Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
ROGUE
I was frozen.
There was a gun in my hand.
My Omega was being tortured, and I could do nothing.
I waited, hunched behind a pillar on the second-floor landing, gun cocked and ready to shoot.
It took every ounce of my self-control, handed to me by years forced to hang on at the edge of insanity, to hold on to this position. To consider the odds.
I had one chance to reveal myself.
There were seven Alphas down there, each with guns.
I could shoot one or two, perhaps another, but the second a gun was at her head, it would be over. Then I’d be more leverage for her torture.
Bella was a clear shot, but I’d be left with a pack of feral Alphas on my hands, and no reason for Thistle to remain alive at all.
For a moment, I regretted knocking out Vance. But it didn’t matter. Not really. The speed at which those weapons could be trained on Thistle would make any number of us useless.
My Omega was curled up on the marble, shivering and in agony, her nest in pieces around her, and I could do nothing.
I was helpless, and it was enough to send me back into madness.
I had to focus.
Wait for them to fuck up… for one of them to leave…
Could I create a diversion?
Draw some away?
Thistle’s agony ricocheted through my skull like a bullet, demanding I act, ripping sanity from me. She was curled in on herself and through the bond I could feel her shame and fear swallowing her whole, as if giving in to that Alpha would make her nothing.
Her gaze found Knox in desperation, and while I wasn’t close enough to see her expression, I felt her resolution through our connection as if he gave her strength.
Knox was absolutely still, eyes wide as he watched her.
I’d known him for a long time. I’d seen him survive grief and terror, hopelessness and hatred, but I’d never seen him like this.
Statuesque.
As if the slightest movement would break him.
“Don’t do this.” His voice was stiff as he addressed Bella. “We can go.”
“Are you in love?” she asked. “With your pet’s plaything? What happened to you?”
I flinched as the Alpha shoved Thistle onto her back with his foot. She let out a whimper, as if even the movement hurt. My heart slammed into my ribs and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Knox flinch.
“Beg,” the Alpha taunted again.
“I w-won’t.” Her voice shook.
His foot came down on her throat. “Beg, you mangy little whore.”
Her heaving wheezes of pain were shards of glass splintering my sanity, devastating the calm that had settled since the moment I’d put my teeth to her neck.
“I won’t,” Thistle stammered, voice so fractured it broke my heart. It was as if she were pleading. “I’m not gonna, I… I swear it.” I was watching her bargain, as irrational as it was. “I w-won’t do it, Daddy, I p-promise…”
But I could see the truth.
Thistle was going to break. She was going to break in a way I didn’t know I could fix.
THISTLE
“ I won’t do it, Daddy, I promise. ”
I wanted him back.
I didn’t want this. I wanted them. My pack. My Alphas.
I’d been told to beg, and I hadn’t. I would be strong, even when it hurt, but the world was stealing him away, anyway.
How were we back here?
But I knew.
The torn remains of Bunny were all I could see, now. And we were back to that moment that made up every sharp edge.
Bunny was gone.
I thought we would be together forever…
It was the truth I’d been running from since the moment Knox had brought me to this place: a missing piece the torn up plushie wasn’t strong enough to mask.
I was alone.
He wasn’t coming back.
Bunny was never coming back.
The storm was all a lie.
“I’m all out of patience, slut,” the Alpha growled above me. “My Omega wants a show. You’re going to give her one.”
I grit my teeth, trying to sort my brain out. His hand closed around my thigh, a punishing promise, his weight crushing me and easily pushing back the silk gown. But even this horrible heat wasn’t enough to make it feel right.
It doesn’t matter, Bunny…
But Bunny was gone.
I shoved back a sob, nails digging into his flesh as his weight crushed me.
It didn't matter what he did. I was one of those kinds of Omegas, anyway, left behind by anyone who should care.
Nothing had changed.
And if it mattered, I was soft, and soft things could be torn up as easily as Bunny had been.
But… I don’t think I’d ever stitched myself back up from the last time.
Knox was gonna see…
Maybe he’d realise, at last, how worthless I was.
That I was all paperclips and runny glue, and now Bunny wasn’t coming back and my pieces were all falling to the floor around me.
Ace had left me—bitten me and told me he didn’t want me. For an endless agony, I thought it was all over.
Until she returned.
Somehow, Glade had beaten him, and when she had, she had thought of me.
In my room, upon my bed she’d left my Alpha.
My Ace.
Still.
Immobile.
Drugged and trapped.
I’d entered my room to find him, the traces of her scent, dark cream cardamom, lingering in the air. She’d carved the symbol for an Omega into his back, fresh and glistening blood: a clear signal.
A gift for me.
He was mine.
That was a fate he’d never escape.
She’d left him with poison and paralysis, but she’d given me the antidotes, so I could end his punishment whenever I wanted.
It was the greatest gift I’d ever been offered.
And he wasn’t just rutting like I’d thought. He was tumbling into feral. But my heat was coming, and I could truly balance him at last.
When the hazy world swam into clarity, I realised there was a lot of blood.
I quietly sang to myself, legs crossed, seated at his side with my knife in my hand.
I’d added to the symbol Glade had carved into his flesh for me—a gift from the only Omega who’d ever seen me.
And I understood. She knew what I’d needed. This, I think… This was my nest. Tears leaked down my cheeks with relief as I stared at the lines on his shoulder and back.
He was my nest.
And Ace wasn’t my scent match.
He never had been.
He was more, I knew now. I had permission to claim that truth at last.
Ace was my soul match.
A soul match who’d tried to run.
My teeth sank into his skin—once, twice, not enough.
The carved Omega symbol she’d left was a sign.
Mine.
He was mine.
So, I left my bite marks all over it so no one would ever wonder differently.
Time flickered, the room getting hot as I claimed him. He was shivering, low wounded growls escaping with weak breaths.
Not enough to give him strength.
My mate who’d tried to flee.
“Will you cuddle me, Bunny?” I asked.
Bunny sat limp on the bedside table beside us, but I wasn’t sure who was who, anymore.
My god Alpha.
My Ace.
A storm I could never forget.
They were both one now—my protector.
And he would never run again.
Ice-blue eyes were open and fixed on me—eyes that had hated me for so long, cold and frigid and always hurting me. He could see me and hear me, but he couldn’t move and couldn’t speak.
“You will?” I asked, then burrowed beneath blankets and the heavy weight of his limp arm. This time, the charge of static that lit between us as our skin brushed was intoxicating.
My own little chirp of delight almost made me jump as I tugged him closer, and I giggled, wrapping around him and squeezing tight.
I was drowning in the arms I’d dreamed of since the moment I’d seen him.
Mine.
All mine.
Even if they were a bit sticky with all this blood.
At some point, someone entered.
An Alpha that had ignored me for Ace, hatred in his eyes.
Vengeance for something I didn’t know.
There were loads of people who wanted to punish him, but I got dibs.
It had been easy to stab him in the back. I’d been in a trance, heat fully keeping me under. Those instincts my father had sent me away for, raising their ugly head.
When he was all chopped up, I returned my focus to what mattered.
To my Ace.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never put Bunny together again…”
Crimson lines dripped down pale skin, droplets of red bustling by smaller huddles of sweat from cold, clammy, shivers. I leaned close, drawing my jaw along muscles and shudders, leaving my mark again.
“But I’m not a horse,” I whispered. I returned the knife to the beautiful, corded muscle, finishing off the heart I was painting on his arm. “Or the king’s men.”
Heat hadn’t been that long ago, but I was starting to get warm. He’d run and run from me, leaving me hollow, but now his hormones coated my lungs with every breath.
He was on the edge of collapse, but I was managing it all.
I leaned close, lips caressing the fresh crimson, iron dancing along my tastebuds, lighting all those instincts I’d be told to bury.
“I’ll put you back together,” I whispered. “And then you’ll be mine forever.”
Before me in Knox’s mansion, Bunny was torn to shreds, and it was hard to cling to that precious memory, suspended in a heart-shaped bubble.
It was mine and his and no one else’s.
Not ever.
How hard had I fought to claim what was mine? I’d lost, and lost, and lost, over and over, until Glade… She’d given me something back.
I’d taken that gift, and then I’d been gifted Rogue.
And finally, there was Knox.
Mine, too.
But all of it was a lie.
He’s not coming back…
I’m alone.
Not enough.
Tears blurred the room, and I tried to focus on anything else other than the Alpha above me, pinning me by the neck as he seized the lace beneath the gown. I should reach for Bunny, to try to fight, but I was so weak, my body collapsing beneath me, wanting the touch that was being offered even if it made me a traitor.
Somewhere in my consciousness, Knox begged Bella to leave me, and my heart cracked again.
I could hear the storm, even from this room. The rain and howling wind, and distant rolling thunder.
Storms were the most beautiful thing in the world, but mine was shredded from my sketchbook and crumpled on the marble before me.
This storm was real though—so close, even if we were still inside. But for a moment, it was like it was here. In this room, the static in the air, the cool wind, and rolling thunder.