Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
THISTLE
The pinch of the needle was gone, and I was sprawled across the marble again, curled up. Another Alpha had my chain. Knox’s chain…
But Knox had just bitten her .
For… us, Bunny?
My mind was still reeling.
He had to bite in, or I would die. That’s what she’d said, and I’d realised I was going to die because no matter how much he wanted me, he hated her, and I wasn’t worth nothing—not really, and never without a scent match.
But then… Then he’d done it, anyway. Gave what he didn’t want to give.
For us…
I still didn’t understand.
It shook me soul deep, threatening to destabilise foundations we’d buried so deep to keep us safe…
We gotta protect him, Bunny…
“What is this?” That was her voice. She was standing above me—the Omega Knox had bitten. This time, it wasn’t like Glade. Glade wanted me to have Ace, but this bitch was here to steal my Alphas away.
I was shivering, still, trying to work out what was happening, but then—a wail tore from my chest as Bunny was torn from my grip.
N-no!
Not again.
I needed him.
“Give it to me,” she said.
I looked up, world spinning, to see her above me. I hated her so much the world bled red. She’d taken what was mine, and now she had Bunny too.
A snarl caught in my throat, so vicious she paused, green eyes blinking back to me. There was a smile on her plush red lips. I knew, one day, I would carve them from her face.
I’d never hated someone like I hated her.
Not those two lowlifes I’d killed to protect my dad.
Not Dan or any of his stupid pack.
Not the Alpha I’d cut into little pieces when he’d tried to take Ace from me— he had failed, but she… The world span. The blood red mark of Knox’s bite on her feet only inches away. She’d taken him…
And now she had Bunny.
“A nest?” I heard the sharp tone of her grating voice from above. “How pathetic .”
She was closer, somehow, her horrible absinthe scent drowning the vile burned cinnamon scent of the Alpha who had my chain. She’d knelt, I realised, and I shivered as her finger brushed my cheek.
I growled again, trying to close my teeth around her finger.
I’d rip it free.
Watch her bleed.
I couldn’t reach it, though.
Instincts were trying to steal me away, ones I’d buried deep for how they got me in trouble, but right now I didn’t care.
She’d taken him.
And none of it prepared me for what came next.
For the flash of cruelty in her eyes as she gripped Bunny by each arm and pulled. For the faint tearing sound as he was ripped in two.
I tried to scream, but my throat closed up, and the Alpha above me clamped a hand over my mouth.
Then she did it again, ripping Bunny into pieces, and old, grey stuffing exploded everywhere.
I was coming undone, reality slipping…
He was… gone?
Bunny…?
I tried reaching out, but the Alpha holding me down was too strong. Always too strong…
He couldn’t be. I n-needed Bunny.
I couldn’t breathe.
The tiny sketchbook clattered to the marble.
I didn’t know when she’d stood, but then her bloody, bitten foot in silver sandals pressed down on my sketchbook, tearing out the first few pages.
My desert storm…
The first thing I’d ever drawn inside.
Another wail sounded in my chest.
The world flickered, and whatever drug I’d been injected with all crashed in at once.
Heat…
The air itself was like a coating of ice on my skin.
I screamed, hurting everywhere.
It was heat that was all wrong, frigid and agonising, slamming into me at once. I felt as though I was an orb of consciousness trapped in a cell, a thousand miles from the nearest spark of warmth.
I shivered, a low, agonised moan slipping from chattering teeth.
I hated heats right from that first one I’d tried to hide. They always hurt, no matter what I did, always left me feeling empty. But this one, it was worse.
Bunny…?
I shivered so hard my bones rattled in their casings.
Where are you?
You were n-never supposed to leave me.
But he had left me.
Reality flickered again, this time stealing my mind.
Ace had bitten me and left me alone.
Thick, wet tears tumbled down my cheeks again. My chest was heaving, eyes aching, body frail from hours of crying as another wave of this sickness washed over me. Something had happened, I didn’t know what, but the guards were all gone.
It seemed like a sign.
Complete and total abandonment.
He was never coming back.
He’d left me for her, and the world was ending.
I was on the floor in the middle of his ruined room, clutching his shredded blankets to my chest as I sobbed, not knowing where the tears were coming from anymore.
A choked, shattered wail ripped from my lungs as I tugged the knife against the fabric like I had a thousand times. Down feathers floated in the air as I screamed, as if that might make this pain any less.
I could feel him in the bond, still.
The other half of my heart.
He was in a rut.
I tried to stay away from this new bond, but it was hard not to know that, at least. And if he was in a rut, he was with her…
“Your fault…” I whispered. “You stupid Omega whore! Failed before you met him. He knew you would never be enough.” Another tear of the fabric. But then… “Then why did you bite me?” I wailed. This bond was the whole world. “Why did you bite me just to leave? Why didn’t you just leave me in that place with Dumb Dan and his stupid pack.”
It would have been better.
I’d never hurt like this before.
It wasn’t my fault I loved him so much—I didn’t know how to stop. From the moment I’d seen him, the world hadn’t been possible without him in it.
How was it fair?
How was it fair that I felt that way, and he could choose her?
The world split in two that day, cracked apart in a way I never thought it would again.
Not until I watched Knox’s teeth sink into the flesh of another.
I was back on the ballroom floor, gasping for air.
The scent of burned cinnamon lingered. I shivered, skin so cold it felt like burning. I needed touch—an Alpha’s warmth…
I hurt so much, from soul to body.
In the endless ice, the touch of warmth shocked my eyes opened. I reached out, gasping with relief as I tried to hold on to it.
It was wrong…
I whimpered, fingers closing around thin air, a sharp pain in my scalp. Finally, a face swam into my vision. He was pale, with wavy brown hair. Unfamiliar.
Burned cinnamon.
Not mine.
Again, his knuckle brushed my cheek, and I choked out a sob, trying to lean into it. I was dying, and I needed that warmth.
“Beg for me, little slut.” His words were faint. “Loud enough that he hears.”
Beg for him?
I… couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t betray my Alpha—not for the worst agony imaginable.
Glade had survived so much worse for her Alphas… I clung to that, chest heaving. I wouldn’t betray Knox like that.
But now I knew where this agony was coming from—why this loss was worse than anything I’d ever felt.
Ace and Rogue were stuck with me. My dad had been stuck with me.
But Knox…?
The first person in the world that wanted you for you…