Chapter 2
My nest was gone.
That alone had left me with aftershocks that hadn’t faded.
Somewhere in my panic, when Dusk and Umbra were trying to settle me, I’d lost the necklace, too. The golden necklace with their crest that meant they’d claimed me. It was in the rubble of my nest that the Lincoln pack had left behind. I don’t know why I noticed that, the bare skin on my neck making me feel hollow, but I couldn’t shake it somehow.
That wasn’t the worst of it.
The shock of hearing the truth of what Umbra had discovered… I didn’t know if that would ever fade. The Kingsman pack were my mates…?
Last night, when Ransom carried me to Roxy’s door, I was still a mess.
She’d made me peppermint tea and set up one of her rooms for me, which was enough to calm my nerves just enough. I needed to be away from the home that had been stolen—the reflection of what I now knew was my own failure.
The conversation with Umbra and Decebal on the phone still lingered in my head.
“The Lincoln pack are… connected to us?” I’d asked, still not processing what he was saying. “Like, they’re the same pack?”
“More like their pack is connected to yours,” Decebal said. “But they have all the control. It means if they bite you, the bond can pass without us needing to hand it to them. They can steal it.”
That part still sent flutters of fear straight to my heart.
“Do you mean they might try to dark bond Shatter if they open the safe and figure out who we are?” Dusk asked.
“No—they could. But Flynn wants a sure fix to his aura sickness. A princess bond is the only promised cure for that.”
“It still needs Shatter’s acceptance, though. They will never have a princess bond without her saying yes.”
Yet, the truth had lingered between us all. Because the only way for my alphas to be free of the Lincoln pack—for this sickness that was getting worse by the day—was for Flynn Lincoln to give up that connection by choice.
That was what they were afraid of. Not a dark bond at all. The Lincoln pack’s offer of a princess bond if they could give my mates salvation.
Would I take that trade?
Enter a bond with the pack of my nightmares, if it meant Dusk and Umbra would be free?
I knew the answer as well as they did.
If it came to it…
Still, everything we’d learned left me terrified. All this time, my mates had been hidden from me and I hadn’t known… How could I have not known?
Was that something other omegas would have noticed? Something my twisted instincts hadn’t been in tune with?
All night, Ransom and Dusk had held me close in a bed that smelled faintly of fir trees. Umbra hadn’t returned yet. And I’d withdrawn from the bond, closing my eyes and slowing my breathing until they believed I was asleep.
Ransom tumbled into dreams with his arms around me, but Dusk never settled. He stayed, sitting beside me in bed in absolute silence, fingers tangled in mine, thumb stroking my wrist. He was the only one left in the bond. Umbra was awake, but he had vanished a long time ago.
I was glad Dusk stayed in the bond even when the rest of us were gone. His presence helped me feel not so alone.
But he was alone.
If I came out, he would know I was awake. He would know the shame that was growing like a vicious beast within me.
After what felt like hours had passed, I finally felt the flicker of something down the bond. Umbra surfaced.
It was like nothing I’d ever felt from him before—a twisted darkness that went beyond fury or pain. Dusk tensed at my side, the slow movement of his thumb along my wrist halting.
Then, Umbra was gone.
Dusk slipped from the bed in a moment and I opened my eyes, watching him vanish from the room as quietly as he could.
What was going on?
Whatever that had been, I didn’t like it.
I shifted beneath Ransom’s grip, not wanting to wake him. One of us should sleep tonight. It took a while, and I scent marked my pillow so he wouldn’t miss me.
I’d be back with him soon, but my instincts told me this was important.
When I was barely out of bed, I felt something shift in the bond. An unsettling upheaval, and with it came another flicker from Umbra.
I paused, examining it with a frown.
It felt like… like a giant, slowly lifting rooted feet after a long slumber… The shift was quiet, slow, but… now that I focused on it, it was almost dizzying in its power.
My breath caught, and forgetting even my dressing gown, I crossed the room in a rush. I didn’t know where they were, but only one place made sense.
Our apartment door was left open a crack and I tried not to look at the upturned home.
My home. Stolen…
Instead, I made for my nest, knowing they would be there.
When I reached the door, I halted. My heart clenched as I saw it again, breath catching like a void opening in my throat and making it impossible to even swallow.
My nest…
I shoved it down. That wasn’t why I was here.
Umbra was standing amidst the wreckage, tense, and still fully dressed as if he’d just got in. His gaze fixed on Dusk, who was sitting on the edge of my bed, frozen, yellow eyes narrowed. He looked strangely vulnerable, with a drawn expression, wearing a T-shirt, sweats, and socks amidst the chaos of my nest. Through the bond, I felt his worry and fear.
Something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on what because I didn’t yet know the distinctions of this bond enough to understand.
“Shatter?” Umbra’s sandstorm eyes snapped to me. My scent must have drifted in; behind me, Dusk’s bedroom door was open, and a breeze cooled my back from the broken window.
“What’s happening?” I asked, working to steady my voice.
“Nothing.” Umbra’s voice was strained.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s between me and Dusk.”
No… “I don’t…” I swallowed. I didn’t know what I was feeling, but this was important. “I don’t think it is.”
Was Umbra lying to me? That wasn’t like him. I warred with burning tears, my heart so fragile already.
But that didn’t matter. They came first, and something was wrong.
It took every ounce of my strength to step into the nest.
The dead nest.
The one stolen.
My chest tightened, but I pushed myself on, treading across the debris of what had been?—
No.
Don’t think about it.
“Wait!” The tension in the room broke as Umbra crossed toward me, sudden worry in his eyes as he scanned the floor that was covered in shards of glass and splintered wood. Then he picked me up and drew me into his arms.
That strange thing in the bond vanished in an instant, and I felt a breath of relief escape me. I cupped his cheeks, needing him to look at me. His beautiful sandstorm eyes were darker than usual, their spark gone.
That wasn’t right. “Tell me,” I asked.
He exhaled, then stepped toward the bed, sitting down beside Dusk.
Yellow eyes fixed on the two of us, but his jaw had unclenched and he looked as relieved as I felt.
“I have to know what was going on,” I said.
Umbra had paled, and his eyes were still dark. “I need you to be safe,” he whispered. “That’s all.”
“I am safe. I’m with you.”
I could see the pain etched in his expression. That answer wasn’t enough. He didn’t believe it.
And maybe it wasn’t…
Dusk had told me what they knew. That the bond left both Umbra and Dusk vulnerable to Flynn…
The calm of my mind wobbled again.
Worse than that. It wasn’t secure. It didn’t protect me from the Lincoln pack’s bite—the alphas who had broken my nest, who wanted to claim me to fix themselves.
Who knew I was gold pack…
Fear rose in my chest like a wail, igniting panic in my veins, but I shoved it down.
No.
This fear—it was Umbra’s, too. And it was the poison that was changing him.
I couldn’t let it.
They’d stolen my scent match, broken my nest. Would I let them take more?
Umbra drew me closer, something so sad in his eyes. “I haven’t been what you need,” he breathed. “Not like this.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I have to protect you?—”
“But I don’t want you to change.” My voice broke, eyes brimming with tears.
Umbra looked so broken. “They’ve taken everything, and I wasn’t enough to?—”
“No. Th-they haven’t.”
And I realised in that moment that there was more to lose. So much more…
In fact, I’d fought this battle before and survived.
Dusk had shown me the truth.
They hadn’t taken what mattered most, because those things—they couldn’t take unless I gave them up.
And I’d been about to, with the fear they’d forced upon us.
“They haven’t taken anything.”
“Shatter—”
“Dusk promised me nothing changed,” I whispered. Umbra frowned, glancing to Dusk, but I took his hand and lifted it to my chest, pressing his fingers to the scars beneath my collarbones. I knew he could feel them beneath the thin fabric of the top. “They tried to… to ruin my body, but Dusk said they didn’t steal my value.”
The words felt heavy in my throat, hard to say, as if they might burn me, but I made them come out. I clung to them, needing them to be the truth both for me and for my pack.
“Of course they didn’t, Nightshade.” Umbra’s voice was gruff, as if it hurt him even thinking I’d ever believed that. “They can never take that.”
“Then they can’t steal you. I d-don’t want them to.”
I watched his jaw clench, and his eyes drifted from mine like he struggled with that.
He had to understand.
I had to make him understand.
I slipped from his arms, standing, and trying to keep my breathing calm as I looked around the nest. A place as scarred and broken as my body.
My gaze fell, at last, on Dusk. He was watching me intently, head cocked, something curious flickering in his eyes.
A few seconds passed, and then the faintest trace of a smile curved his lips.
He stood, turning, and lifting a large piece of splintered bookshelf from the torn duvet. Then the next, and the next while Umbra and I watched. Finally, with the bed adequately clear, he stepped onto it, almost falling as a bottom corner gave out with a groan. He had to grab Umbra by the hair to steady himself, but then he was stepping through scattered pens and loose pieces of paper to the pillows at the top. There, he pulled back the blankets and settled in beneath them.
The last weight of the night lifted, freeing my chest and lungs as I climbed onto the bed after him and curled up in his arms.
It was a long time before Umbra moved, but he stood at last, surfacing in the bond as he tugged off his boots and top.
He wasnt better, not completely, but he was still him.
I smiled as he joined us and placed one possessive arm around my waist as he held me close. “Please don’t leave me,” I breathed.
I felt his sorrow at that, and his lips pressed to my forehead. “I love you, Little Nightshade. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I chose to be yours,” I replied. “They can never take that away.”
A purr rumbled to life in his chest just as Ransom turned up at the door, rubbing his eyes and staring at us in confusion. He didn’t question a thing, though, yawning as he climbed into the bed behind Dusk, shifting around until he found an angle where he could easily hold my hand.
I smiled as I realised their scents were enough to smother everything else, and the nest was mine once more.
This was the first gift my mates had given me, and no one could take that away.
And the necklace I’d lost, I think it was the same. I had their claim, Dusk’s bite on my neck, and that is what truly mattered.
I closed my eyes and slept at last, warm and safe in the arms of my pack, despite the cool air and light breeze ruffling torn pages amongst broken splinters and ruin.