Chapter 50
FIFTY
KNOX
The second the gunshots had started, Bella ducked to flee.
And as she had, Banner, the Alpha behind me, had clamped a cloth over my mouth. I’d thrown my weight against him, dragging my mouth free, but it was too late.
The world swam, fading in and out. The only thing tethering me to consciousness was pure, visceral terror.
The bond was in chaos, too.
Two dead.
I could feel the pain of some others.
My chest tightened as I tried to fight, but my mind and body weren’t connected. Rough hands gripped me, the shake of each footstep jolting my body, spearing me with dread.
I recognised the creak of the side door that lead to the driveway.
A growl slipped out, but I couldn’t fight. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything while nightmares crashed in.
When we stopped, I crumpled instantly, and I had to be caught by strong hands.
We were outside.
The dry, night air filled my lungs, and I tried to force the world into focus.
I had to run.
I blinked again, and the driveway swam into my vision, blurring with the night sky beyond.
“We’re out front.” I heard one of them.
On a phone…? I thought.
The shapes were hard to force still.
“I can feel you in there, Baby.” Bella’s voice floated in from somewhere, coiling around my mind, violent and unwanted. Soft hands ran up my chest, and a weight shifted, pressing me against the wall. “You’re right to be scared. I’m very upset with you.”
I could feel her in the bond.
She was upset, but more than that, she was shaken.
Even half-conscious as I was, I’d felt the deaths of her Alphas. The rest… where were they? She had fled so fast, not everyone had made it out.
That had been Ace.
Ace fucking Maverick?—
“Jacob’s going to be so pleased,” Bella went on, centering my mind. “He won’t be at the bottom of the pack anymore, and he thinks you’re so pretty.” She brushed a lock of my hair back. “As long as they don’t damage your face or…” It was all I could manage to let out another growl as her hand pressed against my crotch. “Or the goods. I think I’ll let him have you for a few weeks?—”
She cut off abruptly at the crash of someone massive barrelling through the doorway.
“Fuck—!” I heard the sound of weapons being drawn and a scuffle. “Drop it!” That was one of her Alphas.
Bella had gone tense against me, though. I tried to drag my head to the side; the movement lolling and slow.
“Drop. It!” That was Banner.
Who…?
I knew they should be in the safe house, but I found myself desperately hoping for Vance, or Callum. I’d fallen far, to wish for that, when I knew it would mean they were in danger.
But I couldn’t do this.
And then I saw him.
I blinked, as if my vision might shift—That it might become someone else.
Anyone else.
Fuck…
Rogue towered over the Alpha behind us, one fist at his neck as his gun was levelled right at Bella’s head.
My throat was dry, my mouth not working as I tried to speak.
Kill me.
Just shoot me.
Please.
He hated me—but surely not enough that he would leave me to this fate.
Everything had happened so fast, it felt like a dream. From everything to nothing in a blink of an eye, like a movie or a book.
Not real life.
But I’d been here before. The whole world changing on the roll of a dice.
There was silence for a long, long time.
I could all but see a million things tumbling through his brain as those bright teal eyes met mine, and the gun wavered in his grip.
The calm in Bella’s voice was forced, but I could almost hear her words sewing my fate. “You have your scent match. I have mine. Walk away and claim your life back, Rogue Manzo.”
It was primal instinct that told Rogue he needed me alive. Years of dependency, of knowing that without me, he would be dead. But the Alpha who’d just crashed in, saving Thistle—that had been Ace Maverick.
The only other person in the world who had answers when it came to the sentence lodged in his neck.
And if he was heat bonded, like I think he was, she could bring him back.
I could almost see the realisation dawning in his eyes as he looked between me and Bella.
He could take a chance with Ace’s sanity and be free of me at last.
“Please…” The word took everything I had, and still barely sounded right.
“If I take him,” Bella went on. “No one finds out what a bad boy he’s been—they won’t come for her for what he did…”
Shit…
Rogue knew what I was doing here. What trouble we could be in if anyone learned.
“You have her already,” Bella whispered. “You don’t need him.”
Rogue’s gun arm lagged, dropping just an inch.
…No…
But Bella was still talking, silver tongue working while I could barely move. “Put a bullet in my skull, and he’ll put one in yours. Or you could go back to her safe and sound. Doesn’t she need you right now?”
His teal gaze met mine, and I knew the truth.
Rogue finally had everything.
His freedom.
His scent match.
Thistle waited for him, like the nightmare that waited for me.
I’d broken him over and over, driven him to insanity, stripped him of dignity and freedom, and now he was going to leave me on the doorstep of hell itself.
Bella was handing him the world, and all he had to do for that happily ever after was nothing at all.