Chapter 37
thirty-seven
RHYS
Her.
It’s the first real word my Alpha has graced me with in as long as I can remember.
Far from his usual feral roars and monstrous urges, the single syllable is soft. Full of amazement. And fear.
Honestly, same.
I have a cement mixer of dread and disbelief churning at my center. My mind instinctively tries to protect itself from the sick seethe rapidly winding its way through my guts. Denial clamors inside my lungs, crowding out the oxygen.
It can’t be. I would have known. Would have sensed—
A pull? Otherworldly attraction?
Didn’t I feel both of those things the second I saw her, standing in the driveway in Cillian’s morbid wedding gown? And again, the first time I put tears in those green, green eyes?
She held a knife to my throat. Threatened my goddamn life.
And I wanted more.
Have I ever been so viscerally drawn to another omega? Without the ability to even scent them?
And, God. Her scent.
I shouldn’t be able to smell it, but I do. The tart sweetness is faint, but it’s there. Here. Burning a path from my lungs to the raving beast crouched at my middle, quieter than ever.
My Alpha’s solemn certainty smothers every flicker of denial licking through my thoughts. It’s her, he croaks again. She’s our mate.
The words flow over my mind. Too thick to seep into the folds of gray matter. And so chilling they freeze out all other thought.
Fuck—they’ve frozen my blood.
My heart struggles to pump the semi-solid muck in my veins, floundering. Or maybe that’s just the dread again. It’s worse than before, now. Misery of the purest kind—because it isn’t for myself.
She’s really our mate.
Which means, once Gideon and his pack find out, she’ll never be safe again.
I’ve fallen to my knees, but that fact brings me even lower. My palms rasp against the wet gravel as I pant, trying to fill my lungs.
But I can’t get full control. I can’t even fucking breathe.
Briar is all I sense. Her essence lights up tastebuds that have been dead for years. Vibrating inside my aching lungs. Melting my mind.
Mine. My mate.
The irony is too painful. I’ve been an angry, bitter asshole from the moment she walked in the door—because I was so unbelievably pissed that she wasn’t the one I’d hoped for all my life. And furious at myself for how much I wanted her anyway.
A tremor starts in my arms. Every fiber of my being urges me toward her. Tells me I can’t leave, even though I don’t deserve to be next to her.
Briar whines, the sound pitifully soft. So different from the fearless woman who took me down her throat with fury in her eyes.
But I’m equally drawn to her needy whimper. It hits my heart like a dagger and slices downward, severing all ties to pride or self-interest.
My Alpha and I have been at war for so long, it’s terrifying to let him press his way to the surface. He notices things I can barely see, though. Like the quiver in her knees. Her expanding pupils.
When a blush stains her cheeks, I swear I feel her warmth from my place on the ground. My breathing stutters until every exhale rumbles.
A purr, I realize, the thought distant and halting.
It’s a sound I haven’t made before—one I vowed to save.
For her.
Her, her, her.
The woman I’ve mocked. Terrified. Belittled. Threatened. Used.
Fuck.
I knew Briar would be the end of me.
I just never expected the cause of death would be heartbreak.