13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Halley
The truck rolls under the archway of Blackgate Fortress, and the air inside the cab shifts with anticipation.
I’m in the backseat with Blaze tucked against me, his arm snug around my waist and his nose burrowed in my neck. I should probably ask him to loosen his grip, because my skin feels flushed and feverish, but instead, I press closer.
None of us knows what waits inside. Word may have reached Blackgate by now, and they may believe I died yesterday. They may look through the windshield and see me sitting here beside my Pack, breathing, blinking, alive, and panic before anyone asks what happened.
I expect my stomach to twist with its usual anxiety, but it doesn't come.
The difference is clear and undeniable, but I leave it alone. I'm starting to get used to this change, and it doesn’t feel wrong or foreign; in fact, for the first time since I presented as an Omega, I feel whole.
What I do notice is the heat.
It sits deep in my body and keeps rising, moving out through my skin, until my cheeks feel hot. My thoughts lag when I try to follow them, and I have to blink twice before the checkpoint comes into focus.
Knox slows and lowers his window.
The guard steps toward us with his hand already raised to wave us through. His gaze passes over Knox, sees me in the backseat, and his arm stalls in the air.
Recognition hits his face and his jaw drops.
"You…" he starts.
Knox doesn’t give him time to finish. He accelerates through the checkpoint, leaving the guard staring after us as the truck rolls deeper into Blackgate.
He parks away from the other vehicles, nearest to the side of the fortress where our little cabin resides. This truck is Pack Scorch’s now, and anyone hoping to return it to communal use can take that complaint directly to the Prime Alpha currently radiating possession from the driver’s seat.
My inner Omega is embarrassingly pleased with the territorial Alpha display.
The former warehouse supply officer in me, however, is less impressed.
I screw up my nose at the truck, then at Knox.
It’s punks like him who used to wreck my inventory counts, dammit.
Blaze lifts me out of the truck and carries me a short distance over the muddy tracks the truck left, settling me carefully on the icy path.
The wind blows, and after enjoying the milder climate at the bottom of the mountain, the cold air is a shock.
I spent months here, enduring the cold that settled into my bones no matter how many blankets I burrowed under or fires I stood beside. I thought it would make me instantly miserable, but the cold feels good against my overheated skin.
People in the yard have started to notice me. One head turns, then another. Work slows and conversation breaks apart until it becomes very clear that word of my violent death had indeed reached Blackgate.
'Pretty girl, think you're gonna spook a few comrades,' Viper says through the Pack bond, and the others rumble in agreement.
The whispers start, but they're not exactly being quiet or subtle.
"That’s her."
"She was dead."
"How is she alive?"
My mates tighten around me without speaking. Knox snaps to attention while Shade's gaze tracks the yard, mapping threats.
An Alpha near the road stops with a crate in his hands.
His nostrils flare as he scents the air, and his eyes widen as his gaze locks on me.
Heat crawls across my skin, and suddenly I feel every inch of my body beneath my clothes.
Before I can step back, my Pack closes in around me. Knox shifts in front, Viper takes my left, Shade moves to my right, and Blaze stays pressed close behind me with one hand firm at my waist.
The Alpha’s stare disappears behind them.
My breath eases.
Whatever he sensed doesn't matter, because my Pack blocks him from looking again.
"Sparks, you bitch!" a high-pitched voice shrieks.
I duck under Viper’s arm in time to see Everlyn storming across the inner courtyard. She barges through a group of soldiers doing push-ups and cuts straight through the mud without looking down, clean scrub trousers catching splatter with every furious step.
Jason trails after her, reaching once for the elbow of his mate before pausing and thinking better of it.
Oh, frack me.
She's angry. Really, really angry with me. Her face is flushed, and her eyes look bright from tears threatening to fall.
I brace myself.
Everlyn closes the distance fast, and while my Pack tenses around me, they let her through without stopping her.
Her hands clamp onto my shoulders, and the anger dissolves right before my eyes.
"It's true," she says. "You're alive."
She holds me at arm’s length and drags her gaze over me from head to toe. Then she catches my jaw, turns my face to one side, then the other, and searches me with ruthless focus.
When she finally lets go, her hands don’t drop.
They stay on me, trembling against my shoulders.
Her mouth works, but no sound comes out at first. Her eyes are wet now, the budding tears welling the longer she looks at me. Her breath is uneven, and I realize that what looked like fury was actually grief.
"Sparks, you bitch," she says again, but this time her voice breaks around it. "Do you have any idea what you did to me?"
"Sorry," I say, because I don’t know what else there is.
What do you say to someone who has now grieved you twice in the same year?
Twice, Everlyn and Jason have believed me dead. She has had to mourn me, swallow the impossible, and keep going.
I feel almost guilty that, once again, it turns out that I'm actually alive, and she endured that heartbreak for nothing.
Everlyn makes a sound that is half a laugh and half a sob, then she yanks me forward and hugs me so tight my ribs creak. Her body is shaking. She smells of antiseptic and stress sweat. It's familiar, and it tells me that I'm home.
Jason reaches us a second later, though he doesn’t push between us. He stops close enough to touch my arm, his fingers brushing over my sleeve while his gaze moves across my face.
His jaw locks. The muscle in his cheek jumps.
"I thought it was a messed-up joke," he says quietly. "The reports were clear. I read them all, and there was no way you survived. I really believed…"
His voice gives out.
The Pack spreads out, giving us some space, but guarding us. I silently thank them through our bond.
"I’m fine," I tell them, though my skin feels too warm beneath Everlyn’s hands and my thoughts keep trying to drift. "I died, but I’m here. Everything worked out."
Everlyn pulls back enough to glare at me through red-rimmed eyes.
"You are never allowed to say ‘I'm fine’ after dying ever again. Twice, Halley. You've done this to us twice now."
Her tears keep falling, but her expression changes. The doctor in her takes over, and suddenly she’s studying me like a patient who isn't telling her their full medical history.
I try to smile reassuringly at her.
Her brows draw together.
"No," she says, and her voice goes flat. "No. Don’t do that."
I blink. "Do what?"
"This weird calm thing you're doing."
She waves her hand, gesturing to the whole of me. She then takes a step away from me and wipes her face with the back of her hand, smearing snot across her knuckles.
She shakes her head and turns to Jason. "She's acting weird, right?"
Jason looks between us and makes a noncommittal grimace. "Maybe? Calmer than I expected."
Everlyn points at him without looking away from me. "Exactly."
"Everlyn…"
"That's not how Halley would…" she trails off, sucks in a shaky, steadying breath.
"You were dead. The reports were clear that you bled out from two mortal wounds. I read them until I felt sick. You were clinically dead, and you stayed dead long enough that no doctor should’ve been able to bring you back. "
Her throat works.
"I don’t care what Omega magic dragged you back into the living, but that's traumatic.
The friend I know wouldn't be calm about this.
She'd be freaked out, trying to be cool about it but failing, and asking me to find answers.
But you're standing in front of me, calm and telling me you're fine. It's… it's not right."
She pins me with a stare that makes me flinch.
A flicker runs through the bond. Knox’s guilt shifts, sharp and protective. Viper’s attention moves off the yard and locks onto Everlyn and Jason, reading them for threat out of habit.
But there is no threat here.
Just a friend who knows me so well that in the blink of an eye she sees that something fundamental is different about me.
Everlyn knew me from the first day I arrived at Barkrood Base after escaping my father and was granted sanctuary, long before Blackgate, and before Scorch Squad.
She and Jason were already close enough to count as family then.
After we lost Dazz, Ember, and Flicker, we shared in that pain together.
While I was mourning both my Omega family and my Pack, they were the ones who stayed with me through those three agonizing months.
Everlyn saw every ugly piece of that grief.
She knew the version of me who hurt endlessly, apologized too quickly, detested her defective body, and carried fear into every room like a cloak.
Now she’s looking at me, and that fearful, anxious girl is gone.
Of course she notices.
"Your scent is weird, too," Jason chimes in unprompted.
I blink. "It is?"
He tilts his head and sniffs before Everlyn elbows him in the ribs.
"Ow." He rubs his side, though his attention stays on me. "Sorry. It’s only that it used to have more bite, like you were scared or upset all the time. Now it’s…"
He hesitates.
"Careful," I warn.
"Warmer," he settles on. "And sweeter than before."
My face somehow heats even more.
A deeply unsubtle round of sniffing follows.
Knox doesn’t react, which is suspicious. Viper looks away, which is worse. Shade goes very still, and Blaze leans closer to my neck with zero shame.
If Jason noticed with his Beta nose, my Pack must have caught it much earlier. They probably decided it was another strange side effect of me coming back from the dead, and didn't want to dig into it while everything is still so raw.
I might believe that too, except the warmth beneath my skin keeps rising, and every possessive look from my mates makes my scent bloom stronger.
"Look, I know," I admit, reaching for her. "I know something is different."
Affection pushes through the haze in my mind. Everlyn and Jason have always been tuned in to me, even when I didn’t know how to explain myself. Maybe especially then.
Frack, how many hours did I spend crying in her lap back at Barkrood? Half the time, I didn't even know why. I'd be overcome by a feeling of loss with nowhere to put it. Somehow she'd understood then, and I hope she'll understand now.
"I’m still me," I say, keeping my voice gentle. My hand squeezes her shoulder. "I promise. I’m sorry I don’t have an explanation for why I’m not more freaked out, but I need you to believe me when I say I’m okay."
Everlyn’s eyes narrow, and I pull my hand back.
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.
She's not looking at me like my understanding friend. Her stare is intense, too clinical to be comforting.
I swallow.
I know this version of her. It’s how she keeps from falling apart when people are bleeding out in front of her. She locks everything away, finds the problem, and becomes Doctor Everlyn.
Frack.
She grabs my hand and yanks me forward.
I stumble after her as she drags me toward the gray stone fortress walls.
My Pack falls in behind us with frantic coordination. They're soldiers who have survived gunfire, explosions, and Human ambushes, yet one glare from Everlyn, and they’re letting her kidnap their mate.
Honestly, cowards.
"Where are we going?" I ask, trying to slow her down.
She keeps marching.
"I’ll decide if you’re fine or not, Halley Sparks." Her grip tightens around my hand. "You’re getting the most thorough medical checkup of your life."
"The field medic already cleared me."
Everlyn scoffs without looking back. "Do I look like I give a shit what that scalpel monkey said?"
"He said everything is more than fine. I’m basically in perfect health." I tug lightly against her hold. "So you don’t have to worry this much."
She stops so abruptly that I bump into her back.
Everlyn turns, catches my shoulders, and steadies me before I can step away. Her eyes search mine with frightening focus.
"I’m going to figure out what happened to you," she says. "Do you hear me, little miss Omega? We’re done with mysterious paranormal Omega magic nonsense. I don’t care if you’re a zombie, a vampire, or a medical anomaly I haven't discovered yet. Science is coming for you."
I press my lips together, fighting the smile that wants out.
She means each word, and I'm one more "I'm fine" away from being strapped to an exam table.
And I love her desperately for it.
Extensive medical treatment is her love language, after all.
My almost-smile makes her glare falter as her gaze shifts from my eyes to my cheeks, then down to my throat.
"Wait," she says. "You’re flushed."
She presses her palm to my forehead.
Her hand is cool against my skin, and I have to stop myself from leaning into it.
Everlyn’s anger drops into concern.
"Halley," she says, voice lower now. "How long have you been feeling warm?"
I open my mouth to answer, but the Pack suddenly jolts into movement.
Knox, Viper, and Shade step in front of us, while Blaze guides Everlyn and me back toward the wall with one arm at my waist.
Their scents shift fast, filling the corridor with warning.
Everlyn stiffens, and I catch her wrist before she can protest. She looks at me, startled now, and I shake my head and pull her closer.
My Pack doesn't behave like this unless there is serious danger.
"Stay quiet behind us, Halley," Knox says.
His voice is low, firm, and threaded with authority.
Heat rushes over my skin, then sinks lower. My thighs press together instinctively, and my fingers curl into Blaze’s sleeve.
Knox stands between me and whatever is coming down the hall, all broad shoulders and controlled violence.
My Prime Alpha.
Mine.
A pleased little whimper slips out of me.
Everlyn’s head turns slowly.
I realize, a beat too late, that my scent has sweetened.
Oh, frack. I'm perfuming.
Not to mention the fact that my panties are now damp with slick.
Everlyn stares at me with dawning horror, and I try to arrange my face into an expression that says this is definitely normal post-resurrection behavior.
Judging by her expression, I fail.
Footsteps approach from the corridor ahead.
We’re just off the main courtyard, tucked into one of the stone passageways that wraps around it. This hall leads to the infirmary.
It also leads to General Stone’s office.
Everlyn’s fingers close around my wrist, measuring my pulse with wide eyes.
The footsteps slow near the turn.
Knox’s shoulders rise with a silent breath, and the bond fills with anticipation.
Whoever is coming, my Pack already knows, and they really don't like it.