Chapter 63
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Cylus and I stare at one another over Sofi’s warm, gold-streaked hair.
Each of us coming to the same conclusion.
This omega is our mate. Not mine. Or his.
Ours.
Which means she might also be Rask’s.
Norabi has the same idea. She staggers back from the sleeping pad, her skin paling. “Gods. What have I done?”
What has she done?
I sit up, facing her. My friend quivers, answering my unspoken question with a hoarse voice. “I—I told him he needed to leave. To go on a mission or—or anywhere else. Because I thought Sofi was your mate, not his, and the way he was behaving was—”
Like an alpha with his omega.
Seven hells, he’s behaved that way since the day he found her. And Selected her.
From hundreds of omegas, he chose mine.
Ours.
He’s watched her. Protected her. Come to her in need. Trained her to defend herself and escape an attack. Gods, he even offered up his life, challenging me so I would be forced to admit my connection to her.
He… loves her.
Sofi is frozen halfway out of bed, clutching our sheets to her chest, pure pain and desperation painted over her features. My purr begins before I know what I’m doing. Cylus’s joins.
“It’s alright, dear heart,” he murmurs. “We’ll—”
He never finishes his thought, though.
Because deafening cracks suddenly split the air. Outside Sofi’s window, in the distance, the sky opens up. Spitting out flaming shards that spear Khanos’s atmosphere like talons from an invisible hand.
Another volley of blasts strikes while we’re all still immobilized by shock. The sounds finally jolt me into motion.
There’s a special panic button built into Sofi’s chamber. I slam my palm over the concealed panel. Norabi, being the soldier she is, catches on first.
“We’re under attack.”
Cylus snatches Sofi backward, folding her into his arms. “Go,” he urges, sinking his gaze into mine. “I will take her to the bunkers.”
Sofi whines, the sound like broken glass carving between my hearts. “But—Rask.”
I find the breastplate I had my staff stash in her chamber, pulling it from her concealed closet and snapping it over my scars. Norabi turns away from my mate, her expression just as pained as Cylus’s.
None of us have the words to tell her the horrible truth.
But I know Rask.
And if our enemy got past him?
They must have killed him first.