Emerald
Murdoch.
My Alpha… but not as I’ve ever seen him.
Just soaked in blood, across his chest, dripping from his claws, smeared in streaks across his face. Carnage…
His eyes… red, but they might as well be black. Bottomless. Unalive…
Please, my Alpha… I speak into his mind through our bond, but I feel it’s hazy and barely holding on. I cry, fighting the cuffs, trying to stomp my fear down, but I’d seen him tear through his own brother like parchment without a care…
It wasn’t a fight.
It wasn’t even rage .
Suddenly, the hazy memories of what he’d done to those Alphas in the forest flickers through my mind, sending fear gripping my chest. It was a purge…
His chest rises and falls with unnatural force as he watches me. He stalks me like prey, not the mate he’s bound to him with love. In those eyes, I mean nothing to him… I’m but a thing he wants to claim…
He snarls, and I flinch, getting to a rock and slamming my hand against it, not caring if I need to sever them. I need to stop him before he does something he’ll regret… he’ll die if he hurts me…
I need to stop him because those eyes… they don’t recognize me.
His claws flex. His lip curls as he takes one last step toward me, and I feel the bond strain like a thin, flimsy hair struggling against the madness of the Banes Root.
Snap.
He snatches me up, his blood-red eyes empty, teeth bare as he squeezes my throat. I whimper, but don’t scream… I don’t beg. I just I reach for him, cuff be damned, cupping his cheek.
Murdoch. It’s me. I’m here.
Uncaring if I die… if it’s at hands, it’s a worthy death… but still, I don’t want him to hurt, and the thought alone sends power surging from my chest to our bond, raw and wide open. I don’t speak into his ears. I speak to hissoul .
I’m safe. Come back. Come back to me.
He freezes, and his body trembles, claws twitching against my neck, breathing fractured.
I’m yours. Emerald. Your Omega. Your mate. COME BACK!
I watch his body jolt as his grips goes slack on my neck. I slip from his hands and fall, clutching my neck, coughing as he drops to his knees . Hard. Like his body gives out.
“AAAAAWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” he howls.
Not a battle cry.
Not a threat.
A grief-ridden , love-drunk , soul-breaking howl that tears through the forest. Tears stream down his face, mixing with blood.
“Me precious one… I could’na feel yu,” he chokes. “I could’na feel you. I t’ought ? —”
I press my forehead to his as he trembles against me, blood-soaked and shaking. But his arms reach for me, holding me as if he’d never let go.
“But I felt you. I knew you would find me… you always do.” I hold him, kissing his head, anchoring him to reality, feeling as if I let him go, I’ll really lose him.
He grasps the cuffs, and they glow and shatter as if they were made of dust. He scoops me into his arms, burying his face in my hair, and that’s when the silence breaks around us and cheers rise, shocking both of us. We turn and see the crowd cheering, giving way to wild, frenzied roars.
And I feel my Alpha stagger, picking me up and carrying me one haggard yet confident step at a time over to the checkpoint where I expect him to carry me over, but to my surprise, he sets me down right at the final step.
“Wh…?”
“Yer free, precious one… cross the checkpoint an’ show ’em t’at Omegas are’na as weak as they t’ink they are,” he huffs and I’m stunned by his words. I joined the Hunt to win… to take the prize and go to the human realm where I can be free.
Instead, I wound up bound to a beast and falling madly and helplessly in love. He’s right… I can cross this finish line and win. Even though he knows I won’t leave him… I, Emerald, can cross on my own, as my own person, not as an Omega captured by an Alpha. One is what I’ve always, wanted, but…
I take his hand and watch his eyes go wide as I crawl back into his arms Safe!
“I’m yours,” I tell him. I feel his body shudder and our bond tighten.
“Aye, an’ I am yers,” he kisses me, stepping over the check point line.
BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! The eighth and final horn blares, and the crowd pours from the stands around us, cheering.
“AAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” he howls, this time to the moon… to the Source…. to the Demon Kings who created this broken game…
A sound of triumph.
We won!