Chapter 45
SIN
I didn’t know what time it was, but the morning had to be near.
It felt like we’d been in this boiler room forever.
The cells would open soon. Our appeal would be called. The others had no way of knowing where we were, but we would have to meet them there.
Phantom, Karma, and Vandle were afraid in the bond. For a time, Vandle and Phantom had been silent, which usually meant sleep, but I guessed they’d been out cold.
They were alive. Were they hiding somewhere, too? Their fear could be from being separated from us.
Dread gripped me, though, whispering that they weren’t just hiding—that something had happened to them.
Crescent hadn’t slept. Neither of us had. We could sleep on the other side.
I held onto that like I held onto her, taking one minute at a time.
The night had been filled with the dull ambience of thumping and yells of madness, with the occasional footsteps.
Those that were hunting us.
I didn’t know who it was, but it didn’t matter. We just had to get out.
Then I felt a flood of panic and a shot of pain through the bond. It wasn’t physical pain we could feel, but the panic, the adrenaline, it was familiar enough to translate.
Crescent startled up.
Panic erupted, and I couldn’t tell which of the others it was.
“What was that?” she whispered.
Another sharp spike of that pain.
I drew her closer. “They’ll be okay.”
There was no way for me to know that.
“We’re so close.” She was looking up at me desperately. “They… they can’t leave us now.”
The next blow through our connection was so sharp—so full of panic that she flinched. I tried to settle myself.
“Vandle.” Her pretty golden eyes matched the trembling in her voice. “It’s Vandle. I can feel it.”
“He’s… strong.” My words were weak, though my conviction was not what it needed to be for her. The fury and fear from Phantom and Karma told me something, though.
They were together.
Their panic had hit moments before Vandle’s pain had, as if they’d known what was about to happen.
“We have to—”
“We can’t leave.” That I knew. We didn’t know where they were, but I had to keep her safe.
My mind felt like it was ripped in two.
I had to focus on her. Here.
But they were my alphas. My alphas.
I’d chosen them.
I’d claimed them the day they’d protected me—when they owed me nothing.
Now I needed to protect them.
Images of the recent Leo pack fight in the gym flickered into my mind. Killed, just before their appeal. The most dangerous few moments for a pack.
I saw the omega fleeing in my mind’s eye over and over. He’d been caught too easily. His pack bond shattered as a dark bond slammed into place in its wake.
And we wanted to take two omegas out of here?
Another shot of pain bled through the bond like an ink spill.
“Sin!” Crescent’s voice was high-pitched, and she tried to draw back. I pulled her closer in my arms, feeling her tears wet my shirt.
I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t even know what I was: an anomaly with eyes that marked danger. And that seemed prophetic now as I held onto the last member of my pack still within reach.
With the next shot of pain through the bond, however, all rational thought exited my brain.
Crescent let out a gasp. Tears were streaming down her face. “No…”
Fuck.
No.
Not now.
Her chest heaved, and while her scent was masked, something shifted in the air, and between us in the bond.
I knew, instinctively, what it was.
Triggered by stress. By fear.
“Look at me, Crescent…” She… fuck. I cupped her cheek, panic finally getting to me, my own hand trembling. The scent blockers we’d taken, they weren’t built for this.
“I don’t…” Her voice shook. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
This hiding place was too small to keep us safe—not with an omega in heat.
VANDLE
My growl tore through the huge room, past the thick iron bars of the cage as my side of the bond stayed locked down.
They’d dragged me from the cage to try to make me break—too many to fight. Holden’s pack, and… it was our allies, I thought. The Wakefield pack.
They wanted Crescent.
Holden wanted Sin.
They were hiding right now, but Holden was impatient. He knew if I broke, they might come out, might try to save me.
Phantom was pressed against the bars, hurling curses at the alphas around me.
I could see Karma watching, but he was still, as if he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond.
It was easier to watch them.
I was keeping my side of the bond locked down.
I had to protect them this time.
Old wounds—ones that hadn’t surfaced before—were surging to the forefront. Memories of white rooms. Injections and experiments. Pack bonds my mind wanted so desperately to forget.
Poison that broke me. That turned me mad. That turned me on them.
I was weak…
I had been weak then, and they were looking for strength. They were looking for the alpha who wouldn’t break like I had. Who wouldn’t turn on his pack.
They lay around me with broken bones in a cell that was quiet at last. I stared down at my hands as they blurred in my vision. From the poison… or from the deep agony of a bond I’d just destroyed…
Them or me…
That’s what I’d thought at the time.
I’d been disposable, feral, a number in an experiment and too weak to make it to the other end.
Faintly, a knife broke skin again, but I wasn’t here.
Breathless laughter wheezed from my chest as I pinned my side of the bond down, madness that had festered for years bleeding into the now.
Holden grabbed me by the neck, pressing his fist into my open wound, and twisting it. Another growl rose in my chest, but I fought it.
I wouldn’t fail them. This time the members of my pack had names, not numbers.
This time, I loved them.