Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
THISTLE
They were both going feral.
Rogue had Knox’s shirt in his fist, again, trying to reach for what Knox held. Knox snarled, shoving Rogue a pace.
Bunny…
They were two Alphas, both on the brink of insanity, the last smouldering edges of the envelope before everything within caught fire. I needed to settle them, that was what I was supposed to be made for.
A hiccup caught in my chest that was shrinking down tighter and tighter, and a tear burned my cheek.
I hugged my knees closer, eyes catching on Bunny, who swung from Knox’s fist, held away from Rogue.
Take him away…? He’d said. Both of them?
I drew a ragged gasp that came out half wail.
My chest was tightening, making it hard to breathe.
I didn’t know how to make that fit , and now shards of stupid Thistle were clattering to the floor, pieces of my mind I’d never be able to pick up and shove back in place.
“You were never supposed to leave me.”
I hugged myself, alone on the bathroom floor in Ace’s mansion.
I’d snuck again, but this morning had been the best ever—he’d woken with me in his arms, and then he’d claimed me. We’d lost ourselves for just a flash, a moment of bliss where everything was right.
And then…
I was alone in the bathroom, shards of glass around me. Pieces of a broken mirror.
So angry.
He’d been so angry that he’d lost control, he’d taken Bunny, and I was back there again.
It was that first night with Dan. Trying to hide my heat, so afraid of what was happening to my body.
I was so… so stupid. I hated how stupid I was. How much I didn’t know could happen. How much it hurt because I hadn’t yet learned what I was. I’d… expected more.
I’d thought if I told him I was afraid, he’d listen.
If I told him it hurt, he’d care.
If I told him I didn’t want to, he’d stop.
I screamed, clutching my hair, needing any pain to drag me from this place.
So stupid.
I hated who I’d been—that I’d ever been so stupid that I’d let it hurt. That I ever believed I deserved more.
It didn’t have to hurt—not like that. Bunny told me we didn’t have to care so much that we were made of glass. I tried to hug him close, to listen, but there was nothing but air.
No barrier between me and that stupid, stupid fucking whore who let it hurt so much.
I couldn’t breathe.
I needed Bunny ? —
“Thistle.”
I’d never, in all my time with him, heard my name on Ace’s lips.
I’d never heard him afraid.
It drew me up, the world returning to focus. Kind of… tears blurred everything, but I saw him: slender form in the doorway, scatters of void-black hair fluttering about his glacier-blue eyes that were fixed on me.
He’d… he’d come back?
And… I frowned, nearing the surface again, almost able to take a breath.
He never used my name…
He was still at the door of the bathroom, knuckles white on the door frame, and in his other hand…
“Bunny?”
They… they hadn’t left me? Neither of them had. I moved, but he jolted a step forward, hand outstretched.
“Stop.” The command seized me. Unexpected. Foreign. So much stronger than Dan’s had ever been.
He can protect us…
“Stay still.”
He took a step in, and he was so pale he looked like a ghost. Bunny was still clutched in his fist.
“Drop it.”
I frowned, then looked down.
Drop… what…?
Around me, scattered like a messy puzzle, were a thousand shards of the mirror. Of me. All peering back at funny angles. Pieces of me that would never go back together right.
They’d always be misaligned, missing pieces, missing… me…
In my fist, I held my switchblade.
It was open, but I don’t remember opening it…
“Drop. It.”
KNOX
This room was poison. Her scent was thick in the air, smothering me, stealing my sanity.
I stepped away, but Rogue’s growl stopped me.
“Give it back!”
My cheek ached from his punch, but I was spitting blood.
He looked ready to lunge again, but he was holding on by the thinnest thread.
So that he didn’t rip Bunny, trying to take it from me?
So he didn’t hurt her?
It made me more angry, seeing him protect her. Like he had any right.
I took a step back.
Leave.
Frosted moonflower smothered me. Desperate. Frightened. Fracturing me to the bone. If I didn’t leave right now, I would break.
Rogue lunged again, eyes wild as he shoved me against the wall. I growled, but he was slamming his head forward and the heavy iron of the muzzle cage sent the world spinning.
Agony split my skull as the cold floor rushed to meet me.
I felt something ripped from my grip.
“Rogue…” I tried to bring him into focus, but it was hard.
He was gone.
Completely and totally gone.
The light in the room was blistering and making out shapes was hard. Finally shadows and glows settled.
They were together.
Rogue had her…
“No!” My voice came out as a croak. She was holding Bunny in her fist, tears streaming down her face.
I blinked, trying to push myself up.
No…
The world spun violently, but I found focus just in time to see Rogue pinning Thistle to the floor beneath him.
ROGUE
I hadn’t been able to stop painting a world I could never touch. At first, it had felt like insanity, but now I realised what it was.
Instinct: a smothering tide.
Shut my eyes and never return—It was temptation itself.
My Omega wept,
and sanity fled at last.
Knox couldn’t reach us.
She looked up at me,
And violet orbs glittered bright,
Desperate and afraid.
Chest heaving, I stared:
Broken, with pale neck open.
Finally alone.
I could keep her safe.
But iron bars still caged me.
I growled, pinning her.
A handle gripped tight.
A blade sliced at my numb throat.
Hot blood. Snapped leather.
Free.
At last.
And mindless fangs met flesh.
KNOX
“ No!”
My shout was useless against deaf ears.
Her eyes were wide with shock, tears no longer flowing. His fist was in her hair, blood spilling around them as he recklessly cut the leather strap of his muzzle with his knife. And his feral eyes were lightless as he sank his teeth into her neck.
“Thistle!” My voice cracked.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
“Don’t!” I ripped my Alpha bark from oblivion, forcing myself to focus. My hand pressed against the wall as I tried to drag myself up. My head was split with pain. “Don’t accept that bite!”
Violet galaxies met my gaze, her lips were parted in shock, but there was something… relieved in them.
“No—!”
It was as if I could feel it when it happened.
The moment the bond lit between them. Rogue’s tense frame sagged slightly, and he curled against her, drawing her close against him, enveloping her into his huge body.
Thistle was panting, low whines filling the air with every exhale as she clutched him. Her body trembled as she squeezed her eyes shut, charcoal-black tears tumbling down her cheeks.
…My fault…
I got to unsteady feet, but as my shadow disturbed the light around them, I heard Rogue’s rumble of a warning growl. Mad teal eyes were fixed on me as he held her, lips drawn in a snarl.
His scent was charred; still, but settling. She was anchoring him.
A bond…
They… were bonded.
That was it.
I pushed myself up, numbness settling over me.
He’d taken her.
He’d taken her from me, like he’d taken so much…
I stepped toward the door, but I heard a scuffling, and then soft footsteps catching up.
“Don’t—”
My voice was rough as I cut her off before she started.
There was a trickle of blood down her neck and it was all I could see as she reached for me.
“Daddy…?”
I shut my eyes, taking a step back.
I couldn’t do this.
But her fingers caught mine.
“You can just bite me,” she whispered, sounding unsteady. “And then everything w-will be perfect.”
I hated how jarring her conviction was. How much she believed that. How much misplaced faith she had in both of us.
You gave her that faith , a little voice whispered.
“You were going to take him away.” She sounded so small and terrified. “B-but I love him. What was I supposed to do?”
Love?
How could she love someone like him? And so fast.
But she wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met, and I think she could love like that. It fit her in every way.
“I can’t be in a pack with him.”
Nothing in the world changed that fact—not even the most incredible Omega in the whole world.
Because it had nothing to do with who she was, and everything to do with who I wasn’t.
Tears were swimming in her eyes as she stared at me.
“So… what happens now?”
Again, I heard her terror.
She’d never had stability and promises, and now I was taking that from her, too.
“I don’t know.”
The only thing I did know was that I needed to leave.