs as he pumped his thick cock into my pussy. His hands roamed my body, up and down my torso as if he couldn’t touch me enough, couldn’t bear to be separate from me. Both hands glided over my breasts, the rough pads of his thumbs caressing the swollen nubs of my nipples. His hands cupped my breasts, rolling my nipples between between his thumb and forefinger.“Come.” John rocked into my body, and his knot pushed through my fucked-open cave with a slick pop! and I hissed and moaned at the same time as I took all of him in and he pressed against my cervix, and everything exploded all at once.“John!” I cried as I came. “Alpha!”This time when I came apart, the world shattered around me. John’s green eyes and pink lips and gold hair and stubbly chin and the wooden frame of the bed and the purple canopy John had at some point drawn around us all broke apart like puzzle pieces, crumbling at the feet of my unity with John. There was no separating us now, and every time John thrust up into me, I felt the tug of his knot threatening to split me apart, and the way he filled every empty space inside, so tight, so good.John’s movements slowed to a stuttering pace, and I knew with foggy clarity that he would come undone at any moment. He leaned down to my neck, latching his lips over my scent gland, and I rocked my hips into his, grinding myself down further on his knot.“Ruby,” John groaned, and his own orgasm burst against my womb. He collapsed on top of me, hips twitching as rode out his orgasm, and hot cum like liquid fire coated my insides so thoroughly that it dripped out around John’s knot and leaked between the cheeks of my arse.I soared among the birds in the clouds and the blue sky, high above John’s green eyes, swimming like pools of green pasture as he stared into my face. I was nowhere and everywhere at once, and everything was him, him, him, John Shelby, my alpha. I reached up my hands to touch his face, stroking his soft cheeks. I don’t know when he’d managed to raise himself from my neck, but he was looking at me with such softness that I thought, perhaps, I was Martha and not Ruby because he could only look at someone he loved with those glittering green eyes.“Thank you,” I whispered, and I realized that my eyes weren’t blurry because of the morphine or the orgasms, but because I was crying. My eyes welled with tears that dripped down my cheeks, and John kissed them away.“You never have to thank me,” John said, and his voice was sad.“Did you mean it? When you said this was only for us?”I blushed red under his unfaltering gaze, but John, like always, smiled. “Yes, I meant it. Does that make you happy?”I nodded. I was beginning to think that I wanted to be the Shelby pack omega, but I didn’t know if I wanted what that entailed.“You know, Tommy used to see Lizzie Stark,” John admitted, watching my face carefully as I nodded in understanding. “Arthur had girls every night. But not since you’ve come to Small Heath.”He was clearly expecting the surprise that passed unfiltered through my face, like all my expressions, and I cursed my readability. It wasn’t often that I was surprised, but the Shelby alphas had a habit of catching me with my guard down.“Since I came to town?” I repeated.John smiled down at me. “We gypsies believe in fated mates. The moment we scented you at Esme’s wedding, we all knew.”My mind reeled. I could do nothing but stare, open-mouthed, at John’s smile. I wanted to slap it right off his face, scream at him, cry, but I could only stare.It all made sudden sense. The way they’d looked at me at Esme’s wedding party like I was prey to be feasted upon. Why Zilpha had sent me to Thomas Shelby after I had murdered Matthew.The Shelby boys didn’t care about me. John didn’t love me. ‘Fated mates’ was just another way of saying that I was a whore to be fucked and bred and had. That’s why they were so possessive of me, so intent that I belonged to them, so easily accepting of me, Red Ruby, in their midst.I remembered at Esme’s wedding party, the way Polly Gray had looked from me to Tommy as if I just might be exactly what she needed to tame the beast. I remembered her standing from her seat at the tea table where she had been smoking to murmur in his ear, and the way his eyes had lit with the idea, and he had met impromptu with Madame Zilpha herself shortly after.What Tommy Shelby wants, Tommy Shelby gets. By any means possible.“When did you know?” I spat.John didn’t flinch away. His green eyes were as steely as Tommy’s usually were. “When did I know what?”“Don’t you fucking lie to me, John Shelby,” I said. “When did you know that Tommy fucking bought me from the Lees?”“He told me two days ago, in the car, before we picked you up for the fair,” John confessed, sighing heavily.“You fucking knew, and you still fucked me!” I hissed. Red blurred the edges of my vision where I had thought I’d seen clearly before. Now I knew I was wrong, and oh, so naive.“You needed me, Ruby.” John’s green eyes begged me to understand.He stroked my cheek, and I flinched away. “Don’t fucking touch me. You’re a fucking liar, John Shelby, all but telling me you fucking love me.”“I’m always going to be here when you need me, angel, and you needed me.”I shook my head. “Don’t call me that.”“Please, Ruby, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you would react like this.”“Like what?” I yelled in his face, and it was his turn to flinch away. I laughed cruelly. “You thought I would be grateful? To be bought?”John was quiet. So he had thought me to be some poor, pathetic orphaned whore to be bought, did he?“And Arthur?” I demanded. “Tell me you didn’t get Arthur’s hands dirty when Tommy trafficked me.”John shook his head, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “He’s smart enough to know you’re his mate, but no, not this.”I folded my arms across my chest, hiding my breasts from view. “If it wasn’t for your knot holding us together right now, I would be squeezing your eyes straight out of their sockets.”“I was afraid you would hurt us both,” John admitted. “I didn’t expect to tell you now, like this. But I just couldn’t keep the truth from you, angel.”After a moment of silence, and John leaning painfully over me to keep from crushing me beneath him, he said, “I can move you onto my lap.”I nodded my assent and locked my legs back around John. He raised us to his knees and moved us back to the headboard, where he sat with legs out so that I was straddling his body on top. I sighed with the relief, but an aching in my thighs was starting to spread back to the rest of my body even as I was filled with his knot, and I knew I needed more morphine soon.“When your knot goes down,” I seethed, “Get the fuck out of my nest and don’t come back. Go sleep at Tommy’s for all I care. If I see you back here again, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

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As I had asked, John left the apartment after his knot swelled down to a reasonable enough size to slide out of my body. I regretted the emptiness immediately, for the pain of the heat was relentless. As the door closed behind John and he left me alone at Watery Lane, I rummaged in the green trunk wedged at the bottom of the oversized bed. The prison tablets were sitting right on top of my clothes, and I shook a handful into my palm and swallowed them all.Then I curled into my nest, wrapping my arms around my knees and tucking them to my chest while I ducked my head as close to my center as I could manage. The position reminded me of how I slept at night at the camp during my heats, waiting for an alpha to scent me and come searching for the object of his sudden insatiable desire. But I could only think about John, his fiery scent weaved into the nest, his hands roaming over my body, his fingers crooking deep inside me, his mouth against mine as he drank in my cries.I stayed like that until morning when the sun leaked through the dark shades along the wall, replaying the night I met John in my head like an old film. I remembered seeing him with Arthur and Tommy, all three sets of eyes staring at me as I danced with the ghosts on the edge of the bonfire, alone. I remembered the way they watched me, as if they knew me, as if I was already theirs. They had looked at me as if the war meant nothing, as if the mud and the blood and the death were all worth every second they could spend looking at me. The Shelby alphas had taken my breath away, so much so that I had barely noticed when Polly rose from her seat at the tea table, where she had been smoking, to whisper in Tommy’s ear. He had nodded and made a beeline for Zilpha’s wagon at the center of the caravan beside the bonfire, gypsies buzzing around him. Then John’s strong frame interceded my vision, and his green eyes were all I could see as he asked me to dance. For a distraction, I realized much too late – for Tommy had noticed the smart eyes on their fated omega.That was the night Tommy had bought my future. The night I went from being the Lees’ Red Ruby to being the Shelbys’ Red Ruby.It made it worse that Tommy had known nothing about me, known nothing about my residency with the Lees, before he had ripped me away from the only family I had ever known – or the ghost of one, anyway. He hadn’t cared who I was, just that I was his. And he had proved he would do anything, including buying me, to get what he wanted.I didn’t understand how John could have kept it a secret from me. How he could have known since the fair and not said a word until he’d fucked me. Not when we were fated mates.Then again, I knew what fated mates meant to Thomas Shelby and his brothers. They were gypsy by blood, but Birmingham raised. To Brummies, fated mates was a word tossed around to control omegas, to claim them into your pack and then leave them to their own devices, claimed but untended. Whored and had. Just like I had been with the Lees. Just like I had refused to be again. But there I was.To me, fated mates was something special. I had dreamt of my fated since my brother George had shared the gypsy tales with me. My mother had never known it, but Esme had shared it with Joseph since they both came of age. She had told me it was something real, tangible, an inseparable type of unity. She had said it wasn’t just one singular moment or a simple scent match that determined he was right for you. It was a deep, innate knowledge that you belonged to each other.And I knew. I think I had known since that night I danced with John, that night when Arthur looked at me like I was his whole world, and Tommy looked at me like he could forget the war. They were mine, and I was theirs. I hated them for it.The door to the bedroom banged open. I shot up, snatching my little knife off the nightstand and holding it out in front of me as if I might cut the next person who touched me.“Going to cut me, are you?” Ada huffed.I flicked the knife closed, set it back down on the nightstand beside the bed, and pulled the covers higher up my body. “Thought you were John. Did he send you?”“Like John Shelby could tell me to do anything,” Ada scoffed.“Please tell me you brought my opium kit this time.”Ada looked at me sharply, knowledge sparking high in the green of her eyes. “You know, I have a friend who’s a whore. Lizzie Stark is her name. When she was younger and she first started working, she struggled with opium addiction too.”“I’m not addicted,” I snapped, clinging the blankets closer to my chin as if that could hide who I was from Ada Shelby. “And I’m not a whore.”“The boys from the war never came back the same,” Ada continued. The door hung wide behind her, and the light wafted around her form like she was the angel and I was the poor supplicant hiding from her beauty and truth. “I imagine it’s like that with whores, never the same after. Some of the soldiers use it, too. Danny was one.”Realization flashed in my eyes. “And Tommy. Tommy was one?”Ada nodded. “Tommy is one still. You should ask him about it. He would never talk to me about ‘men’s business.’ Are you ready now?”“Ready for what?”Ada’s watery eyes flickered over my face. “Why didn’t you say anything to me, Ru?”I rubbed my face in my hands, managing to gather the sleep that had pooled in the corners of my eyes and swipe it away. “I didn’t know,” I lied.Ada scoffed again. “Don’t give me that. Pol says you’re a witch, and witches know things before they happen.”“I didn’t want to believe it, Ada,” I sighed truthfully. “I didn’t want to believe it when I met them at Esme’s wedding.”Ada sat on the edge of the canopied bed. “When did you start believing?”“That night after Danny Whizz-bang spooked at me. I dropped Charlie’s whiskey in the fight, and Tommy took me home to nurse my cut forehead. When I met all three of them, together, I knew there was no escaping the truth.”“I don’t get it,” Ada said flatly. “You love them, don’t you?”I sucked in a breath that felt like fire in my lungs. “I don’t – I don’t know what I feel for them, but I don’t want to – I don’t want to belong to alphas again, Ada.”Ada nodded, her lake-green eyes flickering over my morphine-drugged body heavy against the headboard. “They’re a lot, Ru, but you can’t deny your fated mates. What are you going to do?”I sighed heavily, my shoulders sinking with the weight of it all, my designation, my place in the Shelby pack, my inextricable involvement with the Shelby alphas. “I wish I could run. I would run and run and run far away from all of this.”“You don’t mean that.”“No,” I admitted. I didn’t want to run away from the Shelby pack. I wanted to run straight into their arms, John’s and Tommy’s and Arthur’s, and let them hold me and never ever let me go. That’s what scared me. I was a gypsy, meant to be free, not caged in by a few Brummie alphas who couldn’t get the war out of their eyes or the city out of their clothes.In one swift movement, Ada yanked the blankets from my legs, baring my barely clothed body to the cool of the day.I shivered, wrapping my arms around my scantily-clad breasts. “Ada, what the fuck?”Ada looked over me, and then she nodded, once, as if determining I was ready for a fight. “It’s time for you to go speak to Aunt Pol. She’s waiting downstairs with your cigarettes.”“Aunt Pol?” I repeated numbly as Ada stood from the bed and walked to the door. “What do you mean, Aunt Pol?” I asked as she retreated from the nest room, closing the door behind her.The morphine was heavy in my limbs as I fumbled through my trunk for a suitable pair of clothes. Ada hadn’t packed me a dress, or I would have worn it to meet the matriarch of the Shelby pack. Instead, I yanked on my undergarments, a pair of worn trousers that I cinched around my waist with a belt, and an oversized men’s white button-up that I tucked into my pants. I nearly forgot my socks in my rush and had to take off my shoes just to force the coarse fabric over my toes. It felt wrong, not being barefoot during my heat with my toes in the soft grass. All fabric felt abhorrent to my sensitive skin, including socks, but I was too cold to worry about that.I walked downstairs, cursing the way the steps creaked beneath my weight and thankful that the layout of the flat was as simple as Tommy’s next door as I turned the corner into the living room and walked into the kitchen.The kitchen was a small room, cramped on one side with a countertop and stove while the other side housed a large dishware cabinet and a small pantry. Polly Gray sat at the head of the table. She was an alpha, and she wore it in the narrow straight of her back and the squared shoulders that told me she had come prepared to fight. She had the sunkissed, creamy skin of a gypsy queen that creased between her thick dark eyebrows and beneath the large wells of the darkest eyes I had ever seen. Dark brown hair, almost black, tumbled down her neck to her shoulders in thick ringlets. Her cheekbones reminded me of Tommy’s, sharp enough to cut but fuller like tulip bulbs. Her nose was small and pert, standing to attention above a set of thin lipsticked lips, curling as she dragged inward on a strange, thin, brown cigarette. She sat at the head of the kitchen table, one hand occupied by her cigarette and the other twisted an empty teacup between her fingers. Ada sat to Polly’s left, sipping her own cup of tea. My cigarettes and the ashtray sat center on the table, next to a bowl of apples that glittered like red rubies.“Sit down, Ruby,” said Polly. “We need to talk.”I sat promptly at Polly’s right and pulled my cigarettes and my matchbox toward my body. “I’m finally deserving of the truth, then?”Polly’s eyes were dark and unflinching as she watched me extricate a cigarette and smooth it between my lips almost like Tommy did. “You were always deserving of the truth. It was Tommy who wanted to keep it from you.”I lit the cigarette between my lips and inhaled the smoke like it was the freshest mountain air. The effect of the nicotine was immediate, rising to my morphine-addled brain. “So you’re blameless, is that it?”“Ruby…” Ada started, but Polly held up a hand, silencing her.“I’m not blameless,” Polly agreed darkly. “I was the one who suggested we buy you.”“What?” Ada blurted.I could only laugh in my disbelief. “You’d go that far to protect Tommy from the consequences of his own actions?”“Look at me, Ruby. I’m not lying to you,” Polly demanded, and I did, I looked at her, and her aura was emerald green with whisps of black, and her heart beat steadily within its cage, and her kohl-rimmed eyes were as dark as truth itself.I folded my arms across the table, nursing my cigarette. “Tell me everything. You owe me as much.”“How could you be involved in this business, Pol?” Ada wanted to know.Polly Gray ashed her cigarette with graceful fingers and short, manicured nails. “I received a letter from Madame Zilpha along with the invitation for Esme Lee’s wedding to Joseph Conrad. In the letter, Zilpha boasted of an auction at Esme’s wedding where she was selling a priceless omega whose heat smells like honey.”Polly paused, allowing me to digest the information. I shook my head at her. “You’re telling me Madame was going to sell me to the highest bidder. I don’t believe that.”“Do you think Zilpha didn’t know what was going on beneath her nose? Didn’t encourage it?” It was Polly’s turn to shake her head. “You’re more naive than I thought.”“That’s my family you’re talking about,” I hissed.“Are they really, though, Ru?” Ada said.When I shook my head again, the morphine blurred my vision until the entire kitchen was a watery mess, as if my eyes were the rainy window of a car blurring through the city. “They’re the only family I’ll ever have.”“That’s not true.” Ada reached across the table to clutch my free hand while I smoked with the other. “You’re our family now. Right, Pol?”Polly discarded her spent cigarette in the ash tray and pulled another from the cigarette case in her coat pocket. “It would seem so.”I took a deep breath of cigarette smoke, anchored by Ada’s warm hands holding onto mine. “Where’s this letter, then?”Polly pursed her lips, trapping the cigarette in her mouth as she lit it with a little silver lighter. She pulled a letter from her pocket and passed it over the table to me. Ada released me to allow me to unfold the letter and read its contents. Tears streaked down my face as I read. Then I folded the letter back up and deposited it in the back pocket of my trousers. That was it, then. Polly Gray hadn’t been lying – Madame Zilpha had put me on auction.“We went to the wedding with no intention of bidding at the auction,” Polly continued, appraising the sticky tears that blurred my cheeks. “I told Tommy, of course, and he wanted to know what business with bodies was being done in his territory.”“That’s when they saw me,” I whispered, remembering their eyes, green and blue and blue-green. “That’s when they knew.”“The gypsies pointed you out to us, thinking we might bid on you,” Polly explained. “Tommy had half a mind to tear the whole place apart when he saw you. But he didn’t want to start a war, and more importantly, he didn’t want you of all people involved with him of all people.”“He wanted to protect her,” Ada realized. “Tommy always said he was glad he never had a fated mate.”“John asked me to dance,” I remembered, blowing out a smokey cloud. My brain was liquid, the cogs turning too quickly for me to think clearly.Polly nodded her agreement, smoking from her cigarette. “Tommy used John as a distraction to get to Madame Zilpha. Bought you right then at the auction. How he managed to convince John and Arthur to stay away from you, I don’t know.”“I remember that conversation,” Ada said suddenly. Her fingers fiddled with one of her fancy Perisian cigarettes. “In the car on the way back to Small Heath, they wouldn’t tell me who they were talking about, but I’ve never seen Tommy look like he might kill John or Arthur before then.”“John and Arthur knew you were a whore, but they didn’t know about what the Lees did to you,” Polly told me.Ada held her hand over her mouth as she giggled, looking at my apologetically. “That’s right! Arthur called you that, and John almost socked him right in the car. He would have, if I wasn’t between them.”I dropped my cigarette in the ashtray, fishing in my package for another and lighting it quickly. “Why didn’t Tommy just tell me?” I was crying again. “Why did he tell John before he told me? Why did everyone know before I knew?”“I didn’t know,” Ada protested.“Tommy didn’t want you involved in the bad business,” Polly said.“It’s all guns and drugs and violence, as he says,” Ada inputted.“He says that’ll end soon, says he’s going to make it all legitimate,” Polly sighed, and I knew she didn’t believe what she was saying because her aura flickered a semi-brighter green instead of its even evergreen. “He wanted to wait until it was.”I laughed with no mirth. “But you can’t get close to the Shelby brothers without tasting a little violence.”“What do you think, Ru?” Ada twisted a strand of her wavy brown hair around her finger nervously. She wanted me to forgive them.I couldn’t forgive them. I couldn’t forgive them because they had been too late. So late that Red Ruby had lived and died by Matthew’s hand. So late that I was too broken now to be of any use to them, simply a ghost waiting to pass from purgatory. I was broken now, and I wanted that to be their fault, someone’s fault, anyone’s fault but my own.“I think…” I rested my wrist against the table, watching the cigarette ash over my fingers. I started to cry again. “I think I wished they had saved me sooner.”Polly flicked her cigarette into the ashtray. “What happened that night, Ruby?”“Poll –”“The girl needs to talk about it.”She knew because she was a witch, too. And in the presence of another witch, everything flowed out of me like a dam bursting, and the water rushed through me, wettening everything until I was only liquid, crying and clutching my heart as if that would keep me from bursting like the dam.“That night was the worst night of my life,” I whispered. “My heat was the worst it had ever been, and I perfumed so much that I’m sure the whole of the caravan smelled it. It’s like a drug, my perfume, like an intoxicant that makes you want to fuck, or more likely, fuck me.”“Every month?” Ada murmured to herself. Her cigarette lay discarded in her hand, still on the tabletop.“I couldn’t stop myself from screaming into my cot because the pain was so bad. If they weren’t awake already, I woke up half the men, and they all had their turns with me. Do you know what it’s like to be raped? To bleed from their cocks so much you’re dizzy? Did you know that’s why they call me Red Ruby?”Ada knocked back her chair and abandoned it, coming to sit beside me. My cigarette was burning in my hand, so she took it from me and placed it in the ashtray. Then she enveloped both my hands in her and looked at me, waiting for me to tell my story.“Matthew,” I whispered. “Matthew, he choked me until I felt my heart stop, and I joined the ancestors in the plane, Polly, I saw your family, and they wouldn’t let me pass. Maybe Tommy and Arthur and John saved me after all, because they stopped me for a reason, and I think it’s because I’m fated. Maybe they saved me after all, because I killed him, killed him with my bare hands while his gypsy brothers waited outside, thinking his grunts as he was dying was his pleasure as he fucked into my bleeding cunt.”“He fucking deserved it,” Ada said fiercely, fire like her brother John’s burning in her similar green eyes.“What happened next?” Polly nudged.“I… I ran to Madame’s wagon. She was – she was sitting there like she was waiting on me,” I realized. “She had this letter from my mother, explaining who I was to Charlie, and she packed it up with me on Monaghan Boy and sent me to Charlie’s yard. I was bareback, and the horse was covered in blood, and I was faint when Curly found us near the Cut.” I looked up to Polly’s knowing brown eyes. “She knew, didn’t she, all along?”Ada clutched my hands tighter, and I looked into her eyes with my question. “She knew,” Ada confirmed.Red Ruby Lee had never had a family, after all – Not until now.Polly reached across the table and squeezed my arm. I looked at her, numb and empty inside, thinking only of my lost family, my dead mother, and my dead brothers.“They’re not your family anymore, Ruby,” Polly Gray told me. “We are.”“Ruby Shelby has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Ada giggled, clutching my hands.That’s right. I did have a family. A pack. And Ruby Shelby did have a nice ring to it.

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“Please, Ada,” I whined.“Don’t use that omega whine on me, Ru,” Ada snapped. She looked like she would cave to my plea, but thankfully, she was a beta, and she wasn’t as overpowered by an omega’s whine as I wished at that moment.Polly had left at dusk to cook dinner next door for the family, but Ada had stayed to take care of me. She had made me soup and forced me to consume two bowls for lunch and one bowl for dinner, even though I would much rather have subsisted solely on cigarettes and morphine.I was curled in on myself on the couch, the heat a fever-like fire racing across my skin, through my veins, until every part of me was alive with pain. My perfume spread around me, hot like warm honey over fresh buttery biscuits, filling every room of the house. “I need my opium.”“You need an alpha.” Ada walked around the couch and stopped next to the front door, shrugging on her coat and grabbing her bag. “I’m going next door to get John.”“Arthur.” Arthur, whose eyes were as blue as the sky. Arthur, who knew what it was to be broken. Arthur, who had had nothing to do with buying me from Madame Zilpha. Arthur, who had never lied to me about who he was or his intentions toward me. He had only ever been my helper and my protector. Arthur wouldn’t be gentle, but I didn’t need gentle. I needed someone I trusted. “Arthur.”Ada patted my hair, which was strewn around me on the couch in a mess. “Alright, I’ll get Arthur. He’ll be right here, Ru.” The door shut closed behind her, shuttering the apartment and me inside.I clutched Ada’s robe closer around my body. The moment she was gone, I regretted her absence. I wished she would come right back, only so I could cling to her soft hands and beg her to take me back to when I had never experienced a heat. I needed someone, anyone to cling to in the dark moments when the pain crept back in until I was screaming into the couch cushion.I reeled over the side of the couch, rolling onto the floor in a heap, feeling like I might wretch from the pain. Nothing arose, all the soup Ada had fed me had gone down the drain with my frequent bathroom trips, and I was left dry heaving nothing, my stomach clenching around nothing, my core clenching around nothing, clenching so tight that I felt like I would push my very womb from my body.The door to Watery Lane shoved open. Arthur’s cologne, hot like a forge, smelling like metal and petrol and exhaust fumes and burning coal, pervaded the room, mingling with the heavy honey perfume of my need.I pushed myself into a sitting position on the wooden floor, ignoring how the hard wood stung against my kneecaps and how the cold swooshing in from outside made me shiver unwarranted, clinging Ada’s robe tighter to my body.Arthur stood just inside the threshold of the door, his broken knuckles turning white as he gripped the door with such force it was a wonder it didn’t come off its hinges. He wore a pair of thick brown suspenders, holding up pants that barely contained the bulge between his legs. His thin pin-striped undershirt was rolled up beneath his elbows, leaving bare the taut muscles of his forearms, veins running down across his arms and over his wrists and the backs of his hands, gruff from the war and the killing. But his eyes, his eyes were clear blue like the sky reflected on the lake water, shiny and glistening like glass, every emotion a visible ripple on the surface.Arthur hissed as he took a sharp breath inward. He slammed the door shut behind him. His voice was a growl when he said my name like a prayer, “Ruby.”His voice was deep and rough like his hands, and my name on his lips sent shivers down my spine. Pain rushed from my body like a receding tide, and the next wave was all pleasure, heat and need filling my blood and flesh and heart and cunt.“Arthur,” I whined from the floor. “I need you.”I tried to stand from the floor, using the short coffee table to push myself to my feet. Arthur walked across the room, grabbing my arms as I tripped forward.“Careful, Ruby girl,” warned Arthur’s voice, husky with restrained arousal.I pushed my body into Arthur’s, pressing so close that he backed up against the little window in the living room that looked out onto the street of Watery Lane. The window blinds were shoved apart, Ada having unceremoniously opened them when she realized I hadn’t had sunlight since a couple of nights before. I hardly noticed the patter of the rain outside or the damp roughness of his undershirt in my hands as I clung to the fabric.One of Arthur’s hands clutched my hip, too tight, and the pain mixed with the pleasure and I almost moaned right then. His other hand brushed over my face, swiping my ruined red hair away from my cheeks. In the same movement, he pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “You’re burning up, gypsy girl.”Arthur was tall, taller than Tommy, so tall that I had to stretch upward on my tiptoes to find his stubbly jaw with my lips. His skin tasted like gasoline and tobacco and something bittersweet, and I kissed a line up his jaw, intending to find his scent gland with my lips and sip at him like fine wine.Arthur grunted, forced back against the window so suddenly that he placed one foot against the wall, shifting his leg between my thighs. I bared down into the sweet pressure of his flexing thigh muscles, letting slip a low, heated moan against his throat.“Ruby.” Arthur’s voice was a plea, a warning. His hands dipped past my hips to squeeze the tight flesh of my arse beneath my underwear, bloomers, and the silk of my chemise. He brought me down against his leg, rubbing my wet cunt through my slick-stained bloomers.I latched my lips around Arthur’s scent gland, tasting the smoke and the snow, the whiskey and the cigars, the gasoline and the petrol, the exhaust and the smog. I pinched the scent gland with my teeth, squeezing his taste into my mouth, and Arthur groaned. His hands dug so hard into my arse that I was sure it would leave bruises, and I didn’t care because I wanted him, wanted this, wanted everything with Arthur Shelby.With a head full of morphine and heat and desperate need, I slid my hands beneath Arthur’s suspenders and shoved them off his shoulders. Arthur’s leg pressed up into my grinding heat, and I moaned against his neck. “Please fuck me, Arthur.”“I won’t be gentle with you.” Arthur’s hands were already moving from his painful grip on my arse to the shoulders of my robe. He pushed it off my body, and it slid like silk down my skin and off my body. His hands found the hem of my chemise next, and the rough pads of his hands bruised against my bare skin as he shoved the fabric up my body.I relinquished his scent gland from my mouth, rising from his throat to raise my arms high above his head so that he could slip the chemise up and over my arms. I looked into Arthur’s sparkling blue eyes, blown black with arousal. “I don’t want gentle. I want you.”Arthur threw my chemise somewhere behind my head. His hands returned to my body. They ran over my hair, combing it over my shoulders until it trailed down my half-bare back. Calloused fingers brushed over throat, down the hollow of my neck, and across my collarbones. Arthur hooked his fingers in the top of my brassiere and forced it down, and I gasped as my breasts were exposed to the cold air. Gooseflesh decorated my tan freckled skin, and my nipples hardened to pert attention. Arthur grabbed fistfuls of my breasts, squeezing so hard that it hurt, and I moaned.Arthur used one hand to pinch a nipple hard between his thumb and forefinger, twisting until pain spiked through my breast. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.”But I was soaked through my underwear and bloomers already, and I was sure he could feel the wet stain of my pre-cum against his leg as I dragged my cunt across his muscled thigh. “No, don’t stop, Arthur, don’t stop, please –”Arthur pressed his leg higher into my soaking cunt with such force that it pinched my clit and I backed up one step, moaning from the friction and his hands on my breasts and his cologne in my nose. Arthur used his hands on my breasts to turn me, rolling us until he pressed me back against the wall, the breath rushing from my lungs with the thudding force of it. His leg never left the apex of my thighs, and I rocked my hips into the delicious pleasure, taking what was mine.Arthur’s mouth crashed against mine, a wall of ocean water, a warm overtaking of my lips, parted and panting and ready for him to make me his. His teeth bit into my lower lip so sharp that the skin burst, blood blooming metallic across my tongue as I moaned deep in my throat. Arthur’s tongue lapped up the blood, dutifully treating the wound with his lips and tongue until it was raw and swollen and aching and I wanted more, more, more.My hands fumbled with the buttons of Arthur’s shirt, and his kisses made me frantic, needy, desperate. I tugged, frustrated, on the hem where the buttons clasped together. The shirt ripped open under my grip, small blue buttons flying against my hands and clattering to the floor.“Easy, Ruby,” Arthur laughed, and I set my hands against the tight blonde curls of his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his narrow ribcage as he gasped for breath from the honeypot of my lips.“You’re the only one that I trust,” I whispered against his mouth. “I want you to mark me. Mark me all over, so they all know that I’m yours.”One of Arthur’s hands released my breast and found my long red hair, yanking it backward. Pain sparked across my skull like little needles piercing the thin flesh, and my head jerked backward with Arthur’s grip to expose the supple flesh of my neck to his mouth. Arthur pressed a wet kiss to my scent gland, and I shuddered all over, rocking further into his leg.“Say it again,” Arthur growled.“I’m yours,” I gasped, and Arthur’s teeth sunk into my throat – not so deep as to draw blood or mate me to him for the rest of our lives, but just enough bruise. His lips closed around his teeth, his tongue swirling over the wound as he sucked the bruise further into my neck. I hissed out a breath of pleasure and pain, rocking my body into his leg again and again, chasing the pleasure. One of his hands gripped tight to my hair, forcing my head back in submission to his bites. His other groped at my breast, over my nipple, twisting it, and I knew I was close to the edge.“Again,” Arthur said, and I thought I should be saying that because his hands and his mouth felt so good that I couldn’t keep myself from running straight toward the edge, opening my arms out wide to accept the pleasure that coursed through my body everywhere he touched me.“I’m yours,” I cried, and his leg ground up against my cunt just right, and the phrase poured from my lips like holy water.“Say it again, gypsy girl.”His voice was rough with lust like he was a sex addict but the only satisfaction to his indulgences was the goddess whose nipple he twisted in his fingers and whose hair he held so tight it hurt, and my cries were his unspoken prayers answered, because I was his addiction, his obsession, the only fix he would ever have.“I’m yours, Arthur,” I panted. “I’m yours, I’m yours –”Arthur’s teeth sank into the sensitive skin of my scent gland, ripping it open. Pain blossomed like a flower, sharp and high, hot and white like the point of a fire poker pressing into the exposed flesh of my scent gland, but then that was his tongue, wet and warm, licking over the blood that pooled hot on my skin. His tongue was pure pleasure, pressing against the sensitivity of my torn scent gland, bleeding my taste onto his tongue while he lapped my scent and my blood into his mouth. Where his tongue stroked against my throat, pleasure spread thick like honey through my nerves, and I whined loudly, arching further into Arthur’s body even as he tugged me back by my hair.“Say my name when you come for me.”His teeth sunk into my torn-open scent gland, shredding the thin skin until blood trickled down my throat to the hollow between my collarbones. His hands released my hair and breasts, running down my body to clasp my arse so harshly I wished I could see the red marks he made in his wake. He pushed me closer to him, further into his leg until the front of my cunt slid against the front of his thigh, and his hard cock pressed against my naval, and my bare breasts cushioned against his bare chest.The pleasure was bright like gold, glittering like fireworks, hot like fire, and Arthur’s body against mine was the gasoline. Pleasure bloomed like a dynamite on a wire, sparking hot in my core, and exploded.“Arthur,” I cried as I came apart. I chanted his name like a mantra in my head, or maybe out loud, as lightning struck hot through my veins and I flew on wings of ecstasy, all touch suddenly threatening to send me back over the edge as I rode out my aftershocks on Arthur’s leg.“Came without me touching you,” Arthur appraised, and I couldn’t tell whether the tone of his voice was surprise or reverence or awe or praise, but it felt like praise, and I laughed, light and airy, my voice catching in my throat as he hitched his leg just right. He kissed me, and his mustache was wet with my blood and my spit, and I tasted myself in his mouth, like honey and honeysuckle dew and vanilla mixed with heavy metal and gasoline.“Please.” My vision cleared from the white bliss, and I looked up into Arthur’s face. He looked like an angel, his straight blonde hair dipping into his creased forehead, his mustache untidy, his lips slick with my blood and my saliva and partially opened, panting with the rhythm of my slowing hips.Arthur swallowed my cries with his mouth, and I tasted myself, all of me, on his tongue. My hands, shaking from my orgasm and the morphine thrumming steady through my veins, fumbled with the buttons at the front of Arthur’s pants. I wanted to free him, touch him, taste him.Arthur reached around my small torso to unlatch my brassiere. I was forced to release Arthur before I could unzip his pants because the brassiere slipped down the front of my body, and I let it fall to the ground in a puddle between our feet.“Arthur,” I whined, tugging on his hair so that I could breathe against his mouth. “Please, Arthur.”Arthur laughed against my lips, sweet and low like chocolate swirled in hot milk. “You don’t need to beg me, Ruby girl. I’ll give you everything.”Arthur dropped to his knees in front of me. His blue eyes were heavy with lust as he gazed at me, blue eyes glazed over with watery ripples like stained glass reflecting against the sun. “Everything.”I couldn’t look away from Arthur as he hooked his thumbs into the dual hems of my bloomers and underwear and tore them down my body. The two articles of clothing fell to the floor around my ankles, where I kicked them off so they could join my brassiere in a puddle by my feet.Arthur’s blue eyes fell from my face, over the scent gland still bleeding down my neck, over my perky breasts and the rise and fall of my little lungs, down the dip of my stomach and the raised bump of my womb low between my hips, all the way to the apex of my thighs where loose red curls glistened gold with the slick of my cum that soaked my cunt. My scent wafted up to me, and Arthur took a long inhale and exhaled a growl in response, his blue eyes roving my body like he could consume me by looking at me.“Arthur, what are you doing?” I breathed.Arthur’s blue eyes flicked up to my face. “So I’m the first to have you like this.”“What do you mean?” My little lungs heaved with effort as my breath caught up with the needy heat spreading from my core.“Open your legs, Ruby girl.”Arthur was still watching me, blue latched onto green-brown, and I inched my legs apart by the ankles.“Wider. I want to see you.” Arthur’s tone was sharp, deep, husky like a wolf’s growl.I widened my stance until my legs were spread open and my cunt bare before Arthur’s hungry darkened eyes. I didn’t care that the blinds were open and my bare ass pressed against the glass and anyone walking down Watery Lane would see Arthur fucking me against the window.“You’re fuckin’ stunnin’ like that, spread out like a good girl who wants to be eaten.” Arthur’s hand wound over one of my wrists, collecting the other in his hand until he held both of my wrists in one hand easily. His other hand reached around to pinch my ass, making me jump forward until his hot breath ghosted across my pussy. “Good girl, Ruby, opening so wide and pretty so I can make you come just… like… this…”Arthur plunged his tongue through my folds, and I rolled my hips into his mouth reflexively, my hands jerking upward only for me to realize that Arthur had bound my hands in his own. Arthur’s tongue licked through my inner lips until he found the central bundle of nerves and swirled his tongue over my clit. I tried to wiggle free from the strange sensation, but Arthur’s hand against my arse pressed me forward into his open mouth. His lips engulfed my swollen clit, his tongue whirling a pattern like the stars against my sensitive flesh.My whole body trembled with a newfound pleasure, and I writhed against Arthur’s mouth and his hand clasping my wrists together and his other hand squeezing my ass so tightly I knew I would bruise from his grip. “Can’t, Arthur, it’s too much, I’ll come in your mouth.”Arthur surfaced, his lips smeared with blood that looked rather like lipstick kissed onto his skin, and his mouth was covered in my slick, shining in the light that filtered in from the window. “Come in my mouth, gypsy girl. I want to taste you.”“Arthur,” I moaned, whether to protest the indecency or beg him to perform it, I didn’t know – didn’t know anything in that moment but his name, because Arthur’s teeth skimmed my clit.Arthur’s lips suctioned around my clit, and he pressed the flat of his tongue against me, flickered and stroked, and my eyes fluttered closed. Arthur nibbled on my clit, and my eyes flew open, and I gasped with the sudden painful dig of his teeth at the most sensitive part of my body.“Keep your eyes open,” Arthur commanded. “I want to see your face when I make you come.”Eyes like trees met eyes like the sky above, and Arthur dipped his head back to my mound. His eyes didn’t leave mine as he smoothed his tongue over the painful throb of my clit, licking fire into my skin until I was wiggling against his grip, rocking against his mouth, running off the edge of the cliff and into the deep blue expanse of his eyes.“I’m – I’m coming, fuck, Arthur, I’m coming!”My moans drowned out my words as I came against Arthur’s lips. I writhed against his grip on me, thankful for how he tethered me to his body because I floated away with my orgasm. I sprouted wings and soared through the sky like it was the first time I had flown, rising higher than the morphine, higher than god himself. I got lost in the white bliss of the clouds and the endless deep blue of Arthur’s eyes, screaming his name as everything imploded.Arthur released his hand squeezing at my ass to slip his index finger past my slick folds and into my tight entrance. His finger was long and thick, thicker than I would have expected, pressing easily into the little button of pleasure at the top of my walls. One of my hands broke free of Arthur’s to bury itself in his blonde hair, forcing him further into my cunt until his nose pressed into the shining red curls at my apex. Arthur wound his hand in my free one, trapping my fingers with his.“More,” I begged.Arthur dipped a second finger into my wet cave, and I convulsed against him as he pressed upward against my clenching walls. His mouth lapsed over my clit, a clash of tongue and teeth fighting to taste me, consume me, swallow me whole. He drew his fingers quickly in and out of my pussy, stroking me with his tongue at the same time as his fingers pressed deep into my passage.The pleasure was strange this time, a rapidly building pressure low in my abdomen that made me feel like I might wet myself in Arthur’s mouth. Recognition struck, and I pulled myself away from Arthur, only to knock back further into the window of Watery Lane, trapped like a prey being feasted upon by her predator. “Arthur, wait, I might –”“Yes,” Arthur grunted. “Good girl, squirt for me.”Arthur didn’t need to tell me again, because he dipped his head back to my cunt and his tongue lapped over my swollen clit, and the last link of my self-control cracked and crumbled apart. The pressure low in my abdomen released, and I came and squirted all over Arthur’s face, coating his mustache and his cheeks in clear slick liquid and cum. The pleasure was strange, more painful than pleasureful, like electricity being forced out from my body as I convulsed in Arthur’s mouth and died a little death against his lips, my spirit slipping into the stars high above the dirty flat in Small Heath.Arthur’s fingers withdrew from my sopping-wet cunt, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. With shaking legs, I straddled his waist from above and sunk down onto my knees, onto his lap, pressing my wet pussy against the rock-hard length of cock imprisoned in his pants.“You said everything,” I reminded Arthur.There was only a thin slice of blue around the blown-out black of his irises. “Yes, everything, Ruby girl.”I leaned down to press my lips against Arthur’s, swiping my tongue across his mouth to taste my honey cum on his lips. “Then take everything.”Arthur moved so fast that I had no doubt how he had survived the war. He grabbed my hips, his pelvis never leaving mine as he shoved me backward, using his body weight to roll me underneath him. The hard wood bit into my back, and I gasped audibly, clutching my legs around Arthur’s strong, lean back where his pants now rode down his hips. At the same time, Arthur’s mouth unlatched from mine and traveled back down to my torn scent gland, nudging it with his teeth and tongue until I whimpered and wiggled against him.Arthur kissed my scent gland roughly, his lips kissing a pattern down the trail of blood that dipped down to the hollow of my throat, sucking bruises into my skin as he went. His hands fumbled at his pants, pushing them down his ass, down his legs as his mouth dipped lower, lower, until finally he captured my nipple in his lips. My hands followed his, ducking into his shorts just as he slipped them down his body and kicked them off his legs. His cock sprung free, bouncing heavily against my thigh, and I wrapped one hand around him. He was thick, thicker than John, so thick that my small hand could barely wrap around him.“That’s for you.” Arthur bit my nipple, spurring me to arch further into his mouth, the front of my wet pussy gliding against the underside of his cock. “All for you, gypsy girl.”“Mine.” My hand stroked around Arthur’s cock, and he groaned and twitched in my hand as it tightened around his head and released, gliding my hand back down to his base where his knot swelled, then came back up to squeeze his head lightly between my fingers. I watched with greedy eyes as the swell of precum collecting on his tip dropped into my hand, slicking the wet slide of my hand around his cock.As I stroked him, Arthur’s mouth moved from one breast to the other, decorating it with bruises before accepting my hardened nipple into the wet cave of his mouth. His other hand kneaded my opposite breast, pinching the abused nipple between his fingers and twisting until I moaned with mingled pleasure and pain.“Arthur,” I whined. “Arthur, I can’t wait anymore. I need your cock inside.”“Anything you want, gypsy girl.”Arthur rose from where he kneeled between my legs. His blue eyes lingered on my pleading face, my bleeding neck, my bruised tits, the glistening apex of my thighs. He took his heavy cock from my hand, and I started to roam the jaunting V of his hips with my hands, but he stole one of mine in his, weaving our fingers together. With his other hand, Arthur pressed his tip to my entrance. I moaned, lifting my hips to push him further into my body, craving the burning stretch of his cock splitting me open. Arthur’s newly free hand wound with my other until he was holding both of my hands to either side of my body, and with one swift movement, he sheathed himself inside me, throwing his body weight over me until he was holding both my hands high above my head as he pushed his cock so deep inside that I could feel his cockhead nudge against my cervix painfully.“Too big, Arthur, you’re too big,” I cried.I remembered Arthur saying to me earlier, ‘Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop,’ but I didn’t want him to stop, I wanted everything, the pleasure and the pain, until it shattered me into a million pieces, even if shattered me into a million pieces, because I would have done anything to satiate the roaring arousal inside.Arthur hesitated, but I trapped his hips with my legs, pressing him painfully forward even as I bucked wildly into his cock until his knot tugged at my entrance and his balls slapped against my ass. “No, don’t stop, Arthur, please, I want you to break me with your huge cock.”“Fuck,” Arthur groaned as he buried himself inside me to the hilt. “Fuck, you have a filthy mouth and a filthy, tight little cunt, don’t you, Ruby girl?”I urged to touch him, but his hands were tight around my wrists now, pinning me to the bed, and the only thing I could do to bring myself closer to him was raise my hips with the rhythms of his thrusts. “Yes, Arthur, please fuck me just like that, just like that –”One of Arthur’s hands released my wrist and wound around my throat, pressing just enough against my larynx that my breath hitched in my throat. Memories rose unbidden in the back of my mind, but Arthur fucked them away, and my throat constricted as he pressed down on it, and I was deliciously lightheaded, gasping for air, moaning, “Yes, Arthur, just like that, please, just like that” until his hand fully closed around my throat and my eyes fluttered closed and another orgasm wracked through my body. My free hand flew up to Arthur’s shoulder, clawing at his skin, and Arthur plunged through my folds, compelled forward as I begged his name like a prayer because Arthur was everything, inside my body, inside my soul, and he was god, and I was his angel, flying on pure white wings of ecstasy through the heavens he created.Arthur released my windpipe, and air rushed through my lungs like it was the sweetest thing I had tasted, and it was because it tasted like him, like metal and gasoline and smoldering coals. I didn’t stop coming because Arthur didn’t stop the rapid pumping of his hips as he roasted me on his cock. His knot inched further and further inside with every thrust, filling me until I thought I would burst.“Knot me, Arthur, alpha, knot me,” I begged, and I hoped he understood because my thoughts were incoherent as I fluttered down from the heavens and back up, up, up, higher and higher until I was too high to come down.“That’s a good girl, come for your alpha.”His words were like a command, and the omega registered through the whirlwind of pleasure that my alpha’s command was law. My every muscle tensed, and I dragged my nails so hard across Arthur’s shoulder that I knew it drew blood and didn’t care because if I could cut my alpha god with my nails, I had everything, and everything flowed through my nerves. It was like gold, it was like lava, it was molten and hot, and I was the sword being forged by the blacksmith, melting in Arthur’s arms on the floor of Watery Lane.I clenched around Arthur’s cock, hard enough to draw a growling groan from his lips, and he plunged into my depths one final time before his knot popped through my entrance. He was the sword, then, and I was his victim, speared open on his cock, stuffed with his knot, screaming his name as I died all over again.“Gonna come in your tight little cunt,” Arthur grunted. Somewhere in the mix of our bodies, his lips found mine again, and it was the only thing and everything as I broke into him.“Come in me, Arthur.”Arthur came against my cervix, burying himself so deep inside my pussy that I thought I would burst, and maybe I did because I felt his spend leak out around our joined bodies. I shattered apart, memories and mind scattered across the floor like glittering shards of crystal. I arched a final time into Arthur’s body, and he released my wrist so that I could clutch my arms around him, moaning and gasping and panting as I trembled against his body and clenched around his cock. I floated in space among the stars, one of them, vibrant with pleasure like live wires sparking across my skin. I lost myself in the in-between, closing my eyes and melting into Arthur as he wrapped me up in his arms.I was still holding onto Arthur with all of my limbs, so he lifted me from the floor easily. He walked a few steps, making me moan as his knot brushed against the most sensitive parts of my body. Then he sat, buck-naked, on his and John’s ugly green couch, and I moved slightly so that my legs wouldn’t get trapped behind the slate of his back.“Alright, Ruby girl?”I laughed and I was free, and I opened my eyes and I was flying in the sky of his eyes. “I’ve never come like that in my life.”Pride glittered in Arthur’s eyes, and something else – something like worry. His gaze flickered over my neck where he’d ravished my scent gland and left a trail of bruises down my throat. I winced as I adjusted on top of him, and the high of my orgasms receded like snow in my nose as I tried to loosen around his cock and failed because he was stuffed so tight into my pussy. I was suddenly aware of the aching in my back from where he’d fucked me on the floor. My hips and ass were sore from when he’d clutched onto me so tightly, and I could see red rings around my wrists where my hands were settled behind his head against the couch. Even my breasts ached as they glided against his chest.I smiled. “I want your marks, Arthur.”Arthur winced. “Ada said it’s like we own you, the way Tommy owns horses. I said that ain’t right, I don’t want to own you, I ain’t like them that hurt you –”Despite the pain, or maybe in the face of it, I dipped down and pressed a lingering kiss to Arthur’s lips, gruff with facial hair. “You didn’t hurt me, Arthur.”Arthur nodded. His eyes cast downward, blinking over my hips where I imagined bruises were starting to rise. “Well, maybe I hurt you a little bit, eh?”I tipped his chin with a gentle hand so that he looked into my eyes. “This is what I wanted. For you to know me.”Arthur cracked a smile. “If we’re tellin’ truths, eh, you should know I know I’m a bloody idiot for acting like that just because we’re fated.”I grinned back at him. “Yeah, I know.”“Ruby girl, you gotta know I didn’t mean what I said about you just bein’ a wee girl. You’re a Peaky girl, yeah, but you’re Ruby – our Ruby, but your own Ruby, too.” Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. “Hell, I’m not makin’ any bloody sense.”I touched my forehead to Arthur’s, and he raised his eyes back to my own, trusting me, submitting to me. “I knew you’d come around, Arthur.”“Yeah, Polly says I’m not used to gypsy girls, all free and wild like y’are.”I kissed him. “Maybe that’s just what you need.”“Maybe, gypsy girl.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

I sat at the kitchen table with Ada, who blew at her steaming tea, and Polly, who smoked one of her strange brown cigarettes. There was a cup of tea and a full plate of jam on toast set out in front of me next to the morning paper. Although I was famished after spending the remainder of my heat with Arthur, evidenced by the bruises left all over my body, I couldn’t eat when I felt like I was being kept from something. Finn had fetched Arthur from the flat the night before, collecting him to start a bonfire down Watery Lane with pictures of the king. Ada had told me that a reporter had been by to speak to Tommy, and the result was on the front page of the morning paper. Clearly, Tommy had made his next move against Campbell, and some part of me was angry that I hadn’t been a part of it. Not to mention the BSA and the miners on strike, and the rumored IRA-related killings of the Peaky boys.“Do you have to go back today?” Ada blew on her teacup, and the amber liquid rippled under her commanding green gaze. She sighed. “I’ve liked having you close, Ru.”My bag was already packed upstairs, and I yearned to collect it and go back home where my opium pipe sat on my nightstand. I needed the escape from the craziness of the past few days. As much as I loathed to admit it, I needed a break from the Shelby alphas, or I feared I might become what I had sworn never to be – kept. I refused to let go of my freedom just because Tommy Shelby owned me.“I’ll be just down Garrison Lane, Ada,” I told the beta. “Besides, haven’t you tired of taking care of me?”My gaze flickered from Ada to Polly, whose dark kohl-lined eyes raked over the bruised skin of my neck, revealed by the low cut of Ada’s borrowed robe. “Arthur clearly hasn’t.”My cheeks flushed red, and I buried my face in my tea, hoping the two women would be polite enough to ignore me. I should have known better.Ada pursed her lips to keep an improper smile from spreading across her lightly freckled cheeks. “I could hear you two through the walls.”Polly snorted, blowing smoke through her nose like a dragon. “I’d bet the whole street heard you two fucking.”I pressed my free hand reflexively against my scabbed-over scent gland, brushing my finger over the sensitive flesh as if reminding myself of how Arthur and I had lost ourselves in each other for so many days and nights.Ada finally took a sip of her tea. “John said you liked it when he was gentle.”Mimicking her, I took a drink of my tea, which was still much too hot, but I was thankful for the way it burned my tongue because it made me forget, for just a minute, the fire and gasoline of Arthur’s tongue.Polly blew smoke across the kitchen, translating, “She’s surprised you let Arthur be so rough with you, after what you’ve suffered.”I stared at my plate of jam and toast. I thought of John, who was like fire, but touched me so gently like he knew how badly he could burn me and it consumed him. I thought of Arthur, who was like water, and drowned me like I was a sinner and he was holy water blessing my body. I felt the need to defend them, to differentiate them, to explain every detail in which they were different, and how sex with them was something sacred.But that wasn’t the question Ada and Polly asked. They wanted to know how I could ask to be bruised at Arthur’s hands when so many other alphas’ hands had bruised me before.I reached for Polly’s cigarettes, raising a questioning eye to her, to which she nodded. I extracted one, placed it between my lips, and used her lighter to set fire to the end. The herbal mix was tobacco and sage, and it reminded me suddenly of my mother’s beta scent. She would never have imagined that I sat in the kitchen of a gypsy queen, talking about fucking her nephews.“The Lees, they lose their control entirely when they smell me, give it up to the ghosts,” I murmured. I cleared my throat so that my next words were clear in the cold air of the kitchen. “Arthur, he gives his control to me. It’s about the power that I have over him.”Polly ashed her cigarette in her empty teacup, pushing it forward so that I could do the same. “It’s the difference between an alpha’s domination and an alpha’s submission, Ada.”Ada tapped her manicured red fingernails against her teacup. Her eyes flickered from Polly and back to me, as if connecting a constellation in her head. “You didn’t have Arthur to mark you just because it’s some sort of fetish, did you, Ru?”I smiled, showing my canines. “No, Ada.”Ada looked toward Polly, the gears in her head turning. “If Ru parades around Small Heath looking like that…”“Everyone will fuck off,” I finished for her.“At the same time,” Polly began, “She’s showing John and Tommy exactly what it takes for them to have her.”“You mean letting her do whatever the fuck she wants, damn the consequences?” Ada suggested.“I’ve decided I won’t just belong to this pack, Ada,” I said. “I will be its queen.”“And a queen is not a queen until her alphas kneel at her feet,” Polly finished for me.Ada’s eyes flickered from Polly to me, Polly and back to me. She snorted. Then she threw back her hair, ruffling her thick brown locks, and laughed. “I’ll be damned, you scheme exactly like Tommy.”I grinned at Polly, and the edges of her lips turned upward on one side. “With the Shelby women at my side, there’s nothing we can’t do.”Ada’s laugh turned to a sigh, and she shook her brown hair into her river-green eyes. “Are you going to eat that toast? I’m bloody starving.”I shoved my full plate of jam and toast over to Ada’s side of the table, tilting my head ever so slightly to catch the sparkle of gold in her sun-yellow aura. I watched her fold the toast in half so she could take a full bite. She scarfed down half the toast in one bite and then the other half before she noticed me looking at her.“Whafh?” Ada asked, her mouth full of jam and toast.“Ada, stand up,” I said, and Polly looked at me sharply and then back to Ada.Ada swallowed. “Why?”“Just stand up,” Polly said in a firm tone that I wondered if she’d used on Ada as a child, because the beta sighed.Ada stood, stepping away from the table and flapping her arms slightly as she rocked on the balls of her feet like she was a young girl in trouble with her mother. She wore a pink chemise tied at the waist and a black robe with green trimming around the short cuffs.I walked around the table toward her, inspecting the bright yellow aura that vibrated around her as if trying to tell me something.“Side on, Ada,” I said curtly.Ada turned. I stepped forward, taking her heavy breast in hand and squeezing.Ada jerked back away from me, half-smiling. “Oi, what are you doing?”I looked at Polly, and Polly looked back at me, knowledge passing like a message between us. She turned her piercing eyes slowly on her niece. “Ada… How late are you?”Ada looked between us, swallowing again like her throat was suddenly too dry. “One week.”I shook my head, ignoring the strand of red hair that shook into my face. “The truth?”“Five weeks,” she said, and her eyes fluttered closed as if she couldn’t believe what she was thinking. “Seven if you count weekends. I think it’s a lack of iron.”“You got tablets,” I said, remembering the iron tablets at her bedside when I’d met her and Freddie in the Brum.Polly pursed her lips together. “But they didn’t work.”Ada sat back down in her chair with a thump. She rolled her eyes, shook her hair, pushed some of it behind her ear. She looked at me, desperately, like I had all the answers in the world. “No.”I nodded, discarded my cigarette in the little tray, and crossed the table to set my hands on her shoulders. “It’s all right, Ada. I know a girl who works at the clinic.”Ada stiffened in my hands. “No, I don’t want – I don’t think –”I squeezed her shoulders. “She’ll just do an exam, Ada, see if you’re really pregnant. Then we can talk about what you want to do.”“Will you come with me?” Ada’s voice was small.“Of course I will.”I released Ada’s shoulders and crossed the room to the telephone sitting on the kitchen counter in the corner. I dialed Missy’s house number and crossed my fingers that she would pick up the phone. On the third ring, the phone clicked.“Missy speaking,” said the young, girlish voice on the other line.“Missy, it’s me, Ruby.”The line was quiet for a moment. The woman’s voice was sad and soft when she spoke again. “Did it happen again?”I pressed my hand against my stomach. Missy knew about the first two. I had lost the third one. Matthew had beat it out of me, or maybe I had lost it when my heart stopped.“I’m not calling about me. I have a friend who needs an exam as soon as you can fit her in.”There was a pause, and I heard papers shuffling across the line. “I have an opening in the evening, after my shift at the hospital.”“I’ll escort her,” I said, and I wished Ada and Polly weren’t sitting in the kitchen or I would have asked Missy not to mention anything about my history with her when we met her for the appointment. Ah, well. It was probably too late anyway – Why else would I know Missy, if I hadn’t needed her services before?I sat back down at the kitchen table, sipping my tea. “Missy has an opening in the evening. We’ll go then.”I decided to stay with Ada in John and Arthur’s flat for the rest of the day, rubbing her back and making her eat, soothing her like she had done me during my heat. When evening came, I helped her dress in a white dress and a grey coat with black trimming. Together with Pol, we walked to Coventry Road where Missy lived in a row of flats lining the street under lamplight.Ada clutched my arm tighter as we approached. Polly’s head was like a swivel as she scanned the empty streets for any watchful eyes.I knocked on the door twice, and then twice again in the code Missy had told me to use. The door opened a moment later, and Missy’s girlish voice called out, “Come in, don’t stand out in the cold,” even as she widened the door for us to enter.I guided Ada inside the small, dim sitting room, Polly trailing in after us. Missy shut and locked the door behind us, and I turned to appraise her. Missy was short, shorter than I was, and I had to look down to face her fully. She was a small, mousy thing with a thin waist in a brown pencil skirt that made her seem shorter and a large bust that threatened the burst open the buttons of her blouse. Her dirty blonde waves hung down to her shoulders, and her dull brown-grey eyes squinted up at me through a pair of thick glasses.“Ruby!” Missy hugged me quickly, her lopsided lips breaking out into a wide smile as she ducked just as quickly out of my grip before I could even clasp my arms around her. “You’re looking well, darling.”“And you, too,” I said stiffly, all too aware of how Polly’s brown eyes pierced through my back and Ada’s curious twirl of her brown hair around her finger.Missy seemed to catch on quickly. She shared her smile with Ada and Polly, opening her arms as if she might hug them, too. Her eyes lingered on where Ada still held my arm, and she smiled more warmly, genuinely at her, suddenly all bedside manner. “And who did you bring me today, Ruby?”“This is Ada,” I introduced, careful to avoid speaking aloud her surname. “She’ll be undergoing the exam today.”“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ada,” Missy said with her signature smile, and Ada finally released me to shake her hand. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to make this process comfortable for you. If you’ll just come this way so we can perform the exam in private, unless you want Ruby to come with you?”“No, that won’t be necessary.” Ada shook her head, and when Missy extended her arm for her to take, she leaned on her, and I knew that Missy would take care of her as she brought her down the hallway of the flat and out of sight.Together, Polly and I sat on the couch in the cramped sitting room. We both took out our cigarette cases from our coats, plucking cigarettes from our cases, but I was out of matches.“I’ll light you,” Polly offered. She lit her cigarette with a match and then dipped her head close to mine, so close I could smell the cranberries and wine of her alpha scent, and lit my cigarette with the tip of her own.I pulled back too quickly, inhaling twice as hard to keep the cigarette lit between my lips, and Polly laughed.“You omegas are sensitive to scent, aren’t you?” Polly wondered. “It’s a wonder you smoke.”“The smoke clears my head,” I replied instantly, exhaling the tobacco smoke that filled my lungs like sweet ambrosia.Polly pursed her lips around her cigarette, inhaling. “Do you think she’ll consider getting rid of it?”I hadn’t expected the question, but it wasn’t as if I hadn’t considered what Polly would want – what would probably be easiest for the pack. But I knew Ada, just like Polly already knew the answer to her question, and I shook my head. “No, she won’t get rid of him.”“He’s a him?” Polly murmured. “I couldn’t tell.”“She’ll name him Karl,” I said in Romani, translating as the ancestors whispered it in my ear.Polly looked at me sharply, as if she saw the magic sparkling in my green-brown gypsy eyes. Then she nodded like she understood. “Like Karl Marx.”“I met him,” I said, and when she raised and eyebrow, I clarified, “Freddie.”Polly’s sharp chin cut the air with her one, singular nod. “Freddie and Thomas grew up together, playing on the boats in the Cut. Went to war together, and they were never the same after Freddie took up the good old cause,” Polly said with a roll of her eyes.“Ada loves him.”“Yes, Ada loves him, but that will never change who he is,” Polly said sharply. “You’d do well to remember that.”I took a long inhale of my cigarette, watching the bright orange consume the white and meld into grey. “I know who my mates are.”“Does Ada?” Polly answered sharply, and I shook my head. I wished I could answer her.There was an ashtray set out in the center of the coffee table, and it was four cigarettes between me and Polly before Ada resurfaced from the hallway with Missy at her side. The confirmation was heavy in Ada’s river-green eyes, and she rushed out the door onto the threshold, Polly hot on her heels. I walked to Missy, slipping some money into her hand.“I can’t take this, not after what you did for me,” Missy protested, trying to fold the money back into my hand.“That was just pure luck,” I argued. I took the money from her, only to slip it into the pocket of her skirt. Missy blushed as my hand ghosted across her leg. “Thank you.”Missy raised on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Don’t be a stranger.”I exited Missy’s flat, meeting Ada and Polly outside. Ada was standing under the threshold, smoking a thin Perisian cigarette between her pale pink lips.Polly snatched Ada under one arm and me under the other, dragging us down the little yard in front of Missy’s house. “Keep walking, girls. If anybody sees us here, they’ll know.”I rolled my eyes. “They can think it’s mine.”“Don’t say that,” Polly snapped. “That’d be worse.”We wheeled into the street, and I wrenched myself free of Polly’s grip, pulling my cigarettes and her lighter from my pocket. Polly was too preoccupied guiding Ada down Coventry Road to notice I had swiped her lighter. I wondered briefly if she would let me keep it, but as I lit my cigarette and flipped the lighter closed, Polly used her free hand to snatch it from me and push it back into her pocket wordlessly.“I’m not getting rid of it,” Ada announced.“Just come home and we’ll talk about it,” Polly said in a low tone.“You get off of me, or I’ll scream it, I swear.” Ada knocked Polly’s hand off of her arm, stepping back and nearly, nearly running into a couple passing by. I would have glared them off, but the couple’s heads were low, their foreheads almost touching, the woman’s face flushed red, and I had no doubt they were too distracted in each other to notice Ada’s outburst.We stopped in the street, and I moved to Ada’s side, and I guessed we looked a sight, Ada smoking her Perisian cigarette with arms wrapped around her middle, bouncing on the balls of her feet like a child in trouble, and me standing stiff as a board, watching the street for any more passersby as Polly and Ada faced one another.“All right, you want to do this on the street? Let’s do it,” Polly acquiesced. “Is it Freddie’s?”Ada stepped away from me suddenly, throwing her cigarette into the street. “Say you didn’t tell her, Ru. If you told her, she’ll tell them, and they’ll cut him to pieces.”I stepped closer to the two women, wrapping my arms around them as a pair of men came walking down the street. “Not if he marries you, they won’t.”Ada snatched my cigarette and nearly coughed as she inhaled the cheap brand. She bounced again on the balls of her feet.Polly leaned forward. “Will he marry you?”I stole my cigarette back from Ada, inhaling quickly before passing it back under her unsure green eyes. “He left, didn’t he?” I realized. “After the raid.”Ada’s green eyes begged with mine. “I don’t know – I don’t know where he is.”“Jesus Christ, Ada!” Polly swore.“He said he’d come back,” Ada said, pleading with me and Polly to understand to agree.“Yes, but they all say they’ll come back,” Polly scoffed, shaking her head.“He’s not like that, he’s a good man, he promised,” Ada said, near tears.I took Ada by the shoulders and looked into her green lake eyes, past her eyes, through her soul, to her future. I could see him, holding their son, and I knew, at least that“He’ll come back,” I said to her in Romani. “He’ll come back, Ada.”Ada hugged me, pressing her face into my red hair as she cried. “He will come back, Ruby, I know he will.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matthew’s eyes were dull, sandpaper tan, with irises rimmed in deep brown like the rings of an old fallen tree. Matthew’s eyes haunted my nightmares, so I would have recognized them even in death, even if they weren’t staring out at me from the sunken eyesockets of a teenage gypsy who had not slept in days.The beta lad stood outside Charlie’s yard on Garrison Lane, staring at me with hollow, empty brown eyes. He had a round, doughy face like Matthew, and ruddy brown hair like Matthew, and I knew with a sudden sinking feeling that this was Matthew’s younger brother. I had killed the boy’s brother with my bare hands, staring down into those brown eyes as the boy stared at me now. My hands twitched, remembering how the blood had flowed over my hands and wrists until I was elbow-deep in gore and Matthew was dead.“Ruby Lee,” the boy said as I approached, and his voice was young and high and cracked at the end like he might have been afraid, and he frowned because he most certainly was not afraid of me. The hatred in his eyes was like the deepest pits of hell, and they dragged me forward through the street until I stood only a pace away, drowning in the fire and brimstone.“I’m Ruby,” I said dully, looking into the boy’s empty brown eyes. He looked void of his soul, and I wondered if he had lost it when I killed his brother.Matthew’s brother reached out his fist. The boy and I stared at one another, and it was clear that he knew who I was, and I knew who he was. I reached out a hand, palm up, and he dropped a small glinting piece of metal in my palm.“The Lee pack declares war on the Shelby pack,” the beta said, his voice no longer cracking, and he turned and walked away while I stared down at the bullet in my hand.It was a simple bullet, metal catching in the sunlight of the high morning. Engraved on the side of the bullet was one word, a name: Tommy.My entire body went completely numb, and I separated from my soul, trailing behind my body as I walked into Charlie’s flat, ignoring his greeting and thudding up the stairs, one at a time, one foot after the other until I reached my room. I plopped the green trunk on the bed, scooped up my opium kit from the bedside table, and walked back downstairs, through the living room and the kitchen toward the back door.Charlie was hunched over the kitchen counter, pouring himself a glass of water from a pitcher. He looked over his shoulder at me, raising a wild grey eyebrow. “Oi, Ru, what’s gotten into you, eh?”“The Lee pack declared war on the Shelby pack,” I said numbly, and through the ringing that consumed most of my hearing, I didn’t sound like myself.“They – what? The hell did Tommy have you do down there?”I was already out the door, walking across the yard to the stables. I gave Monaghan Boy a few pats, noting that Tommy must have taken the white horse for a ride, before crawling up the loft and settling down in the hay with my pipe.It was difficult to light the opium resin because I couldn’t unfurl my hand from around the little metal declaration of war pressed into my palm. The bullet throbbed in my hand, hot like it had been sitting in the fire, and the metal seared me, or maybe it was my imagination, because nothing was real anymore as I smoked and floated high above myself.The bullet chained me to earth, painful in my grip, pulsing, screaming, Tommy. Tommy. Tommy.“Why not Ruby?” I asked, and my voice was dull and empty. Monaghan Boy neighed in his stall, but everything was slow, lulled like I was underwater. Thinking was like trying to run through the lake waist-deep when every step pushed against the weight of the water.It would have been easier if Madame Zilpha had carved my name on a bullet instead. It was all my fault, anyway. I would have offered myself to her, given up my throat to her silver knife so she could take her bloody red revenge.Monaghan Boy snorted and tapped his feet, and I nodded in agreement. Madame Zilpha would never have allowed her revenge to end only with my death. Tommy had moved against her by defending me, and Arthur had overstepped the point at which a sufficient apology would move her from her decision when he had put a bullet in the grey alpha’s head.I inhaled a long drag of my opium pipe and exhaled it toward the wooden ceiling of the stables. I deserved to be dead. Yeah, maybe I wanted to be dead. It was foolish of me to think I could outrun my past by running to the Peaky fucking Blinders. Maybe that’s not what I had wanted after all, maybe I had done it all on purpose, tricked fate somehow into giving me what I’d always dreamed of just so she could watch me crumble it in my fists when I clung too tightly.I don’t know how long I stayed in the stables, waiting, waiting, waiting for something, anything to tell me what I was supposed to do next. I smoked until the glob of resin shrank to half its size and my brain was too large for my skull and I rested back against the hay, falling into the abyss of sleep.“Ruby, you in here?”Tommy. That was Tommy’s voice.My eyes fluttered open, and I half-expected to find my hands stained with red when I brought them to my face to wipe the sleep from my eyes. One hand was still curled around Madame Zilpha’s declaration of war, but it didn’t feel hot anymore, no longer alive, just a dead chunk of metal sitting in my palm.“Up here,” I said groggily, my voice thick with sleep and smoke.“Come down, Ruby.”“Yes, sir, Mr. Shelby,” I muttered under my breath. I abandoned my opium pipe in my little place in the loft and crawled down the nearby ladder. I was too high from the opium to hop down the last steps as I usually would, too afraid I would fall into a heap at Tommy’s feet when he was already staring at me with intelligent eyes that told me knew that I was high, on another plane of existence, stuck somewhere in the sky high above our heads.Tommy’s form swayed in my lopsided vision. The sun was high in the sky, blaring through the stable doorways so that it haloed him like a sunbeam from the heavens. He wore a dusty three-piece black suit and a black flat cap with razor blades gleaming at the edges. He looked composed as always, nothing like the ocean that thrashed behind his eyes. The white gypsy horse stood still behind him, waiting for his command.“Charlie said you had something for me,” Tommy said, and his voice was deep, so deep I drowned in it, only surfacing for air when the sentence ended.I leaned against the ladder with my full weight, half feeling as if it might crack under my weight and leave me sprawling at Tommy’s feet anyway. “Am I worth falling out with the Lees over?”Tommy pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and rubbed it over his lips as was his habit. Then he placed it between two pink lips and lit the tip with his lighter, taking a long drag. If he was an impatient man, he might have tapped his foot, but I knew his tells. He didn’t have time for me to delay, didn’t have time to solve my problem on top of the newest threat brewing on the horizon.I pushed myself off the ladder, tripping over the hay straight into Tommy’s arms. He righted me by my shoulders, one hand skimming my arm until it found my waist, holding me steady. I revealed the bullet in my hand, so small compared to the rough expanse of my palm, and Tommy took it from me with his other hand, examining the name carved into the side of the bullet.“Matthew’s brother dropped it off,” I said like he would know what that meant, “with a declaration of war from the Lee pack to the Shelby pack.”Tommy nodded and pocketed the bullet. He stepped away from me, his touch receding like the tide, and I had to ground my feet into the hay to keep from toppling over.“Tommy, what are you going to do? The guns and now this?”Tommy turned me to swiftly that I flinched away, thinking for half a moment that he might hit me. “The guns are not spoken of,” he said, and there was something in his voice like a threat, and tears threatened the corners of my eyes.“Don’t speak to me like that!” I shouted, taking one step forward.Tommy’s lips tilted upward in a sardonic smile. “Forgive me, Ruby.”And he might as well have said Red Ruby because my name stung on his lips just the same, bitter and wrong, and I opened my mouth to retort something I would regret, but Tommy was hoisting himself back onto the white horse’s back.“It’s Thomas Shelby against the whole bloody world, isn’t it?” I shouted.I barely heard Tommy’s dry “Yep” because he was kicking the white horse’s haunches, spurring it forward, out of the stables, and I followed him out, watching as he left me alone in Charlie’s yard.Head spinning, I retreated to the loft, picking my opium pipe back up and pressing it my lips as I relit the resin. I needed to forget the way Tommy had looked at me, the way he had spoken, the way he had been so guarded, and I wondered what I had done to deserve his wrath, if it was because I was too much trouble than I was worth, if it was because I had started a war with the Lees. The omega inside cried, and I smoked until I forgot.Sometime before the sun went down, Curly brought the white horse back into the stall next to Monaghan Boy. Tommy was there, at Charlie’s yard, but he hadn’t deigned to see me. Of course not. I sunk back into the hay and closed my eyes, begging for sleep to take me into a land not riddled with blood and fire.“Ru? Charlie said I could find you in here.”I sat up from the hay, clutching my dizzy head as my vision swam. “Ada?”There she was, standing inside the entrance of the stables, looking oh so out of place in her light green dress and grey-and-black coat tightened around her waist. She was sniffing the air, her eyes refocusing in the dim light of the stables. Her cheeks were sticky with spent tears that glinted in the low light of the setting sun.I tucked my opium in the corner and groggily descended the ladder for the second time that day. “What’re you doing here?”“Are you – Are you okay, Ru?”Ada stepped forward, but I stepped away from her to sit on a bale of hay. I pulled my cigarette case from my trouser pocket and a matchbox from my other, using the pair to light a cigarette and draw it between my lips. I looked Ada up and down. “What happened?”Ada slid her hands down her skirt before sighing and sitting down on a hay bale opposite me, across the room. She held her hand out for my cigarette, to which I raised my eyebrow but passed it to her. She inhaled without coughing, but her nose scrunched delicately as the cheap cigarette smoke filled her lungs. “He… I was at the cinema, and he – Tommy – cleared the whole place demanding to know the name of my baby’s father.”I accepted the cigarette gratefully and inhaled the smoke like it was the first time I was breathing. “That sounds like Tommy,” I said bitterly, remembering our tiff earlier in the day.“I had to tell him, Ru, he knows it’s Freddie’s.” Ada leaned across her lap toward me, peering at me as if I held the answers to her problems.“Do you know where Freddie is?” I asked.Ada shook her brown hair into her thin face. “I don’t know, but Polly – If Tommy knows, Polly can find out.”I nodded. “Talk to Polly tonight, then. I think you should go to him, Ada. Tommy can’t do anything to him if he knows you two are together.”Hope sparked in Ada’s green eyes for the first time since I’d told her she was pregnant. “Do you really think so?”“You said he’s a good man, Ada. Freddie will marry you, and Tommy won’t have a choice in the matter.”Ada rose from her haybale to squish me into a tight hug. She smelled light like apples, sweet like lemons, spicy like pepper. I hugged her back, careful to hold the lit cigarette away from her clothes.Ada resurfaced, blushing. “Sorry, I –” She snatched my cigarette, placing it between her lips to stop herself from saying anything that might have been embarrassing to her. “Thanks, Ru.”I smiled. “Let me walk you home, Ada. It’s getting dark.”Ada let me place my hand against her back and lead her out of the stables toward Garrison Lane. Ada laughed, passing me back the nearly-spent cigarette. “Why do you always remind me of my brothers?”I grimaced.“So something did happen,” Ada appraised.I sighed, tossing the cigarette to the street. “I think I’ll wretch if we have another conversation about the Shelby brothers.”Ada laughed, and she wrapped an arm around my shoulders, tucking my smaller body into her own like we were sisters, and maybe we were in a sense. “I’ve never felt safer walking in Small Heath than by your side, Ru.”It was my turn to laugh. “I am the least safe person in this city, second only by Tommy Shelby himself.” I winced at the mention of his name on my lips.“But you’re a woman,” Ada reminded me. “You’re on omega, and my friend, and you’d do anything to protect your pack. Wouldn’t you?”I held Ada tighter to my side, eyes roaming Garrison Lane, suddenly all too aware of the consequences of being out in the open when we were at war with the Lees. “If you’re asking whether I would kill for you, Ada, happily.”“I wasn’t,” Ada said in a far-away voice, and I wondered just how much I reminded her of her brothers at that moment.I reached into my trouser pocket, searching for my cigarettes.“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not smoking those fucking horrendously tasting cigarettes.” Ada pulled her own from her pocket, passing one to me and placing one between her lips.“I’ll light you,” I offered, reminding myself of Polly Gray in Missy’s sitting room as we came to a stop at the crossing of Watery and Garrison.I lit my cigarette, inhaling fully. Ada and I pressed our heads together, and Ada giggled as I swayed, bringing the tip of my cigarette away from hers. She set her hands on my shoulders, steadying me, and finally the tips of our cigarettes pressed together, her cigarette lit, and we parted. I set my hand on the small of Ada’s back, looking both ways down Garrison Lane and Watery Lane, checking that it was clear before I led her across the street.“So? Do you like my cigarettes better?” Ada questioned, nudging my ribs.“I like them,” I admitted, inhaling the sweet smoke until it filled my lungs.“You’ll have to get used to expensive things if you’re going to be a Shelby.”I blinked. “A Shelby?”Ada frowned suddenly. “Oh, you don’t think they’ll leave you unclaimed for long, do you?”I flicked my cigarette into the street and took another drag. “They’ll do what I ask,” I said, and I meant it.Ada laughed, a light and airy sound that made warmth bloom in my chest. “I feel like you’re my older sister. I’ve been living with those nitwits all my life, and I still don’t handle them half as well as you do.”“Ada, the pack would have fallen apart by now without you.”Ada offered me a half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m not so sure that’s true. Sometimes I feel like I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”I snorted, and Ada looked at me with such an incredulous look that I burst into a short bout of laughter. “No, it’s just – I was thinking the same today, all day today.”Ada’s lipsticked lips breached into a sympathetic smile. “That’s why the smoke?”I sighed. “Ada, the Lees declared war on the Shelbys today, and it’s my fault.”Ada sucked in a quick breath that hissed between her teeth. She remembered her cigarette, fumbled it between her lips, and inhaled so deeply that her next breath was a gasp. “That story you told me and Freddie…”“That wasn’t all of it,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to tell you, wanted to keep it women’s business between us, but Arthur –”“He didn’t.” Ada’s hand found my arm and she squeezed.“He killed the one I knew.”Ada sighed, releasing my arm to nurse her cigarette. “Tommy must have been mad.”“I don’t think he was as mad as Arthur,” I said, because it was all I could think to say.We had reached the front door of Ada’s apartment with Polly and Finn, and Ada turned to me suddenly, grasping my free hand with her free hand. “You were right, what you said. They deserved it. Now they’ll get what they deserve.”Ada turned like she hadn’t just sounded like her brothers and given a death threat to the Lees, and she opened the front door. John was sitting on the living room floor with Finn, playing with wooden cars, and he looked up and grinned as he saw us. Ada breezed inside, shrugging off her coat while I stood on the outer threshold, biting my lips as I stared openly at John.Ada looked over her arm at me as she hung her grey-and-black coat on the hanger. “Coming in, Ru?”Finn’s head turned beside John, and his green eyes sparked with life as he spotted me in the doorway. “Yeah, Ru! Come in and play.”I shook my head. “I should get back.”John jumped to his feet, ruffling Finn’s hair. “I’ll walk you home.”“It’s fine,” I said curtly, stepping down off the threshold. “Bye, Ada.”I tried to shut the door, but John stepped through the threshold, shrugging on his dusty black coat with a lopsided grin. I turned my back on him and started walking down Watery Lane, but he caught up, his long strides quickly surpassing my short ones.“Don’t be cross with me, baby,” John said, and I thought I heard a twinge of pain in his deep brazen tone.I stopped only to pull another cigarette from my pack and light it. But now that I stood alone on Watery Lane with John Shelby, the street felt too narrow and the night too suffocating, and I cursed the wind for filling my nose with John’s warm bonfire cologne. “Fuck off.”“You know I couldn’t even if I wanted to, angel.” John stole my matchbox, his eyes glued to my face as he lit a match and brought the fire up to to the tip of my cigarette. “What can I do to earn your forgiveness?”Inhaling heavily, I started back down Watery Lane at a faster pace, hoping to get back to Charlie’s yard before I was forced to forgive John, because I could barely think in his presence and forgiveness of John Shelby felt like breathing.“First, you can tell me when the fuck you decided to keep secrets from me, and why in Satan’s name you fucked me before telling me your brother bought me from a woman who was like a second mother to me.” I wheeled on my heel, stepping in front of John so suddenly that he almost crashed into me. “Then you can suck up your alpha pride and apologize to me, and then you can make it up to me.”John opened his mouth, but I hurried across the crossing between Watery and Garrison just as a car passed through, and he had to run across the street to catch up with me.“Ruby, wait,” John gasped, tugging lightly on the sleeve of my long-sleeved white tunic. “Okay, just wait and listen, please, and I’ll explain.”“So fucking explain,” I bit out.John released me to rub the back of his shaved head. “I know this doesn’t mean anything to you, but Tommy’s my brother, my alpha, my bloody pack leader, Ruby.” His eyes like green pastures begged mine to understand. “I do what he tells me to do because it’s saved my life more times than I can count.”“I know Tommy told you to keep it from me,” I said, “but you can’t blame him for not trusting me.”“I…” John rubbed his hand over his face, looking down at the ground as if he was admitting something he never thought he would say out loud. “I was scared that I would lose you if you knew. That you would think it was all some ploy just to trap you with us. I don’t want you to feel trapped, and I don’t think Tommy did either, and that’s why we kept it from you.”“And you fucked me to keep me from feeling trapped?” I laughed.“No! No, angel, I fucked you because I couldn’t stand for you to be in pain when I could do something to fix it.” John met my eyes again, green clashing against green-brown. “Fucking you was like… seeing you for the first time, and I knew I couldn’t lie to you anymore.”“So your guilt got the best of you, then.” I raised an eyebrow, sucking in my cigarette like it was oxygen.“You’re twisting my words on purpose,” John sighed, rubbing his blonde eyebrows.“I want to hear you say it.”“Say what? That I didn’t trust you, and I was a bloody idiot, and I’m sorry?”“And?”John stepped forward and clasped my jaw in his strong, gentle hands. “And you mean everything in the world to me, baby. I’m sorry, and I trust you, I do trust you.”John’s hands were like fire, melting me from the outside in until my nose was filled with him and the omega inside chanted John, alpha, John. “Now promise me you won’t lie to me again.”John face was a breath away from mine. “I promise I won’t lie to you again, Ruby. Can I kiss you now?”I stepped back from John’s grip, smoking my cigarette. “Now you can tell me how you’re going to make it up to me.”The disappointment in John’s eyes flickered into a fire that burned bright as green emeralds. “Do you own a gun?”My lips twitched around my cigarette into a wicked smile. “Yeah, I own a gun.”“How would you like to accompany me to Cheltenham?” John plucked a toothpick from his pocket and placed it in the corner of his mouth. “You can wear trousers.”“You’re not taking me to the races, are you, John?”“No. I’m taking you to a raid.”

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The horse was cursed. He wore a black aura like a cloak around his shoulders, and he hung his head low as if he knew that death would come for him by morning. It would, but he would suffer first. Rain thundered down on the barn, solidifying the truth I knew with an omen of death.I brushed my hand over the horse’s nose, and he nuzzled into my touch. After Curly had left to fetch Tommy, I had bound up the injured hoof so that he wasn’t leaning on the pain. Charlie hovered just outside the stall, quiet.“The horse, Tom, the horse!” Curly’s voice echoed through the rain.Tommy marched through the stables, his eyes wild, his coat drenched in rain. Something told me he’d been smoking opium and dreaming again and that he had woken up with a gun in his hand, and I was probably right, because I always was. Tommy wore a peaky cap with silver glinting on the rim, and he took it from his head as he entered the stables, folding it in his hands as if he needed something to occupy them. His black hair was tousled from sleep, and beneath his dusty black coat, he wore a simple white undershirt with several buttons undone at the top to reveal the edges of a sun tattoo on his chest. Tommy entered the stall, inspecting the horse like he had never seen a sickness like what plagued him, and he perhaps he had not, but I had.I petted the white horse’s nose and kissed the bridge. Tommy looked at me suddenly, his bright eyes more blue than green, like a child whose puppy was sick, wringing his hat low in his hands. The boy told him to hope, but the man told him to resign, and the gypsy in him led him toward the truth. “Ruby, tell me.”“Cursed, Tommy,” I said, my voice was hoarse because I had been crying.I took a step backward from the horse, and Tommy walked forward, pressing his hands against the sides of my face. “Tell me. Tell me, Ruby. What’s wrong with the horse?”My eyes were blocks of steel when I looked into Tommy’s eyes. “You got him from Johnny in bad feeling, Tommy. The Lees have witches, too. They sewed a bad seed in the horse’s hoof and put a spell on him.”Tommy released me, took a step back, and then ambled toward the horse to look him head to toe, over and over again. “So those Lee bastards cursed him.”I walked to the white horse, stroking my hand twice over his long velvet snout. “It’s spread to his other hooves, now. It’ll be in his heart by morning.”Tommy stared at the horse, unable to look at me. “Get out.”I backed up a few steps, nearly running into Curly who was nodding to himself, his face screwed up as he rushed out of the stables into the rain.Charlie patted my shoulder as he passed, murmuring so Tommy couldn’t hear, “Don’t let him do it alone.”I stood still behind Tommy, letting him assume that we had all abandoned him at his command. He should have known better, but he wasn’t thinking, because he had caused a horse to get cursed just like he had caused them to get shot in the war. Now he was the one with the gun, holding the pistol in his hand, aiming it at the horse’s head. The horse stood, staring at him with deep brown eyes, the eyes of a gypsy, and Tommy let out a low breath.I stepped forward out of the shadows, lowering Tommy’s arm that held the gun. “Let me do this for you, Tommy. This is one burden I can take off your shoulders.”Tommy’s voice was low and smaller than I had ever heard it when he said to me, “If I let you do this killing for me, it’ll never end.”My hands wrapped around his holding the pistol, and he relinquished the gun into my grip.“The bodies will keep piling up, Ruby,” Tommy said, and his voice was savage now, as if warning me.I leveled the gun between the white horse’s eyes. “Then let them pile. They can pile at our feet as we sit on thrones made of their bones.”BANG. The shot went off, and the gun recoiled slightly but I kept it steady in my hands, and the horse’s body dropped with a loud thud that shook the stables.I stepped backward, into Tommy’s arms, and he took the pistol from my hand and sheathed it in the holster he wore around his shoulders, hidden by the shadows and his coat. Tommy led me out of the stables, nodding to Charlie and Curly to take care of the body. He took me around the back of the warehouses in the rain until we reached the Cut. I sat on the edge, pulling my knees to my chest so that I could peel off my shoes and socks.“Ruby, this isn’t the time to play in the Cut,” Tommy said in a low voice. He loomed over me, shielding some of the rain from my shoulders.“We’re already soaked,” I offered. “When has Thomas Shelby been afraid of a little water?”Sighing, Tommy sat next to me, folding his legs in front of him so that they didn’t dangle off the edge into the Cut like I intended for myself. “I’m sorry about the horse.”I rolled my trousers up to my knees and threw my legs over the side of the ledge into the blue-green water of the Cut. It was cold, and I shivered slightly, but I welcomed the icy sensation compared to the startling numbness that had laden my limbs since I’d received Madame’s declaration of war. “So you can apologize about the horse but not for lying to me?”Tommy leaned backward on his hands, stretching out so that the rain soaked the front of his body, clinging his white t-shirt to the sculpted muscles of his chest. “If I start apologizing to you, Ruby, I will never stop.”“Try.” I kicked my legs in the water, splashing a little toward Tommy.Tommy slipped off his coat and laid it around my shoulders, which did nothing to shield me from the rain that had already soaked through the thick fabric, but was an apology of its own. “You’re smart, Ruby. You already know why I kept the truth from you.”Tommy’s arm retreated from my shoulders. I shifted almost unconsciously closer to him until our thighs brushed together.“Am I telepathic?” I said sarcastically.“Sometimes I think you are,” Tommy quipped back. His lips twitched downward, the only indicator of his emotions. “I don’t know what it’s like to be owned the way you were. But I know what it’s like to be trapped by your station, your family, your circumstances.”“You didn’t want that for me,” I supplemented.“No, Ruby, I wanted you to have a life free from all of this.”“Should’ve known you couldn’t keep me from the truth,” I said.“Especially when me aunt’s a gypsy witch, too. Shoulda known, eh?” Tommy cracked a small, tight-lipped smile, and his cheeks creased with the attempt, and it was like looking into the sun.“You’re forgiven,” I decided, “but only if you include me in business moving forward.”Tommy cocked a dark eyebrow. “You want to be involved in the business?”“I know Polly told you what I said. I intend to make good on that promise.”Tommy took my hand in his, and his long finger eclipsed my own as they tangled into my hand. “The Queen and her kings, eh? Ambitious of you.”“Is it?” After a moment, I said, “Tell me, Thomas. What happened at the Lickey Tea Rooms this morning?”Tommy sighed, an almost imperceptible exhale that might have been perceived as an ordinary breath to anyone who didn’t know him. “I delivered Inspector Campbell a threat.”“You want to transport the guns to Liverpool, then Belfast to the IRA if he doesn’t do as you say,” I summarized.Tommy looked at me sharply. “Sometimes I think you’re in my brain.”“Ada would agree,” I said, offering him a sliver of a smile. “So what did you include in your deal?”“The specials leave my businesses alone. They don’t smash up my pubs, they don’t lift my runners, they don’t raid my streets,” Tommy listed off, his eyes to the sky as if he was tracing the constellations or otherwise recalling his conversation with Campbell.“The gambling and the race tracks, too?” I said, squeezing his hand as if I could bring him back to earth.I wasn’t sure that I could, because Tommy looked through me like he couldn’t see me, only the strategies weaving themselves like webs in his head. “Inspector Campbell is putting in a word with the Chief Inspector of Gloucestershire to turn a blind eye when I make my move on Kimber.”“You are planning to betray Kimber, then,” I noted. “Always several moves ahead.”“Always,” Tommy said, and his eyes snapped to mine as if he was seeing me after he hadn’t seen me in a long time, crystal blue-green eyes roaming over my face as if he could memorize it, and maybe he could. “But maybe not when it comes to Ada.”My eyes flashed dangerously. “What did you do, Thomas?”“I made Freddie Thorne part of our deal. The specials need him out of Birmingham, and I promised he would be.”Tommy looked at me, imploring, his icy ocean eyes probing mine as if he could decipher my thoughts the way that I could his.“It’s a good thing Ada’s going to meet him in Liverpool tomorrow morning,” I supplied.Tommy blinked at me, and then his lips spread across his cheeks in a broad smile that reminded me vaguely of John. He looked like a boy when he smiled, young, like he had never gone to war, and perhaps that was why he never smiled. “Did you orchestrate that?”I raised a red eyebrow. “I did it for Ada, so she can be with the father of her baby. She will be with the father of her baby, Thomas.”Tommy pulled a cigarette case from his coat pocket, he extracted two cigarettes. He lit both, passing me one, which I accepted, conscious of the way his long finger brushed against my shorter ones. “So you’re on Polly’s side, then.”“There are no sides.” I inhaled and exhaled a long draw of Tommy’s cigarette. I liked his the best, plain and not too sweet. “This is pack business, Tommy, and the pack wants to see Ada happy. Don’t you?”Tommy was quiet for a long moment while he smoked his cigarette, and I let my question sink into the smoke in the air. Finally, he said, sounding like a boy again, lost, “Of course I do, Ruby.”“Then fight for her, like I’m fighting for her.”Tommy’s hand reached out, slow and cautious as if not to disturb me, and I briefly remembered flinching back from him in the stables days before. He combed my wet red hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear, his hand resting against my neck. His eyes were as cautious as his hands, the ocean inside slowing to a steady roll like the rhythm of the rain that soaked us through to our very bones. “Polly said you took Ada to an underground abortion clinic in a nurse’s house. Missy, is it? From the hospital?”Fuck. I had known it was a risk, taking Ada to Missy, but I trusted Missy more than I trusted any other clinic because she had saved my life, and I wanted Ada to have the best options possible.I couldn’t imagine what Tommy thought. If he had realized how much of a whore I was, how many men had spent their seed in my womb, if he recognized like I did how dirty that made me, used, worthless, a side of myself that I had never wanted him to see.“I’ll make a donation to Missy’s clinic,” Tommy said into the night, looking at the stars instead of me. His arm snaked around my waist, pulling me tighter to his side.“I don’t – I don’t understand.”Tommy looked down in my eyes, and rain ran down his face like god’s tears. “Did you think I blame you?”“It’s all my fault.”“Ruby, what they did to you is not your fault. What you had to do to survive, no one can fault you for those decisions.”Tommy stared into my eyes, unflinching, his lips like ambrosia, like poison, as the rain ran over them and he said my name and then he said something that I had never expected him to say. He didn’t see me as ruined, as useless, as nothing. And he didn’t blame me for any of it, any of what they had done to me, and suddenly I was crying, and I cried into the rain, sinking my forehead on Tommy’s shoulder.“I’m sorry, Tommy, I’m sorry about the Lees.” I grasped onto his neck, forcing him to look me in the eyes. “I promise I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”“Neither did I,” Tommy said, and he captured my lips in his.

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All three of us walked through the train station toward the boarding platform. Ada walked in the middle, looking for all the world like a young girl who was going to see her lover for the first time since the war. She was dressed in a loose bright pink dress that covered the small bulge of her baby bump, paired with a set of white hose and white shoes that the dirty streets of Small Heath had turned a smokey grey. She wore a tan overcoat, unbuttoned so that she had to hold it with one hand to keep it from flying open as we walked.Polly was holding onto Ada’s arm, clutching onto a black briefcase with her other. She looked like a businesswoman, all dressed up in a fitted grey jacket that hugged her dainty curves. A bit of the white of her blouse poked out from the collar, and a six-set of buttons drew from the short lapels down her chest, flattening her already slim figure. She walked through a tight grey skirt that draped her legs down to her ankles, the grey of her stockings exposed above her shiny black heels. She wore a black hat tipped over one imperious brown eye.I walked by Ada’s other side, holding the brown duster bag that contained her luggage. I felt out of place wearing trousers and a vest next to two primly dressed women, and several passersby looked at me in shock or disgust or distrust, but if my company noticed, they didn’t comment on it.“You okay?” Polly murmured to Ada.“Yeah, I’m fine,” came the jittery reply.We rounded the corner of the ramp. “This is it, Ada,” I said.Together, we came to a slow stop among the sparse, interweaving lines of travelers filing into their carriages. We had reached the train where it sat on the tracks, doors open as if it was waiting to be boarded, coal smelling like wanderlust in the air.I set Ada’s bag down on the ground. Ada hugged Polly, kissing her rouged cheeks. Then she came to me, holding both of my hands in her cold, slender ones so that the silky pads of her fingers brushed against my calloused palms. She implored me with her eyes, river green conveying one last piece of women’s business before she left for her new life. “You’ll take care of them, Ru? I know you’re the only one who can.”“I’m standing right here.” Polly was withdrawing her cigarettes and her lighter, and she pressed one between her lips as she eyed Ada warily.“Yes, Polly, you do everything you can for us,” Ada said, reaching out to clutch her hand as well. “I’m not dumb enough to think this pack would have stuck together without you. But Ru…” Ada looked at me, and her smooth fingers fluttered over mine and tangled our hands. “With you, sometimes I see my brothers again, the boys they were before the war changed them. John is gentle, and Arthur laughs even when he’s sober, and Tommy smiles, always with his eyes, and sometimes even with his mouth when he looks at you.”“They come alive again,” Polly agreed.I looked from Polly to Ada, hesitating, not trusting that this was real, that this was my life, that these two women were my pack, and I didn’t know when I would see Ada again, and I held her in my arms, burying my face in her apple-scented brown hair.“I’ll do my best, Ada,” I promised. “Just say you’ll take care of yourself.”“And I’ll write every week.” Ada smiled as she released me.I picked up Ada’s bag and passed it to her, and the weight transferred from me to her, and I knew that I was accepting her place as her brothers’ keepers, and that she was accepting her new life, and the baton passed between us.Then Ada turned, and Polly and I would have watched her leave, but she stopped, and my heart dropped to my feet. Freddie Thorne was pacing along the train car, peering into carriage windows, smoking a familiar brand of white cigarettes. He turned just in time to see Ada, and he froze, looking for all the world like a man come back from the war and seeing his lover for the first time since he left. He wore a long, loose black coat, the lapels of his black jacket peeking out from beneath the hem. Underneath, he wore a pressed white button-up shirt. His beard was almost full, recently groomed, and he wore a grey hat with black trim. His brown eyes stared at Ada like she was the sun and she blinded him, but he couldn’t look away to miss a moment of her beauty.“Jesus,” Freddie whispered, walking toward us as if he couldn’t believe he had found us before Ada left on the train.Polly took a step backward as if she wished she wasn’t seeing who she was seeing. “Freddie.”Ada dropped her leather back at her feet, walking to Freddie to meet him where he stood. “You came back?”I wanted to shoot myself. Of course he came back. Of fucking course Freddie Thorne returned to Small Heath, dashing Tommy’s deal into the dirt at his feet. I should have known. I did know – I had told Ada he would come back, and I should have realized how right I was, should have warned Tommy not to make deals that he couldn’t keep.Freddie stepped within reach of Ada. His bearded face grew into a smile, revealing two rows of imperfect white teeth. “I got the tip-off.”Polly stepped forward. “Freddie, Tommy will kill you.”“It’s Tommy who tipped me off,” Freddie supplied. “Maybe he’s got half a heart after all.” He looked at Ada. “Tommy got a message to me. Said ‘Get out of town. Take her with you.’”Ada stared at him, and I stepped to Polly’s side, tugging on her sleeve like a lost child.“So…” Freddie got to one knee on the floor of the train station in front of Ada. He held up a ring in his hand, offering it to her like it was his prized jewel and she was the goddess he had been praying to. “Ada Shelby, will you marry me?”Ada’s face lit up like the sun. I had never seen her so happy. Tears nudged at the corners of her green eyes, and she nodded and nodded. “Yes.” She offered her hand, and Freddie slipped the plane silver band on her finger. “Yes,” she laughed. “Yes.”Freddie rose to his feet, and Ada brought his face in her hands, and they kissed, and the sun eclipsed the moon, and everything was oh, so dark inside but so bright between the two of them that I was almost blinded. Ada released Freddie, and she turned to Polly, hugging her. Freddie surged forward, bouncing on the balls of his feet with so much energy he didn’t know what to do with, and he was smiling, and I hugged him because, because in that moment he was my brother, my pack, my family, and I welcomed him with a warm hug against stiff shoulders that quickly sunk into my embrace. Ada laughed, and I remembered her, and I hugged her tight, smiling into her brown cinnamon apple hair.Polly took Ada’s arm in one hand and her leather bag in the other, and the two began walking toward the nearest train carriage. “Right. Get on this bloody train and get out of here.”Freddie wasn’t moving. He was standing, watching them walk away with a look in his eyes that I couldn’t decipher, and his hands fiddled with his cigarette case as if deciding if he should fish one out, and my heart sank down into the earth, into the grave Tommy had dug for us, because I knew even as I said, “Freddie?”Polly looked back from where she and Ada were walking, and they both paused in their step, turning to look back at Freddie and me. “Both of you, Freddie, come on,” Polly said, even as I looked at her with eyes as dark as the night sky.“Freddie, Liverpool’s okay,” Ada insisted. “Anywhere but here’s okay.”“We’re not going anywhere, Ada,” Freddie said. He walked forward toward Ada, taking her hand. “We’re gonna stay here, we’re gonna marry here.” He looked at Polly. “I’m not afraid of Tommy Shelby.”Maybe I was cursed. Maybe I was cursed, because I too was not afraid of Tommy Shelby because I was afraid for him. Tommy should have known that Freddie was a thorn in his side that I couldn’t pluck out for him, because oh, I was a small mouse, and Tommy was a large lion, and Freddie was an even bigger thorn.The worst part was that Freddie’s words made Ada the happiest I had ever seen her, the happiest that she had perhaps ever been in her life. I could see it in her face, in her lake-green eyes, in the way she smiled, in the way she stared at him like the earth revolved around him. I knew at that moment that I was also a thorn in Tommy’s side, and I would be one willingly because I would fight for her, fight Tommy for her because Ada Shelby deserved more than any of us could ever give her.Ada left with Freddie, and Polly and I walked the several miles back to Watery Lane in silence. By the time we reached the flat, the sun was hanging high overhead, signaling noon.When we reached Watery Lane, I followed Polly into the kitchen. She walked to the china cabinet, where she kept the best of the liquor, and retrieved a bottle of aged gin. She fluttered to the other side of the kitchen, searching for glasses, and I settled beside the head of the table where she was sure to sit. I sat back in my chair, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of my trouser pocket and lighting one with a match. Polly sat beside me at the head of the table, placing two glasses in front of us and pouring several shots of gin into each glass wordlessly.Polly sipped her gin, eyeing me over the glass with unforgiving brown eyes. “You won’t keep this from Thomas.”It was a statement, a knowledge shared, admitted in the open. I ashed my cigarette and picked up my glass of gin gratefully. “I can’t lie to him, Pol. We made an agreement.”Polly placed her glass on the table. She pulled her cigarette case from the front pocket of her fitted grey jacket and produced a lighter. Placing the little brown cigarette between her firm lips, she lit the tip and inhaled, blowing smoke through the airy kitchen. “I suppose it’s time. After all, to become queen, you’ll have to learn us women are expendable.”“Not to me,” I said fiercely. Polly looked at me with one dark eyebrow cocked, and I paused, evening out my breath as I took a few puffs from my cigarette. I drowned the smoke in gin, knocking back a shot’s worth of the clear liquid down my throat. “Only our enemies are expendable.”Polly tapped her cigarette against the ashtray, shaking the ashed tip into the little crystal bowl. “Sometimes Tommy sees us as the enemy.”I wanted to say that I could make Tommy see what was right, but I didn’t know that I could. He was headstrong and stubborn, single-minded and determined. He justified his actions regardless of the consequences because he had been since the war judge and jury, king and ghost. There was nothing that I could say that would strip that away from him, and it was one of the many reasons I admired him.What Polly didn’t know was that Tommy had included Freddie’s absence from Birmingham in his deal with Inspector Campbell. Without said deal, Tommy’s plan to eclipse Billy Kimber was rubbish. Without the deal, the specials would interfere in Tommy’s businesses – smash up pubs, lift runners, raid the streets – all to undermine the Peaky Blinders and show all of Birmingham that it was the coppers, and not Tommy, who owned it. Without the deal, there would be no takeover of Kimber’s racetracks, no special word from the Chief Inspector of Gloucestershire to ignore Tommy’s plays.Tommy needed this deal with Inspector Campbell, and I had no doubt that he would kill Freddie before he allowed him to ruin it. I couldn’t let that happen. I could see in my mind’s eye Ada in one of the communist safehouses, giving birth on the bed, her grip so tight around my hand that I thought she might break it. I saw Freddie, holding their son, Karl, after Karl Marx. I couldn’t let Tommy take that away from our Ada.Polly drank from her gin and smoked her cigarette, watching me with fox-like eyes.“Maybe we are the enemy, this time,” I murmured.“What aren’t you telling me, Ruby?” Polly ashed her cigarette, and her hand hovered over the ashtray, pausing to let the cigarette burn freely as she watched me with brown eyes that tracked the pull of my brow, the crinkle of my nose, the downward curve of my lips.I decided then that Tommy and I had agreed only on mutual truth – no secrets between us. I had never said that our secrets were to be kept between only us. Tommy confided in John, sometimes in Arthur, and I would confide in Polly because I had no bloody clue how to fix this, and I had to fix this, and who better to ask for help than Polly fucking Gray, the gypsy queen herself?I took a long drink of gin, set down the glass, raised my cigarette to my lips, and sighed out the smoke from my lungs, longing for my opium pipe. “Tommy made a deal with Inspector Campbell.”Polly smoked, waited, watched me.“In that deal, he agreed that Freddie Thorne would leave Birmingham for good.”Polly swore in Romani. She knocked back the rest of her gin like she was made to drink it, like she had been starving in the desert for days and the gin was her delusional oasis. “You didn’t think to mention this?”I couldn’t look at her. I tipped back my gin and took a long swallow. I had drank almost all of it now, and the liquor warmed my skin, filled my veins, slowed my heart to a dull bmp bmp bmp. It stole my anxiety and filled its place with regret, reminding me that I was, after all, cursed, and Polly was right, and I had brought all of this on myself just the same as Tommy had. This was my fault, too.“I was a fool.” When my lips wrapped around my white cigarette, I tasted the floral and licorice of the gin as well as the bittersweet tobacco. “I was a bloody nitwit, Pol, and I need your help to fix this. Will you help me?”Polly swirled the remnants of her gin in the bottom of her glass. She set it down on the table and reached for the liquor bottle, pouring herself another shot. She proffered the bottle, and I slid my glass across the table so she could refill it. She placed the bottle between us on the table and took another drink. “First, we need to know where Ada is staying.”I discarded my spent cigarette in the ashtray and fondled my cigarette box for another. “I know a few Peaky boys from the yard who can help.”Polly’s eyebrow arched up. “And they’re loyal to you?”I shrugged. I didn’t bother telling her about the shooting lessons or the boxing lessons or the late-night fights at Charlie’s yard with the boys who’d gotten in above their heads. It would have been a shame if I told the pack about a handful of Peaky boys who’d had to have a woman, and an omega at that, teach them how to fight. “Long story.”“You’ll have to share it with me sometime.” Polly sounded amused. She sipped at her gin with pursed, prim lipsticked lips. “Drink up.”I swallowed a gulp of gin from my glass. “Is there a reason we’re drinking so much at this time in the afternoon?”“We’re celebrating.” She raised her glass, and I lifted mine to clink it against hers. “To Ada and her son, and to our new queen.”“To Ada and her new family,” I seconded, gulping down my gin like it was water and I was parched.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

By the time the sun rested from its stretch in the sky, Polly and I were drunk, having just finished off the bottle of gin when Tommy burst through the front door. The cool Birmingham breeze brushed his scent past my nose, and I smelled the rainforest, the earth, the grass, the green.I looked at Polly through drunk-hazed eyes, whispering, “Does he walk through every door like he owns the place?”Polly’s firm lips pulled upward at the edges and she smiled around her thin brown cigarette. “He does.”Tommy leaned against the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. I watched the tendons in his hands flex as he folded his cap and stuffed it in the pocket of his dusty black coat. He wore his typical black suit underneath, and I wished I was in heat just so I had a reason to walk into his arms and kiss him right in front of Polly. I doubt she would have minded much, but I sat still in my seat, puffing on a cigarette with an empty glass in front of me. Tommy’s glacial eyes flickered over the empty bottle on the table and Polly’s wry, drunk smile.“Were you talking about me?” There was a flutter of a smile on Tommy’s plump pink lips.His smile made me sad, and I remembered the truth, and I looked at Polly, and she nodded to me, and I started, “Thomas, sit down.”Tommy’s smile slipped from his lips like it had never existed, and maybe it hadn’t, maybe I had imagined it in a drunk delusion because Tommy Shelby never smiled. “Tell me.”I knew better than to keep Tommy waiting, and I didn’t know if I could have anyway, because the words slurred past my lips in a sticky mess. “We took Ada to the train station this morning, but Freddie was there, and he proposed, and Ada said yes, and he said he wasn’t going to Liverpool, and he said –”“He said he isn’t afraid of Tommy Shelby,” Polly finished.Tommy’s dark brow pinched together, the only crack in his crystal composure. “He’s not leaving Birmingham.”“No,” I said, and all the air left my lungs.Tommy pulled his flat cap from his pocket and unfolded it. He wasn’t looking at either of us. “I need to think.”“Tommy, we have a plan,” Polly said.Tommy placed his peaky cap on his head, turned as if to walk out of the kitchen, and then looked back at Polly. “You can drink over your plan at The Garrison tonight. Take Ruby. Dress up, make a show of it.”“And where will you be?” Polly asked.“In the snug,” he answered and left, shutting the door to the flat behind him. The lamplight of Watery Lane shifted his shadow across the living room window as he passed.Polly set her half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. “I think that went better than expected.” She stood from the head of the table, eyes flickering over my shirt and trousers distastefully. “Well, we can’t make a show with you looking like that. Ada has a dress that would look perfect on you.”Half an hour later, Polly sat at her decorative vanity, rubbing kohl around her already-dark eyes. She wore a shimmery gold dress with straps thinner than I had ever seen. She had dressed in her corset in front of me, and I had tied it tight for her so that the straight fabric of the dress fitted to her curves. There was a little bow at the flat collar, exposing only a little of her breasts, and she wore a silver necklace that dangled over her collarbone. Her brown curls were pinned slightly back, exposing the silver earrings she wore.I stood behind Polly, regarding my reflection in the vanity with wide green-brown eyes. My long red hair was pinned to my head, folded over so that it looked as if I had cut it short and curled it around my face. I was draped in a silk green dress with ribbon-like straps that held up the dress atop my sculpted shoulders. The dress was nearly sleeveless, leaving my lean arms bare. The collar was like a diamond, dipping down in a V between my breasts to show off the side curvature of each of my breasts, naked beneath the thin fabric. The low cut of the dress exposed my collarbone and the way my lungs rose from beneath my skin and the supple flesh of the tops of my breasts. The green of the fabric shined against my freckled olive skin. The dress itself was pinched beneath the chest, ruffled around my ribs so that the fabric stuck to my skin like water, revealing the jut of my hipbones, the flat expanse of my stomach, the dip of my hips. I wore no makeup and only a string of Polly’s pearls around my neck, but I looked like a nymph, some otherworldly creature of mythology, something that I was not.I tugged at the cups of fabric over my breasts, feeling the shimmering dress drag across my nipples, which were rising to attention in the cold air. With only so much left to the imagination, the dress revealed the necklace of Arthur’s purpling bruises around my neck and the thin pink scars that cut across my chest, shoulders, and arms in a random, sparse pattern.“Are you sure this is decent?” I asked, and my voice was small, young, like a debutante questioning her mother’s choice of coming-out wear.Polly peered at me through the mirror. “Queens wear what they want in their castles. Even if it’s indecent. Even if it’s nothing.”I ran my hand over the smooth, delicate fabric over my thigh. “No one will touch me?”“No, Ruby,” she said like she was speaking to a child who had bruised her knee. “Everyone knows who you are now. And if they don’t, they will learn tonight.”“Think that’s Tommy’s plan?” I wondered aloud.“How can I ever be sure?” Polly replied wistfully.I had nothing to say to that, so I walked to the bed and checked that my knife was still in my purse where I could easily reach it. Polly finished her eyeliner, and we shrugged on matching grey coats, collected our bags, and descended the stairs of the flat together. Polly locked up the flat, and we headed down Watery Lane toward The Garrison pub arm in arm, thick as thieves.“Will the boys be there?” I asked as we crossed Watery Lane to Garrison Lane.“Most nights, now,” Polly said. “But I’m introducing you to some lads tonight who like to entertain me.”When we reached the pub, I held Polly close to me and pushed open the door. The Garrison was loud with the voices of drunk men, and the tables were filled. Heads turned as we entered. I caught two men staring at the open chest of my dress, two men gazing over my hips as if they’d like to put their hands on me, and all eyes paused as they raked over my neck, taking in the ring of bruises I was now suddenly thankful Arthur had marked around my neck. Men parted as Polly walked me through the tables toward a booth tucked near a window.“Do you gentlemen have room for two more?” Polly said, and her voice was like velvet, her accent thick in her tone, and it was a wonder the three betas at the table didn’t drop to their knees right then.“Always room for you, Lady Gray,” said the man tucked tight against the window, nursing a mug of beer. He was a small, slender lad with blonde hair and blue eyes, and he sported such a feminine facial structure that I almost took him for a woman in men’s clothing.“I’ve told you I’m not a lady, Wil,” Polly said with a wisp of a smile.A man stood from the table, three heads taller than me. He was a broad-shouldered man whose suit barely contained his muscle. He wore a full grey beard, and his grey hair was peppered with black, but his bushy eyebrows were full and grey above deep-set eyes like a storm. “You can have my seat, Ms. Gray.”“Thank you, Richard,” Polly said, and she smoothed her skirt before she sat next to Wil in the booth.The third man was a thin man with a head of dark hair and dark eyes. His face was sharp like a wolf’s, and he watched me curiously behind his mug of beer. I slid into the booth next to him, not bothering to smile because I wasn’t a whore anymore.The older gentleman, Richard, snagged a chair from a nearby table and sat backward on it at the end of the booth. “Who’s your lovely companion, Ms. Gray?”“Gentlemen, this is Ruby, the omega of the Shelby pack,” Polly introduced. “Ruby, this is Wil, Richard, and George.”George, the dark-haired man, leaned forward onto the table to look closer at me. “Heard you work at Charlie’s salvage yard.”“That’s right,” I said because I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say when I was pretending to be someone I was not among men who saw me as a woman and not a comrade.Wil leaned forward across the table, hands casually touching George’s, and my eyes clocked over the slight bulge of his chest and again over his feminine features. I searched for an Adam’s apple among his throat but found only a bitemark scarred into his skin. “But you wear your hair long.”“Yes?” I said, a lilt to my voice as I looked back and forth between George and Will.Polly chuckled, a raspy sound much too mature to have ever been a girl’s giggle. “Ruby, they want to know if you’re a transexual.”“George and Will have a bet,” Richard explained, tilting the chair on its back legs as he folded his weight over the top of it. “George says you are, and Wil says you’re not.”George and Wil looked at me expectantly. My eyes roamed over Wil’s bondmark, the way his slight shoulders couldn’t quite fill his suit jacket, the luscious blonde eyelashes that shone in the light of The Garrison. I looked at George, finding a matching bitemark on his throat, and I knew, suddenly, that Polly had introduced me to her gay friends.“Well?” Wil said. “Are you or aren’t you?”My lips twitched into a smile as I looked at him. “You were right. I’m not like you.”Wil sat back in the booth, his plush lips spreading across his face in a wide grin. “I knew it. Next round’s on you, babe.”George sighed. He raised his hand to catch the attention of the bartender, who spotted Polly at the table and came immediately. We all placed our drink orders – beer for the men, and gin for me and Polly.As the bartender left, I fingered a cigarette from my pack and brought my matchbox out of my coat pocket. “Do you mind?” I asked the table.Richard laughed and looked at Polly. “Does she even know what she is?”“Oh, she knows.” Polly’s eyes flickered over to me as the side of her mouth twitched into a one-sided smile. “She just doesn’t know how to be what she is.”I stared at Polly, but the table laughed in agreement as if they all understood, and I sunk back into the booth with my cigarette, feeling all at once like I had found my tribe.“Since we’re talking freely…” Richard moved his chair closer to the table until the back of it hit the edge of the wood. “Indulge me, would you, Ruby? Who marked your neck? Was it Tommy?”I nearly coughed up the tobacco smoke in my lungs. I was used to boys talking about sex in my presence, but never regarding my own. But the liquor loosened my tongue, and I had too many secrets to keep more, so I asked, “Another bet?”Richard’s grey eyes sparkled and his lips twitched. “Call it personal curiosity.”Polly snorted from across the table, and I realized that Richard wanted to know exactly what Tommy was like in bed for his own personal analysis.I smiled smugly, happy to disappoint him when I answered, “Arthur.”Wil nearly launched himself across the table reaching for me, and I offered him my free arm so that he could clutch onto it as if that would give him all the information he wanted to know. “Arthur? Damn, should’ve bloody known.”“George has never marked you like that?” I blushed even as I said it, but I looked at Wil anyway, curious for the answer.Wil laughed, squeezing and releasing my hand. He glanced at George. “George and I don’t have that kind of relationship yet. It’s… hard for me.” He glanced toward the table. “I don’t have the right body parts, you know.”My brow furrowed, and I frowned as I looked at Will, taking in how crumpled he suddenly looked, and I imagined what it might be like to struggle to touch your partner because you didn’t feel like yourself, couldn’t act like yourself, couldn’t be yourself because you were trapped with certain anatomy that just wasn’t you.“I’m sorry, Wil,” I said earnestly. “We can talk about it if you like. Maybe we can work through it together.”Wil squeezed my hand from across the table. “Thanks, Ruby.”I receded my arm when the bartender came with a tray of drinks and bestowed them upon the table. I took my glass of gin greedily, slinking back the shot of gin.Polly caught the bartender with a look, and he paused halfway in turning away from the table. “On second thought, Dick, bring us two bottles of gin for the table. You can put it on my tab.”The bartender shook his head. “No charge for you, Ms. Gray. Harry’s orders.”Polly smiled graciously, and the bartender walked off through the crowd of men who were still staring and toward the bar.“Bloody hell, Lady Gray,” Wil said. “You trying to get yourself or poor Ruby drunk tonight?”Polly didn’t answer, and I didn’t bother thinking about the answer, because the bartender returned with two bottles of gin and Richard set to pouring.George slung his arm casually over the booth behind my shoulders, and I looked at him, biting my lip as my thoughts passed through my face.“Why’re you looking at me like that?” George said.“My brother’s name was George, you know,” I said, looking into George’s dark eyes. “You’re nothing alike, but he would have liked you.”“I could drink to that,” Richard said, raising a glass of gin in the air.I tried to smile, but I could only think about my older brother George and how he used to beg me to tell his fortune. I knocked back my gin.“Speaking of names,” said Wil, “my birth name is Wilhelmina.”I blinked, looked at Will, blinked some more. “No way.”“Way.”Wil and I burst into laughter at the absurdity of the name. The table devolved into a discussion about the underground gay scene in Birmingham, although apparently London’s was better. By the second round of drinks, the trio had agreed to take me to their hidden spots the next time we were all free.I was chainsmoking my third cigarette when John Shelby found himself at our booth, hovering next to Richard’s chair and looking over the table like he was the cat who had missed the cream. His green eyes lingered on where George’s arm was still strewn haphazardly over the booth behind me, and George looked up, saw him, and tucked his arm back to his side. The table quieted in his presence, eyes deferred to the table or his suit jacket but never his eyes.“Had a good evening, Mr. Shelby?” Richard greeted in an overly cheery tone.John’s eyes raked over my flushed cheeks and the liquor on the table. “Having fun without me, angel?”I grinned. “Only a little, John.”“Care to join us?” Polly leaned back in her seat across from me, smoking one of her strange herbal cigarettes.John shook his head, his eyes never leaving my face as if he couldn’t bear not looking at me for one moment. “Tommy sent me to collect Ruby. Arthur’s getting antsy again.”Wil and George erupted into a bout of loosely-muffled giggles, but Polly and I shared a look. How the information passed between our hazy, drunken gazes, I wasn’t sure, only that we were both gypsies and gypsies were, at times, known to read minds. John said that Arthur was antsy, but what he meant was that he was chomping at the bit for a fight, threatening to throw himself off the edge of sanity into the abyss of the Flanders Blues. Tommy needed me to intercept.I stole a bottle of gin from the table, said goodbye to my newfound friends, and let John lead me with a hand against the small of my back to the snug at the front of The Garrison. The little window that opened up to the bar was shut tight, and Harry offered me an apologetic look as John opened the door and we walked inside.“Arthur, you need to listen to me, brother,” Tommy was saying in a low, even voice that he often used for the horses. He sat on the little wooden chair that was his throne, but it was pulled close to the table so that his knees, clad in black, nearly touched Arthur’s skinny legs.“Can’t stop thinking about it, Tommy.” Arthur sat in the booth closest to Tommy. His strawberry blonde hair dipped into his straight brow, shadowing his blue eyes with something dark and dangerous that I had never seen before on Arthur’s face. His nostrils flared like a wild horse’s, and he ground his jaw as he spoke, feathering a little muscle in his jaw. His voice was large, too loud for the small room, echoing around the frosted windows. He balled his hands into fists and banged them against the table. “You should have seen her, Tom. John told you, didn’t he? Black and blue from top to bottom like she’d been run through a printing press.”John cleared his throat as he closed the door behind us.Arthur’s head snapped up, his eyes wild, his hands fisted as if he was ready for a fight. His blue eyes locked onto mine, and something inside clicked, but he looked tired when he smiled. “Oh – Ruby girl.”I felt suddenly naked as Arthur looked me over from my pinned and curled hair to the green dress that clung to my body like water. He looked me over once as if to check me over for any injuries, and then once more as if to take me in, and then a final time, slowly, blue eyes darkening further as he took in the necklace of his bruises around my throat, darkening as his eyes dipped lower, over my collarbone, my exposed chest, the curves of my breasts, the hardening of my nipples beneath the satin. Then Arthur smiled, actually smiled, but his blue eyes were still dull.John moved into the booth, and Tommy stood, stepping forward a few steps until we were toe to toe and I could smell the earth and the pasture in his veins. His voice was so low I almost didn’t hear him when he said, “He wants to go after Campbell. Talk to him, Ruby.”Tommy sat in the booth opposite Arthur, pouring himself a glass of whiskey and ushering with his eyes to his empty chair. I sat in the chair, setting the bottle of gin on the table in front of Arthur, who was now staring at the wooden surface, unable to draw his eyes to my face. My knees brushed against the side of Arthur’s leg, and he shifted almost imperceptibly as if to escape from me.“Can you look at me?” I reached across the table to Arthur’s balled hands, setting mine on top of his. My fingers worked at his hands, and my gentle touch was all it took for him to loosen his grip, revealing the indented red marks of his nails against his rough palms. “Arthur, look at me.”Arthur raised his head from where he was staring at the table. His eyes were glazed over like he was not there but somewhere very far away. “Ruby girl,” he said as if he was seeing me for the first time. He looked to John who sat beside him, a toothpick between his lips, watching us, and Tommy, who sat across the booth, smoking. Then he rose from the booth, hands set out across it, and nodded to himself. “I’m gonna fucking kill him. Right now.”I rose to my feet, blocking Arthur’s path out of the booth. “You’re not going to kill him, Arthur.”Arthur looked at me as if he didn’t understand. “He put his hands on you, gypsy girl. He let his coppers put hands on you.”I placed my hands on Arthur’s shoulders, and the tension in his muscles released almost instantly. “Sit down, Arthur.”Arthur sat, and I perched myself on his lap, weighing him down like a warm blanket. Arthur wrapped his arm around me instinctively, settling his hand on my hip to steady me.I held Arthur between my hands, and I felt how fragile he was as I pushed his blonde hair back into its usual slicked-back position. I looked into his eyes, willing him to calm at my touch as if I was parting the Red Sea. “There’s a plan in place, Arthur.”“I have to do something, Ruby, he’s a threat as long as he’s alive –”I pressed a simple finger to Arthur’s lips, quieting him. “When the time is right, I’m going to kill Campbell myself.”Arthur nodded, taking my hand from his lips to hold with his own. “When the time is right.”“When the time is right, brother,” Tommy echoed from across the table.“Just like we told you, Arthur, eh?” John said. “How’s about a drink?”I grabbed my bottle of gin from the table and offered it to Arthur. “Gin?”Arthur no longer looked like a shell of himself, a shell of a man, a mere ghost. His blue eyes lit up suddenly as if he had just woken up and the sun was shining just right through his bedroom window. He grinned, stretching his mustache across his face. “Gin’s a woman’s drink.”“More for me.” I took a long swig from the bottle, and Arthur pressed his finger against the bottom, tipping the bottle upward until the clear liquid slipped from my lips and dribbled down the edges of my mouth.Arthur took the bottle of gin from my hands, setting it down on the table. He placed a protective hand on the back of my neck, turning me to look back into his sky blue eyes. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to my own, and I melted into his touch. His tongue licked like fire at my lips, tasting the citrus and spice of the gin on my mouth. I wanted to straddle Arthur right there in the snug with his brothers watching, but I resigned to running my hands along his jacket and clutching at his lapels, getting lost in his mouth.Arthur broke from our kiss only when I was near to gasping for air. “You’re like medicine, gypsy girl.”I smiled because I knew that was Arthur’s way of saying thank you, and I would pull him from the edge a million times over if only I got to see him smile like that.“A bloody drug, she is,” John supplied.“Addictive,” Tommy added.I looked around at all of them, and my smile widened on my lips until I beamed like I was the sun, and the Shelby alphas were the moons reflecting my light. A bubble of pure happiness built in my chest, and it filled my lungs until I thirsted for air that I no longer had space for. I reached for the bottle of gin.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A shot rang out in The Garrison pub. The snug exploded. The world slowed. My ears rang from the shot. John stood. Arthur stood. I slid off his lap before he had risen to his feet. John’s left hand moved toward the gun holstered under his right arm. Tommy had been smoking. He dropped his hand from his mouth. His wrist perched against the edge of the table. John flicked open the button of his holster. The snap echoed in my ears louder than the ringing. Arthur’s hand was around his gun. I bent at the waist and retrieved my knife from my purse. John withdrew his gun. He held it with two hands toward the door of the snug. I flicked my knife open. Arthur held his pistol in one hand. He raised it the height of a man and pointed it toward the door to the snug. Tommy raised his cigarette to his lips.“At ease, soldiers,” Tommy said.The pin dropped. The world turned again. I lowered my knife, and Arthur and John lowered their guns, all three sets of our eyes glued to our sergeant major.A man’s voice, tainted with an upper-class accent, rang out in the pub. “I said, ‘Is there any man here named Shelby?’”“Billy fucking Kimber,” Arthur swore. He gave one more glance toward Tommy before depositing his gun back in its holster.John followed the motion, slipping his pistol back into its holder, his arms loose and languid as if his every nerve was alive, and they probably were because mine were, too. I flicked closed my knife, picked up my purse, and slipped the knife inside. I decided I would start wearing stockings so that I could strap knives to my legs within easy reach. Next time I would not be so slow to react.It didn’t matter that Billy Kimber was not an immediate death threat to the Shelby pack. The Lees had given one, and I needed to stay sharp. It had been stupid of me to think otherwise. I was slipping. I had gotten too comfortable.Tommy stood from his seat, hands running down his perfect black suit as if it wasn’t perfect. “Follow my order, lads.”John retrieved a toothpick from his jacket pocket and slipped it between his lips. He picked his peaky cap off of the table and situated it on his head, tilting it so that it shadowed over one green eye. He rounded the booth, meeting Tommy in the small space between the table and the door. “And Ruby?”“Everyone else will leave. Ruby will stay. She’s to be involved in business now.”John’s green eyes glinted with mirth, and they flickered to me, but he said nothing and gave away nothing, his face almost impassive like Tommy’s. He opened his arm to me, and I stepped into his embrace, letting him press me to his side.Arthur straightened his suit and walked several steps to meet us near the door of the snug. “We about to make a move on Kimber, eh, Tom?”“Not exactly.”Tommy opened up the door of the snug. We walked out, Tommy first, John and I trailing behind, and Arthur accepting the rear, closing the snug door behind us.Tommy waved his arm at the bartender. “Harry, get these men a drink.” He raised his arm toward the crowd now sitting, staring silently at the commotion. “Everyone else, go home.”The Garrison was once again a flurry of activity as the occupants vacated. Polly made a beeline for us, but John shook his head at her, mouthed something over the heads of the crowd, and she marched out the door with the rest, pursing her familiar prim lips.Moments later, we sat at a table with Billy Kimber and his accountant. Two armed guards stood behind the pair, hands in their pockets. Billy Kimber himself was a travesty of a man, but a dapper one at that. His dark hair was parted in the middle and combed to the sides, plastered to his egg-shaped head. He had a short brow and thick dark eyebrows that bulged out above narrow dark eyes. His nose was crooked, and he sported a thin mustache that dropped around his even thinner lips. He wore a sturdy black suit, and his red tie tightened so tightly around his stiff white collar that I thought it might slice into his neck and cut off his head.There were only three seats on our side of the table. Tommy occupied the first, lighting his cigarette with a glinting silver lighter. Arthur sat in the middle, pouring several glasses of dark whiskey. John sat in the last, and I sat in his lap, leaning into the gentle touch of his hand gliding against my hip.“I’ve never approved of women in pubs but when they look like that…” Kimber’s voice grated in my ears. His beady eyes roamed over me, and I foreswore wearing dresses ever again because I felt disgusting under his eyes, then John’s hand settled on my hip, squeezing, and I remembered who I was, and I squared my shoulders and stared directly into Kimber dark eyes and smiled prettily.“You said you want men called Shelby,” Tommy began. “You’ve got three of ‘em.”Kimber’s eyes flickered to Tommy, passing over his peaky cut to his pretty eyes to his perfect lips, and I wanted to dive across the table and take his eyes for looking at my alpha that way. John’s hand stroked up and down my hip, reminding me who I was, what was expected of me, and I tried to relax.Then Kimber opened his mouth. “Right. Never heard of ya. And when I did hear of ya, some little didicoy razor gang. I thought to myself, so what?” Silence rang in the air as we stared at one another. “But then you fucked me over. So now you have my undivided attention.”In the silence, Kimber shifted in his seat, and I realized suddenly his weakness – Not his over-extravagance or his inflated ego, but his unwillingness to sit in his own silence.Kimber looked across the table at us, eyes flickering over four sets of faces. He pointed his finger at each one of us. “By the way, which one am I talking to? Who’s the boss?”“Well, I’m the oldest,” Arthur said, and for the heartbeat that passed between his and Kimber’s next words, I wondered if he meant to pass himself off as pack leader like he had done once with Inspector Campbell.Then Kimber laughed, looked Arthur up and down, and said, “Clearly.”John tensed beneath me, and his gentle hand held my hip more harshly than he ever would have of his own accord, although he didn’t come close to hurting me. He leaned forward, pressing his warm chest against my back. “Are you laughing at my brother?”I had taken a man’s eye for just as much. Now, I pulled my cigarette case from the table and flicked it open. I placed a cigarette between my lips and inhaled as I lit it, staring at Kimber as if I could flay him alive by looking at him.Kimber blinked several times. He looked over all of us. “Right.” He pointed at Arthur. “He’s the oldest.” He pointed at John. “You’re the thickest.” He pointed at me. “And you’re the omega.”John went rigid beneath me. I didn’t glance at Arthur for fear of breaking my stare with Kimber, but I was sure that his knuckles had gone white grasping the chair he was sitting in because it creaked audibly in his grip, the only sound in The Garrison for half a moment before Kimber started speaking again.“I’m told the boss is called Tommy, and I’m guessing that’s you,” he said, looking at Tommy, “‘cause you’re looking me up and down like I’m a fucking tart.”Tommy’s face was glacial ice, smooth and pretty, glittering like diamonds, but impenetrable. He gestured at Kimber with the hand holding his half-smoked cigarette. “I want to know what you want.”For the first time, I noticed the accountant sitting beside Billy Kimber. He was a thin, Jewish-looking man with a narrow face pointed toward his nose like a rodent’s. He wore a pair of golden spectacles on his nose, and he peered at Tommy through them like he was looking down at him from the second story of a building.“There were suspicious betting patterns at Kempton Park. A horse called Monaghan boy…” The accountant wavered as Tommy stared at him, and Kimber rung his hat in his hands. “He won by a length twice and then finished last. With three thousand pounds bet on him.”Tommy looked at the accountant a moment longer, and then looked at Billy Kimber, waving his cigarette-laden hand. “Which one am I talking to? Which one of you is the boss?”“I’m Mr. Kimber’s adviser and accountant,” said the accountant.Billy Kimber’s fuse rant out. He stood, his black coat waving with the force of the movement. “And I’m the fucking boss, okay? Right. End of parlay.” He was shouting now, so loud I could feel the grating of his voice against my every nerve. “You fixed the race without my permission.” He pointed toward himself, like everything in the world revolved around him, and I wanted to tell him that was wrong because there was a new king in Birmingham, and Kimber was just another body at our feet. “You fucking gypsy scum!” Spit flew from his mouth as Kimber snarled his vapid fire. “What, live off war pensions and these poor old Garrison Lane widows? That’s your level.” He pointed at Tommy now, dropped his hand as he spoke to point back at himself, his voice louder. “I am Billy Kimber! I run the races and you fixed one of them.” He pointed again at Tommy, the gesture so violent I felt the air bleed out around him. “So I’m gonna have you shot against the post.”Kimber turned to leave, and his guards turned to follow him.Tommy stood. “Mr. Kimber.”Kimber and his guards turned back around, raising the pistols from their pockets to point at Tommy’s torso, and I thought about how far away I was from my knife, how much time it would take to sling it through the skull of the man on the left who was closest to me so that I would have time to snatch John’s gun from his shoulder holster and turn it on the man on the right. Arthur and Tommy would have their guns out by then, and the shooting would start, and I would turn over the table as cover and aim for the accountant as my alphas took down Kimber.But none of that happened.Tommy tossed something to Kimber, and he caught it, curiosity sparking in his dark eyes, and I wondered that there was something in him other than avarice. Kimber held out the glinting piece of metal to the light, and I realized it was the declaration of war, the bullet that I had passed to Tommy from Matthew’s brother.“Look at it,” Tommy said. “That has my name on it. It’s from the Lee family. You are also at war with the Lees, Mr. Kimber, am I right?”Kimber took two steps back into the room, standing even with his guards.“The Lees are attacking your bookies and taking your money,” Tommy continued. “Your men can’t control them. You need help.”The accountant was still sitting down. “Perhaps we should listen to what Mr. Shelby has to say before we make our decision.”“Right,” Tommy said. “The Lees are doing a lot of talking at the fairs. They have a lot of kin. They’re saying the racetracks are easy meat because the police are busy with strikes. Now, we have connections. We know how they operate. You have muscle. Together we can beat them. Divided, maybe not.”The accounted looked Tommy up and down. He turned his head to speak to his boss. “Mr. Kimber, perhaps we should take some time for reflection.”Kimber stared at Tommy, and Tommy stared at Kimber.“Possibly make arrangements for a second meeting,” the accountant continued.Tommy tilted his head, shifted his weight, and released the merest twitch upward of one side of his lips. “I admire you, Mr. Kimber. You started with nothing and built a legitimate business. It would be an honor to work with you, Mr. Kimber.”Kimber tilted his nose upward and looked down it at Tommy, skipping over Arthur and John to stare into my prettily smiling face. “Nobody works ‘wiv’ me. People work ‘for’ me.”Billy Kimber took out a coin from his pocket and tossed it in the air, and it landed with a clink a foot away from Tommy. Tommy looked at the coin, looked at Kimber, his face composed as always, and then Kimber looked at me. “Have your omega pick it up.”Tommy would not have asked me. I knew he would not have asked me, because the edges of his dark eyebrows ticked downward and his lips pressed together, and he looked down at the coin like it was god rejecting him from heaven. He would have given up everything to prevent me from bowing at the feet of Billy Kimber, his omega.John’s hand tightened around my hip as if he knew what I would do. I slipped from his lap, and he rose as I rose. I twirled out of his grasp, and he laced his hand around my wrist. I rolled my wrist through the weakness of his thumb and shot him a scathing look, and John twirled the toothpick between his lips and let me go.Kimber watched my hips sway as I walked around the table to where Tommy stood. I pressed my skirt behind me and bent down to pick up the coin Kimber had tossed to the dusty, trodden-on floor of The Garrison. The moment my fingertips touched the metal, I saw in my mind’s eye two rows of black-clad men, one side wearing peaky flat caps, and Tommy was there, and Freddie was there, Arthur, and John, and Jeremaiah, and Danny, Danny was dead on the ground, shot in the chest, bleeding out on the gravel, and Tommy was dead beside him with a bullet through the heart.I stared at the coin. The silence rang in my ears. Stand up, I told myself, but I couldn’t stand, couldn’t move because I was the sun and Tommy was the moon and in my vision Tommy was dead, so there was no more moon to reflect my sunlight to the earth, and I was alone, and fire burned hot through my veins like molten lava, and I couldn’t see because everything was too bright and too dark and Tommy was dead and Tommy was my moon, my fated mate.I clasped the coin in my hand. Fuck that. My fated mate wasn’t going to die at the hands of Billy fucking Kimber. I would kill him first.I stood. With the power of the sun, I channeled every element of magic that flowed through my veins like fire and poured it into the coin until it was hot in my hand. I passed the cursed coin to Billy Kimber, and he thanked me by drawing his clammy fingers across my hand as he collected it from me.Kimber turned his back on me, glanced at Tommy, and left The Garrison.The accountant stood, finally, holding his hat in his hand. “We’ll be at Cheltenham.”“As will I,” Tommy said.The accountant put on his hat and left with the armed guards.Tommy swallowed back the whiskey he hadn’t drunk and reached down to grab another. Arthur shot back his own. I sank back into the nearest chair, devoid of all my energy, fingers twitching for a cigarette or a whiskey or a gin or my opium or anything to stop the twitching that took up a rhythm in my fingers.John rounded the table, released from his chain by Kimber’s leaving, and stood next to my chair, looking down at me. “All right, angel?”“Fine,” I breathed, my eyes barely passing over his face as I watched Tommy, who locked the doors of The Garrison and made it three steps back inside the threshold before Arthur spoke up.“Tommy, we can’t mess with Billy fucking Kimber.”Tommy waved at Arthur, his hand clasped around a whiskey glass. “Get yourself a decent haircut, man. We’re going to the races.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Arthur was yelling, and the only word I could hear on his lips was my name as he stood from his seat, pointing a finger at Tommy, spit flying from his mouth. I wanted to go to him, hug him, hold him, calm him, but all I could see wasTommy. Dead. Bleeding out on Watery Lane from a gunshot wound to his chest.Tommy stood, very much alive, just inside the threshold of The Garrison, looking at Arthur with one dark eyebrow raised. He was calm, steady, waving Arthur into the snug of the pub. I wondered in a muddle if it was because Tommy could see the way I flinched at Arthur’s raised voice, but I couldn’t think of anything butTommy. Dead. Ocean eyes empty as he stared up at the overcast Small Heath sky.I wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t breathe. I would drown in Tommy’s eyes, dull like the earth had stopped turning and the moon was gone and the ocean was still as a stagnant puddle. He was no longer a man, no longer a ghost, no longer alive in my mind’s eye.Tommy. Dead.John got to his knees in front of the chair I sat in. His gentle hands covered mine where I was clutching at my knees so tightly that my knuckles had turned white. I wanted to tell him about my vision, that I could see things, the past and the future and the present, and I had seen Tommy dead, Billy Kimber standing in front of a line of his men on Watery Lane, his pistol smoking in his outstretched hand.“Don’t mind Arthur, angel,” John said in a low, gentle tone.My head turned in the direction of the snug, realizing I could no longer hear Arthur’s boisterous tone through the frosted glass. “He’s yelling at Tommy about me?”“Damn straight.”I looked at John in a daze. He was staring at me, his green eyes aflame even as he dissected me with his eyes like each of my features was a piece of a puzzle he could place together if he tried hard enough. Tommy’s faded eyes passed through my vision, and I realized that the boys had not seen what I had seen, did not know what I knew, probably assumed that I was jittery from the heat of the meeting with Kimber, probably assumed that I was set off by Arthur’s explosion, which I had barely even heard above the ringing in my ears and the omen of death I had just witnessed in Kimber’s coin.“You shouldn’t have picked up that coin, baby,” John said, and his fingers stroked soothing circles in the backs of my hands.Maybe he was right. If I hadn’t picked up the coin, this business with Kimber never would have officially begun, and Tommy might have been safe. But if I hadn’t picked up the coin, I wouldn’t have seen what was to come, and I wouldn’t have cursed Billy Kimber. But I wasn’t sure my wrath was enough to keep Tommy alive.“You’re our omega now,” John said, and a possessive growl hinted in his gentle voice as if he was trying to restrain himself while Arthur wasn’t.I needed to speak to Polly. She would make sense of the vision. She would know what to do. She would help me save Tommy.“Shoulda let me pick up the blasted coin,” John muttered, his fingers finally settling around my hands to clutch mine in his. “But you gave me that look, worse than Tommy’s, that one. ‘Course I couldn’t stop you after that.”I tightened my hands around John’s, and I looked into his eyes, seeking the comfort only his green fire could provide. “Tommy needed me to pick up that coin,” I said, and I wished John knew exactly what I meant.He nodded anyway as if he understood, and maybe he did because any one of us would have done anything Tommy asked of us. Almost anything. I would let Tommy get into this business with Kimber, chase his dream of going legitimate in the hopes it would satiate the fire inside, but it never would, and Ada had passed me the baton, and it might have been hopeless to try to keep Tommy Shelby and his brothers alive because he would lead them to their deaths over and over and over because they were all ghosts since the war, like I was a ghost, and ghosts remain because there is business to be done.I wanted my opium. I wanted to suffocate in the sweet smoke, get lost and forget again. But I couldn’t rid my hands of the clammy feeling of Kimber’s fingers brushing across my skin as I passed him the coin, and I knew that I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted John.“John,” I said softly, holding his hands tighter in my own as if the heat of his skin against mine would make me forget Kimber’s. “Can I sleep at yours tonight? I don’t want to go home.”John grinned, and the stress of the meeting wound tight in his muscled body released all at once, and he stood, still holding my hands, bringing me to rise with him. He leaned down until his lips brushed against the side of my face, and the heat of his breath rushed over my ear as he murmured, “Should I tell Arthur to sleep at Tommy’s?”A blush like red rouge rose to my cheeks, and I released John, pressing his shoulder lightly with one of my hands as I stepped back, a sliver of a smile on my lips. “Go on, then.”Smiling, John all but skipped back to the snug. He opened the door and slipped his head inside to warn his alpha brothers to steer clear of John and Arthur’s flat for the night. With his signature grin, John sauntered back over to me, twirling his toothpick in the corner of his mouth. The razor blades glinted within the rim of his flat cap, and I marveled at how perfect he looked in his three-piece black suit.I picked up the open bottle of whiskey still on the table from the meeting with Kimber and his accountant, and I took a long swig as John collected me in his arms, bringing me tight to his side and walking with me out of The Garrison pub onto Garrison Lane.The nighttime air was cool as always, and I tucked myself closer into John’s side, reveling in his warmth and the fiery scent of hearth and home that clouded around him like a second skin. I drank from the whiskey bottle, and the liquor licked like fire down my throat, and I swallowed it down like a dragon, welcoming the reinforced haze that clouded my mind.I tried to pass the bottle to John, but he only shook his head at me. “Gonna tell me what’s eating you, baby?”Unwavering beneath his curious green eyes, I took another drink. “No.”“You breaking our promise, then?” John said it so casually that I knew he didn’t consider no response as a lie, and we had promised not to tell lies. He was asking for me, so I could tell him freely without worrying whether or not it was the right thing to do.“I can’t…” I gulped down the whiskey like I was a horse and it was water. “Not yet, John. I need to talk to Polly first.”“Women’s business, then.”“Gypsy business,” I corrected.John’s hand roamed over my hip, his fingers dancing like spider legs across the fabric of my borrowed grey coat. His voice was soft with knowledge when he said, “So you did see something, then. When you picked up that coin.”The whiskey made me clumsy, and I stumbled in my step, launching forward several steps until John caught me up in his arms, and I was forced to look into those green eyes that were sharper and greener than ever, crisp like freshly mowed grass, and I could smell the fire of his skin, and I reached up on the tips of my toes and kissed him right in the street.John’s mouth was gentle, pliable, submitting to my own. I swept my tongue across his bottom lip, and he opened for me, letting me taste the whiskey and the fire mixed with his saliva. I pressed my body against him, and my coat fell open so that my silk-clad breasts brushed against the front of his dark suit.A man whistled as he passed behind me on Garrison Lane. Blushing and breathless, I stepped back from John, but he didn’t release me. His hands moved from my hips, wrapping warmly around my waist to tug me into the side of his body.John’s green eyes were dark with danger as he regarded the man beneath the glinting rim of his peaky cap. “Got something to say?”The man stopped in his step at John’s voice, recognizing the younger Shelby alpha. His eyes flickered over me, tucked into John’s side, wavering over the necklace of visible bruises around my throat. “Sorry, Mr. Shelby, sir, I didn’t see it was you and your missus.”John used his free hand to slide a toothpick between his lips. His eyes didn’t move from the man’s face. “Her name is Ruby. And if you so much as look at her again, I’ll have your eyes.”The man’s eyes snapped to his feet and he nodded furiously. “Yes. Yes, sir, Mr. Shelby, thank you, sir, I’ll just –”“Go,” I said, and the man snapped on his heel and hurried across Garrison Lane to the opposite side of the street.I looked at John, and John looked at me, and I threw back my head and laughed, sinking into his side as we began walking again. “Did you see his face?” I took another swig of whiskey, letting it fill my body with warmth and haze.John grinned a loose, lopsided grin that filled his eyes which were a moment ago murderous. “It’s fun to watch them flounder, eh?”I laughed, swallowing back another gulp of whiskey. “It’s fun to watch you take what you deserve, Mr. Shelby.”“Bloody hell, that sounds nice in your mouth.” John pulled me even closer to his side, until the swag of his hips moved against mine as we walked together across Garrison Lane to Watery Lane.“I know what else would be nice in my mouth.” I shot John a sly smile, and his eyebrows ticked upward, his fiery cologne giving away his arousal.I put the whiskey bottle to my lips and threw it back, but there was nothing left inside. I laughed to myself, unsure just how much I’d drank that night, thankful that I had such a high tolerance for booze from my time with the gypsies when all we drank was tuica. Still, it rose heavy and hot in my veins until I was too warm in my coat, and I twirled from John’s arms, discarding my coat, which he accepted willingly into his arms. I stepped into the street and tossed the empty liquor bottle against the nearest lamppost, and it hit and shattered to the ground in a million shining pieces.John laughed. “Do you know how beautiful you look, free as a bird, throwing liquor bottles in the street? I’d let you shatter anything I own if you looked like this all the time.”I twirled back into his arms like I was dancing and pulled at the lapels of his jacket so that he had to dip to kiss me. “What about your heart?” I whispered against his lips.“Already shattered,” John said definitively, and there was the war in his voice, and Martha’s death on his mind, and his dead child in an unmarked grave, and I kissed him again.“Then I’ll pick up the pieces for you.”“You won’t find them all.” John slung his arm around my waist like he owned me, and maybe he did, and I didn’t mind as he led me down Watery Lane toward his flat.“Then I’ll replace them with my own,” I decided.We walked together down Watery Lane, and when I tripped, John caught me in his arms and righted me again. When we reached John and Arthur’s apartment, I leaned against the threshold for support, my vision swimming with too much alcohol, watching as John unlocked the door with deft hands. John set his hand on my back, guiding me inside the dark living room, all light shut out as he closed the door behind us and locked it.“Let me light the lamps,” John said, and his voice was deep like water that I would drown myself in.My hands found his torso, skimming up his body and under his coat until I could push it from his shoulders. “We don’t need light.”“Ruby, baby, you’re drunk,” John protested, but he let me slip his coat down off his shoulders. He caught it in his hands, tossing it along with my grey coat somewhere into the void of the living room, probably on the couch because my eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and I could almost see the way his green eyes flashed with lust.I pressed my body against his, lips finding his clean-shaven jaw where he smelled the most like himself and a little like aftershave. “Don’t pretend you didn’t take me home to fuck me, Mr. Shelby.”John’s hands ghosted down the silk of my back, hands pressing into my arse to push me closer to his body until I could feel the bulge of his clothed cock against my naval. “You drank half a bottle of whiskey on the walk home.”I snaked my hand around the back of John’s head and lifted off the flat cap, tossing it somewhere on the living room floor. “You don’t care.”John’s face was so close to mine that his breath brushed across my lips like a dragon’s fire. “No,” John agreed in a murmur. “I don’t care what state you’re in, as long as you want me.”“I want you, John.”I raised myself on my toes and found John’s lips with my own. His kiss was like velvet, and I closed my eyes, falling into him fully, letting his mouth surpass my own with soft wet kisses like the stars themselves, and I floated in space among the impossible until I was breathless and gasping against the vacuum of John’s lips. It was only when I couldn’t breathe that John separated our mouths.“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that first night.” John kissed the corner of my mouth, my cheek, down along my jaw, little fluttering kisses like the wings of a butterfly gracing my skin. “I never stop thinking about you.”I couldn’t stop myself. I reached to John’s face, dipping his head to press his lips against mine again. He was liquid fire, hot like lava, burning down every nerve until my body screamed for him. Between breathless kisses, I panted, “Alpha. Nest. Now.”Chuckling, John broke our kiss for the final time. “Yes, omega.”John’s hand squeezed lightly at my arse as he moved us toward the stairs.“I like it when you call me that,” I admitted, my cheeks tinting red. “I like that it’s true.”We reached the door of the nest room, and John released me to open the door ahead of me. A multitude of scents wafted from the room that smelled strongly like my honey perfume and Arthur’s hot forge cologne and oh, John’s fiery scent like burning wood and leather rose high over the others, and I could tell he had been sleeping in the room because the covers were tossed and his clothes littered the nest.John’s hands encased my hips and he brought me back to his body until our torsos pressed together, and I suddenly loathed the clothes between us because all I wanted was my skin against his until we became one.John’s finger tipped my head upward so that I was looking into his green eyes, pupils blown wide with desire. “You’re mine, omega. That will always be true.”I kissed John, tasting the fiery core of the earth on his lips, and his hands worked at my hair, pulling out pins and dropping them to the floor around us until my hair cascaded down my back in waves. Then his hands petted over my hair, and I fumbled with drunk hands at the buttons of John’s black jacket. John backed me gently toward the bed until the backs of my knees hit the edge and I was forced to break the kiss to sit, hands still clinging to his jacket, John between my knees.John’s hands settled on mine, peeling them away from his clothes. “Let me.”John worked at the buttons of his jacket. When he slipped it from his shoulders, I stole it from him to weave the fabric and his scent into the nest around me. John undressed before my greedy eyes, handing over his clothing piece by piece so that I could decorate the nest with his smell until it swathed me like a cocoon of fire and he stood in front of me in only his shorts.“Take these off.” I slipped my fingers inside the hem of his shorts and drew them down the angular curve of his strong hips.John’s cock jumped free, precum glittering along his head like diamonds. “Are you going to undress, baby, or do you want me to fuck you in Ada’s dress?”I reached forward and drew my index finger across the head of John’s large cock. It twitched under my touch, and my finger came away drenched in his pre-cum. I pressed my finger past my lips, looking into his eyes as the bittersweet taste bloomed across my tongue.Groaning, John pushed me lightly on the shoulders until I fell against the nest, splayed out on the bed before him in only my dress and stockings.John bent over me, his hands pinching the hem of my dress and bringing it up and up and up my legs until it bunched around my hips. “Let’s get you out of these clothes, omega.”John pushed the green silk over my hips, up my torso, and I raised myself to a sitting position and lifted my arms so John could release me from the dress that made me someone else and set it aside at the foot of the bed where it might avoid the most of our mess.“You didn’t wear a brassiere,” John noted, and his voice was husky as he imagined me parading around The Garrison in nothing but my bloomers and stockings and Ada’s dress.“John, please hurry up,” I whined.John’s mouth pulled into a sultry grin, and he kissed me back onto the bed, leaning over me so close that I could feel his cock pressing warm against my thigh. I reached to touch him, but he moved down my body, kissing a trail along my neck, between my breasts, over my stomach with lips like rose petals. He reached the hem of my bloomers and in one swift stroke, brought my bloomers and underwear down my body to my ankles, where I kicked them off along with my shoes.John stood back again, and with a shudder of excitement, I realized I was spread before John in nothing but my garter belt and stockings. My excitement pooled between my thighs, no doubt wettening the white sheets stark against my freckled olive skin. I lost myself in the black-green of John’s eyes as they roved over the curves of my body, settling on the apex of my thighs where my red curls glistened.John leaned over me, kissing my swollen lips and murmuring huskily, “Can I taste you first, omega? I want you to come on my tongue before I fuck you until you see stars.”“Anything you want, John, just please make me come.”“Am I fucking you so you forget, baby?” John whispered against my lips, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him in the rush of blood that thrummed through my veins.“No, John, I want to remember,” I confessed. “I want to remember who I am.”John kissed me for a long, lingering moment before he withdrew. He wrapped his hands around my legs, drawing a surprised gasp from my lips as he dragged me down the bed until my arse half sagged off the edge. Then he shifted to his knees, spreading my legs by my knees until the stretch burned down my legs. His hands lingered on my legs as he dipped forward until his breath blew hot across my glistening sex. “You’re my omega.”“Yours, alpha.”His designation slipped and slurred on my lips, cut off by my gasp as John licked a stripe through my glossy folds. He groaned, the sound vibrating against my pussy, and I moaned with him as he licked through my folds, tasting all of me, dipping further and further until his tongue plunged through my sopping entrance. My legs threatened to close around John’s head, but he held them taut, and I rolled my hips into his mouth latched around my opening. John’s hands roamed from the insides of my knees to my thighs, his thumbs kneading the sensitive skin.John’s tongue fucked lewdly in and out of my entrance, a pleasant reminder of what was to come, but oh, too short to reach the soft spot inside, too narrow to fill me fully, and I wanted him even more, wanted to grab him by the hair and drag him to lips and taste myself in his mouth.I raised myself on my elbows so I could see John. “Stop teasing me.”John lifted his head from my cunt, his face smeared with my slick, and his green eyes sparkled as he grinned. “As my omega commands.”John sank fully to his knees, and he wrapped his arms around the underside of my legs to grasp my full hips in his calloused hands and pull me forward until he was fully feasting on me. His lips fastened around my swollen clit, and his tongue swirled against the sensitive nub, each flicker of his tongue drawing out a needy cry from my throat.I watched my alpha with half-lidded eyes. His face was buried in my pussy, and he ate me like a wolf who was starving. Each lick of his tongue was like a flame threatening to burn me alive, filling me with liquid heat like boiling water that bubbled through my veins, a drug of pleasure, a high like no other, and I welcomed the flames that ate me whole like John’s lips suctioned around my clit and his tongue teasing the bundle of nerves ceaselessly.Still supporting myself with one elbow, I reached down to bury a hand in John’s golden quiff, and he vibrated a low grown straight to my clit, and I moaned as I begged, “Alpha, please, your fingers.”John released one of my hips and used his newly-free hand to sink one finger through my entrance down to the knuckle. I keened into his hand until his finger crooked just right against the button of pleasure at the top of my walls, and I clenched around him, tightening my grip in his hair, letting loose a loud, wild moan.John raised his head just enough so that his lips ghosted over my swollen clit when he spoke, his voice deep and husky with want. “Good little omega, making all those sounds just for me.”“More, alpha, I need more,” I pleaded.John sunk a second finder through my folds as he dove back into my cunt, his teeth nipping just lightly at my clit before he lapsed his lips back over the nub, sucking until I could see the stars, and maybe I could see god, because I was watching him pleasure me, his two fingers sliding slickly in and out, in and out, curling just right against my clenching cunt. I collapsed back onto the bed, releasing my hold on John’s hair and sinking, sinking, sinking into the drowning current of pleasure that rushed like water through my limbs.“John,” I cried as I came, because I remembered who I was, and I was his, all his, and I came for him, shattered apart like the broken whiskey bottle until I was a million broken pieces glittering in the lamplight, and if I was too sharp to touch John didn’t mind because he lapped at my cum like it was ambrosia. I was glass, and John was fire, unmaking me, remaking me, and pleasure roared like the flames of a bonfire in my veins. I tightened around John’s fingers as he fucked in and out, in and out of my sopping, cumming pussy, and the give and pull snapped and burned, and everything burned, and I burned with it, consumed with bliss that raged through every nerve, unyielding, and I threw back my head against the nest and moaned, listening to my own panting breath as the sounds of my pleasure died into gasps and John’s fingers slowed.“You look so pretty, baby, so pretty when you come undone.” John’s voice was a barely-restrained growl, and I bucked into his hand, needing him, needing more.Aftershocks wrung through my body like broken remnants of heaven, and I begged, “Again, make me come again, alpha.”“Yes, omega, again,” John demanded, and his lips were anything but gentle as they suctioned around my clit again.John’s hands took up a quick rhythm, his palm slapping against my pussy with every inward thrust. His other hand released my hip, gliding over the tight muscles of my abdomen to my breast, where he grabbed me as if I anchored him to earth, and maybe I did, because he was lost in me like I was lost in him, moaning his name like it was only word I knew and maybe it was, because all I could feel were his teeth scraping against my clit, his fingers dragging against my insides just right, his hand groping the flesh of my breast, rolling my nipple between calloused thumb and forefinger.“Yes, yes, John, I’m –”I couldn’t finish my warning because euphoria ripped through my veins and I discovered paradise, and paradise was John’s tongue clashing like the ocean against my clit and his fingers pumping into my pussy and his hand latched to my breast like he couldn’t let go, and I toppled over the edge for the second time, and this time I didn’t have wings, because instead of soaring I plummeted into the depths of pleasure, closing my thighs around John’s head and trapping him against my cunt until he was fully feasting on me, plunging me further and further into the white bliss of my orgasm and pushing me again over the second edge I hadn’t known existed, and I had never known such pleasure but there it was, aflame in my ever nerve like stars winking out of existence at my pleading cry.John’s hand left my breast to pry one of my legs from around his neck, and he surfaced, laughing, his laugh like those aftershocks of pleasure that rang in my ears as I blinked up at the top of the wooden canopy bed, gasping for air like I had never breathed before. The pleasure receded slowly like it was being dragged through my liquor-muddied veins, and I sat up on my elbows as John rose to his feet.Green eyes, darkened like the forest, drank in my messy waves of red hair that clung in places to my skin, sticky with a thin sheen of sweat. He looked over my glazed eyes, my flushed cheeks, my swollen lips, the gasping rise and fall of my chest, appraising what he had done to me. “Christ above, you look like a fucking angel.”If I was an angel, John Shelby was god himself. His dirty blonde hair cut across his strong forehead over his thin brown. When he blinked, his thick eyelashes glinted in the moonlight that filtered in through the window, and I could see the deep green of his eyes, blown out with the black of his desire-filled pupils. He had strong, pale shoulders, his chest sculpted like it had been designed by Michelangelo himself. His torso was lined with rippling muscle that cut at an angle with the slim V of his hips, and my eyes found the apex of his thighs and the large cock that hung between them, twitching under my gaze.“Do you want to fuck me, Mr. Shelby?”John walked forward between my legs, and I hooked them around his arse, locking my ankles behind so that he couldn’t escape, but he didn’t want to, because he placed his cock over my lower body so that his knot pressed against my clit and his cock pressed against my stomach as he leaned over me, bracing himself with either hand on the sides of my head.Green eyes pierced mine, and I never knew I wanted to hear John Shelby beg until he growled, “Let me fuck you, baby, I can’t wait any longer.”In response, I found his cock with my hand, and he lifted his hips backward so I could position him at my entrance. John lowered himself onto his elbows and pressed inside, and I wished he had fucked me with three fingers instead of two because the stretch was painful, and he was so big, and I set my hands on his hips, barely breathing out, “Slowly, alpha, go slowly.”“I’ll be gentle with you, baby, don’t worry,” John murmured in my ear even as he inched that much farther inside.I arched into John’s body, pressing my bare breasts to his chest. John kissed the shell of my ear, then the lobe, then the little dip behind the lobe, down and down my throat until his tongue lapped against my scent gland and he slid himself just slightly further into my pussy.“Fuck, you taste so good,” John said, flicking his tongue across my scent gland.“Feels good,” I moaned, tilting my head so that John could nuzzle my throat with his mouth, latch his lips around my scent gland and suck lightly until the pleasure made me dizzy and I closed my eyes.My hands clutched at John’s sides, and my legs nudged him further into my waiting cunt, no longer sore from his stretch but needing it, needing every bit of him filling me up until I overflowed. “Push in, John.”Grunting, John sheathed himself inside all the way to his knot with one smooth snap of his hips, his balls swaying against my ass. I wrapped my arms around his back, pulling him into me, gasping into his shoulder at the way he stretched me, oh, just right, so full, the way I needed to be filled, his omega.John groaned against my neck, the noise vibrating his lips against my scent gland, and I clenched around him. “Christ, you’re so fucking tight, omega, fuck –”I felt John throb inside me, and I clutched my muscles around his cock in a vice-like grip felt him shake from the effort of keeping still.“Can I move, angel?” John’s voice was cracked with lust.I tightened my legs around John’s hips, locking him inside me. “Not yet,” I said, mostly because I wanted to know if he would stay still for me and partially because I wanted to revel in the way his cock filled every available space in my desperate cunt.John let out a low breath that was almost but not quite a growl. He raised his head, green eyes imploring, his arms shaking with the effort of holding himself still. “Please let me fuck you, baby, I’ll make your tight little cunt feel so good.”“Is that a promise?” I didn’t mean for my voice to come out in a whisper, but John filled me so full and sat so still, throbbing and twitching inside, that I was pushed to the cusp of pleasure and pain that begged him to take me right then and commanded him to wait so I could hear him beg again.John kissed me as if he couldn’t help himself, and his hips twitched, and I dug my heels into his back, stilling him again. He surfaced for air, growling, “I’ll make you come until you’re begging me to stop.”“Show me,” I commanded, and I loosened my legs around his hips, and John withdrew slowly, so slowly that I could feel every ridge and vein of his long length as he pulled out from my body.“Fuck, angel, you feel like heaven.” John pushed himself through my tight walls, and I clenched around him, wondering if he had read my mind because yes, this was heaven, being sheathed on John Shelby’s cock.John withdrew slowly, pushing back in just as slowly, taunting me with smooth, steady thrusts that made me feel every single inch of his cock, stretching me, tethering me, and I held John in my arms, running a hand over the back of his shaved head. I pressed sloppy kisses against his throat, searching and searching until I finally found his scent gland and pinched it delicately between my teeth, letting the fire and brimstone cologne seep into my mouth.“Please, angel, tell me what you want,” John murmured in my ear, and I shivered and clutched around his cock, and he groaned.“Touch me, John.”John leaned his weight against one forearm to move his other between my legs, finding my clit with his fingers. He rubbed in slow circles, thrusting in and out with a smooth, steady rhythm that made me convulse around him, digging my fingers into the backs of his shoulders where I gripped him so tightly he hissed into my neck.“You’re an angel,” John groaned as he plunged into my tight cunt. “An angel, baby, an angel.”An angel. I felt like a demon with black leathery wings, pounding on the pearly gates that led to heaven, begging them to let me in, let me in, let me in, like I had let John into my body and he moved in and out, in and out, every pump of his hips hitting that sweet spot inside just right until I was clutching around his cock with my core, dragging my nails down his shoulders, moving my hips with his thrusts until our bodies carried a tune like music, sweet and soft and sensual until I could taste heaven in my mouth, but that was John’s scent gland, emitting such a violent fiery scent that I felt I was suffocating, and maybe I was, and I wanted to be, breathing in only John’s fiery leather cologne until it coated the roof of my mouth and I moaned his name, “John,” over and over again.“Good girl, omega, so pretty, so pretty.”I squirted as I came, the clear liquid spraying out against John’s lower abdomen until his taut muscles were covered with my cum and the air smelled like honey and fire, and I was the honey, mixed with butter and melting into John like I was being poured over fresh scones, and I was all liquid, the fire in me like lava hot through my nerves. I tightened my legs around John’s waist, forcing him to come to a stop as I quaked in his arms, and he filled me so fully, pressing right up against the soft spot at the top of my walls, his head poking just against my cervix, and I gripped around his cock, muscles spasming as I broke through the pearly pearly gates and heaven surged through my very veins.“Fuck me, John, alpha, fuck me,” I gasped, and John complied, breaking my legs’ grip on his hips as he withdrew and pushed back through my tightening walls.John kissed me as he fucked me, slipping his tongue into my mouth to catch my moans, his own groans mingling with my own like his fiery scent in the air now melting with my honey. He tasted like pure fire, like leather and lava, like heart and hearth, and I whimpered into his mouth, moving my hips with his as he thrust into me.“Do you want me to make you remember?” John murmured against my mouth.“Yes,” I gasped because I would have agreed to anything in that moment with John’s cock so deep inside he nudged my cervix.John stood at the edge of the bed, still inside me but far enough away that my hands dragged down his back until I was holding his waist in my hands. His own found the underside of my knees. “Do you trust me, omega?”I lifted my hips from the bed, fucking myself on his cock from my limited angle. “Yes, alpha, I trust you, please fuck me.”“I’m going to lift your legs on my shoulders, okay, baby?” John said.I wasn’t sure how much use it was other than to skip forward my beating heart because he lifted my legs as he said it, raising them until my ankles settled across his shoulders, stretching the backs of my legs. His hands found my hips, pulling me into him as he sank to the hilt inside my fucked-open cunt, and the new angle hit just right inside, and I fisted my hands in the sheets at my sides, needing something to grab onto.“You’re so pretty underneath me, baby.”John pulled out and pushed back in, using his hands on my hips to press me deep on his cock until I was full of him, my alpha, my John. With my ankles hooked on his shoulders, I had no movement to rock against his body or escape him, and no choice but to accept the increasing rhythm of his thrusts.My hands found John’s hips again, and I met his green eyes that shone like emeralds around the black of his blown-out pupils. “John,” I panted, “I want you to let go and fuck me.”The snap of John’s hips as he thrust deep inside me was all the confirmation that I needed. He gripped my hips tighter than he ever had, moving me with the bounce of his thrusts, and his knot tugged at my entrance, and his balls swayed against my ass, and the head of his cock nailed against my cervix, and the pain mixed with the pleasure, and I moaned so loudly it was the only thing I could hear, and I brought my arm up to my mouth and sunk my teeth into my own flesh to stop from wailing.John leaned down, stretching my legs painfully until my knees almost touched my chest, and took my hand from my mouth, pinning it to my side as he fucked me. “Let me hear every noise I fuck from that pretty little mouth of yours.”“Yes, alpha,” I cried, tensing against his hand tacking my wrist to the bed. I repeated the word, “yes, yes, yes” over and over and again, gasping and panting and wailing as John fucked into my cunt, and I was close again, every nerve in my body vibrating with anticipation of my little taste of heaven.John pressed forward into me, wedging my legs between our bodies as his lips crashed against mine. He kissed me like I was hard candy, meant to be licked and savored, and he fucked me like I was an omega, meant to be fucked, and I was, I was meant for him. His cock fit just right in my clenching cunt, his pelvis brushing against my clit with every stroke, his knot tugging at my entrance, his balls slapping against my ass.John snuck his hands around my waist, and with my ankles still hooked around his shoulders, he folded me in half and lifted me in his arms until he held me tight to his body, fucking up into me until I cried his name, over and over, and he walked several steps to press me against the wooden bedpost, and the wood dug into my spine but all I could feel was him, so impossibly big, filling up every empty space inside with his cock. John fucked me against the bedpost, and I held onto his arms, nails digging into his scarred flesh as another orgasm washed over me.This time I was in hell, so hot I was aflame, every nerve burning like my sweat was gasoline and John was the spark that set me on fire, consumed me until my nerves were burnt and fried with pleasure so intense I felt like I would crumble, but he held me tight to his body, fucking me on his hard length as I spasmed around him, squirt trickling out of me along with my cum.“Who are you, baby?”“John, please –”He thrust up inside, hitting my cervix, and I could do nothing but whimper in his arms. “You’re my omega.”“Yours,” I gasped as he propelled inside me. “I’m yours, alpha.”“My angel,” John groaned. “So perfect for me, my angel.”A second orgasm intertwined with the first, and I squeezed on his cock and kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming until John finally dropped me back onto the bed. I slid my aching legs off of his shoulders, wrapping them around his waist as he scaled the bed, pushing me back onto it, kneeling in front of me as he fucked me until I trembled and contracted around his cock.“Who are you, baby?” John said in a voice as soft as his kisses.I needed to touch him, needed to feel him in my arms, so I pushed myself forward, up onto my knees until I was straddling him as he fucked upward into me, and I ground into his knot, stretching myself on it. My hands roamed his back up to his hair, down his back again, feeling the way his muscles rippled as he fucked into me.“Do you remember?” John wrapped his arms around my body, moving me in tandem with the slow stroke of his hips.“I’m your omega,” I remembered, impaled on his length. “I’m your angel.”“That’s right, good girl, you belong right here with me.”“Yes, alpha,” I agreed, rocking my hips to his slow, paced rhythm. “Please knot me, alpha, I need your knot.”John placed a tender kiss against my lips. He stroked my long red hair back from my face. “We have all the time in the world. I’m going to make you come until you cry.”John pressed me forward, holding me in his arms while he guided me back down against the bed. His thrusts picked up a heavier pace, no longer measured but wild like he couldn’t contain himself.“Don’t stop, John,” I cried, and John urged himself in and out of my stretched-open cunt with long, jerking thrusts until I saw stars blinking out of existence and I floated amongst them, higher than I ever had been, my head full of empty blissful space as I came again.My hand found the top of John’s blonde hair, and I tugged him down to my lips, capturing him in a clash of teeth and tongue and lips that tasted like fire and honey and leather and syrup and brimstone and sugar and whiskey and gin. I bit his bottom lip, snagging it with my teeth before I released it and it snapped back in place like a rubber band, and John moaned, his hips jerking, his cock twitching inside me, and I clenched around him, parting from his mouth to lick the blood trickling down my bitemark on his neck.John fucked into me I came apart in his arms, again and again and again until tears collected at the edges of my vision, and all I saw was the white of the ecstasy and the green of John’s eyes and all I could feel was pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, rocking into my body over and over again.“Can you come again, omega? One more time as I knot your pretty little pussy.”I was beyond words, beyond my body, beyond the earth revolving around the sun because I was the sun and John was my moon, and my moon was my earth, my everything, and I felt everything as John sank into my body, his knot slicking through my entrance, my cunt stretched to accommodate him as he ground his knot into the sweet soft pressure of my walls, and I saw the stars again, I saw god, because I was an angel and I had flown right through the gates of heaven like I belonged there.“Ruby,” John groaned, and his seed exploded hot against my womb.“John,” I whined. I unhinged my mouth and sank my teeth into John’s shoulder until I tasted blood and felt divinity surge through my body, and I shattered apart for the final time, my legs falling loose from John’s hips as I flew through the heavens on angel’s wings, and I moaned John’s name because I knew god and he was him.I wasn’t sure how long I floated in the abyss of pleasure, but my eyes fluttered open when John said my name. He was hovering over me, knotted to me by the apexes of our connected bodies, stroking strands of red hair from my face.“You okay, baby, you with me?”“Yes,” I breathed, my voice hoarse from moaning his name. “I’m okay, John, that was…”John pressed his forehead to mine. “I don’t think I’ve ever let go like that.”I laughed, light and breathy because I could hardly breathe through the pleasure receding from my head like the purest opium high. “I don’t think I’ve ever not wanted another orgasm.”“So you’re saying I should do that again?” John grinned like he was ready to go again right that moment, and my hand fell into his hair, dipping his head to my neck, where he kissed me softly.“Yes,” I agreed, “but not now.”

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*Freddie Thorne stood beneath a viaduct archway, smoking a white cigarette and watching the time tick on his little silver pocketwatch. He wore a black suit with a proper white shirt and a grey tie, a black hat sitting high atop his head. He stuffed his pocketwatch back into his pocket and drew from his cigarette.*Ada Shelby ran through Small Heath in a silken white dress that might have hung loosely to her body if she was still, but as she raced through the streets on white heels, her white dress clung to her body, showing off her growing belly. Her long gauzy veil billowed behind her as she ran across the gravel.*Freddie came alive as he saw her, dark eyes widening larger than life as he threw his cigarette into the canal. “Ada, what the hell?”*Ada stopped in front of him, smiling widely like a schoolgirl who had received top marks in class. I could see the off-white layers of her dress, thin and translucent so that the fabric had to be layered together. There was a row of beads and gilded metal flowers attached to the hood of her veil where she had scooped it back so she could see. “I dared myself to run through their territory in my dress.”*Freddie’s hands cupped her cheeks, stroking them with his thumbs. “Are you mad?”*”Yeah,” Ada agreed, smiling wider than the sun itself. Her green eyes scanned over Freddie’s startled face. “Mad as hell with all of them.”*Freddie leaned toward her face. “I love you.”*The bride and her groom kissed, and it wasn’t in a ceremony, but it was the kiss of wedding vows, dreamed about by young girls all over the world, deep and connecting, tying Ada Shelby and Freddie Thorne forever.*“I love you, too.” Ada stepped away, and Freddie placed his hand on her pregnant belly. “The more they try and stop us, the madder I’ll be.”*Freddie took Ada by the hand. “Come on, princess. The vicar’s waiting.”*”Wait,” she said, catching him by the hand, smiling, swallowing. “How do I look?”*Freddie’s eyes roamed over her wedding gown, and he might not have seen the gown because Ada was shining beneath it, blushing like a bride. Freddie smiled. “Like an angel.”*I shot upward in my bed, and sweat made my night shift cling to my skin like Ada’s wedding dress. I gasped the cool air into my lungs, trying to remember how to breathe again. I was in my little room in Charlie’s flat, the sun just starting to rise in the sky, and not the streets of Small Heath with Ada and Freddie where the sun rose high at noon, and I shoved my blankets down my legs and crawled to the side of the bed where my opium tools sat on the nightstand.I used a small instrument to gather a glob of opium resin and deposit it in the bowl. I lit a flame and dipped the end of the pipe into it, inhaling as the resin warmed and melted. The opium was sticky and sweet in my veins, slowing my heart to a steady thump and clearing my head just enough that my thoughts didn’t race past at phenomenal speed.I rose from the bed and went to my closet, selecting at random a trouser and vest combination. I dressed quickly, my fingers steadied by the opium that enveloped my mind like a fog. I took the stairs down two at a time and left the apartment, making a beeline around the stables where Charlie was talking to Curly.“Oi! You skipping work again, Ru?” Charlie called to me across the yard.I lifted a hand in a slight wave. “Pack business!” I called back.“Bloody pack business,” Charlie huffed, turning back to Curly.I rushed from Charlie’s yard on Garrison Lane to Watery Lane. When I reached Polly’s run-down flat that she shared with Finn and Ada, although I doubted Ada would ever return to the place, I lifted my knuckles to knock against the door. It flew open, revealing Polly Gray standing in the doorway, hastily dressed in a blouse and skirt that flattered her slim form.“Polly, it’s Ada –”“Come in, there’s news from Ada –”Polly and I locked eyes, and she ushered me through the front door, shutting it closed behind me.“Tea or gin?” Polly asked as she led the way into the familiar kitchen.“Whiskey,” I said, sitting beside the head of the table in my usual spot.The kitchen was quiet except for the clinking of cabinets and cups as Polly retrieved an open bottle of whiskey and several glasses from around the kitchen. Then she settled herself at the head of the table, and I retrieved the bottle of whiskey and poured us a shot each.“Ada…” Polly drank her shot of whiskey in one swallow.“She’s marrying Freddie today,” I guessed.Polly dipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt and surfaced with a folded manilla paper, which she pushed across the table at me. With fingers steadied only by the opium, I unfolded the letter and ran over its contents with my eyes, sucking in a breath. It was too late.In the letter, Ada explained briefly her elopement with Freddie the previous afternoon. She asked for Polly’s forgiveness, and to send her warm regards to Tommy, which I assumed was meant as a slight considering her words to Freddie. In the final line, she requested that Polly extend her apologies to me and the rest of the family for the lack of an invitation, circumstances forbidding it of course.I folded the letter and slid it back across the table toward Polly, who pocketed it. “So they married yesterday, then.”“You thought they were to be married today?”“Yes.” I nodded once. “I’ve been having visions, Polly. I dreamt one last night of Ada and Freddie, and the sun was high in the sky, so I assumed it was later today, that we had time to – to do something.”“We couldn’t have stopped our Ada if we tried.” Polly reached across the table for the bottle of whiskey and poured herself another generous shot.I knocked back my own, craving the burn down my throat, and the liquor satisfied my quenching thirst. “What the fuck are we gonna tell Tommy?”“The truth.” Polly withdrew her cigarette case from her skirt pocket and fingered a cigarette between her prim, permanently lipsticked lips. “Do you have a light?”I plucked my matchbox from my trouser pocket, struck a match, and brought it to the tip of Polly’s cigarette as she inhaled, lighting the rolled tobacco. “I know where Ada’s staying now. Watched her in my dream run all the way from the safehouse to meet Freddie near the canal.”Polly took a drag from her cigarette and ashed it in the perennial ashtray that occupied the kitchen table. “I’m going to take some money from the safe, give it to Freddie to take Ada out of Birmingham, to America. Buy them a train ticket out.”“Ada will go,” I said, knowing she wanted out of Tommy’s dirty business. But “Freddie won’t.”Polly pierced me with her kohl-rimmed brown eyes. “Do you have a better plan?”“Short of begging Tommy not to kill his childhood best friend?” I sighed. “No.”Polly smoked her brown cigarette and watched me with her eyes. “So,” she said after a moment of silence, “these visions of yours. What else have you seen?”I turned my glass of whiskey in my hands, watching the amber liquid slosh side to side. “I’ve seen Tommy shot dead by Billy Kimber.”Polly’s brown eyes widened almost unnoticeably. “I was expecting you to say Chester Campbell’s name at the end of that sentence.”I shot back my glass, wincing as the fiery liquor licked down the inside of my throat. “I cursed him.”Polly blinked. She shook her head, brown ringlets knocking against her temples, and she smothered a laugh with her second shot of whiskey. “Then you have nothing to worry about.”“Don’t I? Tommy’s in business with him now.”“Not for long, we both know.”“That’s what I’m worried about.”“Ruby.” Polly ashed her cigarette in the ashtray, but her eyes stayed on my face. “A gypsy’s curse, especially a gypsy omega’s curse, pervades death. Understand?”Instead of answering, I fished my pack of cigarettes from my pocket and thumbed one into my mouth. I lit it with a match, drawing the heavy tobacco smoke into my lungs like it was meant to be there. Polly and I smoked in silence, watching one another, waiting, because we both knew when the phone rang, it was Tommy, and Polly didn’t answer, so Tommy would come looking.I was lighting another cigarette when the door to Watery Lane burst open, and Tommy’s earthy scent permeated the air of the flat. I inhaled my cigarette smoke, hoping it would ease the conversation to come.“Polly, you home?” Tommy closed the door behind him, and I heard his footsteps pad against the living room floor as he crossed it, coming into the kitchen. “You always answer when you’re home, so I thought something… bad might have happened…” Tommy’s voice trailed off, and he hesitated in the open doorway between the living room and the kitchen, eyes bouncing from me to Polly to the whiskey and the cigarettes.“All right?” Tommy asked the room, and I would have thought he was nervous except for the subtle downward pull of his lips.“Are you armed?” I asked Tommy, pulling my cigarette from my lips so that I could exhale outwardly.Tommy put his lit cigarette to hold between his lips as he pulled off his flat cap, looking at me as if he knew I was about to rip out the floor from beneath his feet. “No.”“Then we’ll tell you.” Polly sat straighter in her chair, chin up, eyes up, staring straight at Tommy.“Ada and Freddie were married yesterday,” I said, and it was like confessing my deepest secrets in a confessional that echoed silence on the other side.“They defied your orders,” Polly continued for me. “They haven’t left the city.”Tommy grasped his cigarette between his fingers and took a long draw inward, looking at the table instead of our faces. He turned around, walking several steps into the living room, combing his dark hair back from where it fell over his brow. He exhaled, turned around, walked back into the kitchen to the opposite head of the table and set his hands down on top of it like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he was, because his grand deal with Inspector Campbell had just gone down the drain. Tommy sighed heavily.“I’ll deal with it,” Polly said curtly, as if she was hoping that was business finished.Thomas stared at the table, blinking, his perfect lips parted slightly. His cigarette burned freely in one hand.“Tommy. Polly’s going to handle it,” I said, not believing myself even as the words spilled from my lips because I had to say something, anything to curb the deep-set wild look in his blue-green eyes.Tommy raised his head, looking me in the eye. “Where are they?”I couldn’t speak, because I couldn’t lie to Tommy, and I couldn’t tell him the truth. I looked at Polly, and Tommy looked at Polly waiting for his answer.She shook her head slightly from side to side. “Freddie’s comrades have safe houses. Why do you want to know?”“I want to send them flowers,” Tommy snapped, and his hands moved to the back of the chair in front of him instead of the table as he rose up to most of his height. He looked to the side, shaking his head, incredulous as he asked, “Why do you think?”I stood to my feet, forgetting my cigarette in the ashtray. “Tommy, you won’t kill Freddie.”Tommy stared at me, and his ocean eyes were more blue than green, ice running through them as he accepted my challenge. “And why won’t I?”I folded my arms across my chest. “Because Ada is family. And Freddie, by extension, is pack.”Polly leaned across the table to ash her cigarette, brown eyes flickering between me and Tommy. “If you let me deal with Ada and Freddie, it’ll end in peace.”Tommy looked at me. He looked at Polly. He looked down at his feet and sighed.“Christ knows you’ve had your fill of war, Tommy,” I said in a small voice, and he looked at me sharply then, like he knew I could see him, truly see him, and he wanted more than anything to believe in what I was saying.“You get Freddie out of town.” Tommy leaned across the table toward Polly, ashing his cigarette in the crystal tray in the center of the table, looking directly at Polly. “Or else I’ll deal with it myself.”“You’ll not kill Freddie Thorne,” I insisted.“I said I’ll deal with it myself,” Tommy growled, and he turned on his heel and left Watery Lane.I might have gone after him, but the phone in the kitchen rang a shrill tone, and I crossed the room without thinking and put the receiver to my ear.“Shelby residence,” I said crisply.“Pol –” John’s voice stopped short. “Ruby, baby?”“Yeah, it’s me,” I sighed, unsure of what else to say.“Angel, Arthur’s at Catholic church, and he only goes there to pray when he’s got the Flanders Blues. I’d go but I’m taking bets at the parlor now.”My chin tipped up, my eyes widening as I listened, and Polly crooked a thin dark eyebrow at me over her cigarette.“I’ll go to him,” I said over the line.“Thank you, baby, I – I’ll see you soon.”The line went dead, and I hung it back on the phone rack, turning to Polly who still sat at the head of the table. “I can’t go with you to Ada’s. Arthur needs me.”Polly pressed her cigarette to her lips and inhaled, a half-smile curling on her mouth. “Go to your alpha. Ada will understand.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Arthur sat halfway down the church from the altar, dressed in a dark grey suit unbuttoned so that he could fold his arms on the wooden pew in front of him. The collar of his white shirt was short and loose around his thick neck. His strong hands were folded in front of him on the back of the pew, and he wore rings on his fingers that glinted against the candlelight of the altar. He looked like an angel who’d fallen from heaven, like Lucifer himself after being rejected by god. The war stormed in his blue eyes, and he saw nothing as he stared at the mud and the blood and gore that haunted his waking moments.I walked past the altar and down the middle of the pews until I reached Arthur’s bench. He didn’t look up as I sat quietly next to him, moving a half-empty whiskey bottle to the side.“You’re not Tom,” Arthur said, and his voice was different like he was a bodiless soul talking aloud. “Usually Tom comes find me.”“I’m not Tommy,” I agreed. “You can talk to me like I’m him if it helps.”Arthur tightened one of his hands around his other. “People keep asking me questions that I don’t know the answer to, gypsy girl. ‘Is it true your Ada got married?’ I say, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Where is she living then?’ ‘I don’t know.’ They say, ‘Is it you Peaky Blinders who stole the guns from the BSA?’” Arthur looked at me, blue eyes begging for me to trust him with the truth. “What guns, Ruby girl?”I twirled a lock of my orange hair around my finger, considering. “I think, Arthur, after your beating, Tommy thought you deserved a break.”Arthur knocked his hands against the pew in front of him, and the clap of his rings against the wood echoed through the cathedral CRACK-crack-crck-crk-crk until the sound died. I clasped my hands together to keep myself from flinching away. Arthur noticed anyway, even as he closed his eyes and furrowed his brown and whispered like any tone higher would hurt me, “What bloody guns, Ruby girl?”Arthur turned to look at me so quickly that I was reminded how he had survived the war. He looked at me like he might shout at me, but not to me, not because of me, just at everything, but he didn’t. He sat and stared, strawberry blonde brow furrowed, nostrils flaring, lips screwed together over his mustache, waiting for the answers from my mouth like he hung on every word.I set my hand gently on Arthur’s shoulder, and he cringed as if he didn’t deserve the touch, but I placed my other hand on his other shoulder, turning our bodies to face one another. “I’m not Tommy. I won’t keep things from you to protect you, Arthur, because you above anyone deserve the truth.”“You know, Ruby girl? He told you?”I smiled slightly and felt guilty for the betrayed expression furrowing Arthur’s brow. “I forced him to tell me, Arthur, like you would’ve forced him today if I hadn’t been the one to come for you.”Arthur’s blue eyes softened to something like his regular hue. “You came for me, didn’t you, gypsy girl?”“I’ll always show up for you, Arthur,” I said sincerely, squeezing his shoulders. “And I’ll always tell you the truth.”Arthur nodded and squared his shoulders as if preparing himself. “Alright, I’m ready.”“Ada married Freddie Thorne yesterday.”“Our Ada and Freddie?” Excitement bubbled in Arthur’s blue eyes, and he smiled for his little sister.“She’s living in a communist safe house in the Brum with Freddie, and despite Tommy’s best efforts, I think they’ll stay in Small Heath for a little longer.”Arthur’s smile withered as I told him about the guns and Tommy’s deal with Inspector Campbell, and when I explained the part about Ada and Freddie, he bounced to his feet, fisting the back of the pew in front of him until his knuckles turned white, looking for all the world like he might rush from the church just to beat Tommy’s arse, and I would have liked to have seen it, but I stood with him, taking his hands in my own and turning him to look in my green-brown eyes.“Do you still remember who you are, Arthur, among the war of the past and the war we’re in now?” I asked.Arthur’s blonde brow creased, and he shook his head once, admitting his truest weakness.I released his hands, gliding my fingers up his dusty grey suit jacket until I clutched his face in my hands. “You’re my alpha, Arthur Shelby, and I want you to fuck me in this church, under god, until you remember that.”Arthur was so tall I had to step on his shoes to kiss him properly on the mouth, using my hands on his face to dip him into my lips until I could taste the whiskey and the petrol, the gunsmoke and cigars that lit a fire deep inside.“Gypsy girl, I can’t fuck you in a church, that’s – that’s blasphemy or some other damned word I can’t pronounce.”I placed my hands on Arthur’s shoulders and shoved him down, hard, until he sank down onto the church bench, a tent rising in his pants as our scents mingled in the air. “You’re forgetting again.” I kneeled between Arthur’s legs, my knees bruising against the harsh floor, my hands finding his belt. “You’re Arthur fucking Shelby.” I slipped his belt out of its loop and unbuttoned his trousers all the way down. “And Arthur Shelby takes what he wants, whenever and wherever he likes.”I freed Arthur’s thick cock from his pants and stroked his full length, squeezing him lightly in my palm until his cock twitched and throbbed in my hands. I leaned forward until my breath brushed against the tip of his cockhead, and I looked up at him between my long red lashes, murmuring, taunting, “What do you want now, Arthur?”“I want your mouth on my cock, right here in this pretty cathedral,” Arthur growled.I licked a stripe up the length of Arthur’s cock, feeling my mouth water and slick pool inside my underwear as I knelt before him. The flat of my tongue discovered the soft head of his cock, and I swirled my tongue around his slit, tasting his pre-cum like metal and petrol even as his cologne wafted around me, drowning me, suffocating me until Arthur Shelby was all I knew, all I smelled, all I tasted, and I parted my lips to accept the tip of Arthur’s cock into the wet, warm cave of my mouth.Arthur groaned and shifted his hips, forcing my lips open wider as he pressed further inside. I flattened my tongue against the bottom of his shaft and hid my teeth with my lips as I sucked at the head, swirling my tongue against the curve of his cock.Arthur’s hands found the back of my head, where he fisted them in my hair, tugging against my scalp as I bobbed my mouth on his tip, swirling my tongue against the underside in just the way that made him moan. I opened my mouth wider, pushing Arthur deep down my throat until I almost choked, and I held my eyes open as I gagged on him, looking up into Arthur’s mesmerized blue eyes, now clear as water.I felt my throat constrict and pulled myself off Arthur’s cock, gasping for breath as spit ran down my lips over my chin.Arthur moved his hand around his cock, pressing his tip, slick with his pre-cum and my spit, against my saliva-ruined lips. “Put it back in your mouth, gypsy girl.”I complied, dipping my head over Arthur’s cock and pressing myself down until I felt his head hit the back of my throat. Arthur’s hands buried themselves in my hair, and he groaned as he shifted forward in my throat, pushing me down onto him at the same time until his impossibly thick cock squeezed down the passage of my throat.“Son of a motherfucker, your throat is so –” Arthur grunted, inching himself further inside. “ – so fucking tight.”The muscles of my throat contracted around Arthur’s cock, and I was truly choking, suffocating, struggling against his cock, but Arthur held me in place for a long moment, easing further and further inside until his huge cock was stuffed down my throat so far I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even move my lungs to intake air, so far that his knot tugged at my teeth, so far that my nose pressed against the spatter of blonde curls at his base, and all I could smell, all I could taste, all I could feel was Arthur Shelby.Arthur’s grip softened, and I surfaced from his cock, heaving for breath, tears blurring my vision and spit running down my face onto my white button-up shirt.Arthur yanked my head upward, his blue eyes roaming the flushed stretch of my throat as I looked up at him. “I want you to take me just like that down your throat as I fuck your pretty mouth, gypsy girl.”“Yes, alpha,” I moaned, “please use my mouth.”Arthur led me by my hair down to his cock, and I slipped him into my mouth, curling my lips over my teeth so that I didn’t scrape him as I drew my mouth down his shaft. His cockhead pressed against my gag reflex, and I jerked against him on instinct, but his hands were in my hair, forcing me down further onto his cock until he slipped into the tighter passage of my throat and I choked around him, swallowing desperately to force him down my throat until my nose nudged against his naval.“Wider, gypsy girl,” Arthur groaned. “Open your mouth wider.”I obeyed, stretching my lips as far as I could around his thick cock. Arthur’s hips bucked forward even as his hand in my hair forced me down on his cock until I was sure I would vomit or pass out, and I wanted more, and he gave me more, dragging me up off his length so I could take a tiny gasp of breath before he pushed me down on his cock again, fucking my throat open as he pumped my head up and down with a lewd, loud squelching sound that echoed in the empty hall of the cathedral.“Your mouth is so good, gypsy girl, so good I could spend down your throat.”I moaned, wishing I could scream, ‘Yes! Yes, yes, come down my throat, let me taste all of you,’ but Arthur’s cock filled every available space in my mouth, and his hands clenched deliciously tight in my hair as he drew me up and down his cock, shoving in and out of my throat, my tongue pressed flat against the underside of his cock as I tried to breathe through my nose and failed. I would have coughed, but the flexing of my muscles did nothing to push him out of my throat, stoppered by Arthur’s thick length.“Ruby,” Arthur moaned.He yanked my head forward and buried his cock knot-deep in my mouth, and I whined around him, and his length throbbed, and his seed exploded down the back of my throat, so deep down my throat I could do nothing but taste him, all of him, whiskey and cigars and engine exhaust and smog and petrol and gasoline and metal and something salty and something sweet. Everything was Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, and he twitched in my mouth and came down my throat and I moaned, my honey lava perfume piercing the cloud of his masculine cologne until everything was me and Arthur, alone, together in the church.Arthur’s hands fell from my hair to stroke my cheeks with the rough pads of his fingers. I rose from his cock, huffing for breath through my nose and swirling my tongue over his sensitive head to taste him fully, and he jumped on my tongue, blood starting to refill his half-hard length again, and one of Arthur’s hands left my cheek to grab a fistful of my hair, yanking me away from his oversensitive, bright red cock.I sat back on my heels, looking at him with eyes that knew divinity because I had tasted it straight from his cock, and I licked my lips because he was still all I could taste, coating my mouth and throat like I would never be separated from his alpha cologne again, like I belonged to him, and I did, and I smiled.Arthur stared at me like I was from another world, his blue eyes roaming over my spit-stricken face and the tears that stuck to my cheeks. “You were made for me to fuck your face.”“Made for you,” I whispered, eyes fluttering like the heat in my stomach as I looked at him. I had soaked through my underwear and my bloomers, and my slick was wet against my thighs as if I had been the one to come, and I didn’t mourn that I hadn’t because Arthur’s pleasure was my pleasure, and I was his, his omega, and he was mine.Arthur tugged me by my hair so that my neck stretched as I keened upward, arching my back as he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine, groaning as he tasted himself on my lips. “I’m gonna fuck you now, gypsy girl.”Arthur released me, and I rose to my feet, so dizzy and breathless that I stumbled against the pew behind me, knocking my arse against the wood. I set my hands against the back of the pew, steadying myself as Arthur undid my belt and unbuttoned my trousers. I helped him push my trousers, bloomers, and underwear down my hips, where they fell to my ankles and I stripped them off and discarded them in a pile next to Arthur like the church pew was the beginnings of a nest and I wanted it to smell like us.“Come here, Ruby girl.”With stiff knees, I walked the short two steps to Arthur and set one knee on either side of his splayed-out hips so that I straddled his lap. I used one hand to support myself on the back of the pew behind Arthur’s shoulders and one hand to reach between my legs, grasping Arthur’s fully hard length and positioning him at my slick entrance, rubbing his head against my lips to coat him in my slick. I sunk down onto his tip, discovering I was so wet and ready for him that I could slide down two more inches before the stretch started to burn.“You’re so thick, Arthur,” I whined, my broken voice something between a gasp and a whisper. “I’m gonna split apart on your cock, alpha.”Arthur swept my long red hair over my shoulder to suck and lick at my throat, his words coming out as near-groans as he asked, “Can you take it, gypsy girl?”“Yes, Arthur, anything for y –”Arthur snapped his hips to meet mine, driving into my tight cunt, impaling me on his thick length until I felt him bulge out from my flat stomach as I stretched and stretched around him until the pressure was a searing pain. My legs collapsed beneath me, and I sunk onto Arthur’s lap, and his cockhead pressed hard against my cervix, and the base of his knot stretched me open painfully wide until he threatened to pop through my cunt, and I wasn’t prepared for his knot so I lifted myself slightly on shaking knees just enough to relieve the impossible pressure against my entrance.“You’re so fucking good for me.” Arthur rolled his hips, and his cocked filled me in all the right places, and my walls clenched around him in a vicelike grip, and he bucked back into me, groaning into my neck. “So fucking good around me, so fucking good, fucking made for me.”“Yes,” I whimpered and my words strung together, “Yes, yes yes yes –”I was made for my alpha’s thick cock thrusting shallowly into my cunt, hitting my cervix, hitting my sweet sensitive spot, filling me up with a delicious stretch that hurt less and less the more Arthur fucked up into me. Arthur’s teeth sunk through the supple flesh of my throat just light enough not to draw blood, and he placed his mark on my skin, sucking and swirling a bruise into the side of my neck. He lifted his head, moved it higher, yanked my head to the side by my hair and bit down again like my throat was an apple, and maybe it was because blood red bloomed where his teeth sliced painfully into my skin. I cried out, arching my back until my chest pressed against his and our hips moved together, and Arthur sucked and bit at my throat, and I buried a hand in his hair to keep his mouth against my throat as I bled against his tongue and he lapped it up like my blood was his addiction, and my other hand clenched white on the church pew behind his shoulder as I moaned and rocked into his cock.“Gonna come for me, Ruby girl, in this church with god watching?”“Let her watch,” I urged, and my voice was sore from choking on his cock and my throat stung where Arthur licked up my blood, but oh, the pressure between my thighs was celestial, and I clung to Arthur’s hips with my shaking knees as I clamped down on him. “Let them all watch. Let them all see I’m yours.”Arthur’s hand released my hair so that he could seize my arse in his strong hands. He lifted me like I was a feather, dragging me up his shaft until he almost tipped out of me, and then he dropped me, and I sunk down onto him and he filled me fully, his knot threatening to split me apart, except he lifted me again, lifted me and dropped me until I bounced on his cock, up and down, up and down.“I’m coming!” I cried, and tears pinched at the edges of my eyes because I had seen god in heaven and abandoned her, and I was the devil herself, soaring down to hell on wings as pure as snow, as pure as the pleasure that blew out my veins like heroine, like heaven, and I plummeted into the depths of hell, every nerve on fire as I blazed forward, clutching my arms around Arthur’s shoulders, tightening my knees around his sides, and he pumped upward into my tight cunt until my cum dripped out around his knot.“That’s right, gypsy girl, come for your alpha,” Arthur commanded, and I had no choice because the floodgates were open and I was gushing on Arthur’s cock, whining his name, riding the motion of his body as he propelled deeper into my cunt, deeper with each thrust until the head of his thick cock drove against my cervix so hard I thought he might pierce inside, and I flexed and convulsed around him, pleasure ripping through me like a tsunami.Arthur fucked into me a final time before clenching his hands around my arse and standing with me in his arms. I wrapped my legs around him instinctively, shuddering into his body as he filled me fully. Arthur walked one step, two steps forward and shoved me on top of the back of the church pew behind me so that I was seated on the thin strap of wood, held up only by the back of the bench and Arthur’s strong arms around me and his thick cock impaled on my cunt. I clung to Arthur’s back, digging my short nails into the thick grey fabric of his suit jacket.Arthur fucked into me without restraint, pounding into my pussy until the only sounds in the church was the slick slapping of skin against skin, and I needed him, my alpha, all of him, I needed his“Knot,” I begged, and I raised my head to look into Arthur’s face, his red-blonde hair swinging into his brow with his rhythm as he fucked me. “Alpha, please, I need your knot.”“Not gonna knot you when someone could walk in at any moment,” Arthur grunted, and his hands dug into the bare flesh of my arse so tight I knew it would bruise and I was glad for it because I wanted his marks all over my body so everyone would know who I was.“Let them,” I gasped.Arthur’s lips crashed against my own, converting my pleas to loud, heavy moans as he licked into my mouth. The kiss was a war of tongue and lips, and Arthur won when he scraped his teeth across my tongue. I parted my mouth for him, and he bit at my lips, his canines sinking into the soft flesh until he drew blood. He licked into my mouth, and the copper mixed with his metal taste and I drowned in my blood and his saliva, forgetting to breathe between the mix of our bodies.Arthur released my lips from the clash of his teeth, and he freed one hand from my arse to twist my hair around his fingers and force my head backward, and I stared at the arching, decorative cathedral ceiling with stars in my eyes because he punctured his fangs into the sensitive flesh of my scent gland, tearing it open with a growl until my scent poured out like honey, and he latched his lips around the gland, drinking in my blood and perfume, and his tongue was like fire, and my skin was gasoline, and he lit me like a molotov cocktail and catapulted me into the abyss of my orgasm, and I shattered like glass around his cock.“Yes, please, alpha, just like that, just like that,” I mewled, and I locked my ankles around Arthur’s hips, kicking my heels into his back until he shoved so deep inside I thought I might burst open, and I clawed at Arthur’s back with my nails. My legs weren’t strong enough to keep Arthur still, and he thrust in and out of my body, spearing me on his cock until I quaked around him, clutching onto him with hands and legs as pleasure soared through me like my prayers to above answered.“Yes, fuck, yes,” Arthur groaned, and he freed my hair from his grip, and tresses of my orange hair clung around his fingers as he wrapped his hand around my throat, making me gasp sharply as he cut off my air, and I couldn’t breathe because I was in space, and there was no air in space, only all-consuming pleasure, and I was a shooting star, burning bright white across the night sky.Arthur ripped himself from my body all at once, removing his hands from my body, his cock rushing out of me as my cum spilled and dripped onto the pristine cathedral floor. I fell off the back of the church pew, and I tripped and would have fallen if Arthur wasn’t grabbing my hips, yanking me around to face the front of the cathedral, and my eyes found the altar where the candles burned, and Arthur found my entrance from behind and shoved himself in, hilt deep until I could feel his cock bulging out from my firm stomach, and I ground back into him, reveling in the stretch of his knot at my opening.I was in the perfect position to watch as one of the large ornate doors at the front of the church opened, and a flare of white light pierced through the dim cathedral, and a young man in a black suit with dark hair and small, pinched eyes stepped into the church. I was suddenly aware of the slap of Arthur’s hips against my arse echoing through the cathedral hall, and the man’s head turned as if on a swivel, catching sight of Arthur fucking me against the church pew, and his face paled as if he had seen a ghost.“Get the fuck out,” Arthur snarled, and he never once faltered from fucking me, his cock fucking in and out of my pulsing cunt so fast that I felt the friction rub raw against my insides and still I craved more.The man in the doorway to the church didn’t move, and Arthur growled in a voice that reverberated through the cathedral, “By order of Arthur fucking Shelby.”The man took a step back, slowly, and then turned on his heel and rushed from the cathedral, and the door slammed shut behind him with a BANG. I wanted to laugh, but Arthur leaned over my small form, grasping my throat to bring my head back as I moaned his name, his designation, the only words I could think as his other hand dipped down over my white button-up shirt and slid between my folds, pillaging them until he found the swollen nub of my clit with his coarse fingers.“Is that what you wanted, naughty girl?” Arthur’s fingers squeezed at my throat, cutting off my air completely so that I couldn’t answer, and he pumped into me from behind as I spasmed on his cock. I trembled from the effort of keeping myself standing, but Arthur held me tight around the throat so that when my knees gave slightly, I sank further into his palm, forgetting air existed because the only thing I could feel was his thick cock plundering through my folds. “That’s what you wanted, eh? For some poor bloke to walk through that church door and see me taking what’s mine.”Arthur’s fingers gentled around my throat just enough for me to gasp for air and pant, “Yes! Yes, Arthur, please…”Arthur thrusted into my pussy without abandon, bruising my cervix as his head shoved against my womb over and over. “Please what, gypsy girl?”“Please fuck me, alpha, take me, make me come, please!” The words spilled from my lips in a string slurred by bliss, and I hardly knew what I was begging for, but Arthur did, because his fingers rubbed harsh circles into my clit and he fucked me harder from behind at a bruising pace, grunting with the force of his thrusts, and his cock throbbed inside me, and I squeezed around him, andThen I was flying, floating, my soul escaping from my body with a moan that reverberated against the walls, and I clenched the back of the church pew in front of me with such strength that I felt it might splinter in my hands, but it didn’t, and I barely noticed because I was fluttering away, my breath coming in small, airy gasps as Arthur’s hand squeezed my throat and he pumped inside my tight cunt, spending his hot seed against my womb, and I felt it dribble out my entrance, slicking my thighs and beading down my legs into a puddle on the floor, and the feeling sent me spiraling over a second edge and I came apart again, sagging over the back of the bench I had only a moment ago clung to with my hands like it was my life on the line, and maybe it was because a part of me was dying and part of me was so, so alive, burning brighter than life itself, and pleasure rocked through my body, and Arthur collected me in arms as I sagged back against him, my knees caving underneath me until he was all that held me together.Arthur unsheathed himself from my tight cunt, and I felt suddenly empty as a puddle of warm cum trickled down my thighs and onto the shiny church floor. I hovered somewhere between life and death, pleasure and pain, light and dark, so I was pliable in Arthur’s hands when he maneuvered me around to kiss him, and his kiss was like fire, and I remembered I was gasoline because flames licked over my skin, and I pushed him backward until the backs of his legs hit the edge of the wooden bench and he was forced to sit.“Again, alpha, please,” I begged, but I didn’t need to beg because Arthur fisted himself in his hand and pumped his half-hard cock to full attention as I climbed on top of him, straddling him with my bruised knees hard against the wooden bunch. My leg nudged the discarded whiskey bottle as I moved, and it tumbled to its side with a clink, the amber liquid still trapped inside, but I didn’t care because Arthur was positioning his thick cockhead against my cunt.“Do you need my cock filling you up, Ruby girl?” Arthur grunted, and I pushed my hips downward, sleeving him in my fucked-in, cummed-in cunt all the way down to his knot where both of our cum leaked out around him.“I need you, alpha.” I ground my pussy into his knot, and he must have known I didn’t have the strength to raise myself off his cock because he grabbed fistfuls of my arse and raised me all on his own, guiding me up and down, and I didn’t have time to marvel at his strength because I spasmed around him, tightening my hands around the lapels of his suit jacket.“Fuck, you’re tight, gypsy girl,” Arthur grunted in my hair. “I’m not going to last.”“Then come,” I commanded, and energy flowed through my veins like a second wind, and I bounced on his cock, letting my moans fly free of my mouth as I threw back my head and Arthur’s hand found my throat again, clasping just tight enough that my moans came out as high, breathless whines.“Come with me, Ruby girl.”I was fire, and I was god, and I was the devil, and I was everything because everything flowed through my veins like fire and water and earth and air and ice, and I was the natural disaster that every man feared, because I redoubled my efforts as I came, springing my hips up and down Arthur’s shaft, clenching my muscles tight around his cock, and I said Arthur’s name, and he said mine, and he came undone inside me, pushing upward to cum against my womb, and my knees collapsed from underneath me as a second earthquake shook through my limbs, and Arthur fucked up into me, grunting, and the force of our bodies meeting sank his knot through my entrance, and I cried out as he speared inside me, filling every possibly space, and I came for the final time, becoming the very moans that expelled from my lips like prayers to my god, and I had thought that I was god, but I wasn’t, because Arthur was, my alpha was everything, everything, everything.“Fuck,” Arthur cursed, the Romani word slipped through the heavy groans of his aftershocks as he twitched and throbbed inside me and I finally loosened my muscles and settled on his lap, sagging into his chest. “Shit. Didn’t mean to knot you in the Catholic fucking church.”I laughed, raising my exhausted head to look into Arthur’s shimmering blue eyes. “Do you think we made god jealous of the devil?”Arthur’s eyes flickered around the empty cathedral. “Think we pissed him off, gypsy girl.”“Oh, well,” I sighed. “He – or she – wasn’t going to answer our prayers anyway.”“Thinkin’ this makes us heathens now?” Arthur chuckled, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth, no longer muddled with the ongoing war. He raised his back from the bench behind him to strip off his grey suit jacket, which he slung around my shoulders to shield my half-naked body from any prying eyes.I tugged Arthur’s jacket further around my shoulders and leaned forward, placing a kiss on his lips that made me hiss as I felt more than remembered the cut he’d bitten into my bottom lip, and I withdrew, smiling, my cheeks flushed with the high of more orgasms than I could count. “Oh, we’re heathens, alright.”The dim candlelight shifted with sudden light. Arthur tensed beneath me, shooting his eyes behind me toward the cathedral door that the dark-haired man had come through.“Bloody hell, another one?” Arthur cursed under his breath.I turned my head, shifting on Arthur’s knot to look toward the doorway. A tall, handsome, and familiar figure stood within, cascaded in light, his usually flat lips turned upward into a boyish grin that made him look ten years younger. He let the door swing closed behind him as he crossed the front of the church and walked past the altar and down the rows of church pews toward me and Arthur.“I have to admit,” Tommy said in a drawling tone, “this is not what I expected to find when John told me you were here, Arthur.”Arthur smiled. “Ruby girl fixed me right up, Tom.”“So I see.” Tommy reached the church pew where Arthur and I had been fucking moments before. His nostrils flared, and his usually crystal eyes widened at the pupils as he smelled the heavy mix of honey and metal and arousal that was the wake of my sins with Arthur. He looked me over, from the messy orange hair that cascaded over my shoulders, to my sliced-open lip, to the torn-open flesh of my scent gland, to the hand-sized bruises around my throat, ocean eyes waterfalling over my body until they reached the glistening, swollen apex of my thighs where Arthur’s body was knotted to mine and my white shirt fell open at the bottom, exposing the melding of our bodies.Tommy shifted my clothes and the half-empty liquor bottle to the edge of the church bench and sat beside Arthur, so close that his black-clad leg brushed against my own.Trembling, I shifted within Arthur’s arms, reaching out to touch the younger alpha’s cheek, featherlight against his wartorn skin. Tommy leaned closer to me, and I stretched sideways as far out of Arthur’s arms as I could to kiss him with swollen, aching, bruised lips. His lips implored my own, his mouth a silent question, his tongue a quiet concern as he swept it through my mouth, exploring. He seemed to find the answers he was seeking because the kiss turned gentle, lazy, and languid.“Oi, I’m right here,” Arthur protested, and there was a possessive growl low in his tone, and I broke away from Tommy’s silk lips to press tired kisses along Arthur’s stubbly jaw.“Ruby told you everything, then,” Tommy stated, and it wasn’t a question because he had, indeed, found the answer in my lips.“Yeah,” Arthur huffed.I rested my head against Arthur’s shoulder, turning to look somewhat sideways at Tommy, who seemed more relaxed than I had seen him before, and I couldn’t help but feel as if I had done something to contribute to the momentary peace in the cathedral.Tommy’s arm rested across the back of the church pew, where he could pat Arthur on his opposite shoulder. “Arthur, I was gonna tell you.”“You were gonna tell me, eh?”“You’ve had a hard time these past few years. God knows you have. You deserve some rest,” Tommy said, and the peace in his eyes was gone just like that, replaced by memories of his eldest brother getting lost in the mud and the blood and the shellshock, and I knew Tommy really had kept the truth from Arthur to give his brother some of that well-earned peace that he denied himself every waking moment for the sake of his pack.Arthur sighed, his narrow shoulders heaving with the effort. “Yeah, I know, Tom, I know. Haven’t been there like I should.”“You’re here now, eh?” Tommy said, patting his brother on the shoulder.“Yeah, I’m here now, Tom, I’m here now thanks to Ruby girl.” Arthur kissed the side of my head, and I hummed my assent, nuzzling into the warmth of his neck and fighting off the exhaustion that threatened to droop my eyelids.Tommy withdrew his arm from around Arthur’s shoulders, and he tried to stand, but I reached out a heavy arm and tugged on the sleeve of his suit jacket, and Tommy looked at me, waiting, patient, the hint of a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth.“Kiss, please, alpha,” I murmured tiredly.“Yes, Ruby.” Tommy placed his large hand on my back, and he leaned forward to capture my lips in a gentle, parting kiss. Then he stood, unfolding his cap from his pocket and placing it perfectly atop his black quiff, looking at me and Arthur still knotted together from the beneath the glinting rim of the flat cap. His ocean eyes roamed once more over where Arthur and I were connected. “Come meet me at The Garrison when you sort out your little problem. I have a surprise for you, brother.”

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I teetered somewhere on the edge of sleep in a land where I was nothing and that was enough. The world didn’t exist, and everything was possible, but nothing was needed, and time stopped, and I drifted.“Ruby girl.”Arthur’s deep, gravelly voice tugged me gently back into the waking world. One of his strong, rough hands petted up and down my back, and his other tightened around the back of my hips, bringing me closer into his chest as if I wasn’t still sitting on his cock, his knot having deflated in the time I had been asleep.“Wake up, gypsy girl.” Arthur spoke so softly that it was a wonder he had woken me at all.I shifted in Arthur’s lap, and a torn whine slipped from my mouth. I was sore everywhere, even between my legs, but especially my legs themselves, cramped from where I had been straddling Arthur for so long. My limbs begged me to stand and release my muscles from the aching position I had taken, but I was so tired that I didn’t want to move.“Another minute?” I mumbled into Arthur’s neck. I nuzzled his scent gland, marking him with the tip of my nose and taking his mark in return.Arthur chuckled, and the sound vibrated through his chest and into mine. “It’s been twenty.”Sighing, I raised myself off of Arthur’s cock and stood on shaking legs. His cum trickled out of me, slicking my thighs and dripping down my legs, a reminder that I had just fucked Arthur in church. Beyond feeling proud of myself for that fact, I wished I could relive it all over again until the sex was more than a memory in my aching bones.“Tommy seemed in a good mood.” My sore body protested as I bent to retrieve the bottom set of my clothing from where Tommy had crumpled it against the end of the church pew.Arthur tucked himself back into his pants and worked on the buttons of his trousers. His eyes sparkled when he looked at me, like I was a treasure he couldn’t believe he had held in his own two hands. “That’s all you, Ruby girl.”“And you, too, Arthur.” I shrugged on my underwear, bloomers, and trousers in one movement. Tucking my shirt into my pants, I buttoned them up and tightened the belt around my waist.Arthur’s hands paused as he latched his belt. “Don’t do that.”“What?” I grabbed the half-empty liquor bottle from the bench and took a swig, relishing the burn down my throat like fire.“Forget.” Arthur stood in the narrow space between the church benches. Towering over me, he took my face in his rough hands and made me look at him, green-brown into clear blue. “Don’t forget what you mean to us, what you do for us. It can’t be easy. So don’t brush it off like it’s nothing.”I kissed Arthur then, mostly because I didn’t have the words to tell him that I was nothing without him, without Tommy, without John. Without my alphas, I was nothing but the ghost of Red Ruby. Everything I did, I did for them. They were my whole world, my fates mates. I didn’t care how much it took from me, how “easy” it was or wasn’t. I would do anything for them without question, without hesitation, no matter how red it stained my hands.Together, Arthur and I left the Catholic church and began walking up Lawley Street toward Garrison Lane. I was sure we looked quite the pair – a gypsy girl in wrinkled trousers with red hair as long as her hips, wrapped in the arms of a Shelby alpha put together in his dark grey three-piece suit and his flat cap glinting with razor blades. I was accustomed to stares of disgust from those who knew Red Ruby, the displeasure in their faces at being so near someone so beneath them. I wasn’t accustomed to the new mothers deferring their eyes to their baby carriages as they passed by us, or the boys who crossed the street to play on the other side where they wouldn’t kick their ball toward us, or the men who nodded and tipped their caps from down the lane. It wasn’t disgust or displeasure that they looked at us with. It was respect. Reverence, even. And I liked it. Oh, I loved it, because walking next to Arthur Shelby, I felt powerful, untouchable, like the queen that I had never been.Tommy waited for us outside The Garrison, a white cigarette perched comfortably between two plush pink lips. He was dressed in his typical black suit with a thinly-striped button-up that matched the square of white poking out from his jacket pocket. There was a grey peaky cap sitting atop his head, and he peered at us from beneath the gleaming rim. His blue-green eyes roamed over Arthur’s crooked tie and my disheveled clothing, and the edges of his lips perked upward in amusement.“Took you long enough,” Tommy said in greeting.I plucked his cigarette from his mouth and pressed it to my own, inhaling the green of his cologne along with the sweet heaviness of the tobacco smoke. “Sorry to keep the king waiting.”Tommy stroked my cheek with the back of his hand, and his voice was low like silk when he murmured, “What did we say about apologies, eh?”“Told you, Ruby girl.” Arthur relinquished me from his side so that I could slide into Tommy’s arms. “Bet I could be late to anything long as I tell ‘im it’s you I’s with.”Still holding Tommy’s cigarette, I wound my arms around his neck and leand upward to place a warm kiss to his lips.“Are we kissing in public now, Ruby?” Tommy hummed against my mouth.“And why not?” I whispered, kissing him again, feeling like a queen, like I could do anything, and I would.Arthur cleared his throat, ever the one to interrupt me and Tommy. “Where’s this surprise, then, brother?”I stepped down from Tommy’s embrace, tangling our hands together like we were young lovers walking by the Cut. With my other hand, I brought Tommy’s half-spent cigarette to my lips and dragged inward, relishing the taste of him in my mouth.“Inside,” Tommy said.Tommy let Arthur push through the doors of The Garrison, and we followed behind through the threshold and the second set of doors until we stood just past the entrance.Arthur looked around the pub, which was lazily scattered with men, no surprises in sight. “Surprise. Woulda thought you’d bought me a girl if I hadn’t foresworn all but our Ruby girl.”Tommy smiled, and he looked like a boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He used his free hand to retrieve his flat cap off his head and fold it in his pocket, mussing his brown quiff over his forehead in the process. “What is it you’ve always wanted, Arthur? Eh?”Arthur lingered Tommy’s opposite side, looking curiously into the drunk faces of the men scattered at the tables in the pub. When Tommy walked forward, Arthur and I walked with him on either side.Tommy patted Arthur’s shoulder as we walked through the pub. “When we were in France, you used to say, ‘When I go back to England, I want to own my own pub.’”We stopped in the middle of The Garrison, and Tommy released my hand to reach out his arms as if ushering to everything around him. “Well.”I tried to fight back the raging guilt flooding suddenly through my veins. Tommy meant to buy The Garrison, but it wasn’t for sale because Harry would never put his pride and joy, his whole life, for which he had sacrificed his relationship with his estranged wife and daughter, on offer even to Tommy Shelby.But as Arthur leaned toward Tommy, tapping his chest with a hand holding his half-empty liquor bottle, saying, “Now you’ve gone soft,” and Tommy smiled with teeth like he was a young boy never gone off to war, I found it was easier to surpass the guilt than I had expected. Maybe I was meant to be a Shelby, after all, or maybe my alphas were rubbing off on me.“You’ve gone soft, Tommy,” Arthur said in his gruff voice, but then he stepped back, looking around at The Garrison like he had never really seen it before. “How do we know it’s for sale?”Tommy walked us closer toward the bar, looking around at the empty tables and the lazily occupied booths. He said like a king, “Everything is for sale to us, Arthur.”We settled at the bar. Arthur leaned against it on both arms, and Tommy leaned his back against it, supporting himself by two elbows resting atop the bar. I stepped between his legs, discarding Tommy’s spent cigarette in a stray ashtray. Tommy’s hand settled on my hip as I stole the mostly-empty bottle of liquor from Arthur’s hand, wondering if I could drink away the remainder of my guilt. A queen wasn’t supposed to feel guilt, after all – only satisfaction.“We’re making a lot of money, these days.” As he spoke, Tommy’s eyes raked over my face as if trying to piece together the vacancy behind my usually sharp green-brown eyes. “We need a legitimate business to pass the money from the shop.”Arthur stared at the mirror behind the bar, a million emotions passing like quicksand through the blue of his eyes, and I knew this was good for him, and it was perhaps the only thought that didn’t make me feel like I was the thief of Harry’s joy. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”Tommy’s brow raised in an upside-down V, and his face wrinkled toward the center as his nose crinkled. He looked from side to side at the pub as if remembering all the days he had spent inside it with Arthur. “You spent two-thirds of your life in pubs, just… pour it. Instead of drinking it.”Arthur grinned over my head at Tommy. “But I can still drink it though, right?”Tommy smiled, revealing his perfect white teeth and his glinting canines, and I almost forgot my guilt entirely for the way my heartbeat picked up in my chest. “Your pub, you do what you want.”Harry surfaced from the back room, rubbing a dirty rag between his long fingers. “Ah. Sorry, gentlemen – Ruby –” He nodded to me. “Didn’t hear you come in. What can I get you?”Tommy’s smile fell from his face as if it had never existed, as if his conscience bore the same weight as mine, and his expression smoothed into the cool composure he required for business as he shut his conscience out of his mind. He pushed lightly on my hip, backing me up a step so he could pucked himself off the bar and turn back toward it to look at Harry. “We’ve business to discuss, Harry.”Tommy led Harry back into the snug to discuss the sale of his cherished pub, and Arthur rounded the bar, inspecting it like he already owned it, and I supposed he might as well have for what had been decided. I sat on a barstool, emptying the last of the Arthur’s whiskey into my mouth until only a few drops slid out onto my tongue, and I set the empty bottle on the table for someone to collect later.Arthur stood in front of me across the bar, grinning like he had just won a bet he had expected to lose. “Let’s crack open one of those good bottles, eh? To celebrate?”I fished my cigarettes out of my trousers and lit one, needing something to do with my hands to distract myself from the man in the snug losing his life’s work. “Just beer, Arthur, I’m not trying to get drunk.”Arthur’s blue eyes roamed the empty liquor bottle on the counter and my fingers twitching around my lit cigarette. “Could’ve fooled me, gypsy girl.”I exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke over the bar. “Maybe I had my fill of fun at the church.”Arthur raised a blonde eyebrow and smirked at me. “You, had your fill? That’s a new one.”“Just beer, Arthur,” I sighed.Smiling, Arthur searched under the bar, and he surfaced with a crystal glass that he placed in front of me. Then he turned toward the mirror, looking over the shelves of bottles until he found one with a familiar clear liquid inside. He turned back around to face me and poured out a shot in the glass he’d set out for me. “Gin, then. Won’t have you drinking that swill they serve the men.”There was something about Arthur selecting my choice of drink that pleased the omega inside. I had read as a child that alphas liked to take care of their omegas in other ways besides sexually. Feeding an omega satisfied the primal instinct of an alpha to provide for his omega, and I guessed that extended to my drinks by the way Arthur watched me press the glass of gin to my lips and take a small sip.When I had taken my drink, Arthur nodded to himself and turned back to the bottles, picking out Tommy’s favorite brand of Irish whiskey and bringing out another glass for himself. Watching Arthur, his strong shoulders flexing beneathi his suit jacket, his crooked gait as he walked the space behind the bar, his large hands stretching around his whiskey bottle and his glass, I forgot all about Harry in the snug with Tommy.“Did you always want to own a pub, Arthur?”Arthur shook his head, furrowing his lips so that his moustache almost fully covered his mouth. “Dreamt it.”I snorted, exhaling cigarette smoke through my nose like a dragon. “You dreamt it?”Arthur grinned and nodded. “Yeah, dreamt it one night in France in the tunnels. Woke up talking about it. Talked about it so much I think poor Jeremiah woulda clocked me over the head with his Bible if he thought it would shut me up.”“Jeremiah?” I inhaled a long draw of my cigarette and blew it above Arthur’s head, where it curled and rose to the high ceiling of the pub.Arthur shot back his whiskey and reached toward the bottle to pour himself another. “Aye, Jeremiah Jesus. You snuck right in with us Peaky lads I forgot you don’t know us all yet.”I flicked my cigarette into the ashtray atop the bar. “You don’t talk much about the war. Or anything, really. I try to learn by watching you all, but there’s only so much I can gather.”Arthur nodded, his lips curling downward into an almost-frown. “I’ll tell ya then, ‘cause Tommy won’t. John might if it’s you that asks him.”I perched my hand against the bar and used my other to sip my gin. “You don’t have to tell me, Arthur.”Arthur knocked back his second shot. “It was me, Tommy, and John. Danny Whizz-bang, who you know, earned his nickname in the war. Jeremiah, he’s a street preacher now, hear that? And Barney Thompson, poor lad, certified insane and ended up at the asylum. Still down there. I write him.”“And you volunteered?” I asked, thinking of my mother and my brothers, who had been the only ones in the camp to take up the king’s call.Arthur’s hand was on the whiskey bottle, and he hesitated in pouring his third drink, frowning fully. “Yeah, Ruby girl, that’s the damned thing, isn’t it? We all bloody volunteered.”I wanted to offer a secret to Arthur in return, some small piece of myself to supplement the vulnerability he had shown me, but Tommy opened up the door of the snug. Harry walked past the bar, his head down and his eyes on the floor, looking at everything but as as he wrung his hands in his white waist apron and disappeared into the back room.Tommy lingered beside my barstool but didn’t sit, and I would have thought him guiltless but for the subtle sag of his shoulders that told me the crown he wore was often too heavy for him to carry alone. “We’ll start drawing up the paperwork tomorrow.”“How did he take it?” I raised my glass to my lips and gulped down the remaining gin.Tommy appraised me with his eyes, and I wondered if he was judging my sharp tongue or my intelligence or the fact I hadn’t protested when he ripped out my friend’s business from under his feet. “Badly.”“You’ll keep him employed?” I asked, lighting another cigarette. “Pay him well?”Tommy raised a dark brow. “Did you want to be in the room, Ruby?”I shook my head, blowing out smoke through my mouth. “Couldn’t stand to be there for it.”Tommy ran a hand over his face, telling me that he wished he hadn’t been, but all he said was, “I’ll take care of your friend, Ruby.”Arthur gestured to Tommy with his bottle of whiskey. “Drink, Tom?”“No.” Tommy’s arm snagged my waist. “Got a surprise just for Ruby, now.”“For me?” My voice lightened against my will, and I felt guilty for the balloon of happiness that filled in my stomach and the way my heart fluttered in its cage when I had just enabled Harry to lose his business to my alphas.Then Tommy smiled, and his eyes softened as he looked at me. “Yes, Ruby,” he said, as if he wished it was all he could ever say to me.Arthur shrugged, pouring himself another drink, and I rose from my seat with Tommy’s arm around my waist. I let him guide me through the pub to the back door, and he opened it for me so that I could step outside into the back alley, my boots squishing against the mud. Tommy pulled me back to his side, leading me to where the family car was parked.“Shit, Tommy,” I cursed in Romani, walking two steps out of his reach toward one of the car’s flat tires. “Someone –”“Ruby, come here.” Tommy’s voice was flat and cold, and I looked up from the tire just as a copper dressed in full uniform, missing only his hat, walked forward out of the hazy shadow of the alley.I stepped back into Tommy’s waiting arm, and he hooked his hand around my hip, holding me to his side protectively.The copper was almost as tall as Tommy and two sizes his width, but he held the weight well, as if his large bones were designed to hold the weight. He had a working man’s leather skin, and lips that naturally turned downward into a coy frown like he knew something that we didn’t. He was a blonde man with his hair properly combed back, exposing two elfish ears standing at attention beside two dark brown eyes that even a whore might have fallen into. His eyes were his only sincere feature, the rest of him hooked and hawkish like a bird of prey.“Bloody kids,” the copper said, referring to the flat tire. His sharp brown eyes lingered too long on my red hair. “Think the other one’s punctured as well.”Tommy shuffled his stance wider, one of his long legs pressing tight against my own. His hand held tighter to my hip as if he was reminding himself that he couldn’t start a fight in the alley without putting me in danger.“Mr. Campbell wants an explanation,” the copper continued. “Today. Some rebel-rousing union man brought the BSA out on strike. Freddie Thorne.”I reached into my trousers and pulled out my cigarette case. I fingered two cigarettes, lit one for Tommy, and passed it to him. He accepted the cigarette, eyes never leaving the copper’s, and placed it between his lips, inhaling until the embers burnt through the tip. I pressed my own cigarette to my mouth, inhaling desperately, dizzy for the smoke like I had just surfaced from the ocean and it was the only air I could breathe. I could feel Tommy beside me, coming to the same conclusion that I had – Polly hadn’t managed to run Freddie out of town with her money and her train ticket, and it was Tommy’s deal on the line now.“I thought you promised he wouldn’t come back,” said the copper.Tommy nodded as he said, “I know he’s in town. I’m dealing with it.”“Mr. Campbell thought you controlled these territories.”Tommy’s fingers strengthened against my hip. “Yeah.” He leaned forward toward the copper, emphasizing his next words. “I said I’m dealing with it.”The copper looked down the alley, looked back at Tommy. “I heard that, er, Freddie married your sister.”I looped my arm behind Tommy’s back, under his suit jacket, my thumb looping through one of his beltloops. I raised my cigarette to my lips and inhaled slowly, purposefully, reminding myself to breathe, reminding myself that this was Tommy’s game and I couldn’t pull the knife from my boot and slice the copper’s throat open for threatening Ada.“Some family you’ve got, eh? Bet you can’t wait for Christmas.” The copper’s brown eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Deliver Freddie Thorne to us, or we’ll take your sister in as an accomplice. She’ll get four years for sedition. Or you can turn him in. And your sister goes free.”Tommy stared, and I stared, and together we might have flayed the copper alive in his uniform with our eyes if he had not stood there, smiling as he delivered a threat to the king of Birmingham.“I’ll say goodnight then, Tom. Red Ruby.”Tommy’s hand tightened like a fist on my waist, so hard it hurt, and we watched the copper turn on his booted heel and walk out of the alley.

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“Tommy.”He walked out of my arms before I finished saying his name. He strode down the alleyway in the direction the copper had left, and I followed him past the family car, picking my pace up into a half-run as I tried to catch up with him.“Tommy!”I reached out and grasped his arm, and he turned himself out of my grip, but I had reached him now, and I was not letting him go. I jumped in front of his path, placing my hands on his shoulders to keep him in place, to stop the ceaseless momentum that was Tommy Shelby.“Tommy, no.”“Let go of me, Ruby.” His voice was deep like silk, but cold, oh, so cold, like he had cut off his heart at the sleeve when he heard Ada’s name leave the copper’s mouth.“No!” I shoved him backward, and he stumbled back one step, his ocean eyes sparking with something like surprise and something like danger. “No, Tommy, I won’t, not so you can go off and kill the only man Ada’s truly loved.”“I’m doing this for her.” Tommy tried to step around me, but I blocked his path until we were chest to chest, face to face, eye to eye.“Are you, Tommy? Are you thinking about Ada right now?”“Yes,” he snapped, but he didn’t try to move around me again, just stood there, watching me, calculating me with those ocean eyes that seemed to know the very path of the earth in the universe.“Then think!” I reached up and tapped his temple, just below his peaky cap. “Think about what this will do to her, to her unborn child, because that’s real, Tommy, that’s your pack, that’s your sister and your nephew, he’s your fam –”“He’s not my family,” Tommy said coldly. “Ada is my family.”“I’m fighting for Ada!” I shouted, and I clutched his face in my hands, and we stared at one another, pleading green-brown into steely green-blue. “We’re on the same side, Tommy, so please, please, fight with me, fight for her.”“I’m fighting, Ruby,” Tommy said, and his voice was cold, and there was something in his tone that told me he couldn’t see the hope that I could see, didn’t trust in chances like a gypsy but in gambles like a man.“Thomas, please,” I said, and this time there was a whine in my voice, high and subtle, but enough to make Tommy flench. “I’ve seen them, all three of them, together, Ada on the birthing bed, Freddie holding his son. You can’t rip that away from them, you can’t take that from them, please.”The ocean in Tommy’s eyes froze over. “I’ll do what I have to do, Ruby.”Numb with fear, my hands dropped from Tommy’s face, and he rounded my body and stalked out of the alleyway. It was a long moment, too long, before I could move my legs to go after him. By the time I surfaced from the alley, Tommy was halfway down Garrison Lane, marching like a sergeant major with a mission from the king himself, and I supposed it was because he was the king now, and I wasn’t sure how long I could wear the crown of his queen if it meant Freddie’s blood on my hands.Emotion crashed like a tsunami over my body, covering me in icy chills that soaked through my underclothes with sweat. I walked on deadened limbs back into The Garrison, holding onto the wall with my hand because it was the only thing keeping me from slipping from this world to the next. I stopped inside the entrance, sagging my back against the wall as I tried to remember how to breathe, but I couldn’t remember because my heartbeat raged against its cage, and blood filled my ears, and the chatter of drunk men screamed through my head until it split open.“Too loud,” I muttered. Too loud to think, too loud to breathe.Arthur hovered in front of me, his blue eyes watery like rainy skies, and I clung onto him as my knees gave out, and he brought me in his arms to the floor, shouting something over my head, and the men in the pub rushed out, and Arthur was holding me, Arthur and not Tommy because Tommy had gone to kill Freddie Thorne and I had done nothing to stop him, nothing, nothing, nothing, and nothing and everything coursed through my veins, and I was nothing, I was nothing, I was nothing because I had done nothing to stop this.“Ruby. Ruby girl, breathe, alright?”I opened my mouth and gasped in a breath, and it filled my lungs like liquid, and I coughed because I was drowning in nothing, nothing, nothing.“That’s it, you’ve got it.”I had never heard Arthur’s purr before, and it was an uneven, growling purr that shook through his body into mine, and I sank fully onto the ground, rapidly sucking in air, in and out and in and out like I was finally remembering I needed oxygen to survive.“All right, there, gypsy girl, breathe.”My vision swam, but I held onto Arthur’s shoulders, looking wildly into his eyes. “Tommy’s gonna kill Freddie.”Arthur’s blonde brow knitted together. “Our Freddie?” He shook his head. “No, Tommy wouldn’t –”But Arthur had helped me regain my senses, and I stood from the floor, pulling Arthur to his feet with me. The Garrison was empty except for Harry lingering at the bar, and I paced between the vacant tables, pulling another cigarette from my case and lighting it between my lips. “I told you, Arthur, Freddie’s part of Tommy’s deal. There was a copper outside, slashed Tommy’s tires, told him if he doesn’t get Freddie out of town, he’ll arrest Ada for sedition, she’ll have the baby behind bars, Arthur, and Tommy won’t – can’t let that happen – he’ll do anything, Arthur, understand? Anything.”Arthur combed his fingers through his mustache, nodding, and I watched the cogs in his head slowly turning. “Alright. Alright, gypsy girl, I hear you.”I walked back the length of The Garrison to stand in front of Arthur. “Arthur, I need you to get John. You two know Tommy best, know where he might go to meet Freddie. If anyone can find them, it’s you two.”Arthur nodded. His face was shadowed, firm, as if he was ready to step out onto the battlefield. “And you, what’ll you do, Ruby girl?”“If you find Tommy or Freddie, call back to Watery Lane, I’ll circle back there,” I said. “Arthur, go! We don’t have time.”Arthur nodded once to show me that he understood his part of the plan, and then he left The Garrison, and I watched his lopsided swagger as he rushed from the pub.I turned to Harry. “You heard everything?”“What I needed to,” Harry said. “And what I don’t need to, I’ll forget.”“Good.” I inhaled a long draw of my cigarette and blew it out quickly. “Need you to stay here in case Tommy comes back. Call Watery if you hear anything.”“Aye, Ruby.”With my cigarette between my lips, I started to push through the second set of doors that led into the pub.“And Ruby?” Harry called after me. “Be careful.”I didn’t respond as I left The Garrison. I walked, and remembered Ada, and walked faster, and remembered Freddie, and I ran, ran down Garrison Lane until the wind whipped past me and I could see nothing but the street in front of me and hear nothing but the blood in my ears and feel nothing but the dread of Freddie’s death at Tommy’s hands, andI ran straight into a woman who smelled like apples and lemon and perfume and pepper, and I took a step back, raising my eyes to meet Ada’s terrified green eyes. She was dressed in a loose blue dress that hung around the bulge of her pregnant stomach, and her tan, fur-lined coat hung open around her, clearly having been dawned in a rush.“Ru!” Ada panted. She held her swollen stomach in her hands, bending halfway over to squeeze breath into her lungs. “Have you seen Freddie? Tommy?”I wrapped my arm around Ada’s shoulders, helping to hold her up as she gasped against the brick corner of Garrison and Watery. “Okay, Ada, breathe, the cramps will pass.”“No, we have to find them,” Ada said. “I think they’re gonna kill each other.”Fear like ice sharpened through my spine. I hadn’t even considered that Freddie would kill Tommy, but the more that I thought about it, the more the ice spread like cancer through my limbs, infecting me until I was almost trembling with it.I rubbed Ada’s back up and down, my mind far, far away. “Breathe now, Freddie’s not dead yet. If he’s dead, I would know it.”Ada looked at me sharply. “Are you sure? Ruby, are you sure?”I closed my eyes. I willed my heartbeat to slow, willed my breathing to an even pace, and I reached out to Freddie Thorne through the land in between. I found Tommy’s thread, too, tugging on it until I was almost sure he could feel me. Freddie wasn’t there on the other side, and neither was Tommy, only one empty space where one of them might have been.I opened my eyes. “Yes,” I breathed out. “Yes, I’m sure.”“You saw Tommy?” Ada stood straighter now, her breath coming in deeper, slower pants.I nodded. “Copper came to The Garrison, threatened you in place of Freddie. I was with him.”“Fuck!” Ada stomped her shoe against the ground. “Fuck, Ru, what’re we gonna do? We have to find them.”“Ada, I sent Arthur to fetch John, they’re going to check Tommy and Freddie’s haunts. Harry’s keeping an eye on The Garrison in case Tommy comes back.” I took in a deep breath. “You’re not gonna like this, Ada, but all we can do now is wait. I need you to go back to the safehouse and wait for Freddie to come home.”“What? I can’t – Ru, I can’t just sit around waiting for my brother to kill my husband.”I set both of my hands on Ada’s shoulders, looking into her eyes. “I told him, Ada. I told Tommy what you would want, I told him it’s not this, that he can’t do this to you, that it will ruin you, I know. So I need you to trust me, that I talked sense into him, that I got to him, because we don’t have a choice right now.”Ada sucked in a sharp breath. She said softly, quietly, as if she was afraid to say it, “You couldn’t stop him?”“I tried, Ada, I fucking shoved him, I – but he – you know Tommy – it’s not an excuse, Ada, I’m sorry, but we have to go back home and wait for them now.”Finally, Ada nodded. “Right. You go back to Watery, and I go back to the Brum, and we wait until our men come back from the war.”I squeezed Ada’s shoulders. “We have to trust them now, Ada.”Ada and I parted at the intersection of Watery Lane and Garrison Lane. I walked back down Watery alone, trying to soothe my nerves so that I could reach past myself into the world beyond our own, tugging on strings of souls by the thin red thread that linked us all together, hoping every second that I wouldn’t find an end loose on the other side.I didn’t have a key to Tommy’s apartment, so I used a spare hairpin to pick the lock. The apartment was eerie when it was empty. Dust had settled on the couch from lack of use, and I walked through it toward the kitchen, unsurprised to find the chairs tucked tidily in place and the liquor cabinet left open. I trodded up the stairs, placing my feet carefully in the worn wood Tommy had walked up and down so many times before. There were three bedrooms upstairs, and I searched through all of them until I opened the door to a room that smelled like green earth and rain.Tommy’s bedroom was a small room packed with simple furniture, and his opium kit lay open on his nightstand just like mine did. The bed creaked when I sat on it, and I picked up Tommy’s pipe, wondering how many nights we smoked ourselves to sleep in separate bedrooms.I had told Ada to trust Tommy, to trust Freddie, to trust that her brother and her husband would restrain themselves from killing each other. I had made her believe I had talked Tommy down from the ledge, but I knew that I hadn’t, that Tommy would do whatever he felt was right because he always did, and I had done… what?Nothing. I had done nothing because I was powerless against my alpha’s rage.Polly and I had taken a chance, had believed we could get Freddie out of town by pure will alone, and I had known, I had fucking known that it wouldn’t work.I reached out to Freddie, tugged on his red string. I reached out to Tommy, followed the red line to his beating red heart. I reached out to the ghosts, praying to the ancestors that they would hear my cries and take pity on me. For Ada’s sake, Freddie couldn’t die. For my own, Tommy couldn’t either.I took Tommy’s opium pipe in my hand and opened up his tin of resin. Using his flat tool, I scooped a glob of resin onto the pipe. I lit the flame and held the resin end of the pipe to the flame, inhaling a long drag of the opium. I took several long inhales of the sweet opium smoke before setting the pipe aside and falling back onto the bed, closing my eyes. I didn’t smoke to forget – I smoked to know because the opium brought me closer to the other side until I was peering through a little window, sticking my head out of the it until I could taste the death, hoping I wouldn’t find Freddie’s or Tommy’s among the passing souls.I didn’t. And I didn’t. And I didn’t, no matter how many times I checked or how much I smoked.Freddie isn’t dead. Tommy isn’t dead.I repeated it like a mantra in my head every other second, reminding myself like it wouldn’t be true the moment I discovered it was.Freddie isn’t dead. Tommy isn’t dead. Freddie isn’t dead. Tommy isn’t dead. Freddie isn’t dead. Tommy –The front door to Watery Lane creaked open. I shot up from the bed, racing out of the room to the top of the staircase. Tommy stood at the bottom, halfway in the doorway, two hands around a pistol pointed up the stairs in the direction of my padding feet.“You’re alive,” I whispered, and my voice was hoarse and high from the smoke, carrying down the stairs until Tommy recognized my dulcet tones and lowered his gun. “You didn’t kill him.”I knew, but it was a question anyway because I didn’t understand why with no options left, Tommy would leave Freddie alive.Tommy holstered his pistol beneath his open suit jacket. He walked slowly up the stairs, taking them one at a time, several steps creaking under his weight as he walked up them toward me. I backed up to give him space on the landing, but he reached the hallway and pressed his hands against my cheeks, staring into my eyes as if I could show him exactly what he wanted to see.“You said we’re all fighting on the same side.” His voice was deep and dark and deadly as if he had seen the devil himself and lived to tell the tale. “Can you show me? That future you saw for Ada, can you show it to me?”“I… I don’t know,” I said softly, truthfully.Tommy’s thumbs stroked my cheeks, and the ocean was shifting in his eyes again, no longer frozen and still. “I need to see it, Ruby. I need to know it’s real.”I placed my hands over his. He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead down to touch mine, and I closed my own. I reached into the future, tugging on the strands of souls that were Ada and Freddie and Karl Thorne, searching in my mind’s eye for that sliver of future I had seen of the three. I collected it in my palms like it was a real, tangible thing and pushed it into Tommy’s skin, and he gasped, and I opened my eyes to watch his flutter beneath his lids, tracking the vision play out like a picture. Then he opened his eyes again, and when he looked at me, it was like he was looking at the whole heavens.“You were right,” he murmured. “You’re always right.”I shook my head back and forth, taking his hands from my face to hold in my own. “No, I wasn’t right, Tommy, to let you go alone.”“I didn’t give you a choice.”“I always have a choice,” I said, breathing the truth across his mouth.Tommy’s ocean eyes lingered on my slightly parted lips. He dipped his head until our mouths were a hair’s breadth apart, and he looked directly into my eyes as he murmured like he knew for the first time, “You chose me.”“I will always choose you,” I whispered, and I kissed him, and the ocean met the shore, the ceaseless current of his tongue meeting with the beach of my lips, and I knew that it was the truth, that I would always choose Tommy, over and over again, above myself, above my better judgment because I had none other than my alphas.My hands ran beneath Tommy’s open jacket, over his vest and shirt, seeking the warmth of his beating heart as my own galloped in my chest. I stepped forward between his legs, pressing him back against the wall until our bodies melded in a mix of clothes and warmth. Tommy dropped one of his hands to roam down the side of my body, over the curve of my breasts and the narrow dip of my waist and the bend of my hips. His other held fast to my face, forcing me closer than ever until I tasted and breathed only Tommy’s green cologne.I turned my head to the side, gasping for air, and Tommy pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth. He kissed my cheek gently, and then my eye, which fluttered closed under his breath. He kissed my forehead, and then he lifted my face again to look at me with darkened, half-lidded blue-green eyes that shone like crystals in the dim light of the flat.“You’re alive,” I whispered. I had thought him almost a ghost before, but now, solid beneath my clinging hands, stoking fire on my skin with his lips, I knew that he was alive, and he was mine. “Tommy, I need you now.”“I know,” Tommy said, and he kissed me again, and his lips were perfect, and he was perfect, and I wanted to be one with him, exist with him, all for him.Tommy’s kiss was firm, his lips soft like velvet and wet with my saliva as I drew my tongue across his bottom lip. He parted his mouth, and his tongue met mine, and our tongues warred like fire and ice until ice conquered, and he slipped his tongue past my puffy lips into the warm, wet cave of my mouth. He tasted like green, like mint and earth and rain and tobacco, and I opened up for him, letting him taste my honey and vanilla and amber and frankincense as it spread around me, coating the air in a thick syrupy perfume.Tommy’s cock was hard within his pants, and he pressed against my naval at attention, and I rubbed into the pressure. I dropped one of my hands from his chest to paw at him over his clothes, adoring the way he throbbed against the palm of my hand.Tommy caught my wrist in his hand, drawing it to the side. “No, Ruby.”“Tommy –” I whined, but he kissed me again, supple velvet drawing my whine into a soft, pleading moan that he drank into the green expanse of his mouth. He made a possessive noise in the back of his throat, something close to a growl, and pressed against my back with his hand until my chest pushed against into his, and I arched into him, stretching on my toes into the kiss until I lost myself in the green pastures and open skies of freedom itself.The phone rang downstairs, and I broke away from Tommy, gasping, remembering, “Ada –”Tommy kissed me, a lingering kiss that drew close our bodies like two puzzle pieces glued together, and it took all of my effort to dip from his kiss, and still he didn’t release me. “Tommy,” I panted. “Ada’s calling. She’ll want to know you’re all right.”Tommy’s pale lips pressed together, swollen and wet with our kisses. He regarded me with guileful ocean eyes, then glanced toward the open bedroom door behind me. “Go into my bedroom and strip. Wait on the bed.”I didn’t know what to say, but Tommy waited as if expecting an answer. Nerves fluttered through my body, and I murmured, blushing, “Alright, Tommy.”Tommy seemed to accept that because he turned and began walking down the stairs. I retreated to his bedroom.Standing next to the small bed, I fumbled to untuck my white undershirt from my trousers. I released myself from the shirt first, unbuttoning it and stripping it from my shoulders. I felt embarrassed throwing the shirt onto the bed and mixing it with the sheets like it was a nest, but there was something so familiar and comforting about it that I couldn’t help myself. The bedroom smelled like Tommy’s earthy scent, and I wanted my honey mixed into the nest so that everything smelled like both of us, like us together until our scents were indistinguishable and we would never smell like only ourselves again.My heart beat rapidly against my chest like a bird’s heartbeat, like a bird stuck in a cage with a cat, except the cat had gone downstairs to take a phone call with his sister while I unlooped my belt from my trousers and dropped my pants to my feet. Cursing in Romani, I bent at the waist to untie my shoes and kick them from my feet so that I could slip the trousers from my body. I slipped off my bloomers and underwear, and last my brassiere, suddenly shivering and bare in Tommy’s bedroom.I sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping my arms around my breasts as gooseflesh rose on my skin. I felt vulnerable sitting naked on Tommy’s bed, my wet cunt pressed to his sheets where my slick stained the white blankets even when Tommy had hardly touched me at all. I sat and waited, swallowing my heart until it dropped to my stomach and my nerves vibrated with anticipation.The stairs creaked as Tommy ascended the rickety wooden staircase, and I made an effort to uncross my arms from my body so that I might appear more relaxed. Tommy entered the room, and he wasn’t wearing his suit jacket or his vest anymore, just his thinly striped white shirt buttoned up at the collar. His lean hands worked at the buttons, and I stood, wanting to touch him, feel his warmth, feel anything but alone as I sat on his bed in the nude.“Ruby, sit down,” Tommy commanded.I sat, folding my hands nervously in my lap to cover my glistening pussy even as I rolled my hips into the bed for some sort of friction.Tommy’s hands worked at his buttons, peeling open his shirt to reveal the strong muscles of his chest and the tattoo like the sun on his left peck. He never took his eyes off my body, wandering past my bruises and scars like they were only a part of me. Blue-green stuck on the shine of my red hair, my blown-out pupils, the puff of my parted lips, the hollow of my throat, the curve of my shoulders, the pebbling of my nipples in the cool air. “Lie down against the pillows, Ruby. Show me how you touch yourself.”My face flushed red, but I pushed myself into the pillows at the headboard of the bed and rested against them, splaying my legs out in below of me. I let one hand meander over one breast, running my pert nipple through my fingers. The other I slunk between my breasts, down the taut stretch of my flat stomach, between my hips toward the apex of my thighs.“Is this what you want to see, Tommy?” I murmured, and my voice was small and soft, softer than it had ever been in my life as I submitted to my alpha’s will.“Yes, you’re a good girl, Ruby,” Tommy told me as if that was what I had asked, and I didn’t care that it wasn’t, because Tommy calling me a good girl made me so wet I thought I would drown in the puddle pooling beneath me.Tommy neared the bed and tossed his shirt into the makeshift nest I had made of it. I had never seen Tommy fully shirtless, and I drank him in with my eyes, catching the strength of his shoulders, the sculpted muscles of his arms, the star tattoo on his right upper arm, the thick slab of muscle on his torso that straightened the angular curve of his hips. His hands found his belt, and my fingers found my folds, slicking my pre-cum over my clit as I rubbed a star-shaped pattern against the sensitive nub and pressed my head back into the sheets, biting my lip to keep a small, soft sound from escaping my mouth.“No, Ruby,” Tommy said again, and my heart leapt out of my chest, and I stopped the movements of my hand. Tommy was gazing at the shimmering curls of red hair pressed against my palm and lower toward my cunt. “Let me hear you. Say ‘yes, Tommy’ to that.”“Yes, Tommy,” I breathed, and with his command, I renewed the circling of my fingers around my sensitive clit, letting slip a little whine as pleasure built low in my abdomen.“Good girl.” Tommy’s silky voice mixed with the pleasure of my fingers made my eyes flutter closed as I gasped another short, light moan. “Open your eyes, Ruby. Look at me.”My eyes snapped open, and I took in Tommy’s half-naked form, his hands buttoning down his trousers. He pushed his pants and shorts down his legs and kicked them off, and his cock fell free, and I moaned when I saw him. He was longer than John and thicker than Arthur, and I wondered how he would possibly fit inside me and at the same time craved him filling me up, and I picked up the pace with my fingers, riding my hand as a tingling pleasure rose and rose like a balloon in my abdomen.Tommy walked to the bed, his cock bobbing with every step, and the bed dipped and squeaked as he sat next to me, the bare skin of his arse brushing against my hip. He leaned over me, so close I thought he would kiss me, but he watched every detail of my face as I touched myself, and my cheeks flushed but I didn’t stop because I was imagining his hands on me, and then he leaned down to my lips and whispered, “Stop,” just as I thought I would come.“Fuck,” I swore, and Tommy stole my wrist in his and pressed my fingers, slick with my almost-cum, into his mouth. His blue-green eyes gazed half-lidden with lust into mine as he swirled his tongue around my fingers, and oh, I didn’t regret not orgasming because I thought I might when he flicked his tongue against the pads of my fingers, and his lips parted just slightly to accept my fingers into his mouth down to the knuckle, and his tongue swirled again around and between my fingers before he withdrew them from his mouth.“Do you know you taste like heaven?” Tommy asked, and he expected an answer, because he was watching my mouth as he intertwined our hands over his legs.“Please,” I whimpered, bucking my hips into the empty air. One of my hands found Tommy’s bare skin, running up his tattooed arm, over his shoulder, and down his chest, exploring every inch of skin that I could reach.Tommy leaned forward, and I wrapped my free arm around his neck, pulling him down to my lips. Instead of kissing me, he hovered over my mouth, his eyes raking down my lust-filled face and wide, blown-out eyes. “When you want something, you ask for it, Ruby.”My face reddened again, and I stumbled over my words, unused to having to use them when I assumed we both wanted the same thing. But I knew, instinctively, how Tommy wanted me to address him, and I wanted it, too, wanted him to flex his overwhelming control over every part of me. “Please, alpha, kiss me,” I whispered.Tommy’s lips pressed to mine firmly, and I slipped my tongue past his lips, wanting to explore the cavern of his mouth, but his tongue crashed against mine, and there was no war this time because the sweet honey of my taste bloomed across my tongue, and I moaned as it mixed with the green grass of Tommy’s taste as he licked into my mouth, filling it with his tongue until my breath caught in my throat.Remembering Tommy’s request, I turned my head from his kiss and begged, “Tommy, please, touch me, I need your fingers.”Tommy pressed kisses along my jaw until he reached my ear, and he licked a stripe up the shell, and I shivered and bucked my hips into empty space. He shifted slightly, and his hand around my wrist released me to glide between my thighs. “I’ll touch you, Ruby, but you can’t come.”Tommy’s lips captured the lobe of my ear in his mouth. His larger finger pressed just right against my clit, pressing and releasing in a ceaseless tapping rhythm that made the balloon of pleasure inside tighten bit by bit, and I felt myself clench around nothing, and I remembered that I had done nothing and Tommy could have died but he was alive in my arms, and I curled my hand in his dark hair, dipping him further into my throat until he sucked against my scent gland.“Don’t be gentle, alpha,” I begged him, and I didn’t need to tell him again because his canines ripped through my scent gland and I hissed through my teeth, and my hiss turned to a moan because he pressed against my clit with a firm pressure and glided his finger in a circle around the nub. His teeth dug into my scent gland, sparking pain like fire across my skin, and then his lips were there, sucking the blood from my wound like it was honey, and it probably was because my smooth honey perfume pervaded the air, mixing with the earth and the green of Tommy’s arousal.“Tommy,” I whimpered, rolling my hips against his hand, chasing the pleasure that blew through me like hot air. “Please, I’m going to come.”“Don’t come,” Tommy growled, and I clenched my every muscle, trying to freeze the wave of pleasure as it crested deep inside.I writhed against Tommy’s hand, and his index finger pressed just right, too hard, against my clit, and I let out a loud moan, pleading, “Please, Tommy, please, I can’t –”“Don’t come, Ruby,” Tommy demanded, but his index finger didn’t stop rolling against my clit, and he bit into my scent gland again, tearing it to nothing but blood and scent that dripped down my throat. He sunk his teeth beneath my scent gland, indenting his mark on my skin without drawing blood, without marking me permanently, and for the first time I wanted it, wanted that eternal bitemark that would tether us to each other forever, wanted it more than the orgasm that threatened to breach through my nerves, but Tommy bit into my throat again and again, satisfying some part of me because all I could think was“Yes, yes, mark me, alpha, I’m yours.”Tommy switched to the other side of my throat, biting and sucking so hard I knew it would bruise harder than Arthur’s marks, and I wanted it to, wanted him to cover me with his bruises until every part of me ached for him, because of him, and I did because I was trying not to come and it almost hurt because it was washing through my veins like liquor, like opium, like snow, and I cried, “Tommy, please –”And he lifted his hand from my cunt just as I bucked into him, and instead of coming apart, my hips shifted back onto the bed, and my moan turned into a whine of pleasure washed away, receding like the low tide. I hadn’t realized my eyes were closed until I shot them open, sitting up against the headboard again and staring, wide-eyed, desperate, at Tommy as he surfaced from marking bruises on my neck with a smirk on his face that I had never seen before and wished would never leave his lips.“Tommy,” I whispered, and I realized there were tears of frustration pooling at the edges of my eyes. “Tommy, please.”Tommy made no move to return the delicious pressure to my clit. “Good girl, Ruby.” He raised his fingers, shining with my pre-cum, to my lips, and I parted my mouth to let him slide two fingers deep inside, down to the last knuckle until I almost choked because the tips of his fingers pressed hard against my gag reflex, and I was almost sure he did it on purpose but I didn’t care because he looked at me like he had never seen anything like me before. “I need you to go downstairs and lock the door for me. I don’t want anyone walking in when my face is buried in your cunt. Can you do that, Ruby? Nod your head ‘yes.’”With Tommy’s fingers still lewdly parting my lips, I nodded for him. Tommy’s lips flickered upward, and he slipped his fingers from my mouth, standing until he was no longer touching me and I craved only his touch.“Go now. I’ll be waiting for you.”I hopped from the bed and walked from the room, glancing backward as the bed squeaked under Tommy’s pressure and he settled himself back against the headboard with a cigarette. I walked, naked and breathless and dizzy, down the stairs of the flat to the front door. The window was open, and a woman rushed by, fixing her hair as she swept past. My face flushed red, but I could hardly think past Tommy’s instructions and his promise to bury his face in my pussy. I hurried to lock the door and turned on my heel, rushing back up the stairs and into the bedroom.The moment I stepped inside, I couldn’t breathe. Tommy was stretched out on the sheets, his head propped upward on the headboard. He held a burning cigarette in one hand and his cock in the other, stroking slow, short strokes along his shaft. His blue-green eyes prowled my naked body.“Come here, Ruby.”I walked toward the bed, and Tommy took my arm and drew me over him until I was straddling his hips, his cock pressed against the front of my cunt as I settled over his knot.Tommy shook his head. He discarded his cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand and used his hand to crook his finger upward at me. “No, Ruby. Higher. You’re going to sit on my face.”I blinked, startled. “What? Tommy, I don’t think –”Tommy pressed his hand over my mouth, smothering my words. “If you can’t say, ‘Yes, Tommy,’ then nod.”I nodded, and Tommy released his hand over my mouth, raising an eyebrow at me expectantly. I shimmied up his body, up and up as he pressed himself further down the bed until his breath brushed over my wet pussy. His arms snaked up and around my arse until he was holding me in his hands.“I’m going to make you come, Ruby, and you’re not going to lift your hips again until you’re begging to take my knot. Do you understand?”“Yes, Tommy,” I whispered, barely remembering the words that I was supposed to say.Tommy pressed down on my hips until I was fully seated on his face, and I jumped away from the sudden warmth of his mouth around my swollen cunt, but his hands were there, gripping me downward so that I wiggled against his tongue that lapped through my folds as if he was drinking in my taste, and he was, because his nose was almost buried in the short crop of red curls trimmed above my mound and I wasn’t sure how he could breathe, but he did, and he buried his tongue through my entrance and I keened forward, sinking against the headboard on my elbows and pressing myself so close to Tommy’s mouth that he was truly buried in me, and I looked down at him between my legs, and he was looking up at me with eyes that tyrannized my soul, and my heart and my cunt clenched, and Tommy’s tongue slipped out of my entrance to focus on my clit.I shifted my hips to let Tommy breathe, and one of his hands roved up my body to my throat, where he wrapped his hand lightly around my neck and squeezed.“Yes, Tommy,” I rasped, rolling my hips against his mouth until his tongue enveloped my clit. “Yes, Tommy, please make me come just like that, just like that…”Tommy stretched his fingers around my throat and tightened, and I closed my eyes because all I could see were the stars and the heaven above them as I came undone, and my knees weakened, and I dropped fully onto Tommy’s face, and his teeth scraped against the sensitive nub of my clit.“Alpha, yes yes yes Tommy yes,” I moaned, and Tommy’s hand squeezed tight around my throat until I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t need to breathe because I was with the stars, soaring like a comet on fire, and fire burned straight through me like I was the match itself, and my words cut off with my air, and my mouth popped open and I wailed and came over Tommy’s face. He had told me not to lift my hips, but the pleasure burning through my veins was too much, too much, and I shifted, and he released my throat to put his hands on my hips and shove me back down into his waiting mouth, and Tommy ate me like he was starving and I was the first hot meal he had ever eaten.“Please, I need you inside,” I begged, and Tommy growled into my cunt, and he released one of my hips to drive one finger into my pussy down to the knuckle, and he crooked his finger against my walls, and my knees gave out beneath me until Tommy’s one hand on my arse was all that held me up so he could breathe, and I barely noticed, barely cared because he pulled his finger out and thrust two back through my folds, hitting the soft sensitive bundle of nerves on the inside over and over and over again until I bucked my hips into his mouth with every pump of his fingers inside.“Fuck,” I swore, and the Romani words spilled out before I could even think to switch to English. “Fuck, I’m coming again, Tommy, I’m –”Tommy took a deep breath through his nose and forced me downward until my cunt buried his mouth and nose, and his tongue lapped like fire at my clit, and his fingers crashed in and out, and I sagged against the headboard on my elbows, and when I looked down at Tommy buried in my cunt, he was watching me with blown-out ocean eyes, and my orgasm thrashed through me like the points of a million needles across my skin, and I was nothing but Tommy’s voodoo doll, struck through by his fingers and his mouth and his tongue and his teeth and his lips and his hands, oh his hands, one squeezing my ass and one tightening again around my throat, and I was undone, unraveled by my stitching, pouring out into Tommy’s feasting mouth like the finest liquor to be quaffed.Tommy lifted me just slightly to take a breath before diving into my cunt again, and he closed his eyes, groaning as he ate me out, and I moaned freely, going slack above him as it took every ounce of my strength to keep myself raised just slightly above Tommy’s face because I just kept coming, waves and waves and waves of hot pleasure coursing through me until every muscle spasmed and twitched and I clutched onto Tommy’s pumping fingers with my core, feeling as if I might split apart right then, and I think I did, because without thinking I squirted into Tommy’s mouth, and he groaned as my cum spread across his tongue and trickled over the sides of his face, smearing my thighs as I clutched them tighter and tighter around his head and he bucked into the air where there was nothing to rub against, and I was still coming, but I needed more inside, more filling me up, and I cried, “More, alpha, I need your cock, your knot, please.”Tommy let go of my throat, and his hands clutched at my hips, throwing my weight sideways until I tumbled onto my side beside his head, and Tommy rolled with my movement, unlatching his mouth from my cunt as he pinned me beneath him. His fingers never left my pussy, never stopped their movements, and he scaled my body with his until he was straddling me, and his mouth met mine, and I tasted my cum mixed with his grounding earthy flavor. I didn’t stop coming, couldn’t stop coming, because the pearly gates had opened and I rushed through them on Satan’s black steed, racing like the pleasure that ran through my very blood.“C-Can’t,” I whimpered against Tommy’s firm mouth, and tears blurred my vision at the edges, and I floated high above myself on wings or clouds I wasn’t sure, wasn’t sure of anything except that the pleasure didn’t stop, that it burnt through my veins like a raging city on fire, and I was the city, and I was on fire, and I was burning, burning, burning.Tommy’s hand found my throat, cutting off my cries, and he growled, “You look so much better with my hand around your throat.”I wanted to scream yes, yes, yes, and my mouth formed the words but no sound came out because my vision was blurry from tears and lack of oxygen, and I clutched onto Tommy’s arms with weak hands because he was the only thing that bound me to the earth, and he was the earth, and I was the stars blooming and dieing around him. I shook beneath him, moaning broken syllables into his velvet lips as he kissed me, murmuring to me in Romani that I hadn’t realized we’d been speaking in.“That’s it, my sweet, beautiful girl,” Tommy said in a voice as soft as bamboo silk, coaxing me forward as the torrential orgasm shook through my limbs. “Good girl, Ruby, you’re doing so well for me, sweet thing.”I trembled beneath Tommy, my legs shaking beneath his, my small hands trembling around his arm, and his fingers slowed, and his grip subsided, and his kiss hardened, and I got lost in Tommy’s kiss as he eased me through the afterquakes of the hardest orgasm I’d ever experienced in my life. Finally, finally, finally, with Tommy’s hands on my body, he helped me stitch myself back up until I was gasping, panting into his shoulder, clutching my arms around him to bring him closer, closer, until our flushed bare bodies were pressed together like two broken pieces fitted together.Tommy relinquished my neck from his tight grip and slipped his fingers from my sopping cunt to hover over me, stroking my hair back from my face, which was sticky with sweat. “I’m going to fuck you now, Ruby. Say ‘yes, Tommy’ to that.”“Yes, Tommy,” I whispered, and my voice was raw and sore. Tears pinched in the corners of my eyes and collected there, and my limbs were loose and featherlight from the high of my orgasms, but I wanted more, needed more, needed Tommy’s knot stuffed tight in my pussy until I couldn’t take any more. “P-Please, Tommy, I need –”Tommy’s hand smothered my mouth, leaving my nose free so that I could breathe, and my eyes widened up at him, and Tommy looked down at me, his dark hair hanging over his forehead in a mess. “Ruby, if you keep begging me like that, I won’t be able to stop fucking you.”And I knew he meant it because Tommy freed my mouth from his hand and used both of his to drag me down the bed toward his cock. Tommy pressed my legs open with his own, and I winced at the sudden tearing pressure down my legs from where I’d fucked Arthur in the morning, but Tommy spread my legs impossibly wide, fitting his body beneath mine until his cock pressed up against my cunt.“Are you going to take my cock like a good girl, Ruby?” Tommy grunted. His hand wrapped around his cock, and he pressed himself to my entrance.“Yes, Tommy,” I whimpered, spreading my legs as wide as I could for his easy access. “Yes, Tommy, I – fuuuck.”Tommy pressed himself inside, and my cunt stretched wide to accommodate him, and I realized with a start that Tommy’s was the biggest cock I had ever taken, and I for a split second I was afraid that he might really hurt me, but he slid his cock in an inch further, brushing right up against the button of pleasure at the front of my walls, and I clenched tight around him, and he stilled inside me, and I was wrapped so tightly around him that I felt his cock throb with his erratic heartbeat, the only composure lost even in our throws of passion and the connection of our bodies.Tommy leaned over my body, caging me in with both of his arms so that I was safely enveloped by him, and his breath brushed against my ear as he said, “All you have to say is, ‘No, Tommy,’ and I’ll stop. Say ‘yes, Tommy,’ so I know you understand.”“Yes, Tommy,” I gasped, and he slid himself further into my pussy.“Good girl,” Tommy breathed, and he kissed me, and I arched off of the bed to meet his lips, and he pushed himself further into my cunt, and I clenched around him, gripping his strong arms with my small hands. “You’re such a good girl for me, Ruby.”“Yes, Tommy, please,” I whispered, rising my hips to slide him further into my stretched-out pussy. “Please, I need you.”“I know, Ruby,” Tommy said, and he held one of my hips in his hands as he buried himself hilt-deep in my clenching cunt, and I took a sharp inhale, feeling the fullest I had ever felt in my life and oh, I wanted it, I wanted all of him, everything he could give me, and Tommy withdrew slowly from me, pushing back in just as slowly so I could feel every fucking inch of his thick cock impaling me.“You’re going to ask permission when you need to come,” Tommy told me in his voice like silk. “Repeat that back to me so I know you understand.”“I’m –” I let out a little whine as Tommy started to pull his cock back through my folds. “I’m gonna ask –” My breath hitched. “ – ask you when I n-need to come.”Tommy snapped his hips forward, embedding his cock against my cervix, and I stretched and strained to fit my walls around him even as I clutched him tighter, and he felt so full, so impossibly fucking full that I almost felt he was too big, but I wanted him, all of him, and I didn’t care that it ached because pleasure thrummed through my walls like a second heartbeat, and there was the the third, in his chest pressed against mine as he dragged his hips in and out so slowly I could feel everything and I almost begged him to go faster, harder, and then he was, and I almost begged him to stop because I felt I was overflowing, I was water overfilled in the glass, pouring over, running across the table, flooding the house, and Tommy plunged through my depths, hitting the little spot inside that made me mewl and keen and arch into his body, and it was almost too much.“Tommy, I’m close,” I wailed, and he pitched into my body at an unrelenting pace, hitting my cervix over and over, riding through my clenched muscles, sliding against my sensitive spot, and I dug my nails into the muscle of his upper arms, moaning with his every thrust inward.“What do you say, Ruby?” Tommy grunted.“C-Can I come?” I barely remembered Tommy’s orders, but I wanted desperately to follow them, to please him, and I know I did, because he propelled himself forward, patterns of muscle flexing with the waves of his hips.“No.” Tommy thrust into my body, and I moaned, trying to capture the sound in my throat as if it would stop the orgasm from pouring out around it.“Please, Tommy,” I begged, panic building along with my orgasm. “Please let me come, let me come –”I liberated a long, high-pitched whine as Tommy stilled all at once inside me. My walls seized around him as my orgasm caught right on the precipice and failed to fall or fly from the edge, and I felt the tears welling, frustrated, in the backs of my eyes, and I looked at Tommy, pleading, “Please, Tommy, please.”Tommy snared my lips with his. He bit my bottom, broken lip and rolled it painfully between his teeth, and I rose my hips, grinding his cock against my cervix, whining desperately for more friction. He drank in my moans, moving his hips painfully slowly, dragging himself out of my body before sheathing himself back inside, and I could feel every throb, every twitch of his cock as he glided torturously in and out of my body.Tommy moved to my neck, nursing the swollen, broken skin of my torn and bleeding scent gland. He prodded it mercilessly with his teeth until he broke the skin again and I felt my blood and scent pool from the wound. “Beg me, Ruby.”“Alpha, please!” I cried, snapping my hips to meet his, but it wasn’t enough because Tommy moved inexplicably slower, and my omega unleashed, and I whined without restraint, “Please fuck me, alpha, harder, faster, please, I need you, please!”Tommy growled, and his hips cracked, and his balls swayed against my ass, and his knot threatened my entrance, and then he withdrew and thrust back in until his cockhead bruised my cervix, and I lifted my hips, meeting him with every thrust until he beat into my fucked-open cunt, and Tommy’s teeth tore at my abused scent gland, and he licked up the blood with his tongue, and he bit my throat, nearly but not quite drawing blood, and he bit me again, over and over with each heavy snap of his hips, and he drove into my cunt, and I clamped around him, squeezing my eyes closed as I felt myself vaulting closer and closer toward the blissful edge.“Please can I come!” I shouted, and my voice mixed with my moans and Tommy’s groans, and the air was filled with our pleased tones and the slapping of skin against skin like music. I felt myself unraveling, and I clenched my walls tighter around Tommy’s strangled cock, and I buried a hand in his hair, and my other wrapped around his back, feeling the ripple of muscle as he thrust into my body over and over. I couldn’t think past trying not to come, and I wasn’t sure what words left my lips but it was something like, “Tommy, alpha, please, let me come, let me come, Tommy, Tommy!” because that was all I could think while I tried to keep the broken pieces of my pleasure in one whole.“Come,” Tommy growled, and he sank his teeth into my throat, and I howled, gripping him into my body as I wrapped my legs around his waist, trying to steady him inside me as I fell apart, and my skin prickled with fire, and pleasure snapped like a wire inside, and I clamped Tommy’s cock with my walls and flew as free as I had ever flown, high above the sky and the clouds and the stars and space into the heavens themselves, and I soared straight over the pearly gates to the seat of god herself where I belonged, because I was the queen, and Tommy was my king, and we sat on thrones made of the bones of our enemies who had never died quite a death like I died in that moment, breaking into a thousand little pieces as sharp as glass because my orgasm was crystal clear and emptied my head of everything but Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.Everything was flying by so fast, and Tommy didn’t stop his ceaseless rhythm like crashing waves because my pleasure came in waves, each one stronger than the last until I was overfilled, overpowered, overwhelmed, and Tommy was the whelm, driving home into my cunt, and I prayed his name in a moan like he was god, “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.”“Good girl, Ruby, good girl,” Tommy grunted, and the praise rang high in my ears, and maybe he was god but I was his goddess, powerful and untouchable, his omega, his queen, his fated mate.“Can I come again, Tommy, can I come?” I begged, and a second orgasm wracked through my body in quick succession from the first, and I screamed into Tommy’s shoulder.“Are you coming without permission?” Tommy snarled, but it wasn’t a threat because he pounded mercilessly into my body, in and out, over and over until my whole body shook uncontrollably and I almost wanted to tell him ‘No, Tommy,’ but I couldn’t lie and I didn’t want him to stop.“Y-yes, Tommy, p-please,” I moaned, but I didn’t know what I was begging for because he redoubled his thrusts until he pumped so fast, in and out, that all I felt was the sweet painful pressure against my sensitive nerves and my cum that slicked his passage.“If you want to come so badly, I’ll make you come until you cry.”Tommy’s hand wound around my throat, and he pressed against my windpipe as he rested his weight on my neck, rising himself to look into my hazy blue-green eyes blurred with fresh tears. He pounded into me ruthlessly, and my slick smeared across my thighs, his thighs, the front of his abdomen where he brushed up and down my clit, and the pressure built and bult and built and burst.Tears streamed down my face as I came again, and the orgasm was painful, like little needles burning tiny little holes through my skin like cigarettes, and I gasped for breath like I was breathing in the smoke because no matter how much I breathed, I wasn’t satiated, never satiated, nothing was enough, but Tommy was too much, pummeling through my folds like he belonged there, like I belonged to him, and in that moment he owned me and I wanted him to, begged him to with his name on my lips like a supplication because he was god, pouring divinity through my body like liquid fire, like gold, glittering bright and yellow in the sun’s rays because I was the sun, and I was burning, burning, burning like a dieing star except I didn’t die because it didn’t end.“I n-need you, Tommy,” I hiccuped. “N-need your knot, please, I c-can’t –”Tommy smothered my cries with his lips but didn’t stop the ceaseless pattern of his hips against mine, and I was floating high above myself, feeling nothing but the pleasure that exploded through me like miniature grenades.“Yes, you can, Ruby, you’re a good girl, aren’t you? You can take it, can’t you?”“Yes, Tommy,” I said, because I could say nothing more than, “Yes, Tommy, yes yes yes!”I was fully crying, my chest heaving with the effort of breathing, and Tommy bent low to capture one of my breasts in his mouth, and I cried out, arching my nipple against his tongue, and he sucked my breast as if I tasted of ambrosia, and he reached one hand down between my legs, finding the apex of my thighs and the swollen bundle of nerves where pleasure throbbed, and he rubbed my clit, and I came hard on his cock, clasping around him with my walls and my legs, wishing I was strong enough to still his hips for just a moment, but Tommy was relentless, and I was caught in the riptide, drowning in ecstasy, shaking so hard through the pleasure that it hurt, and I wanted it to hurt, I wanted everything, the pleasure and the pain, Tommy’s hand around my throat and his fingers on my clit, and my eyes fluttered closed because I could no longer keep them open, but it was bright behind my eyes, too bright, and I opened them again, and I realized I couldn’t see past the pleasure bursting across my eyes like stars.“Knot me, please, Tommy, p-please, I need –”Tommy wrenched himself from my tight cunt, and I reeled at the sudden loss of his cock filling me up, dizzy from the constant pleasure and the lack of breath in my heaving lungs. Tommy grabbed my hips and flipped me onto my stomach, pressing me down into the pillows by a hand splayed on my back. He other hand wrapped around my stomach from behind, lifting me to my knees until I was presenting for my alpha like an omega should, face down and arse up.“Alpha, please!” I cried, and Tommy sheathed himself in me from behind, his hips slamming into my ass and launching me into the pillows until my teeth clamped down on one and I screamed as he filled me fully as if he hadn’t before, and his cockhead smashed against my bruised cervix, and his length drew across my sweet spot, bulging me stomach out as he pressed in and in and in until there was no space left to accommodate him and I didn’t know how I would fit his knot into my cunt but I wanted it, needed it more than I had needed anything before in my entire life.I reached behind me for any purchase, and Tommy wound his hand around both of my wrists, yanking me backward until my breasts lifted from the pillows and my back arched into him and there was no room to escape and he pounded into my pussy from behind.“How badly do you need my knot, Ruby?” Tommy growled, and I knew he wanted to hear me say it, but tears streamed down my cheeks and another orgasm detonated in my core, and I screamed nothing but his name, and Tommy thrust so deeply into my cunt I thought I would burst, but I didn’t, and his knot forced through my entrance, and his hot cum exploded against my womb, coating my walls, but he didn’t stop thrusting, and his knot hit every sensitive spot inside, and he wrapped one hand around my throat, raising me up and up until my full weight rested on his hand at my throat and my moans were cut off into high-pitched wines, and I knew with surety that Tommy was god because I had never reached so high into the heavens as I did in that moment, and Tommy kept thrusting, his cum spending inside my cunt, and he fucked his cum deeper into me, and I wailed and cried and gasped, except his hand was around my throat and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think because I had died and my soul parted from my body.Everything was blissfully still, and I floated on the backs of soft clouds, and Tommy laid me gently back onto my stomach and covered me with his body, murmuring, “Good girl, Ruby, good girl.”

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I had let go of myself completely, and although I had shattered, I was still together in one piece in Tommy’s arms, safe. I cried with the relief of being known, and my soul spilled from my eyes, staining the plain fabric of the pillows cushioned beneath my head. Tommy laid over my back, our bodies still joined by his knot, his warm pressure encompassing my own.“T-Tommy,” I hiccuped, and I reached behind me to clutch at his bare hip with one hand, wanting to be somehow closer to him, wanting to crawl into his skin and live and breathe my alpha.“Hush, Ruby,” Tommy murmured in Romani, stroking my exposed cheek. He nuzzled into my hair, drawing the scent gland at the top of his nose through my red strands, embedding me with his warm alpha cologne. He was purring a soft, rumbling purr that melted through my levitating limbs, grounding me back into the softness of his bed and the heat of his body. He pressed a tender kiss to my temple. “I’m right here. You did so good for me, Ruby.”“It was good?” I mumbled, trying to push down the rising blush to my warm cheeks. “I pleased you, Tommy?”Tommy’s laugh exhaled across my ear as he combed my hair behind it, petting me with his strong, all-encasing hands. “My love,” he whispered in our gypsy tongue, “you are my goddess.”“But I pleased you, alpha?” I whispered, unsure of myself in the unsteady space between my gasped breaths and the in-between of this world and the next.“Yes, Ruby,” Tommy said firmly, “you please me.”I sighed into the pillows, closing my eyes as his hand found mine and our fingers intertwined like we were meant to hold one another, and we were.Tommy kissed me temple, the corner of my eye, the convex curve of my cheek, and his lips smudged with salt and tears and soul, and I turned my head, and he kissed the corner of my swollen lips. “You obeyed me so well, Ruby.”My lips tipped upward, and an airy giggle fluttered out of my mouth. “I’ve never liked taking orders from an alpha before.”Tommy’s fingers combed through my ruby red hair. “Ruby, when you’re with me, you’re always in control. I might give you the orders, but they’re all for your sake, eh?”“Yes,” I breathed, remembering his demands to strip, to sit down, to lay on the bed, to sit on his face, to come, to not to come, and it might have all been for me, but it was for Tommy, too, because with every order he revealed that his desires were the same as mine, twin flames dancing to the same tune as if we were one, as if we shared everything, and perhaps now we did. “But…”“Was there something you didn’t like?” Tommy murmured.I shook my head into the pillow, my eyes still blissfully closed. “No, Tommy. I just think – I heard about using safewords during sex. I think we might need one.”“Was it too much?” Tommy asked, and there was an edge of caution to his tone, as if he was starting to build back up the wall around himself.I threw my hands into the brick and tore it back down, shaking my head again despite the ache in my neck. “No! Tommy, it was everything, it was… a lot. I just think without it, I might cry every time we fuck, and that might be a bit depressing.”Tommy chuckled again, and he kissed his favorite spot on my temple. “Maybe I am the devil, then, because I like making you cry on my cock.”My core muscles clenched around Tommy’s softening cock still inside me, and he grunted, shifting inside, and I winced as every nerve in my body protested and craved the movement, and I almost wanted to push myself back into his cock and beg him to make me cry again, but even my cunt was sore and I didn’t think I could go another round of hardcore sex with Tommy Shelby in that moment no matter how much I wanted it.“I need a cigarette,” I mumbled. I needed opium.Tommy sighed softly against my ear. “Alright, Ruby, I’ll roll us over so you can sit on top of me, eh?”Tommy’s hands found my hips, and I whined as he rolled us to the other side so that he was lying on his back and I was sitting on his knot. He pushed himself to his elbows and shifted until he was lying back against the headboard. I fished in the nest for my discarded trousers, and my fumbling fingers found my trouser pocket my some miracle and brought out my cigarette case, but it nearly toppled from my fingers as I opened it. Tommy’s hands eclipsed my own, taking the cigarette case and my matches from my hands. He lit two cigarettes in his mouth and passed me one.Tommy exhaled a cloud of smoke over my head, and I watched it rise to the wooden ceiling. “These cigarettes are bloody awful.”I laughed, cutting myself off as my voice died in my throat and I started to cough, which only made me giggle. “That’s what Ada says.”“Ada’s right,” Tommy agreed. “She is about most things.”“I love your sister,” I said, snuggling back into Tommy’s chest.One hand wrapped around my waist, holding me back into him to release some of the pressure of his knot still nestled just past my entrance. “She’s your sister, now, too.”“Like Freddie’s my brother.”Tommy sighed, and I felt his shoulders sag with the weight of my truth. “Yeah, s’pose it figures like that, eh?”I wound my hand into Tommy’s at my waist and smoked with my other. “What are you going to do about Freddie?”Tommy blew another cloud over my head, and in my mind’s eye it looked more like a thundercloud than it did a shroud of smoke. “He agreed to leave Birmingham for a while, for Ada’s sake.”I leaned my head back against Tommy’s chest. “And you’ll let him come back? For baby Karl?”“Is that his name?” Tommy mused.“Not yet, but it will be.”“Yes, I’ll let him come back for the baby’s birth, Ruby, if that’s what you and Ada want.”“Yes, Tommy.” I inhaled my cigarette, letting the tobacco smoke coil in my lungs before I exhaled it, catching it in my mouth before I blew it out. “We’ll make my vision come true.”Tommy clutched my hand tighter against my hip. “Our vision, Ruby.”I remembered how I’d managed to share a tiny glimpse of Ada’s future with Tommy and smiled because he deserved to see the good things he could create within his pack. “Yes, Tommy, ours.”Tommy stretched behind my back and retrieved his opium kit from the nightstand beside the bed, then he reached around me and placed the kit in my hands.I stared at the pipe, the resin, the tools, wondering, “Is this a test?”Tommy sighed, and his chest heaved beneath my back. “No, Ruby, it’s not a test.”“You know, then?”“Ada told me you don’t only use opium during your heats,” Tommy explained. “That you smell like smoke every time she sees you. It sticks to your skin, Ruby, especially an omega’s.”“Why are you offering me this?” I asked, not understanding.“Because it’s what you want, and I can’t stop you from doing what you want, Ruby.” Tommy’s thumb stroked across the back of my hand and he exhaled a cloud of smoke over my head and I watched it curl in the air. “I’ve been a hypocrite. I know it helps, at least sometimes. If it helps you forget like it helps me, I want you to have it. You don’t need to remember.”My hands worked at the tools, collecting a glob of resin on a flat instrument and despoting it at the end of the opium pipe. Tommy struck a match and lit the flame, and I pressed the the end of the pipe to the fire until the resin smoked. Then I pressed the mouthpiece of the pipe to my lips and inhaled the sweet citrus of the smoke. The heavy blanket of the opium carpeted my mind like the ghost of an orgasm, and I sank back into Tommy’s chest, closing my eyes. He took the pipe from my hands and inhaled himself, settling back against the headboard as he exhaled a ring into the cool air of his bedroom.“Did you start smoking after the war?” I asked.Tommy held the pipe to my lips for me, and I inhaled a long drag, and then another, and then another until he set the pipe to the side. “Smoked it once or twice in the war. Pilfered the loot off some hospital corpses, injured soldiers who died from the pain or their injuries, god only knows, but the opium wasn’t enough to save them.”I took two cigarettes from my case and slipped them into my mouth, lighting one at a time before passing one back to Tommy. “And that’s what it helps you forget?”“That and the shovels,” Tommy answered, and his voice was far away as if he could still hear them digging against the mud. “When did you start, eh?”I smiled sadly. “My oldest brother, William, he did some odd jobs for some men at the camp. Had some powder practically thrown in his lap, so he took it, like he stole everything, our William. Wasn’t going to share it at first, but then George found out, and the three of us snuck out into the pasture in the night with some old gypsy’s pipe. It was the last time that we laughed together.”“Charles wasn’t invited?” Tommy asked, and I wondered why that was the question he was most curious about.I dragged from my cigarette and blew the smoke from my lungs. “He was a blabbermouth, Charles. It’s a wonder we kept the boxing ring a secret from mum for so long.”“John was like that, always telling Pol about the messes Arthur and I found ourselves in,” Tommy said, and his chest shuddered as he laughed in a low, bitter tone. “Pol finding out was almost as bad as the old man finding out.”“You don’t talk about him much,” I noted.“He’s a right bastard,” Tommy spit, and I didn’t ask him any more questions about his family, but we talked about mine, and I shared the few good memories I had of my little five-person gypsy unit.Tommy and I talked until his knot deflated, and he wanted to run me a bath, but I settled back in his arms and closed my eyes, hoping that for the first time in a long time I would have a good night’s sleep.*The alpha’s blow shook my head so hard that the moon doubled in my vision, and I fell back against the grass. I held my hands to my sides, clutching my opium pipe in one hand as the alpha’s hands worked at my trouser buttons in the dark. I was numb, rigid, struck through with dread and resignation as he pushed me to the ground, shouting, “Say you want it, whore!” and his fist cracked against my cheek and my head whipped to the other side, and he grabbed my head in his hand until I thought he would splinter my skull under his grip, but he shoved my head backward into the dirt, and his palm pressed against my forehead like a million tons, and then I felt his dick at my entrance, and he pushed past my muscles as I tried to expel him from my very body, and he grunted into me as he folded over me.*A loud knock sounded at the door, and I burst out of Tommy’s arms, out of the bed, reaching into my boot at the foot of the bed for my knife.Tommy shot upward, and his hand found the gun on his nighstand before his eyes had time to adjust to the light and scan the room, finding no threat but a hard knock at his bedroom door.Our eyes met, feverish green-brown against tired green-blue, and we both lowered our weapons, sharing twin sighs as the knock came again at the bedroom door.Tommy’s hand relaxed around the grip of his pistol, and he stood from the bed to shrug on his shorts and pants while I threw on the only thing I could find, which was Tommy’s white button-up. Tommy gestured to the bed, and I settled back inside the blankets, groping for a cigarette and a match, thankful we had managed to set everything back on the nightstand before passing out.“It’s open,” Tommy said, still standing, his shoulders puffed out from whatever nightmare had haunted his sleep that night.The doorknob clicked and the door swung open on its hinges, revealing none other than Danny Whizz-bang standing in the doorway. He was all broad shoulders and tall legs. His head was still shaved, but his thin dark brow was smooth above his serious blue eyes and medium nose. His thin lips flattened into a line, and he raised his arm in a salute at his brow. “Private Whizz-Bang reporting, sir.”Tommy chuckled, setting his hands on his hips above his shorts. “At ease.”Danny dropped his hand from his brow, and he stepped into the room, looking toward me. “Do you mind, Ms. Ruby?”I waved him into the room, smiling. “I’d get up to hug you, Danny boy, but, well, I’m rather indisposed.”A slight pink brushed across Danny’s cheeks, hinting at the boy he was underneath the war and the years since. His eyes glanced to Tommy, who sat on the bed next to my outstretched legs with his hands on his knees. Tommy gestured at him, and Danny walked inside the threshold of the bedroom, setting a lantern on the dresser by the door and closing it behind him. Danny sat in the little chair behind the door.“So, what news from London?” Tommy asked. I blew a curl of cigarette smoke over his head, and it floated toward Danny, who didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.Danny looked from me to Tommy, then nodded to himself as if piecing together our relationship to one another without daring to ask his sergeant major. “Trailed the bloke you asked me to, Mr. Shelby. Owns a bakery in Camden Town, ‘cept it’s not a bakery, see.”Tommy tapped his hands against his knees. “Like we thought, then?”“Races, rum, protection. And some jewelry, I hear.” Danny pulled a little pocketbook from his grey suit jacket and passed it over to Tommy, who flipped through it, nodding to himself. I peered over Tommy’s shoulder, and with a raised eyebrow, he passed me the notebook so I could peruse it myself, searching for the numbers I understood. I fingered over the pages, counting the money and the goods being transferred over time.“Any trouble, then, Danny?” Tommy asked.Danny shook his head. “No, no trouble. You’ve got enough trouble, right, Tommy?”I was surprised to hear Tommy’s first name pass through Danny Whizz-bang’s lips, and I raised my head from his scrawling notebook to peer at him.“The whiskey and the smoke,” Danny said, staring at the floor between his worn shoes. Tommy looked at him, and he looked back. “I can smell it in the air.” He nodded his head to the side, glancing at me. “Use it sometimes myself. Call it my sweetheart.”I snorted at the apt name for the drug, noting it in the back of my head as the cigarette smoke flew from my nose with my swift exhale.Danny looked at me, blue eyes seeking understanding in mine. “They gave us the worst job, Ruby.”“Yeah.” Tommy’s shoulders bobbed up and down with the word as he exhaled it. He didn’t look at me, didn’t look at Danny. “And we fucking volunteered.” Tommy sighed, and he turned his back to me so that I couldn’t see the exhaustion sinking his features. “Sometimes it lasts all night. And I lie here, and I listen to the shovels and the picks against that wall there.” He nodded toward the wall opposite the foot of the bed, where there sat a small table with a candle atop it and a picture of the landscape with swirling clouds hanging atop the lined emerald wallpaper. “And I pray the sun will come up with the curtains before they break through.”I shifted beneath my blankets, down the bed and closer to Tommy so that I could wrap my arms up and around his shoulders until my hands petted against the sun tattoo over his left chest. “I hear them, too,” I murmured softly.Tommy reached up to hold my hands in his own. “I know, Ruby. I know.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

I shot up in bed, sweat shining on my skin, only one image burned behind my eyelids: Tommy, dead on Watery Lane, shot in the heart by Billy fucking Kimber.I buried my face in my hands, breathing as deeply as I could. It was the morning of Cheltenham. Today was the day Tommy enacted the second step of his plan for Billy Kimber, another step toward a demise I didn’t know my curse had done anything to prevent because Kimber was still alive and breathing, and as long as he was breathing, he was a threat to my alpha.The sun had not risen in the sky yet, and only starlight filtered through the little window beside my small bed. I shoved myself backward against the wall and reached for my opium pipe. It would be hours before the boys met at Charlie’s yard to go over the plan one last time before we drove out to Cheltenham.My hands worked deftly at the pipe and the resin and the flame, and before long I was inhaling my sweetheart and exhaling my worries away. It wasn’t nerves, but excitement that made me jittery and desperate for the relief. Today was the day we showed the Lees and Kimber exactly why the Peaky Blinders ran Birmingham.Even with the opium, I couldn’t stay in bed for long. At first, I paced around my room until Charlie beat on the ceiling with a broom and shouted for me to “Stop that pacing!” By then, the sun was rising, so I decided to run a cold bath, and I sank down inside with my opium pipe in my hand, smoking until somehow with drugs and anticipation running hot in my veins, I fell asleep.I awoke for the second time to John’s warm cologne wafting through my nose and a knock at my closed bedroom door. I rose, letting the water fall over me, and stepped out of the tin tub to wrap a towel around my naked body. I brushed my soaking hair behind my shoulders and walked to my bedroom door, opening it.John grinned at me from beyond the doorway, a toothpick nestled in the corner of his mouth, and he looked like a god, he looked like Apollo, like the sun and the poet himself, like women had written him a million love letters and he had turned them down softly and watched them walk away with tears in his own green eyes. He was dressed in a light grey suit that brought out the pasture in his eyes, and his shirt was such a soft blue that I thought it was white, and the collar was white, but I could hardly look at the collar of his shirt without taking in the strength of his throat and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. There was a blue square in his pocket, and his jacket hung open, revealing a dainty pocket watch chain stowed in his vest. He wore a dark flat cap on his head, and he was holding a black oblong box in his hands.“Brought you a gift,” John said, holding up the box. “It’s from all of us. Tommy was supposed to give it to you days ago, but then that whole thing with Freddie went down.”I hummed in the back of my throat and reached around his neck so that I could stretch to kiss him. It was a soft kiss, but intoxicating, and I broke away breathless for more. But the sun was rising high in the sky, and I knew we didn’t have much time before Arthur and the boys made their way to Charlie’s yard.“You gonna let me in, baby?”I stepped back from John and opened my bedroom door wider for him to walk inside. “Only if you can keep your hands to yourself.”John let out a noise between a groan and a laugh. He walked toward the bed and took a seat on the edge, holding the black box in his lap.“What’s inside?” I asked, closing the bedroom door and locking it – just in case because I didn’t trust myself not to try to peel off John’s grey suit and lick the warmth from his skin.“Come see, angel.”I walked the length of the room and stood in front of John, and his green eyes roved over my skin, and I regretted that my towel only barely covered my arse because I wanted to take it off right then and let more than his eyes rove my body. Instead, I stood in front of him, pulling off the top of the black box.And then I stared. I stared and stared and stared, and when I looked back up at John’s face, he was grinning wider than I’d ever seen, so wide I was afraid his lips might split.“From all of you,” I repeated, running my hands over the thick fabric.“That’s right, baby. You’re one of us, aren’t you? Now let me dry your hair so you can put it up.”I sat on the bed between John’s legs, staring down at the black box in my lap as he dried my hair with a towel. When he was done and my hair was damp and wavy, he slipped off the bed and went to my wardrobe to choose my undergarments.“Should ask Pol to take you shopping,” John said, surfacing from the wardrobe with plain white underwear and a silk chemise, which he threw on the bed.“I hate shopping,” I confessed, and I slipped out of my towel and threw it into the bathroom. I reached for my undergarments on the bed, but John walked forward, setting his rough hands on my bare hips and bringing me so close that my breasts pressed against his grey suit.“Kiss me, baby,” John said, and I did, and our lips melded together in a kiss as sweet as sugar. His lips caressed mine, and then his tongue swept across my bottom lip, and he slipped into my mouth, gentle and probing, tasting everything my mouth could give him. His hands ran down over my bare shoulders, ghosting across the sides of my breasts as they dipped further, further, until he was grasping full handfuls of my arse.I shoved against John’s shoulders, parting myself from his hands, laughing, “John, not now, we don’t have time.”John stuffed his hands in his pants pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet, not looking an ounce guilty. “Had to try, didn’t I?”I shimmied on my underwear and bloomers, and then I slid the straps of my brassiere over my shoulders and turned my back to John. “Clasp it for me?”John’s hands were soft and skilled, running over my back before he clasped the brassier behind me and my breasts shifted beneath the support. His hands rested on my hips, and he brought me back into his body, leaning to kiss my bruised neck. I let myself melt into his touch, and he kissed over the love bites bitten into my flesh as if he could heal them with a kiss.John trailed kisses down my throat, over my shoulder, and then he released me, sighing, “I’d fuck you right now, damned Cheltenham.”“And I’d beg you for it,” I murmured, and John growled a warning in the back of his throat as I dipped my hands into the box and drew out the outfit. “If we had time.”John helped me dress, distracting me with his soft, calloused hands and warm kisses, until finally I stood in front of my vanity, smoothing my clothes around my curves.When I looked in the mirror, a Peaky Blinder looked back at me. There had never been a proper Peaky girl, but I looked it now. My alphas’ gift had been a clean black three-piece suit. It was clear Tommy had chosen the clothing because it mimicked his typical attire, but I wasn’t sure how he had guessed my size other than with his hands because the suit was tailored perfectly for my body, draping my curves like it was meant for me and me alone. The white collar was wide and angular, accented by a thin black tie John had tied for me and tucked into the top of the black vest that was more like a second shirt for how it covered my breasts. The jacket had a long, low collar, and it buttoned right beneath my breast, cinching at the waist to accentuate my hips. The pants were intentionally loose, hanging around my legs almost like a skirt. John had helped me pin my long red hair into a tight, thin bun at the base of my skull, and my features looked larger than life itself with my hair combed back from my face.In the reflection, I watched John shuffle behind me on the bed. He came up behind me, one hand taking my shoulder and turning me to face him. He placed a black flat cap on my head, settling it over my hair and tilting it slightly over one eye like the way he wore his. I glanced from his green eyes to the mirror, catching the way the razor blades sewn into the rim glinted at the edges.“There.” John smiled, looking me up and down as if appraising his hard work.I tore my eyes from my reflection back to John. “I look like one of you.”“You look like you’re ready for a fight, Peaky girl.” John grinned, and I nodded, and he took my hand in his, and together we walked down the stairs, past Charlie gawking in the living room, and out the front door of the flat.Arthur was in the alley next to the warehouse, just leaving the front seat of a borrowed black car, one of many lined up down the alleyway. He wore a black suit striped so faintly with grey that I almost didn’t notice the stripes at all. His collar was tied with a red bowtie that nearly matched his strawberry blonde mustache, and he wore a grey peaky cap on his head. When he saw me, his face grew into a wild grin.“Damn, Ruby girl, you’re looking like a right gangster!” Arthur called, and there was joy in his voice, the same excited anticipation that ran through my veins. He kicked over a box on the opposite side of the alley from the cars and hopped on top, twirling a baton in his hands.John and I walked into the alley just as a group of Peaky boys rounded the corner. Several were smoking cigarettes, and one was carrying a wooden box. Little Finn was the first to line up next to me, and I patted his shoulder as the men lined up behind him. I knew several of the young ones because they had worked at the yard, and it was me who had taught them how to fight.“Attention!” Arthur shouted from atop his box.Two men set down a wooden box in front of Arthur’s makeshift soapbox, and I saw various weapons of all kinds inside and wondered briefly if I should have brought my gun, then shook my head at myself – I was likely to use it if I brought it, and that wasn’t the point of Cheltenham. John eyed me curiously but I just shrugged, tucking myself further into his arm to ward off the nervous energy collecting in the pit of my stomach.“Right. This is what’s known as your final briefing before going over the top,” Arthur said. He pointed toward Garrison Lane. “Sixty miles down that road is Cheltenham race track. Johnny, what’s our mission, boy?”John grinned and pulled his toothpick from his mouth. His hand on my side held me tighter, and his hips shifted as he shouted, “To stick it to the Lee family, Arthur!”Arthur grinned back. “That’s right. The Lees are skimming money off legal bookies, running chalk, selling rafflers.” He walked the length of his box and hopped down, handing a bottle of liquor to the nearest man. “And beating them up as won’t buy. But today… We’re gonna stop them.”“What about Kimber’s men?” I asked, and all eyes turned to me. The older men looked put off, but the younger ones smiled and elbowed each other knowingly. “Thought he had his own protection.”Arthur nodded, looked over the men. “Kimber’s let his troops go rotten. They’re on the take from the Lees to look the other way. We’re gonna show Kimber how he should be done.” He paced in front of his box, turned, looking over all of us, and paced the other length back. “Now take what you’re good at. Those of you with guns, keep them out of it unless a gun is pulled on you. We want this done quietly.”One man opened up the box in front of Arthur’s makeshift platform, and the men crowded around it, picking up various instruments of destruction. Finn tried to take a curved knife, but I stole it from his hands, handing him a bat instead.One of the younger lads spoke up, “So when do we share out the cash?”Arthur frowned. “We don’t. We’re not keeping the cash.” He hopped back on his box as if he couldn’t contain his energy. “You’re in Tommy’s army now, boys. Trust only kin.” He rolled his baton in his hand and hopped back off the box, heading off in the direction of the lined cars. “Let’s go.”Arthur drove in the first car, with Finn sitting up in the front seat, holding his bat, and John and I piled into the back. When a man tried to hop in with us, John gave him such a glare that I thought the man might piss himself, but instead he piled into one of the second or third cars, and we set off for Cheltenham.Sixty miles later, we reached the Cheltenham race track. We found the back entrance and somehow managed for all of us to make it through the back door without being stopped by any security. The men paired off and went down to the tracks, but John and I followed Arthur through the building toward the bathrooms.“Lee boys always collect in bathrooms,” John muttered to me, and his voice was deeper than usual, and his cologne was a warm bath, and instead of calming me, it excited me.We passed no one on the ways to the bathroom, but my ears ticked up as we got closer, and the hair rose on the back of my neck, and I clutched the knife in my pocket tighter in my hand. Arthur stepped in first, and I walked after him, John coming to take the rear.As expected, there was a Lee boy in a red jacket holding a man against the wall. He stuffed his hand in the man’s bag, coming out with a handful of cash. Smiling, he pushed a bit of chalk in to the man’s suit pocket. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he spat, and the man, now released from his attacker, ran past us from the room, not even blinking at a woman in the men’s restroom.I recognized the Lee beta from my time around the camp, and the reminder made me stalk forward after him, but John was quicker, pouncing like a cat, wrapping his arm around Reg’s throat. Reg struggled, but John was stronger, bringing him around so that his full body was exposed to my punches.“Hello, Reg, how’s business?” I greeted sweetly, and I balled my fist and swang at his torso, and he grunted as I punched him, again and again until my knuckles hurt but I didn’t care because Reg had stood watch once while Christopher raped me, and I wouldn’t forget it, and I pounded the memory into his skin with my fist, and I saw red, nothing but red, and the blows doubled Reg over and John let him go, and I grabbed the man by the shoulders, bending him so I could knee him in the chest, and he fell, and I banged his head against the side of the sink until he was crumpled on the floor in a ball, raising his hands above his head to block the brunt of my blows, and that wasn’t good enough, he wasn’t bleeding enough, and adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I kicked him again. Then I grabbed him by the throat, shoving him against the wall as I dragged him up it. “Fucker, get up!”John’s hand eclipsed mine at the man’s throat, and I stood back, and John held him in place, and he nodded to me with a look as deadly as my fists, and I tugged on the back of my peaky cap and held it in my hands, blades first.“No! No, no, Ruby, don’t –”But Reg’s screams caught in his throat as I bundled the flat cap in my fist. I held Reg’s face to the side with one hand, and as he screamed my name, I sliced off the tip of his ear, and blood spurted over my hand and his neck, and I regretted when Reg’s blood stained the white cuff of the shirt Tommy had bought for me, and that made me angrier, and I spat, “Stay still, Reg, or I’ll take the whole ear off. And you’re gonna need your ears to listen.” I pointed my bloody finger in his face. “No more chalking on Billy Kimber’s boys. Right?” I looked at John, with a toothpick in his mouth, still holding Reg by the throat, and Arthur over my shoulder, staring with pride. “We’re the protection now.”John held Reg to the wall, and I leaned down to pick up Reg’s tan bag that had fallen to the floor. I fisted it in my hand and raised it up for Reg to see. “I commandeer this stolen money, by order of the Peaky Blinders.”I passed the money to Arthur, and John released Reg, kneeing him in the chest, and I spat on him, but that wasn’t enough for the red rage in my veins, so I followed my alphas out of the bathroom and onto the next target. I took the next two with little help from John or Arthur, but by the time we reached the fourth Lee boy, the other Peaky boys had already taken care of him.John came to my side, pressing a hand to my back. “Baby, go get cleaned up. Then you come back here and take the money up to Tommy.”I rushed to the nearest bathroom and found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the mirror. I hadn’t taken one blow, but there was another man’s blood smeared on my brow from where I’d wiped my hand across it, and oh, my hands were as red as red paint. As my breath caught up to me, I scrubbed my face and hands clean, and then I walked slowly back to the end of the hallway where John and Arthur were waiting. I could tell that other Peaky boys had been by to drop off their money because Arthur was carrying six bags of it on his shoulders, and he looked me over as I approached, nodding.“Think you can carry all this by yourself?” Arthur asked as he transferred the bags to my shoulders.“I’ll make it fine,” I said.John kissed my cheek, winking at me. “Hope this makes up for my mistakes.”I grinned. “Beating up Lee boys is exactly what I had in mind for your repentance.”Adrenaline still coursed through my veins as I rushed down the hallway. I’d seen maps of the track, and I knew where to go to reach the entertaining room. When I reached the side exit, Tommy was waiting for me, his hand on the open door as he glanced around the inner room to make sure no one was watching.“Get in, hurry.”“We got every penny back, Tommy,” I murmured in a hushed tone.“Anyone hurt?”I shook my head. “Just a few cuts and bruises.”“Come with me, Ruby,” Tommy said, and he lead me through the crowd with the bags over my shoulders. “When we get to the table, just throw the bags on top.”I didn’t have time to nod because Tommy brought me through the crowd, and I bumped shoulders with two people as we made our way across the entertaining room to where Billy Kimber sat with his wife and his accountant. I dumped the bags of money on top of the table, and Billy looked up, surprised.Tommy emptied one of the bags of coins onto the tabletop. “Your money, Mr. Kimber. Rescued from the Lee brothers and returned to you with a request for a fair hearing.”Tommy sat, and he drew me over to him to sit on his lap, and I didn’t have it in me to be angry with him for showing me off to Billy Kimber when I was wearing a suit he had bought for me. I reached in my suit jacket for my cigarettes, and pulled two from the case. I lit Tommy’s first, and then my own.“Your own protection is failing, Mr. Kimber,” Tommy said as Kimber sipped his champagne, staring with dark eyes. “Your boys are taking cuts. I want to suggest that from now on, you contract out your racetrack security to the Peaky Blinders.” He inhaled his smoke and blew it out over the table. “We’d be saving you a lot of money, Mr. Kimber. Lot of money. In return, you give us five percent of the take and three legal betting pitches at every race meeting north of the River Severn. Rising to six after one year if we’re all satisfied with the service.” Tommy stared, and the table stared, and Kimber’s wife’s eyes never left my suit. “What do you say, Mr. Kimber?”Kimber tilted his head toward his accountant. “I say you talk business to my accountant.” His dark eyes landed on me. “I want a dance.”I pulled from my cigarette and held the smoke in my mouth for a moment too long before I exhaled it. Tommy was tense as ever beneath me, and I placed a hand on his wrist where he was holding my hip. “You should ask your wife to dance, Mr. Kimber.”Kimber scoffed, but he took his wife by the hand and led her to the dance floor anyway, and I had to stop myself from smirking down at the table. He had had me on my knees for him once already, and it wasn’t going to happen again.The accountant leaned across the table. “How many men can you put in the field at one time?”“There’s a lot of men out of work at the moment,” Tommy considered, drawing from his cigarette. “Two guards for every bookie.”“At every meeting.”Tommy leaned across the table to ash his cigarette, but I let mine fall to the floor at my feet because I could. “We have contacts with good people among the gypsies. We’ll always know when the Lees plan to attack. With all the strikes and troubles, can’t really depend upon the police. Anyway, we’re more honest.”Kimber approached the table from behind Tommy’s seat. “Looks like you two are making a deal.”“We are making progress,” the accountant said as if he wished Kimber wasn’t interrupting.Billy Kimber sat back at the table, and his wife joined him. Business continued, but my adrenaline from the day never subsided, and I couldn’t wait to go back home to my opium and relive the way I had beaten Reg half to death.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In my dreams, instead of nightmares, I dreamt of John Shelby, and I woke up thinking about nothing but my youngest alpha. I knew he worked at the betting parlor in the mornings taking bets, so I roused myself from bed and dressed in my usual trousers, button-up, and vest, said goodbye to Charlie, and walked from Garrison Lane to Watery Lane.The back door to the shop was locked, so I pounded on it, yelling, “Oi, it’s me! Lemme in!”A grumpy-looking Scudboat answered the door. He was a short gentleman, older than any of my alphas, with a thick brown mustache and dark hair combed over his forehead. His brow was lined with wrinkles, and his cheeks sported pockmarked scars from his teenage years. His chin jutted out beneath a pair of thin lips, and he had small ears pinned back toward his cropped hair. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and thin brown suspenders, and he raised both eyebrows at me as he opened the door wide for me to enter.“Thanks,” I said, passing by him into the betting parlor, which was now empty, and I assumed I had just missed the crowd of men come to gamble away their wages on Tommy’s fixed races. “John here?”Scudboat latched and locked the door behind me, then came back to one of the tables, where a pile of coins was puddling near the edge. He sat back, sighing. “At The Garrison, Ms. Ruby. Mr. Shelby and Ms. Gray left after him, said he would return in five minutes.”“And it’s been five minutes, has it?” I asked, taking a seat beside him at the table and palming out a cigarette into my hand. I lit it with my matches and pulled the smoke into my lungs. “Smoke?”“Guess it couldn’t hurt,” Scudboat said, and he took a plain white cigarette from my hands, careful not to touch me, and lit it with one of his own matches. “It’s been ten.”“Figures,” I said. “Mind if I wait here with you? I’m good company.”Scudboat’s mustache flickered as he smiled. “The Peaky lads talk about you, you know. Think I don’t listen, but I’ve got ears, haven’t I?”My brow furrowed. I tapped my cigarette into the ashtray among the coins and then placed it back between my lips, inhaling heavily. “Do they mind me?”Scudboat chuckled, blowing out the cigarette smoke from his thin lips. “They wonder at you, Ms. Ruby, how a wild thing like you got caught up in our business.”I smiled and shook my head, letting my red hair fall into my face. “And you wonder, too, do you?”“Never thought I’d see the day an omega joined the pack.”“Never thought I’d find a pack,” I muttered, ashing my cigarette.Scudboat looked at me with his light hazel eyes, and he seemed to be looking inside me. “I’m glad it’s you, Ms. Ruby.”I smiled. “Need help with the counting? It’ll get done twice as fast.”Scudboat agreed, and we lapsed into pleasant silence as we split the pile of coins and started counting. Minutes past, and I heard a floorboard near the back door creak.Scudboat had heard it too, because he looked up from his stack of coins, calling, “John?”There was no answer, and Scudboat turned back to his coins, but bile rose in the back of my throat, and the little hairs on my arms stood at attention, and my breathing slowed to a quiet rhythm, and I stood from my chair, taking two steps toward the door leading to the back room as Scudboat looked up at me.All at once, the room was filled with Lee boys, one in a grey suit, and one in a tan one, and one with an orange corduroy jacket, and another in a light grey suit wearing a red scarf, and three in brown suits, and I counted ten of them, all carrying guns, several with rifles, all trained on us, ten sets of fingers on ten triggers. Scudboat raised his pistol, the one that had been sitting on the table with the money, and he started to point it.“Put that down! Put that down!” Reg shouted.Five men ran behind the table, and two men yanked Scudboat backward with hands on his arms, and his gun fell to the ground, and two sets of hands pulled at my clothing, and I couldn’t lash out because my wrists were held in their hands, so I kicked one of them in the knee, and he fell, and another took his place, knocking the backs of my legs until my feet fell from beneath me and they held me up by either arm.“This is for Cheltenham.” Reg had a rifle pointed at my face, and he was wearing a black cap, halfway hiding the bloody bandage wrapped around his ear. “We just taking back what’s ours.”Reg took one step forward and knocked me in the face with the butt of his rifle, and my head snapped to the side, my vision sparkling with white as he turned back to his men, shouting, “There’s loot in here! Search everywhere!”Five men scrambled around the betting parlor, tipping over the table and rooting through the cabinets, and I thought that might be all they wanted from us, the money, but Reg wrapped a hand around my throat and raised my face to meet his wild dark eyes. “We’re taking everything that’s ours.”I spit in his face, and Reg wiped it off with a free hand, one hand still wrapped around his rifle, and he smashed it across my face, and something cracked so loud it rang in my ears, and pain exploded through my face and neck, and I spit a curse in Romani so vile I would never repeat it.“You two want what’s ours?” Reg asked the two men holding me back, and they nodded or grunted or did something in agreement, but I could barely hear them through the ringing in my ears, and Reg said loudly, “Take her into the back room there, do what you want. You two, take him up front and beat him until he can’t stand.”“No!” I screamed, and I struggled against two sets of hands as they dragged me, and I tripped over the wood, and my boots raked the dusty, trodden floor, and one of them released me to open the set of green double doors that led to the back room, and there was only one man holding me, and I took my chance. I wrenched my arm from his grip through the weak point at his thumb and scrambled forward, but my effort didn’t matter because Reg was there, shoving me harshly backward until I toppled onto the floor on my tailbone, and pain struck like lightning through my pelvis but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered except getting away, and I scrambled back on hands and feet until my back hit something wooden.Reg laughed and leaned down, taking me by the ankles and dragging me until my back was flat against the floor and two other sets of hands were holding me down, ripping open my vest and my white button-up shirt, and Reg’s hands tore off my belt and fumbled with my trouser buttons, and I kicked at him, hitting everything I could, screaming, “No! Don’t touch me, Reg, don’t do this –”“You cut my fucking ear,” Reg spat, and his hands fisted the hem of my trousers in his hands, and he yanked them down along with my underwear and bloomers until they wrapped around my knees, trapping my legs as he straddled me, pulling out his cock from his pants. “I’m taking what I’m owed. Right, boys? You’ll get your turn with Red Ruby when I’m finished with her.”“Fuck you!” I yelled, and tears bunched at the corners of my eyes, and fear, pure terror, ran through my veins like ice, and I struggled against the arms on my shoulders, my wrists, and I bucked like a bull against Reg’s legs, succeeding in unseating him, and as he fell sideways, I curled like a bug until my ankles flew over my head and my knife fell from my boot into my hands, and I unflicked it, cutting one of the men holding me, and he released me, and I sliced at the other one, but he didn’t let go, so I rammed my hand into the crook of his elbow until he did, and I hopped to my feet, trying to run, run, run, run, run, run, the only thing I could think.I didn’t get anywhere because Reg tackled my ankles, and I crashed against the green doors, and they opened under my weight as I fell to the ground, dropping my knife, and Reg straddled me again, wailing into my face with his fists, and my nose cracked, and my head swiveled, and blood and pain burst across my face, and he hit me again, and a molar came loose from my mouth and metal spread across my tongue, and he hit me again and again until I couldn’t see through the tears, couldn’t breathe through the blood, and then he was inside me, ripping me open as he fucked dry into my cunt, and I could feel something tear, and I knew it had because something wet pooled inside and it wasn’t arousal, it was blood, blood, blood, and I was Red Ruby.I couldn’t see, so I reached up my hands and found Reg’s shoulders, his neck, his jaw, his eyes, and I pressed my thumbs into his eyes until I felt something give in one of them, and he howled and fell over me, and I shoved him off of me, but someone grabbed my hair as I stood, yanking me backward until I hit the ground head-first, and he was kicking me, kicking me, kicking me until I coughed blood and spit out my tooth and wrapped around myself, but I couldn’t for long because he was on top of me again, his hand around my throat, and a second set of hands held my wrists together, and a third set of hands held my legs apart, and Reg fucked up into my bleeding cunt, and I tried to shove him out with all of my muscles but it only hurt worse, and I screamed until Reg’s fingers shoved into my mouth, gagging me, and I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, couldn’t do a fucking thing as he raped me.I was in between again, stuck in the land of ghosts, and they stood around the room, watching me, never meeting my eyes but staring at my body as I rose high above it, and Reg passed me to someone else, and he was bigger, stretching me open until it stung, tore, ripped, raged through me and my vision went black and I thought I stopped breathing but he didn’t stop fucking me, didn’t stop raping me, and then it was someone else, and I was crying, I was numb, I wasn’t in my body, I was only my soul, and they raped that too, over and over, took turns stealing me away from myself, taking everything from me, violating me, using me, and everything was pain, existence was pain, and I begged for death, begged and begged until my voice was raw, and Reg was on top of me again, slapping me awake until I stared up at him with blood pooling in my eyes, and he laughed and spit on me, taking fistfuls of my hair and holding me like that as he stabbed into my body, and I couldn’t shake, couldn’t struggle, couldn’t do anything because I was nothing, nothing, nothing but a fuck toy, a doll, nothing but Red Ruby, and I was screaming again, and Reg hit me with a full fist, and two hands grasped my breasts from above, and I realized I was in someone’s lap, someone was holding me while Reg fucked into me, and I couldn’t cry because I was gone, gone, gone, engulfed in the dark of the void, so close to death I could taste the earth in my mouth.I drifted in and out of consciousness as the Lee boys took turns raping me. They left me on the floor of the back room, and I laid there, hollow, a husk of myself like I was only my body and nothing more.“Ru –” Scudboat coughed a wet rasping cough. “Ruby –” The double doors of the back room opened wide, and light as bright as life filtered into the room. “Jesus Christ.”Hands were on me, and I shot upward, slapping away the hands, scraping my nails across someone’s cheek, and his hands retreated as I scrambled back and back and back until there was nowhere else to go because I had hit the wall. I couldn’t see through one eye, and the other was caked with blood and tears, and so Scudboat was only a shadow of a man, his reaching hands shadows of hands, and I hit them away, growling, spitting, and a smaller form loomed in the doorway of the back room.I realized it was a child, one of the youngest Peaky boys, and orphan, because I recognized him by his voice when he said, “Scudboat – what – is she okay?”“Boy!” Scudboat exclaimed like the child was a cherub sent from heaven. “Boy, go to The Garrison, the snug, get Tommy and his brothers, tell them Ruby’s hurt, we’ve been done over, and Ruby’s hurt, she’s – I think she needs a doctor but she won’t let me touch her – Go! Now!”The small form disappeared from the doorway, and Scudboat stood back from me, pacing the room, and he seemed to find something because he held it in his hands as he crouched next to me, saying, “Here, Ruby, your clothes.”Clothes. I was naked from the waist down, my brassiere pushed beneath my aching breasts, the button of my white shirt destroyed by Lee hands like I had been raped by Lee hands, and I snatched the clothing from Scudboat, and I don’t know how I dressed because my whole body was on fire with pain, and I was still bleeding between my legs, and it coated my bloomers, and I didn’t know where my underwear was but I didn’t care, needed something against my bare body, something to distract me from the bruises they had left behind, and when I had dressed, I sat back down in the corner of the room, holding my knees to my chest, and I raised a hand to my broken nose and cracked it back into place, and I stared at the wall, and Scudboat brought a chair to the edge of my vision and sat in it, panting for breath, and I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing until I gasped and my ribs ached and I knew I had broken something more than my nose, and I wanted to disappear, I wanted to die, and Polly’s daughter was on the other side, smiling at me, beckoning me, and I closed my eyes.The front door of Watery Lane burst open, and I couldn’t smell them, but I knew it was them, and I didn’t want to see them, didn’t want them to see me like this, and I wrapped my arms around myself and tucked my knees closer to my chest, ignoring the way it deepened the pain inside, and the blood had spread through my bloomers and was staining my trousers because I could feel it on my thighs, and I was covered in it, covered in sticky metallic blood, and I was Red Ruby because I had never escaped her just like I couldn’t escape this.“Scudboat! Ruby!”Arthur. Arthur couldn’t see me like this, couldn’t see me for who I really was, couldn’t see all of me.“Look at this place,” Polly swore, and her heels clacked on the wood.Scudboat rose from his chair and practically ran into the main room. “Thank god you’re here, Ruby, she’s –”“Where the fuck is Ruby?” Tommy snarled.“Tommy, they took her back there, and she looks half a ghost, she needs a doctor –”There was a scuffling and a grunt as someone hit Scudboat several times and then shoved him against a table, and I knew because I heard coins fall to the floor like tinkling glass.“It was your job to fucking protect the place, and you let them fucking hurt her?” Tommy shouted.“Tommy, listen to me, she needs a doctor, I think they had her –”“How many?” John sounded young, like a boy in a war.“Ten of them, they took me in the front and beat me ‘til I passed out, I woke up as they left, I couldn’t do anything, I tried to pull a gun but –”Arthur was through the door to the back room first. I didn’t know when or how, but I had found my knife somewhere on the floor and I brandished it in front of me, and my hands were still as stagnant water, and Arthur didn’t make it a step through the entrance before he fell onto his knees.Tommy rushed past him, and he must have seen me because he gasped, a high-pitched intake of break that I had never heard from him before, and he crouched next to me, reaching out to my shoulders, but I slashed at his arms with my knife, growling, snarling, spitting, and I slashed again and the blade found purchase, and he fell back onto his heels, staring, saying, “Ruby, it’s me. It’s me, Ruby, it’s Tommy.”My eyes rose to the doorframe where John stood behind Arthur, his hands digging into the older alpha’s shoulders, and they both stood and stared until Polly pushed past them and set her hand on Tommy’s shoulder.“Tommy. Step away from her.”“Pol, no, I’m not leaving her –”“She’s just been raped, Tommy. She’s not your Ruby right now. She’ll hurt you before she lets you touch her,” Polly said.Tommy looked up at Polly, turned his head to look at me, and rose to his feet. “Scud –” His voice was hoarse and cracked on the name. “Scudboat, call the doctor.”Polly knelt beside me, and my hand on the knife wavered as I took in her feminine perfume, and I set my hand on my leg, still clutching the knife, and she rested her hands on my shoulders. “Ruby. Can you hear me? I need you to nod or say something, anything, so that I know you’re here with me.”I felt like I couldn’t move, like I was frozen in a block of ice, the fire of the pain draining into utter empty numbness, but I jerked my chin once, and that seemed to be enough, because Polly brushed some of my hair from my face.Behind her, Tommy and Arthur and John had their heads close together, and they were mumbling to each other, and I watched them, and I heard what they were saying but it flew through my ears like there was nothing between them except empty space.“Listen to me,” Polly said. “Ruby, listen. We can stay right here, but there’s a doctor coming, and I need you to let him look at you, because you’re bleeding badly, and you may need stitches inside. Do you understand?”I jerked my head. They had seen me, all of them, just as I was, and they should have been turning their heads in disgust, but they were huddled together, talking in low tones about how they could get the Lees, how they could kill them, how they wanted to kill them, and I knew it was the only thing they could do for me, but it wouldn’t change who I was, who I had become because of them, and it didn’t matter that Red Ruby had died because I was alive and she was me.“We can stay here, or I can take you upstairs to my bedroom away from the boys.” My eyes flickered to her, and she nodded. “That’s what you want. Okay. I’m going to help you stand, and it’s going to hurt, Ruby, more than anything. Is that still what you want?”I jerked my chin and made some sort of gurgling noise in the back of my throat. I could have spoken, but I couldn’t find my voice, could barely find my air.Polly reached beneath my armpits and tugged me upward with her, and I whined a pitiful, high-pitched, pained sound that made all three alphas turn their heads to me.“Pol!” John said, and he stepped forward, but Tommy and Arthur held him back from me, trying to give me as much space as possible.“This is what she wants,” Polly said, and she led me, limping and crying, from the room, through the betting shop to the apartment, and I nearly fell on the stairs but for the railing that I pushed myself up it with, and I thanked god Polly’s room was the first on the right because I didn’t think I could walk anymore as I crumpled on top of the sheets and curled in on myself.A beta doctor knocked on the door to the bedroom and entered. She spoke to Polly, but her words were the babble of a creek in my ears, and I let her move me to cut the clothes from my body until I bled in front of her eyes, and she poured opium into my mouth, holding my lips closed until I swallowed, and she poured more, and I swallowed again until I was floating high above my body, watching her insert the speculum inside me and clean up the blood and then search for the wound Reg had torn open, and she was talking to Polly about scars, lots of scarring inside, but no stitches this time, just scarring that had torn open as it often did, but she said something about broken ribs and my broken nose a cracked orbital bone that would all heal, and I drifted into the land in-between with the ghosts as she spoke, and soon she left, and Arthur and Tommy and John all lined into the room, and Polly told them what she knew, and I curled in on myself no matter how much it hurt because I didn’t want them to see me, and they saw me, oh they saw all of me, and I hated myself, hated myself, I wanted to fucking die.I awoke in the night with only one thought circling my mind like a hawk its prey. I needed to die. I was nothing, I had always been nothing, and I wanted to fucking die.Polly was asleep in a chair next to the bed. The opium still ran high in my head, but I felt sober, everything crystal clear, my vision back to almost perfect as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the room. While Polly slept, I rose from the bed and exited by the bottom, then I raffled through her wardrobe for a suitable pair of riding pants and a blouse and coat, and for some reason I still wore my boots and socks, so I kept those on as I dressed. The house was quiet, and if anyone else was inside, which I doubted, they were asleep.It was easy to creep out of Watery Lane, and the streets were empty, devoid of wandering eyes that might have seen me walking over to Charlie’s yard. Charlie was asleep on the couch, and I snuck upstairs to my bedroom, avoiding the creaking wood panels as I retrieved my opium kit and my gun in a small bag. Then I went to the stables and hitched Monaghan Boy.I had to sit side-saddle to avoid the impossible pain that throbbed between my legs. I couldn’t run, but I ran on Monaghan Boy, galloping down the streets of Small Heath until I left it entirely, riding toward Maypole. I rode and rode until the moon hung low in the sky, and I stopped on a hill next to a pasture and led Monaghan Boy off the road and up a much larger hill until there was nothing around but the green of the grass and the dark of the sky.I released Monaghan Boy, and he grazed on the grass nearby as I stared up at the stars, finding the pistol tucked into the back of my pants. I pulled it out, cocked the weapon, and put the muzzle to my temple. This was the last time I would be nothing.I curled my finger around the trigger, ready to shoot.And then I saw them, in my mind’s eye, all the people who loved me, who had seen me and accepted me and cherished me even if I was nothing, because I wasn’t nothing to them, not to Charlie or Curly, to Polly or Ada, to Tommy or Arthur or John. To them, I was family, I was pack, I was simply Ruby. And I saw more than just their faces, but their futures too, saw myself helping Ada give birth to Karl, saw myself hugging Polly, and kissing Charlie’s cheek, and working with Curly in the stables, and counting numbers beside Arthur, and throwing molotov cocktails into a bar with John, and riding horses with Tommy.I lowered the gun, jumped onto Monaghan Boy, and rode back to Charlie’s yard.I stabled Monaghan Boy, setting him up with food and water before I scaled the loft with my opium pipe and laid back in the hay, smoking, but not to forget because I never wanted to forget again. I wanted to remember ever single thing they had done to me so that when I killed them, it would be done, finally done.I was still awake when the sun rose. Charlie came by in the morning to check on the horses, and he took one look at me before he ran back into the house, likely to call Tommy because not ten minutes later, the alpha in question was scaling the ladder to the loft and settling in beside me, careful not to touch me as he stretched out his legs next to mine. I thought he might chastise me for moving, walking, climbing, wondered if he knew I had been riding, but Tommy said nothing for a long time.“Ruby,” Tommy began, “the Lees who attacked you will be celebrating at The Black Dog in Smethwick tonight. I’m taking John and Arthur and some of our men in a few hours.”I knew what he was asking, and I reached out to his hand in his lap, winding my fingers through his, and his grip was gentle, featherlight like he was afraid he would hurt me. “I want to kill them.”“Alright.”“I want it to be done, Tommy.” My voice cracked at the end of the sentence, and I looked at Tommy then, and I found nothing but a deep, deep sadness in his ocean eyes. “I tried to kill myself last night.”Tommy’s hand gripped suddenly tight against mine, so hard it hurt, and I was glad for the pain because it was different from what the Lees had inflicted, full of love and fear.“But I didn’t. I was going to pull the trigger, Tommy, but I didn’t. Because I remembered.”“Remembered what?”“I’m Ruby Shelby,” I said, and tears welled in my eyes, and I let them stream down my cheeks as I looked at the alpha I loved. “And that’s why I’m sorry, Tommy, I’m so so sorry, I couldn’t do anything to stop it, I was powerless, and there was a point where I stopped struggling because I couldn’t – I couldn’t –”Tommy wrapped his arms around me, bringing me into his chest so that I could cry against his neck, and his earthy scent washed over me, and I realized I was home, and I cried until my chest hurt and everything hurt, and Tommy murmured in my ear, “I’m going to make you safe, Ruby. I’m going to make it so the whole world couldn’t hurt if they tried.”“Don’t you hate me?” I hiccuped, and I rose from his neck, clinging to the lapels of his suit jacket. “Don’t you know I’m broken? I’m ruined, Tommy, I’m worthless, I’m nothing, I just – I just want to die.”“No,” Tommy said fiercely, and he placed his hands on my bruised and beaten face, and he made me look him in the eyes straight to his soul. “No, you’re not, Ruby. I could never hate you, and you will never be nothing to me because I love you. You’re not allowed to die. Do you understand? I forbid it.”My broken lips shifted into the softest smile. “You love me, Tommy?”“I have loved you since the moment I saw you,” Tommy breathed.I leaned forward, and he stayed still, waiting for me to make a choice, and I did because I kissed him, gently, so gently, like he was glass and I was the hammer that could shatter it, and I knew that I could because Tommy Shelby loved me, he loved me, he loved me, and I loved him, and our love passed through our kiss in a mess of fear and pain and darkness and light and pleasure and joy, and we were one again, and I was not nothing, I was not Red Ruby, I was not just Ruby, but I was Ruby Shelby, and I was Tommy’s fated mate, and he loved me.Nestled in Tommy’s arms, I fell into a deep, dark sleep, and I didn’t wake until several hours later when Tommy roused me with his silk voice.“Is it time?” I mumbled tiredly, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with two arms that felt like lead.“It’s time,” Tommy confirmed.Tommy walked down the ladder first, and despite the opium, I wasn’t sure how I had managed to ride all the way to Maypole the night before, because my every nerve was pain, and I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep the groan from traveling past my throat where I caught it with sheer will. Tommy’s hands settled on my hips, and he lifted me off the ladder and set me gently on my feet.There were two cars sitting in the little lane between the stables and the warehouse. Arthur was behind the wheel of the first, and John sat in the front seat. The second was filled with five Peaky boys, and I realized I recognized all of them, and they nodded and watched me as Tommy guided me into the first car.“They heard what happened to you,” Tommy admitted to me as I slid, wincing, into the middle of the backseat. “They all volunteered.”Arthur and John turned around in their seats to watch me settle into the back of the car. Their eyes inspected my body, my cuts and bruises, my crooked nose and smashed cheekbone, the handprint around my neck, the wounds they couldn’t see beneath my clothes.“Sure she should be here, Tom?” Arthur asked in a low tone.“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I snapped.Arthur flinched. “Sorry, gypsy girl, it’s just – after what happened –”“Drive the fucking car, Arthur,” I said curtly, and Arthur turned back around, placing both of his hands on the steering wheel like the hands of a clock, and he pressed on the gas. The second car rolled out behind us into Garrison Lane.“Look, I –” I stopped myself, sighed, ran a hand through my long red hair. “I’m really fucking sorry about all of this. It’s my fucking fault, all of it, and you wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for me. I understand if any of you don’t want anything to do with me after this.”“Ruby,” John said stiffly. He was still turned back in his seat to watch me. “This doesn’t change anything between us, and I don’t ever want to here you apologize for it again.”“We’d be dead without you, you know, Ruby girl?” Arthur said, glancing at me through the rearview mirror.I shook my head. “Don’t talk like that.”“Arthur’s right,” John agreed. “We all talked about it afterward, about what would happen if you were killed. Don’t think any of us would make it through.”Tommy nosed my cheek, murmuring, “It’s all for you, Ruby. All of this is for you.”“You’re the whole fucking world, Ruby,” Arthur said, his eyes on the road, his hands clenched tight around the steering wheel. “The whole fucking world, almost snuffed out by some fucking Lee bastards.”I reached behind me and took my pistol from the back of my trousers. I cocked the gun and held it in my lap, looking out the window as Small Heath passed us by. “Then I’ll kill them all, for taking what’s yours.”The Black Dog was an old, rundown pub at the edge of Smethwick. Tommy helped me out of the car and held me up with a hand around my shoulders while Arthur ordered a few men to go around the back. We waited a few moments, and then John, with a sick grin, pushed open the doors to the pub, and we walked inside.Men stared as we entered, and my eyes roamed the room, clocking the table of Lee boys in the corner, sitting and drinking and laughing like their horse had just won a race.I stepped forward and Tommy stepped with me, and I raised my pistol to the ceiling and shot twice. “If your last name isn’t Lee, get the fuck out!”“By order of the Peaky fucking Blinders!” John shouted.Men scrambled to their feet, rushing past us out the door as the Lee boys stood to their feet. They were unarmed, or they would have drawn their guns, and I pointed mine at the first one I could see and shot, and then the second, and then the third, and the fourth, hitting each one square in the forehead until they slumped in bloody heaps on the floor. I lowered my pistol, taking a handful of bullets to reload as Arthur and John and three of our boys flew into action, grabbing and punching until finally, the five remaining Lees were dragged into the center of the room and lined up for the firing squad.Reg was among them, and he had tears in his eyes, and piss stained his trousers, and he begged, “Ruby, I’m sorry, Ruby, please, I’ll never –”I shot, and his brain splattered all over a nearby table, and he slumped forward from the impact, face-planting the floor, dead.Four more shots and it was over. I took them one by one, walking down the line, looking each over as I remembered their faces above me as they raped me, and then I killed them, every single last one of them.Tommy’s arm was still around my waist, and I fell backward into his chest, and he caught me, and I turned and cried into his chest as Arthur ordered the Peaky boys to take care of the bodies, and when we left I was still crying because I had thought it would be done, that killing them would mean I didn’t feel the scrawling nothingness in my chest, but the void only widened, sucking everything in like a vacuum, and I sobbed in Tommy’s arms all the way back to Watery Lane.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ten Lee boys. Ten hands on ten triggers. Ten men dead on the bar floor. Ten bullets from my gun. I had pulled the trigger, and I pulled it again and again in my nightmare, watching their bodies drop over and over and over and over and over and over and over untilI shifted awake, a whine parting my lips as I came to life to the pain stretching across every inch of my body. I blinked open my eyes, squinting through the faint sunlight that filtered through the dark blinds in the nest room. I barely remembered Tommy carrying me upstairs and settling me in the nest, but I didn’t have to wonder where he was because he was sitting against the wooden headboard next to me, smoking a cigarette.“Gimme that,” I mumbled, reaching up a hand and plucking it from his upside-down lips. Still lying on my back, I pressed the cigarette to my mouth and inhaled, wincing as I took a deep breath inward and then exhaled.“Careful, love,” Tommy said softly. He reached down to pet my head. “You have broken ribs.”“Ribs?” I muttered, closing my eyes. “Thought it was just one.”“You’re not that lucky, Ruby.”I groaned as I lifted myself against the headboard, and Tommy moved like lightning, piling up pillows behind me so that I could rest against them instead of the hard wood that would surely ache in my bones.“You don’t have to fuss over me,” I sighed, sinking back into the pillows and dragging again from the cigarette.Tommy ignored me. He leaned carefully over me to the nightstand, retrieving a little brown bottle of liquid morphine that he uncorked. He took the cigarette from my lips and pressed the bottle to my lips. “Drink it all.”The morphine had a bitter taste, and it went down with difficulty because even swallowing was so painful I thought I would throw up, and I remember Reg’s hand around my throat and shivered, then winced at the way my muscles tensed.“Relax, Ruby,” Tommy said, and he set the empty morphine bottle on the nightstand and pressed the cigarette back between my lips. He settled back against the headboard, lighting another cigarette for himself, and we sat in pain-filled silence until there was a knock at the bedroom door.“You better be decent!” Arthur called as he opened up the door to the nest room. He was dressed only in his undershirt and pants, and he was holding a huge tray of eggs and bacon and toast and jam, enough for four of us, and John stepped through the door behind him with another tray.“Why would I not be decent?” I yawned, crinkling my nose even an action so small renewed the ache in my body. I looked down at myself and realized I was still wearing Polly’s old night shift. “Guess this isn’t exactly decent.”“You hungry, baby?” John asked, and he and Arthur came and sat at the end of the bed, setting their two trays between me and Tommy. John stole a piece of bacon from a platter and crunched down on it.“No,” I said honestly. I couldn’t feel anything beyond the pain, even with the morphine running thick through my veins.“Eat anyway,” Arthur said, and he set a plate of bacon and eggs on my plate. He dipped a knife in the jam and spread it over a piece of toast, and then put that on my plate, too.I stared at the food. It looked superb, and I was sure it was because Polly’s wine-tasting perfume wafted around it like a signature.Arthur grabbed a fork, scooped some eggs on it, and pressed it to my lips. “Open up, gypsy girl.”I opened my mouth taking the eggs off the fork with my tongue and swallowed slowly. Arthur fed me while John and Tommy munched on their own breakfast, and I was grateful for Arthur’s attention because for the first time since I had committed murder, a little bubble of joy was starting to fill my stomach again, and it wasn’t the food.“Ruby, I’m going to tell you something you’re not going to like, and I need you to agree to it,” Tommy said after he had finished eating. He fished out a cigarette from his pocket and smoothed it over his lips.I sighed, shaking my head as Arthur offered me a piece of toast. “What is it, Tommy?”Tommy lit his cigarette with a lighter and inhaled. “We’re going to have a Peaky boy keep watch over you at all times.”I wanted to protest, I really did, but I was afraid of Zilpha coming after me for what I had done, so I asked, “Who is it?”Tommy eyed me curiously. “Today, Robert.”I nodded. I knew Robert because he had trained me up on a new boxing technique in Charlie’s warehouse the same week I’d come in. I would feel safer with him watching my back. “Then make it Robert every day. He knows what he’s doing.”Tommy nodded. “Whatever you need, Ruby.”“One of us will be here every day, gypsy girl,” Arthur told me, and he passed me a glass of water, which I took gratefully. “It’s our job to take care of you until you feel better.”I rolled my eyes at him. “You don’t need to take care of me. I’m fine now, and I’ll be fine if you all go to work. You need to keep the business running.”Tommy leaned closer and kissed the top of my head. “Don’t you worry about that.”“And don’t you tell me what I should and shouldn’t worry about, Tommy Shelby.” I passed him the glass of water, and he set it on his tray. “If you want to be legitimate, you have to keep up with Kimber’s protection.”Tommy smoked his cigarette. “One of us will be here every day, Ruby. For at least a week, until you can walk on your own again.”I crossed my arms over my chest. “I can walk just fine. You let me…” But I trailed off, and none of my alphas seemed keen on arguing the point.There was a beat of silence before John spoke up. “You gonna ask her?”Tommy sighed as I stole his cigarette again, wondering, “Ask me what?”John smiled. He reached across my lap and took one of my hands in his own. “Ruby, we want you to move in here. Tommy will live in the spare bedroom, and you’ll have the nest all to yourself unless you say otherwise. We – We want to keep you close.”My eyebrows bunched together. Move in? Stay in the nest room? Leave Charlie’s yard? I had barely just made a home at Charlie’s, and now my alphas were asking me to make a home with them. My mouth opened and shut as I looked around at three sets of waiting eyes, blue and green and blue-green, all asking the same question. “I – Isn’t that a sin? Aren’t we, like, supposed to get married or something before we move in together?”Arthur laughed at the absurdity of my suggestion, and John looked amused, but Tommy asked, seriously, “Do you want to get married?”“No,” I said, perhaps too quickly, but I had never wanted it, never even really thought about it because marriage was only a certificate, and we didn’t have those in gypsy camps. “But I do… I do want to move in with you, but now? I’m not sure.”Tommy petted my hair. “Then think about it. The choice is yours, but Robert will watch out for you wherever you are. Agreed?”“Yes, Tommy.”My alphas stayed to tuck me into bed, and they took turns kissing my forehead before leaving the room with the half-eaten trays of food. I tried to sleep, but the pain made it impossible, and I couldn’t toss or turn to get comfortable, although I doubted it was even possible when I’d been beaten and raped half to death. When the boys were gone and I was alone, the memories surfaced like the tide of an ocean, and I was the seashells washed away with the current, washed away from myself, back to who I once was.Heaving with pain, I pushed myself into a sitting position against the headboard and reached for the opium kit on my nightstand. My pipe clattered to the floor, and someone’s footsteps bounded against the creaking staircase, and then the door opened and Arthur stepped inside, holding a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other.“Ruby girl? You should be sleeping.”I looked at Arthur with tears welling in the corners of my eyes. “It hurts, Arthur.”Arthur walked forward and sat on the edge of the bed facing me, and his calloused hands ghosted across my injured cheek. “Where does it hurt, my gypsy girl?”“Everywhere,” I whimpered, and my voice cracked as the tears started flowing freely.Arthur swiped his thumbs under my eyes, wiping away the tears as quickly as they came. He looked toward the nightstand where my opium had sat the night and the morning before, and he found my pipe on the ground and leaned to pick it up. Then he settled next to me against the headboard, collecting my tools from the nightstand and setting them on his lap.“Don’t know what I’m doing,” Arthur mumbled as he fiddled with the pipe. “Never done this before.”“I’ll show you,” I offered, and I did, teaching him with my hands how to collect the resin, where it went, where the flame went, and I inhaled first and tried to pass Arthur the pipe.Arthur shook his head. “Not for me, Ruby girl. Just cigars and whiskey and a little snow.”The resin still smoked, so I set the pipe to my lips and drew inward until my lungs filled with citrus and pepper, and I blew outward, trying not to cough because even breathing was painful and I couldn’t imagine coughing. The more I smoked, the more I slipped into the land of sand that led to sleep, and Arthur took the pipe from my hands gently as I slipped into his chest and closed my eyes.Ten bullets. Ten skulls. Ten men dead on the pub floor. Ten hands holding ten guns. Ten cocks fucking through my cunt. Ten Lee boys, dead by my hands, my red hands, stained with red blood, red like the Red Sea, red like I had killed an ocean of men, and I had, and they crumpled at the feet of my throne, and the Red Sea parted, and across the ocean I saw Tommy, and John, and Arthur, and my pack behind them, and I stepped down from my throne, but the moment I moved, the Red Sea crashed down around my head, and I was drowning, drowning, drowning, but all I could think was – Were they drowning too?The door opened, and my eyes shot up, and I raised myself, whining, onto my elbows to watch my alphas walk through the door to the nest room, holding trays of scones and tea for breakfast, and I smiled.“Ruby, there’s news,” John said, coming to sit by my feet with a tray. He looked at Tommy. “Well, go on then.”Tommy grinned like a kid in a candy store. “Got the first legitimate betting license yesterday.”Grinning, I sat up too quickly, and I started to fall back against the headboard, but Arthur was there, holding me still so he could pile pillows behind my back and rest me back against them. “Fuck, I’m so proud of you all,” I said, beaming despite the pain, because how could that possibly matter when Tommy was doing what he had said he would do for his family, and it was working.“I can’t believe he actually did it,” John admitted, stuffing a scone in his mouth.Arthur sat beside John. He picked up his tea and pulled out a flask from his suit jacket, pouring a little amber liquid inside before he took a sip. Noticing my eyes, he guiltily passed me the cup, but I reached across and took the flask instead, raising it to my lips. Then I passed it to Tommy.“We’re celebrating, come on,” I urged, and Tommy was still smiling when he took the flask from my hand.“Oh, come on, that’s my special reserve,” Arthur grumbled. “Ruby can have anything of mine, but you –” I nudged him lightly with my foot, and he frowned further. “Ah, I guess it’s a special occasion.”Tommy passed the flask to John and stared into my eyes as if he could see the whole universe through my eyes. “Ruby, I want you to work with me.”“Thought I already was?”Tommy shook his head. “I confess. I need someone. Kimber has an adviser by the name of Roberts. He talks well. Keeps the accounts. Runs the legal side of the business.”“Tommy, I’m not an accountant,” I sighed.“No. No, but you have something I need,” Tommy admitted. “You have grace.”“A feminine power, eh?” Arthur recognized.Tommy nodded. “I need someone who looks right at the big meetings. Epsom, Ascot.”“I hardly think that’s me,” I balked, paling. “Do you take me for some trained upper-class lady?”“No,” Tommy said, the edges of his lips upturning. “I take you for a gypsy, wild and free, and that’s what I need. You’ve washed up in a place you belong, my love, and I mean to use you.”I considered for a long moment, running the odds in my head, and then, finally, slowly, I nodded. “Then you’ll have me, Tommy.”I fell asleep after my alphas left the nest room, carrying out the mostly uneaten scones of the morning’s breakfast. It was the morphine that put me to sleep, but it was the opium that made me dream, and I dreamed of familiar red hands and ten Lees and ten bullets in ten skulls and ten dead bodies piling at the foot of my throne, and a Red Sea that drowned me in blood until I begged for death, and I looked into Arthur’s blue eyes and pleaded for death, and I looked in John’s green eyes and entreated for death, and I looked into Tommy’s blue-green eyes and prayed for death, but nothing came over me, and I called to the ghosts, to my ancestors, to my god, but it was John’s dulcet tone that answered me.“Ruby, angel, wake up, baby,” he murmured, and my eyes fluttered open, and I looked into his green eyes, and I almost begged for death again but for the sweetness I found inside, and I drowned in his eyes as I woke to life again. “I ran you a bath, angel. Do you think we can get you up?”“John,” I whispered, and I raised my aching arms to his face and pulled him with all my strength, which wasn’t much, but he leaned forward, pressing featherlight lips against my own. “Good morning.”“It’s afternoon, baby,” John said, pulling away with a smile. He helped me sit up and then drew the blankets down my legs. “Let’s get you of these clothes.”It was an effort to strip off Polly’s wrinkled sleep shift from my body, and it stank of my sweat and my blood and not my blood, and ten other scents that didn’t belong, and I didn’t know how I had slept in these clothes, how I had kissed these alphas in my clothes, and the memories rushed through my veins, and I used that energy to shed my clothes in a pile on the floor as John helped me stay standing.John’s jaw gritted together, and a muscle feathered in his jaw as he looked at me. I followed his gaze, almost wincing at what I saw. I was bruised from head to toe in purple and green and some harsh black patches. But my legs, my legs were covered in blood, and I couldn’t imagine how much restraint it took for John to be so gentle as he guided me into the warm bath because a storm raged in his eyes, stronger and darker than I had ever seen, tornadoes of green and black. I sank into the bath and watched John as he drew a washcloth over my skin, rinsing me of the blood. Afterward, he dressed me in a simple silk chemise, carried my back to bed, and bundled inside, letting me sleep on his chest.The Red Sea drowned me, and there was no Tommy, and no John, and no Arthur, because they were all dead, floating in the ocean around me, and I had killed them, killed them with ten bullets like I had killed ten Lee alphas, and I tried to wash my hands in the red water, but everything was blood, blood, blood, blood, blood.John was gone when I awoke, and the sun was low in the sky, and Ada was sitting on the end of the bed, twirling my opium pipe between her hands. She looked up as I shifted, and her green eyes were sad, so sad that I had to look away.“Dinner’s ready,” Ada said in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to wake you, but I can go get something for you if you’re hungry.”“No,” I said numbly, and all the things I couldn’t say hung in the air between us.Ada’s eyes zigzagged across my features, and I knew my face was cut, one of my eyes bruised shut, one cheek black, my nose red and swollen, my lip busted. “John won’t tell me what happened. He’s ashamed, I think, that he wasn’t there.”I shook my head back and forth slowly, wishing he wasn’t, wishing he didn’t feel guilty when it was all I felt because everything was all my fucking fault, I had brought this on them, I had done this to myself, and for a fleeting moment I thought again that I deserved to die, but then Ada reached across the bed and clasped my hands in hers.“Polly says you need to talk about it, Ru,” she coaxed.I shook my head again, but the words flew from my lips like they had wings of their own. “I – I went looking for John at the betting shop. Scudboat let me in. Said John was to be back soon.” I swallowed, knowing that if John had been there, he might have died, because even he couldn’t fight ten Lee boys, and they might have made him watch, and I was suddenly glad that he hadn’t been there. “I helped Scudboat count the money. Then – Then they came in. Through the back door. Ten Lee boys. Holding ten guns. Ten fingers on ten triggers.” Ten bullets in ten heads. “They said they were here to take what belongs to them.”“Ten of them?” Ada whispered, and her voice was so low I barely heard her.“Ten Lee boys. Ten guns. Ten triggers. Ten bullets,” I muttered to myself.“They… They did this to you?”I looked into Ada’s eyes. “They made me Red Ruby again, Ada. They raped me until I bled. Polly thought I needed stitches. The doctor told me it was old scars opened up.”“You’re not Red Ruby,” Ada snarled, and for a moment I almost mistook her for an alpha because she raised her head high and set her shoulders when she said it.But I only sighed and hung my head. Tears collected in the corners of my eyes. “It’s my fucking fault.”Ada moved to sit beside my legs, and she turned her body to hug me as lightly as she could, and I welcome the pressure and the warmth and even the pain to feel something other than guilt. “It’s not your fault, Ru, I promise you.”“What did I do? What did I do for this to be my life, Ada?”Ada pulled back to look me in the face. “This isn’t your life, Ru. Your life is with us, with your pack, and we’ll protect you. My brothers will make sure this never happens again.”I shook my head. “That was my job. I walked in here, Ada, I walked into this like I understood the consequences, and I accepted them, I did, and I do still, but they – They didn’t know it would be like this. That’s my fault.”“It’s not your bloody fault,” Ada snapped, and she held my face too hard, and I flinched away from her. “Sorry – Ru, listen to me, this isn’t your fault. You thought you knew what you were getting into and you didn’t, okay, fine, but this wasn’t on the table, get it? This was never supposed to happen.”“It was always going to happen.” Tears streamed down my face, and I leaned my forehead into Ada’s dainty shoulder, staining her white dress with my tears. “And I killed them all.”“What?” Ada whispered.“Tommy took me. With John and Arthur and the Peaky boys who volunteered for me. I shot at the ceiling first. Cleared out the pub. Then I shot them, every one of them, every fucking one of them, one by one.”“Ru, I’m so sorry,” Ada murmured, and she petted my hair softly. “I’m so sorry, but you had to do it.”“I needed to do it, Ada.”“I know. I know, Ru,” Ada repeated. “I know, Ru.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Two weeks later, I had healed enough to move freely, although not without pain. My bruises faded to yellow and green, my bones mended together, and my cuts shrank and faded, but I did not forget what had been done to me or what I had done in return. The memories haunted me whether I was awake or asleep, and only the opium made the remembrance easier. I was thankful for my alphas, who spent every free moment by my side, because when they were gone I forgot how to smile. Tommy brought me news from the business, and he listened when I spoke. Arthur brought me the books to work on, and they kept my mind busy on the nights I couldn’t sleep. John brought me gifts, pillows and blankets, soft rugs for the floor, darkened drapes that let only little rays of light into the room. At nighttime, we all slept together in the big nest, and every so often, a night would pass when I didn’t think once about the men I had killed.Tonight was not one of those nights. Polly had cooked, and the family – Finn, Arthur, John, Tommy, Polly, and I – sat around the table. There was a plate of shepherd’s pie in front of me, but I couldn’t eat. As I drew a cigarette to my lips, all I could see was the invisible red staining my hands. I lit the end of the cigarette and inhaled the smoke as if I was accepting hell’s flames into my lungs. The table was rowdy around me, Polly talking to Tommy across the table, John and Arthur ruffling Finn’s hair and piling more pie onto his plate.I was the only one who heard the knock at the door. I rose quietly, setting my cigarette in the ashtray, and opened up the front door of Watery Lane.Ada Thorne stood on the threshold, doubled over and holding her round stomach in her hands. She was wearing a crumpled white dress that touched the top of her knees, and a wet stain had turned her white stockings grey with liquid. Her white coat hung open, and I could see where the amniotic fluid had burst across the thighs of her dress beneath her belly.“Ru! Ru, the baby’s coming, the baby’s coming –”I scooped Ada in my arms, slamming the door shut with my foot. “Polly!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, so loud Ada winced.Polly rushed into the room, running her hands across the solid print of her dress. Her dark brown eyes blew wide when she saw Ada. The boys hovered behind her in the kitchen doorway.“Bloody hell, Ada, you’ve got some timing,” John exhaled, and he looked at his brothers like he didn’t know what to do.Arthur clapped him on the back, grinning. “We gonna have a little nephew, eh? It’s off to The Garrison, then.”“Fuck off, then,” Ada snapped, and she let out a low moan and clutched her stomach in her arms.Tommy shifted his hands in his pockets. “Not much we men can do now, brothers.” He looked back at John and Arthur, glanced down at Finn. “Let’s go get drunk, eh?”“Right,” Arthur said, smiling.The Shelby brothers walked through the living room and out the front door as Polly reached Ada’s other side, taking her weight from my injured shoulders.I started to help my sister up the stairs, but Polly shook her head at me, piercing me with a look so deep and dark that there was no mistaking the gypsy queen in her. “One man should be here.”“Freddie?” Ada said suddenly, lifting her head with a brow pinched with pain. “Freddie’s coming?”Polly turned her attention back to Ada, helping her up the stairs, saying, “One at a time, that’s it, up the stairs, Ada.”Polly glanced back at me, and I nodded to her. “I’ll get him here.”I opened up the front door of Watery Lane and ran out into the street, barefoot, leaving the door hanging open behind me. Finn was already in the front seat of the family car parked in the street, but Tommy heard me or smelled me because he paused with his hand on the door to the driver’s side, and I reached him in a hurry, panting for breath.I stood inches away from my alpha, staring up into his expectant ocean eyes. “Tommy, I’m calling Freddie,” I said, and it wasn’t a question, but it was something he could refuse because we were partners now, king and queen, and we acted together. “Please, Tommy, say yes, let me go inside and call your brother and tell him his wife is giving birth to their son.”Tommy drew his perennial cigarette from his lips. His eyes were soft, happy, and he nodded to himself more than to me and said, “Yes, Ruby, you’re right. Freddie should be here.”I released a breath, and it whooshed through my lungs, and I kissed his lips swiftly, turning to run back down the street on my bare feet, but Tommy caught my wrist in his, and I looked at him, frowning, waiting.“The truce lasts until sunrise,” he said, and he sounded almost sad. “On my oath. Tell Freddie it’s safe.”I smiled ear to ear, swept on my heel, and ran back into Watery Lane, slamming the door behind me. I flew into the kitchen, ripping the phone off of the wall and dialing Freddie’s phone number.The line rang once and clicked. “Hello?”“Freddie!” I clutched the phone harder in my hand. “Freddie, it’s Ruby. Ada’s here at Polly’s, she’s having the baby.”“She’s – My Ada’s giving birth?” Freddie puffed.“I talked to Tommy, he says you should come. Truce until sunrise. He gave his oath, Freddie, come now.”“Yes, I – Okay, yes, I’m coming now, tell her I’m coming,” Freddie said, and the line went dead.I hung the phone on the receiver and blew around the kitchen, collecting water and towels, clean bandages, saline, whiskey, scissors, a sharp knife, everything that I could think we might possibly need. I took the stairs two at a time and darted into Polly’s bedroom. Ada was on the floor against the wall in her white linen chemise, and Polly was between her legs, checking her dilation. They both looked up as I entered.“Freddie?” Ada asked, and her voice broke, and she cried out, her fingernails scraping against the wooden floor.“He’s coming, Ada.”Ada smiled, and another wave of contractions stiffened her muscles, and she shouted. I knelt at her side, pressing my hands into her stomach to feel the baby while Polly held her legs open by the ankles, watching her progress below.“Keep going, Ada,” Polly said as Ada grunted and ground and pushed. “That’s right. Push!”Ada screamed and pushed, screamed and pushed, and I pressed my hand against her belly, shaking my head once. Polly looked at me, and I looked back at her. “He’s the wrong way round, Pol. I helped at the camp, I know what it feels like.”Polly looked through me as she pressed her hand to Ada’s stomach, feeling what I had felt. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”“We should move her forward,” I suggested.“All right, come on, Ada.”Polly took Ada by the arms, and I took her weight from the back, gritting my teeth as a pain like a knife twisted through my ribs, but Ada needed me, so I helped Polly guide her to the bed, and she leaned against it, falling to her knees, balling the blankets in her white hands, grunting and yelling and pushing as I rubbed her back.The labor was quick, quicker than I had ever seen, and I thanked my ancestors and the stars above that Ada and Karl were safe. For some godforsaken reason, Ada refused to get in bed with her son and instead insisted on taking tea as we waited for Freddie, and so Polly and I helped her down the stairs as Ada carried her newborn son in her arms, staring at him as if he was the world, and I couldn’t blame her because he might very well have been the world and everything inside it.Ada settled in a chair at the kitchen table, nursing her son in her arms as Polly flitted around the kitchen, making tea and reheating dinner. While the two were busy, I snuck out the front door. I leaned my back against it, pulling a cigarette from my pocket and sparking a light. I stood and smoked, breathing and smiling as I waited for the father of Ada’s baby to meet his son.Some time later, I saw the dark form of a man racing down the middle of Watery Lane, his arms and legs pumping like he had just run a marathon, and I guessed that he had just run all the way from his safehouse in the Brum because he reached me, panting and sweating, gasping, “Ada, where is she, can I see her?”I opened the door and ushered Freddie toward the kitchen, and he slowed to a walk as he idled through the kitchen doorway.“It’s a boy, Freddie,” Ada said, and her voice was sweet and tired, and I lingered in the open front door, torn between the fresh air and the fresh life.Freddie stepped forward, raising his hands like a prayer until his fingers touched his lips. He pulled up a seat next to Ada, staring at his son with deep brown eyes of a man who had just become a father.“It’s a beautiful baby boy,” Ada murmured, and she smiled so brightly, and her hair was a mess, and her skin shined with sweat, but she looked like an angel if I had ever seen one.Ada placed her son gently into Freddie’s arms, and he brought his face close to baby’s tiny face. “There you go,” he said, and I had never heard Freddie so gentle. “Welcome to the world, son. Welcome.”I was a fucking idiot, because instead of watching the street, I had been watching Freddie greet his son, and I hadn’t seen the officers as they rounded the corner, and I didn’t realize what was happening until a copper grabbed me by the arm and wrenched me out of the flat.“No, no you can’t come in here!” I shouted, struggling with the copper, and he hit me, and I spit, “There’s a baby just been born! There’s a baby, please!”Four coppers rushed past me into the flat as the other held me by the throat to the wall, and I cursed the Lees for my injuries that hadn’t healed because I could do nothing but listen as the coppers charged inside the flat, and Polly said something about the baby, and Freddie grunted as he was shoved against a wall, and Ada screamed, “You’re hurting him! Leave him alone!” and I kneed the copper holding me in the groin and ran into the house, but another copper caught my arm and threw me to the ground, sitting on my back with his knee, and I watched their legs and their boots as they dragged Freddie from the flat.“You’re taking me away from my baby!” Freddie shouted, and they did, and they left without a word to us, taking Freddie around the corner and piling him into a car I hadn’t seen.When I could move again, pain rushed through me like a reminder, and I stood to my feet and walked to Ada, who was sitting in her chair, holding her son, rocking him against her, crying silently. Polly paced back and forth through the kitchen, and then she collected her coat and hat and left without a word, and I was left with Ada, holding her and her baby to my chest as if the coppers might come to take them away, too.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Tommy roused me from where I had been sleeping, nestled in between John and Arthur, when it was still dark outside. By sunrise, we walked side by side through the cemetery, our shoulders and hips brushing with each step. As we traveled through the rows of headstones, I pilfered a cigarette from Tommy’s pocket and lit it with a match. The smoke was a relief to my lungs, rising high in my head until a lofty, airy feeling tingled in my brain.Tommy’s hand was stuffed in his coat pocket, and I looped my arm around the crook of his elbow, tying us together. “Who are we here to see, Tommy?”Tommy dropped his hand to cover mine around his arm, squeezing my hand as if assuring himself I was really there beside him. “No one.”A few paces later, we stood in front of Danny Whizz-bang’s empty grave. I watched as Tommy crouched in front of the mound of dirt atop the grave, sinking his hand into the dry ground. He surfaced with a handful of dirt that sifted through his fingers like sand.“Tommy…” I breathed. “What’s buried in Danny’s grave?”Tommy stood. He retrieved a cigarette from its place in his pocket, smoothed it over his lips, and lit it with his lighter, inhaling deeply and exhaling a burst of warm air over my head. “The guns, Ruby.”My cigarette fell from my hand. I looked down at Danny’s not-so-empty grave. I had known, as I knew most things, but I had not expected Tommy to tell me outright, to utter the words out loud, to confess a secret that none but him should have known.I pulled another cigarette from my pocket, and Tommy sparked his lighter against the end. I dragged the smoke into my lungs as if I was breathing for the first time. “Why did you bring me here, Tommy?”Tommy ashed his cigarette over the dirt mound. He eyed me with piercing blue-green eyes that reflected the morning light of the rising sun. “I trust you, Ruby.”My brow furrowed. “What is this about?”“I need you to trust me,” Tommy said, and his words were a statement, but he meant it as a question.I frowned. I flicked my cigarette over Danny’s grave and brought it my lips, taking in a long breath. “Is this about Freddie?”Tommy tossed his cigarette over the dirt mound. He stepped forward once, twice, and he set his hands on my shoulders, turning me toward his body. He looked into me with those ocean eyes of his, but the ocean was still, quiet, eerie, waiting. “Do you trust me, Ruby?”My hands twitched by my sides, the cigarette burning between my fingers. “Tommy, you’re starting to worry me.”Tommy’s hands tightened around my shoulders. “Answer me,” he said, but it was a plea and not a command because his brow ticked and his lips pressed together and he looked at me as if my answer could reach into his chest and pull out his heart.“Yes, Tommy, of course I trust you.” I tossed my cigarette to the ground and grasped his face in my hands, piercing my eyes with his own. “Of course I trust you.”The ocean in Tommy’s eyes rippled. “You’re the only one who does.”I sighed. My fingers smoothed up and down the back of Tommy’s shaved head. “You can’t blame them for what it looks like, Tommy.”Tommy’s hands fell from my shoulders to my hips, and he stepped forward, and I held him in my hands, so fragile, so delicate, so close to falling apart. “Ada won’t see Polly. She’s locked herself in that flat because she thinks it will keep me away.”I nodded, brushing my thumb across his cheek. “I’ll talk to her.”“I can’t do this without her,” Tommy admitted.I held Tommy’s face in my hands for a moment longer, my brow furrowed, my head tilted. I stepped back, and Tommy’s hands fell from my hips, and I walked the length of Danny’s grave, pulling a cheap cigarette from my case and placing it between my lips. I lit it with a match, inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, thinking. Finally, I looked back to Tommy, who was watching me with an unreadable expression in his quiet eyes. “The only way you’re getting Ada back is if you get Freddie back.”Tommy smoothed another cigarette over his lips, considering. “He’s being transferred in three weeks.”I nodded as the ghosts whispered in my ear. “I know a copper on your payroll who will flip with a little pressure.”Tommy’s eyebrow ticked up, and he blew smoke through his nose. “How do you know so much about everything, Ruby?”I shrugged. “I made friends. You send a few Peaky boys around, get the copper to volunteer for the transfer. Have him drive Freddie fifty miles down Stratford Road.”Tommy took a long draw from his cigarette. “Danny can meet them, spring Freddie, bring him back to Ada.”“So you’ll do it?” I asked, flicking my spent cigarette to join the others littering Danny’s grave.“Yes, Ruby. Three weeks. Tell Ada.”I walked forward into Tommy’s arms and kissed him chastely. “I’ll see her today.”Tommy looked at me for a long, peaceful moment, and then he took my arm and walked with me through the rows of gravestones and out of the cemetery. We walked all the way back to Garrison Lane, where Tommy left to check on Arthur at The Garrison and I parted down Watery Lane toward Polly’s flat to retrieve Ada’s groceries.The sun was high in the sky by the time I reached Ada’s safehouse in the Brum. The door was shut and locked, and a basket of old, unused groceries sat outside the door. The floors creaked as Ada paced across the floor inside, Karl crying in her arms as she hummed to him.I rapped softly on the door. “Ada? It’s me.”Ada’s footsteps ceased. “Did Tommy send you?”“I need to talk to you,” I said through the door. “It’s about Freddie.”There was a silent pause, then the floor creaked again as Ada walked across the room toward the door. The latch clicked, and the door cracked open, revealing Ada in a grey dress and darker grey robe, holding a swaddled Karl in her arms. She looked tired, with dark rings around her eyes, strewn hair, and puffy cheeks like she had been crying.“You’re not coming in,” Ada said, rocking baby Karl in her arms.I held up the basket in my hands. “At least take the fresh eggs and bread.”Sighing, Ada opened up the door just slightly wider so that I could set the basket in the threshold. Then she stepped in front of the room as if protecting her space, and I backed up a step outside the door.“What news?” Ada asked sharply.“Tommy is springing Freddie.”Ada’s green eyes widened like dinner plates, and she inhaled so sharply it must have hurt, because she nearly coughed. “When?”“Three weeks. We have to wait on the prison transfer.”Ada shot me through with her sharp eyes. “This was your idea.”I sighed. “We need you, Ada.”“Do you promise, Ruby? Tommy’s bringing my husband back to me?”I nodded. “Yeah, I promise, Ada.”Ada opened the door and stepped back into the flat. “Come in, then. Will you make some tea? I need to feed Karl again.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Hello, beautiful!I usually update quite frequently, so you may have been missing my lack of chapter updates for Peaky Girl. I wanted to check in and let you know that I am taking a short pause on this fanfiction for the time being. I confess, I have a million ideas for continuing this fic, and I LOVE writing it with all my heart. As of right now, I don't intend on abandoning this little passion project of mine.But unfortunately, my health is suffering right now. The time I would usually be spending writing this fanfiction is now being dedicated to taking care of myself. Some days, I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. As they say, this too shall pass, and I hope to get back to writing Peaky Girl or perhaps working on another project sometime soon.In the meantime, I want to express a HUGE thank you to everyone who has commented and left Kudos on this work. It's been a true pleasure writing Peaky Girl so far, and sometimes I feel like I'm writing it just for all of us. Thank you for inspiring me, for guiding me, for supporting me, and most of all, for loving Peaky Girl just as much as I do!xo
sage