Chapter 11
ELEVEN
ACE
As the scent of fresh, frosted moonflower faded from the room, my sanity waned, as if traces of her in the air were keeping me grounded.
I tried to hold on, but the bars, the basement, the cold stone floor, and scattered weights, guns, and muzzles—it all blurred in and out.
I took a breath.
How long had passed since she’d left me?
There was something I could reach for. Something I wasn’t used to. It was a flower unfurling in the bond I despised; it was a promise of sanity.
If I reached for it, I would find my mind again—the thing Thistle had stolen.
But I hated her too much, and I wouldn’t do it.
Instead, I looked for alternatives. I wouldn’t survive without other options. My body ached, and clinging to that sensation kept the world in focus… just .
I held onto the pain of my stomach, the thin, erratic pulse that sped through my veins, an ache in my chest with every breath, and the burning of my skin with each movement over fabric, as if it had been out in the sun too long.
But the madness that threatened was something completely beyond my control. And a failure to face that truth was dangerous.
It would leave me weak.
It would mean defeat.
A flash of that madness left me with odd images. Blinding sun. Agonising steps, endless as I followed nothing but instinct across an open desert.
A snarl unfurled in my chest at the memories, and finally reality shuttered out for darkness.
“How far have you fallen?” Zed’s voice echoed in my head.
Silver hair tumbled haphazardly before ice-blue eyes that marked our family tree. He was… blood. The brother I should have killed long ago.
Too many games.
Too much mercy .
I’d had his life and his Omega in my sights, and I hadn’t ended either.
Instead, I’d opened my mouth, a laugh in my voice.
“Run.”
The word was a flickering echo in my mind, thrill and destruction: my addiction. Those games were my curse—the thing I couldn’t give up.
But as I watched, he turned into another nightmare. She was the same Omega he’d clutched in his arms as he knelt at my feet, shaking and desperate. But she wasn’t dying as she had been then.
“Look at you,” she whispered, bright chestnut eyes holding mine. Long nails dug into burnt skin as she curled a delicate grip around my chin.
I shuddered, fury spiking.
This wasn’t real.
She. Would. Never. Dare .
But Glade had dared, and now her voice was a low taunt.
“A real Jonah and the whale. You tried so hard to convince us we were nothing that you fell right back into our jaws.” She leaned close, her whisper sending a chill through me.
“Owned by the very creatures you so desperately wished to control.”
I lunged at her, a growl tearing from my chest, instincts howling.
How dare she?
She was nothing.
Free by luck alone.
Free because I’d given her too much leash.
But my fist closed around nothing, and I heard her voice from behind.
“You lied, Alpha . To me. To yourself. I was never just a claim, was I?”
I snarled, turning, but I couldn’t find her.
Instead, her voice was a faint whisper in the air.
In her hand was the brittle stem of a rose, its petals fallen, surrounding us, and she wore nothing but a sheer gown of gold.
I heard her final taunt.
“I was a crutch—a bid to defy nature. But you ran so far that you didn’t just fall for her claim.” Glade sounded so victorious. “You became hers, from body, to mind, to soul.”
Finally, as I watched, she was gone, and in her wake was an eerie silence.
A cool mist rose like a nighttime frost destined to vanish in the morning sun, and with it I heard the faintest tune of a song.
“All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men…”
Thistle’s low singing was torture.
Pain tore open my back. I couldn’t move. I knew I was dead, and yet she never dealt the final blow.
Instead, she whispered on.
A promise.
A claim?—
“Get up.”
My eyes snapped open as I woke back in the cage to a low voice. I was seated in the corner, head leaning against icy stone, fist closed around nothing. My chest heaved as I tried to find footing in reality.
From the corner of my eye, I saw something shift. A shadow stood over me in the cage.
I didn’t move.
It wasn’t her. Instead, the scent of ink and antique wood hit my senses.
Another Alpha.
Hers, but… not hers. Not in the bond.
I silenced the nightmares still trying to drown me. Instead, I focused on what I knew.
Knox Wilde.
Ex-slave—and all the power he had in this life, he owed to me.
I contained my fury—my hatred of the Omega who was lodged in me from bond to soul—as I tilted my head up just slightly to look at the Alpha waiting.
“I said get up.”
At his words, I still didn’t move, instead drawing him into focus.
Pain split my cheek as he moved, boot colliding with my face. The world blurred, and I lost myself, my snarl echoing between us.
Before I knew it, I gave in to those instincts again—the same nightmare and instability I was trying to shake.
I launched at him, and this time the pain that exploded at my temple was worse. I crashed into the wall again before I crumpled to the stone floor. I felt—through the wildness and spinning world—something close around my neck.
My chest heaved, madness flickering in and out.
I tried to fight it. My fingers curled around the stiff metal of a rod as the world began to make sense once more.
I realised what it was: I was locked into a metal collar attached to a solid rod as he stood over me.
“You think I don’t know how to deal with vermin?” Knox asked, his voice a laugh. “You left me with one.”
I grappled with my sanity again, a vile hatred rising in my chest at the idea I couldn’t maintain control.
I would not be this weak.
I rolled onto my back, tasting iron, a laugh shuddering in my chest as I stared at the cracks along the ceiling, and found my voice at last. “You are nobody .” My words were cracked and vicious.
The world was wrong about power.
I’d always known that, but now I had my proof. It wasn’t money, or weapons, or strength.
It was knowledge.
And that was the only reason I was awake.
Thistle had tried to destroy me, but this was one of the two Alphas she’d chosen.
Both, it seemed, loved her— cared for her.
And that was weakness.
If Thistle thought this was the end—that she had won —she was so very mistaken.
I felt my hormones rising again, getting the better of me as I heard Knox’s laugh. He was watching, waiting for me to lose it again, as if he knew it would happen.
I couldn’t afford these nightmares taking control once more. So I did what made me sick, and reached, at last, for the thing in this pack that would stabilise me.
Even far away, I could feel it. Just opening up the bond was enough for a flood of calm as I allowed it in.
An undeniable cure.
Because Thistle was—at this moment—a beacon of joy.