Chapter 39
Nyxeris
The ground beneath my feet is purple. The dirt and stone are dark, the grass is shades lighter, but still, unbelievably, purple.
Trees of all sizes, kinds I’ve never seen before, despite their color, pepper the landscape.
One particularly large tree with plumes like cotton balls is close enough to touch, its purple bark rough and speckled with black.
The sky is the only thing that’s a different color, swirls of green in all shades from yellow-tinged to evergreen, an angry storm brewing overhead.
In the distance are floating mountains, some upside down as they swim through the air, dark and foreboding.
Black waterfalls pour from peaks high and low, flowing down and up.
Gravity has no meaning beyond the horizon, yet here, our feet are flat on the purple ground beneath us.
Me and Arlowe.
It’s surreal, yet also somehow familiar.
Familiar because it matches Arlowe’s power. And Zeph’s.
I turn to my friend, her expression confused and pensive as I ask, “What… what is this place?”
She frowns. “A place I’ve only ever been to alone. Until now.” A small shake of her head before she gestures behind me with her chin, and I turn to find Zephyr there not far in the distance, hovering above the ground, his dark power swirling and licking his form.
“Zephyr!” I run to him, but he doesn’t acknowledge me, his floating form so very still. When I’m right beside him, I call his name again. This time, he turns cold, black eyes on me, not even turning his head.
He regards me as something insignificant.
Something my Zeph would never do.
When a familiar whirring sound blooms at my side, I hear Arlowe’s “Shit!” a blink before I’m taken almost a hundred feet away in her arms.
I don’t have to ask why she moved me. I can see it.
Where I’d been standing, there’s now a black hole.
One of Zephyr’s black holes.
There is no way.
“We need to snap him out of it.” Lowe’s anger matches the level of my confusion. “We may need to use force.”
“That could just make him more angry.”
Arlowe’s gaze narrows on Zeph, his body finally twisting to turn toward us.
“I don’t know how he got in here, but this is my turf. No one holds more power than me in this place.”
Her tone is so sure, any questions I have die before Lowe grumbles another curse and moves us again, one blink and we’re far to the left of where we’d been, another gravity orb staring back at us.
“He’s slow.”
“Maybe he isn’t really trying to kill us.”
She shoots me an incredulous look.
“No, I mean it. He could just drop those orbs right on us and that would be it. He’s been doing it all night with doors and soldiers.”
Lowe turns thoughtful. “We need to incapacitate him. Maybe see if you can talk sense into him. Use some of that pack bond voodoo magic crap.” She huffs, and we’re moved behind Zeph, but his body snaps to face our direction immediately.
“Plan?”
“So, like, don’t get mad…”
As soon as the words leave Arlowe’s mouth, Zeph roars with rage, and I whip around to see the ground beneath him has warped and wrapped itself around his body like some kind of cocoon.
It’s as if reality itself has bent, turning the ground, rocks, and even nearby trees into some melded together blanket that’s wrapped tightly around Zephyr’s body, from his toes up to his neck.
It’s an absolute spectacle, and I will be questioning Lowe about all of this later.
Once I get my Zeph back.
“I’ll keep watch.”
I take a breath and begin walking toward Zephyr’s growling form, my brows drawn so tight my forehead aches. When I circle around to face him, he snarls down at me before his nostrils flare, the anger in his black eyes at last subsiding, but only a touch.
“Mate.” The word is a chomp.
My head tilts as I examine him, gaze roving over his growling face, body paralyzed by the confines holding him in place.
“Zephyr O’Connor.” Never have I used his full name before, but this situation is so foreign and unexpected that I’m almost hoping he won’t respond, that he’s been possessed by someone or something else.
He looks down at me expectantly, and my hopes are dashed.
“Why are you behaving this way? What’s happening to you?”
Zephyr howls, the ear-piercing sound ending in another growl as he bears his teeth at me. “No hope. Bring him back!”
“Who?”
“Ness.” The name is a hiss on his lips.
Ness? The doctor who performed unthinkable experiments on him? “Why do you want Ness to come back?”
“Finish what he started.”
My eyes blink rapidly, my head shaking in disbelief.
This cannot be Zephyr. He would never want Ness to come back for any other reason than to kill him himself.
“Finish what?”
“Make me an Alpha.”
I gape at him, unable to stop my reaction. Zeph, when telling me about his torture, never expressly said that their fucked up goal was to change him on a fundamental level. That’s not even possible!
But I know that what he says is true, I can feel it in my chest, as if his words were mine. Regardless of it being an impossible feat, this was something Zeph was told would come to pass.
I’ve never been so glad that monster is dead.
Thanking Mira is high on my To-Do List.
I keep my tone as calm as I can, smooth and crooning. “Zeph, why would you want that?”
His rage boils over again, snarling and snorting. “I should be an Alpha. Knot you! Breed you!”
No… Is he really so unhappy with who and what he is? Have I not been listening to him all this time or has he not told me what’s really in his heart?
Tears fill my eyes and I realize I’m to blame for this. I didn’t do a good enough job reassuring him of his insecurities, didn’t convince him enough of how much I love him.
I shoot an imploring glance at Lowe, willing her to know what I want her to do.
She frowns at me before her gaze narrows and Zephyr’s prison begins to unfold back into the landscape.
Before he can move a muscle, I leap at him, wrap my arms around his form, crushing his arms at his sides as I bury my face in his chest. My tears soak his shirt as he stands, frozen and stiff as a board.
“I love you.” My words come out like a croak.
“I love you so very much, Zephyr. Exactly as you are.” I turn my face up at him, but he doesn’t look at me.
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through.
I’ve never felt like anything other than me, so I could never truly understand.
I know this. But Zeph. There’s nothing wrong with being different.
There’s nothing wrong with being a strong, masculine Omega. My strong, masculine Omega.”
Tears stream from my eyes freely, head tilted back as I examine his gorgeous face before I release my hold on him, bring my fingertips to his sharp jaw, feel the pale stubble there as it glistens in the light from the strange, swirling sky.
“You are so uniquely Zephyr. My Zeph. My love.” I turn his head toward me with my hands, rub one thumb across his cheek, the other across his lips.
His blackened eyes blink for the first time.
“Talk to me, Zeph. Tell me everything. I promise to listen.”
He blinks twice this time, rapidly. Those luscious lips part then close. When he does start to speak, his voice is almost back to normal, but still holds a sharp edge, a foreign darkness that doesn’t belong there. Not in the light of my life.
“Never good enough. Never right. Awkward. Friendless. Cursed. Murderer.” He growls the last word.
“They say they’ll fix it. Me. Make me what I should be.
‘He’s too big to be an Omega. Too muscular.
’” A huffed laugh devoid of humor. “So they decide, ‘Let’s change him.’ No one asks.
No one cares. They cut out a piece of me. Intended to add pieces later.”
His black eyes flick down at my face at last. “Didn’t want them to change me. Not then. But later, I met a perfect Omega. Beautiful. Strong. Assured. Whole.”
I wince at his words, my heart racing, the ache inside me increasing with every beat.
That being in my chest unfurls itself, stands at attention, scrutinizing. There’s a grumble in my mind.
All our mates are perfect. Would accept nothing less.
My brow pinches just before Zeph sucks in a small breath.
“You heard it again. That voice inside me. Just like the day we mated.”
He doesn’t have to confirm it. It’s obvious he can hear the creature as clearly as I can.
A thought strikes me, and I look up at Zephyr with a gasp.
The way my creature speaks in my mind is so similar to the way Zephyr is speaking now. The almost-complete sentences, the sharp edges.
Please, help me. Help me help our mate.
I think the words in desperation, my tears returning at the thought that I could never reach him like this. If I’m right, I need the being inside me to step up. If I’m wrong, then I guess I’m just crazy.
There’s a huff in my head before my skin grows warm, my eyes sizzle without pain.
I can see and hear everything, but I can’t move.
Can’t speak. I’m wrapped in my electric power again, this time so thick it almost looks like solid armor all around me.
My head tilts back and I catch my reflection in Zephyr’s black eyes, see my own eyes glowing with blinding intensity, electrical arcs spitting from the outer corners, fizzling in the air.
“Mate.”
My voice comes out of my mouth, rougher and sharper, but they aren’t my words.
Zephyr’s attention is squarely on me, not even shielding his eyes from the brightness I’m emitting.
“To say you are not perfect is to say our pack is not perfect. We are fated. Not an accident. Not a mistake. Perfection.”
My hands roughly grab his face and pull him down until our foreheads are touching.
“We have been fated again and again. We do not always find each other. This lifetime is a gift, Omega. We are together. All of us. We will remain together.” My gaze narrows. “Believe in us. Our love. Our belonging. We accept and want you. Forever.”
And then, I crush my lips to his, feel the surprise course through his body before he relaxes into me, mouth opening to accept my flicking tongue before he clings to me. Something sizzles on the air around my face, and I realize we’re both crying, our tears getting zapped away by my power.
The Zephyr that pulls away looks down at me with pale eyes in confusion, scans our surroundings and then looks back at me.
“Nyx?”
When I smile, it’s really me, back in control of my body, the electric encasing my form disappears.
“Zeph.” My tone is watery. “You’re back.”
He blinks, eyes and brow tight. “Where the fuck are we?”
I open my mouth to try and explain, but Arlowe puffs into existence beside us.
“You’re in my territory, Irish. And we need to get out of here.
” She places her hands on both our shoulders and has the decency to say, “Hold onto your stomachs,” before we puff back into the Long Island science facility.
It’s exactly as we left it, bodies strewn everywhere, fires and crumbling stone ceilings, broken glass spread out across the floor.
“Did… did we do this?”
It’s unclear how much time Zephyr has lost, but we’ll need to deal with that later.
“We need to go.” Arlowe points up at the ceiling where dark energy—Zeph’s power—licks along the bare stone, feeding and growing, taking matter with it.
“Shit.” Zeph grabs each of us under an arm and we’re immediately soaring through the air, right out the busted-up wall that the mech came through.
He’s flying like a superhero.
The moment my feet touch the ground outside, Arlowe grumbles, “I could’ve transported myself, you know,” and she dusts off her shirt.
A blink later, Zeph and I are wrapped in the tightest embrace, surrounded by our Alphas, their arms tight around us.
“We thought we lost you,” Erich sobs into Zeph’s shoulder.
“We were both very frightened.” Andrew whispers his words into my hair, kissing my scalp.
“I don’t mean to intrude, but we have to move.”
I peer around Erich and Zeph at Rodrigo, who looks at Zeph. “If you want to take this place down, now’s the time.”
Zeph steps out of our group embrace and searches along the shoreline, stopping to look at a small group of freed prisoners in their white clothing. “This is their demon to slay.” He looks back at Rodrigo. “I’ve already exorcised mine.”
A small smile tics across Rodrigo’s face as he nods once, then turns to jog over to the group of prisoners.
“Where were you?”
I look up at Erich, my vision swimming again. “We’ll tell you everything later. What matters right now is that we’re okay.”
When I hug Zeph’s arm, he places a kiss on the top of my head. “Accepted and safe.”