47. Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Seven
Blaze
I would like it formally noted that I keep almost dying in increasingly cool ways, and nobody is around to appreciate it. Honestly, it is starting to feel disrespectful.
I haul myself over the lip of the cliff in a spray of loose rock, blood running down both arms, one knee barely working, and at least sixteen extra holes in my back that definitely were not there this morning.
My chest burns every time I inhale, which probably means some of the bullets are lodged in my lungs, but that sounds like a later problem.
I grin victoriously. I made it!
Below me, the whole mountainside is anarchy. Smoke rolling through the distant tree line, fire licking at the road, bodies and blood everywhere. Those are my favorite things, usually.
I am already getting excited about rejoining the fight when I realize this fight is moving wrong. The enemy is moving the wrong way. They're not charging forward anymore, but retreating.
What the fuck did my Omega do while I was gone? 'Cause there is only one person who can create such a monumentally confusing event.
I wipe blood out of my eyes and squint downhill, sudden exhilaration kicking harder than the pain of my body closing my wounds sluggishly.
'Baby girl, please tell me you didn't start the apocalypse without me,' I try to project through the bond, but the haze of battle has scrambled my mind like it used to before our mating. I'm deep in the darkness where Halley usually has to use her light to find me.
I try to force myself to calm down, but my adrenaline is still pumping. Only moments ago, I was so deep behind enemy lines that even I had to admit that the heat got a little too spicy, even for me.
The easy part was Commanding that officer to send him back to Halley. Which is saying something, because my control over my Alpha Command isn't great. Something about me not having enough focus to get it right, but it fucking worked.
He did what I told him to. What a good boy.
The problem started when I looked back toward Pack Scorch and realized there was no fucking way I could fight my way through that crush fast enough to get back before somebody put a hole in my brain.
I fucking hate how Humans fight. It's not even clever or fun! They just throw bodies at us until they wear us down.
So I did what any brilliant, heroic, unfairly handsome Alpha would do.
I changed tactics.
The cliff was right there. Steep as fuck, all broken rock and loose shale, with a straight drop waiting to kill me if I slipped. It was perfect.
So I climbed.
Which was awesome.
It was less awesome when the enemy noticed and started shooting at me.
I'm fairly sure I took more rounds in the last few minutes than in the rest of my life combined, which makes my surviving the climb even more impressive.
I mean, there is still a fifty-fifty chance I might bleed out, but totally cool.
My eyes scan the road, searching for my Pack.
I quickly spot them, right in the middle of a crater. Fuck, it looks like the Humans have managed to find the right angle to land an artillery strike on the road.
I frown as I comprehend that the four of them are not standing, and are collapsed in a pile together.
And they're not moving.
Everything playful in me drops dead on the spot.
I reach for the bond again on instinct, desperate for proof that what I'm seeing is incorrect, but I struggle to force my mind to focus. I scream in frustration as I try harder to get my broken brain to click into place, and when it finally does, I gasp.
The bond is there, but it's faint and frayed. Torn to shreds and no longer humming with power.
I didn't feel it. How did I not feel the bond breaking like that?
Ah, no. That's not right. It's not broken, it's hollow. As if it were drained purposefully.
But it might break soon, because it feels so frighteningly weak.
I stop thinking and act.
My body flies into motion, and I sprint. Faster than I've ever moved in my life. I ignore the pain of my still-healing wounds and my messed-up knee, and push myself harder.
My boots slip on loose rock as I half run, half throw myself downhill toward them. I don't care that my wounds start to pump out more blood, making my head feel woozy. The only thing I can think about is Halley not moving.
Halley not getting up.
Halley lying there in the dirt, drained and empty, slipping toward death.
No.
Not while I still have breath in my lungs.
I make it halfway down the slope and I've lost sight of them, but I keep my focus on the bond.
It's so still it feels wrong.
My Pack is usually sparkling with life. Whatever happened drained them badly enough to put Knox on the ground, flatten Viper, and empty Shade out. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
I vault over a barricade, ignoring the shouts of the Alpha soldiers, and aim for the hole blasted in the road ahead.
Finally, I reach them and hit the road on my knees, sliding the last few feet to Halley.
"Sparkles!" I call, but the four bodies tangled together don't stir.
I catch Halley's face in both filthy hands, and she's so cold that it makes me feel sick. There is blood on her mouth, soot smeared across her nose, and shiny pink, partially healed burned skin on her cheeks.
A flashback to holding her dead body last time hits me, but this time I'm alone. My brothers aren't moving either.
I hold my hand in front of her parted mouth and force myself to stay still, holding my own breath.
A puff of warmth hits my hand, and another curse rips out of me in relief.
She's breathing.
I bow over her for half a second, forehead touching hers, and force myself to keep moving. Panic is useful only if I point it at something.
I fumble to check Knox, Viper, and Shade for a pulse. They're all still alive, but their heart rates are weak, and their breathing is shallow.
In the bond, the Alphas are reduced to a meager splutter. Shade is thinner in the bond than I have ever felt him, with all his usual steadiness stripped down to a trembling, dull thread.
I think I understand what happened here.
Halley's Command worked, but it took everything from them.
They somehow took every scrap of strength in our bond and turned it into a Command that has the enemy eerily marching down the mountain.
My chest tightens.
"You crazy, beautiful idiots," I whisper, looking at all of them sprawled around her. "What the fuck did you do? Why didn't you wait for me? Why didn't you take more from me? I would have given it happily. I would have shared the load."
I almost let the fear have me.
Then I get mad.
Not the fun kind of mad that means I get to stab people and watch them bleed. It's an ugly anger that is fed by my fear.
"Oh, absolutely not."
I sit back on my heels in the middle of the blood and dirt and stare at the collapsed, dying idiots I call my mates. My Pack. My family.
My whole chest goes hot.
"You do not get to do this without me," I snap, pointing at them like they can see or hear me. "I leave you alone for one little suicidal side quest, and this is the bullshit you pull? Unacceptable."
Nobody answers, and it makes me angrier. There is no one sighing and saying, "For fuck's sake, Blaze. Would you shut up?"
I reach for the bond again, feel the empty, ravaged threads of it, and bare my teeth. Fine. If they drained it hollow, it's up to me to fill it back up.
"This is my dramatic battlefield return," I tell them, voice shaking with fury and grief. "You don't get to die before you appreciate it."
Then I grab hold of those frayed golden strands and smash them together, forcing them to fuse.
Pain slams through me, and my vision blurs.
Every bullet still lodged in me lights up at once, searing through my flesh.
My blood loss, torn flesh, and sheer exhaustion come screaming to the forefront, and I should stop, because sacrificing your own life force is probably not medically recommended while actively bleeding out.
I do it anyway because I know there is no life for me without my Pack. It just isn't an option.
"Take it," I snarl. "Come on. Take it and wake the fuck up."
I pour everything I have into them. Strength, anger, devotion, and all the wild, untamed love I carry for my Pack and my Omega. I force it down the bond until my hands shake and my breath turns ragged, and my heartbeat thumps against my aching ribs.
The bond stirs.
Halley flares first, faint but real, her little light flickering brighter. Knox surges after her, followed by Viper, and then Shade.
"There you are," I whisper, battered and furious and not done fighting for them yet.
The bond is still a disaster. It's frayed, dull, hollowed out, and hanging together by my stubbornness and love. All of us have one foot in the grave, and I am definitely missing enough blood to make Doctor Everlyn cry, but none of that matters right now.
I brush filthy hair back from Halley's pale face with shaking fingers.
"You scared the absolute shit out of me, Sparkles," I tell her softly.
Her mouth moves like she wants to smile, and that tiny almost-smile hits me harder than any bullet I took today. The sob I've been holding down finally rips out of me.
Around us, the mountain is still humming with the aftermath of her Command, but it's becoming distant as the army that came here to wipe us out turns and walks away.
Up at the barricade, and beyond in Blackgate Fortress, our people have finally understood what they are seeing. The cheering starts ragged and disbelieving, then swells until it rolls over the road as the Alphas and Betas realize they're going to live.
I stay on my knees in the blood and dirt with my Pack scattered around me and release a shuddering breath.
We did it.
Halley changed everything.
Blackgate still stands, Blackgate is safe, and my Pack is alive.
The war came for everything we loved, and in the end, love is what defeated it.