Chapter 38 Red
Chapter thirty-eight
Red
I’m halfway from the fridge to the dining table when a storm explodes through the bond.
The powerful surge of destructive power merged with alpha command strips all reason from my brain.
My breath catches in my throat. The glass of apple juice slips from my hand and crashes to the floor, exploding into a thousand shards of glass.
Helpless, I sway in place, heaving for air, while Ozzie shrieks and flaps wildly in his cage.
Upstairs, a heavy thump sounds as the whirlwind catches Rickon.
Zack’s fighting for his life.
I assumed I knew something about other personalities and doing what it takes to survive, but this sensation peels away every rationale, leaving me stunned by the sheer alpha ferocity.
Even when wild, Zack’s never shown this much raging spirit in front of me.
Not when he reacted badly to dogs, or when he saw another alpha kiss his omega, and definitely not when he threw Callisto out.
This is worlds apart—terrifying, spellbinding, and animalistic.
And so fucking beautiful.
I groan as I discover how much my alpha protected me from himself, right from the beginning.
The force makes me quiver, and Rickon’s sobs echo down the stairs. As much as I want to run to him, I’m rooted in place by Zack’s ferocious power. Plus, the entire floor’s covered in glittering glass.
With a groan, I hoist myself up onto the kitchen counter, knocking recipe books and plastic containers off the edge as I flop on my belly and drag myself to the far end, inch by painful inch.
My legs sting with each movement, and a trickling on my toes tells me I likely have glass in my bare feet.
I wriggle onward, gasping for breath, until my hand closes on my phone.
We’re alone; the OCB agents were relieved of duty the moment we left the campsite.
I roll onto my back. Tears run down my cheeks, forced out by a feral domination no willpower could ever control. To think Zack spent most of his life in this state of absolute aggression hurts like a knife driven into my heart.
I told Zack to defend himself, but will that be enough to protect his life? He must be in so much danger to react like this. I’ll never forgive Ray. I won’t.
My fingers shake as I unlock the phone. No point in calling Rickon. He can’t move any more than I can. In fact, it might be far worse for an alpha to experience this kind of raging insanity.
Only 2% power remains on the battery icon. Well, it’ll be enough to make the call. I flick over to my favorites, arching off the bench and crying out as wave after wave of pure malevolence roars down the bond. My alpha is dealing death.
Callisto’s face pops up on the screen as the dial tone trills but the phone slips from my trembling hands and smacks on the bench beside my head. I won’t have the strength to reach for it again.
“Hi! Funny story, I was just on my way to see you.” Callisto’s beautiful, deep velvet tone startles another sob out of me. “What’s wrong, Red? Is something going on?”
I work my jaw, trying to force words through my choked throat. “Help, Calli,” I croak.
He swears darkly. “You’re are home, right?”
“Y-yes. Zack, he . . . the bond—”
Another wave of aggression in the soul link makes me spasm. I groan and draw my knees up. Can Zack survive at the center of this malevolent force?
“Fuck,” Callisto says, honking his car horn. “Hold on, Red. I’m nearly there. Do you need an ambulance?”
A partial smile forms amid my broken gasps. How would I even explain this to a paramedic? Paralysis by bond? I close my eyes and listen. Upstairs, Rickon isn’t screaming in pain, just crippled by the violence barreling into us.
“Just you,” I whisper.
“Okay, stay on the line. I’m heading to the parking garage now.”
I keep talking to distract myself; otherwise, my mind might scramble. But it’s hard to push words through when I can barely breathe. “Not . . . heading to court?” I whisper.
“How could you tease me at a moment like this?” the alpha on the other end of the line growls. “Fuck! If you need me, Red, I’ll—” He groans, and the next moment a car door slams. “I’ll always come for you.”
Weakly, I cover my eyes with one arm, a tiny smile tugging at my mouth. “All right,” I whisper. Warmth floods my icy body. Callisto’s coming.
“Can you tell me what hap—?” The line goes dead.
I curse my battery silently.
Rage batters into my rib cage as if Wild Red hatched there in the flesh, jerking my body with every punch and kick.
More tears leak from my eyes as I imagine Zack in the underground fighting ring, crowds jeering for his blood as he worked himself into a killing frenzy.
I don’t care if he kills. I don’t care if I must endure this rage forever—he just needs to survive.
“Alpha,” I whisper, wanting to feed him strength.
Rickon groans and vomits, his retching every bit as choked as my breathing. A moment later, his voice floats down the stairs. “Red?”
“I’m okay,” I call back. Not really the truth, but he sounds in worse shape than me.
“I’m coming,” he says, voice broken and scared.
“Stay there,” I yell. Fuck, if he tries to come down the stairs like that, he’ll break his neck. “Calli’s on his way.”
He groans and thumps on the flooring, and a moment later I hear him throwing up again. I whimper on his behalf. We knew the danger, taking a feral alpha’s bond. I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter, but Rickon did, and he accepted the risk anyway. He’s so pure, this force might end him.
Zack’s fury shunts at me, crowding my thoughts into a corner of my mind. I writhe on the bench top, sucking down my hisses so Rickon doesn’t hear them. If Zack told me to stop breathing with this much alpha command, my body would obey. If he were here in the room, I might really explode.
But I can’t help loving the wild aggression, if for no other reason than it tells us Zack’s alive and fighting with everything he has.
The door lock beeps, and I groan with relief.
“I’m here,” Callisto calls, running into the room. “Oh, shit. Darling, are you okay?”
“Glass,” I choke out, coughing on the words. I wave weakly toward the far end of the bench.
“I see it,” he says, taking a wide detour. His footsteps slapping on the floor feel like my heartbeat.
A moment later, Callisto pulls me into his arms. I quiver as I throw my hands around his neck.
His cherry wood scent fills my nose, along with the petrichor of an approaching rainstorm, relaxing some of the tension binding my throat.
I gasp in a series of shallow breaths, each one loaded with his scent.
“Fuck! You’re bleeding. Where’s Rickon?”
“Upstairs,” I mutter into his neck.
Callisto reaches under me, pulling me to the bench’s edge, and then lifts me into his arms. I don’t have the strength to hold myself up, but he takes my weight easily enough. My head flops on his shoulder, bouncing with each step as he carries me to the top floor.
Rickon made it almost to the top of the stairs. He lies on the ground on his belly, one arm above his head, the other pressed to his throat.
Callisto gasps. “Ricky? Fuck, baby. Are you with us?”
Rickon nods his head miserably, revealing streaks of vomit on the floor under his chin.
“Wait one second,” Callisto hisses, carrying me down the hall and plonking me on the end of the bed.
I lean over my knees, weak with equal amounts of fear and relief.
Callisto always knows what to do in an emergency, so now all I have to do is breathe.
And, if possible, keep from shooting my panic through the bond. Zack needs to focus.
Water runs in the bathroom, and Calli’s steps thump along the hallway. Reality blurs until he arrives back in the room, carrying a damp, shirtless Rickon. I choke on another sob as I finally clasp hands with my first alpha, and he pulls me into his quivering chest.
“Stay still,” Callisto growls, wheeling in his office chair. He sits down and lifts my legs onto his knee to pick out glass slivers one by one. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” he asks, dabbing at the blood.
“Zack’s fighting.” My body jerks, and Callisto’s warm hands close firmly around my ankle. Rickon’s grip tightens as well, keeping me tethered to this space that smells of my three alphas. I grab the shirt that smells of Zack from under my pillow and hold it to my nose, breathing deeply.
The combined physical scents lift the fog in my brain, weakening the bond’s grip. My lungs fill properly for the first time.
“It’s so intense,” Rickon wheezes out. He flops his head weakly in Calli’s direction. “Guess you can say ‘I told you so’ now.”
“Stop it,” Calli shoots back. “You’re both handling it just fine. This is Zack we’re talking about, after all.”
I link my fingers through Rickon’s. “He’s fighting for his life,” I repeat, hiccuping as I stare out the window at raindrops tapping on the pane.
“And it’s so aggressive and consuming, like a storm in my heart.
” I grind one fist to my chest, trying to cancel out the internal pressure. “Call the prison and stop him.”
Callisto’s touch on my legs grows still. “I can’t do that.”
“Why?” I ask, voice rising shrilly.
“Because he told me he plans to take Ray down.” Calisto sighs, shoulders slumping. “If I alert the guards, he’ll be in even more danger, and we might not get him home.”
I jerk upright, holding myself up on one trembling arm. “Zack said that?”
Callisto stares at me, black eyes glimmering with pain. He’s worried about Zack too. Of course he is. This is Ray we’re talking about: the man who never goes down without dragging everyone else with him.
He’ll kill my alpha if it’s the last thing he does.
Tears run down my cheeks, and I open my mouth to tell him what I think of this ridiculous plan, but all reasoning cuts short as Zack takes things to another level. Spasms rock through me, gripping my lungs, my thoughts, my nerves. It feels like I’m on fire, as if heat fever ravages me.
Does this mean Zack knows what it feels like to be possessed by a heat?
I squeak, clawing for air. Rickon gasps too, and then his eyes roll back and he goes limp.
“Fuck!” Callisto cries, springing onto the bed. “Ricky? Look at me, Ricky!” He taps his pale cheek repeatedly. Rickon’s chest rises and falls with a natural breath, and Callisto spins my way.
Zack senses Rickon’s absence and falters, his fiery rage flickering like a breath blown across a candle flame. Pain flashes up the bond, and I gasp. We can’t distract him now.
“Calli!” I flail for him, hands closing on solid arms. I must hide my terror, and I can think of only one way to manage. “Kiss me!”
My fingers dig deep into Callisto’s biceps, and he rocks toward me, drawn by his omega’s desperate order.
Our mouths clash together, full of desperation and longing and all the things that kept us apart since that first ill-fated day.
Rational thought sweeps away as I finally kiss my scent-matched alpha.
The fear in my heart fades away, and my body relaxes.
Zack’s presence in the bond rushes in again, overwhelmingly powerful, but Callisto anchors me against the tsunami’s force. His lips bind mine, arms steely around my waist. Unyielding.
Love peppers through me, growing stronger with each passing moment as I wind back the months between me and Callisto, returning to a moment filled with precious, untainted passion and certainty in his arms.
Fear fades away.
I will hold this line, and Zack will fight on.
Just please, survive, I beg through the bond.