Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
THISTLE
Usually, when I slept in Knox’s arms, it was peaceful. But, as if his comfort had abandoned me, so did the sweet dreams.
Three months before—The night of the bite.
I tried really hard not to push Ace, but I knew something was wrong tonight.
I’d snuck onto the balcony again, and tonight the doors weren’t locked.
Nights like this were my favourite—when I could just watch him. It was warm out, late springtime, and the night wasn’t too chilly yet. Sometimes, I’d be here for hours, basking in his amazing scent until I got sleepy enough to creep back down to my room.
But today, I could sense something off.
“Where are Colt and Rex?” Ace demanded into the phone. “I need eyes on them. Something’s wrong.”
Colt and Rex? They were his pack mates.
I could hear the tinny voice reply in the quiet night. “What kind of wrong, Sir—j-just so I can pass it along.”
“I don’t fucking know. I just need eyes on them.” Ace sounded strange… off balance in a way I wasn’t used to.
Things had been going so wrong over the last few weeks.
It had been three years since she’d run, but he was on Glade’s tail again, and it was making me nervous. I was watching so closely these days, trying to keep up. She’d found her mates, but Ace had left her a note and blackmailed her into meeting him at one of the old Vegas theatres he owned…
I’d cried that night, terrified.
Every shift I made toward him was incremental, but if she came back?
I shuddered.
I’d lose everything.
But he’d returned empty-handed. She must have escaped somehow.
I didn’t get it. She had her scent matches. Why couldn’t he leave her to them?
I was his.
Shuffling closer, I pushed the balcony door open a tiny bit more.
I heard him sigh, long and deep, before he spoke. “What, exactly, is it that you want, Omega?” he asked.
Uhhh…
Oh.
I nudged the door open the rest of the way with my toe, craning my head to find him watching me.
I shifted forward in half a crawl before I staggered to my feet, rushing to stop before him. I left my silken black dressing gown hanging loose, just so he could see what I’d worn for him.
Not much, but it was really nice.
Everything in this mansion was too pretty for me, and I never wanted to miss an opportunity to show him how much I liked what he gave me.
Was it maybe enough for him to forget her?
He was seated on the edge of his bed, more tense than I’d seen him. His phone had tumbled from his fingers, and lay on the floor.
His glacier-blue eyes were intent as he took me in, pupils too constricted. His jaw was clenched.
Had I heard right? He thought his pack mates were in trouble? They were far away. When they came for my heats, they had to travel, sometimes across state lines.
Before I could figure out a way to ask, though, Ace seized up. I felt the moment it happened, wild static in the air as my god Alpha snapped.
A growl slid from between clenched teeth as his muscles gave out.
“Alpha?” I asked, catching him before he collapsed to the floor and dragging him to the bed.
What was happening?
Nothing could hurt him—he was Ace. But I could feel his instability as my Omega instincts took over. He was a sparking live wire, on the brink of snapping completely.
“They’re… dead…” His voice was strained.
I frowned.
But there were only two people in the world that Ace would feel the deaths of.
They?
They’d both died?
I don’t know how that could have happened. He had enemies, so many—Glade’s Alphas were trying to hold on to her, and if they’d learned how he’d treated her, how he’d hurt her— could it be them? I knew Ace’s own brother was one of her mates.
But it didn’t matter.
Goosebumps lit on my skin as the truth hit me, and tears clouded my vision.
He was alone.
At last, there was no one else.
And he was shaking, unstable, scent on the edge of crumbling. Everything I’d ever known of the cold, controlled Alpha was collapsing.
“Baby…?” I shifted closer, kneeling before him on the bed.
Would he see me now?
“Get me…” He trailed off, clearing his throat.
“What? What is it?” I asked.
I would do anything if it would prove to him once and for all that I was his.
I was Omega, and I could fix this.
I woke with a start to find Knox gone. No warm arms around me, or sweep of ash blond hair tickling my cheek.
That explained why a horrible nightmare was trying to swallow me whole.
Where was he?
I found Bunny at my side and hugged him close, then sat up, trying to shake the dream. I shivered, tugging a silken nightgown around myself and looking for Knox. He wasn’t in his office or my room.
“He’s left us…?” I asked Bunny.
No.
No, he wouldn’t have.
He would be out for an important reason.
I crept to the balcony, seating myself on the stone and crossing my legs. If he was out, I’d hear his car come back.
Until then, I could pretend that his arm was around me. He was asking questions like he had when I was drawing. Just like Rogue had asked.
Like I mattered to both of them.
“How did you end up with a bite from Ace?” Bunny-Knox asked me.
I smiled, quickly running through the nightmare and rewriting it so it didn’t have to be a nightmare anymore.
Ace’s pack had all died at once.
He’d been alone—breaking and in need of an Omega.
In need of me.
“And that was it,” I said, a nervous smile on my lips. “He was so unbalanced, and he finally realised I was good enough to keep him safe just like he’d kept me safe.”
“Get me…” Ace’s voice was a low growl. “Get me another… Omega.”
I flinched back from him, a crack scoring through my heart.
Another what?
He never touched other Omegas. Glade was the closest, but still, he hadn’t been with her. Not like that—never like that.
“I can help. I p-promise I’m good enough.”
Of course I could do it. Even if I wasn’t what he wanted, this I could do. I could prove to him that I was worth keeping.
Ace’s voice was strained. “Get me another Omega!”
“B-but you need balancing…” He would have to touch them. Probably more. “I can do it.”
His eyes burned. I could see hatred in there, and… and fear?
I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand much, so I must be wrong, because Ace wasn’t afraid of anything.
“I would rather… anyone… but you,” he snarled.
I didn’t move, and he grabbed me by the throat. “If you don’t go now, when I find one, I’ll make you fucking watch.”
I scrambled back, ripping free of his grip, heart in my throat and tears blurring my vision.
“Go, Omega. Now!” His command gripped me, voice shaking with fury.
“O-okay.”
My mind was racing as I backed to the edge of the bed.
Back beneath the dark night, I blinked back nasty tears that made the stars above blur. I patted Bunny-Knox on the head.
“But it was okay. Then we had the hottest sex ever,” I told him. “And I fixed him. And it was the best night in the whole wide world.”
I could still feel the echo of Ace’s command down to my soul. I whined, unable to do what he asked.
I stumbled from the bed, reaching down as I did and grabbing his phone. He was so out of it, he didn’t notice.
Then I hurried to the door.
I froze before it, terror scoring my system, tears still making it hard to see.
But… he couldn’t do this. He was mine…
That little voice had been buried so deep, stuffed down with denials.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
That word was a vicious monster, clawing up my throat, not letting go.
Instead of opening it, I twisted the lock slowly enough that it didn’t make a sound. Then the next. Finally, I turned the key he left in the door and slipped it out.
I glanced over at him. He still lay on his back, chest heaving as he fought the devastation of having his pack torn to pieces.
He didn’t look at me until I’d edged a few steps from the door.
“What are you doing?”
I clutched the phone and key tighter to my chest, chin quivering as I met his eyes defiantly.
Another step, and he shoved himself up.
“What—?” He cut off, eyes wide as he saw what I held. “No!”
I dived for the balcony as he lunged for me, but he was too slow. I reached it, barrelling through the glass door, pain shooting through my shoulder as I did. I heard his footsteps too late, as I flung his phone and the key off the side.
“What have you done?” he snarled. I turned in time for him to reach me. His fist closed around my throat as he pinned me to the stone pillar.
But I’d done it.
He didn’t have a choice.
It had been so long since he’d touched me.
Wanted me.
And never before, had he needed me.
It hurt so much because I felt like I needed him just to breathe.
But now he was slipping.
God Alpha or not, the death of his entire pack all in the same moment wasn’t a storm he could weather.
The fist at my throat loosened, and I dragged myself against him. “Use me, Alpha,” I begged. “I can fix you!”
The remaining dregs of control blinked out in his eyes, and his grip closed at my waist.
He picked me up, tossing me onto the bed. Before I could get my bearings, he’d lunged after me, fist in my hair, and joy crashed in like a tide in a storm.
“And then we lived happily ever after…” I whispered.
But Bunny-Knox and the beautiful stars across the Nevada sky weren’t enough. When I shoved back the memory, I realised I could see the clouds of a desert storm on the horizon.
Dark thunderclouds and lightning coming our way.
“Bad news, Bunny,” I whispered. “We’re running out of time.”
Once that storm hit…
Well. Then I wasn’t sure I’d get either of their bites ever at all.
Not when they knew the truth…
Oh dear.
Time for drastic action.
I’d really scrambled Knox’s mind, I was pretty sure. Somehow, Rogue was the wild card—but the Monopoly game had been progress.
I went over the plan again.
I needed Knox to want me first. Get his bite first, and he might get rid of Rogue, but get Rogue’s bite… and if Knox wanted me, he wouldn’t have a choice but to join…
I’d been working on that. More time would be ideal if I wanted to be sure Knox liked me enough, but that was no longer an option.
Wringing Bunny anxiously in my fists, I considered the options. I didn’t know how late Knox would be out, but if I played my cards right, maybe I could have them both by the end of the night.
I shot one last glance out at the sky. The thunderclouds were darker, creeping in.
Gotta act, Bunny, or it’ll be just you and me forever.
I was gonna get all dolled up and pay Rogue a visit. How close was he to feral? They both seemed really near…?
Not that I would heat bond him, but I knew first-hand how Alphas could be when they were near feral.
The next morning, after Ace’s madness had passed, I woke up to a bite on my neck.
I lay absolutely still for an age, surrounded by a storm, lightning in crackling air, the cool touch of rain upon my skin. A howling wind with the scent of leaves and grass.
I was in a bond.
I was in a bond, and he was there with me.
My god Alpha.
It was, for a small cluster of seconds, the best moment of my life.
Until he’d woken.
He’d lost it, shooting the lock and dragging me back down to my rooms.
“W-wait!” I’d turned on him when he’d shoved me through my door. He couldn’t leave me here.
We were bonded now—things had to be different. This was the thing that was supposed to change everything.
“I’m biting her,” he’d snarled before he’d slammed the door and locked me in.
“What?” My voice cracked.
Glade?
“N-No!”
He couldn’t.
But he would—I’d never seen him so angry.
And his next words were enough, at last, to break me completely. “I’m going to hunt her down and claim her, and you are never going to leave this room ever again!”