Chapter 30
“Tell me, Omega.”
I woke to another nightmare, as predictable as it was frightening. His breath tickled my neck. A monster in the flesh and made of smoke all at the same time.
“Have you failed at last?” Ace asked. “Failed to protect your mates for what? A rut?” His laugh was low. “That’s all it took to make you crack? Disappointing that in the end you’re as weak as your designation.”
I shut my eyes.
“Tell me,” he whispered again.
My fingers fumbled for the collar at my neck, the one that was no longer there. Why did I want it suddenly? As if it might offer me protection.
Last night, it had.
But now… Knight had realised the truth.
What did it mean?
“I don’t like being made to wait…” My nightmare sounded harsh, the slightest edge of ice to his tone that told me I was in danger.
His question echoed, a dare in my terrified mind.
And I was scared of so much more now. Scared of what they would do if they learned. Of what I would do if it mattered to them that I’d suffered all these years.
I could go out there and admit it all. Could take a risk…
No one had found us yet. Maybe… was it possible they never would?
Ace’s finger traced my back, through my shirt, drawing across scarred lines we both knew by heart.
“You ran from me, Omega. You didn’t listen,” Ace whispered. “You’re mine, and you will never escape me?—”
“No.” I shook my head.
“No?” He let out the faintest breath of a laugh. “No, what? You won’t tell me?”
My breath caught.
…Tell me who you belong to…
I took a breath, hot tears burning my eyes. I was ready, at last, to stop being afraid of roses.
“Myself,” I whispered. It was the only way forward. My hands shook, fists balled as I hugged myself, terrified of what my nightmare would do as I fought it at last. “Not you. Not them.” My voice shook as I found words that freed me at last. “I belong to me.”
I’d slammed the door in Knight’s face, fury from the rut leaving me unable to talk to him.
It was irrational, but I was pissed.
Glade had been settled with us, happy and curled up between us on the bed. Whatever Knight had done, it had turned her on us.
My Omega.
This possessive tantrum would pass with the rut.
Still, I tossed and turned in bed for ages, almost getting up when I heard Knight turning on the TV outside. Given that the only instinct that popped into my head with that was decking him, I decided to stay put. I was completely irrational, and the hormones needed to take their course.
It didn’t help that I was drowned in flashes from the rut. Of her beneath me, begging for me, lips parted as she shook with an orgasm, but perhaps more than that were the brief flashes of twilight between fucks. When she and I were locked together, and she drew me close. I’d spotted brief moments of anxiousness, as if she wasn’t sure she should. But then my purr would rumble to life and she would melt, letting me hold her close, unlocking a piece of me that hadn’t seen daylight in years.
Then I remembered what she’d said, the way she’d taunted us, and I found a way to dig up a little bitterness, though that need for vengeance was more fragile than ever.
I couldn’t believe the first time I’d had a fuck in all these years had been with the only Omega I’d ever dreamed of. In a goddamned rut.
Finally, I heard more movement outside of my bedroom, and poked my head out of my door to find Kyan standing at the kitchen table, picking up the collar. “What’s this doing here?”
Knight was leaning in the doorway that led out of the warehouse, tugging earphones from his ears.
It was four a.m., but maybe he was just as wound up as I was. He didn’t look tired, like he’d hadn’t slept despite the hour. Kyan glanced from the collar to me when no one answered. “I thought you guys were rutting?”
“We are—were,” I said. “Kind of still, but it’s mostly passed.”
“Yeh…” Kyan said. “Banging an Omega for ten hours straight will do that to you…”
Ten hours?
But it was four a.m., and we’d only quit a few hours ago.
Well, fuck me.
“Where were you?” Knight demanded of Kyan.
“Clearing my head,” he said. He seemed calmer than earlier, but his expression was a bit tight. “Where’s Glade?”
“She’s…” I looked at the cell, frowning. “She’s in the room.”
“Why?” Kyan asked, affronted.
“Something’s wrong,” Knight growled. “She’s lying about something.”
“No shit.” I turned on him. “We know that. We didn’t put a collar around her neck because she’s trustworthy.”
Knight was tense, though. “Nothing adds up, not even a little. We keep treating her like she’s a freeloading bitch who left us for a better chance?—”
“Because she did—” I began, but Knight cut me off. We couldn’t just forget that because we’d had sex with her.
“Then why is she trying to get away from us?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Ace kicked her out. He’s not an option anymore. We’re literally offering her protection, and all she wants to do is escape.”
“Wait.” I held my hand up. “That’s what I was saying the other night, and you were telling me it was bull?—”
“And then I told her about Kyan,” Knight snarled. “I thought she was going to throw up?—”
“Now you’ve changed your mind because she cares if her mate literally kills himself, that doesn’t mean?—”
“She’s touch-starved,” Knight interrupted.
I froze, and a strange silence followed his words.
“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked at last.
“I think she’s had heats without drugs or Alphas. I think that’s why it’s different when we touch her.”
I frowned. “Different?”
But I knew what he meant. There was a comfort to any moment my skin brushed hers, like… well actually, like there was a sickness that needed fixing.
“Why would any Omega choose to have heats without drugs or Alphas?” I asked, something incredulous in my voice.
But it took about one second. One beat before my smile vanished, and the blood drained from my face.
“They… wouldn’t.” Kyan’s voice was low. “Not by choice.”
My heart hammered in my chest. It was… frightening how easily puzzle pieces slotted into place the moment you removed Glade from the equation. I could see the shadow that lurked behind, just as likely a culprit. A shadow that had haunted me for so long…
No…
But she had been larger than life, so close to us, so convincing and devastating that never once had I been able to consider anything else. Not when it would be dangerous—for Kyan, for the pack—to pine over what ifs, to chase the impossible dream that maybe, just maybe, Glade wasn’t the villain. When, even now, even after we’d met her again, she’d never convinced us of anything else.
Except in the brief cluster of seconds, looking at me with eyes so loving, desperate for something more, cocooned in a wound I could touch but not see, as if every instinct in my bones had been trying to tell me since the first moment we’d met her.
That maybe she never had been.
I stared at Knight.
Something was wrong. Really, really wrong…
It was like a fly at the edge of my vision, right there, yet every time I turned, it vanished. “Tell me…” I cleared my throat, staring at Knight. “Tell me you were about to go on a walk at four in the morning.” I worked to keep my voice steady.
“What?” Knight asked.
“Kyan just got in. You were about to go out.”
“No,” Knight said slowly. “I just got back. Already went on a walk.”
I shook my head, lips parting. “Then who…?”
And then I saw it, the fly just out of reach. The thing that didn’t fit.
My eyes fell on the TV, finally realising what was playing. Not a show I’d ever seen Knight pick in his life.
One I’d seen a thousand times, though. The World Series of Poker had been a staple in my house. Always running whenever it went on, something my father loved… My father, perhaps, but also—I backed toward Glade’s room, heart in my throat.
“She needs space,” Knight growled after me, but I ignored him, running to the door, fumbling with the lock and ripping it open.
I froze, terror spiking my blood with pure adrenaline.
The bathroom door was open, revealing the room beyond. The mattress was empty.
Glade was gone.
On the floor in the middle of the room were four face-down playing cards beside a single rose.