Chapter 24 – GEO #2
I hear a disbelieving gasp from Plague's direction. Clearly everyone thinks it's a stupid idea, and I can't say they're wrong. But we're running out of options.
But I'm already summoning that primal power, the one thing I've always found most distasteful about being an alpha. The "gift" I only use on motherfuckers who deserve it.
Until now.
"Give me the gun, Cosima."
The bark rips from my throat, commanding and absolute. Now that my life's the only one on the line, it's worth a shot, even if the odds of it working versus making her pull that trigger are about fifty fifty. Maybe worse.
Cosima's body goes rigid and her hollow eyes blow wide, as if I just shot her. Judging from her reaction, I think she might have preferred that. She resists at first, her whole body trembling as she fights against the compulsion, just like I knew she would.
That kind of control doesn't come automatically, not even with a will as strong and stubborn as hers.
It's born of years of resistance. Of desperate fighting and clawing for agency, even if it's been utterly futile the last hundred times.
A lesser alpha's bark might not have worked at all, but I've got years of practice keeping unruly, power hungry assholes in line.
It's hardly a fair fight. She fights it anyway, a few seconds longer than anyone ever has, before the gun finally slips from her delicate fingers. It falls to the floor with an anticlimactic clatter, and I kick it away before she can grab for it.
Then she collapses, and I catch her before she hits the ground. She's so fucking small and soft in my arms, all that attitude and fury wrapped in a layer of protective steel reduced to dead weight. I pull her against my chest, one hand cradling her head while the other strokes her silver hair.
"That's it. That's my good girl," I whisper into her hair, the words coming out without thought.
She goes completely limp, and for one terrifying moment I think I've broken her more than she already was. But no, she's breathing, just... gone. Blacked out from the stress or the force of my bark or both.
Raven snatches up the gun while Nikolai and Knight rush over, crowding around us.
I expect the fear and worry I find on Raven's face. The boy's obsessed. Clinically. As for Knight, he's pure obsessive devotion in mostly human form. Nikolai, though…
His gaze locks on mine briefly, and I find the same troubling combination of emotions I'm feeling right now reflected in it, along with the last damn thing I expected. Gratitude.
We can't get back to shooting each other fast enough for my liking.
"Is she alright?" Raven demands, his hands twitching like he wants to touch her but doesn't know where. Doesn't know if she'll shatter.
"Did any of that look alright to you?" I grumble, lifting Cosima into my arms as I stand.
She weighs nothing, just a bundle of silk and trauma that we've allowed to drag us all into this mess.
"This shit's gone far enough. We're aborting the mission, getting the fuck off this train, and finding the furthest, darkest hole to crawl into with our omega while this all blows over. "
Our omega.
The words ricochet around my skull like the real bullet that damn well could have ended up in there if shit had gone south.
When the fuck did I start thinking that?
Before anyone can argue or call me on it—and I can see Nikolai and Raven both gearing up to do each of those things respectively—the train rocks on its tracks and chaos erupts outside our car.
Voices shouting in Surhiiran, the sound of running feet echoing through distant cars, metal scraping against metal.
"What the hell was that?" Nikolai barks, moving toward the door.
Plague chuckles, the sound dark and satisfied despite his precarious position. "That would be the 'too late' I warned you about."
Raven's already moving, gun in hand as he heads for the door. I want to grab him, shake some sense into him, but my arms are full of unconscious omega and my patience is running on fumes.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I growl.
"Having a look," he says, like it's the most reasonable thing in the world. "Cover me."
"Cover you?" Nikolai bellows, reaching for him. "You suicidal little—"
Guess I'm not the only one burdened with caring if two people live or die, after all. Normally, I'd be thrilled at discovering my nemesis has one weakness, let alone two.
If we didn't happen to share them.
We both curse when Raven slips just out of his reach like smoke, hauling the door open, leaning out into the wind. His golden hair whips wildly around his face as he peers between the cars, and I watch his eyes go wide.
"Shit—"
Nikolai yanks him back just as a bullet screams past, embedding itself in the doorframe right where Raven's head had been a second earlier. The fucker has a sixth sense, I'll give him that. And I guess now I owe him my life, or might as well.
Fuck.
"We've got company," Raven mutters, his usual composure frayed around the edges. I've seen him under enemy fire before, cool and collected, but this is different.
We're not used to having something to protect.
Nikolai drags the door shut, the metal groaning under his grip. "Son of a fucking shitfuck," he hisses. "We've gotta get off this train."
"Is it the army?" I ask, shifting Cosima in my arms so I can reload my gun.
"Worse," Nikolai says, his gaze darkening. "It's the fucking Ghosts."
Before anyone can respond, there's a massive thump on the roof above us. The whole car shudders, and then comes the sound of metal tearing, as if someone's peeling back the roof like a tin can.
Knight roars in response, the sound primal and furious. He positions himself between us and whatever's up there, claws extended and ready to tear into flesh and bone.
I fucking hope that thing on the roof is made of flesh and bone.
"What now?" Raven groans, digging a hand into his golden hair in exasperation.
Plague's chuckle turns into full-blown laughter, the kind that makes you want to punch someone just to make it stop.
"That would be Wraith," he says, dark amusement dripping from every word. "Right on time."