Chapter 10
“What the hell is going on?” Ransom’s voice was groggy as he kicked the duvet away. We’d been woken sharply from sleep by a loud clanging and shattering from down the hall, and a spike of emotion in the bond.
“Fuck,” Ransom groaned. “We just cleaned everything up.”
It took me two bleary seconds to realise that neither Shatter nor Dusk were in the bed. It took another to realise I was feeling a spike of what could only be described as nerves from Dusk in the bond.
I sat up straight, on high alert.
Anything that made Dusk worry was worth worrying about. That was before the other half hit me in full force.
Ransom was wide-eyed at my side as he tucked messy strands of auburn hair behind his ear. “What on earth is that?”
“That,” I said, staggering out of bed with perhaps a little too much anticipation and sliding on my slippers, “is a really, really pissed off omega.”
She must be pissed if Dusk was sheepish in the bond—I hadn’t even known that was a feeling in his arsenal.
What the hell had he done?
Sure enough, when Ransom and I reached the living room, it was to find chaos. Shatter was climbing cupboards while sailors’ curses flew from her lips. She was, it seemed, searching for weapons to launch at Dusk, who was standing halfway across the room, hands up defensively. Half the cupboard of glasses had been first, if the glass across the kitchen floor was anything to go by.
“Shatter, we can talk about this?—”
“Shit!” I cut him off, diving for the kitchen—those cupboards definitely weren’t built to take the weight of a full—Yup!
The hinges screeched, breaking, and I caught her in my arms just in time. I set her down, extracting her from the door that had almost killed her, but she was unperturbed, already launching herself toward Dusk in a furor.
“What’s going on?” Ransom asked, looking dumbstruck.
“Talk?” Shatter demanded of Dusk, completely ignoring the question. “Fuck you—!” She began, but yelped when I caught her by the waist again, the cupboard door barely set down.
The floor…
Shit.
I lifted her, my slippers immune to the glass currently scattering the kitchen tiles. Shatter, on the other hand, with a night dress and bare feet… I grabbed a knife along the way and dumped her over the back of the couch where she’d be fully safe from cupboard doors and shards of glass cutting her precious skin to pieces.
Expectedly, she turned on me, a snarl on her face, hatred in her eyes. It drained away as I flipped the kitchen knife in my grip and held it out to her—a peace offering.
She took it and spun back on Dusk, her whole petite body tense with rage.
Better, I thought with a sigh.
Much better.
“He picked the couch,” I murmured.
Just trying to be helpful.
With Dusk dodging out of reach, Shatter dug the kitchen knife into the couch with a fury that made me goddamned proud.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Dusk groaned. “Could you get a—?” His words cut off as a half shredded couch cushion launched square in his face, fluff exploding all over the living room.
“You liar!” Shatter was hissing. “You said you ‘changed my name’!”
Dusk winced. “I did, technic?—”
“Say that word again!” she snarled.
Dusk raised his hands defensively. “It never came up.”
“Never came up?” she demanded. “Never—” She cut off, stabbing another cushion with outrage.
Nice. I nodded appreciatively. I didn’t know omegas could hit that octave. She was in our bond now, and her trembling omega fury was like a volcano—one that, with the last words, erupted.
At my side, Ransom was picking his way through the mess, eyes darting about as if trying to understand what was happening since neither of them seemed interested in telling us.
What was the rush? It’d come out. I was much more interested in them.
“How would it come up?” she demanded.
“I just mean—” Dusk caught another flying cushion before dropping it. “—There was a lot of shit going on, and I wanted to tell you when it was right—but the longer it went on the more difficult it got.”
“All this time?!”She had paused her onslaught to seize handfuls of her hair, and I reached out to tug the knife back since it was dangerously close to her face. She flinched away, pulling it from my reach, eyes still fixed on Dusk. “Since the start of term?”
I dared to poke at her curiously through the bond, but stopped immediately when her blazing eyes snapped to me. She was kind of scary. Plus, better not piss her off. Shatter being mad at Dusk always ended in the best of things for me.
I mean—it was terrible. Really, really terrible whatever was getting her this upset.
But uh… Would she ever consider fucking me when she was like this?
That would be so hot.
“Oh my God…” Ransom’s voice ripped me from the show. He was at the kitchen island, a piece of paper in hand.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh. My. God.”
Dramatic prick. “Tell me!” I crossed over and ripped it from him, but I froze as I saw the words on the page.
Wait…
What?
It was a formal document stating that… I blinked.
A… marriage certificate?
Shatter was my…
My wife?
Our wife?
The word ‘wife’ was like a sexy lynx wrapping itself around my brain and letting out a little purr.
“Why?” Ransom was asking.
“He said it was a technicality,” Shatter hissed. Her voice… her beautiful scent… her everything was intoxicating. I just stared, every alpha instinct misfiring like a wagonful of fireworks someone had just tossed a match into.
I was lightheaded. No no no. Fainting would be really embarrassing right now—I mean I couldn’t faint… I was her hu… Oh shit.
Her hu…
Nope.
The word was gonna blow up my brain.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Dusk was saying. “And I never would have done it if I didn’t also want to be your hus—” He cut off, as, with the shriek, the knife finally flew from Shatter’s fist across the room at him. His aura split the air for a second so he could properly dodge it.
Husband.
Fucking. Husband.
I gripped the counter, my world spinning violently.
Me?
Hers?
Was that fair?
She was out of ammunition, it seemed, but I couldn’t take my eyes from her. Wild honey hair, lips drawn back in a feral snarl, all that power bundled into her perfect little fairy omega frame. The most beautiful person on the planet.
Oh, fuck me—I wasn’t husband material.
I tried to steady myself as Dusk carried on digging his hole—grave—and realised I would bury him if she didn’t.
“I needed to be sure that if the Lincoln pack bit you and went the proper route of registering the bond, they’d meet a boatload of legal obstacles—and then I’d know about it, too.”
“That,” Shatter snarled, “is the stupidest reason for a marriage I’ve ever heard!”
“You were getting all conflicted about fucking us because you said it was like cheating on them. So I figured this would fix it.”
“But then you didn’t tell her?” Ransom asked.
“You got overwhelmed by the registration card; thought it might be a bit much.”
“Hold on.” Shatter said. “Fixed it?” She still gripped her hair furiously—which was really cute, which reminded me my wife was that cute, which made the world spin worse. “That would have just meant I was cheating on both of you! How is that better for me?”
“Uh, well,” Dusk said. “It wasn’t supposed to be. It was supposed to be better for us.”
Ransom groaned as I scanned the paper wildly again, as if it might offer me sanity. I hung onto every detail. My eyes landed on location and dates, and I was momentarily distracted. “A winter wedding?”
Okay.
I nodded with distant appreciation.
That was nice, I supposed.
She’d have had those little white fur rings on the cuffs of her sleeves and hood. Maybe I’d worn a ushanka.
I didn’t realise I’d spoken out loud until Shatter’s strangled sound of fury. “I wanted a beach wedding!”
Every alpha in the room went still. My eyes snapped from the paper to her. Dusk straightened in shock, leaving him open to an airborne spoon which caught him in the corner of the eye, (I was wrong about the ammunition). He didn’t even flinch.
“You… do?” he asked, dumbfounded.
We were all staring.
“NOT WITH YOU!”
But Dusk was already reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone.
“What are you doing?” Shatter demanded, finally drawing up fully from her onslaught as Dusk started tapping furiously on his screen.
“Asking Decebal for a divorce.”
“What?”
“You want a beach wedding?—”
“NO!”Shatter launched herself across the couch, flying into Dusk like a rocket. He staggered a step back, and then they were a tangle of limbs as she tried to wrestle the phone from him. “Don’t. You. DARE!”
“You don’t—want—a—beach wedding?” His words were punctuated with grunts as he tried to detangle her.
“I don’t want a divorce!” she wailed. Finally, she actually managed to win the fight by sinking her teeth into Dusk’s arm and making him yelp. Then she scrambled away, his phone clutched in her hand. I stepped forward to catch her before she backed into the island at high speed.
She spun on me, eyes wide and phone hugged to her chest like I was going to steal it. Then she relaxed as she took me in.
We just stared at each other for a long moment. “You’re… uh…” My wife. I couldn’t seem to form the words.
She nodded, a little squeak in her chest.
For a split second, as she took me in, there was a beam on her face, but when I reached to hug her, she burst into tears.
That was fine. Really normal reaction, actually, considering.
I drew her into my arms. Good plan, since she couldn’t see my face that way, and it had decided it didn’t care if it wasn’t the moment for a stupid grin.
But Shatter was my wife. All of our wife… wives? Wife? I narrowed my eyes. Wasn’t sure, actually.
Oh shit…
With a moment of panic, I realised I needed to get on Dusk’s level of cooking—she’d certainly be refusing his food after this. And Ransom was worse than me or her.
Oh dear.
She was my wife now—I couldn’t let her starve.
With watery eyes, she hugged Ransom next, letting out a vicious growl when Dusk tried to get his phone.
I had already opened mine and was bookmarking dozens of breakfast tutorials.
Did they have a culinary program at this academy?