Chapter 37
Cleaving:the act of an alpha leaving their pack. This process is volatile, carrying the risk of leaving the alpha unable to forge new bonds or in extreme cases, can result in death. Traditionally, cleaving involves the application of a uniquely designed brand to the alpha’s skin on three separate occasions.
The scene I walked in on made my heart trip.
Umbra was standing over Eric, who was shaking on the ground, blood pooling from his mouth. He cocked his head when I entered, barely turning as he fixed his sandstorm eyes on me. He looked like a fragment of our past. A distant memory I thought we’d left behind.
The iron tang of blood was thick in the air, Eric’s mingling with Umbra’s wolfsbane. There was very little human left in my brother.
We stared at each other for a long moment.
“You weren’t supposed to come.” His voice was rough.
“Do you know where she is?” I asked. That’s all that mattered.
He took a moment, then nodded.
Okay.
If we got to her, this would be over and Shatter would pull him back from that ledge just like she had before.
She could do it even when I could not.
But then Umbra’s lips drew in a snarl as he looked past me to the door. He stepped toward me in a moment, tugging me back, but I was already pulling out my gun.
I turned to find myself facing Flynn and Gareth in the doorway, and Gareth had a gun trained on us right back.
Flynn’s eyes darted to where Eric lay, then back to me and Umbra.
“What the hell…?” Flynn hissed.
“They’re…” Eric’s voice was weak as he tried to pick himself up. “Flynn… it’s… 66.”
Flynn’s eyes bugged out as he looked back at us, and he shook his head.
“Not possible.”
“Where is she?” I asked.
“This isn’t about her,” Gareth hissed back, staring between us as if he wasn’t sure who to aim it at.
“This is only about her,” Umbra snarled, aura flaring. His scent was an iron tang in the air as his fury rose.
“Then drop the gun,” Flynn said. “Mord has orders to snap her in two if anything happens to us.”
Did he think that would be enough to make me drop it?
I felt Umbra’s eyes shift to me, wondering what I’d do. But I knew Flynn wouldn’t risk harming her. He needed her. He was, however, more of a threat than even he knew, both to me and Umbra. One touch, and he could destroy us, and there was no telling if this time, it wouldn’t end in our death.
I turned the gun, letting go of the trigger. Not because I believed their threat, but because I needed them with their guards down.
Flynn looked pleased as I lowered the gun to the floor.
“You should be dead…” Flynn said, words faint as if he couldn’t quite believe it, but I could see, at last, the flicker of recognition in his eyes, as if he were finally matching us with the malnourished, broken alphas he’d once placed bets on through a video stream.
The alpha in me was howling at the restraint I needed to maintain, at the fact that I couldn’t lunge for them with my aura out.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t go near him.
Not like this, anyway.
As I stood, my other hand slipped into my pocket as I slowly drew out the small vial Decebal had given me. One sharp prick and the drug would be in my system.
And then, I would be able to touch him.
After that, I didn’t know.
Cleaving took three strokes of an iron, but this was a vile drug, one with unpredictable outcomes, banned from public use, that emulated the first two.
It would sever me from the pack enough that Flynn shouldn’t be untouchable. But I wouldn’t be cleaved entirely. It would give the pack a chance to escape and make a plan even if the worst happened. Because Decebal had been worried about the effects it would have on my body, but Umbra had survived worse.
Now it was my turn.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Something was wrong—even in the bond.
Mord had me by the arm and was dragging me down a dim, grimy hallway. He didn’t answer, checking around the next corner, gun in his hand before he tugged me with him.
“Why did you come back for me?” I asked. “I thought you were splitting up and looking for Eric.”
“I don’t trust they aren’t waiting for me to leave you,” he said.
The bond felt empty. Too quiet. Even Dusk was gone, like we were all afraid of going into it and revealing what was happening. Sometimes I felt a flash from one of them, disturbing moments that were making me begin to panic.
I shook it away, gathering myself. This was all going wrong, and I was losing what little control I’d gained.
Mord was cautious as he tugged me forward. One step, then another down the hall. I could hear nothing but silence around us.
And then I caught it. The faintest trace of a cool forest, of raindrops in the early morning.
Lily of the valley.
An aura exploded into the hallway, an invisible energy that was thick in the air as Ransom moved faster than I had ever seen.
Mord managed, just, to trigger his aura before he was rammed into the concrete wall with a crack.
I staggered back, eyes wide, seeing Mord’s gun clatter to the floor on the other side of them.
“R-Ransom.”
No…
There was something wrong. His eyes were wild, pupils constricted, lips drawn in a snarl.
Mord tried to grapple free but failed, leaving Ransom open to close a fist around his neck. Mord was huge, but Ransom was…
“No!”I dared a step closer before he turned on me, a warning growl in his throat. The movement gave Mord the opening he needed to slip from Ransom’s grip. And I saw his eyes again.
There was almost no one left in there.
My chest was tight, terror choking me as I was forced back another step.
He couldn’t be.
Would I be able to pull him back?
The fight was much closer this time—now Ransom teetered on the edge of going feral once more.
Mord slipped from my grip too fast, always seeming able to use my momentum against me. For an alpha his size, he was able to play defence too well.
I tried again to seize him, knowing all I needed was a good hold and my aura would be enough, but he ducked my fist. Next thing I knew, my arm was behind my back and I was pinned to the wall. The leverage was too much, even with the strength difference.
No.
It was happening again.
Mord’s low growl sounded at my back as I struggled against his grip. But I couldn’t let him win this time. I couldn’t fail her.
Yet, I was never enough. Always, a burden.To Dusk and Umbra, for years—and now a failure. My omega had been taken from me, slipping through my fingers like water.
I could feel her fear at last. She’d opened her side of the bond and had lit among us like a beacon, terror and desperation.
I didn’t dare look. Last I’d seen, she’d stumbled back, hitting the floor and scrambling out of the way.
I would never let her get hurt, though.
Not after I’d given up everything.
No…
Not everything.
Not yet.
I plunged deeper, knowing I may never surface again, and the world around me changed. Sounds echoed from all over, deafening and dull all at once.
I was made of nothing but roiling instincts, fury and rage driving me on, and the sound I made was nothing but feral as I flared my aura again and the weight at my back was gone.
Moments ago, it had been a trap… a cage…
I turned, vision swimming, sharp knives slicing my mind as I forced the world into focus.
He was there in the centre of the bleeding crimson swamp at the edges of my vision, a huge alpha picking himself up, staggering, hand on his head. Dark hair, scar down his left cheek.
The one who’d taken her.
My prey, with a scent of ebony burning deep in a void.
A low growl rolled through my chest until I heard a cry. Something that blistered, dragging me up for a moment, up toward a surface still so far above.
I looked around wildly, trying to understand.
And I saw her.
She was picking herself up from the floor. The centre of the whole world, with eyes of molten gold that were fixed on me, wide with terror.
She was speaking—no. Shouting. I didn’t understand. The words scored my eardrums, while made of mist all at the same time. Tears streamed down her face as she reached for me, staggering forward.
Then she stopped, eyes darting to the side, breath catching.
That was all it took.
I flinched, snapping my gaze to the other alpha who was reaching for a gun only feet away.
My mind broke.
I lunged for him.
I was lost, but he would never have her.
We crashed to the floor, and my hands were at his throat.
Shatter…
My vision drowned in red, an ocean of nothingness coming to sweep me away.
I love you.
The alpha fought, but he didn’t stand a chance. Not when the price was her. Peace was a cold shock to my system.
She would be safe.
My Reaper.
Then, before the alpha broke beneath my fists, sickness ripped through the pack bond like a plague. A sickness that wasn’t mine.
Something had happened.
My… brother…
I heard her scream behind me as I watched my fingers slip. The alpha shoved me off, coughing for breath, his fist in my hair as he slammed my head to the ground.
The world went black.
Untethering: when an alpha with critically damaged aura chooses to release it. The aura begins to draw energy directly from the alpha’s body, enabling them to wield their power without restriction. However, once the existing energy is exhausted, the aura dies, and the alpha with it.
“We don’t need you.” Flynn was almost laughing. “All of this, to come and show us you’re worthless to us?”
In my peripheral, I could see two things.
First, was Eric edging along the wall to his pack mates. And second, was Dusk, statuesque as he waited for the injection of the cleaving drug to take effect.
It never would.
He’d injected nothing but saline. I’d long guessed he would plan something like this. Long known he would believe it was on him to protect me.
But our pack had always needed him more. I was spent and broken, as worthless as a trick coin.
He was still waiting as I straightened, closing my eyes for just a moment, picturing a golden goddess.
My Nightshade.
A shooting star I had never been meant to catch—not even if I scarred my skin until there was nothing left of it.
They knew they could take her, which meant he couldn’t leave.
I felt the faintest flash of worry from Dusk in the bond. He’d taken his injection, but his plan wasn’t working.
He didn’t know why.
That was okay.
I reached out, just for a moment, to touch him on the shoulder. I wanted to meet his eyes, even for a second. Wanted him to know it was going to be okay.
I couldn’t, though.
I wasn’t strong enough.
So, without taking my eyes from the alpha ahead, the alpha who’d stolen my life, I did the thing I shouldn’t be able to. Something only alphas who’d lost their packs could do.
But I’d been burned alive, torn to shreds by drug after drug, ripped apart and put back together, and left to cling to an alpha who saw me as nothing, just so my bones didn’t turn to dust before my eyes.
Just so I didn’t lose everything.
Again.
It felt like the most natural thing in the world, that I could un-tether my aura. That I could step into the void and let it have the last thing it had been hunting all this time.
The power leached into the room like a fog; heavy and unnatural, and I faced it differently this time. Different to when Shatter had been there to save me the day Dusk had touched Flynn, and my own aura had tried to burn me alive.
She had been there, and everything since was extra. A gift she had given me, far beyond what I deserved.
It could have me now, but first, I would use it to break the monsters that had begun this.
They were the last left to kill, and finally, I was out of time.
I stepped across the threshold, giving myself to the void, hoping she would forgive me, and maybe, one day, I would see her again.