Chapter 5
“All right,” I said, looking around at the others. Shatter was tucked between Ransom and Umbra, and I could feel her worry as we finally settled into the conversation none of us wanted to have. “They took the safe and they’re gone. We need to decide what we’re doing next.”
I was still reeling from what we’d learned last night, and the options before us were far from clear cut.
“There’s no way we can find the safe?” Ransom asked.
“It’s tracked,” I replied. “But it was offline by the time Decebal knew it was gone.”
Ransom frowned. “You think they found the tracker?”
“Or they took it somewhere the signal can’t reach,” I replied. “It happened quickly, too. The last ping came from the academy. I don’t think they’re smart enough to know how to block it or disable it, so either it was a fluke, or they may have hired someone.”
“And if they get into it, they’ll know that they can…” Umbra trailed off for a moment, eyes darkening. “They’ll know they can bite Shatter out of our bond.”
“You said it’s rigged to destroy its contents the moment it’s opened by force?” Ransom asked. “That’s a start.”
“If they have hired someone, then we can’t rely on that,” I replied. “There are ways to bypass them.”
“So I vote we leave,” Umbra said. “Go up to the cabin. No one has found it. We would be safe.”
“We can’t,” Shatter whispered. “Our baseline isn’t stable.”
“Baseline?” Umbra asked.
“You and Dusk are getting worse,” she said. Her eyes darted between us and I felt the weight of her fear through the bond. I hadn’t been able to find a way to prioritise the danger me and Umbra were in—not now that I knew how much danger she was in. Yet her fear, her concern for us—it wasn’t something I could ignore. The power she held in our pack bond was growing with every day that passed.
Umbra released a breath, as if he were fighting that fact just as much as I was. “I’m much more worried about?—”
“We all need to survive this,” Ransom cut in. “All of us.”
Shatter glanced up at Ransom appreciatively and she nodded. “They’ll come back. They have to. If they don’t, we’re in trouble. They just don’t know that we need them as much as they need us.”
“And I don’t intend for them to,” I said. The burden Umbra and I carried could not pass onto her.
I hadn’t had time to process the full truth—that Umbra and I weren’t just sick. We were on the receiving end of a bond that might leave us dead. My priority was containing it—to just me and Umbra if I had to, but as pack lead, if I could shoulder that burden myself, I would. Umbra especially, who had paid enough for my protection. I needed them all to walk away from this.
“So we wait here?” Umbra asked. “Leave all of this in their hands. They can return at any time—could open the safe and learn the truth at any time. We don’t know when they’re going to come or how they’re going to move forward.”
“We have to assume it’s protected,” Ransom said. “If they get inside, it changes everything, but we can’t make plans around that.”
“So, we just stay at the academy and wait for them to show up?” Umbra asked. “When we know they’re after?—”
“I’m not saying we let our guard down,” Ransom put in. “We won’t leave Shatter on her own. But honestly, we don’t have another option. And Decebal isn’t far away either. If something happens, he can be here with backup quickly.”
“It sounds risky.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Shatter said. “We need them to come back. Both of you—” She looked between me and Umbra—“Might die if we don’t fix this. We’re in a race against the clock. The only way we know to cure it right now, is for Flynn to decide to release the bond, which he can only do if he knows what’s going on.”
Umbra scowled. “But they could figure this all out without us, since the safe is a wildcard and they could get into it at any moment.”
“It all comes down to the same thing,” she pressed. “The only way for Dusk and Umbra to be free of their sickness is for Flynn to give it up?—”
“The only way we know of,” I cut her off.
“We have to talk about this,” she said.
My blood chilled at the determination in her eyes. “I won’t.”
“If we want Flynn to give up the bond, he has to learn who you are. There’s no other way to ask for him to do it. But giving it up means giving up the only thing keeping his aura sickness at bay. Outside of that, the only thing left that might cure him is a?—”
“Enough.”I didn’t mean to use the dark bond, but she cut off in an instant, eyes wide. Her fists balled in the sheets as she looked from me to Ransom, and then Umbra. Both were stiff, all coming to the same conclusion she’d just tried to spell out.
A princess bond—and she was the only omega in the world that could offer him that. It was the only thing Flynn would want without a doubt.
It was a truth I wouldn’t discuss.
Shatter’s lips drew back in a snarl like I’d never seen, and I felt a shot of pain from her through the bond. “Dusk.” Her voice shook as she fought my command fiercely, and I let it go in an instant.
“Never.”
If we went to the negotiation table and asked Flynn to give up this bond, we would be asking him to give up the cure that had worked for years.
And the bargaining chip?
It was her.
The only clear thing left to offer for such a thing. I couldn’t hear her argue for this. I couldn’t hear her suggest she offer herself in exchange.
The scent matched omega. The thing that would cure Flynn absolutely.
And I knew that was exactly what she’d been about to do by the storm of terror on her end of the bond. A terror that outmatched anything she’d felt yet. Fear at the idea of a bond with that pack. And it was something she would suggest anyway.
Never.
And yet, I couldn’t be sure we could keep her safe, regardless. The moment they understood who we were, they may realise that we held no power to stop them from biting her.
Of all the ways I’d imagined this coming to a head, this was an ending so… mundane.
Negotiationswith monsters?
Her voice shook when she spoke. “We could set it up. Trick them?—”
“I won’t risk it.” The only way to ensure they didn’t take her from us, if they ever learned the truth, would be hiding her away so they couldn’t find her.
She couldn’t be near this.
“We stay to buy time,” Ransom said. “Stall them with the expectation of negotiations while we work on other solutions. Even by staying for a discussion, they’ll think a trade for Shatter is on the table and they just haven’t come up with a good enough offer yet.”
“What if they… they bit me, and then you…” She swallowed. “Then you…” Her lip trembled for a moment as she wrung the sheet between her fists.
And then we killed them?
I would—in a heartbeat. If any alpha in that pack ever put a tooth on her again, he wouldn’t walk away.
I shook my head.
“Why?” she asked. “It’s not–”
“Negotiations aren’t that cut and dry,” Ransom replied. “They’ll know that’s a risk—we made it clear at the ball that we care about you. There’s no way they’ll agree to any of it until they have better control over the situation. If they take you, you’re not going to be more than a cure to them. People with their kind of money… there’s a million places in this country they could hide an omega where she’d never be found. Not unless they wanted it.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence before I broke it. “That’s the plan for now, then.” I hated it, but Shatter was right. If we left, the clock might run out on me and Umbra. “When they come back, we make them believe negotiations are on the table. In the meantime, we figure out another way.”
“I don’t fucking like it,” Umbra growled.
“We’re gonna fix it,” Shatter said, looking at me. “You want another way. This whole bond between Flynn and the pack—I think it’s a new type of aura contract.”
“Aura contract?” Umbra asked. “That’s an Arkology thing, right?”
“Yes. An aura contract is the predictable response of auras in forming a connection when presented with consistent equations developed?—”
“It’s pack bonds, right?” Ransom asked, cutting her off, looking confused at her answer.
She nodded. “Alpha to alpha, alpha to omega, that kind of thing.”
“If there’s another way around this, you think it’ll be to do with that?” I asked.
“I think so,” Shatter said. “I’m going to need new textbooks. And anything Decebal has on studies about aura contracts.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Ransom rose first from the pillow fort, giving Shatter a quick kiss before he left.
“Guess I’ll get textbooks,” he said when he let her go.
Would he even know what books to get? The man had been feral for years.
Shatter caught his wrist before he could leave. “Do you want me to make a list?” she asked. “I need specific ones.” Ransom looked confused. “There’s like a list for the classes? It can’t be that complicated.”
Shatter frantically shook her head, her beautiful curls bouncing back and forth. “I need the right editions.”
“Why don’t you tell him, he can write a list?”
Ransom grinned, pulling out his phone as Shatter began rattling off her books, occasionally shooting dark looks at the ripped pieces of textbooks across her nest floor.
When we were done, Umbra had left to begin the kitchen clean up, and I was left alone with her.
She was still upset, I could see that, but I didn’t know if there was a way that we would see eye to eye on this.
I sank to my knees before her and tugged her to the edge of the bed. She chewed on her lip but didn’t meet my eyes.
“I won’t put you in danger to save us,” I whispered. I reached up, cupping her chin, and she swallowed, seeming to struggle not to meet my eyes. “I can’t.”
That I couldn’t be sorry for.
“I love you, Shatter.”
She hunched, chin quivering, and finally those beautiful golden eyes met mine. She was so unsure.
“Since the first time I saw you,”I said. “I swore you would not be collateral, no matter who I thought you were scent matched to.”
That’s what Umbra had thought at first—when I’d claimed our enemies’ scent match. But that was before he met her. Before he realised how important she was.
“I will find a way to fix this without giving you up. Do you understand?”
Another impossible. But that was what this pack did.
This time, I had a feeling that this one might cost me. I wasn’t alone. It was exactly what had pushed Umbra to the edge last night. We both felt it: this impossible wasn’t coming for free.
But that cost would never be Shatter.
She was gazing at me as if she could feel it, too. She was too smart; I realised. I couldn’t keep anything from her.
“Shatter,” I whispered. “Tell me you understand.”
She’d become lodged in this bond far too fast, and I realised the safe wasn’t the true wild card.
She was the piece we could never have planned for.
Finally, she pursed her lips and nodded. “Yes.” The word was quiet. “We will find another way.”