Chapter 4 #2
I wake up gasping, tears streaming down my face before I even realize I’m crying. My chest heaves, my hands clawing at the furs like I’m trying to dig out of my own skin.
Selene is already over me, her face creased with worry. My eyes widen when I see Rebecca nearing me too, moving stiffly. Selene tries to touch me, reaching out with gentle hands, but it’s wrong. It’s all wrong.
It’s a beta’s touch.
Not my alpha’s.
And I swear I can nearly feel Judge giving an approving purr, like he’s been waiting on the other end of the bond for me to acknowledge it.
Rebecca pulls out Judge’s shirt from my bag, and the scent hits me like a physical blow. That masculine musk smells like home and is somehow sweet but lacks any sugar. It’s so vivid and real that for a moment I forget where I am.
“It’s the betrayal,” Rebecca states, her voice hoarse.
I breathe in the shirt that soothes me, the longing for him physically painful.
“And now the distance with the bond. Unless good feelings flow through it, this will be normal. He broke you both. If it makes you feel any better, he won’t be better off. ”
I stare into Rebecca’s face, which is pale, but her echo eyes seem more capable now. More alert. Like whatever torture Jack was enduring has eased, at least for the moment.
“I miss him,” I mutter, the words escaping before I can stop them, speaking to a woman that I know can sympathize.
“No, you don’t,” Selene quips, and there’s an edge to her voice, almost as if I’ve offended her. “You think that because you’re mated. It’s okay. I’m sure there are chems that can help with the memory of him. We’ll get this all sorted out.”
Not safe.
The thought comes unbidden. Selene doesn’t understand what it’s like to be an omega. She can’t. As I return my focus on Rebecca, she seems safe, but her alpha was a betrayer, too. A monster who dark-bonded her without consent.
Loneliness claws at me until I feel hollowed out, the scent of Judge the only thing keeping me tethered. And then, something gentle comes to life in my chest. I frown and look to the side, my hand pressing against my sternum.
“What is it?” Rebecca asks, watching me closely.
“It’s like I can feel something warm underneath it all,” I say, trying to make sense of the sensation. “Like… like he’s trying to reach me. It’s stronger than before.”
“I bet he’s trying to send that to you.” Rebecca’s voice is matter-of-fact.
“He can feel your unrest, and that you’re reaching out to him whether you realize it or not.
Don’t let it tempt you. It’s in his DNA to try to soothe that ache.
He will always be obligated to care, even if he has twenty omegas in a harem.
It will still never take away what he did. ”
We stare into each other’s eyes in a painful recognition for quite some time before I swallow what little saliva I have. “You look better.”
Rebecca’s expression softens, just a fraction.
“I think… I think it’s just because they stopped torturing him…
but you can do this. It’s just a week, if that, until we get to the Black Mirage.
Then you’re free. We’ll both be free,” she coughs, the action straining her like she survived near death, “I’m not going to lie, I’m a little terrified that killing him will kill me, but we just need to make it to the Witch Doctor.
Don’t lose your focus, Diana. Don’t let him make you an addict. ”
An addict.
The word hangs in the air between us, but it helps, because it gives me a sense of control over the impulses. I nod a few times, my heart rate coming down. “I miss home,” I say, my voice breaking. “Before it all fell apart. Being an omega is awful in this world.”
“Where was home?” Rebecca asks quietly, her voice softer than I’ve heard it since we met.
I open my mouth, then close it, the answer sitting heavy on my tongue. “At a military base,” I say finally. “One of the bunker cities. It’s like a four to five hour drive northeast from where Dominion is.”
The memories rise of clean hallways, structured days where everyone knew their role and followed it.
Breakfast at o-six-hundred. Training at o-eight-hundred.
Everything cataloged, predictable. I can almost the barracks where my brother and I would sneak extra rations to share after lights out, the medical bay where I first learned to suture a wound, the observation deck where we’d watch the sun set over the perimeter fence and pretend the world beyond wasn’t in survival mode.
“Do you have a last name?” Rebecca asks, pulling me back to the present.
I glance at her, surprised by how much the question means.
“Dare,” I mutter. “My name is Diana Dare,” I say, almost like I’ve discovered something interesting.
I told it once to Judge, but that was as I was falling asleep and knotted to him.
Saying it here feels different. Like it’s something I’m claiming, versus just describing a ghost.
“That’s pretty cool,” Rebecca says with a small smile, and there’s something genuine in it.
“I haven’t been that Diana in a long time,” I admit, my voice quieter now.
“Because you’re an omega?”
“I had to hide who I was for a long time, yeah.” A snowflake catches the light from the drum fire, turning briefly golden before disappearing into darkness. “It’s not relevant anymore, though. I stopped being her when I went to the Enclave.”
But even as I say it, I wonder if that’s true.
Because Diana Dare didn’t have to hide when she was younger.
She didn’t have to scrub herself away and pretend to be no one.
She didn’t have hormones yet that made people treat her differently.
She got to exist without any apology. Then again, she was also a child, but I still know what it’s like to live without the assignment of my biology over my head.
The Witch Doctor might grant me that kind of freedom again…
Rebecca doesn’t push for more, and I’m grateful for it.
She just nods, settling back against the wall of the train car, her face still pale but her eyes a little clearer than before.
I tell her I’m happy she’s doing better, and that we will make sure she gets to the Black Mirage. Even if we have to carry her.
I pull Judge’s shirt closer, breathing in his scent even as I hate myself for needing it.
The woman that Diana Dare wanted to become wouldn’t need an alpha’s shirt to feel whole.
I can hear the imaginary version of Judge in my mind, telling me how wrong I am, then growling to make a point.
Then knotting in me to show how much an alpha has control over me.
I lean my head back and look up at the metal ceiling.
Who in the hell am I, even? Or I guess… well, it doesn’t matter, does it? Not when I am about to become someone new.