Chapter 23
Wild Things And Wanting
~JETT~
The blade slides through flesh like water through silk.
Clean.
Efficient.
The man doesn't even have time to scream—just a wet gurgle as his throat opens, blood cascading down his chest in a crimson waterfall before his body collapses to the manicured lawn.
I sigh.
"This is so messy."
The observation is clinical, detached—the assessment of someone who's seen enough death to recognize quality work versus sloppy execution.
My cut was precise, perfect placement between the carotid and jugular, but the spray pattern is excessive.
Blood has splattered across the hedgerow, the garden stones, the carefully maintained grass that someone (probably hired staff) will have to deal with tomorrow.
Messy.
Inconvenient.
But necessary.
I cross my arms over my chest, taking a moment to breathe. The night air is cool against my skin, carrying the scents of autumn and dying leaves and something else—something sweeter underneath the metallic tang of fresh blood.
Cotton candy.
Cherry blossom.
Frosted sugar.
Seraphine.
Her scent is everywhere now.
It's been three days since she officially moved into the pack house, and her presence has permeated every corner of the space. The couch where she curls up to read. The kitchen where she makes tea at odd hours. The training room where she dances when she thinks no one is watching.
Her scent.
Ours.
The possessive thought surfaces before I can stop it, bringing with it a complicated tangle of emotions I'm not equipped to process.
Excitement.
Anxiety.
Something that feels dangerously close to hope.
I'm not used to this.
Not used to feeling anything, really, beyond the cold satisfaction of a job well done. My training stripped that capacity from me years ago—carved out the parts of my brain that processed attachment, connection, the messy human need to belong to something bigger than yourself.
Or so I thought.
But standing here in the dark, surrounded by the evidence of violence, all I can think about is her.
The Omega sleeping somewhere inside that house.
The girl with pink hair and mismatched eyes and a kill count that rivals my own.
The broken, beautiful, absolutely insane creature who looked at four damaged Alphas and decided we might be worth keeping.
For once in my life, I have something I actually want to protect.
The realization is terrifying.
Exhilarating.
Completely fucking foreign.
I look down at the body at my feet—another of the endless assassins Kai's father has been sending, another test of our defenses, another reminder that the sword hanging over all our heads hasn't fallen yet.
Soon.
It has to happen soon.
The waiting is worse than the violence.
We've been trying to act nonchalant about it.
All of us.
Pretending that having an Omega isn't reshaping everything we thought we knew about ourselves, about each other, about what we're capable of feeling. Pretending that waking up to her scent every morning doesn't make something in our chests feel full in a way we've never experienced.
Pretending that this is just strategy.
Just alliance.
Just a means to an end that will dissolve the moment the threat is eliminated.
But it's been driving us insane.
All of us.
I see it in the way Sage watches her—that desperate, hungry attention of someone who's finally found the thing they've been searching for their entire life. I see it in the way Blaze gravitates toward her, finding excuses to be in whatever room she occupies, creating chaos just to see her laugh.
I see it in Kai, of all people.
The way his eyes track her movements when he thinks no one is looking. The way his jaw tightens when she smiles at one of us. The way he's started sitting closer to her at meals, finding small ways to be in her orbit without ever admitting that's what he's doing.
We're all falling.
Every single one of us.
And we can't stop it any more than we can stop breathing.
Until Kai's father is dealt with, we can't get too close. Can't let ourselves fully commit to this thing that's building between us, because distraction leads to mistakes and mistakes lead to death.
But we can do little things.
Protect her.
Feed her.
Show her she's worthy of existing in a world that's spent years telling her she's not.
I'm not used to being in a relationship.
Any kind of relationship, really.
My training emphasized disconnection. Isolation. The understanding that attachment was weakness and caring about anyone was just handing your enemies leverage to destroy you.
But this...
This is different.
I don't hate it.
In fact—and this is the part that scares me most—I think I might actually want it.
"Threat detected. One hundred meters."
The robotic voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts.
Ro.
The miniature version of Seraphine's AI companion, somehow patched into our security systems because apparently our Omega is not only deadly but also technologically brilliant.
I spin—
Too slow.
The assassin in black is already there, materializing from the shadows like a nightmare given form. His blade is raised, descending toward my exposed back, and I calculate the trajectory even as I move—
Not fast enough.
I'm not going to make it.
This is how I die—
Steel flashes.
Not the assassin's blade.
Another one.
I watch, frozen in the microsecond before impact, as the man's body separates.
Literally separates.
Top from bottom, cleaved in two by a strike so powerful and precise that the cut is almost artistic—a clean horizontal line that parts flesh and bone and organ like they're made of paper instead of biology.
The two halves fall in opposite directions.
Blood sprays.
Organs spill.
And standing behind where he used to be, dual blades gleaming in the moonlight, is Seraphine.
"Oops."
The word is soft.
Surprised.
She's staring at what she just did—at the bisected corpse that used to be a person, at the violence she's just unleashed with apparently minimal effort—and there's something almost childlike in her expression.
Wonder.
Curiosity.
The particular kind of detachment that comes from viewing death as an interesting phenomenon rather than a moral weight.
Then she giggles.
High, bright, absolutely unhinged—the sound I've come to associate with her particular brand of chaos. She claps a hand over her mouth immediately, eyes going wide, and when they meet mine there's something almost nervous in their mismatched depths.
"I wasn't trying to make my body count go over twenty this year," she says, words tumbling out in a rush. "But at this rate, I'll probably reach thirty. Because I just killed three other people."
Three other people.
Plus this one.
Four assassins, dealt with by a single Omega while I was standing here contemplating my feelings.
"When did you show up?" The question comes out flat—my default setting, the emotional distance I maintain even when my heart is racing. "More important—weren't you sleeping?"
Her grin is sharp.
Knowing.
Absolutely devastating.
"No. I was riding Sage's cock." She says it casually, matter-of-factly, like she's discussing the weather instead of sexual activity. "He's in the shower now. But Ro detected warm body activity outside the premises, so I thought I'd come investigate."
She gestures to the pendant at her throat—the miniaturized version of her AI that I've learned to respect as both security measure and early warning system.
"She may be a small device, but she has all the fancy features. One thousand meter radius when I put her in that mode." A shrug, shoulders rolling with the liquid grace of someone whose body is constantly in motion. "Figured better safe than sorry."
I process the information.
She was with Sage.
Having sex with Sage.
While I was out here alone, dealing with threats, killing intruders without anyone to—
The pout forms before I can stop it.
It's an unfamiliar expression—something I don't think my face has made in years—but apparently Seraphine brings out reactions in me that I didn't know I was capable of having.
Jealousy.
That's what this is.
I'm jealous that Sage got to enjoy her while I was doing security patrol.
I'm jealous that I'm out here covered in blood while he's in there, clean and satisfied, probably still smelling like her.
This is ridiculous.
This is beneath me.
This is exactly the kind of emotional attachment I was trained to avoid.
But I can't stop feeling it.
Seraphine tilts her head.
That bird-like motion that suggests she's cataloguing something—reading my expression, interpreting my body language, seeing through the carefully neutral mask I've spent years perfecting.
"Are you jealous?"
The question is direct.
Unflinching.
Exactly the kind of thing I'd expect from her.
She moves closer as she speaks—bare feet silent on the blood-stained grass, steps light and deliberate. Her body weaves through the aftermath of violence like she's navigating a dance floor, and I realize with a start that she's not wearing much.
Just a shirt.
Sage's shirt, specifically.
The fabric is oversized on her small frame, hanging to mid-thigh, sleeves rolled up past her elbows. It's dark in color—navy, maybe—and it's clearly been worn recently, recently enough that Sage's vanilla-smoke scent still clings to the fabric.
Along with something else.
Something muskier.
Sex.
She smells like sex and cotton candy and violence, and it's doing things to me that I refuse to acknowledge.
She stops in front of me.
Close enough to touch.
Close enough that I could reach out and pull her against me if I wanted to, could claim those lips that are curved in that knowing smile, could prove that Sage isn't the only one who can make her cry out.
"Yes," I hear myself say.
The word surprises me.
I don't usually admit to emotions—don't usually have emotions that require admitting—but something about this girl makes honesty feel less like vulnerability and more like... connection.