Merle
The weather is dangerous, dark, and threatening, and it keeps me on edge. Every time I relax, the memories surge up, trying to pull me into a dark, whirling maelstrom of nightmares I’m trying to run from.
My sense of self is fading, cracking, collapsing under the weight of impending doom. King and Roseland being absent is like a constant pressure in the back of my mind, stealing any semblance of safety I might be pretending to have.
Blaze watches me like a hawk, while Rolly stays close.
Pix distances himself, but at this point, I don’t even care. I’m fading.
That nickname repeats in my head, over and over, but I don’t know who said it or where. I just know that it makes me feel sick, scared, and ruined.
The weather is so bad that we don’t go anywhere; we just huddle in the cave, and I cling to every word that those alphas whisper, listening to them intently and using them as cornerstones that anchor me to the here and now.
“Merle,” Rolly says and strokes my hair. “You have to eat.”
I blink up at him, and time passes. He’s not in front of me. I don’t remember eating.
“It’s like how she was when she was first brought here. She’s not responding to anything.”
“Just keep her warm and keep her safe,” Blaze says.
Sage is holding me. I register that and fight to come back out of the fugue state, but that name whispers, and I’m drowning in fear.
“Blaze has been gone a long time,” Rolly whispers.
“He’ll come back. He seems like a tenacious psychopath. I sincerely doubt anything will happen to him,” Sage says.
Rolly grumbles. “It’s not like him to be gone so long. Something must have gone wrong.”
“Shh,” Sage whispers. “She’s listening.”
I turn into Sage’s arms, burying my face in the crook of his elbow. He strokes a hand down my back.
“Go back to sleep, Merle. Everything is okay.”
My stomach flutters wildly, and I know that it’s not all right, nothing is, but I don’t have the words or the will.
“Shit, what’s happening to her?”
“She’s convulsing.”
The voices blur together with the world and disappear.
All that remains is the fear, and it chases me down into the dark.
“There are people in the forest. Lots of them, they are hunting, searching. We have to leave! Now, before it’s too late,” Rolly says urgently.
“Good, I was feeling a little rusty,” Pix snarls and starts pacing.
I clutch the arm that is holding me.
“We’re going to have to get moving. We can’t stay here,” Blaze says. “Rolly’s right. We need to get her safe.”
“What about King and Roseland?” Pix growls.
“We’ll meet up with them somewhere else,” Sage says. “They both have places to go where they can keep their heads down.”
“The good thing is they aren’t looking for us,” Rolly says. “That’s the only surprise we have on our side. Storms raging, and she’s out of it. We’re going to need to move fast.”
They get quiet, and my mind screams. I can hear a dark laugh, a thudding pain. Roseland gets stabbed, his blood hot on my cheek as he orders me to run.
“Okay, I’ve got her. Let's move,” Sage and his scent surround me. I should feel safe, but I’m so far away.
“It’s night,” Pix protests.
“Yep. It is. Got a problem with that?” Rolly snarls.
“I’m not worried about me,” Pix snaps back. “What happens if she takes off?”
“Hey! Remember who the enemy is. We take them down, we protect her,” Sage urges. “We will be fine.”
I’m scooped up, and when I peel open my eyes, Sage swipes my hair back from my face.
“It’s going to be okay, Merle.”
They run. I’m jostled, but I don’t make a sound. I just lay in his arms, watching the trees bend in the wind, as thick grey clouds obliterate the night sky.
“Bad weather's coming in,” Sage says.
“I know, but it can cover us. It might give us a chance. There are too many of them,” Blaze says in frustration. “I should have brought more weapons.”
Sage grunts, and they run faster.
We’re being driven away from where we needed to go. I’m going to get these alphas killed. I just know it.
We reach a river, but it’s roaring.
“Up or back?” Pix shouts.
“Up!” Blaze says, and we ascend towards the blackness of the sky.
I wonder if it’s hell.
I wonder if I’m being punished. If tonight is the night I die.
Why am I hanging on? I should let go.
I’m staying because I love them. Because I don’t want to go. My eyes open, and I stare up at roiling storm clouds.
I love them. So simple. So ruinous.
“We have company!” Rolly hisses as he suddenly appears on Sage’s left. Even to my distraught gaze, he’s pale and tense.
They need to let me go, or they will die, too.
They are good alphas. They shouldn’t die for me.
They climb up a series of boulders, handing me from arms to arms, slowing everything down, making themselves targets.
The first drop of rain is fat, heavy, and freezing cold. A prelude to what is coming. I stare at Rolly’s face as he jumps across three boulders, carrying me like I weigh nothing.
I wonder what he does for a living? Is he a painter? A carpenter? Perhaps he answers the phones in an office that is slowly killing him. Did he like his parents? Does he have anyone else besides Pack Prince? What is his favourite food?
There are so many questions, so many things I want to know. It wasn’t enough time. Nothing was ever going to be long enough, but I regret. I bitterly, bitterly regret.
I reach up, touching my fingers to the side of his neck, drawing his attention. He crouches and buries his face in my hair.
“It’s okay, Merle. It’s going to be okay.”
It’s not. It's not, and I’m being so selfish.
For the first time in years, I wish I had the ability to talk. I wish I could tell him how I feel and ask him those millions of questions. I wish I could say I was sorry.
I struggle free and hold up a hand, stopping them when they advance towards me. I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears that spill over.
I tap my chest.
“I don’t care if they want you, they aren’t having you,” Blaze snarls in a voice that would scare anyone.
I point angrily at all of them and draw a line across my throat, then shake my head furiously.
“I’m not afraid of death,” Sage says in a low voice. “And I’m not afraid to fight.”
I shake my head and hit my chest again.
“At this point, Merle, it doesn’t matter what you want. None of us is letting our scent-matched omega die.”
I lift my hand slowly and point at Pix, daring them to argue with me.
Pix throws his head back and laughs, and he looks so beautiful and so brave, and I know he’s the one who is supposed to be here. Not broken me.
“Yeah, we got lucky, and we have two. But just because we have two!” Blaze says as he advances on me, fury in every line of his body. “Doesn’t mean one is expendable or less than the other.”
I stare at him. His nose is almost touching mine, his fierce eyes glaring, holding me captive; his long, elegant fingers are wrapped around my jaw.
He’s got the surprising strength of a protective bear, the predatory instincts of the wolves that howl in the distant hills, and the grace of the soaring eagles.
He and Pix are a perfect match.
I need help to walk and can no longer talk. Surely, he can see how much he needs an omega who suits him?
His fingers tighten as if he can hear my thoughts. “I’m not giving you up,” he whispers. “Get used to it. The minute you were carried over the threshold of my home, I knew you were never going anywhere. It is the same as I felt when I saw him. I knew I had to have you both. You belong to me.”
He sounds insane, but it’s not scary. If anything, his possessiveness is comforting. His words hit me hard, falling deep into my splintered landscape, and reach all the parts of me.
His declaration emblazons itself on my soul and becomes a core memory, a moment that changes me, though I’m not sure how.
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
He drops his face to mine and kisses me hard.
Our teeth clash together, his tongue invades my mouth, but I’m too busy memorizing the texture of his lips, the feel of them, the taste of him to kiss him back.
His lips are his and as singular as a fingerprint.
I will always know them. I will always know his kiss.
And crave it, I realise instantly.
One touch, and it’s a habit, an addiction, a need. He’s as vital to me as air, more than my voice, more than my life. I need his touch, his kiss.
I stare up at him, stunned as he pulls away, his gaze searching mine before he turns to Pix.
“Come here.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Pix snarls back.
Rolly laughs. “They are so damn adorable.” But he watches me closely.
“He’s right, you know,” Sage whispers. “Both of them are right. You and Pix belong to us now.”
I don’t answer him, but I half turn away, though I keep my eyes on him.
“He’s right that we all knew the moment we laid eyes on you.
There was no walking away. Scent matches are too rare.
It was a compulsion, it was biology, but it’s more than that now, Merle.
I know you. You are sweet and funny, inquisitive and so deep.
You don’t like to see anyone hurting, and you don’t like to hurt people.
You are a beautiful omega. So, now you are more than just our scent match.
” He shakes his head and looks down at the forest. It’s just a black mass of trees from here, but down there, I know how easily we could get lost. How easily I could get lost. “You are my Merle, and there is a spot in my heart that belongs to you.”
I reach out, squeezing his hand. Hating my life, hating that I’m going to have to hurt them. Hating that I will die and leave them.
I pull his hand up and draw two names on his hand.
He stares at me. “Rose and King?”
I nod.
“Don’t do it,” Rolly growls in an alpha command that I’m able to shrug off.
It’s all in the intention, and his command wasn’t specific enough. Not to stop me.
I run.
“MERLE!” Rolly roars, plunging after me.
But I throw myself across the boulders and down into the forest. I land heavily, but I’m not injured enough to let it stop me or even slow me down, and the one thing I can do better than anyone else is run.