Chapter 23
Daxen
Ifucked up.
I know it, and Vae knows it. The whole damn house, including that godsdamned Omega, probably knows it.
My hands haven’t stopped shaking. Not since I let Vae, Silas, and Calder haul me out of that cell. Away from the Omega, before I did something I wouldn’t be able to take back.
Because I would have done it. I would have killed her.
I wanted to. Fates, I’d fucking wanted to.
My stomach rolls at the memory.
One moment that twists circling over and over, like my conscience intends to make sure I never forget it.
Wide blue eyes filled with terror. Pale, white skin mottled with bruises I still don’t want to acknowledge. The way she went perfectly fucking still the second I lunged, her thin limbs shaking uncontrollably at the realization that I was about to end her life.
The moment something shifted in her eyes. When terror bled away, replaced by a grim acceptance and fierce longing, I somehow knew I didn’t imagine.
Like she always knew it would end this way.
Like she was too tired to fight.
I shake my head, wishing there was a way to erase that moment from my memory. Just like I can’t forget that, for the first time in my life, I nearly attacked an Omega.
Lunging at her had been instinctive. An ingrained response to an enemy taunting the life of my packmate.
It’s not like I acted on it in the end. Like I keep reminding myself, it was instinct. That’s all.
A previously silent part of me pipes up for the third time in an hour.
Like the Omega’s instinct to make herself small and still and silent? A learned behavior? Instinct like that?
Irritation sparks, and I clench my jaw. The logical part of me—the one that makes intelligent decisions not based solely on biological impulses—snarls at the short-sighted stupidity of my instincts.
It was an act. Don’t fall for it. That Omega is a master manipulator. Just look at your brother if you need a fucking reminder.
That shuts my Alpha up, thank the Fates. For now, at least.
“You know, normal people plot heists and world domination somewhere more appropriate than inside my medical wing. Like the training room. Or a fucking alley.” Calder stops in the hall outside the doors and peers into the spacious room we commandeered and transformed into a temporary War Room.
“Don’t have time to scout for good murder alleys right now, Calder. Too busy planning hostile takeovers and preventing Dax from committing homicide,” Vae quips, shoving handfuls of pretzels into his mouth. He swings back and forth in his rolling chair, the picture of nonchalance.
I’ve just finished setting up a few laptops and am finally falling into my own seat when Gav clears his throat.
We’re all accounted for, as long as you ignore the glaringly empty spot at the table where Caelan should be.
I should have moved that chair. It’s not like I counted the chairs in here. It’s a coincidence that there’s one more chair than needed. That doesn’t stop me from grinding my teeth every time my gaze lands on it, though.
Its mere existence is an obscene reminder that we’re down a male.
Fuck, I need to get my shit together.
“Alright, first of all,” Gav leans back to address Calder, who’s still outside the doors in the hall, tapping at the screen of his phone. “Thank you for letting us take over a room down here so we can be closer to Caelan. Now close the door.”
“You motherfu—” Calder cuts himself off, glaring at Gavran. “You know what? No. It’s fine. I love being appreciated and dismissed in the same sentence. Very on-brand for you assholes.”
Silas tries—and fails—to hide a smile behind his beer bottle as the door slams shut.
“Moving on,” Gav turns back to the table and his hard amber eyes zero in on me.
“You want to tell me what the actual fuck that was, Dax? What part of ‘don’t kill the Omega,’ did you not understand?
Do I need to spell it out in blood?” His voice grows more menacing with each word, but I keep my mouth shut.
I probably have this coming.
Gav swipes a piece of paper and a marker off the table. “Or maybe, you need me to color you a Fates-damned picture like a toddler so it sticks.”
I lean back and cross my arms, waiting for him to finish making his point. When he’s finished, he spins to face me, tossing the marker over his shoulder unceremoniously and holding the paper between two fingers.
“Here, does this make it easier?”
He’s drawn a stick figure female, laughably tiny, with the Omega symbol stamped on her chest like an emblem.
Next to her is another stick figure, this one three times the Omega’s size, with fangs and a knife, labeled “YOU.” There’s a thought bubble rising from its head with big, block letters that reads, “BAD IDEA.”
When I don’t respond, he arches a brow, holding my stare with an expectant expression. “Take your time,” he says mildly. “Let me know when it clicks.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Vae’s lips twitch. He presses his tongue into his cheek, eyes dancing with amusement.
I will literally bite him if he tries to revisit this moment in fifty years, which he will absolutely do.
Silas snorts. “That’s not you. You’re way less jacked than that.”
“Silas,” Gav says, without looking away.
“Right,” Silas coughs. “Sorry. Very educational. We should laminate it.”
That does it.
I snatch the drawing out of his hand and slam it on the table, pointing at the vampire stick figure. “You forgot the part where YOU blacked out because the Omega was gloating about shooting YOUR brother right in front of YOUR godsdamned face.”
I crumple the paper and shoot it over his head, into the trash.
“There,” I snap. “She’s not dead. You’re welcome.”
I know my smile’s unhinged, but I can’t find it in me to care.
I know I’m being an asshole. Gav has every right to be pissed. He gave us one order regarding the Omega, and I almost broke it less than two minutes in her presence.
“He wasn’t going to really kill her,” Vae comes to my defense, but it’s obvious even he thinks I came too close to ripping out her pretty little throat.
I did. That’s the issue. I came so close to bleeding her dry, and I don’t know what I would have done if Vae, Silas, and Calder hadn’t pulled me away.
Fates, I can’t even remember the last time I actually raised my hand to a female outside of battle.
It was close—too close. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t touch her. The fact is, I nearly crossed a line I’ve spent centuries standing on the right side of. And if I’m being honest with myself, my anger isn’t directed at Gav, or even the Omega.
Okay, that’s a lie.
It’s absolutely directed at the Omega.
But I’m mostly pissed at myself. I feel unmoored. Like I’m drifting. I haven’t felt like this since I was in the vampire-equivalent of my teens.
I fucking hate it.
I’m reacting to things I don’t normally react to. Making decisions I don’t normally make. It’s impulsive. Chaotic. The total opposite of my usual control.
My entire life, I’ve taken pride in being the kind of warrior who protects others. My reputation’s been built on my stalwart discipline. I’m not the kind of male who attacks Omegas who can’t even fight back.
Except, I can’t make that claim anymore, can I?
An hour ago, I was exactly that kind of male.
The memory flashes through my mind. Again.
Those big, blue eyes looking up at me. Fear giving way to weary acceptance. Shame eats at my insides. I can’t help feeling like there’s a stain on my soul now. One I put there myself.
And yet, underneath that…
Is rage.
A heaping, righteous, mound of rage that doesn’t give a single fuck about blue eyes.
That part of me fuels my loathing. Reminds me that she earned it. She got Caelan shot. Lured him in by playing the victim so convincingly that my careful, tactical, intelligent brother walked right into her father’s hands.
And now he’s fighting for his life.
Because of her.
Fuck, I shouldn’t have even gone in there. I just went to check on Lenora. Make sure she wasn’t coddling the girl. But there was something about the Omega that immediately put me on edge when I saw her.
My Alpha perked up, and my instincts dialed up to a thousand when they normally hover somewhere around three.
She was sitting on the floor of that cell, in that thin, once-white drape of cotton that can barely be called a dress anymore.
That silver hair hung in her face, her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and when I looked at her, all I could think was, Why you of all people?
Why would you do something so brutal to Caelan?
Then, she asked about Caelan’s gunshot wound. All wide eyes and feigned innocence, like she wasn’t secretly proud of her handiwork.
“His gunshot wound… Did you see it?”
Like we could fucking miss it.
And so…
I snapped.
All because of a pretty little package with gentle blue eyes and soft, full lips shaping taunting words.
My vision went red, and I lost it.
Hundreds of years on this planet, and admitting when I make a mistake still never gets any easier.
But Gav isn’t going to let up until I do, and to be fair, I don’t blame him. I exhale, and with as much dignity as I can muster, own my shit.
“Fine. I fucked up. Happy now?”
I fucked up by not stopping Caelan from going back.
I fucked up by not forcing him to see the truth.
I fucked up allowing my brother to put himself in a position that I learned lifetimes ago leads to heartache and death.
Each of my failures lines up like dominoes in my mind. One falls into the next, over and over, every failure leading me here—to this living nightmare that will take us decades to recover from.
I fucked up by not being smart enough. Fast enough. Vulnerable enough to finally explain to my pack exactly why I knew he was compromised.
“Fucking thrilled,” Gav replies drolly, pulling my attention from my anxious spiral. “You’re not to be near the Omega unsupervised, do you understand?”
“Whoa, hold on,” I snap to attention, but he raises a hand to silence me.