Chapter 20
A note.
A fucking note was all she’d left.
A note and her goddamned boots with the tracker Dusk had set up.
Without the note, I think I would have lost my mind. Shatter had been planning way too well for this, though, because Decebal couldn’t trace her phone, either, which meant it was switched off.
Instead, I scoured the campus until I got Mord in my sights at least once, and that was the only thing that settled my nerves. That, and the solution I knew I needed to commit to today.
Dusk was planning protection from the Lincoln pack and Mord, and Ransom was helping to keep them at bay. Shatter had studied her books, trying to come up with any answers to free us of the Lincoln pack.
But I knew there was another answer, and when we got her back today, I wouldn’t risk losing her again.
I didn’t need to plan or study. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I’d ever catch up on Arkology enough to be useful in that. I could join Dusk and Ransom on the layers and layers of plans, but I didn’t have to.
My answer was clear as day.
Shatter was so incredible, I believed in her—I truly did. With time, she would come up with the most amazing solution. Something to save us all. But the truth was, I don’t think she had the time we hoped for, because I could feel this sickness worsening, faster and faster with every day. Jaws, slowly closing shut.
I sat on the side of my bed, opening my drawer and pulling out the knife, setting it on the side table. Then, for luck, I added the other things from within.
It was a strange assortment of things that made up who I was, and I couldn’t remember the origins of two of the three.
Two double-sided coins. Double heads and double tails.
A trick deck.
My knife.
The knife, strangely enough, was the most personal because I knew why it was here. I remembered the first time I’d picked it up, drawing it across flesh to discover a source of relief. The only one I’d ever found until Shatter.
I pictured her sitting beside me. In my head, she curled her cute, delicate fingers around my wrist, holding me steady as I picked my knife up from my bedside table.
Carefully, I turned it in my hand as I reached out within my pack bond. This time not toward my brothers or even Shatter.
Instead, I reached in a different direction. In the darkness, I brushed up against something. Something I should not be able to touch. It was deadly, and upon my contact, I felt it tug at me, drawing me in like a black hole.
My fingers gripped the knife like a safety, my stomach churning violently. It shook in my grip as I lifted it, ready to use it if I needed to return.
“Umbra,”Shatter whispered.
She was here, remember?
She wasn’t, but she was. She would be if I asked, and because of that, I could imagine just what she’d say. She’d tug me to face her with those golden eyes holding mine, nightshade scent stilling my fear. “Come back to me.”
My omega.
My wife.
I lowered the knife, holding those beautiful eyes in my mind’s eye, and let her be the lantern that led me back. With her, I managed to withdraw, already feeling the edges of my aura and sanity unravelling just from proximity. I had the confirmation I needed, but if I ever did this again, she couldn’t be there.
There would be no lantern. No turning back.
I took a breath, steadying myself as I set the knife back down on the side table.
I hadn’t needed it. Just her.
I would protect her.
No matter what happened, she would be safe. Dusk was the first line of defence, but I was the last.
“What is it I can help you with?”
Uncle sat behind his desk in a formal posture with fingers clasped, as calm as ever yet there was a look on his face that hadn’t gone away since the first moment he’d laid eyes on me.
I was sure he’d believed I was dead.
I was still reeling from stepping back into this place, a thousand memories flooding back. Memories that weren’t memories, but instead an unidentifiable smudge of time.
A nightmare.
And everything in this place was the same.
From the pristine cream foyer, marble floor, and giant crystal chandelier hanging overhead, to the spiral staircase that led up to his office. In here it still smelled faintly of his autumn scent, the bookshelves were the same, and I sat on one of his comfy, oversized, reclining chairs that were so familiar to me.
The smell of a wood burning fire permeated the room, his hearth alight.
Roxy was waiting downstairs in the foyer, being the best friend in the world and never asking a question—not even at the shock on Uncle’s face as he’d caught sight of the dark bond on my neck.
“I need to know what happened in the facility I came from before the Institute took over.”
“That wasn’t anything I was involved with,” he said, face paling ever so slightly.
“You must know something about it.”
He took his time replying to that, considering me. “If I did know anything, I would be wise to keep quiet about it. The people involved with those sorts of?—”
“My mates.” I took a breath, daring myself on and praying I wasn’t making a huge mistake. “My mates were in those trials.”
Uncle froze, eyes widening. “You claimed your mates were?—”
“The Lincoln pack. I… I thought they were. I need your help, and for that, I’m going to tell you some things.” I anxiously drew out the papers I’d brought. I could memorise lines like this easily, but when I was nervous… Well, it was better to have it here. “You can’t tell anyone else—and you have to swear you won’t or I’ll… I’ll tell the Institute that you lied to them about me. I saw my files,” I pushed on, not daring to look up at him. “You told them that I died in your care.”
It was something that surprised me in the file that Dusk had been given by Decebal, the one about me—though I’d dared not bring that particular piece.
“I rather thought you might be grateful,” Uncle said. “The Institute is relentless. There was no other way to truly guarantee your freedom.”
I swallowed, fingers holding the files tight.
It wasn’t the only thing he had done. I’d known before I left, something I’d been told by Aunty Lauren, but scouring his letters to the Institute had confirmed it.
He’d never once given them my chosen name.
To them, I was Subject One, and I had never been anything else.
And he was right. Now, I was going to use that against him, but I didn’t have a choice.
“If they find out you lied about that, you’ll be in huge trouble. I-I looked it up.” I lifted the file I was holding, trying to keep my voice steady. “They classified me as a… Phantom Anomaly.” I worked to stop my words from tripping over themselves. “It says, ‘Impeding the Institute’s efforts in the surveillance, apprehension, or detention of entities of a Phantom Anomaly classification or higher is considered a national security threat, punishable by…” I cleared my throat, pushing on. “By indefinite confinement in a secure facility, as per Article 42, Subsection 3C of the Civic Safety and Unknown Arkologic Entities Act, enforced by the Containment and Supervision of Biohazardous Entities branch of the GPRE.’”
I finished in a rush, and there was a long silence as I set the paper down, daring to look back up at him.
He was fixing me with an unreadable expression that made my skin crawl. “Punishable by indefinite confinement in a secure facility… sounds… really… really bad,” I said weakly.
“Yet, to report me, you will undo the safeties I put in place for you.”
“My… My pack is in trouble,” I whispered. “If I don’t help them, they could die.”
“Your pack?” he asked. “Are you referring to the alphas that dark bonded you?”
I straightened, holding his gaze furiously. “I asked for the bond.” My voice was hoarse. “I love them, and I won’t leave without your help.”
He leaned back in his seat, considering that, and he was a lot less surprised that I’d imagined he would be. I think, perhaps, something even softened in his eyes. I rarely saw that for anyone other than Aunty Lauren.
More seconds ticked by, and I nervously shifted the stack of papers, trying not to break his eye contact.
“I was worried that when she saw that bite, she would… she would… Well, she would never forgive me. She already doesn’t.”
“Aunty?” I asked, voice hoarse. “She’s here?”
“She’s away for the weekend. But I hope that she will be able to see you again, perhaps when this matter is dealt with. Especially if there’s a chance that the bond on your neck isn’t as dire as it looks. I don’t think… Well, she was so very worried when you left. The thought of you becoming bonded against your will gave her nightmares. Both…” He cleared his throat. “Both of us.”
I frowned, somewhat taken aback by that admission.
“I rather thought you were here for sanctuary,” he added.
“From… them?” I asked, fingers touching Dusk’s bite.
“Yes.”
I blinked at that. Mostly because, even believing that, he’d let me in. I’d run from him after he’d taken me in. He’d risked a lot to protect me, and still he was prepared to help if it were a pack of alphas who had put an unwanted bond on my neck.
“She loves you, Shatter. I hope you know that. I… I have been far from perfect, but I do want to see you find happiness.”
“My pack,” I said, seizing that. “I need to protect them. It’s the reason I’m here, and I don’t think anyone else has answers.”
He nodded.
“Well. I admit a reasonable amount of curiosity. I don’t know a great deal about what happened at the facility before, but in the community, breakthroughs do have a way of spreading—no matter how much the Institute wished they didn’t.”
“Do you know what they were trying to do?”
“Not explicitly, though one can draw some conclusions with the right puzzle pieces.”
“What puzzle pieces?” I asked.
I knew Umbra and Dusk had tried to overturn every stone for those answers about what the experiments were trying to accomplish.
“I’ve been in this line of work for a long time. The Akologists they arrested were old colleagues, some of which I’d even studied with. I knew their drives—their obsessions. And only obsession could push one of our own to go to such… unethical lengths for answers.”
I nodded.
“The Lincoln pack were part of it.”
His eyebrows rose. “The pack I sponsored—the alphas you claimed were your mates—were a part of those trials?” he asked.
I nodded. “Clients helping fund the… the studies.”
“Now that,” he murmured. “Is rather disturbing. I assume one—or more of them?—”
“Flynn,” I said. “Flynn has aura sickness.”
He nodded, considering that. “That explains their interest in Arkology. Did they think they could, perhaps, contribute to the solution themselves? Rather arrogant—but then that isn’t so uncommon in this field… I heard rumours, but tell me, did they find a cure?”
I considered that. This information was dangerous to give away. If it got around, more Akologists may pick it up, and ruin more lives.
Yet, I didn’t think Uncle was like that.
The man before me, Dr. Eugene Howard, was the most ideal candidate for the research they were attempting with me which was focused on reversing gold pack status. He’d fielded many studies on gold pack omegas. Not only that, it was one of the most well-funded research projects ever undertaken.
But, he’d left.
“Why did you quit the research project I was in?” I asked.
He frowned. “The first strike was the incident with you. But the investigation that followed also revealed some unfortunate truths about the subjects we were to research. I learned that not all of them were gold pack when they arrived. Some were held for months and denied the injection—forced to become gold pack. It seems there were a few involved that were tracking data of their own and wished to know if the outcome of the experiments would be affected by whether an omega chose golden eyes, or had the decision taken from them.”
“Do… you think it would have?” I asked, curious about that.
Uncle shrugged. “An omega’s choice is never insignificant, but I do not think the answer to that was worth tainting the research with ethical issues—not an answer any true Arkologist knows anyway.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“There are no loopholes in Arkology,” he said. “Everything comes around with bites and bonds.”
I was silent for a moment, thinking. “So you left the study because of the ethics?”
“I’m not perfect, Shatter. You know that. Lauren does too, but when it comes to my work, I want a legacy I can die peacefully with.”
I nodded, circling back to his original question: Were the studies successful?
“They found a… fix in those trials,” I said. “But not a cure.”
A cure wasn’t what Umbra was to Flynn. The tainted bond between their pack had temporarily halted the effects of Flynn’s aura sickness, but that was all.
“A fix?” Uncle asked. “Of what nature?”
“Aura contracting—as far as I can understand.”
“Pack bonds?” he asked curiously. Aura contracts were known as one of the more powerful energies in Arkology, but they were also the most rigid, and almost impossible to influence outside of their natural course.
They were, in essence, contracts between alpha and omega, alpha and pack, or pack and pack—essentially, the forces behind binding us together.
The formation of alpha-centric packs—such as Dusk, Umbra, and Ransom being in a bond, that was a form of aura contracting. It was a phenomenon that occurred when alphas took Syvex, the bonding drug, and accepted a pack with one another. Another was when an omega accepted a bite into a pack—even the bond on my neck was a form of aura contracting, though dark bonds were not a natural course of nature.
Most importantly, all aura contracts followed similar laws, and the connection between my pack and the Lincoln pack, I believed was the same.
“Yes,” I said. “But not any aura contract I’ve ever seen or heard of.”
He tilted his head. “How does that work?”
“From what I can tell, they tried to manufacture alpha to alpha contracting in a similar way to how dark bonds work.”
Uncle froze, eyes widening. “That is a dangerous game…”
He was right. It wasn’t only a volatile energy source to work with—evidenced by the many alphas who had died in that facility—but it was one of the most heinous crimes within Arkology. “To mess with a force as restricted as dark bonds… And… it worked?” He looked concerned.
“In a way.”
“How?”
“The pack with aura sickness connected to the other—my pack.”
“Like a dark bond?”
“Not exactly.” I’d thought about this. “It did require consent from the pack lead, unlike a dark bond. But the nature of the connection between pack and pack is… parasitical.”
“So they used the auras from one pack in order to stabilise the other?”
“Yes,” I said. “We think they needed alphas with extremely powerful auras, and the bond is now slowly devouring the host. It’s not stable.”
“I very much doubt it is,” he murmured, scratching his chin. “What’s extraordinary—and extremely dangerous—is that they’ve done something I haven’t heard of in a long time. In fact, tampering with what the Institute calls Established Arkologic forces, which include all known aura contracts, is one of the greatest crimes you can commit—it can result in the death penalty. The last time we tampered with those forces, we were left with an abomination we’ve never rid ourselves of.” His eyes slid, for a moment, to the bond on my neck. It was a grim piece of ancient Arkological history.
Dark bonds weren’t natural, and they had never been intended, either. Arkologists had intended to form the princess bond in order to further incentivise alpha and omega packs. In the end, they were successful.
But nature balanced out; with the stable formation of the princess bond came its equal and opposite, and dark bonds had joined the ranks of nature’s law.
“Still,” Uncle went on. “It doesn’t seem they’ve found success on a level that will change the foundation of pack bonds. It does explain why it was kept so quiet. Disturbing these energies may violate international law, but that hasn’t stopped governments and terrorist groups over the centuries. Mother nature isn’t just vengeful—she’s stubborn. Most attempts result in failure and death, and continued experimentation of this kind will often see a massive decline in alpha-omega populations. Even the most desperate countries don’t try it. They’re too afraid that their own populations will dwindle if they do.”
“But this parasitical bond they created?—”
“Does not sound near stable enough to even begin to seep into natural Arkologic forces. But that—while good news for the world—does not mean good news for you.”
“If it’s unstable, then might there be a way to break it?”
“Not that I would risk,” he said. “An unstable aura contract is more likely to result in self destruction. When tampered with, auras can turn on their own hosts.”
My blood ran cold. “That’s… what is happening to them.”
“If I were to make my best guess, the connection was created by the sick aura. A waning aura is energy breaking down, and until it dies, it seeks healing. That, most likely, is where they found an opening.”
“You’re saying the contract was built around the sickness?”
“Most likely.”
“If that was the case, then… if the aura was healed—would that sever the connection?”
I think I knew the answer he would give, yet I had to ask.
Uncle considered me carefully, but, to my relief, didn’t address the elephant in the room. That the only true known cure to aura sickness was a princess bond with a scent match.
He nodded, instead. “If the connection was established via the sickness, then curing it would sever the connection.”
I looked back down at the papers in my hand.
“You said you were their scent match…” Uncle said quietly. “I didn’t think it was possible after studying your aura. Yet, if you were to cross a pack who had, somehow, seen their own share of… unusual experimentation…”
I glanced back up at him, a lump caught in my throat.
“And if those alphas were in an impossible bond with another pack…” He trailed off, a frown on his face.
“You… believe me?” I asked, voice small.
“I should have believed you at the start,” he replied. “I have seen enough years in this field to know I don’t know everything. It was arrogant of me to dismiss you. I’m… I’m sorry I did.”
There was a long pause, and I warred with my tears, adjusting the papers on the desk so I could remember where we’d been.
“What of the flip side?” Uncle asked. “How did the victimised pack become a part of this contract?”
I thought back to what Umbra had said. “The pack lead’s bond mate died, and the pack should have fragmented. Instead, he says he found something to hold on to, to keep it together.”
“So, the pack lead accepted the bond?”
“It sounded like it,” I said, then added. “Though he didn’t know he was at the time.”
“The problem remained, that if the bond required acceptance, and that acceptance was given, that leaves it more stable than if it was forced.”
“So we’re back to square one?”
“In a way. If it’s stable, that means it’s predictable. But it also means you may be beholden to the laws that already exist in order to rid them of it. In this case…”
“They have to give it up…” I swallowed. Flynn had to give up the bond for Umbra and Dusk to be free. “That’s… that’s unfair.”
“Not all contracts are fair.”
“What about cleaving? Could the packs separate somehow?”
“Even if I could imagine how to adapt cleaving to such circumstances, I wouldn’t recommend it. Playing with the unknown when it comes to these packs and bonds can result in painful deaths. Auras can become untethered, or devour their hosts whole.”
“So… you’re saying… there’s no other way.”
“I’m sorry, Shatter. I wish I had a better answer for you. But if your pack wishes to rid itself of this bond, the parasite must either give it up, or…” He trailed off, not meeting my eyes.
“Or I have to heal the aura sickness,” I said.
The Lincoln pack would never let that bond go—not if it risked their auras. And to heal them, I would have to accept their offer of a princess bond.
I’d come all this way, and still, all paths led to the same place.