Chapter 37 – Bells #2
Stephen's failed bite—the one that was never completed, never consented to, never meant to be—is reacting to everything.
To Rex's proximity, to the pack bonds flaring in my chest, to the fact that my body is straining to complete those pack bonds with the alpha who’s holding me, the alpha who just told me he loves me, while carrying the mark of the wrong one.
It's biological warfare. My own body is attacking itself because the signals don't match.
Rex's hand finds my chin and tilts my face up. His single working eye searches mine, and for once, he isn’t trying to turn his head so I can’t see the scarred side as well.
"The mark," he says quietly.
"It's getting worse." I press my palm against the collar, against the scar beneath it. "Every time you touch me, every time I feel the pack bond, it—fuck—"
Another spike. I hiss through my teeth.
He works his jaw, watching me. The exposed muscles and tendons flex and stretch at the movement. It takes everything I have to not let my eyes slide to it automatically.
"What do you need?" he asks, his voice rough and concerned.
"Honestly?"
He waits.
"It really fucking sucks that we can't just stop everything we're doing so you can knot me and mark me properly."
Dead silence.
Rex stares at me.
His eye goes wide like he's actually considering it.
I reach up and tap his nose.
"No. Bad alpha. That's how we die."
He blinks.
"Did you just—"
"Focus. Escape first. Knotting later."
His lip curls. “You’re the one who fucking suggested it.”
Footsteps.
We both freeze.
Multiple boots. Coming from the far end of the corridor, around the corner, rapid and coordinated.
Rex shoves me behind him and plants himself in the corridor, swaying slightly, his fists raised despite the fact the blood loss alone should have dropped him by now.
The footsteps get louder.
"Rex—"
"Stay behind me."
"Rex, there's at least four of them!”
"I said fucking stay!"
The first guard rounds the corner at a dead sprint.
And gets clotheslined by a bronze forearm that appears from the intersecting hallway like a battering ram.
The guard's feet fly out from under him. He hits the stone flat on his back with a crack that echoes through the corridor.
Rafael steps over the body.
He's holding a compact submachine gun.
"Hey, carino," he says, flashing me a wild, blood-smeared grin. "Miss us?"
“Fuck, yes,” I breathe.
Behind him, Phoenix charges into the second guard, driving the man into the wall with enough force to crack plaster. The third guard raises his gun and Phoenix wrenches it out of his hands, tosses it down the hallway, and headbutts the guy so hard the sound makes my teeth ache.
The fourth guard takes one look at the carnage and bolts.
Raf lets him go.
"Where the fuck did you get that?" I demand, staring at the machine gun.
Raf racks the charging handle with a satisfying clack and tilts it so the light catches the matte black finish. "Oh, you like my new toy? Got it off some asshole. Did you know Phoenix can’t shoot to save his life? It’d be a hell of a lot easier if he did. Free weapons everywhere.”
“And how the hell do you know how to use a machine gun?” I demand.
Raf shrugs. “The safety is off and it goes brrrrt. What else do I need to know?”
Phoenix jogs up, broad chest heaving, a spray of someone else's blood across his shirt. His blond hair has come completely undone and hangs around his face in wild tangles.
He sees me first.
Relief crashes across his face so hard his knees nearly buckle. He crosses the distance in three massive strides and his arms close around me and I'm lifted clean off the ground, crushed against his thick torso, his face buried in my hair.
"You're alive," he breathes. "Oh thank fuck, you're alive—"
"I won’t be if I don’t breathe, Phoenix,” I croak.
He loosens his grip. Barely.
Then he looks past me.
At Rex.
The words die in his throat.
I watch Phoenix's blue eyes travel across Rex's unmasked face in the amber light of the corridor.
The exposed teeth and tendons. The lidless eye staring back at him with that damaged, unblinking gaze.
The other bright with feral light. The missing flesh where the side of his mouth should be, the jawbone visible beneath grafts that didn't fully take.
Phoenix goes absolutely still.
Raf comes up behind Phoenix's shoulder and stops dead too.
“Stop fucking staring at me,” Rex growls, turning the scarred side away and reaching up to cover it with his hand.
Phoenix doesn't let him. He steps forward and pulls Rex into a bear hug, squeezing him hard enough Rex's entire body goes rigid.
"Get off me," he snarls.
Phoenix squeezes harder.
"I said get off.” Rex shoves against Phoenix's chest, hard, and Phoenix releases him with obvious reluctance and a sound like a disappointed bear, making graspy hands at where Rex just was.
Rex staggers back a step. His lidless eye is wide and glassy and the other is terrified, the pupil shrinking to a pinprick.
Raf hasn't moved. His expression is unreadable. Where Phoenix's answer is always intense physical affection, Raf doesn't seem to know what to do with emotions in general. Especially not this.
Phoenix solves it by clapping Raf on the shoulder and squeezing hard enough to make Raf yell in pain. "What the fuck! Are your hands steel traps?"
"That's not what you thought the other day," Phoenix says, grinning.
The mark on my neck fires again.
It’s more than a spike this time. More like a sustained, drilling agony. I double over, my hand flying to the collar, and a sound comes out of me that makes all three alphas snap to attention like someone fired a starting pistol.
"Bells!" Phoenix grabs my arm.
"Stephen," I gasp. "He's…" The pain pulses in rhythm, a compass pointing me toward the source. "He's in the auditorium. The main one. Upstairs."
I straighten up. The pain doesn't stop but my brain overrides it because this needs to end tonight.
"I can feel him."
Rex's eye meets mine. "How sure are you?"
"Completely."
Raf racks the charging handle again.
Clack.
"Let's fucking go."