Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
ACE
I felt her now.
Fully.
Pain, rage, and years of resentment. It was all those things I’d been trying to avoid. But she was shoving them into the forefront of the bond, making it so I couldn’t look away.
I stood, the cool stone against my bare feet grounding me.
She followed, straightening, fists balled, anger still flashing in her eyes.
She didn’t have Bunny, I realised.
It couldn’t be far, but it was strange seeing her without it.
That fact was important. It meant something, and I knew what. I wished I could reject it, but that would make me a fool. She was as dependent on it as she was on me.
As debasing as it was, I needed that.
She stayed tense, her eyes darting from me to the balcony doors, like she feared I was going to leave. Afraid, or… maybe something a little more daring.
“This is my pack,” she hissed at last. “You are in it, and you aren’t going anywhere .” I could feel what she felt as she glared up at me, that storm of energy and power.
Of fury, pain, and… fear.
I’d never felt it like this.
It wasn’t fear like I expected—the weak kind that made people flee.
It was powerful; a fear of her own feelings, of how overwhelming they were—of what I might do—as if they’d snap at any word or sound I made.
Had it always been like this for her?
It wasn’t for me.
But not, I realised now, because it couldn’t be, but because I’d always been the one in control.
Now I wasn’t so sure, and her allure, the need I felt for her… fear wasn’t so far-fetched anymore.
I swallowed back that train of thought, focusing instead on something else that had nagged me the last few days. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to draw?”
She frowned as if the question caught her off guard.“I knew you’d think it was stupid.”
Was that true?
Sometimes I was still swallowed whole by the monster of madness I’d been trapped in so long. Of the person I’d been before, only fragments remained.
I’d been jealous…
I knew that.
I’d wanted her. I’d put a bullet in the skull of a guard I thought looked at her too long. I’d hated when she visited my balcony as much as I’d been addicted to it, needing to know I consumed her while never reaching out in return.
“I don’t think I would have cared,” I said. Her jaw clenched, and I felt a groundswell of sorrow, an ancient, lonely thing cracking open. A regret for pain that needn’t have been.
“But if you’d asked, I would have said no,” I added, cutting it off before it became too much. Before it got to me, too.
“Oh.” The hope died, and she chewed on her lip. “Why?”
“I was more comfortable when you thought I didn’t care.”
It had been the only wedge left. Otherwise, she would have been relentless. Sneaking in, ruining me when I least expected it. Nothing I did to punish her got in the way. And I had hated, more than anything, that I dreaded it ever would.
I feared her obsession while needing it like I needed breath.
Those glittering violet eyes reflected that back at me as they met mine. The dam broke, and a tear spilled down her cheek, one that wrenched at me like it never had before.
I stepped forward as if she had commanded it: my need to respond a noose around my neck.
She had me utterly entrapped.
“W-why?” Her voice was choked. “Why was I never enough?”
THISTLE
I was shaking, the words from a million dreams spilling out at last. “I gave you everything, and you left me.” That truth burned. “I tried to be everything you said I had to be.”
I’d had sex with his stupid pack mates when I was in heat. I’d tried so hard to play the part—to be the kind of Omega he needed.
Elegant, quiet, docile, standing at his side.
My teeth clenched, tears burning my eyes as I failed to hold them back.
“I know.” He was looking at me funny, tilting my head up, and his touch threatened the comfort and calm I didn’t want.
A strangled growl slipped from my chest as I shoved him, but he didn’t even stagger back a step. Instead, his hand closed around my throat, and he stepped me—us both—back to the side, until I felt the cool touch of a circular wooden patio table behind me.
I was too angry to be afraid, though, my fingers gripping his wrist, the pent-up words all spilling out. “I can’t be like other Omegas. I tried, and I can’t. Why can’t you want me for me?” The tears all burst free, loosening aches buried so deep they might never leave.
Stupid.
He’d hate that. He always hated crying.
“Why wasn’t I enough ? —?”
“Enough?” Ace asked, as if the word was strange on his tongue. “You were too much …” He trailed off, something bitter on his face. “And you won.”
“Won?” The tears died for a moment as I tried to process that.
“Do you know what that means?” he asked.
I shook my head, not following where he was going with any of this.
To my shock, he sank to his knees, piercing blue eyes holding mine as he pressed my hips back so I was trapped between the table and him. I had to lace my fingers through his hair to keep my balance.
His grip closed around my thigh, tight even as he lifted his hand, higher and higher, until his thumb brushed the edge of my panties and I shivered. The nightclothes I wore were thin; underwear and a sheer top that was easy to manoeuvre.
A mewl slipped from my lips as he dipped his fingers into me.
The first time he’s ever touched us like that, Bunny…
He drew his fingers out slowly, and I felt slick rush to fill the void.
ACE
Tomorrow, we couldn’t fail, and for that, I needed to give Thistle something I’d never given her before. I needed her confidence.
I’d seen flashes of it before.
As she’d hummed to herself before a slowly dying Alpha.
He’d been chained in my basement, the only one of the pack I hadn’t killed when I’d saved her from that filthy place.
She’d taken her time, and he’d lived far longer than he should have.
It had been a meticulous task, and like a moth to flame, she’d come back every day.
What I’d seen then was dangerous, especially when paired with how enchanting I’d found it to watch. For a brief moment, I’d seen a goddess. The first whisper of the Omega I knew she could be.
I could have lost myself right then and there. Instead, I’d slammed the door on that possibility. Instead of nurturing that connection, I’d buried it. I’d strangled it of life, and with it, her.
And it had spelled my own end, too.
The game was changing, and with it the rules. I could cling to my hatred of that reality, or I could let it destroy us all.
But that would mean to lose, and I was starting to see a path through the trees. One in which I hadn’t, perhaps, lost everything .
She took her hand from my hair and curled her fingers around the edge of the table, back arching as my fingers bit down on her thigh and my tongue drew up her center.
It was my first time tasting her like this, and I wasn’t expecting the rush of my own adrenaline as I did. I wasn’t expecting the primal need to see it through, to feel her shudder with release as I made her lose control.
It was a new kind of power I’d never considered.
I slid my finger into her tight cunt, and each of her little mewls set dopamine off like firecrackers.
I could feel her soaring to the edge of the cliff when her fingers fisted in my hair again, dragging me back. A furious growl rumbled up from my chest.
What did she think she was doing?
I was met with violet eyes, ones glittering with fear I wasn’t expecting.
“What…?” She paused, her voice unsteady. “What about her?”
Her?
I froze, warring with my hatred at those words. I knew which her she meant.
How dare she bring that up now, when I was already giving her more than she’d ever had before. I adjusted my grip with one hand, and with the other I drove my fingers into her core.
She let out a strangled whine, grip on my hair tightening, voice determined. “I won’t finish until you say it.”
Another low growl rose in my chest.
A mistake.
Her eyelashes fluttered, bright violet gems glittering in the moonlight as they met mine.
She understood.
Her fingers closed around my wrist as if trying to halt me from continuing. A guttural growl rolled through my bones. She let out a little breath of pleasure, but her eyes were still resolute.
I needed to see her finish. She was a wreck, too emotional and wound tight.
But I was cursed. Unable to sleep until she could.
Or calm down.
Or think of anything else.
But I thought she knew, and she was closing up again, scorched edges of rage turning her beauty deadly.
I grit my teeth. “It’s not her I’m addicted to, Omega. Not her I’m kneeling at the feet of.”
“Do you hate her?” she asked again.
My pulse sped up. I didn’t want to think about Glade right now—or ever. “She ruined my life.”
“Do you hate her?” she demanded.
“Of course I hate her!”
Her lip wobbled, eyes glassy once more. “B-But…” She looked as if she couldn’t breathe while she searched for her words. “But you hate me more?”
I stared at her for a long moment, shock colliding with a strange catharsis from her end of the bond. The words finally spilled out as I drove two fingers into her viciously. “I hate you more than anyone on the fucking planet, Omega.”
Her relief unwound every taut cord, a rare gem in a sea of filth, something I wanted to keep close. She shuddered as I pumped my fingers into her, tongue drawing up her clit, and her release slammed into me, both with touch, and through our connection.
Smothering. Demanding.
She panted, fist painfully tight in my hair, her glittering violet eyes tracing down my face where she lingered upon my lips.
I fought it for a second, breath caught in my chest, every instinct I’d ever honed screaming at me not to.
It was everything I’d sworn I’d never be: beholden to another.
But she’d already won.
Only you.
The promise held me on the edge of madness, ropes of hatred stopping me from slipping over the cliff. I wasn’t done. It wasn’t enough to give her this so freely.