Four months later #10
"Oh, brrrr… Really? I’m so scared." Bay makes a mockingly scared face. And I blink in shock. He really thinks he can take on a purple alpha? That’s an insane cockiness, the only question is… does he mean it?
Eugene tilts his neck, that cracking sound again, but Bay only smirks.
"I’ve been sparring with a purple alpha from the time we were sixteen until last week, so show me what you’ve got, old man."
Eugene laughs louder, but I hear a different undertone in it now, a hint of irritation.
He tears off what’s left of his shredded black shirt, revealing massive slabs of thick muscle. His chest is covered in dense gray hair, giving him an animalistic look.
He spreads his arms, and the long spikes jutting from them fully extend, just like any purple alpha before a fight. But that’s not all. I realize he’s about to extend his armor too. The lines on his chest, along his ribs, are widening.
"Bay! Quick, before he armors up," I shout, knowing that if a purple alpha hardens into armor even bullets can’t get through.
But Bay stands calmly and watches the terrifying transformation crawling across the purple alpha’s body, thin lines running along his ribs swelling, revealing the edges of bony plates. But it isn’t normal bone. Purple alphas have a special kind that is more like interwoven carbon fiber.
Bay stomps on the leg of the overturned chair, sending it flying upward, and he catches it in one swift motion and tears off one of its legs with a single hard jerk.
The whole thing takes maybe a second… and my hole tightens, which is kind of absurd, but I just can’t wrap my head around how strong and agile he is.
Eugene lets out a terrifying roar, so low and vibrating I have never heard anything like it, the battle cry of purple alphas that sends his enemies into throes of panic.
For some reason I trust in Bay as Eugene launches himself at my True Mate with astonishing speed, but… Bay is no longer there.
He is on the other side of the cage, watching the massive alpha with calm eyes.
My heart is pounding, and honestly I have no idea what I am hoping for, whether Bay can even take down an armored beast like a purple.
I know perfectly well how powerful they are, Blue survived only because of one of them, Storm, who shielded his body with his own from a full bomb blast, so are Bay’s chances even remotely real?
But somehow I… believe in him. Because he is fighting for us. And we… we are everything.
Still, somebody else has the opposite approach.
Eugene must strongly believe in his inevitable victory because he charges Bay again, trying to swing his spiky arm and rip open Bay’s throat, but Bay slips out of his range once more and the strike slams into a cage bar with such force that it bends the thick metal.
The clang is horrifying, Eugene roars.
But Bay is again on the other side of the cage, and the speed with which he moves is unbelievable.
His tattoos shine with red light, an incredible sight I have never seen before, although apparently his brother Snow has the same tattoos in white, so that is an interesting family feature.
It is one of the reasons both brothers always wear long sleeves, never wanting to draw attention to their distinct look.
As I watch the fight, it is almost ridiculous to see their difference, Bay, despite his massive build and height, seems almost small now compared to the giant Eugene Hanson.
Eugene’s long gray hair falls over his chest and he tilts his huge head with a growl, the spikes on the back of his skull are visibly lengthening.
He goes for another devastating blow, but yet again, his speed just cannot match Bay’s. My True Mate dodges the hit and slips to the other side of the cage.
Purple lets out a low, furious growl and hurls his whole body at Bay, trying to tackle him into the ground, but somehow Bay drops low under his elbow and once again ends up on the opposite side, smirking.
"A bit slow, huh?"
Eugene rumbles, and his next hit is so strong it actually knocks one of the thick metal bars loose from the top of the cage frame, bending it to the side.
A few seconds later another missed blow destroys two more bars, twisting them out of shape.
Fuck, the man has insane power, the cage is built out of bars three inches thick.
My heart is pounding like crazy. If a hit like that lands on Bay, it might be over, it would break his bones. Purple alphas have bones reinforced with carbon fiber, nearly unbreakable, but Bay is not like them.
I am sweating and panting, my inhaler pressed to my lips the whole time.
Finally, Eugene has had enough. The cage looks like some kind of deformed metal wreck.
His beta grandson on the ceiling is barely hanging on, every violent shake his grandpa sends through the bars jerks his whole body, bouncing him in the air.
The purple roars furiously and turns his head toward Bay, the whites of his eyes flushed a pinkish red.
"You gonna keep running from me, coward? Fight me like an alpha or maybe you aren’t one, hmmm?
No self-respecting alpha offers himself in place of an omega, but to your credit, I heard you really can deepthroat," he throws it out with a dark smile, obviously hoping to break Bay’s morale, but it becomes the last smile he ever makes.
"You know what the real difference between us is?" Bay tilts his head slightly.
"You failed your family, Eugene. You are nothing but a loser, like all your grandchildren, and you all will perish like the trash you are. You are done, and I get the last word."
A strange grimace twists Eugene’s face, almost painful, full of rage, and he bares his mating fangs, easily three inches long, opens his mouth wide, wanting to let out a drawn-out roar, but that is exactly the moment Bay seems to have been waiting for.
His jump is so fast my eyes cannot keep up.
In the next second the chair leg is rammed into Eugene’s mouth, so deep and with such force that only the very end of it remains sticking out.
He does not even make a choking sound. Blood gushes between his open lips with the grotesque tip of the chair leg jutting out.
Bay lands lightly and steps back while Eugene sinks to his knees.
My victorious mate folds his arms across his chest and says,
"It seems you’re also good at deepthroating."
The giant collapses forward, face down, with a dull, heavy thud, probably driving the stake even deeper into his own throat.
Bay turns and looks at me, his eyes narrowed.
Ecstasy floods me, almost overwhelming, dizzying me as I grin widely. "Fucking hell, yeah!" I raise my fists in the air. "You defeated them. All of them, Bay. Victory! Victory! Victory!" My voice breaks in pure happiness.
Bay winks and then lifts his gaze upward and looks at the beta crouched on the top of the cage.
"The job’s not done."
"Wait, I… please." The beta starts begging.
But another leap and Bay’s hand slips perfectly between the bars, grabs the beta by the neck, there is a dull crack and the beta goes still.
Bay drops back to the ground, his face almost calm.
"No witnesses. That has always been my policy."
Then he walks to the cage door and kicks it off its hinges.
I pass by the group of my zombies and walk toward him.
We stop face to face.
"My hero," I whisper.
"Looks like you handled things on your part quite well." He smirks and waves toward my little undead army.
"I have good news, Bay."
He raises his eyebrows.
And then, without a second of hesitation, I lay both hands on his chest… for the first time in ten years skin to skin…
A sweet, wonderful shiver rushes through me and Bay lets out a sharp breath.
I feel no burning, no pain, no rejection.
Aside from the fact that my hands seem dirty to me, ecstasy surges through every part of me.
"It worked… Blue performed a miracle," I whisper, shaking heavily.
Bay smiles faintly but with a strange sadness, and then he lifts his hand and brushes it along my cheek, and I tremble as if his body is wired into a high-voltage line.
"What happened, Alex, what did they do to you?"
But I just keep grinning widely.
"Nothing, luckily nothing. Eugene just exchanged a few words with me, some stupid stuff about how he searched for clues for twelve years, nothing more."
Bay hesitates.
"Something happened. You changed."
"I don’t understand."
Bay tilts his head slightly and concern appears on his face.
"Your complexion, your skin."
"What about it?"
"Listen, I think we should get out of here first."
He turns, stepping back from me, and goes to Eugene’s body in the cage, searching his pockets and pulling out a lighter.
"We need to clean up after ourselves, Alex."
"Wait, wait. What do you mean my complexion changed?" I insist, rubbing my cheeks with both hands, feeling nothing unusual.
Yes, they feel a bit cold, but we are underground and it is freezing here, so nothing strange about that.
Then I lower my gaze and notice my hands have a strange color and it is not dirt.
They are gray. Shit.
Bay says nothing and walks to the crates in the right corner, searching through them.
"The benefit of being in the basement of a funeral home is that they have large supplies of methanol, formaldehyde, formalin, and ethanol," he says dryly, pulling bottles out of the crates. "It just so happens they have conveniently provided us with everything needed to get rid of the traces."
Bay starts stacking the wooden crates around Eugene’s body.
But I ignore it. I walk to one of the Hanson zombies and pull a phone from its pocket. I have to know, I have to see. I switch the camera so it shows my face.
And I freeze.
Fuck.
My face is the same color as the zombies’ faces!
Gray, but with one, creepy difference: thin black veins running across it like charcoal lines, that is the only way I can describe it, and my eyes are a strange, luminescent shade of violet. Yes, I look like a damn revenant!
"What the fuck," I shout, dropping the phone to the ground because I cannot even look at it. A horror show.